It’s not often a band comes around earning comparisons to acts as diverse as Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, Rufus Wainwright and Tom Waits. Entertainment Weekly described one show by the Toronto-based group as “a beguiling, bewitching treat, like absinthe-laced gumdrops: part rickety graveyard waltz, part hand-over-heart chamber pop, part avant-garde piano theater.”

You gotta admit, that’s a tough description to live up to. So far, the band hasn’t had any problems doing the weird and wonderful.

They once performed in a Parisian alley with Waston using a megaphone for a microphone with bandmembers accompanying him on guitars and tambourine while a local accordion player seized the moment to join in on the fun.

And now it’s your turn. Patrick Watson & The Wooden Arms embark on their longest tour yet next month, beginning a coast-to-coast run of nightclubs May 6 at Brooklyn’s Bell House and continuing across the U.S. and Canada until the end of the road lands them in Quincy, Wash., for the Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge. In between they’ll play NYC’s 92Y Tribeca May 7; the Rock & Roll Hotel in D.C. May 8; Unitarian Side Chapel in Philadelphia May 9 and Schuba’s in Chicago May 17.

Other stops include Denver (May 19), Phoenix (May 21), Hollywood (May 22), San Diego (May 24), San Francisco (May 26) and Portland (May 28). For more information, click here for the Patrick Watson Web site.