A few months after the release of their third album, Skipping Girl Vinegar will pick-up from where they dropped-off to headline the opening night of the AWME (Australasian Worldwide Music Expo).
AWME is a music-industry conference and showcase held in Melbourne each year over three days in November.
Mark Lang, from Skipping Girl Vinegar, attended the event last year as a delegate and is thrilled to be invited back to to headline the event. “I love the AWME and I went along last year just as a delegate. “I had been in the [United] States working on a new record and I came home and I just went in and went along because I’d heard so many great things about the event and I was actually really blown away,” Mark says.
After returning from America, Mark spent some personal time-off to focus on his family while his wife was suffering from cancer. Taking a step back from his career as things were starting to take-off for Skipping Girl Vinegar had Mark feeling disconnected from the music industry when he was ready to return. “We had to take a bunch of time out so I felt like I’d sort of dropped out of the world a little bit,” he says.
Attending AWME last year helped Mark and the band enter back into the industry. “We reconnected with a bunch of successful directors and it seemed that sort of set things up for our Bluesfest launch of our record and a whole lot of great things came out of it, and we got a lot of good advice about entering back into the US market.
“To come full circle a year later and be headlining the opening night at the Arts Centre and going back to the Arts Centre again is, yeah, it’s a bit of a dream,” Mark says.
The Playhouse Theatre at the Arts Centre Melbourne has special meaning to Skipping Girl Vinegar after launching their album there earlier in the year. “We were invited to launch our record there and that’s a really remarkable space to have the opportunity to launch with a big crowd and everything.
"So to be invited back there five or six months later to play in the same room again is very special."
Skipping Girl Vinegar will be playing a full-length set with a collection of material from all three of their albums. They also have some special set design and production plans for the show. “We’re trying to create this immersive experience where you kind of enter into the room and there’s these large projections happening behind it.
"We sort of create this movement feeling of art-wave-ocean sort of thing with things flying around us and then there’s all these pieces of junk that we’ve kind of repurposed into set design.”
After experiencing such an emotional journey by his wife’s side, Mark’s perspective and creative outlook has shifted somewhat. “To be honest with you my centre is very much formed around my family now.
"Exploring things but trying to find balance and all that sort of stuff… when you go through that sort of stuff it helps to put things into perspective a bit and you kind of find your way back into it a bit,” Mark says.
“I feel like I honoured the journey and I felt it was a healing process to make this record as well. I’m looking forward to stepping into the next phase of life.”
After the AWME show, Skipping Girl Vinegar will be playing a string of shows with Ron Sexsmith in November and are keeping mum about their plans for next year assuring us there are some exciting plans in the works. “We’re certainly excited to see where things take us and the incredible thing about art is that you can never really predict what will happen,” Mark says.
SGV Tour Dates
Sat 7 Nov - SGV Solo: Darwin Railway ClubThu 12 Nov - AWME @ Arts Centre Melbourne
Sat 21 Nov - SGV Solo: The Street Canberra
Fri 11 Dec - SS&A Club (Albury)
Ron Sexsmith Tour Dates
Mon 23 Nov - The Basement (Sydney)Sat 28 Nov - Northcote Social Club (evening & matinee shows)
