NME
Canadian Music Super Rad Week, NYC baby, and South By South Awesome. Rooooaad Trip!
26.03.2009Day One-Thursday
At 6am team Skibunny meet up in Belfast International Airport for the start of our trip to America. Bleary-eyed we get on the first of 9 flights we’ll be taking over the next 12 days. In London, there’s enough time for a swift drink in the bar of Terminal 5 (too swift for Mark’s wallet, who decides not to board the plane and stay in the bar for another couple of rounds). 9 hours later - hello Dallas! Now, where is all of our luggage? Our fellow SXSW teamsters Enter Shikari are thinking the same thing…..BA has left a TON of luggage in London, including all our CDs, meaning that our NX35 Festival DJ Set in Denton that night is scuppered. Bugger! We do the only logical thing, and proceed to a bar for Nachos and drinks. After toasting our good fortune once or twice with Buddy, our amenable waiter, its off for a well-earned sleep.
Day Two-Friday
Up with the birds, and back to Dallas for a flight to Toronto. We love the sofas in the airport, and we love the sports bar for lunch. Finally we touch down in Toronto - its HUGE, and very flat. Looks amazing from the plane as the sun is setting. We’re not playing until Saturday, so Mark and Christine head down to the Bloc Party/We Are Wolves show, as we’re on Kele’s list on the door (wooh!) and Tanya heads off to see her friend Laney. The night ends in a punk rock dive bar (as all good nights should) .
Day Three-Saturday
Show Day! Yeah! Finally we’re getting to play a show! Pity we STILL haven’t got all of our luggage from BA!!! Undeterred we head out to the convention centre to meet Ross from NIMIC (NI Music Commission) for lunch, and meet up with a couple of labels interested in getting that sweet skibunny remix sound. Then it’s up the road to our venue, Central, where we’re due to perform at 1am. Tanya and I head off to buy some pedals from a music shop, where we’re served by none other than super-dude from The Hidden Cameras Mike Olsen. And what a nice chap he is, trying out mics and pedals, getting us “sweet sweet deals”, and being very helpful. His business card says “Mike Olsen sucks”. This is not true!
Then we’re back to Central. Finian, our soundman, is in America, so very kindly Holy F**K have recommended Diego , another soundman, to us. And what a super-nice guy he is - he’s just bought an old music hall out in the countryside where he’s going to set up a studio. Book us in!!
We also meet the awesome Julie Fader who is playing with us, and a great band from Denmark called Said The Shark-they’re really good-kind of Nico meets Mazzy Star. As usual in situations like this, Mark bonds with them over chats about old obscure guitars and keyboards.
Tanya then runs down to the place where Holy F**k are opening for Bloc Party, she counts 2 or 3 new songs and possibly a Stevie Wonder influence! It is super rad to see them play in their hometown.
Back to Central and the Skibunny show’s great fun. Holy F**K hot-foot it up from their show to see us. There are toasts with Matt and Graham HF, and we have to say again, thanks for staying up and coming down! They’re off on a tour the following day, so we call the night early and head to sleep.
Day Four-Sunday.
We can hear music. Its not good music. Its cod-Irish music, and it seems to be coming from outside the window. We look out and even though we know we are in Toronto it seems like we can see something saying “County Armagh”. WTF??!!Oh. It’s the Toronto St Patrick’s Day Parade. There’s a pope-mobile. There’s a rugby team. There’s a bit of line-dancing. This is not a good way to start the day. Actually its just plain weird! We head off for lunch and a wander, knowing that our tine in Toronto is coming to an end. Off to the airport and a quick (and delayed again) flight to NYC. Its midnight by the time we get to the hotel, a fact which does not stop Tanya and Christine from going out and “making party” until 4am. The girls end up in a very cool bar in Soho called McGoverns. They are told that Chloe Sevigny hangs out there, she’s not there tonight though, but they do meet lots of awesome locals, all of whom are invited down to our DJ gig the next night.
Day Five-Monday
Hey-its Mark’s wallet!(Thanks Rich Escape Act for grabbing it at Terminal 5!) A day of contrasts. Whilst Christine heads up the Empire State Building, Mark is in a day of meetings at The British Embassy with a bunch of people including the aforementioned Rich, Liverpool Sound City, the manager of the awsome We Have Band, Andrew Ferris from Smalltown America, and a whole lot of other guys. We meet The Chemical Brothers booking agent, and NIN’s press agent. We meet Tommy Silverman (Tommy Boy-how many amazing records has he put out??!!Legend!). We end up, quite literally, at The Ambassador’s reception, a penthouse overlooking the river. Mark feels a looooong way from home!
Meanwhile, Tanya goes shopping and bizarrely, bumps into Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth in Urban Outfitters. After a little light hero-worshipping, Tanya heads off to Brooklyn to meet Chris Brokaw and his gf Leslie for Japanese food. Having had many dinners together in Belfast over the last decade, it’s nice to finally meet up in his neck of the woods.
Off to The Bellhouse in Brooklyn to DJ at the Oya/O My Rockness festival party with Casiokids. Phil from the lo-fi Allstars and his wife Holly come down-they’re always such lovely company!! He gives Mark some great new music he’s doing which we immediately play out. Chris & Leslie also drop in, as does Tanya’s friend Josh, the Brooklyn dwelling Texan. The venue is full of crazy European kids wanting to dance, and as we play through midnight Christine realises that its now St Patricks day, so adds a Guinness to her Cosmopolitan. We don’t NEED to go on to a bar afterwards, but that doesnt stop us. A long, but “super-rad” day.
Day 6-Tuesday
Off to Austin!!!!!Yeaaaaaaaaahhh!We jump in a cab and hit Newark. After 4 hours and a stopover in Chicago we touch down in Austin. It must be SXSW. Jarvis Cocker and a whole bunch of bands are on our plane. The airport is chaos! Filled with louche rock-kids scuffing their heels and trying to look moody.hahahaha!F**K that, lets go out! We are picked up by Kurt, who has sorted us for some sweet sweet accommodation, and a flash 1989 Peugeot to drive in and around Austin for all our shows. What a guy! He’s a friend of Tanya’s, but soon a friend of all of us. We meet his Chiwaya “Dude” and head out for “Irish nachos “ (mainly potato), in our new favourite diner is Austin, Kirby Lane Cafe. Christine and Mark hit the hay early, while Tanya heads to the Art Disaster party at Beauty Bar to meet up with her brother, Juliana and other various Austinites. They also drop in to the Team Fabrication party across the road where DJ Kwik-E-Mart from LA is tearing up the patio.
Day 7 Wednesday.
First SXSW Show day! Two times! First, its off to The Red House Pizzeria where Michael and Orlando from Music For Listeners is putting on 4 days of shows. He’s a big friend of Oppenheimer who’ve played there before, so all must be well. We watch Scissors For Lefty who are really nice people, and also Esser from London, who are on one of our favourite London labels, Transgressive. And then we’re up. It’s a really relaxed way to start, some really nice kids (one of whom, I think, had actually gone to Ireland to see Oppenheimer), sun and beers, slices for everyone, and good times. Also, Finn our soundman is here!Cool! He’s doing all our gigs, and doing Rolo Tomassi’s shows as well-so he has a VERY busy week! Michael’s asking where Gerry Bannon, Oppenheimer’s soundman is. I tell him he’s in Ireland but sends Irish greetings! Then we’re down to Barcelona for our 1am showcase. This gig is NUTS!There are loads of people dancing, Tanya’s high-fiving after every song, there’s wooping and a shouting, and really we have more fun playing that we’ve had for ages. Awesome show!!!Thanks to all the Irish people who came down as well-from Johnny from AU to David from CDC. It’s good to have your support. And our friend John Cullen comes too, its his first time seeing us, so we’re really happy that the show goes well! By the time we’re done the bar is shut, so its home for a “what was your favourite bit…..?EVERYTHING!” type conversation, and then bed.
Day 8-Thursday
We drag ourselves out of bed, as we have to be at the venue at lunchtime. This is for the NIMIC Irish showcase, we’re on after General Fiasco who play a really good show. Again the venue is super-full and we really enjoy playing to everyone! As we run off-stage Fighting With Wire are running on to play. Cahir is a BEAST with the guitar!We LOVE it!Anyway we hot-foot it as we have a second show about 50 minutes after the NIMIC one ends, this time at Fado’s Irish Pub for Julianna, who was very kind in getting us a drumkit for our Barcelona showcase(thanks!) BOY is it hot on-stage!And we’ve just run 6 blocks with our guitars. But actually it feels great and it’s a fantastic party. Exhausted , we grab some wings and head back home. Mark decides to stay in, but there’s NO stopping the Skibunny ladies!!! Tanya tries to see Passion Pit, but it is already full and so her artist wristband is useless. Instead she goes to meet Christine and Fin at the Rye Rye show. On their way to see Datarock they are detoured by Scissors For Lefty and there is quite a lot of drinking, before heading to the Beauty Bar to meet friends. Finally the girls end up at an Austin house party!
Day 9-Friday.
Another day, another show-right?!This time it’s the Full Irish Breakfast at B D Reilly’s and we’re on just before Fight Like Apes. This venue is a lot like Katy Daly’s, and we’re playing right by the open windows looking onto the street. We only do 4 songs , but this ends up being one of the most enjoyable shows yet-great sound, really nice people, and we have to say a big thanks to Angela for having us-we’re available anytime!!!!!After getting an actual full-Irish breakfast, we head home to dump the stuff and get ready for some music. We have seen SO little as we’ve been playing we’re really determined to make tonight count. First its Dag For Dag at the Saddle Creek show. They’re AMAZING. Primal and passionate. We say hello and chat about how much we loved remixing them for their forthcoming EP.We dander off and meet up with John C for some well-earned drinks and chats (about tattoos among other things, more on that later……) and then its time to hot-foot it up to see The Bird and The Bee. Wow. Even though they did 2 covers!!they were simply unbelievable. Could have listened to them all night-we were blown away and were so gald we’d made the effort to go up. Time to head to The Beauty Bar for a last drink-and who was spinning….? DJ CRAZE!Bloody hell!There’s about 50 people going wild, another 20 on the stage-dancing is DEMANDED and fulfilled!We jump in a cab home eventually, giving a lift (and interview) to one of our favourite NI people at SXSW-lovely Gawain from Seemless Films.Collapse into bed.
Day 10-Saturday.
Oh crap we have a lunchtime show!Better get up! We’re playing for the mighty Dirty Boots-our number one place to go to in London (we’ve played live there, and DJ’d at their xmas party as well, a night so great we TOTALLY missed our flights home for the first time ever-eep!) We hit the stage and play our last set at SXSW-very sad!!Dag for Dag turn up which is very nice of them, and we have good chats, and hugs with Sam from Dirty Boots, thanks for having us Sam!!Later on we’ll watch Local Natives play the same stage, the buzz band of the week, it was great to play the same party as them!Our time is coming to an end……and we need something to cheer us up……….what’ll we do…..? Get TATTOOS of course! Christine takes one for the team and gets an amazing boombox on her ankle-fresh ink baby! Tanya got her tattoo a few days before the trip, so the pressure’s growing on Mark to have something done.Maybe next year. We stop off to see Theoretical Girl-very C86 like, gentle and wistful. Then Christine heads off to see a band from Dublin who were at our Irish Breakfast show, and were really nice, while Mark and Tanya head up to The Mae Shi. Having booked them in Belfast Tanya’s off to say hello to the band. Next thing they’re saying “Hey-you singing with us again?” Hell yeah! So after an astounding “run to the facts” featuring Kid Static”, she ROCKS “Run to your Grave” in front of a capacity audience. Tanya has often talked about the time she did this before in Lavery’s Bar, Belfast, as one of the greatest moments of her life, so now she is actually bouncing of the walls with excitement! Go Tanya!Its your Birthday!
Wow. Time for last orders at The Beauty Bar, and then home (again taxi sharing with Gawain!) for big sleeps.
Day 11-Sunday
And then it was all over. Hugs for Kurt and The Dude, and we hit the road for Dallas Airport, stopping only for an IHOP breakfast stack. We get on the Dallas-London flight (upgrades-wooh!) and then its Monday and home for everyone. What a crazy trip. We met so many people, we made so many friends. If we could high-five you all again we would. Thanks to everyone, ESPECIALLY Kurt and Finn.