Good news:  Those expanded Jayhawks reissues for Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow The Green Grass will finally be out on January 18th (and having had the chance to hear them, I can tell you that they are worth the wait, especially the one for TTGG).  (Pre-order Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow The Green Grass from Amazon.)

Better news: The band (with both Mark Olson and Gary Louris) will celebrate the reissues with a set of shows in five major cities, including two nights in NYC and two nights in Chicago.  For those shows, the band will play all of Hollywood Town Hall on the first night and all of Tomorrow The Green Grass on the second night (with selected ‘Hawks tunage filling out the rest of the set each night).

A pre-sale for all of the shows except for Chicago will start tomorrow with general tickets for all dates going on sale on Friday with the exception of (you guessed it) Chicago where tickets will go on sale on Saturday morning. (Ticketmaster information for some of the dates can be found at this link.)

(Update:  The Jayhawks Fan Page has ticket purchase links for all of the shows, including the Chicago shows which will go on sale via pre-sale on Friday with the regular on-sale happening on Saturday morning as mentioned previously.)

And perhaps the best news of all, the reunited project is working on their first album of new material (with both Olson and Louris, that is) in 15 years with release planned for summer 2011.

From the official press release, here’s some more information + tour dates and the obligatory quotes:

2011 TOUR DATES:

01/18 Toronto, ONT The Phoenix

01/20, 21 New York, NY Webster Hall

01/22 Philadelphia, PA TLA

01/27, 28 Chicago, IL The Vic

01/29 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue

The band’s lineup for these dates will comprise Gary Louris (guitar, vocals), Mark Olson (guitar, vocals), Marc Perlman (bass), Karen Grotberg (keyboards) and Tim O’Reagan (drums).

“I’m very excited about the reissue of Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass,” says Olson. “It’s great that our fans will get a chance to hear some of our earliest songwriting through the bonus tracks.”

Louris adds, “These tour dates will also be an opportunity for fans who didn’t catch us early in our career, to hear these songs played again. The Jayhawks are re-energized and our next chapter starts with these shows in January.”

Tune up for the reunion shows with a couple of cool downloads, including a reaaaallly early show from ’85 (opening for Alex Chilton), posted on the band’s newly revamped official website and digging back in the ATV archives a bit, here’s a TTGG-era show from San Francisco.

Photograph via The Jayhawks Official Website