Features
NO ZU: US/Mexico Photo Diary Pt 1
Contributions by Nic Oogjes
Original page credit: Mess+Noise
NIC OOGJES charts his Melbourne band’s recent overseas exploits.
From the end of February to the start of April, my group NO ZU made a ‘heat beat’ voyage to Mexico and the US for the first time. We played three shows in Mexico, including two Festival NRMAL festivals (Mex City and Monterrey) and one NRMAL sideshow. In the US we performed three times in LA and four times in New York. As eager tourists do, I took some photos (and had others take shots) with my little point-and-shoot Leika film camera. Let me try to explain…
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
It’s a long distance for an Australian to go anywhere, isn’t it? Everyone overseas likes to remind you of that too. Add to that to an eight-hour stopover in LA on the way to Mexico and you have yourself a deadly cocktail of excitement, boredom and sleep-deprived body-clock zonk. Daphne [Shum]’s inconspicuous sleep cocoon fooled no one. A surreal mirage-brain-atmosphere of cloudy heads had begun and had made itself known as the theme for the rest of the trip already.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Of course we should put on our new ‘heat beat luxury wear’ tops, find tacos and order cheap room service as soon as we get to our Mexico City hotel. That night, under a restaurant’s precariously mounted and wired-up colour TV playing Mex pop videos, we were reacquainted with our long-lost synth player Adrian Tregonning, who has been busying himself in NYC studying music production and playing with Shorts. We hadn’t seen Adrian since we played with him at Golden Plains last year. It was all hugs and cervezas. “Now … what are you going to play tomorrow, Adrian?” Now there was seven of us: two synth players, bass, drums, vocals, percussion and myself. ¡Ola Mexico! We can’t believe we’re in you.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Our first show at Festival NRMAL (Mexico DF) was both a not uncommon festival experience for a band – rushed set-up, not ideal stage sound, equipment failure – and also an amazing introduction to how wide-eyed and body-moving the Mexican people were to be at each show. It was very hard to predict how the Mexican crowd would react to our heavily Latin-rhythm-influenced percussion, given that as a culture they are far more acquainted with it than Australia, of course. Congas, bongos, bells and blocks can be heard punctuating tight, rhythmic music streaming out of cafes, mechanics, food stands, homes, cars and everywhere else in the city.
Sure enough, and thankfully, our dense percussive sound seemed to be understood and a non-factor – an obvious rhythm enhancing element. We were overwhelmed post-show with interviews and people coming up to us all around the festival grounds, wanting to chat, take photos and express an appreciation especially for the energy of our set. It probably did help that we played directly after a very earnest folk artist on acoustic guitar.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
A week left to our own devices in the city saw ZU’s and friends visit the pre-Aztec pyramids of Teotihuacan (according to a sign – Martians did not build the ancient city, humans did, just so you know), learn a three or four more Spanish words, allow an extended “siiiiii” to enter the local ZU regional dialect, eat more and more ‘mystery’ tacos, eat grasshopper, have deflating Tinder experiences, go to the Lucha Libre and join in the chant, calling the name of crowd-favourite ‘Porky’, visit Frida Kahlo’s tranquil Azul House, see Sun Araw play someone’s small get-together in the backyard of a mansion, overcome peanut-allergy emergencies, struggle to continue organising a tour on an iPhone, have a few mystic experiences and generally be overwhelmed by the frantic energy of that humongous place. Mirage-brain continues…
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Monterrey!!! The homeland of Festival NRMAL. The place where our song-of-the-tour presented itself (‘El Ritmo Del Diablo’ by Invidia – please listen to it; everything will make sense and life will be bueno) during Andrew [Noble]’s and my otherwise heavily Melbourne-dance-leaning (Michael Ozone, Bell Towers, Andras Fox) DJ set at a bar/club called Gomez. We made some CDRs in our amazingly faux-luxury accommodation, Safi Luxury Towers, and luckily Andrew included that brilliantly joyous Spanish language song he had on him because it was the one track that really, spontaneously, got the crowd gyrating, high-fiving and singing! Rhythm of the devil indeed – what a sight!
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Locals kept telling us that this next NO ZU set of ours at the festival would be “the one” for us. We were playing later this time: after dark, a more appropriate time for our weirdo dystopian/utopian grooves for sure. The Monterrey leg is also the bigger of the two NRMAL festival events – it has been going for five years, while it was Mexico City’s debut year. Promising. Promising until the rain came and stopped the festival and the almost-completely-open stages. Luckily there was a break in the downfall and we got the word to set up a total Zen setup, this time led by the calming presence of a stage manager named Gabe.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
The show was the best, craziest, wildest show of the tour and, possibly, that we have ever been a part of. Truly surreal. Truly mirage-brain. Thousands of people in the mud dancing with us to the sounds of Antipodean boogie. I’m just glad I climbed a stage stack and took a photo. Otherwise, I may have needed to file that memory into the dream folder (not a real folder).
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
It was very nice of Mitch [McGregor] to clean the mud off my shoes with a disposable shaving razor before we continued on into the night. We played another club show, closing a NRMAL/Sugaryama (a.k.a Pete Keen – the whole reason we were invited to Mexico) showcase the night afterwards alongside other Aussies including Kirin J Callinan and Reptiles. It was a close-quarters sweat-feast, a delirious meltdown of moving bodies in a familiar-to-us cabin-like setting.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Venice Beach, LA – what a nutso place. Eccentrics, fitness freaks, homeless people, tourists, surfer dudes, yuppies, gaudy shops, street performers, Corinthian columns, White Men Can’t Jump and Baywatch memories all packed in together with a backdrop of those LA languid palms and vast stretches of white sand. NRG. It’s hard to know how to feel about it.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
After a really fun and raucous live-to-internet performance on a favourite radio station, Dublab, our next show was at the Del Monte Speakeasy (an original/actual speakeasy) in Venice. A diverse crowd, including excellent photo-bombers (above, with Brian from Awesome Tapes From Africa), crowded in for Pharaohs’ performance and the mood was high. I was blown away by their set. I would love to get deep under that warm blanket of analogue Balearic boogie of playful motifs and relaxed ease any night (not a real blanket).
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For four songs the room’s hi-mood was working on us like voodoo. Everything was building in intensity and the crowd were coming to grips with us. Then … water, our previously defeated enemy of Monterrey, caught up with us. The place was flooded, our set stopped, an announcement made and the place evacuated. At least we made some new friends and have a story to tell of the experience. Next!
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
There were problems with the lead-up to our show at Bootleg in Silverlake. A late cancellation/replacement of another would-be band on the lineup, zero promo and a communication breakdown were making me nervous that we would finally have one of those less-than-successful shows that you’re meant on have on tour. We had had a very good run for so far, but yeah, this one didn’t grace us with a high attendance. Could I have done something different? Could I care? Not really. It was [synth player] Kieran [O’Shea]’s last show of the tour with us, we were playing with good friends Aa and our dedicated handful of people watching/dancing were amazing – we had a heat beat blast.
Back to the van to avalanche ourselves with bass cabs, keyboard stands and road cases as per usual and go off into the night.
TOMORROW: NO ZU invade New York
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