noah adler

It’s been a pretty interesting time here in Melbourne. I haven’t managed to get out musically as much as I’d hoped, but I have had some good time to practice and write, and it’s been good to unwind. I’ve otherwise kept busy with scoping the culture and taking various day trips to the countryside. The bit of musical exposure I have managed to get has indicated an extremely healthy scene.

Went out on Sunday morning, got a flat white down and scoped the market. Got invited to join a busker at the market, but like a fool I forgot to bring a cable with me, knowing it would be provided at the jam session I was heading to later that day. Silly not to be prepared anyway, but oh well, lesson learned. Roamed around the Central Business District (read: downtown) for a while, and heard a variety of quite impressive busking. First was a mostly flamenco mostly diatonic duo, obviously sanctioned by the city judging by their impressive PA setup, and they sounded quite polished. After chatting to them for a bit, I moved on and spotted a trio on banjo, upright bass (bowed), and harmonica, which was quite strange and not at all what I’m used to hearing from banjo, but hey, other side of the world. Next up walking down an alley towards the station, there was a young jazz guitar duo who I talked to, some very friendly and informative students named Tim and Malcolm. Made me wish for a fleeting moment I could go back to school and study music, but no regrets here, my path is alright, and it’s all mine.

Soon enough headed down to Williamstown suburb to the Rose of Australia Hotel for the blues jam session I’d read about. Introduced myself to Tommy the host, a Swedish fellow (imagine that!) and quite a good guitar player. The jam session started out a bit slow, with some low tempo shuffles, but as a few hours passed, more people showed up, more beers were consumed, and the place really started to rock. Took me a bit to find my stride, but I think by the end everyone was happy to have a bit of Kentucky infusion. Looking forward to going back here next Sunday.

Last night we went down to a venue in St. Kilda called the Esplanade Hotel (aka the Espy), which had maybe four separate performance spaces inside. We walked in to a power trio covering Cream and Hendrix, and a room full of people really digging, even dancing! The guitarist was really bringing the performance, playing with his teeth, etc., and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Brilliant. Next band up had a girl fronting on guitar and vox, but opening up with another blues cover (Spoonful), spoonfed again to whiteys by Cream, left me a little disappointed. I’m still looking to get a sense of original music coming out of this place, but the blues-based rock and roll scene seems in full swing, which is great by my mind. Makes me feel right at home. Got shooed off by a couple too-eager birds, and moved onto the next venue, which had a completely different sort of cover band, a group called Play-Doh playing powerpop-punk. Still they put on a good show, and the room was full of dancing. After being in Seattle for a while, that’s so refreshing.

Overall I’m very taken with the Melbourne music scene. Seems like it might have the ecosystem and support I’m looking for, if only I were able to stick around for a bit. I’ve got a lot of pent up music, though, that needs to be put down on an album pretty immediately. Perhaps I can scrounge up a group here in town, but my heart kind of crying to get back stateside. Que sera, sera.

I had a great whirlwind of a time in LA, consisting mostly of seeing shows and meeting a lot of cool musicians and letting all the days blur together. Enjoyed the beautiful train ride down from SLO, watching the California countryside slowly transition to the sprawling graffiti encrusted suburban jungle. That night, Paul took me to see his friends in Pizza! (formerly The New Motherfuckers) at the Museum of Neon Art. They put on a cool show of wacky pop music, with a lot of stylistic changes, almost prog pop. Saw a group called Fol Chen the next night, another very cool cinematic pop show. That seems to be the theme in LA: put on a show. I guess it should be obvious based on the reputation of the town, but it was really enlightening to get a feel for it firsthand. There’s something to be said for polishing a show to flawless perfection, but I just can’t get over jamming myself. I can’t help but think that west coast musicians should spend some time in the south to cross-pollinate, cause both approaches certainly have their own merit.

Sunday we drove up to Joshua Tree and met some of Paul’s good friends who had been camping out there. We played around on the big rocks there for a while. The desert is a pretty unforgiving environment, with thorns on every plant and mostly bees buzzing near ears for company. I scraped my leg open on a rock almost immediately, and the bees seemed to bother other people, but I think I was a bit too exhausted to care about them, and they left me well enough alone. Paul performed some amazing acrobatics to get away from their buzzing though haha! The highlight of the excursion, though, was heading to Pioneer Town to see The Eagles of Death Metal who put on a BRILLIANTLY rocking show at one of the coolest venues I’ve been to. The frontman really brought a fantastic energy– maybe the rock star isn’t an extinct creature after all. We went back to the campsite in the park after that, and I lay by the fire gazing up at the stars in the clear desert sky for a long time before drifting off.

Next day I decided to go through with it and hopped on the plane to Melbourne. I’m sitting here now having a beautiful cup of black tea. I had a little bit of a chance to write on the plane, and had a nice conversation with a fellow traveling musician in the Auckland layover. Don’t know if I’ll get a chance to record anything, as I have very minimal gear with me, but I hope to come away with some nice new hopefully performable material, assuming I can remember everything that’s happened since I left Seattle. The toilets here flush backwards, but time still keeps moving forwards. I think I’ll be headed back to the States after not too long, but for now, I need to unwind and let my soul settle a bit. Keep on straight ahead.