Pioneering Oxford based independent label, Shifty Disco is set to have some fun this summer as its artists embark on a Come Play With Me Tour!

The artists taking part are critically acclaimed indie-rockers The Race, post-punkers My Device and indie-folk storytellers King of Spain with the cult hero’s cult hero Anton Barbeau stringing the evenings together in his loose compère / troubadour style.  The tour, that takes its name and format idea from the popular TV show ‘Come Dine With Me’ comes with a bit of a twist.

The bands will take it in turns to host a show whilst the others grade them out of 10, from the pre-show promotion to the rider and of course the crowd on the night, the bands will be doing their utmost to impress each other.   The whole tour will be filmed in a tongue-in-cheek, reality-show documentary style and the end result will be streamed on the Shifty Disco website at the end of the week.

The tour is the brainchild of Shifty Disco label boss Dave Newton, who celebrated 10 years in business in 2007 and is still cooking up fresh and interesting ways to shake up what are often predictable formats. Since the 10 year anniversary the label has released albums by all the artists on the Come Play With Me tour and continues to use the Download Singles Club as its source of discovery of all things shiny and new.

The Race released the album ‘In My Head It Works’ earlier this year to critical acclaim. Interestingly the album was completely funded by a stakeholder fund that raised £25,000 to record and release the record. Here’s what the press have said about it: 

‘Sonic Youth dischord... prowling dub-rock... Endearingly awkward’ - NME 

 ‘Floor-tom heavy with a rolling bass, the guitars are alternatively choppy then floating on a Chameleons-like tide of echoing, chiming, glassy effects’ - Q

‘twinkling, mesmerising with enough grunge sensibility to give this band the edge’ - Rock Sound

‘Get into them now, before everyone else does’- Clash

Following the release of the album ‘Jumbo Fiasco’ at the end of 2007, My Device have spent the last 18 months dividing their time between the studio and trips to New York, where they are building themselves quite a fan base.  Here’s what the press said about ‘Jumbo Fiasco’:

'Their second album hurtles through 14 relentlessly intricate songs in 35 minutes, evoking classic art-pop from early Eno, The Fall and XTC through to current post-punkers The Futureheads and The Young Knives, dispatched with the intensity of hardcore punk' - Q

'My Device offer 14 tracks of completely insane and extremely fun post punk... they'll definitely be a hit on the dance floor of every indie disco' - Drowned In sound

'Sounds a bit like Modest Mouse and Les Savy Fav having a penknife fight whiles Wires On Fire watch on. This is obviously brilliant' - Artrocker

‘A must-see act’ - Notion

King of Spain released their debut album ‘Battleships and Aeroplanes’ earlier this year. The band run a monthly night at the 12 Bar Club in London called flux=rad which is aimed at showcasing the best in alternative music.  The album, which is full of gloriously catch indie-folk tunes, sea shanties and lullabies has received the following praise:

‘Welcome King of Spain with open arms.  Reeking of Hefner and The Go-Betweens, this album stands as a homage to a great school of underground indie… awesome’ – NME

"It is King of Spain whose star burns the brightest" – Gigwise

‘These four blokes from South London have captured that raw Britishness of a Libertines record better than twenty other bands who were trying harder could do’ - Bearded

In recent years Anton Barbeau has been quietly but quickly building a global fan base with his esoteric and highly-original brand of psychedelic power-pop, his “mind-bending” stage show and his auto-neurotic humour.  His 5th album ‘The Automatic Door’ was released in the Summer of 2007, here’s what the press had to say about it:

‘Anton Barbeau represents the Sacramento chapter of that nameless coterie of enduringly reliable, acid-tinged singer-songwriters’ – The Sunday Times

"Barbeau's beaming, carefree melodies belie a compendium of fears and diseases - wherein suffragettes, lepers and beauty queens co-exist in balmy, barmy harmony with billy goats, big business and psychic twins." - Plan B

"This man sure arrived in the wrong decade and has been showing the world this since the late '80s, but his dedicated followers are happy he's here now, myself  included" - Kruger Magazine

"this album gives the impression that with the right exposure, single, and perhaps if he particularly wanted to, Barbeau could easily make much bigger commercial waves" Is This Music?

Catch the Come Play With Me Tour in the following cities:

Monday 29th June         Brixton Windmill (hosted by King Of Spain)

Tuesday 30th June        Reading Cotton Club (hosted by The Race)

Wednesday 1st July      Brighton Freebutt (hosted by My Device)

Thursday 2nd July         Cambridge Portland Arms (hosted by Anton Barbeau)

Friday 3rd July               Oxford The Winchester (hosted by Shifty Disco)

To purchase tickets go to: WeGotTickets.com