Announcing an exciting project for next month: Sloth Racket will be going on tour with Vienna-based band Anthropods! I’ve been working with Mark Holub for several months behind the scenes on this, first trying to persuade UK promoters that they want to book a double bill (harder than you might think), then writing and submitting an ultimately-unsuccessful funding application to Arts Council England.
Despite the lack of UK funding support, the tour is able to go ahead thanks to Anthropods getting a grant from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. Without that we wouldn’t be able to bring the band over and make this cross-border European collaboration happen, so we’re very grateful. It’s a tough landscape out there at the moment in terms of making projects happen in the UK, and even with the Austrian support the tour as a whole is on an incredibly tight budget. But! It’s happening and we’re super stoked about that.
The bands will visit four cities:
17th April: Sheffield! Hosted by long-time Sloth Racket supporters Jazz At The Lescar.
18th April: Canterbury! Hosted by the awesome long-running series Free Range.
19th April: London! Hosted by essential improv scene haunt Hundred Years Gallery.
20th April: Norwich! Hosted by fresh new artist-run DIY space Ambition’s Graveyard.
If you’re local to London or Norwich, you can support the tour by buying tickets in advance. Obviously we love people showing up and paying on the door – don’t let me stop you! – but getting your tickets in advance helps ease our budget-frazzled minds and gives us an idea of how the tour finances might end up when it’s all done. This makes us happy. Plus, they’re a little bit cheaper than on the door. So if you plan on coming out to see us in those cities, head over to our London tickets page or the Norwich tickets page!
For Sheffield, you can contact Jazz At The Lescar to buy tickets by following the link on their site, and in Canterbury it’s free entry (because it’s Free Range!).
Finance realness aside, I really am excited to take the band out for a run of consecutive dates again. It’s going to be great to share the bill with Anthropods and hear how the two bands’ music evolves as we move through the tour. Hope to see you out there. Plus, I’m pretty pleased with the wonky 3-D text I drew for the tour poster.
Ending this post with a nice new photo of Sloth Racket by Jonathan Crabb, taken at my Ink-Paper-Sound night at Cafe Oto last week. Thanks to everyone who came out to that; I had a fantastic time. It was brilliant to celebrate the zine project with a packed house!
