Following some wild times in Mexico, Coco Solid journeys north and takes a bite out of the big apple, bumping into the likes of The Brunettes and Princess Superstar in the second installment of her world tour diaries...

Part Two: New York City
 
Hungover in Mexico after the first loco week of the tour, we waited to board the plane to New York. I silently watched my one-dude management team Carthew eat his final taco pastor. I suspected what awaited us was going to be slightly different, I had no idea. All I knew was I was about to fulfill an obsession I’d had since I was a little girl and that was to go there.


 
The first thing I noticed: lots of talking. A trillion ‘you're welcome'-s ringing in my ears before I’d even left the taxi-stand. A desperation to be remembered saturates customer service. Could be the tipping thing, could be the over-communicating big apple in general. The second thing: it looks like a mix of a) Manukau City in the '80s b) Michael Jackson’s music video for ‘Bad’ c) any awesome movie/series/mob-flick/rap-video/musical you’ve ever seen set there. It took me about six days to adjust,  acknowledge and chill on my mantra ‘it’s not a film-set, it’s a city’.
 
I stayed in Brooklyn with a very talented NZ photographer Tom Neal (right in Biggie's neighbourhood, I only found this out on the last day which cost me major gangsta-bragging time). Tom's website is coming soon, but here's his myspace in the meantime. Shout outs to Carol too (turbo native New Yorker, Columbian, subway guru). They both looked after me, especially when I got imitation swine flu.
 
I can't remember who took this photo but here is me throwing up the rock outside Jay-Z and Beyonce's penthouse which overlooks Brooklyn, my temporary and somehow most-suited neighbourhood while I was in NYC.
 


I saw a play where five artists reinterpreted Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Unlike an electric, life-changing play Angela’s Mixtape (written by Angela Davies niece) that I saw in Soho a week later, this one was terrible. So I promptly got hammered and we went to Manhattan to see our awesome friends Mackie & Drew.
 
We all met up at a small bar where a dude best-known for being Amanda Lapore’s ex was dressed in a pig costume while about 4 drag queens barked at him to get his shit together. In short I love Mackie and Drew to pieces. They run a club-night called Mr Black which was pretty epic, I promptly sighted the surreal Miss Lapore herself and other assorted NY party persona’s. PLUS I met the only other pacific-islander outside the club (which is typical of my sixth-sense for finding relatives). Here's a couple of people from the night.



 



Mackie had also been keeping busy since we’d partied in our Grey Lynn flats years ago - a NZ/US hybrid he is one of our deadliest designer exports. Fashion-heads check out his collection.
 
We also went to Santos Party House, (which I found out my secret orchestral slash metal crush Andrew WK runs ‘geek squeal’). I vaguely remember being put into a cab after dancing all night and then eating an awesome midnight deli sandwich.
 
Drew also threw a big party for Paper Magazine called Beautiful People that week. Me being a flakey New Zealander came way too late for the punctual and sexy soiree and couldn’t get in. I went for cherry pie and coffee instead. Naturally (Mr. New-Yorker-in-another-life-I-swear) Erik Ultimate was on time and made it inside! He saw Katy Perry perform and allegedly Debbie Harry smiled at him. His celeb-spotting stories always cheer me up, get him to tell you about Woody Allen or David Byrne.



So prior to that I had played at Pianos in the Lower East side. DJ Han Baby and Erik Ultimate were still in LA at the time so it was just me vs the Ipod. A sarcastic, spotlight-heavy performance it felt like the opening credits of Seinfeld (complete with laughter because I accidentally slash on purpose went into the cabaret zone). It was cool, apart from the vein megalomaniacal Rufus Wainwright wannabe before me interrupting to ‘battle’ (YAWN). I rapped up, and there in an awesome red jacket casually waiting to high-five me was Concetta aka Princess Superstar!

Dammit she is as mellow and sweet as she is a babe. She recently covered my track Denim & Leather (a jam me and Erik wrote in 2004) on her new single Monday Morning. Check out the video for it, still trips me out to hear a trendy hook originally written in a Honda Civic passing through Wanganui.

 
When Erik and Han Baby arrived it was party-time. Erik was staying out in Queens with our lovely film-maker and artist friend Martha Colburn. We met Martha at an Auckland Art Festival a few years ago and even went on to make a soundtrack for one of her short films Cosmetic Emergency (which played at the Cannes Film Festival that year). Check her stuff out.

Our show at Arlene's Grocery was awesome, lots of friends and freshly-converted fans, it was great. We also got to catch up with our homegirl Heather Mansfield from the Brunettes and her rad husband Andrew. We played, then a dozen of us hit the town. I don’t really remember much from this night if I’m being honest, so lets move on.



Heather and Andrew a few nights later jacked us up to play at a New York University house-party. At first all I saw were terrifying frat-boys, keg-stands and culture-clash conversations. Timid kiwi musical beatnicks were on the ground-floor (Steve Abel, The Brunettes and us) while the American dream filled the other two levels. However the show went on to totally rule. Andrew was our sound-man AND lighting with a laser-pointer.

I even got some mysterious guy writing his details on a napkin while telling me he was from ‘the music industry’ and I could really ‘be somebody’. Wow, look at the time, its 1984 – I loved it.


 
Afterwards we went to one of the coolest underground not-licenced bars ever (which looked like half op-shop, half living-room) and we even got to kick it with my favourite deejaying Detroit citizen Jeff Risk, who I met at the Red Bull Music Academy. Post keg-beer I don’t remember much after this either as you can tell.



Other highlights include almost dying on the Coney Island rollercoaster, Congee in Chinatown, New York Pizza, eating Venezuelan, finding purple-heart earrings with peace signs in the middle, finding my dream Adidas AND Reeboks in a 2-for-1 special, and meeting a whole bunch of hot new friends.
 
Next stop: Berlin!