We’ve returned from
the northern hemisphere, a place where the moon is up-side-down and they
measure things in strange quantities like gallons and hogs heads. Which for a
place with some very sensible metric ideas, such as organising the streets into blocks and labelling them by
numbers, is like a bizarre ride at the contradiction carnival. BUT alas, this
blog post is NOT about our wacky adventures in the land of the free, but just a
little something to whet your appetite, the real dirt/gold (depends how you
look at it) will be revealed over the coming weeks. This is also a chance to
give a shout out to all of you who helped make our trip a reality.
So let me try and
explain the weeks leading up to our departure. The idea was to play a run of
shows around Sydney to raise some funds and to get gig-ready. It started with a
show at Mona Pub on a Friday night with Coffin and our good buddies Milt. We
hadn’t played a show for a few months, so this was a slightly strange one to
come back with, but man oh man the beaches boys go hard! I’ve got a very
special memory of about a dozen long-haired surf rats in the front row head
banging in effortless unison. Beautiful salty, golden locks of hair flailing in
time with our high-voltage rock moves (HA!); so perfect it had an almost
choreographed feel.
The next show was the
very next night, our fundraiser show at Sashimi warehouse in Marrickville. A
very special night for us. Firstly what a great venue, it was the perfect place
for us to have our fundraiser and the turn out we got for it was extremely humbling.
I’d like to thank everyone who came out to that show, it was a really special
moment for us and hands down one of our best shows ever. Not only did
we play with some of our favourite local bands, Ok Cocaine, The Nuclear Family,
and Reckless Vagina, but it was a real tear-jerker moment to be in a room full
of people and feel so supported by our home town. It really meant a lot to have
our Sydney faithful show up and help us fuel the adventure we were about to
embark on. Our good buddy Jack made a film clip with footage from that night,
so post comments on facebook until someone puts it up.
The following weekend
we played in Woolongong, our first time in The Gong. We were deflowered at Rad
Café & Bar with Hound, Miners, and The Nuclear Family. Solid line-up. And
kudos to The Gong locals for what was a good turn out and a fun show. Then the next
night we were at Brighton Up Bar for the 1am slot. It was our last show before
leaving for the states and was a good vibe to finish on. The vibe was so good
we got half naked for half a set of skinny white-boy ghost rock (there may or
may not be footage of this on you tube, ladies).
And that was it, we
were ready. We’d had a good run of shows leading up to our departure, were gig
hardened, had raised some funds and were ready to unleash our sausage-roll rock
upon North America. And although we hit a few minor snags with our visa
processing (and by minor I mean hugely expensive and time wasting) which
somewhat squashed our momentum, we were super pumped to begin our adventure.
So we’d like to
express our most heart felt “good on ya cobber!” to everyone who supported us.
As I’m sure everyone knows, we ran a successful crowd funding campaign before we left,
which we can’t thank everyone enough for. We felt so loved and supported it was
overwhelming, so THANKS!!! We love
you all. Your treats and goodie-bags will be dispersed soon. And stayed tuned
for the next post which will actually be about the USA tour, none of this pre-trip
fluff.
xx Zeahorse