Festivals, Rum and Razorblades!
- Mick Hughes
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
SUNNY COAST RUDE BOYS – WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO!
Crikey… a few big gigs since the last blog!
First up — two absolutely cracking nights with the mighty CHEAP FAKES at Miami Marketta (Gold Coast) and The Triffid (Brisbane). Proper good fun those gigs. You know the sort… sweaty dancefloors, people skankin’ with drinks flying everywhere, someone losing a shoe by song three. Standard cultural exchange.
Sunny Coast Rude Boys gigs at Miami Marketta has always got that vibe of “this will become a beautiful memory” And The Triffid? One of Australia’s best venues. Feels a bit posh for us if I’m honest. Every time we play there I feel like I really should stop saying “mate” every three seconds and learn what hummus actually is.
We’ve also been busy writing new original tunes — pushing further into our own Aussie Surf Ska sound. We’re calling it NEW TONE.
Yeah, you heard it.
Like 2Tone… but New Tone.
Before anyone says “that’s ridiculous”… remember someone once looked at a pork pie hat and thought “that’ll catch on.”
The tunes are sounding huge though. Still party ska, still a bit reggae, still rude as ever… but with our own strange little Sunny Coast flavour. Sort of like if The Specials got lost at Woodford Folk Festival and ended up drinking tinnies near a sausage sizzle.
Speaking of chaos…
We headlined PUNKFEST at The Brightside in Fortitude Valley recently — which was very funny considering we were probably the least punk band there. Everyone else looked like they’d genuinely fought security guards for breakfast and there’s us turning up with 8 piece brass section playing Surfy Ska & jumping around in white shirts & black ties!
Great night though. Absolute scenes.
We also had some mad 360-degree videography done for socials CHECK IT OUT HERE. Thanks Lachy! (# Somefx ) Apparently this is modern now. I don’t fully understand it. I watched one clip and nearly fell off the sofa trying to follow the trumpet player around with my phone like an elderly dad discovering VR technology.
Then May arrived… and so did festival season.
We kicked things off at Sublime Festival on the Friday night before heading straight into Camp For A Cure Festival on Saturday. Lovely crowds, lovely people, very little sleep. Exactly how festivals should be.
And because apparently our singer Mick refuses to experience exhaustion like a normal human being… he then went and played a THIRD festival at 'The Planting' at Woodford Folk Festival with his Irish band SÁSTA.
Three festivals in one weekend.
At this point we’re slightly concerned he’s being cloned in a laboratory somewhere near Nambour.
Now THIS next bit we’re very excited about…
We’ve been working tirelessly on a brand new collaboration with UK Ska heavyweights DEATH OF GUITAR POP called RUM & RAZORBLADES.
This one’s different.
Very different. Half recorded/filmed in London, half in Oz.
It tells the 1930s Sydney gangland story of Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh from the UNDERBELLY RAZOR era — all razor gangs, rum runners and backstreet chaos.
Think Peaky Blinders… but with more offbeats.
Big theatrical energy. Massive choruses. Gangsters. Dangerous women. Sharp suits. Questionable morals. Honestly it might be the most ambitious thing we’ve ever done and we cannot wait for you lot to hear it.
OUT SOON!
We’ve also been back in the studio recently for a full looooong day at Airlock Studio in Brisbane — famously owned by Aussie music royalty Ian Haug from Powderfinger/The Church.
Lovely studio. Very professional. CHECK IT OUT HERE
Always strange recording in places like that because you start the day thinking “today we make art” and end it six hours later arguing about tambourine volume while eating cold servo pies.
And finally…
Loads more gigs incoming!
We’re heading to:
Busy times ahead for Sunny Coast Rude Boys!
Thanks to everyone who keeps coming to shows, buying merch, streaming tunes and generally supporting this strange ska circus we’ve built together.
See ya down the front somewhere soon! Big Love
SCRB x
Comments