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Hi there Chickadeez,

Helcat here writing from L. fucking A.!!!!! WWWOOOhhhOOOOO Right now I’m at Frank and Diane’s, the creators of this wonderful Coolgrrrls site, it’s so cool to meet them in the flesh!WOW oh WOW, I still can’t believe that Moler has finally made it O/S. Let me tell you, it’s only been 2 weeks and it has been an absolute blast. We’ve played at some great places and met great people, I have so many stories to tell- I could be here writing all year but I’ll give you brief as possible day by day review of our adventures so far.

Wed 15th March- Left Melbourne 11.30 am Wed, arrived LAX 11.30am Wed! The plane trip on Air New Zealand was pretty damn cruisy, lots of Steinlager beer but I had no sleep at all. Frank and Diane were at the airport to meet us. We hired a mini-van and I had to learn to drive back to front on an LA freeway, doing 120 kph following Frank & Di to their place in Balboa. My knuckles were white from holding the steering wheel so tight, the lack of sleep didn’t help, hairy stuff! They took us to their local bar and we tested some micro brewery beer (not Budweiser) in huge mugs. I was extremely vagued out from jetlag- didn’t take long for us to get even more pissed!

Back at their house, on one of those magnificent Californian beaches, Diane cooked us up a feast of fish tacos while Frank played us some cool CDs. Slept for a couple of hours.Thurs 16th March- 5am, coffee and doughnuts, hit the freeway, foot flat to the floor, heading to Texas. Pretty much drove all day and all night. The scenery was breathtaking, real Coyote and Roadrunner country. Desert, the wild, wild west. Went through Arizona, New Mexico then Texas. Lots of Mexican food, radio stations. Stopped at Tucson at a great music store, met funny people that told us to watch out for flying rats. Kipped on the side of the road for a few hours… so tired… Fri 17th March- woke up and continued driving…Texas is BIG! Got to Austin by lunchtime… still tired, checked in for the SXSW. Bands everywhere.

Austin is a cool, smallish city with a very healthy music scene but with the SXSW music festival, the place was just pulsating. Went to a Brewery to test out more beer and saw about 6 or 7 different bands. Met up with Mike Wimer whose pad we were staying at for the next couple of days, had a shower, checked out more of the scene. We saw Patti Smith doing a free outdoor concert but it was freezing so after a few songs we went to Emo’s to see some Subpop bands play. Saw a really sexy band called the Black Halo’s (I think) who were just excellent, couple of others that were ok. Went to Antone’s bar after and saw some TexMex type band who were the most amazing musicians, the place was so packed but being crammed in like a sardine was the only thing left holding me up. Slept like a log!!

Sat 18th March- Caught up on some much needed sleep. Tonight was our showcase at the Buffalo Club Patio. Tiny little stage it was. Met Kikki coolgrrrl from San Francisco, who took some pics of us if you check out her latest update. Also met up with Dave Last from the band Autovegas, Melbourne and his friend Gayle who are traveling around. Had a blast with them and Jerry from 3D Stereo, we nearly got busted by the cops- smoking pot in our van outside the venue. Whoops! Our show was pretty short and chaotic but full of energy. We had a great audience reaction and we were filmed by some Canadian TV show. Unfortunately, Polecat was having troubles with his power supply to his pedals so he was cutting in and out, sparks flying out everywhere. Something For Kate played and then Not From there, it was the goddamn Aussie night, so we kind of played to a lot of Australians… what a shit! Fancy coming all that way just to play with Australians to Australians! Can you believe that? Still there were some cats there from other places. Afterwards we ended up drinking beer at someone’s house till early morning… nice people who taught us about schwagg and the art of smoking a blunt!

Sun 19th March- Didn’t get home ’til daylight so slept a lot today as well. In the evening we had dinner at the legendary ‘Threadgills’, an old diner, gas station where Janis Joplin did her very first gigs. Lots of memorabilia on the walls. The people who own the joint have a daughter who plays ‘Gabrielle’ in Xena, Warrior Princess!Mon 20th March- Early rise, back on the road, we’re heading to Phoenix, Arizona via the Grand Canyon. We took the ‘scenic’ route through the ‘Painted Valley’. Mainly saw strange oil pumps everywhere between Texan ranches. Stopped for food in Albuquerque, met a couple of bands, Groovy Ghoulies and The Eyeliners also on the road at the ‘Launchpad’. Some guy on the street tried to sell me a knife when I was walking back to the car to get some I.D., scary! 3 times today I was asked for I.D., must be something in the American air doing me good! Later in the night I was driving when it started getting real cold, it started raining, no hailing, no SNOWING. We were driving in a fully blown snow blizzard. I could barely see out of the window, just kept following the taillights of a truck in front of me. Couldn’t over take cos the road was iced over. It was kinda dangerous and exciting at the same time. Finally stopped in a little coal mining town, Holbrook, for a coffee, the locals told us we were crazy to drive to the Grand Canyon tonight cos of the 35 car pile up up the road. We decided to get a hotel for the night. I wasn’t complaining about that, had a nice hot, long shower.

Tues 21st March- Drove to The Grand Canyon. Snow everywhere, so beautiful. The Grand Canyon was magnificent but it was so cold. Later we drove on to Phoenix where we were going to play tomorrow night. Downtown Phoenix, scary, gangs on corners, homeless people. Worked out that the gig was in the outer city of Mesa. Got there soon after and found the bar, ‘Hollywood Alley’. What a cool bar it was. Immediately we contacted the booker Rob, or ‘Fun Bobby’ who told the barman Steve to feed us and give us all we need to drink. He showed us some photo’s of him singing with DeeDee Ramone! Impressed! Meet some locals, Tim and Josh, who bought us Tequila slammers and Jeigameister’s. Soon after we all went back to Josh’s pad (club Josh) to continue drinking with some other people, Tray, Jennifer and Doughnut. Kindly Josh let us stay in the Safari and Sports rooms of his house. Had a great time.

Wed 22nd March- Had my bass guitar fixed today, kinda broke after the SXSW then went to ‘Hollywood Alley’ for some of Grandma Rachel’s special cooking. She wanted us to try her Ostrich salami but had to pass on that. Met a local guy named Ed who took us to his place so we could check our e-mail. He had a 30 year old Sth African parrot and an impressive collection of automatic weapons. He proudly showed off his AK47 rifle with the parrot on his shoulder, what a sight! People love their guns in this part of the country! The gig was great, if a little on the LOUD side, KC brought along a whole lot of equipment for us to use which was so nice of him. Spiderhole played and then Oddman from Chico, who were really nice people too. Afterwards we all went back to club Josh’s again and Fun Bobby brought back a selection of every beer from the bar for us. I think I was trying out raspberry flavoured beer by the end of the night. These people were so nice, we’ll never forget their great hospitality and recommend to everyone out there to visit!

Thurs 23rd March- Hit the road again to LA. Wanted to visit Las Vegas but not enough time. LA was a 6-7 hour drive. Great landscape, lots of military bases, old plane wrecks and windmills that generate electricity. Arrived in LA, drove along Sunset Blvd, saw the Hollywood sign in the hills, drove through Beverly Hills. Tonight we played at Al’s Bar. Mega cool venue. True punk rock style. Stickers and graffiti on the walls everywhere, even saw ‘Hecate’ written in the grrrls toilets! Not a lot of people rocked up cos all the bands were from out of town but the show was broadcast live on the net. The Watership Down, band from Albuquerque, lent us all their backline, so nice of them, they were fun guys. Herculon was also a cool band that played and I can’t remember what the last band was called… Stacie at the bar really looked after us and we met Toast, the booker, who was really nice as well. Miss Jenn X, coolgrrrl from Hollywood, came along with her friend Greg who generously offered his pad to stay at for the night.

Fri 24th March- Greg woke up and cooked us up a storm of eggs, hotcakes and orange juice. Yum. He has a cute little house in Echo Park. He also plays in a band called The K Project. We listened to his CD collection and relaxed in the sun all day, spring time weather beginning to kick in. We didn’t have to play tonight so we went back to Al’s Bar to see Toast’s band play, Les Beaux Peeps. Toast plays bass. The grrrl singing reminded me a little of Courtney Love. Cool band. Next up was ‘Bottom’ from New York. A real heavy, Motorhead/ Sabbath chick band who were awesome even though I don’t really get into that kind of music, I enjoyed watching their sheer talent. Greg let us stay at his house again tonight. How nice is that!

Sat 25th March- A night off so we went to an art exhibition, The 50 Bucks Club, in some seedy part of downtown LA. The art work was fantastic, the bar was full of Mexicans and art scene hipsters. A couple of bands played, ‘DownGirl’ and ‘Wainsborough’, both were excellent but I was really tired. After the show we began to drive to San Francisco. Somehow we managed to score some last minute gigs there. Mike/Hedge/Chaos did most of the driving but he was also too tired to drive too far. Eventually we had to find a nice McDonald’s car park to have a bit of a kip in.

Sun 26th March- Continued driving to San Francisco. Drove past a huge paddock of cows that stank so much it almost made me vomit, later we were to find out that these were none other than the cows destined to be McDonald’s burgers. Saw more windmills, green paddocks with yellow flowers, really pretty. Arrived in San Francisco, I was surprised at how gorgeous this city was. Very Hilly, very trendy, especially Berkley and Ashbury. Saw the classic San Fran trams and even some of the buses are connected to the tram lines, weird! Clean, very crisp sea breeze air, sunny during the day but freezing at night. Tonight we played at the Cocodrie Club, right in the heart of the Red Light district. Girlie nude shows everywhere, flashing neon lights. It felt so right to play Red Light Disco tonight! Played with some cool bands, in fact they had bands on from 3.00pm till 2.00am. Met guys from The Aquamen who lent us their backline. They were a really slick, classic but original surf band, all wearing suits but the funniest part was when they broke into a heavy metal, Sabbath song for their last number. Then a band from New York city played, The Coggs, who have a hit on the San Francisco radio at the moment. They were kind of Ramones influenced but more poppy. The girl singing reminded me of Kim Deal’s singing style. Very catchy stuff. Had a lot of fun. Shrini, martini, the bassist of The Aquamen, let us stay at his house along with Pete the drummer of the Coggs, he was so nice.

Mon 27th March- Had a huge breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns at a café nearby. Hung out at Shrini’s and checked out his http://www.unamerican.com propaganda. He makes stickers, t-shirts, badges and mugs with funny slogans. He gave us a whole heap to take back to Australia. Tonight we played in Haight St., Ashbury, at a place called ‘Boomerang’- no it had nothing to do with Australia! Pretty good venue, not the greatest turnout. Played with American Nightmare, 3D House of Beef and that New York band, Bottom.Tues 28th March- Big breakfast again, checked out the music stores and clothing shops in Berkley, which was torturous cos I wanted to buy everything in sight. Scott, from the Cocodrie Club, gave us another show. Funny enough we were playing again with The Watership Down, from Albuquerque. It was fun seeing those guys again. Paul from the Coggs was also still in town on business and offered us his hotel room for the night…great a real hotel! Paul, Hedge and I, immediately attacked the mini-bar while Julien fell asleep, snoring his head off. I was in celebratory spirits.

Wed 29th March- Ohhhh… ouch… my head hurt something bad this morning. Must have been that last Bloody Mary with gin I drank. Poor Hedge had to do all the driving back to LA. Tried our 1st Maccas burger (fillet-o-fish) hmmm, not too good at all. Looked like the fish had been frozen for 10 years at least!Found our way to our next gig in Culver city at Bar Azure. Strange place, very clean but had big monitors with sport and porn playing on them, kinda distracting when you’re trying to sing and all you can see is girls going down on each other! Played with bands Rendered Useless and Snapher. Very cool indeed, we all had singing chick bassplayers! Afterwards we went back to Andi’s pad, from Snapher. Wow what a sight, Andi is also a dominatrix. In her place was every whip, paddle, padlock, chain,… every sort of restraining device you can imagine! She also had torture racks, a bondage chair, a coffin and a dungeon. In fact, Hedge had to sleep in the dungeon for the night. Wow, this chick was really cool. She even played guitar with Nina Hagen for a while! She had the coolest looking Mohawk and tatt’s. What a babe!Thurs 30th March- Next morning I met a guy who lived next to Andi, Greg, who decided to take me for a ride on his motorbike since I was a fellow bassist- oh no not the dreaded motorbike thing, crazy me took him up on his offer. Had a beautiful lunch in a trendy Culver City Café, then he took me up to a bit of a lookout point where you could see for miles over LA. You could see the Hollywood sign, all the big movie studios, the sea, etc…He was pretty good on the motorbike actually. Later Greg took me to meet the bassist from Iron Maiden, Michael Kearney. He lived in a tiny little pad with guitars, records (including many framed gold ones) mini recording studio, and memorabilia. I couldn’t quite believe this was for real!!! THE IRON MAIDEN BASS PLAYER!!!! A really nice guy too!Later we went to our next gig in LA at a very cool place called, Goldfingers. It was then we realized we missed a great gig at The Opium Den that was packed out and we accidentally did the extra show in San Francisco… fuckk… what idiots…oh well. We played with, Firebug, Smelly Roses and Freak Machine. Mike, the drummer from the Street Walkin’ Cheetahs also came along to check us out.. Wow… those guys have a cool reputation, can’t wait ’til we play with them. Met lots of cool people tonight, we were havin’ a great ol’ time… we all got incredibly drunk and ended up drinking in Frank Santana’s van after the show, he was so cool, giving us all sorts of advice of how to make it big in LA. Top guy. Whoops we were too drunk to drive too far so we crashed in our van till morning.

Fri 31st March- Phew, no hangover but pretty tired. Slept some more in the sun at Echo Park, while Julien had a meeting with Margaret Saadi, the manager of Wayne Kramer from MC5 fame. Hedge and I went to the big guitar shop, guitar world, in LA where we saw… Keith Moon’s ‘Pictures of Lilly’ tom drum, Bo Diddley’s home made guitar, Kiss’s boots, Bob Dylan’s hat and glasses, the list goes on!! .Julien was stoked when he met up with us again with Mike from the Cheetahs. He got to meet Wayne fucking Kramer!! Got his whole back catalogue and t-shirts to boot. While he was there Glen Matlock was on a conference call along with some other dude who played guitar on the Sex Pistols records…I believe Polecat was a little star struck! Mike even bought us dinner tonight which was unexpected, he is such a nice guy. We then made our way to Longbeach for our gig with Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones. If you’ve been checking out coolgrrrls for a while you’d be pretty fascinated by this chick. Met Tim from The Angora’s and Andrew, their manager, who is also managing ‘The Damned’! Wow huh! Nice guys too. Met Ann-Marie, Kirsten, Frank and Diane also. I was pretty tired tonight. Witnessed the incredible Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones, my god… she is the female Iggy Pop! What a star!! What a fucking hard act to follow! Words cannot describe. I didn’t want to go on after seeing that… still we managed to do an alright show even though Polecat was incredibly toooo fucking loud as per usual! Terri was really nice to us and we traded CD’s and T-shirts. What a great night. Went back to Frank & Diane’s tonight. Hopefully they will come to Australia soon and blow everyone’s minds!!!Sat 1st March- April Fool. Hey today was a day off, even though we thought we were playing tonight, checked the paper and it turns out to be tomorrow, April Fools, yeah, a rest! Frank & Di, now live in Huntington Beach. Went down to the beach and walked along the pier. Lots of babes and trendy cats. Saw people playing volleyball and all that… straight out of the movies… in fact America is like living in a movie set! Checked out some cool clothing shops, once again, a torturous affair! Such cool clothes, so little money. Diane cooked us up a beautiful Mexican dinner and we drank beer and watched some videos. Ahhh such a nice relaxing day. I needed it.

Sun 2nd March- Good morning, here I am still writing… tonight we are playing at Linda’s Doll Hut. A tiny buy cool venue..so I’m told… should be rockin’!!!Well I guess that’s it for now… my god … such a loooonnnggg update… and that’s just brief story of what we’ve done and who we’ve met!!!Take care my darlings… a big hello to all my friends and family in Melbourne town….

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