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The Loft
Sad Comedian
Download Only Single
Released today 1 May 2026
Taken from the new album ‘Badges’ released on 8th May 2026 on Tapete, with a promo video featuring Stewart ‘Stew’ Lee, we give you, The Loft. ‘Probably the greatest pop group – made up of old, grey-haired blokes – making life-affirming music for people dreaming of retirement’. Says Ged Babey of Wikipedia entry fame for Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same. Badges is even better.
It seems like, and it was, a lifetime ago, when the the anticipation of how high your favourite bands new single would be in the Top 40 was a tangible thrill. Would they be on Top of the Pops live that week or would it be a promo video on The Chart Show?
It’s not quite the same now, but the news that ‘Stewart Lee stars in the new video from The Loft’ is probably as exciting as it gets. Will he do ‘that face’? (He does.)
After releasing their first studio album last year, more than 40 years after disbanding, The Loft return in May 2026 with their second record. Badges, featuring ten tracks, captures what defined The Loft then and what continues to define them today. As pioneers of an entire genre, they have nothing to prove – neither to themselves nor to anyone else – and that ease and quiet confidence resonate through every song on the album.
That glam riff is a beauty, Andy Stricklands handiwork I’ll wager. Dave Morgan steals the show with lack of enthusiasm for miming the drums. Astors black-framed spectacles are a cosmic link to Eric Morecambe and the Two Ronnies. Bill Prince proves the black polo-neck is a fashion perennial. Lee can’t be arsed to change out his hiking boots as it would take too long to do them up again… but what a great song and very cool video it is..
Peter Astor says
“I’m not entirely sure what first made me want to write a song about sad comedians. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with Tony Hancock, so that may have been the starting point. And since Stewart Lee is such a great music fan and supporter, I thought I’d ask if he’d like to get involved.
So we went down to the Museum of Comedy and used their theatre as the setting for the video, with Stewart singing “Sad Comedian.” Not that he’s a sad comedian, of course, but he is a comedian, so it seemed like the right thing to do.
Stewart said while doing this, ‘this is the end of a long journey of me bonding with a random bloke on a bus in 1985 in Hull because he had a Loft record.’ I loved that. I imagine, back then, he wasn’t thinking it would end with him miming along to a song by that same band decades later.
Those strange and beautiful circular moments in life, the unexpected arcs and connections that somehow come back around years later. What an excellent thing to be part of.”
Buy from Bandcamp
All other links – tickets, Spotify etc
The Loft on tour May 2026
Thu 7th May Oxford – Common Ground
Fri 8th May Bristol – The Croft
Sat 9th May Swansea – The Bunkhouse
Thu 21st May Leicester – The Big Difference
Fri 22nd May Gateshead – Central Bar
Sat 23rd May Edinburgh – Voodoo Rooms
Thu 28th May Sheffield – The Greystones
Fri 29th May Cambridge – The Portland
Sat 30th May Hastings – The Piper
Words Ged Babey but mainly press release. Band portrait – Joe Shutter (C)
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