Superb Supergroup

Them Crooked Vultures -- the supergroup featuring Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones -- will embark on its first U.S. tour next month, including a just-announced appearance at the Austin City Limits festival. The group will perform on the festival's opening night (October 2) prior to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kings of Leon, as well as kick off the festival on October 1 at Stubb's BBQ as a part of the ACL Aftershow series.

The Austin shows will be a jump start to a small North American club tour, starting on Oct. 8 at Detroit's Fillmore and stretching through the East Coast. Confirmed dates include Oct. 9 at Toronto's Sound Academy, Oct. 11 at Boston's House of Blues and Oct. 12 at Philadelphia's Electric Factory. Live Nation presales for the Detroit and Philadelphia shows start this Friday.

After surprising fans this past weekend at Leeds and Reading festivals as well as serving at the opening band for the Arctic Monkeys at London's Brixton Academy last week, the band has now confirmed a short December headlining tour of the U.K.  NME reports the band will kick things off on December 10 at the Plymouth Pavilion and continue through December 17 with a gig at London's Hammersmith Apollo.

While details are still scant regarding any recorded output from the group, they've just recently emerged as one of the year's most anticipated acts, debuting with a much-hyped, post-Lollapalooza gig last month at Chicago's Metro. In a live setting, the trio becomes a quartet, adding Queens of the Stone Age's Alain Johannes on rhythm guitar. The debut gig saw them tear through a twelve song set that featured the fast and frenetic "Elephant," the dark guitar riffs of "Dead End Friends" and the hard blues sounds of "Warsaw" and "Scumbag Blues."

While fans have been able to hear mostly-full versions of select songs on Youtube, the band themselves have been releasing small snippets of the studio sessions over the last few weeks. Along with a fourteen second cartoon promo clip, two teaser videos show the group in the studio working on "Elephant" and "Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I." While still unconfirmed, the band's debut album is expected later this year or in early 2010. 

Here are the full Them Crooked Vultures tour dates:

Oct. 1: Austin, TX (Stubbs)

Oct. 2: Austin, TX (Austin City Limits)

Oct. 5: Nashville, TN (War Memorial)

Oct. 6: Columbus, OH (LC Pavilion)

Oct. 8: Detroit, MI (The Fillmore)

Oct. 9: Toronto, ON (Sound Academy)

Oct. 11: Boston, MA (House of Blues)

Oct. 12: Philadelphia, PA (Electric Factory)

Oct. 14: Washington, DC (9:30 Club)

Dec. 10: Plymouth, UK (Pavilions)

Dec. 11: Portsmouth, UK (Guildhall)

Dec. 13: Blackpool, UK (Empress Ballroom)

Dec. 14: Birmingham, UK (O2 Academy)

Dec. 15: Edinburgh, UK (O2 Academy)

Dec. 17: London, UK (HMV Hammersmith Apollo)