Monster Children’s SXSW Travel Diaries: A Week In Austin, TX
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All photography and notes by ya boi, Dougal Gorman.
Last week, we brought a bit of AUS to Aus(tin, Texas).
We flew two of our favourite Australian bands, dust, and The Belair Lip Bombs, to Austin to play a week’s worth of shows (especially and perhaps most importantly, the Monster Children SXSW Official Showcase Presented by Sonny’s Porch), dive into rivers, eat BBQ, take photos in the Walmart cereal aisle, and so much more, as part of a series that we call Travel Diaries made easy (extremely, like extraordinarily easy) by Up Banking.
Both of their first times playing in the States, their painfully long journey from Australia’s Eastern coast plopped them down in the heart of darkness: Texas, where they played something in excess of a dozen shows, consumed presumably five hundred thousand calories, and had the trip of a lifetime, sucking down Lone Stars and BBQ sauce along the way.
To catalog the madness and the cowboy boots, we sent one of our favorite photographers, Dougal Gorman, along to capture the madness and take notes, which you can read below:
I really don’t know where to start.
Travelling internationally for one week total is utter madness in itself, let alone into the heart of Austin, Texas, at its wildest time of the year, South By South West.
This was both bands first time stepping foot into the USA for a tour, talk about baptised by fire. More like baptised by flaming hot Cheetos, burgers, tacos, Twisted Teas, Texan BBQ and more Cheetos.
I can’t put my finger on the USA nor do I think I ever will be able to…it’s a untameable beast.
Half our time was spent carrying and Ubering music gear across Austin. But we totally nailed it. Except for that one incorrectly ordered Uber where 4 grown-ass men squeezed into the three backseats of a total shit box. Aside from that, nothing was lost, apart from precious sleep. The average bed time of this trip had to be easily 3am. Sorry mum!
Never eaten so much Mexican in our lives. Best deal found was three tacos for $10…to which I are three nights in a row. No complaints.
The best night of the trip was easily the MC showcase. Both bands were seriously hyped to play and hang around some of their favourite bands. An uncountable amount of Lone Stars were drank and both Belair Lip Bombs and dust played their best sets of the entire trip to a packed out room.
The high energy continued late into the night and back to the air bnb where we all drank and snacked on Cheez-Its, Cheetos, Doritos and salsa…to which all appeared to have the same radioactive orange glow about them. Yummy.
'Breakfasts' were usually around 12pm and consisted of black coffee, Hydralytes, Panadols and eventually bananas which one of us was assed enough to buy the house some communal fruit. It’s truly difficult to eat healthy on these short sharp tours, especially in the U-S-OF-A. I just realised I keep talking about food, sorry.
Come Friday and Saturday night, Austin was a proper zoo. 6th street and it’s surrounds was people-watching heaven and a total sensory overload. Want-to-be rap stars, snake charmers, club promoters, policeman, protestors, preachers, you name it, they were all on the streets of Austin. We honestly couldn’t keep our jaws off the floor and tried our best not to stare at people.
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