Kid Koala x Lealani! Winter Tour Recap!

Hi Everyone!

Just got back from the winter tour! This was my first van tour in many years! And also Lealani's first tour ever!!  8 cities in Canada and USA. Thank you to everyone for your support and for rockin' with us! I know some of you travelled to get to the gigs and we hope you enjoyed the show!

Here we are setting up the first show at The Axis Club (formerly The Mod Club) in Toronto! Also shouts out to my friend and patron, Melissa (seen here on the bottom left) who was so kind to help us and organize the merch booth!

Me doing that scratchy thing on those record playing machines!

This hotel has so many rules!

After the show, Melissa took us to a 24 hour diner called Lakeview which has been around since the 1930's. Here we are trying the Veggie burgers. L-R: Melissa, Brian (tour manager/video tech), me, Lealani (PSA:aka @veggieburgerr on IG) You can follow her there or also at lealani.bandcamp.com

Next show was in Guelph! We did a show at the Hillside Festival in a church! After the show I got to hang with one of my New Fun Tier patrons, Michael! Couldn't find anywhere to eat that wasn't a super loud pub, so we just decided to have some snacks from the canteen and chat in the hotel lobby. We talked for a couple hours about music and he hipped me to a bunch of artists I'd not heard of but immediately liked! Michael, you should share those on our patreon discord! Wicked stuff and I'm sure many of the other patrons would dig those artists too! I also had a finished copy of the board game so I was able to show him how all the game cards worked!

The next day, we headed to Oshawa. I think it was -40 degrees Celsius overnight. The carrots, and juice (from the rider) were frozen solid!

In Oshawa, I got a private tour of a record store I'd never been to before called Kops Records! Shown in the photo is one of Kops Records staff, Will McGuirk who let me into the store (even though they were closed) to show me the space!

wow!

The owner also has a really unique way of organizing his private vinyl collection. He does it by theme (instead of music genre). Like here's a crate of records with images of people drinking!

Upstairs is a little stage area where local bands can do in-store sets and record launches. I love the indie DIY vibe in this spot. I'm definitely going to return to Oshawa to do a Creatures Board Game Event or Music To Draw To session here someday!

Next we flew to the west coast. There was a cake vending machine at the airport. We didn't try it.

Our flight was delayed several hours and we missed the connection so had to stay in Denver hotel airport overnight. Nothing was open... but we found an Applebee's. It was actually jamming in there. Like club level loud music playing! LOL!

There was a microwave oven on the bedside table in my room which was something I've not seen in my years of travelling. Just incase you want to warm up a cup of tea or cook your alarm clock maybe?!

made it to Portland!

This is Mississippi Studios, a cozy little rock bar in Portland! We brought the Vinyl Vaudeville show here a few years ago. Brian and I were both surprised we were able to fit all the vaudeville puppets and props on this little stage!

During the set, Lealani does a couple of her PEZ HEADS tunes. It's her surf rock alter-ego. I back her up on drum samplers that I play with sticks.

I broke a stick in the first 10 seconds of the PEZ HEADS song. That means we were rocking out!

I made it through the rest of the song, playing with 1 and half drum sticks. But after the song I asked the audience, half-jokingly, if anyone brought any drumsticks to the show as I didn't have a spare set of sticks. A young lady actually brought a pair of drumsticks. I immediately asked her...

"Woah! Why would you bring drum sticks to a night club?"

"I just finished band practice and walked straight to the show after." she replied.

"So you're a drummer in your band?"

"Yes."

"So I think maybe YOU should play drums on this next tune!"

The rest of the audience in Portland enthusiastically agreed. So she played the drums on the next PEZ HEADS tune and ROCKED IT! It was a beautifully serendipitous and spontaneous moment in the show!

Next stop! Seattle! On the way, I dropped by my friend Dylan aka Dynomite D's new studio. He has now moved to Tacoma and has set up the studio there! That's the Soudncraft console we used to preamp a lot of the stuff on the first Slew album.

So many analog tape options at Dylan's studio!

Seattle rocked as always! Played a place called Substation which I'd never played before! Lealani did a lot of crowd surfing there!

Next stop: Vancouver! My older sister came to say hi while we were setting up. Here we are taking an out of focus selfie!

The stage in Vancouver was quite low. And Lealani is 4 foot 11".  So we built her a tiny riser out of turntable cases for her guitar station!

The fridge in the lobby of the hotel in Calgary...

All the shows rocked! and I want to shout out all the wonderful acts we got to share the stage with on this tour! Some old friends, Some new friends! It was wonderful to rock these parties with each of them!

Toronto: Paul Chin

Guelph: Skratch Bastid

Oshawa: Conebuster

Portland: Dim Wit

Seattle: The Jam: Absolute Madman, Specs Wizard, Able Fader

Vancouver: Subdidi

Edmonton: CreeAsian

Calgary: K-Riz, Pierre Kwenders

And finally a BIG SHOUT OUT to Lealani. I planned this tour in the middle of winter because it was during the time our track "Things Are Gonna Change" was released. I was so proud of Lealani on her very first tour! She slayed it! Our next show together will be on Saturday 2/25 in Montreal! It will be a  FREE show as part of the Nuit Blanche Festivities at MTelus. Our set starts at 11:45pm on Feb 25th! I know that's kind of a late start time, so take a disco nap in the afternoon, then come on down and party with us! It's gonna rock!

I definitely encourage you to check out Lealani's music, animation and visual art. She's a phenomenal talent, an absolute sweetheart and a rock star and she's just getting started. She can be found on Bandcamp, IG, & even started her own Patreon!

Hope this message finds you all well!

Album launch is getting closer! Gonna do a patron-only on-line AMA listening party prior to it's release! Stay tuned!

Thank you for your continued support!

e