Snowdroppers Tour Diaries 2011
G’day! We are currently travelling around a bit after a few opportunities arose to take the Snowdroppers sound le internationale. Our first stop was Austin, Texas for the “South by Southwest” festival, where the finest bands from every country around the world come together, and Australia sends a bunch of whoever’s sitting around at the time, in the style of Spies Like Us.
Every day in Texas was a whirlwind adventure, especially the trips to the toilets on a diet of burgers, tex-mex, po-boys and deep-fried miscellaneous foodstuffs – all covered in hot sauce. In Austin they have all of these things called “City Ordinances”, which from what we could figure out, is sort of like a fake law or a polite way of explaining for when people can’t be arsed doing something. If a taxi driver doesn’t want to go somewhere in particular, they say there’s a ‘city ordinance’ against it; if a restaurant doesn’t want you sitting at a certain table, it’s a ‘city ordinance’.
However, Austin is considered the progressive oasis of Texas, with its proud slogan “Keep Austin Weird”. Austinites, as they’re known, pride themselves on being more liberal and less redneck than the rest of Texas. Lesser-known Austin slogans we found were: “It would be cool if you didn’t mess with Texas, man” and, “N-Word free since ‘93”.
Every part of Austin is used for gigs during SXSW: clubs, restaurants, car parks etc. Our big showcase gig was at The Velveeta Lounge, which is a renowned comedy club for the rest of the year. Whilst operating as a music venue, the patrons were required not to laugh at Johnny’s jokes (the venue owner later explained due to a city ordinance).
After SXSW wrapped up, we flew over to New York and did a couple of really fun gigs in Brooklyn. We stayed in Manhattan (like in the J-Lo movie Maid in Manhattan) and it even snowed one night (like in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York).
Finally, we stopped in to Los Angeles to do a showcase gig at the Viper Room on Sunset Strip. A ‘Showcase Gig’, for any budding bands out there, is basically like a regular gig, but where no one pays to get in, not many people show up and they leave as soon as the free drinks run out. To be honest, LA was a bit underwhelming. The best way I could describe it would be in the words of philosopher Cougar Jones – Like Hollywood on the Gold Coast, but in America.
Next stop – New Caledonia.