For the past 13 years Melbourne band Augie March have achieved what very few bands, indeed artists in any field in Australia, can claim to have achieved. While steadily building a loyal and ferocious fan base, they have simultaneously sustained critical acclaim and commercial viability.

This year has seen the completion of two very successful and very different tours on the back of the release of their fourth LP “Watch Me Disappear”. The most recent, titled “On The Quiet” was a sellout, a rare presentation of the band stripped back and swinging, a revelation for many in the audience who perhaps had always heard the music but never realised it was 5 human beings with sticks and strings making it come about.

In contrast this winter, Augie March will don full regalia and take the garden of forking paths into their own schizophrenic past where minotaurs with broken hearts hold up the front bar, manic pixies bore repeatedly into the necks of corporate swindlers, and the human condition gets ridden roughshod by rabid monkeys into an unthinkable tomorrow. Plus there may be a love song or two. Watch Me Set My Strange Sun You Bloody Choir will be a trip down memory lane for Augie fans because all four albums will have an equal showing on this grand tour.

For their final large-scale tour for 2009, Augie March will be hitting the bitumen in the company of Gareth Liddiard and Dan Luscombe of the phenomenal outfit The Drones. Great friends for many years and fellow travelers on the arduous, terribly unfashionable, and yet rewarding long road. It is a dream pairing for anyone who likes their coffee dark and strong with a dash of firewater. Both bands have seen the snake eat its own tail more than a few times and have forged on with a gritted tooth smile regardless. In an acoustic setting these chaps will shine every night.

Apart from the odd festival this will be the last chance to see Augie March doing what they do before they take a well-earned breather. In their time off there may well be a solo album or two and some time given to projects in film, photography, claymation and other interests. In the meantime we invite you to one of the tours of 2009, from your own country, no evidence required, no gimmicks in the songbox, Augie March.