Had a splendid time at splendour, It’s a week later and we’re still recovering…

Definitely the best one I’ve been to, We were lucky to have enough time off to enjoy most of it. Big thanks to everyone that turned up to our gigs- we were very stoked to see so many people turn up and particularly Richard Ashcroft for doing the right thing and leaving his own gig to go and see the Pixies!

Woodfordia as usual was a magical site for music.

We left the traffic jams of Splendour and headed straight To BJB studios in Sydney To finish recording our New EP, So far so good- I’ve been singing on most of the tracks which is a little daunting as I’m much more at home with a guitar. It’s coming out very different from our previous releases and i’m looking forward to seeing the response it gets. From here we do a couple of shows in QLD and head to Bali- can’t wait, we are recording with some local Gamalan musicians for a documentary we have been planning ,apart from that there will be some shows at KUDETA and I imagine a lot of cocktails on the beach. Look forward to seine ya all soon x Tjiuana

Here’s a bit of a video from the Splendour show

Had a Beautiful time in Noumea

We were treated to great food by the locals, enjoyed receptive crowds and drank a little too much of the local rum.We would like to say a big thanks to all the people that made our stay so special, It’s really not a bad place to spend a little bit of winter.

We probably should have spent more time exploring the beautiful reefs and almost untouched islands, but alas a lot of our time was spent in pubs and hotel rooms nursing hangovers. I’m planning a detox when we get back (Yeah sure!)…

It was our first tour with Josh, who played a damn mean trumpet-nice work man looking forward to more gigs with you.

we’re not far off getting into a studio for our new tracks- we’ll post one or two up here when they’re done.

you can check out a short vid of our exploits here

cheers
paul

Tempest by Tijuana Cartel

Here’s some tracks from our little side project “George & O’sullivan” (we’re releasing it all sometime in the next few months) x

Death by dub by George and O’sullivan

Noc by George and O’sullivan

Highlights for us were the sets by Opiuo, oka, Spoon bill, Although just about every beat and build i heard blew my mind.

Our set on friday was hampered a little by the fact I had no fold back speaker working for me and couldn’t hear a damn thing- also the fact that a cyclone warning was delivered to the audience half way through the set… Luckily the energy from the audience seemed to be enough to get us through and we loved every second we played. It was great to see so many people totally immersed in the music.

Looking forward to heading back to Victoria next week for the Rainbow Serpent side show with Ganga Giri and Oka

Peace

Paul

Well we have survived, all body parts in tact with vague ( but wonderful ) memories of the last couple of weeks. Peats Ridge Festival, Cat Empire support in Fremantle and Broadwater Farm in Busselton were some of the Shenanigans we got up to.

See the footage here.


Pauly, Adam and Shannon packed the kombi and road tripped in the orange bus from Boxing day down to Peats Ridge Festival. With lots of laughs on the way down and only one NRMA visit for the bus and some rhythmic squeaky brakes, the drive down was like something out of an old 60’s surf movie. Dak Dak Dak the old girl cruised on 100km/h and the tunes belted out of the stereo. Through the mud and a million gate stops once we reached the festival, we set up camp, cracked a beer and marvelled at Adams brilliant annex he had made out of a humble blue tarp.

We met the rest of the crew at Peats Ridge Festival a couple of days later. By then the toilets were getting full and the rain had stopped. The first show on the Lyrebird Stage was more than we could’ve asked for. The tent was at capacity by the end of sound check and we thank you all dearly to all the dancing feet that came out nice and early that morning. At 11.30am the people were ready to boogie so the beats kicked in and it was another amazing exchange of energy betwen Tijuana Cartel and the audience. If the tent had a floor, it would’ve caved in as the crowd was jumping and dancing so hard that morning. It was Awesome, and definitely made us play harder !
We got to stomp around in the mud for a few days as festival goers too and we saw some great bands, DJ’s and cabaret acts while we were there. We did a lot of running around from tent to tent dodging horse poo, drumming parades, painted topless ladies on pirate ships and the rain drops. Our highlight of the festival was playing after legend Jeff Martin on the main stage on New Years Eve. I think Paul nearly cried when he found out Jeff Martins dressing room was next to ours. Actually Im pretty sure I saw him welling up. We had dancing mud people and a group of people covered from head to toe in blue body paint in the audience. The crowd was going crazy as we played, and we couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces for the whole show and long afterwards. Thank you Thank you Thank you to all the crazy dancers!

We brought in the New Year playing Audio Shaman tracks in the Chai Temple with Kez and Pauly counting down the old year and bringing in the new one. It was so chilled out that there were people still asleep on the floor at midnight as people cheered and jumped around! Man, that’s some good Chai tea!
We were all up early @ 5.30am on New Years Day to get to Sydney airport and fly to Perth. With an accident on the road out of Peats we were sure to miss our plane. A horrible and tragic start to New Years day for the people involved in the accident and our thoughts go out to the families involved.
We were let through the range just in time and we managed to get to the airport to get out plane. Thanks to Mobster for driving ! It was our first time in a long time not flying on a budget airline so we lapped up the free alcohol, food and the chairs that lie back just a fraction more than what we’re used to…Oh…So…Good…

On New Years day a very tired but extremely excited and nervous Tijuana Cartel played a pumping show at the Freo Arts centre supporting the Cat Empire. Months of anticipation for this night seemed to disappear in the sea of watching eyes (3000+ pairs to be exact). The familiar screams of people having fun, Tijuana beats and a few beers made us feel very at home back in Fremantle. The Cat Empire were fantastic as always and Shannon was in trumpet heaven. It was over in a heartbeat and boy were we glad we pulled it off! It was so nice to see familiar faces in the crowd too!
With no rest on the cards anytime soon, we headed south to Broadwater Farm in Busselton on the 2nd of Jan to a beautiful farm house with the stage so close to the house you could wash the dishes and watch the bands enter and exit the stage from the kitchen window.
A nice crowd of around 450 peeps jumped around on the grass and danced the night away with us. We won’t lie, we had a few “social drinks” after wards, enjoying the company of our new friends with Regan being the last man standing for the Tijuana Team at the end of the night! When we woke up the next day, we were all surprised to see alcohol still left in the esky…so we thought we better do something about it. ….

Big ups to all the DJ’s and bands we played with over the last couple of weeks. Thanks to Zeb and his family for your hospitality at Broadwater Farm, Sloanie from The Sunshine Brothers for helping us out ENORMOUSLY with the Cat Empire show, Damo for giving us a mammoth opportunity @ Peats Ridge, Pheobs for letting 2 strays stay at your house for some R n R this week, Mr Wilson for organising our asses and the partners of band members for letting them get unruly …… Thanks to all our new friends we have made along the way. We hope to see you bopping up and down in the front row again very soon!
With Chill Island Festival, Rainbow Serpent Festival, Adelaide, Nannup Festival, Good Vibrations – Gold Coast and Corinbank Festival coming up in the next month or two, we are sure to cross your wonderful paths again and can’t wait!
Peace
TC

Respect to The festival organisers though- we had a fantastic time and would more than love to come back next year.