Euro Tour 2011 RFM

This is the official Request For Merch for the 2011 European "tour", "Suomi Finland Tourkele". This tour is going to involve minimal exposure in Helsinki, Stockholm, potentially Malmo, and Copenhagen, then go on to Wacken and Party.San, with an intervening layover in Berlin. I'm going to have about as much pack space as last year, when I took over about 50 CDs and the better part of a hundred stickers, promo cards, and other small pieces, passing nearly all of them out (essentially, everything but the buttons). The concept is simple: bands give me stuff they normally give away for free, and I give it away for free at W:O:A and P.SOA. The following are the basic rules:

- Don't send anything that breaks. This is traveling by air in a frame pack, so I can't guarantee integrity for anything frangible that isn't in a case. You'll be out a stack of 7"s that people here would actually listen to, and I'll be on the ground in Helsinki with a pack full of broken vinyl. CDs work better if you want to send music.
- Unless you have nothing else, no buttons. They're hard to move and don't have your contact information on them. I'm sick of taking buttons over, not being able to pass them out, and coming home with half a bag full.
- The literal dregs of your merch bucket are OK. As long as it's got contact info on it, or room for me to write such on the back while I'm on the boat from Helsinki to Stockholm, it's useful, and your new audience in Europe doesn't know or care that it's last year's/last tour's junk, or that you've retired that logo.
- Any CDs in full-height cases will get repacked into half-height cases for space reasons. This has never been an issue yet, as all of the bands I've lugged stuff for have sent only burns/demos in sleeves or half-height cases, but just in case. If there's a tray inlay with the CD for some reason, it'll be packed along.

If you go to shows in eastern New England, you should be able to find the large bearded guy in the excessively overbuilt kutte (Hypocrisy with seven bands of shoulder studs and full sleeves, or alternately Revocation (sleeveless) depending on weather and other circumstances) before the last weekend in July. This is the tentative schedule of shows at which you'll be able to give me stuff:

May 24 - Nocturnal - Ralph's (Worcester, MA)
May 26 - Acaro, Untombed - O'Briens Pub (Allston, MA)
Jun 2 - Metal Thursday CXXVII - Ralph's (Worcester, MA)
Jun 4 - Gravewurm - Midway Cafe (Jamaica Plain, MA)
Jun 9 - Metal Thursday CXXVIII - Ralph's (Worcester, MA)
Jun 18 - Summoning Hate - Champions Cafe (Everett, MA)
Jun 19 - Dysentery - Palladium (Worcester, MA)
Jun 23 - Abnormality - O'Briens Pub (Allston, MA)
Jun 24 - Faces of Bayon - Ralph's (Worcester, MA)
Jul 9 - Hate Eternal - Palladium (Worcester, MA)
Jul 16 - Abnormality, Human Infection - Ralph's (Worcester, MA)
Jul 23 - Vital Remains - Middle East (Cambridge, MA)

Like last year, I reserve the right to miss any of these for work, family, or fitba preseason emergencies. Other opportunities will likely come in as more shows are announced, and an updated version of this list will get put up in July as I get closer to flying out. As last year, this is the billing for Wacken and Party.San, so that you can check and see if the people there would include your band's likely audience. (The answer, in case you're lazy, is probably "yes".)