Tattooed Maoris, Tiger airways and the Coast of Gold

Rocco and the K over the Brisbane River

So one would think that a weekend in the Gold Coast as Melbourne winter has well and truly proven that it's not going anywhere for a while would be a good thing and a trip worth looking forward to. If only we'd known the dramas, near fights, hang-overs, expenses and dodgy riff raff we'd come across, I think we would have cut our losses, stayed home and turned on the heater for the weekend. Unfortunately, Captain Funk is still refining his psychic skills and failed to see the nightmare that the trip would become; so off we all set, with luggage in hands and the sun in our sights.
Night #1 involved catching up with my two favourite Brisbane men Andy and Elton and what was supposed to be a tour of all the most fabulous venues Brisbane has to offer. Unfortunately Elton and I got too noodled before Andy, Captain Funk and his lady rocked up and what ensured was a night in seedy pubs, smelly bars and diffusing fights between drunken bogans and our very own Captain Funk. Who would have thought he had it in him. None of us remember a lot, but we do have a couple of shots to prove we were there....


Now that's art!!!



Captain Funk, Andy and Elton make friends...awwww

Next day I awoke in Elton's lounge and the first thing I saw was a table full of toys... this could only be bad when combined with the hangover that was already showing signs of existence. Little Rocco was a bit weary of the thing that had taken over his play space and experienced what I imagine was his first taste of falling asleep alone and waking up with a chick on his carpet. He's only young, many more of those opportunities await him as he matures past 2. Anyway, we made tentative friends later and Elton and I worked our way through the 7 steps to hangover cure, choosing to spend that time, at a random school fete. Here's Rocco getting acquainted...




And since we're at the fete, you've got to check these out...







It seems that the quintessential difference between QLD community choirs and Melbourne community choirs is the colours they wear... the sound, I assure you, is very much the same.







The skipping kids who were more than happy to get all K'd up.

And so we leave Brisvegas and head for the coast, where things go from seedy to down-right dodgy. The show was awful and the crowd failed to laugh; even when the banana lounge I'd borrowed collapsed half way through the show and Captain Funk pulled out the greatest 1-liner I'd ever heard him mutter: 'banana split!' We were forced to head back to our hostel and make our plans for a memory-drowning night on the town.
Don't ask me how or more importantly why we ended up hanging out with a facially tattooed Maori called 'Choice' and his side-Kick 'Mick' who claimed to live in a penthouse, shag 5 chicks a week and get us any drug we so desired... but we did and what's worse, we ended up at Choice's house drinking beers and wondering what had led us to this point in our lives.
The next morning CF and his lady friend headed back to Brisbane to perform and I got my stuff together to fly home... that was until I discovered I was no longer in possession of my wallet. I had $10 key deposit to my name, no wallet, no mates and no real plan. After power-walking through re-traced steps with no sign of it re-appearing, I found myself amongst society's lowest of the lows in line at the police station. I was hoping to report the thing gone and that they'd help get me to the airport to catch my fast disappearing flight and also sort me out with some kind of ID, of which I was now significantly lacking...
The police woman gave me a business card with my name and a number on it and $20 from her own wallet and sent me back out into the increasingly scary world to deal with my nightmare. I convinced the backpacker who drove the shuttle bus at the backpackers to drive me to the airport for $30 and we were on our way...
I had no idea how far Coolangatta was, especially as my new dread-locked friend tried to talk to me about song writing whilst cruising his way down the highway at a very Rastafarian speed. We found the tiger terminal, 2 mins past check in time and I ran to the counter, flinging my bags on the conveyor belt and ...... at the lady my whole sordid tale up to that point. She merely smiled and continued with her paperwork and once I'd finished, smiled thinly at me and begun her much to be repeated phrase: 'I'm sorry but unfortunately there's nothing I can do'. She told me she not only wouldn't let me on the flight that was still half an hour from leaving, but that it would cost me $70 to catch the next one, even though she now knew I didn't have a wallet or any money to my name.
I began to panic and cry, of which I almost never do, tears usually don't come easily to me, but I think I used up about 2 year's quota in one day once it was all over. She told me to take a seat and she would attend to me in 30 minutes. I was so lost and upset that I just stood at the counter and cried, unable to move for a good 10 minutes. I eventually made my way to the plastic seats reserved for bored, frustrated, tired, hungry victims of Tiger Airways and cried my way through a phone call to my blessed brother who assured me he'd pay the $70 over the phone and all would be well again. Well, he too underestimated the cold-hearted inflexible policies of Tiger and I was made to cry, once again by the stony faced lady as she told me in a recorded message like tone that they don't accept credit card payments over the phone and unfortunately, there was nothing they could do.....
I picked up my extremely heavy bags, turned and walked away from her without saying bye... that showed her!
I found myself sitting on the bench outside, yes, crying... what can I say, its a running theme... and about to experience the kindness of strangers when a lady came over, listened to my sad tale and patted my back saying repeatedly, 'that's no good dear'. I asked her for a lift to the main terminal as I knew if I had to drag my suitcases (that I insist on being groovy vintage rather then ugly roller) all the way from the back blocks of Tiger to the main terminal my spirit would break to irreparable proportions. I walked into Virgin, the cute man at the counter let me on the next flight with the police business card as my ID and his sympathetic ear as my turning point. $300 later, i had myself what I had been fighting all day to have in my hand: a boarding pass. It was over an hour until take off. I was starving having not eaten all day and no money to rectify that, exhausted from 3 nights of almost no sleep and enough adrenalin pumped through my blood to keep an Olympic team running for a week and I was not letting go of that boarding pass. I put it in my bag for 1 minute, but panicked and grabbed it back out. I was like a first time traveller with their passport.
And when I saw the skyscrapers of Melbourne, I would have shed a tear had I any left for the city I had fought so hard to get to and my family who got me home and were waiting for me at a restaurant to celebrate mothers day and as it turns out, my return from the evil clutches of the Gold Coast.
As a result of this tour: I will never take my wallet out when planning on hanging out with dodgy types after bad shows, I will never take gigs with such slim profit margains and most importantly: I will never, ever fly Tiger Airways again and I strongly suggest, you don't either.

We heart Horsham

Our Biggest Fan!


Well as you can see, the fans went wild for Miss K and Captain Funk! Little Ella thought we rocked anyway....
No seriously, Horsham was... how can I put this diplomatically... an exciting challenge, a thrilling success, an exhausting experience, an eye-opener and a very steep learning curve. The town seems to weep a drought induced sadness that seeps from the empty shop doorways, the deserted streets and the half-full pubs of drunken gen y-ers, intent on drowning out their boredom and country town frustrations in cheep beer and multi-coloured shots.
The show went really well despite the mic not being on, the crowd more interested in their own comments than my dialogue and the distinct lack of comment from the women who booked us. My sexy merch chicks, Leanne and Uma managed to squeeze a good number of sales to the crowd and we filled our bellies with free champagne served without glasses in the kitchen after the show.
The Beautiful Town Hall

Captain Funk was well liked and I'm starting to get the feeling the next show is not so much Miss K but some kind of shared glory... oh how that's going to sting!
Anyway, we concluded very quickly that we had been accommodated in a detention centre disguised as a caravan park situated in the dust bowl 3 k's south of town and right on highway 1, at a point where the endless trucks begin the breaking process to bypass town, yay. I had a lot of time to think that night, because sleep I did not!
Me and mini Me

Day 2 was spent discussing every little move between the 4 of us and failing to see any of the art exhibitions that were supposed to be around. What arts festival???!!@
Gumpy and Uma rocked the Commercial Hotel on Saturday night despite the steady influx of county bogans and drunken wedding revellers trying to take over the stage. We ended up at the very funky house of the campest straight we've ever met drinking and laughing till the wee hours of the morning, with me avoiding indecent proposals from married men with open arrangements... Horsham eh! The drinking did something right though, when I hit the hey at 5am, I slept like a passed out baby! What trucks??!!!
Home via the long way and so tired I could have curled up in my own underpants for a kip. See ya next time Hor....sham!
Captain Funk

Bordertown of Bust!

As we drove off the highway, hungry, tired and hungover, it was hard to fathom that we were stopping off to do a cabaret show in no where land.
As we got further and further off Gumpy's dummy, whoops, I mean GPS and deeper into sheep country, it was becoming more difficult to fathom the cabaret thing by the second. When we drove over a massive brown snake (no injuries, it cleared between the wheels) we became downright frightened and I begged Gumpy to quickly put together a country and Western set or we were sure to be crucified...
But then relief came in the form of vineyards. As they built up, we convinced ourselves that with wine, comes highbrow intelligence and perhaps even full sets of teeth, and we were mostly right, except for Rosie, our sound chick, who we were not completely convinced was actually a chick.. but that's another story.
Anyway, we rocked up, were lead to the storage shed to change(thats me in the shed changing), met Rosie who was keen to tell us about her divorce to her ex husband (Gumpy wanted to ask what her name was) and scurry around us like a small dog trying to impress its owner. This was to be our first gig in the beer garden of a pub at 3 o clock in the afternoon, and I'm very surprised to report, we nailed it!
Of a population of 162, 56 came to the gig and they all seemed to love it. I felt queasy from no lunch, too much wine in Mylor and exhaustion kicking in, but faked it till I made it and found Gumpy's running around the 180 degree stage amusing enough to keep me going.
They cleaned me our of knickers and made a healthy dint in my stubby holder and singlet collection and sent us on our way back to Melbourne waving and calling out their gratitude to us for visiting their little town.
Home to Melbourne, arriving at the stroke of 11pm, weary, stinky, dirty, messy, dazed and slightly delirious. Tour over, a smiling success!
Thanks for following and see you when we hit Horsham in couple a weeks! Yay!

Mental Mylor

Where to start..... How about I summarise with the fact that the show went well, but the after-show antics went even better! Here are now a series of photos to illustrate my point. You know what they say, a picture speaks a thousand words!!!

What do you think... Miss K models in the making?

















Ta da!!!!
















Dawn stood in standing ovation at the end of the show... she then showed her appreciation all over again in her modelling of her brand new Miss K knickers.
















One does worry....


















Piano Bums





Well that's it for Adelaide. 3am and tucked into bed in preparation for tomorrow's show in BORDERTOWN!!! Stay tuned people...

The winery show

Now, just to clarify, for those of you that wondered where I'd mysteriously shipped my Mother off to in the last blog, she was actually still in Adelaide at the time, but I'd thought it better for both of us if i sent her off to stay in the hills with the oldies and left us youngies in town to do what we do best... drink.
So anyway, that was a few days ago and it is now Saturday, the morning after out winery show.. and what a show.. in fact, I'm going to break tradition and put in a second photo... this one shows Captain Funk (and I) squished into the disabled toilets and baby changing room that was our make-shift dressing room. We were in fits of giggles and slightly freaked out at the prospect of walking into the centre of the art gallery - come - restaurant where the people were happily eating and suddenly putting on a show. It felt a bit medieval jester. anyway, here's Gumpy:


The show turned out surprisingly well; I'd go as far as saying our best so far. I loved the sense of space and the staircase that I used like I was permanently singing 'hey big spender'. The modest older (what is it with Miss K and oldies??!!!) crowd absolutely loved it and said some very very nice things that we've both decided to take back home with us and drink a bottle of celebratory bottle of wine through along with an entire block of cheese! And so now I sit, with my stomach rumbling in anticipation of the massive fry-up Brian and Leonie are preparing in lieu of tonight's Mylor show. Last year, the hall was packed and my merchandise case was empty of undies by the end of the night so here's hoping for a similar outcome. Tomorrow we play our final and most anticipated of our shows..... Boardertown!!! If you don't here from me again, then I'd say a stray beer bottle got through the chicken wire and hit me in the head. It was do doubt meant to be a compliment from the toothless punter who had no idea what I was on about but liked my shoes but none the less, it killed the K and Captain Funk is now in hiding somewhere west of Horsham too traumatised by the experience to face coming home... so here's hoping anyway!

OK, so I know I've missed a few days and its too hard to summarise things now but I will say, I found myself lying on a fold-out couch in the kind-of lounge room of a collapsing old people's home. My mate Carlo and his 'cant-look-him-in-the-eyes-he's-so-dashingly-good-looking' flat mate live there and only them. There are something like 25 deserted empty rooms all in varying states of decay... I'm fairly certain most of them have other-world inhabitants and I'm quite terrified to venture too far past the door way in fear they may spiritually grab me by the wrist and make me sit down and have tea and stale cake whilst having to listen to their stories of war and knitting woes.
Anyway, where was I... I woke up, tired and under slept, hungry and hung-over. The sound of my snoring guitarist was coming from around the bar and the too-bright sunshine was beating down on me from the skylight above. I had to search my brain carefully to reconstruct the events of the previous night and it was at that moment, as I scrambled for water to relieve my parched mouth and a pillow to block my already glued together eyes (a result of not washing make-up off the night before)from the light, that I knew that I was really, definitely, on tour!
Parent count: zero!!!!

Who needs the prodigy when you have afternoon tea...

To illustrate the reoccurring theme of this tour, I shall share the story that was both the highlight and low light of my day...
I had a 3 o' clock with a man from Edinburgh fringe to pick his brain and find out how one gets their show over there and after a beer and more than one laugh between us, he invited me to join him and his husband (the Scots are a little more liberal and open-minded than us silly silly Aussies when it comes to gay marriage it seems) to a secret music festival with the prodigy headlining. I had to decline as i was due for afternoon tea with another friends parents....
Don't get me wrong, afternoon tea was lovely and we shared a magnificent bottle of bubbly while I learned in detail how a water bed is made... but The Prodigy??!!! I didn't even know they were still together! Something has to shift on this tour that involves a stronger influence of the younger generation and less of the oldies..
Parent count: 3 mums, 1 dad and 1 step dad, 0 music festivals = tucked in to bed safe and sound before midnight!
Opening night tomorrow... reviewers, judges, tour producers... first ever show with Gumpy, the new Captain Funk... nervous? What's there to be nervous about???!!!