You're sitting by a lake on a warm and sunny spring afternoon, with friends, drink in hand. What music are you listening to?
Skunkhour has to be a contender.
The Aussie band's rhythmic indie-soul-pop is an eclectic combination of funk, rock, rap and new wave and guaranteed to get any crowd, of any musical persuasion, up and dancing.
They're performing at Fast & Loud Festival on October 14 at Multi-Arts Pavilion, mima, in Speers Point Park, supported by Newcastle creative collective SF Wrens. The bar will be open and there will be food trucks on site.
The festival also includes the Offshore Superboat Championships on Lake Macquarie, and the Australian Powerboat Grand Prix 2023.
Skunkhour, hailing from Lismore on the north coast of NSW, were one of the "it" bands of the early '90s in Australia, bringing with them a brave new fusion of sounds and vocals that perplexed music executives but appealed to live audiences both here and overseas.
Brothers Dean and Michael Sutherland, Warwick Scott, and brothers Aya and Del Larkin released their self-titled independent debut album in 1993, followed by FEED in 1994, Chin Chin (1997) and The Go (2001).
They played major festivals and even signed a UK/European deal with British label Acid Jazz.
Listening to Up To Our Necks the other day, I was immediately transported all the way back to the summer of '95 when the song made it to No.55 on the triple j Hottest 100 countdown and featured on the subsequent double-CD compilation album alongside the likes of Ammonia, Oasis, Buffalo Tom, Skunk Anansie, Jeff Buckley, TISM, Portishead, Pollyanna, DEF FX, early Foo Fighters ... those were the days.
You might also remember Skunkhour's other infectious and delightfully groove-heavy hit, Weightlessness.
The band broke up in November 2001 but are back gigging with a new drummer, Carlos Adura, and last month released a new single, Rain On Me. It's good, too. Vintage Skunkhour for a modern audience.
Del Larkin is Skunkhour's MC and one of the band's two vocalists, the other being his brother Aya.
"We really deliver live. Ours is an energetic and kinetic live show and it's one of the things we are most proud of as a band," he tells Weekender.
"We fuse so many elements that our crowd was, and still is, incredibly diverse, everyone from miners to skaters to surfers to hippies to clubbers to grungeheads to hip-hoppers.
"Fusing so many elements made it a little difficult for us in the industry, but playing live is where we won everyone over and built our support base."
Having Carlos join the band, he says, gives Skunkhour some "new perspective, style and energy".
"A lot of feedback we're getting is that we're better than ever, and I think we are," Larkin says.
"We're more mature, we're more relaxed and we pay more attention to each song.
"There's a real dynamic with the band, having a brass section and all that, and I feel I'm rapping better than ever."
Larkin was rapping in an Aussie accent with Skunkhour years before, say, the Hilltop Hoods or Drapht. Looking back, it's clear he was a trailblazer, but one who flew under the radar.
"I get why, because we were never hip-hop, and I was never hip-hop. I'm not seen as part of hip-hop history in this country because I actively tried not to be part of it," he says.
"I made the point when I started - I'm a white middle-class boy from Bronte Beach. I have nothing in common with the American hip-hop culture, I'm not going to pretend that I do, and if I try to pretend, I don't have a leg to stand on. There's no credibility there.
"So I made the decision to be who I was, a grungey, surfie kind of guy with long hair who rapped with a new wave, rock-funk band in pubs."
Musing about Skunkhour's sound, he says: "There was an acid jazz revival at the time, with Jamiroquai and Brand New Heavies and those kind of bands, but we weren't purely groove or funk, we had a rock and grunge element, and prog, new wave, electro ... multiple different styles.
"Yes, I was the first Aussie MC to be on a triple j album of the week and being played on high rotation on radio, and I think we were the first guys to cross over, get national exposure, rapping in an Aussie accent. But it wasn't hip-hop.
"We copped so much crap at the time with the accent thing. The media in Australia was so rock-centric."
He recalls Skunkhour playing in venues "that had just come out of the '80s hard rock scene" and winning over any crowd.
"You'd see their hesitancy at the start, standing cross armed, and we'd always win them over by the end.
"We based our live show on those great Aussie acts like Midnight Oil, Hunters and Collectors, where the live show was it. Our energy would draw the crowd in, and then they'd want to dance to the funk groove.
"These days the market doesn't want playing live. The competition for people's attention, it's all online. People have everything on their phones - movies, gaming, Netflix, music - there's so much competition.
"But music was it for our generation, the only means you had to find your identity and go out and be a part of it."
