Sloth Racket is taking to the road in early May to celebrate the release of our album ‘Triptych’ (released 2nd May on our new Luminous label). We’ll be playing around the UK with support from Arts Council England. Can’t wait! See you out there…
Category Archives: gigging
March/April gigs
It’s been an admin-heavy February, with a lot of preparations for the forthcoming Sloth Racket album release and tour plus some heavy doses of LUME admin too. I’m happy to say though that I’ll be emerging from hibernation in March! A few nice gigs coming up:
On the 15th March Colin Webster and I have been invited to guest with Far Rainbow at Zero Wave Club (The Fiddler’s Elbow, Kentish Town). We’re billed as duelling saxophonists on the FB event…uh oh! This is part of a really nice multi-band bill – check out the flyer below.
On 3rd April I’ll be playing trio with Olie Brice and Corey Mwamba, on the other side of the bill from Dave Kane Quartet at one of our LUME Vortex gigs. Looking forward to this, and the more organised among you can buy tickets for it already.
The last gig I want to mention here is a special one. On 16th April Madwort Sax Quartet are recording our debut album live at LUME! This is happening at Hundred Years Gallery, which is a lovely space. It’s going to be ace to finally record an album with the quartet, which has been playing Tom’s music since 2012. Tickets will be on sale for this soon too.
All in all, a nice couple of months – see you out there!
Sloths video and frog poster
I’ve had a bunch of video footage from Sloth Racket gigs (thanks Anton!) kicking around for a while, but haven’t had a chance to do anything with it. Now, finally, I’ve posted the first video up online, from our gig at LUME (when we were still at Long White Cloud) in April.
Also hidden in the depths of my computer was this cool poster from our gig at the Kazimier Garden in Liverpool in July. It was a great gig with a lovely crowd, and we were really well looked after by Joel the organiser and DJ. I don’t know who designed the poster, but I love this frog!
Some Sloth Racket live recordings
I thought it would be nice to post up some Sloth Racket tracks, as this band is my main focus at the moment. The album is being mixed next week (woop!) and the plan is that it will be released in May, but in the mean time here we are at LUME, Long White Cloud earlier this year…
A nice chilled December (after a mad November!)
The last few weeks have been pretty packed for me, with some really nice gigs around the place. Ripsaw Catfish returned to Birmingham and played at a lovely and busy Fizzle night (good work Andrew Woodhead!), I played a trio set with Seth Bennett and Andrew Lisle for the first time, and LUME took over the Barbican freestage for an afternoon as part of London Jazz Festival. Sloth Racket appeared at the LUME LJF gig, fresh from the excellent Limefield Studio in Manchester where we recorded our first album – the takes of which I’m listening through now…plus I went to Leeds and Sheffield, depping on bari with Beats & Pieces Big Band. It’s all been a bit mad!
December is looking a bit more chilled out at the moment, which is really nice. Our new tiny LUME label, Luminous, is releasing its first album (‘Interference Patterns’ by Deemer) on 7th December, and we’re launching it on the 6th at the Vortex. We’ll also be running another dice-and-hat gig at Hundred Years Gallery on the 17th. Before that, Ripsaw Catfish continue our accidental ‘city a month’ series by playing at Safehouse in Brighton on the 16th. I’m working on lots of plans for 2016 over the next few weeks too, so watch this space for (hopefully more frequent) updates.
Peter Woodman took some great photos of our LUME afternoon at the Barbican: here’s one of Sloth Racket, complete with Dee standing on the (awesome) LUME merch stall, and Gina Southgate painting us as we play…
Ripsaw Catfish in Birmingham and Sloth Racket recording…
Quick post with a couple of bits of news…
Ripsaw Catfish is heading to Birmingham this week! We’re playing at Fizzle on Tuesday 3rd November (tomorrow!), in a double bill with a quartet comprising Trish Clowes, Percy Pursglove, Oli Brice and Mark Sanders. Should be a really nice evening – head down if you’re in the area!
Also, Sloth Racket is going into the studio next week. Woop! We’re heading to Limefield Studio in Manchester to record what will hopefully be our first release. After that we head back down to London to play a set on the Barbican freestage on Saturday 14th November, as part of the LUME programme at LJF. We’re working on lots of Sloth activity for 2016 too….more on that to follow…
Word Of Moth outing and Seth/Lisle/Cath trio set
I have a couple of nice gigs coming up this week. First of all, Word Of Moth is reappearing on Friday 30th October at I’klectik Artlab near Waterloo. Olie Brice has invited us to share the bill with his quartet, and we’ll have special guest James Opstad on bass. This will be my first time playing at I’klectik, so I’m looking forward to checking out the space…
The second gig is our next LUME night at the Vortex, on Sunday 1st November. I’m playing a trio set with Seth Bennett and Andrew Lisle. This has never happened before! Pretty excited about it. Also on the bill is a duo of Tom Taylor and Rob Luft, who I haven’t heard play together, so it will be cool to hear them. If you’re free, come along and join us for a night of improvised music. Here’s the poster (in its two forms!)…
Ripsaw Catfish at Zero Wave Club
Ripsaw Catfish have got some gigs this Autumn, and the first one is coming up on 20th October. We’re playing at a night I haven’t come across before: Zero Wave Club, which happens at the Fiddler’s Elbow in Kentish Town. Should be fun!
Exploring the group mind (!!)…
LUME has a rather cool run of gigs coming up this week, in a collaboration with Dr Daniel Richardson from the Experimental Psychology department at UCL. On Wednesday 30th September, Thursday 1st October and Friday 2nd October, groups of improvising musicians that we’ve put together will play free sets in response to the audience, who will be interacting using their smartphones. I’m playing on Thursday and Friday and it should be a lot of fun…see below for info and tickets URL.
Moths at Lancaster and Sloths at the Oxford
I’m not quite sure where this month has gone, but my ‘late September’ gigs are this weekend! On Sunday 20th September, I’m heading up to Lancaster Jazz Festival with Word Of Moth, playing in the Hall at 3.45pm. I’m looking forward to checking out the festival. Then on Monday 21st, I’ll be back in London to play at Jazz At The Oxford with Sloth Racket. This will be a lot of fun – were sharing the bill with Oxford organiser George Crowley’s band Can Of Worms, as the first gig in his ‘Can Of Worms Presents’ series. See you there!