Sleeping in the van.
Editor's note: As she has in years past, Kalyn Heffernan from Wheelchair Sports Camp will be sending us dispatches from the band's trip to Austin for SXSW. She sent her first report, which you see here, Wednesday afternoon, before a drunk driver crashed into a crowd of pedestrians outside Mohawk.
Kalyn here, from the notorious Sports Camp crew, checking in with y'all about our journey back to SXSW. Blogging about this annual trip has been one of my favorite parts if the journey. As some of you may remember, we made our first trip to the Terrordome in 2011 with B.Dolan -- who we had never met until we met up with him in Albuquerque to play a show at a teen center. From there we went to Denton, TX and had one of the best shows ever. High on adrenaline, booze and weed, we took our hype to the streets and scribbled some dumb shit around town with spray paint.
The cats who we were staying with called the cops on us. We almost got away, but the 5-0 caught up with us on the highway, and of course we all had Denver weed on us. Five folks went to jail, my girl did two nights in jail (search Jennah Black on google images), and me....? Yeah I got off like always. No jail time, even though I had spray paint all over my chair.
The super rude female officer was like "Look, just cus you're in a wheelchair don't think I won't put you in jail"
Me: "Um excuse me!?? How dare you!"
Cop after arresting everyone in my car: "the only reason your not being arrested is because I don't want to wait for an ambulance"
...and so the saga continues.
I only knew B.Dolan for two days and already need him to bail us out. Like the good lad that he is, he cancelled his show the next night and stayed back in Denton to make make sure we were out in time for SXSW. We've been friends ever since, and I guess it's true that first impressions are everything. Thanks to our new street cred, our first SXSW was a huge success. We were listed among the top 15 musicians caught holding in Texas.
So here I am today in the back of a van with a bigger band, B.Dolan, and the homies Rubedo are following in their van. We played the same cities we did in 2011 -- Denver, Albuquerque, and Denton. No jail time to report yet... In 2011, we left Denver playing for about ten folks at the Oriental Theatre.
This year we were humbled by all the dates who came to send is off. We gave the hometown a first look at our new "Dance Off" video which was premiered on SPIN Monday morning.
Albuquerque performance art group Shoulder Voices.
Next stop, Albuquerque, which is still one of the weirdest places in earth, not to mention one of my favorite music scenes and favorite places to play. We drove awhile after the show, copped a hotel room at about 7 a.m., and somehow I didn't eat dinner. I woke up around noon the next day with brutal nausea that got the best of me all damn day. We went to Waffle House for breakfast and right after I orders, I puke in my mouth and just BARELY made it to the toilet. The good news is, the Waffle House re-used all that bile and mixed it in with their famous waffle batter. So Amarillo, how do I taste?
I puked another few time in the van on our way to Denton. Thanks Emma & Everai for holding my hair and taking care of my barf bags. I finally got a piece of toast down at about 5pm and am currently feeling like a million bucks in the back of an armored truck. What better time to be sick than in the back of a sweaty crowded van? Good thing I'm tiny and can sprawl out virtually anywhere. We got to Denton and I didn't even change out of my jammies or put a bra on. We were all relieved that the openers were good rappers, and B.Dolan granted my Make-A-Wish to be a hype man for a night. We sat side by side for his set, and dropped a new track that'll be on his new mixtape House Of Bees 3 due in June which we recorded at Dryer Plug Studios before we left Denver (see the Vine below). All I can say is Flava Flav makes being a hype man look a lot easier than it is. I was expecting some haters to show up since so many people left nasty posts and threatening voicemails after we partied the town in 2011, but I guess the guys who prank called me asking how much it would be to toss the midget found someone with a cheaper hourly rate. The Rubedo fellas had to stay back in Denton last night and tonight because their creeper van needs a new water pump.
We drove about 30 minutes and stayed with a good friend of mine who has the biggest cat I've EVER seen, fittingly named Molly Brown. I love my pussies fat, and she had a blast fucking with Mike Brown (our bassist), Everai, and B.Dolan all night. Now we're headed to Austin for the shit show fest and plan on seeing, meeting and playing a bunch. Hoping to get in to see Kendrick Lamar and Tech N9ne, but as always, nothing EVER goes as planned at SXSW. We will be playing some exclusive acoustic sets on the street for those of boy who don't have a badge. We play the Colorado Music party Thursday at 4:45 p.m., and our official showcase is Friday night at 11:45pm with Sage Francis & B.Dolan.SPIN won't stop spoiling us and listed us as top 50 acts to catch at SXSW!!! Yeah, that's 50 out of tens of thousands of bands from all over the world!! Keep up on our social medias (Twitters, FB, Instagram, Vine) to find out when and where we'll be playing on the streets. We'll check in again soon *blows kiss*
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