An Horse
Random Hotel Room, Wurzbachgasse, 2011
All Austria-Australia jokes aside! The Brisbane-based duo An Horse is the first Australian band, that we got to film so far. Kate Cooper and Damon Cox have a grammatically debatable band name, that their non-native speaking fans might just take for granted (or at least us until we read about the debate whether the indefinite article is „a horse“ or „an horse“). However, as we are not the right people for language analysis, we better put the focus on An Horse’s catchy music that they present for us in their hotel (bath-)room. As if the setting was not already odd and amusing enough for Kate, Damon encores with flushing the toilet. This reminds of another convincing bathroom session featuring Thao With The Get Down Stay Down.
- Photography
- Sarah Brugner
- Artist
- An Horse
Random Hotel Room, Wurzbachgasse
It is a coming and going. People and places are exchangeable. It is anonym and random. This blurred scenery of any hotel room is an elemental state of being for musicians on tour. The romantic motive of the artist as a rambling person is no accident. Yet the raw and pure charm of an idealized restlessness of the artist is soon volatilized by professional obligations. When the spiritual homelessness – footloose and fancy-free – turns into a factual one – bound to engagements-, the routine of the rambling musician is not so glamorous. Not everyone can or wants to live the cliché of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll in ever changing constellations in nightly hotel rooms. But again – the illusion of ongoing intensity easily wears out in the normal course of life. The other side of the coin is the idling between the kilometres to travel, the interviews to give, the shows to play. Apart from the joy of making music and playing live, people have their own strategy of how to settle a little and savour the everyday bliss. Be it the recording of a new song on a calm afternoon in your lonesome hotel room – so did Matthew from Phosphorescent when he stopped by in Austria with his Nick Cave-cover of Right Now I am A-Roaming – or the companionship by your beloved partner in all that travelling – as Micah P. Hinson was treasured by his wife Ashley – or just having fun in the bathroom like Kate Cooper and Damon Cox.