Chris Gethard's Smiths cover band opening Beach Slang's NYC release show

Beach Slang are releasing their anticipated sophomore album A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings next week (9/23) via Polyvinyl, and then they’re bringing their tour to NYC for a release show on September 27 at Rough Trade. That show has a pretty unique opener: comedian Chris Gethard‘s Smiths cover band Mr. Shankly and the Franklys. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, Geth gives some more insight in a new interview with Gothamist:

There’s this festival in Gainesville every Halloween weekend called The Fest, appropriately enough. It’s a lot of punk bands, and I really quite enjoy that genre of music and I enjoy a lot of those bands and a lot of them played on my show. I started going down there to do comedy, and they do this thing because it’s Halloween where they’ll let bands play cover set, you can pretend to be another band. And I asked if I could head up a Smiths cover band because I’m a big Smiths devotee. I got Alex from Hiccup who’s a great guitarist, Mikey Erg on drums – one of the things I’m most proud about in season two is that we got the Ergs to reunite – and John DiNominice [Bomb the Music Industry, Jeff Rosenstock’s band] on bass. These are legit, pro-level guys who can play and I can’t sing so it’s just me screaming as Morrissey. I dress up, I dye my hair every show and we did the one at Fest just as a gag and people really kind of flipped out. We did another show back in Brooklyn, Chumped’s final show, and we’re opening for a big show at Rough Trade Records in September, which is like so dumb. We put a lot of heart into it.

Tickets for the Rough Trade show are still available.

Chris Gethard also has an upcoming Off-Broadway run of his “Career Suicide” show. Watch his Smiths cover band set from The Fest: