“We started this shit back in ’64 and we played a battle of the bands with The Doors. That’s how fucking old we are!”
Yes, it’s true. The Sloths are old. This much was clear not only from the band’s appearance and from singer Tommy McLoughlin’s introduction of his band as they took to the stage at Hotel Vegas, but from the knee pads McLoughlin was wearing and the slightly corny jokes about their memories starting to go. But while they got their start a long time ago, The Sloths have only really been getting their due in recent years.
The Sloths have a rather interesting history. Starting out way back in the 1960s, the band released one single, “Makin’ Love” b/w “You Mean Everything to Me,” which didn’t really do much of anything for them until a couple decades later when “Makin’ Love” reappeared on a garage rock compilation called Back From The Grave. This eventually resuscitated the band’s career and they released their first full length, also entitled Back From The Grave, on Burger Records back in 2015. That long, circuitous road finally took them to the stage at Hotel Vegas as part of Burger Records annual Burgermania fest-within-a-fest.
For an old guy, McLoughlin’s got some moves, strutting across the stage, shaking his maracas, and jumping into the crowd on a few occasions to bust a move with various dance partners. He even threw in a couple of wardrobe changes (inspired, he said, by the likes of Cher and Britney) for a bit of extra showmanship and draped an Irish flag over a music stand he kept by his side in honour of St. Patrick’s Day, later replacing that one with a Texas flag at “around about midnight” (once St. Patty’s was officially over) before launching into a cover of the old garage rock standard “Gloria.”
One of the highlights of their set was the band’s latest single “I Survived” with its refrain of “I survived 27!” referencing the so-called “27 Club” of rock stars dying young and celebrating the fact that basically making it to a ripe old age can be seen as a certain kind of success when you’re living the rock and roll life.
So yes, The Sloths are old. But as Aaliyah once said, age ain’t nothing but a number and senior citizens though they may be, The Sloths definitely brought it.
