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Kid Gulliver in Spain Interview
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BGN- You are finally back from your tour and Simone and David, your Covid exile in Spain. Welcome home!!
Simone- Thanks! If I had to be exiled somewhere, this was a damn perfect place to be!
BGN- How did this tour come about? Did you reach out to someone or did someone reach out to you?
Simone- This tour was my baby. I noticed on my streaming stats that a huge portion of our listeners are in Spain. We’ve been fortunate to be supported by Diego Swamper on El Sotano of Radio 3 which is broadcast all over Spain, and which likely introduced us to a wider audience. But the choice of Spain was ultimately a personal one. I lost my father a year ago and while he was in the ICU, we talked about him joining us on tour in Spain, his favorite place in the world, when he recovered. He made me promise we would go, no matter what. I kept my promise. We raised a drink to him on our first night. He was very present for me. He would have loved every second, even the covid extended stay.
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BGN- How long did it take to set the whole thing up? The tour, the club dates, flights, coordinating all band members with dates, etc.?
Simone- It took 3 months. I'm really fortunate to have a dear friend, Lindsay Hutton, who writes the blog Next Big Thing. Madrid is his second home and he knows everyone! He put me in touch with a lot of people that helped. The bookers were fans of our music already (which is totally wild!) so they were glad to book us. It was time consuming, of course, but it was not as difficult as I anticipated. The guys in the band had been forewarned upon joining that this tour was going to happen, so they were ready to make themselves available. It went really smoothly. I did a pretty good job! But I had a lot of help!
 Crowd at gig |
BGN- Tell us what clubs and in each city you played in?
Simone- We played at El Corral in Altura, which is an hour north of Valencia. Then on to Loco Club in Valencia, and finally the Fun House in Madrid.
BGN- Tell us about your first gig there? How was it?
Simone- Incredible! We got this gig through a friend of a friend, and had no idea what to expect. Altura is a village of 3000, pretty much what you picture when you think of an ancient Spanish village. We went on at midnight and played for an hour to a really appreciative, excited and interactive audience, including toddlers. I would also like to say that the owner, Ramon, fed us absolutely fabulous burgers ahead of time that are worth a trip!
 At the Altura show Photo: Lia from Valencia |
BGN- How did it feel to play your first gig to a Spanish audience? You know, people in another country? Share what it was like on your first night playing there.
Simone- The audiences are not reserved in Spain. No standing with your arms crossed bobbing your head. They were into it, dancing and SINGING (they knew the songs!) from our first note to our last. People can’t wait to tell you how much they enjoyed it, they buy merch, they thank you repeatedly. It was a magical experience. My friend Jaime came from Mallorca and brought his friends Elvira and Lia from Valencia. So please don’t complain about needing to drive to Providence!
BGN- Did many people there know of the band already? We saw your photo of a fan with a Kid t-shirt, that’s very cool!
Simone- The restaurant played our music on a playlist (that included Linnea’s Garden, incidentally!) on a constant loop so people were pretty familiar with our songs. I loved that people put their Kid t-shirts on immediately after buying them! The poster for the show got a lot of attention so I guess people studied up.
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BGN- Other Boston bands?
Simone- In Altura, we didn’t talk about the Boston music scene much, but in Valencia and Madrid, absolutely everyone knows about the old school bands and scene.
BGN- What Boston bands did they know of and mention? We figure Real Kids of course, but we could be wrong.
Simone- Real Kids for sure. The Lyres. Jonathan Richman. And posters of Barrence Whitfield were everywhere! He is going to tour there in May and the Spanish are psyched. But listen to this! I was out with some friends and I met this man Rafa, who is in a band in Madrid called Los Chicos. He heard the BGN interview on the podcast RockWrit and absolutely loved it. When he heard that we knew you and loved you and how much we appreciate your everlasting support of us (and my solo stuff) he couldn’t believe it! I felt like such a celebrity knowing a couple celebrities!!
BGN- Ha! That's awesome, we're famous!! Was there a language barrier/difficulty?
Simone- I wouldn’t say a difficulty, partially because our drummer Mark is Venezuelan and our tour manager Joey speaks perfect English. We were covered. In Altura, though, people spoke Valencian and very little English. Valencian is quite different than the more familiar Spanish. I have pretty decent comprehension but that was a challenge. Still, it was pretty easy and everyone was helpful.
 Simone and Joey, tour manager at El Corral, Altura |
BGN- Did you bring your own instruments over?
Simone- We did not. We rented our instruments and hired a tour manager to drive us and coordinate. That was a critical decision. It made everything so much smoother. Joey, our tour manager, is a pro and that relieved a lot of my anxiety. Producciones Barbudas, the company that supplied the instruments and for which Joey works, is based in Barcelona. The band took the train from Madrid to Valencia and he met us there, with all the gear. Imagine how fun it was to see The Rubinoos name written on one of the gig bags! He also played with us on “I Started a Joke” and, on the last night, on “Susie Survived Chemotherapy”. The best!
BGN- What’s the difference between playing in Boston and Spain.
Simone- We were treated like gold. Lengthy and complete sound checks, food, drinks, a green room, everyone asking what we needed. Shows are an event, and everyone is excited and having fun. The people at the clubs, every one of them, want to make sure the band is happy and taken care of. The fans, every one of them, is there to have a great time and are invested in that fun from start to finish. And they chant OTRA! OTRA! OTRA! (another! another! another!) for encores! That happened at all the shows! Crazy!
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BGN- What local bands did you share the gigs with? Tell us about them?
Simone- In Altura, we were the only band, and that was great. At Loco Club in Valencia, we were really fortunate to be opening for a really famous band in Spain called La Granja.They are legends. They were there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the booking agency Alta Tension, who booked their first show at Loco with La Granja. The crowd was huge! Clearly we were the openers but a lot of people did know us already. But everyone loved us and supported us. People wanted to talk about our music and Andy did take a lot of photos of people with their merch. That was so fun. The guys in La Granja were super nice as well. It was a huge, fabulous event, with food ahead of time. Apparently, pastrami is a new fad there, and there were pastrami sandwiches available for sale. When I say event, it was an EVENT.
In Madrid, at Fun House, the band Boston Babies opened for us and they were so good! Young guys, between 18-22, I think, and they have done their punk rock homework. Their parents came to the show! Check them out - they have been in the studio and will be making a splash. Mitch, the singer, has a New York Dolls/David Johannsen thing going on, and the girls do swoon. What was especially cool about that show was that people who came for us knew all our music and sang along. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The level of audience enthusiasm is unmatched.
 The wonderful Escridiscos record store, Madrid |
BGN- Did you do any record store shopping? If so what was that like?
Simone- Yes! We went to a bunch of record stores. We loved Chopper Monster (fantastic clothes and shoes as well), Escridiscos and Discos Babel. They love their vinyl in Spain, to an insane extent. Mark bought a Spanish compilation record at the end of the tour that he realized later had La Granja on it, a song called Los Chicos queren diversion, which they played at our show in Valencia. Kind of a full circle thing.
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BGN- I went to Barcelona several years ago. I loved the food and all their fruit was small… like the apples were small manageable ones unlike the oversized American ones. Tell us about your food experiences there. Did you do Tapas? What did you eat that isn’t available in the US?
Simone- Paella, paella, paella, a million different kinds. Squid ink paella, which is black, is delectable. The guys ate a lot of ham, of which there are also a million different kinds, and olives, fresh sardines, fresh EVERYTHING. We didn’t have a bad meal. They are fantastic at labeling allergens there, so with all my dietary issues it was pretty easy to find safe food. And their vegan food - lord have mercy!
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BGN- So you got Covid Simone. You say you caught it from a teenager who was coughing on the plane. Tell that plane story.
Simone- When we were flying from Heathrow to Madrid, the rows were 6 across, 3 and 3. The guys were sitting together and I was sitting across the aisle next to a teenager who was coughing like mad. Everyone was wearing a mask, but I knew I was screwed. I had covid a few months ago, but apparently I was incredibly unlucky. Or lucky. It was an exile in Madrid, after all.
 View from my sick bed in Madrid |
BGN- For those of us who are still hunkering at home, what is their thinking about taking that Covid risk at gatherings/concerts.
Simone- No one was concerned, to be honest. Shows were crowded, people were dancing close, there was less concern about it there than here. I was caught in Spain because of US regulations on testing before returning home. The Spanish had no such regulations.
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BGN- You posted you had a lot of stories. Any in particular you would like to share here?
Simone- Fat, Angry Spider-Man in the Plaza Mayor. He complimented Mark and David on their bellies and harassed Andy for being too thin. I was terrified. The photo says it all.
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 Kid Gulliver - El Corral, Altura |
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