Blog
For the final chapter our Kaleide record, I (Katie) travelled to Upstate New York to collaborate with film-maker Ashley Connor. Together we made a video for the song ‘Tiny Heist’ using hand-made visual effects, fireworks from across state lines and this premise;
“Young women in Upstate New York conjure up the spirits of an old whaling town. Lost in time, surrounded by the Hudson River and overtaken by winter, they leave their souls to chance, propagating small victories to stoke the momentum of their journey. All change ’til snow melt, all change ’til the thaw.”
TINY HEIST
Directed by Ashley Connor
Music by Sky Larkin
Featuring Katie Harkin and Matt Charland
Assistant: Zia Anger
Special thanks: Melissa Auf Der Maur, Tony Stone, Mike Adams, Ed O’Brien and Matt Charland
It’s been a productive hibernation and the wheels are turning for new Sky Larkin sounds in 2012, we owe you a more in-depth catch-up but for now here’s some tidbits about how we’ve been hiding in plain sight….
I spent over a hundred shows playing keyboards on stage with Wild Beasts in 24 countries in 2011, very happy occurrences which you may read more about here and have a look into here
I met Patrick Wolf by complete chance in a car park and ended up singing on his beautiful album Lupercalia (released in June ‘11) that afternoon, what luck. I also composed sounds for animated columns to dance to for British artist Helen Marten’s ‘Dust and Piranhas’ piece for the Serpentine Gallery Pavillion.
As well as shaking up the world of literary academia, Nestor toured the UK and Europe drumming for local hero Napoleon IIIrd (he and I both played on Napoleon’s tremendous record ‘Christiania’) as well tour managing fellow Brits Young Legionnaire, Star Slinger and Johnny Foreigner all over the place. There’s no keeping us from the road.
Napoleon IIIrd flickr link –
Jofo/YNGLGNNR flickr link
Keep warm, we’ll be back after the thaw, and thank you as ever for lending your ears.
Katie
x
Hello everyone,
our hibernation and gestation period is over. This August, our second record ‘Kaleide’ will be released via Wichita Recordings worldwide. It feels so good to finally be able to let you know!
In March we returned to Seattle (where we made The Golden Spike) to the same man (John Goodmanson) but to a different room with equally strong coffee on offer. The studio was pretty far out of town, with few distractions in easy reach and the experience was intense and immersive. And fun.
We’ve grown all sorts of new muscles and I only nearly fainted once (too many coffees, not enough water).We will be announcing full details of the album soon, but for now we offer you a FREE three track EP for download (see front page).
The EP contains;
KALEIDE (album title track)
SPOOKTACULAR (demo version)
MATADOR (acoustic)
Spooktacular and Matador Acoustic were both recorded in the Crypt of a Victorian church in Yorkshire, which was our second home in between touring over the last year. Spooktacular is one of the many demos we recorded in the belly of The Crypt and a full version of the song features on the new record.
In addition, I can happily reveal that art for the record has been created by illustrator Jack Hudson. The collaboration with him to turn our songs into hard format has been an exciting process. We will also soon be inviting you to generate content to an ongoing, online version of the album artwork project so that we can entertain your eyes as well as your ears.
We hope you enjoy this EP, pass the word on and if you are in any of the following places, see you soon!
Katie, Doug and Nest x
May
14th Brighton, The Great Escape Festival (LIFE venue)
21st London, Stag & Dagger Festival (Old Blue Last venue)
22nd Glasgow, Stag & Dagger Festival (Nice N Sleazy venue)
27th New Cross, Amersham Arms
July
15th London, The Garage (Wichita Recordings 10th anniversary show w/ The Cribs)
August
19th Edinburgh, Sneaky Petes (Edinburgh Fringe Festival show w/ Frankie & The Heartstrings)
Part three from Seattle, our dear ol’ buddy Michael (the man behind the brilliant band Telekinesis) took us on a magical mystical tour of Seattle. Whaddaguy!
Music by Telekinesis (Michael Benjamin Lerner), video cobbled together by Katie.
http://www.myspace.com/telekinesismusic
http://telekinesismusic.com/
HAPPY NEW YEAR
As we welcome ten we owe nine a few words.
(ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE BE WARNED: THIS IS A REALLY LONG BLOG…BUT A YEAR IS A LONG TIME)
We realise that today is the 20th of January and more organised types write these things in November, but we’ve been busy for a good reason. Trust.
But we couldn’t just leave things unwritten as thanks to many people, we did a lot of living last year.
Thanks to everyone that invested in us in whatever capacity, it’s been a pleasure to recall the countless way we’ve met kindness this year.
Additionally we’d also like to extend non-thanks to
- Katie’s wisdom teeth.
- An RV rental company that doesn’t accept cash and left us stranded (you fuckers).
-The Noro Virus (that was 2008 but we’re still bitter about it).
-That guy in Edinburgh.
-Traffic.
But I must stress they were all tiny little flies in the ointment at best.
We’ve selected a few choice cuts of 2009, in no logical order. Here goes…
- Firstly, foremostly and most shit-our-pants excitedly; our debut album was released on Wichita Recordings. We had a party at the ever-awesome Brudenell Social Club in Leeds to celebrate.
- Huw Stephens put his name to our album release UK tour, with support by the ever-able party-equines Pulled Apart By Horses.
- We went on our first headline tour of Europe, taking pals Johnny Foreigner along for the ride.
- Our hire van broke down 90mins into said tour.
- We went to IKEA in actual Sweden and had actual Swedish (well, IKEA) meatballs.
- We ran out of gas in the desert in Utah and got saved by a Mormon called Phil
- We saw a man poo in the street in Oslo. Later that night a man asked if he could watch Nestor pee.
- We hid from Hells Angels in Copenhagen with Metronomy.
- We kept the habit of a lifetime and went on tour with Los Campesinos for the fourth time (around North America).
- We accidentally found the most powerful t-shirt shop ever in Aldershot, UK.
-We played the largest UK venue in Larkin gig history, Brixton Academy supporting The Cribs.
-A man in New York paid Katie $20 to play the saddest song she knew.
-We kept the habit of a lifetime and went on tour with Los Campesinos! for the fifth time (around the UK with The Cribs, and for one night only, The Slits).
-We played glow in the dark mini golf near Niagara Falls. Oh and we saw Niagara Falls.
-Nestor broke a cymbal clean in half in the pouring rain at Latitude Festival.
-We started a new habit and went on tour around North America with Peggy Sue (now official label mates).
-Our American tour manager Ben drank every brand of energy drink under the sun, including a Californian one formulated for women called “Go Girl!”
-Christoph in Germany made a Lego version of our album cover!
-We met Adam Buxton AND Newton Faulkner AT THE SAME TIME.
-We squatted in the corridor of a hostel in New York for about 14 hours when we got screwed by an RV rental company. With all our gear.
-We played with Los Campesinos! in Portland on Katie’s birthday and went to a vintage video games arcade bar afterwards, pleasingly called ‘Barcade”.
- We lost our dignity at a Nu-metal clubnight in Aberdeen with Copy Haho.
- We visited the real life Golden Spike in Utah. Ranger Ken, the gift shop lady and us were the only people for miles around.
- Inbetween touring, in order to make new noise we took up residency to in the crypt of a Victorian church in Yorkshire (the church is mentioned in a Bronte novel apparently, literature detectives.)
-We went to LA, home of the beautiful people, and got very muddy. (This is a bucket of Hollywood grade mud.)
-We hung out with Nardwuar the Human Serviette in vancouverbritishcolumbiacanada thanks to twitter!
-We drove (and just about survived) the beautiful highway 101 with Peggy Sue. Only 1/3 of us was sick down the side of the RV on the windy roads.
-We stopped off along the 101 to hang out with these seals.
-We played the zombified cast of ER for Halloween in Chicago with Peggy Sue
-We completed the triple crown at La Botanique in Belgium when we headlined the small room (having played the middle room with Los Campesinos! and the large room with Conor Oberst).
-We played the court house of a small town in Ohio and had to wait for traffic court to finish so we could soundcheck.
Joe and his family in Ohio adopted us, ran our merch stand and fed us superman birthday cake.
-We snuck into a Nintendo party in New York and ate all their tiny food.
-Due to a broken card reader, we got locked outside our hotel in deepest darkest France at early o’clock, the whole time being serenaded by a troupe of Spanish folkers who were also stuck.
-Denise Van Outen and Richard Hammond were outside our gig in Tunbridge Wells (shooting the Morrisons Christmas ad).
-At the end of The Cribs tour we all went to a karaoke bar in Edinburgh, Neil Campesinos! made a convincing Beastie Boy and Gareth Campesinos! sang a Beautiful South song. One of Copy Haho got thrown out.
-We had to drive directly through protesting racists to get to our gig on John Peel day in Manchester. The event was well attended despite the hostile mood of the city that day, thanks again to everyone that made it.
-We recorded a single in a day (the free download ‘Smarts’) in Wales in a room once used by Black Sabbath. Apparently there’s pentagrams drawn on the walls by Ozzy under the soundproofing \m/
- We played a festival on a cliff in Cornwall and got to look out to sea whilst playing. Dreamy.
- Mike of Mechanical Owl drove us around some European festivals and we invented Gin-cendiaries and Rum Grenades. Tasty. Dangerous. (Here is a photo of Mike unable to comprehend the sheer awesome-osity of the Channel Tunnel).
- We played the Wichita showcase at SXSW and Katie threw up.
And at the end of the year, this happened
Ta itunes!
Plus lots and lots and lots and lots of driving.
We ended the year with a New Years Eve gig at Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds, messy messy good times.
ta very much, there’s more pictures of us in various stages of undress from 2009 at http://myspace.com/skylarkinskylarkin if you need more evidence.
we are lucky sods and hope to have even more fun with you all in 2010.
pretty massive news soon this way comes
Katie, Nestor and Doug
x
season’s greetings,
I (Katie) sing on this charity Christmas single, penned by the band Hunks and performed by an assortment of musicians (from British bands and beyond). All proceeds go to the RSPCA so please download it, the critters of Britain will thank you. It’s a fun crimbo ditty, raging only against scrooges. And remember, in the words of my all-time-favourite-christmas-movie ‘it is the summer of the soul in December’.
click on your preferred digital outlet;
iTunes
Amazon
Play.com
Emusic
check out http://awesomeatchristmas.wordpress.com/ for a buffet of festive treats – including the full list of contributors , the accompanying music video (also starring Pulled Apart By Horses and my cat Sammy), a spotify playlist of favourite christmas songs chosen by featured musicians (I couldn’t decide and picked four) and more as yuletide progresses.
oh and the cover (at the top of the page), is by the ever-splendid Sparky Deathcap.
stay warm, and drive safe, there’s no business like snow business.
kxx
we played a show for xbox and they done put us inside the machine!
On a scale of 1-rad this is pretty much a 9 (-1 for how excited I got about it. nerd.)
Right, I’m off to buy Left for Dead 2, awesome.
nx
festive news everyone- (almost) all cd albums in the wichita online shop are £5 in the xmas sale.
crimbo prezzie bargains a plenty, plus you also get the added warm
fuzzy feeling that comes with buying directly from an independent
record label. mmmm.
http://www.wichita-recordings.com/shop/music/albums.html
includes
The Cribs, Espers, Simian Mobile Disco, Peter Bjorn and John, Conor
Oberst, Those Dancing Days, The Dodos, Bloc Party, The Bronx, Yeah Yeah
Yeahs (Master EP), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Los Campesinos!, Sky
Larkin and more.
enjoy!
we’ve got our thermals ready and are headed back into the crypt. thank you to everyone who made our london show this week so special, we’ll surface with new noises soon we promise. see you on our final jaunt of the year with Los Campesinos and The Cribs. Wichita-tastic.
stay warm
katie
xx
THANK YOU to all the lovely folks we met whilst on tour in America with Peggy Sue.
Huge gratitude to all- whether you came to a gig, lent us an amp, turned a blind eye to seven people showering in one hotel room, brought us unpronounceable shots mid-set, fed us Superman cake or did anything else that contributed to a wonderful tour.
It was also our first experience of touring in such close quarters with another band so it was doubly fortunate that we got on so well with Peggy Sue. They’re a great live band and I’m so excited to hear their album it borders on giddy. Sickening eh? Well if I’m Lyin’, I’m Dyin’. It was amazing fun rambling around the continent as a duo of power trios, so thanks to all that enabled that to happen.
Huge props also to our tour managers Ben and Scuba Steve. There were some truly heroic drives on this tour, and we only ended up teetering on an incline beside railroad tracks by a pile of bones picked clean by a mountain lion in the middle of the night that one time. No photos of that event exist (but I SWEAR every word of the story is true), but here are some snaps from the last night of tour- our first experience of American Halloween in Chicago.
We parked outside Wrigley Field and pretended to be in Vieuphoria for a little while…
…hung out with Superdog…
…wandered the streets of Chicago enjoying Halloween houses…
…and made our way to our venue (The Whistler) where one of the barman greeted us dressed as LARRY DAVID
The doorman;
BILLY MAYS
Tour managing us had however taken its toll on Ben
A few days earlier we found a large selection of hospital scrubs in a Salvation Army in Ann Arbor, so we decided to honour Chicago and perform as the zombie Cast of ER. Pumpkins were carved and dutifully smashed and how we ever made the 7am check-in for our flight home I’ll never know. We have some exciting news as to how we’ll finish the year that will be revealed soon, until then, THANKS AGAIN Y’ALL
katie, Dr Matthews and Dr Adams
x
Aloha,
I am currently stealing the internets in the lobby of a Hilton in Canada, the RV is parked outside and we have invaded like a plague of unshowered musical locusts. Shhh.
We played one of the loveliest gigs of our lives in Ohio the night before last, we were taken in by the amazing Austin family who fed us pasta and Superman cake (for Nestor’s 22nd birthday). We piled back into the RV and then woke up at Niagara Falls to continue celebrating with the power combo of astounding natural beauty and glow-in-the-dark mini-golf (many thanks to our driver Steve for the night-time miles). Many words about this tour will come soon, but now we must push on to the dear people of Toronto, so for now here’s some photos…
katie (and the gang)
xx
PS THANKS JOE!!
Hello world,
It’s a fine day indeed for all involved when we can finally unveil a beautiful set of American and Canadian tour dates for us, supported, and supporting (alternatively) Peggy Sue
We’ve been racking our brains trying to think of a heeeelarious pun for the name of the tour, following on from our personal best “Losky Camperlarkinos!” (our first tour ever, with Los Camp! and we all know how long ago that was).
So far we’ve got as far as Peggy Sue.S.A. If you’ve got any ideas then let us know.
Here are the dates as they stand, with more dates to add hopefully, particularly on the East Coast.
(Boston anyone?)
I actually can’t wait for these, especially the Chicago show – last show of tour, and all of our first experience of Halloween, US style. Costumes will be made on our side, so let’s see some from you as well yeah?
14 Oct | KCRW presents @ Spaceland, Los Angeles, California
16 Oct | Hemlock, San Fransisco, California
17 Oct | TBC, Seattle, Washington
18 Oct | Neptoon Records Instore, Vancouver
18 Oct | Pub 340, Vancouver
21 Oct | Sidewalk Cafe, New York, New York
28 Oct | Cameron House, Toronto, Ontario
30 Oct | Painted Lady Detroit, Michigan
31 Oct | Halloween Party@ The Whistler, Chicago, Illinois
Here’s some video of Peggy Sue in action.
AMAZING scenes.
Byyyyee,
Love Doug.
Our amps have been on holiday and they sent us some pictures;
Ok, so that isn’t technically true. Those beauties are from the 1968 Fender Musical Instruments catalogue, but don’t they look like they’re having a nice time? Amps deserve a holiday too.
We’re taking our holiday time at home to enjoy un-restricted legroom, familiar faces and regular mattresses. Though we do miss the road and as always root beer is never far from my mind.
We have also been spawning new compositions, most of which are pretty untamed at the moment, but there are a couple we may be able to coax into making an appearance at our Lexington show on the 24th of July…or maybe a festival or two if we’re feeling brave.
keep on rockin’ in the free world
katie
x
Greetings and Salutations,
Yesterday we larks descended into a crypt for some demo-lition.
Exactly what we did and why shall have to remain a veiled secret for a few more days, but we’ll HAPPILY be releasing the tricks from our sleeves soon…
The crypt is a space normally used by some musician pals of ours in a secret location in Yorkshire, they have kindly let us creep in to get some new ideas together. The previous occupant was a Sunday School so there are plenty of children’s handprints and mildly terrifying murals to keep us on our toes. Oh and the founder of the church is entombed in an alcove about four feet behind Nestor’s drum stool.
Today’s soundtrack was unfortunately a little less enjoyable, as it most memorably consisted of the unholy crack of a wisdom tooth being removed from my dental ensemble. Ouch.
Didn’t realise I was drooling blood until I was halfway down The Headrow in Leeds, god bless local anaesthetic.
I have been looking through the recent larkin archives (lark-ives?) to distract myself from both the pain and my hamster-cheeked appearance. The strange fruits of this labour can be viewed below. Enjoy this hastily (and woozily) assembled collection of visual Life Scraps from the last few months. It also includes a glimpes of our cryptology…
katie x
Greetings and Salutations,
We larks have returned to roost and the charity shops of Leeds are currently composed entirely of my old belongings (being on tour for 6 months has taught me to haemorrage).
Our newest news has a rather fetching leafy tinge to it; we can happy to announce we are playing two festivals in rather green and pleasant corners of the UK.
Firstly, we are returning to Latitude Festival (thanks to BBC Introducing for having us last year!) which is set in leafy Suffolk. It has a nice lake and free gondola rides and Grace Jones is playing. Neat-o.
This time we shall be appearing in the Sunrise Arena on Sunday, click the logo for more info/line-up/tickets/etc…
Secondly, we have been asked to headline the lovely Fell Foot sound which is “set in a beautiful woodland glade overlooking Lake Windermere, with excellent camping areas, lighting, running water, good toilet facilities, and homemade food.” Plus it’s only 22 quid for three days and our awesome pals Copy Haho are playing so it’s gonna be ball.
click click click:
come on down, it’ll be tree-mendous
(SORRY)
katie x
y’all!
Our Great Escape Festival show shall commence 8:00pm at The Honeyclub
on Saturday, we are sharing a bill with old pals JoFo and lovely scots Idlewild as part of the Drowned in Sound showcase. Huzzah!
dear sun, please shine
kx
greetings and salutations,
the antibodies tapes have now been birthed! I hope your tapedecks are smiling. There are now some snaps of the making of the video in our gallery for you to have a gander at
aaaalso, the itunes bundle of Bloc Party’s Intimacy Remixed includes a Sky Larkin version of Ion Square, its a quiet little number recorded in LDN.
http://www.blocparty.net/blogparty.html
bonza!
1. Ares (Villains Remix)
2. Mercury (Herve is in Disarray Mix)
3. Halo (We Have Band Dub)
4. Biko (Mogwai Remix)
5. Trojan Horse (John B Remix)
6. Signs (Armand Van Helden Remix)
7. One Month Off (Filthy Dukes Remix)
8. Zephyrus (Phase One Remix)
9. Talons (Phones R.I.P Mix)
10. Better Than Heaven (No Age Remix)
11. Ion Square (Banjo Or Freakout Remix)
12. Letter To My Son (Gold Panda Remix)
13. Your Visits Are Getting Shorter (Double D Remix)
14. Ion Square (Sky Larkin Remix) ** iTunes ONLY
15. Ares (Foals Remix) ** iTunes ONLY
we’re experiencing the first stretch of non-locomotion in four months and slowly rebuilding our bodies; nestor is regrowing the skin on his hands, I’m letting the bruises on my legs evaporate and douglas is getting a haircut.
We’re also PLOTTING hard, and our sleeves have plenty of inhabitants up them.
BUT have no fear, we are not falling off the face of the planet, we’ll see thee at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton this Saturday. and then at more festivals that we’re not supposed to tell you about yet….
smell you later
katie x
HELLLO world, it’s been a while, huh?
We’ve been a bit busy, being jet lagged, getting chest infections and being supportive to very drunk boys who get thrown out of our shows and lose their friends.
We’re currently on tour with the rakes, although we missed Glasgow and Newcastle because of Katie/Tiny-Tim’s chest (phwoar!) infection (oh), but we have some of our own dates coming up, Like…
30th April, Fibbers, York
1st May, Sub Club (for Hinterland), Glasgow
2nd May, Cockpit (for Live at Leeds), Leeds (Just after Fight Like Apes. PARTY)
3rd May, The Victoria, Birmingham (all dayer with Sunset Cinema Club!)
5th May, Academy 2, Dublin
6th May, Aunt Annies, Belfast
8th May, The Farmhouse, Canterbury
16th May, Great Escape, Brighton
23rd May, Korova (if it’s actually been opened again) (for sound city), Liverpool
Fibbers is our first yorkshire show for a while, and I don’t think we’ve ever played there, so come down and make it a memorable one (just not for the wrong reasons).
tickets are available from all the usual places.
And so, onto this “Exciting Opportunity”.
We’re wanting people to ask us some questions. That’s it. ANYTHING goes, literally, we just get bored when we’re not on tour, and when we’re on tour you get a bit bored of speaking to the same people every day so come on, spice up our lives.
I’ve got an iron constitution so don’t be shy, send them over to
skylarkinanswers@gmail.com
or our myspace / twitter / facebook
If you want an individual answer (Katie and Nestor know about art, I know about music technology and cooking) then just stick one of our names in the subject line.
We’ll strive to answer every question, but none about African fortunes or bigger penises.
Please note: THE BEST QUESTION WINS A PRIZE. Probably some goodies and a copy of each of the three versions of the antibodies cassette, with 3 individual covers drawn by Jack Hudson. You should see them, they’re sexy. This is even more insentive for those of you outside the UK, because we’ll post the tapes to you for free and everything, and I don’t think they’ll be available in stores anywhere else.
if you need any tips I recommend one of my favourite sites EVER answers.yahoo.com
see here
I’ll blog about the states at some point, maybe when these next few weeks are over and I have 13 hours on a plane to Singapore to contend with.
Finally, this is what I’ve been feeling like for the last week or so
Please, please, no questions about Susan Boyle
BYEE,
Douglas x
website / myspace / last.fm / facebook / flickr / mail / twitter
WOOP WOOP, The Golden Spike came out in the US today, and we’re nearly done with our tour here – TWO dates left. boo.
So to celebrate the release you can now listen to the whole thing on last.fm, which is a far superior site to a certain news corp owned one.
Just click below. DELISH.
Doug
x
we got it www.twitter.com/weareskylarkin
LA beware, my pale northern english legs are coming to cali. I may spontaneously combust. I’m as white as ET when he was face down in that ditch, perhaps Drew Barrymore will be compelled to save me. See you soon west coast!
katie
x
x
oh PS, the last time we went to heathrow this happened…ew
Word, so, thanks to the magic of National Express East Coast Mainline trains I can now blog about anything and everything from the comfort of my £85 train seat (‘SAVER’??) including…
Europe
Europe was awesome, amazing and great. Alexei JoFo wasn’t as smelly as Nestor and besides, we had a MASSIVE van so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Thanks to the hire company and their VTBD (Vans that break down) we got upgraded from the cheapest van to the most expensive, for FREE.
Serious, we’re talking Playstation 2 (Burnout Revenge), Movie Hard Drive, Light Switches, Airline Seats, cleanliness… basically, far more than we deserved. Who knows how the tour would’ve turned out if we’d stayed in the original van, or, god forbid, our own van, luckily the only problem was trying to find room for the crates and crates and crates and crates of amazing German/Belgian/Swiss beer that we stole from the rider each night.
So we did a few shows round and about, Hamburg was amazing, and as the red light district is all we’ve seen of the city I think it is known for Dildos and skull and crossbones flags. Although I’ve been informed that “der’s more to hamburg dan dis”. Party town though anyway.
Koln was awesome as well, we got there the day after Karnival so I think the whole city was hungover, we stayed at the same hostel as last time – now missing a polystyrene sheep that Drake kicked the head off last time (we did not mention this to the staff).
Where else…
Schorndorff, surprisingly good, I got shouted at by a teenager because he felt I was being mean by not giving him MY beer off the stage because “you have loads of fucking beer, and we have to buy it”. He caught up with me later on and offered his and his friends services as a headline band as we’d finished early, but then they got asked to leave so it was alright. Could’ve been awesome though.
Berlin was incredible as always, we had a day off so we went to checkpoint charlie and then the obligatory trip to white trash wherewe had the best waiter ever (seriously, I was in awe of his customer service skills) and I drank a lot of Vodka Tonic. Then Scandinavia.
Scandinavia, jesus christ… a long drive from Berlin to the ferry, then the ferry VERY early in the morning up to Malmo(ish) then to Copenhagen. Where we entered a gangland war, apparently. It was completely safe according to the hotel, but we played a street away from where a man had been shot by Hell’s Angels the night before. Needless to say there was lots of running around pretending to be in Full Metal Jacket and lots of “stop fucking about, we could get shot” from the more ’sensible’ members of the touring party.
Then to Norway, where I missed a man shitting in the street. Everyone else saw him. boo. This carries a substantial fine in Oslo apparently, as the people are usually quite reserved so this man must’ve been a super-tramp.
Stockholm, ahhh, stockholm, how I missed you.. I only got to see about 100 sqm of it, but it’s a nice little bit. Got to watch/hang out with wintersleep again, quality guys, quality band. I got a copy of the Jeniferever album from Jeniferever (I don’t think this counts as a name drop because we have the same tour manager), I’m yet to listen to it though and I definitely did NOT give it to anyone else to rip.
And then we flew home, well… nearly home. FIRST “Being late for our Visa Interview”
In a bizarre twist of fate involving the most organised member of the band somehow sleeping through his alarm, and me having so much faith in him to be this organised and thus, not book a wake up call myself or anything (in hindsight, probably a bit short sighted considering the importance of being on time) we managed to wake up at 8am. We were supposed to be at the US embassy at 7:30. Shit.
Katie had opted to stay with a friend and so was not a part of the whole debacle.
An official apology is required here to our amazing, wonderful managers who we nearly gave a heart attack this morning. Anna, Gareth, I’m very sorry.
But we got there, and it was fine, and a bit scary, but we got done and now we’re heading back to Leeds, for 3 days of going to the Brudenell and eating Pasta.
Oh, why do we need said Visas? Not just because of SXSW but because of the MASSIVE US TOUR WE’RE GOING ON IN APRIL OMG LMFAO FML ETC
The routing’s below, the venues and shit’ll be up at somepoint, I’m getting too hot to type here, sat by the window. Stupid britain and it’s Hot weather. In Norway the SEA was frozen.
View Larger Map
That is all for now, I’m sure there’ll be a better written blog to come from Nestor or Katie, but for now I’ll leave you with this thought.
These are my hands.
Love you, BYEE.
Douglas
Taking time out last week dear Nestor sent this over to Sky Larkin HQ.
Gutentag from Köln, Germany! We’ve just had a much deserved day off in this fair city after an eventful and action-packed first third of our European stint…
I’ll start at the beginning shall I? Well, as you may know, we said good bye to Horse in Birmingham so we could take everyone’s favourite Johnny Foreigner with us and all clambered into another van to start the tour in earnest!
I think we made it about 90 minutes down the M25 before things took an unexpected turn for the worse. With an “uh-oh” from Lea (our driver and stage tech and saviour) the engine puttered to a stop and we rolled gracefully to a halt on the hard shoulder. To cut a long and uneventful two hours short, we ended up hanging out by an abandoned (and almost certainlz haunted) Cuban restaurant before being taken to our hotel for the night by a very bewildered taxi driver.
We were met here a few hours later by our knight in shining armour, otherwise known as the van we are currently driving around Europe in that is as yet unnamed (any ideas would be very much welcome!). So without further ado, we set off for Dover and a lovely morning view of the White Cliffs before we hit Calais and cruised on over to Amsterdam and the Paradiso where we’ve never played before but had heard many good things, so it was great to finally get inside! As a little treat and by the power of the internet I believe you can watch some snippets of the show right here http://www.fabchannel.com/sky_larkin_concert/.
After that it was on to gay Paris and Le Fleche D’or, another venue hallowed by those we know but somewhere we had never visited. The venue used to be an old tran station and is situated literallz above the tracks which makes for some pretty spectacular views out of the windows… Oh and the gig was great too!
Then it was on to more familiar territory wth another trip to Le Botanique in Brussels, Belgium. We played there in the Orangerie with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band back in September 2008 and then in the Rotunde with Los Campesinos! and Lovvers in November so it was great to come back and take in the lovely gardens again despite the chily breeze. That nights venue was the Witloof Bar which is actually in the basement, which as Katie pointed out made the gig feel like some kind of clandestine operation, still awesome fun, but awesome fun in secret. Shhhhhhh.
Which brings me to last night in Köln at Gebaude 9, which is an amazing warehouse with the most powerful bass bins that we’ve ever felt on stage. My drums we’re actually wobbling about with the sub sound!I It was great to see some familiar faces from our last time in Köln at Luxor, its great to know we made an impression, and makes us even more excited to get back onto the road.
Righto, my food is here and I am a hungry, hungry hippo so I’m signing off. There’ll be more banter from us and hopefully some pictures very soon.
loveyoubyeeeeeeeee!
n x
Hallo Deutschland!
In der Vergangenheit haben wir bisher leider immer nur sehr kurze Abstecher nach Deutschland gemacht.
Ab Mittwoch sind wir aber endlich
für 5 Headlingshows zurück und können es kaum erwarten.
Auf meiner To-Do-Liste stehen u.a. das White Trash in Berlin (ein Muss!), in München dazu kommen, einen Döner zu essen und in Köln in die Bar zu gehen, in der Neil Los Campesinos, Lovvers und ich, beim letzten Mal den Barkeeper dazu genötigt haben, Pop-Punk (vorallem Punk-O-Rama 4 und 5) zu spielen.
Johnny Foreigner – momentan meine absolute lieblings Live-Band, wobei ich aber Dananananakroyd leider noch nicht live gesehen habe..) werden uns auf der gesamten Europa-Tour begleiten.
Wir werden Limited Editions und Vinyls unseres Albums, die neuen T-Shirts und Buttons, sowie RIESIGE auf Leinen gedruckte Tourplakate im Gepäck haben.
Unsere Tourdaten findet Ihr weiter unten. Tickets gibt es bei eventim, ticketmaster (ehemals Kartenhaus), sowie an allen lokalen Vorverkaufsstellen.
Ein herzliches Dankeschön geht an unsere Freunde von WhiteTapes. de für das Übersetzen dieser kleinen Nachricht.
Wir freuen uns darauf Euch nächste Woche zu sehen!
Doug
25 Feb 2009 20:00
Gebäude 9 Köln
27 Feb 2009 20:00
Molotow Hamburg
28 Feb 2009 20:00
Manufaktur Schorndorf
1 Mar 2009 20:00
Ampere München
3 Mar 2009 20:00
Magnet Berlin
(Danke whitetapes. de für den Übersetzung)
Sky Larkin on Twitter
- "@SkyNews: New Banksy Graffiti Appears On London Street http://t.co/JvX44w4d" Shame somebody will probably rip it out and sell it
- @TheJ_Russ instantly 10x cooler now that I know you like explosions in the sky
- @Rmc_Donnell @BBCNews @ShayGormley sky sports says sacked????lol
- Watch the Sky (Audio CD): "Traveling alone is a wonderful thing," sings Patty Larkin on her first album of origi... http://t.co/tFOjEs7u
- im still fly, im sky high and I dare anybody to try and cut my wings
- #NowPlaying: Antiboidies by Sky Larkin #NP
- Sky Larkin - I Was A Teenage Hand Model http://t.co/hi9XSsJQ
- RT @weareskylarkin: Remember when @dreamtrak made us sound like Kylie? http://t.co/mlQINHmg #dreamweaver Kx
- RT @weareskylarkin: Remember when @dreamtrak made us sound like Kylie? http://t.co/mlQINHmg #dreamweaver Kx
- Remember when @dreamtrak made us sound like Kylie? http://t.co/mlQINHmg #dreamweaver Kx
