It’s been a while since we sent out a mailer or made a post here, but just know that we’ve been busy and things are coming. And better yet, things are sounding real good…
That being said, since it’s been so long, I feel like we need to do a 2024 recap, but I want to keep it as quick as possible, so here goes:
MAGFest was super extreme awesome, our 20th Anniversary show at Eastside Bowl in Nashville was a raging success and included plenty of old friends and past members (including Duke Fetterman, talented identical twin brother of our beloved and gone – but not forgotten, Doug Fetterman. Doug was a man of the land, while Duke is a man of the sea). After that, we snagged a spot in the Nashville Scene’s “Best Of Nashville” lineup in the form of Best Anniversary Show. Right after that, a pretty rad TV show, starring Bruce Campbell and Julie Bowen, called Hysteria! aired on Peacock where they had the in-show-rock band cover “Light Up The Night” as the big finale of the season (seriously, watch the show).
That mostly brings us to now… BLACK FRIDAY THROUGH CYBORG MONDAYYYYYYY….
We had some new merch stuff at the anniversary show that’s now available on our Sound Machine merch store. And we figured it was time to send a new pullover-hoodie out into the world, so grab one or five of those before the highly expected pullover-hoodie famine gets rolling. And what’s even more exciting is that it’s all on sale for 20% off right now until Monday at 11:59 p.m. with the code “TWENTY24” at checkout. You know what to do.
20% off everything in the Sound Machine Store with code –> TWENTY23 (use during checkout) from now until 11:59 p.m. CST Monday, 11/27/23.
It’s getting cold out there, so now’s a pretty good time to grab something from our winter selection at a discount. Don’t get left out in the cold!
Speaking of getting left out in the cold, are you one of those unfortunate souls that didn’t jump on a ticket to our 20th Anniversary show next April before it sold out in 20 days? Well, keep your eyes on our mailer/news letter/news page and socials (facebook, instagram, and the artists formerly known as Twitter), because we’re going to release some more tickets in the next couple months.
You know what? It’s getting mighty close to the 20 year mark from the first show we ever played on April 22nd of 2004. We might as well have a party, right? Well, I don’t care if you think we should or not – We’re doing it. And while we’re at it, we might as well try to bring back some of our old friend-bands to play the night with us to try to relive the glory days of playing in Murfreesboro, TN at the illustrious and world-renowned venue with a pretty solid black bean burger … The Boro. You know, to make it proper.
We’ll announce the special guests closer to the date… which is…..
Pre-sale tickets are currently live. And we’re telling you Mailing Listers/News Lettereers first to give you a head start on tickets.
There are $20 general admission floor tickets available for the first 20 days (price will increase after 20 days). You see what we’re doing with the 20s? … it’s because it’s our 20th anniversary. Really want to hammer it home in case you missed that first paragraph about it being close to the 20th anniversary of our first show. Hopefully more than 20 of you buy them.
THAT BEING SAID… We’ve got a few tiers of tickets going so grab what you’re into:
General Admission Floor ($20 for 20 days then goes up to $25) = just your good ol’ rock n’ roll show experience. Fist pump and high five your new friends on the floor in front of the stage, or you can stand at the back with a judgey look and your arms crossed like a true local Nashvillian!
General Admission Mezzanine ($35) = an elevated balcony experience that allows you to see the show from a higher view and there are optional couches! You also have access to the floor (we recommend using the stairs). Limited to 100 people.
VIP PASSES ($100) = we figured since this event is at a bowling joint, why not go bowling?! This ticket includes a bowling game with the whole VIP crew and The Protomen + normal VIP action with exclusive merch items. Also includes a General Admission Mezzanine ticket for the show. Limited to 20 people. (see what we did there again?!)
••••••••••••• MAGFEST 2024 ••••••••••••• And if all that wasn’t exciting enough, we’re gonna be at MAGFest 2024 in National Harbor, MD from January 18th-21st! I’m not sure which day we’ll be playing yet, but you can bet your ass it’ll be one of them. Get your passes before they’re gone.
JANUARY 2024 18th – National Harbor, MD – MAGFest (Show day TBA) 19th – National Harbor, MD – MAGFest (Show day TBA) 20th – National Harbor, MD – MAGFest (Show day TBA) 21st – National Harbor, MD – MAGFest (Show day TBA)
We kick off the long-overdue Europe tour in less than a week. After 3 years of postponements and false starts and cancellations… we are finally making this thing happen, come hell or high-water. The rock and roll gods have spoken! … and it turns out they reeeaaally wanted us to cancel the whole thing and go back to school to get an IT degree. But we’ve chosen to ignore the gods and get on the half-sinking ship across the Atlantic with nothing but our dreams and 19,000 metric tonnes of gear. We may not all come back, but we refuse to know when to give up!!
On that note, for good or for bad, here are some updates:
NEW SHOW IN MÜNSTER!!! March 16th at Sputnik Halle. We know it’s pretty short notice, but help us out now… let’s try to get the entirety of Germany to that show! We know it’s only a 250 capacity room, but maybe we can squeeze everybody in?
LONDON DATE CHANGE Many of you know this by now, but we wanted to remind everyone that the London show has changed both dates AND VENUES (now O2 Academy Islington on the 18th), but existing tickets are still honored. We know this throws a massive wrench into a lot of people’s plans (ours included). Unfortunately, with the bizarre (and still unexplained) evaporation of both the Sci-Fi Weekender show and the Swansea show, these changes were the only way we could still make the tour happen. We’ve had A LOT of reasons to jump off this ship and swim home, but we know that when we finally get there, it’s gonna be such a glorious moment that it will have all been worth the struggle. Like, when that ship with the T-Rex finally made it to San Diego at the end of Jurassic Park 2. Everyone celebrated and nothing bad happened… right? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen that movie. Maybe we can watch it on the trip over.
Speaking of monsterous lizard birds, we’ve got some more unfortunate news… Makeup And Vanity Set won’t be on the ship heading over to Europe with us after all. We tried begging. We tried twisting his arm. We even tried chloroform, but the ski mask kept him from breathing enough in to knock him out (he’s always one step ahead of us…).
We get it though. All signs have been pointing us towards cancelling this thing and it’s for sure financially irresponsible of US to carry on with two cancelled shows. MAVS is a pretty fancy dude… but he was ready to sleep in the gutters and only eat raw cabbage and rocks like we’re going to, however he’s got some other obligations that make it an unfortunate no-go and we support him in that. And also… he just had his teeth redone, so eating cabbage and rocks would do him no good.
BUT ON TO SOME GOOD NEWS…. Most VIP Tickets are finally available!! — we’re still waiting on Amsterdam and Münster, but we’ll try to let you know as soon as those are live. Keep an eye on our socials (facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and Tour Page, because we might announce them first on those.
>VIP TICKET INFORMATION< If you’re wanting some VIP ticket’s you have to purchase them separately from the main show ticket. If you already have regular show tickets, all you have to do it purchase the VIP ticket and you’re good to go. But if you haven’t gotten tickets to the show yet, you should be able to buy show tickets and VIP tickets at the same time. And if for some interesting reason you ONLY want to come to the VIP pre-show session… because you love seeing grown men and women dolled up in silver facepaint but hate rock and roll, I suppose that’s a thing too?? We won’t judge! And I can confidently say that this tour is happening, so if you’ve been on the fence about getting tickets…. get off the fence and get to getting. We need all the support you can muster over there!
VIP TICKET includes: • Early entry for the concert (one hour before Doors Open) • Early access to merchandise • Meet and Greet with the band • Signing session • VIP group photo with the band • Tour Poster • Exclusive VIP Tour Laminate
**ATTENTION** VIP Ticket does NOT include concert! Ticket for the show needs to be purchased additionally.
Grab some VIP tickets below so we can do some chit-chat with you and sign some stuff before the show. Also, help spread the word, because I know not everybody in the world is on this mailing list (even though they should be).
Speaking of which, let’s go ahead and activate the European Street Team while we’re at it to help get the word out about these shows so we can actually come back a 3rd time! It’s easy, all you have to do is tell other Europeans about the shows.
SOME OTHER GOOD NEWS… CHICAGO WAS AMAZING A huge thanks everyone at Reggie’s rock club, Cybertronic Spree, and to everyone who came out! And it was absolutely wonderful finally sharing the stage with Cybertronic Spree. If you haven’t seen them live yet, go find them… they’re hard to miss. They’ll be the giant robots playing rock and roll (as opposed to The Protomen… a comparatively short band of robots playing rock and roll).
We had an incredible time playing with them, and we can’t wait to do it again soon.
Also, I just thought of something while looking at this European stuff. Is everyone aware that we have a European store with some pretty rad exclusive merch (including Act I records and the old Euro Tour shirt that’s one of the best shirts we’ve ever done)?! … because it sure seems like nobody knows about it. We have all kinds of stuff over there and it ships worldwide. We’re about to stop in and grab what’s left of that merch before these shows, so get it while it’s still there and help us clear out the closet!
EURO TOUR IN ONE MONTH We’ve had a couple big blows to the tour recently with the cancellation of two shows (Sci-Fi Weekender and Swansea), but by damns… we’re still gonna make this thing happen! We’re not exactly sure what went down in either case, but best of luck to those events and venues. You should have gotten or should be able to get a full refund on both of them from point of sale. And if you were planning on going to either of those shows, please join us at any (or ALL) of the other shows on the tour!
*edit update* Another update that just came in is that our London show has changed dates as well as venues to O2 Academy Islington on the 18th (instead of 16th). Existing tickets are still valid… just a different place and date (actually the same venue we played last time we were there and we loved it). We’re incredibly sorry for any inconveniences this may cause. Please bear with us, we’re doing everything we can to make sure this tour actually happens! Please contact the venue if you have any questions or concerns.
And along with all that, we’ve added a limited number of VIP tickets to every show of the tour! If you grab a VIP ticket, you can expect:
Meet and Greet with the band
Signing session
VIP group photo with the band
Tour Poster
Exclusive VIP Tour Laminate
Early access to merchandise
Early entry for the concert
1 pocket-sized clone of Panther that will sing to you any time you want (not really, but one day…)
We’re not exactly sure what day those go live, but keep an eye on our socials for that announcement – facebook – instagram – twitter – friendster
CHICAGO WITH CYBERTRONIC SPREE Chicago in TWWOOOO WEEEEEEKKSSSS… we’re real excited to get up there to eat some Italian Hot Beef Sandwiches for every meal for 3 days straight, and I guess we’re also excited to play a couple shows. It’s probably an even split on the excitement. Maybe it’s like 100% excited about the shows. And 114% excited about the sandwiches. I’m not a math wizard or anything, but I think that’s like 300% pure excitement!! Rest assured, we’ll be bursting with excitement when we get to Chicago. And bursting with hot beefs when we leave. But seriously, we can’t wait to finally share the stage with Cybertronic Spree for this sold out weekend at Reggies!
Here’s the new limited edition poster for the show. If there are any left over after the show, we’ll put them up on the Sound Machine Store.
THE FIGHT IS NOW ON BANDCAMP Getting tired of streaming “The Fight” over and over and want to finally take the plunge and drop the cold hard dollar bill to purchase it outright? Now’s your time. Buy “The Fight” now on Bandcamp so you can own a piece of history. Take a picture of your purchase page, print it out, and then mount it on the shelf right next to your immensely valuable coin collection and culturally significant commemorative porcelain plate display. It’s sort of like an NFT, but makes way more sense.
And we’ve got all the other fancy Fight merch on Bandcamp, too. There’s a super rad sweatshirt, windbreaker, and t-shirt! Grab 3 of each!
New single from Act III, “The Fight,” is now streaming on all the platforms. Click this link and pick your poison. We’re already up to like 30,000 plays on Spotify, so that’s something like 50 dollars! About 4 of us are gonna get to eat a burrito with that chunk of change (the other 4 will starve)!!! But seriously, we’re glad you’re all seeming to like it. There’s plenty more where that came from.
Cover design and new logo done by Caspar Newbolt with artwork by John DeLucca. I think they did a hell of a job, if I do say so myself.
And yeah… James Cameron may have beaten us by getting Avatar 2 out before we could release Act III, but mark my words, I almost somewhat guarantee that we’ll have Act III out before Avatar 5! The gauntlet has been thrown, Mr. Cameron. Come at us.
—FIGHT MERCH— Like that Fight art and new logo? Get it on some shirts! We’ve got a regular coal colored (nearly black) Tshirt, and girl-style scoop Tshirt to choose from.
And on top of that, we’ve got a pretty rad new raglan sweatshirt (raglan is the only way to go with sweatshirts. Believe me, I’m an expert).
We’ve also got a pretty awesome windbreaker (with some rain protection) pullover with silver-ish print. This sort of a jacket is a first for us, so let us know how you like it by buying it or not (whichever is funnier).
**please note** this new FIGHT merch will not ship in time for the holidays.
—CHICAGO— Our 2 shows at Reggies with Cybertronic Spree are now super sold out and we couldn’t be more excited to get back to Chicago for some Italian Hot Beef Sandwiches!…. and shows. See you there!
—EURO TOUR— And let’s not forget our upcoming Europe and UK tour! Get to a show and you’ll hear “The Fight,” as well as some other Act III jams. So get your tickets and help spread the word over there. Send your friends the link to “The Fight” to see if they like it and then bring them to a show even if they don’t. Maybe bring them to 5 shows. While you’re helping us with promotion, go ahead and start requesting “The Fight” at your local radio stations. And call in to TRL and demand that Cason Daly puts us on the show. Then Google who/what Carson Daly and TRL are.
Remember that time in the last email where I said, “see you back here in about 3 weeks?” This is what I was talking about. Now that “The Fight” is out there, we’re gonna do the holiday thing for a bit, but then get right back into the studio at the start of the new year. Feeling good about this one.
We’re restocking some things in the Sound Machine Store just in time for the Black-Cyber sales shenanigans. For instance, the fabled Father of Death Beach Hoodie is in the press as we speak.
Grab some stocking stuffers at a 20% discount in time for the holidays. That’s 20% off the entire order!
Sale starts right now and goes until Monday (28th) at 11:59 CST.
use this code at checkout ——> TWENTY22
some things that are being restocked – FOD beach hoodie – Act II Logo shirt – Act II Cover shirt – Light Up The Night shirt – Flag – Patches – LUTN Lighters
In case you missed the news since the last mailer, the Feb 25th show sold out so fast that we added another show on the 24th. Those tickets are almost gone too, so hop on those quick if you’re interested in pure excitement.
–FEBRUARY 2023– 24th – Chicago, IL – Reggies (newly added show!) 25th – Chicago, IL – Reggies (SOLD OUT)
—— PROTOMEN IN EUROPE+UK
You know what else works great as stocking stuffers? Multiple Protomen show tickets in various cities all over Europe! Plane tickets and train passes! Maybe a trusty travel pony (just make sure they know how to properly care for said pony)!? But for sure some new luggage for all the days your loved one will be on the road following their new favorite American band as they cross the continent making rock and roll history. And then might as well throw in a new Roomba to keep their floors clean while they’re on their life-affirming journey. And with that, think of all the things you can get done at home while they’re off following the Protomen around Europe! You could start that garden you’ve been talking about for the last 3 years. Actually, forget the garden, you should come too! And bring the Roomba! It’s a win-win-win!!! You know what to do.
I know that last east coast tour with Cybertronic Spree didn’t happen as planned, because of some dumb pandemic, but we’re for sure gonna make the team-up happen this time. And we’re gonna give you wonderful mailing-listers first crack at the tickets with a Pre-Sale that starts TOMORROW (Nov 1st) at 10am 10am CST. — VIP/Meet and Greet package is also available.
**UPDATE** General purchase tickets available now. They’re nearly sold out, but don’t fret if you miss them, we have something brewing. Just pay attention to our Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Mailing List for updates.
**UPDATE 2** 25th is SOLD OUT — NEW SHOW ADDED ON THE 24th!!! Get tickets before they’re gone.
Reggies isn’t a huge place, so tickets will likely move pretty quick. Grab some before they’re gone… foorreevverrr…
–FEBRUARY 2023– 24th – Chicago, IL – Reggies (newly added show!) 25th – Chicago, IL – Reggies (SOLD OUT)
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EUROPE TOUR 2023! Hey Europe, it’s only like 4 months till we’re back over there. Are you ready? If you said, “yes!” but don’t have tickets already, guess what…. you’re not ready. So go down to the links below and get ready. Then spread the word and help other people to be ready. Let’s get all of Europe ready between now and then!
TLDR – Cybertronic is out – We’re still in – Europe is postponed – We made some videos – Here’s a ringtone – The Wolf Among Us 2 – This has been one hell of a week.
We found out today that Cybertronic Spree is going to have to bow out of the tour, because one of their crew came down with COVID. Rather than me speaking for them, this is what they asked us to pass along to you:
We were incredibly excited to share the stage with them, and we wish them well on their recovery. We’ll make it happen one day.
BUT THE GOOD NEWS… … is that we WILL be carrying on without them. We haven’t fully locked down what we’re going to do about a support act/s, but that, too, we’ll figure out! Right now we know we’ll be playing with Watch Out For Snakes in Atlanta, Destructonomicon in Orlando, Thrillkiller in Baltimore, as well as others. We’ll try to announce more as we know more.
This is the fancy screen printed poster that John DeLucca and Caspar Newbolt put together and Grand Palace printed. We’ll still be selling them at shows, even though Cybertronic won’t be with us, because they’re awesome and we’ve got a lot of them… and they weren’t very cheap to make. They’re printed on red foil reflective paper, and they’re pretty danged rad.
Check out some of the print process….
And if you don’t follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Youtube, you might have missed these little award winning (not really) short films we put together recently to promote the tour. Clearly, we can’t go back and fix all the other videos to take Cybertronic off of them, but we’ll just carry on releasing the last few with an amended band card. It’s probably easiest to check them out in order on instagram or this youtube playlist —> When Panther Calls
You’ll also be able to check them out at Cannes Film Festival in a couple months (not really).
And some of you asked for the ringtone so you could feel like you’re getting beeps from Panther. Don’t say I ain’t never did nothin’ for you —> WILL OF ONE RINGTONE
AND MORE BAD NEWS… EUROPEAN TOUR EDITION We’re having to postpone our European Tour until March of next year. We know this whole email is raging bummer-town but we found out recently that the Sci-Fi Weekender convention had to postpone. We tried our best to make the tour happen anyway, but without that show, we can’t make the rest of it work financially. But the good news is we’ve already locked down dates to reschedule the entire thing (same venues and all) and all tickets will be honored for March of next year. Here are the new dates:
Again, we’re incredibly sorry for all the bad news, and I hate that this was such a downer email. I want to end it on a happier note, though….. We’re playing a brand new Act III jam on this tour! That’s something, right?
Either way, hope to see some of you out there, and let’s do some rock and roll!
MARCH US TOUR WITH CYBERTRONIC SPREE We’re heading out in early March with our new friends, Cypertronic Spree, for a short knock-the-dust-off-our-cobwebs-before-we-head-over-to-Europe-for-our-very-second-European-tour tour! We’re super excited to get back out on the road to sample all the best burritos (we’re looking at you, Cosmic Cantina), Flying J chili, and Walmart parking lots the East Coast has to offer!
If you don’t know about Cybertronic Spree already, you should absolutely go check them out. They’re Transformers that play DiCola jams live. What’s not to love?
NYE IN APRIL And in case you missed the last mailer, I hate to inform you that 2022 has been delayed until April 9th, where we’ll finally get to play our postponed NYE show at Exit/In in Nashville. Don’t think we’re not gonna do all the New Year’s Eve shenanigans that we had planned. Because we are. April 9th is the official new New Year for the entire Earth. Get on board or be left on the dock.
APRIL 09th – Nashville, TN – Exit/In (NYE Spectacular… in April)
EUROPEAN TOUR Speaking of docks…. we’re boarding a boat in mid-April to sail over to Europe for our tour (not really about the boat… we’ll probably fly on an airplane. I just needed a segue to this paragraph), and Makeup And Vanity Set is terrified of boats (not really sure why I’m still on about the boat thing, but I started down this path and it’s a little hard to change directions now, so I’m just gonna go with it for a bit), so buy a bunch of tickets and tell everyone you’ve ever known about us and the Euro shows to make it worthwhile to Makeup And Vanity Set to face his fears about long-range boat travel (even if the potential boats and his fears of them were simply fabricated by me as a paragraphical segue and to express our desire for you to help spread the word over there about our band and these shows.).
