New York, NY (Top40 Charts) SWANS have today announced a United States tour for April and May 2024, following European dates. The band SOLD OUT all but two of their 2023 North American tour. The tour details, which are shared on the heels of a triumphant tour across Europe, N America, and the UK, will see the current incarnation of Swans perform- starting from April 12 through to mid-May. Full details below.
SWANS - UNITED STATES TOUR 2024:
4/12/2024 Washington DC
Howard Theatre
4/13/2024 Philadelphia PA Union Transfer
4/14/2024 Richmond VA The Broadberry
4/16/2024 Nashville TN Blue Room at Third Man
4/18/2024 Atlanta GA Variety Playhouse
4/20/2024 Birmingham AL The Saturn
4/21/2024 New Orleans LA The Civic Theatre
4/23/2024
Houston TX White Oak
Music Hall
4/24/2024 San Antonio TX Paper Tiger
4/25/2024 Albuquerque NM
Sunshine Theater
4/27/2024 Las
Vegas NV Sick New World Festival
4/29/2024 Los Angeles CA Lodge Room
5/2/2024 San Francisco CA Great American
Music Hall
5/5/2024 Salt Lake City UT Soundwell
5/7/2024 Denver CO Gothic Theatre
5/9/2024 Kansas City MO Record Bar
5/10/2024 St. Louis MO Delmar Hall
5/11/2024 Chicago, IL Cabaret Metro
5/14/2024
Boston MA Paradise
5/16/2024 New York NY Racket
5/17/2024 Brooklyn NY
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Primary contributors to The Beggar:
Michael Gira - Vocals, words, acoustic guitar, production. Gira started Swans in NYC in 1982 and has been the primary songwriter, singer and producer throughout the years. During the Swans hiatus (1999 - 2010), he released several albums by and toured with a group called Angels of Light. Gira recently published a book of his short stories, journals, and words for music, called The Knot. He lives in New Mexico.
Kristof Hahn - Lap steel, various guitars, vocals. Kristof first joined Swans in 1989 and was a principal contributor to Angels of Light, and a core Swans member 2010 - 2017. Kristof's other musical ventures have included the Rock 'n' Roll Noir band Les Hommes Sauvages and Kool
Kings (with Alex Chilton). When not making music Kristof translates books. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
Larry Mullins - Drums, vibes, orchestral percussion, Mellotron, various keyboards, backing vocals. Larry is a trained symphonic percussionist. He played through the '90s with
Iggy Pop and later with The Stooges. He played with Swans in the late '90s and was a main contributor to Angels of Light. His current main job is playing drums with The Bad Seeds. Larry lives in Berlin, Germany.
Dana Schechter - Bass guitar, lap steel, keyboards, vocals, piano. Dana played bass in and was a core member of Angels of Light. She subsequently released music and toured as Bee and Flower. Her current band is the power-duo, Insect Ark. Dana is an animator and designer in the film industry and currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
Christopher Pravdica - Bass guitar, sounds, keyboards, vocals. Chris played bass as a core Swans member in 2010 - 2017. Chris has played with the bands, The Gunga Din, Flux Information Sciences, Xiu Xiu, Yonatan Gat, Medicine Singers and has a project of his own called We Owe. Chris is a sound designer and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Phil Puleo - Drums, percussion, vocals, piano, exotic wind instruments. Phil played drums with Swans in the late '90s and was a core member in Swans 2010 - 2017 and contributed to Angels of Light. Phil's early NYC musical venture was Cop Shoot Cop and has since played with Human Impact, among others. Phil is an extremely talented illustrator and lives in Chicago, IL.
Ben Frost - Guitar, synthesizers, sound manipulations. In his own work, Ben's adventurous sound-craftings are sometimes harrowing and sometimes delicate and quite musical. His numerous albums and his powerful live shows have afforded him much recognition. He is also an accomplished composer and arranger of music for film and television. Ben lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Backing vocals are provided by Jennifer Gira, Lucy Kruger and
Laura Carbone.
Michael Gira founded the groundbreaking NYC band Swans in 1982. Initially notorious for their relentless, brutal, high-volume onslaughts of sound, the extreme, abject imagery of Gira's lyrics and his thundering vocals, Swans would undergo a series of startling transformation over the next 15 years.
Following the punishing Filth and Cop albums, the ensemble would venture into harshly mechanical proto-industrial rock of their Greed period, then both haunted atmospheric idylls and martial stomps on 1987's landmark Children of God double album.
They'd conjure gentler acoustic-based meditations on The Burning World (1989), then after relocating to Atlanta grand, melody-dense sonic whirlwinds of the White Light from the Mouth of
Infinity (1991) and Love of Life (1993) era, becoming more dissonant and sharp-edged with The Great Annihilator (1994).
Finally, the ultimate statement of that epoch of Swans, Soundtracks For The
Blind (1996), incorporated all of these elements across well over two hours of music. At this point, Gira called it quits after 15 years of non-stop recording and touring, disbanding the group. For the next 13 years, he'd make a long series of acclaimed albums and perform live extensively with a revolving roster of musicians under the name Angels Of Light.
Gira also discovered, produced and released albums by other musicians through his label Young God Records. He cultivated such talents as Devendra Banhart and Akron/Family among others, the original figures of the late 00's Avant-folk movement.
In 2010, he reactivated Swans, releasing the studio album My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky to ecstatic critical response and touring the world for the better part of a year. The Seer, a triple album studio set, came out in 2012 and was celebrated by another lengthy world tour eliciting more media praise and album sales that landed The Seer on Billboard's Top 200. Swans' next release, To Be Kind (another triple vinyl) debuted at #36 on Billboard's Top 200 Sales Chart and #5 on their Independent Sales Chart.
The group sold out 47 concert dates in their subsequent touring including selling out two-night stands in cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Paris, as well as single shows in London, Berlin and Rome.
The album garnered enormous praise from the press, and the two-hour long album stream was premiered by NPR. The Glowing Man (2017) (also triple vinyl) was the last studio release by this incarnation of Swans. With 2019's Leaving Meaning, the 15th studio album, Gira returned to working with a fluid supporting cast of musicians once again.
