ADELAIDE GUITAR FESTIVAL
we flew on friday to Adelaide (check your maps now)...another city on the south east coast of Oz, where all of this tour is happening. There are a couple other coastal cities like Darwin on the north coast and Perth on the southwest... but -- otherwise...outback!!
Check out this sign in the airport - Damn!! there goes one of my fave things to do in a new city-- Drink the Toilet Flushing Water. Sheesh.
Adelaide was really cool, maybe my fave, cos quite a bit smaller, yet full on city with everything there..just a little more simple and old school. Incredible shops and again -- a ZILLION asian restaurants, just name the country and they had 4 restaurants. cool. This is also the home of COOPER'S BEER, who sponsored the fest..and dammit I never had one!! Not really drinking lately. I think -- after Russia -- where I was sloshed every fuckin day -- I decided to take a lil break! But I need to try a Cooper's.. I hear.
And how about this local honey?? Anyone wanna hazard a guess as to how they, um, make this?
I'm all for local ingredients and such...But --- what exactly is up here....? But, seriously, as a natural-food store shopper for 25+ years, employee for 15+ years, and owner for 10+ years, I went into one of the best stores i've ever seen anywhere, here in Melbourne, and one of the really impressive things is how strong of a local natural manufacturing base they have --Lots of great local organic items, and New Zealand, of course a massive source for natural foods..is one of the strictest places on the planet for organic growing methods, recycling, green industry, sustainable agriculture, etc. Good stuff.
So I knew I'd have a cool reunion in this town -- and indeed, we had just checked in when YONRICO SCOTT walked out of an elevator. He's the drummer from the DEREK TRUCKS BAND... I did a great 3 week tour with them this past Sept. It was incredible...watching Derek nightly was a joy and very schooling for me..The whole band and crew - really great players and people - check that band out! When that tour ended I knew that we'd all be at this Guitar Festival in december. Here's the Slicks & Rico moments after they met......
The band was to play a full set on Friday Night, then day off saturday to rehearse for Sunday ---which would be the AC/DC tribute (Isn't EVERY day a tribute to AC/DC??)
Here is the band rocking a nice outdoor crowd....We did lose quite a few people when the huge local pop-punk band GRINSPOON got done with their set..it was a weird pairing but hey - three cheers for diversity..
The trio brought it -- they always sound 'larger than life' on a giant stage with those outdoor systems....and there were some very happy locals....this was a real treat -- as ALL the gigs were, since Adrian doesn't get "down" here too often..People were really great after the show, telling the band how wild it was to even get this chance. One guy flew in from New Zealand for two shows..
I had a big surprise while looking at the program notes for this event.... the MC was none other than....WNYC's John Scheafer!!! Most of you are going...What???!..but if you live in the NYC or tri-state area, you'll know the very excellent WNYC, FM and AM, fantastic public radio, NPR affiliate stations. In the fall of 1983...i was studying in college, I ultimately got an As. Sc. in Computer Science. I got into the habit of studying with WNYC FM on...as they played great classical music. One night -- pretty damned stoned -- I came home and turned on my stereo-- which was still tuned to 93.9 FM...this...bizarre music poured out of it... I grabbed a cassette and started taping .. It turned out be Laurie Anderson's "From The Air"....more amazing music poured out of the box...Philip Glass, Keith Jarrett, Jan Hammer and Jack DeJohnette...maybe some Steve Reich...I was hooked!! In 45 minutes...the next direction of my life as a listener and lover of music took a severe turn.
I was listening to NEW SOUNDS with John Schaefer. At 18yrs old I was hooked on a ton of 'new' music all at once. The show was on nightly at 11pm...and John gets my eternal thanks for turning me onto so much amazing music, ..Popul Vuh, Penguin cafe Orchestra, George Winston, Michael Hedges, (in fact windham hill in general), Scott Cosu, Scott Johnson, the aforementioned Laurie, Philip Glass, Reich, and people I had heard of but never got to hear much - John Cage, John Zorn, on and on and on -- all the downtown NYC composers, Bang On A Can, etc. It was world music...ambient..electronic, experimental, japanese shakuhachi, Stockhausen..David Borden, Alvin Lucier, weird synthesiser music, you name it!!
This show CHANGED MY LIFE...I went onto minor in music and take a LOT of ancient music, world music and theory with Phil Corner..and electronic music/ tape-based musique concrete with Dan Goode...would I have done that without this crash course every night?? Maybe?? But I did -- and i thank john -- for being a HUGE part of who I am as a musical being..years later I met him when I toured with Don Preston - one of our stops was on the show - where Don performed solo and was interviewed. It was great..
THANKS JOHN
