I had someone reply to one of my instagram posts during my time abroad. They said “I’m so excited to read your travel blog about this trip” &, unfortunately for them, there won’t be one for this past trip to Australia. Why? Because this past trip to Australia was fairly pedestrian, as was the intent for it. I will however fill you in on the “why,” the “how,” the “what,” but not the “who,” for that is a band out of the 60s from The UK…It’s fine, I’ll just stop this here & leave. Anyway, we will be, in sorts, doing a small itty bitty, teeny weenie, type of a travel blog, but it won’t be structured in days & will lean more into the traditional blog format that I do here. Sound good? No? There’s an ‘x’ at the top of your screen, see yourself out I guess.
(If this is the tone I’ll be taking for this we are all in for a wild ride I fear.)
Prologue
Back in July I decided it was time to start recording music again. I had a could songs that I thought were ready to be produced but when I reached out to Jess, my guy was busy. I mean booked out til October busy, & great for him! Absolutely great for him, he’s doing exciting things that are so beyond deserved! So I turned to a few other producers that I knew of in town to get their rates & availability. Unfortunately, a lot of them were out of budget for me or just entirely unavailable, which, great, absolutely charge what you know you’re worth & know the people you typically work with are comfortable with paying. It ultimately didn’t work out for me though so I reached out to Leena & Max in Adelaide, South Australia, to see their thoughts. Max formerly worked in production at Atlantic in LA & has been the producing head of Songbird Society since their studio got up & running a couple of years back. I also know of several people who have worked with him & their music sounds great! Max let me know his mobile & in person rates & I had a wild hair come over me. What if I just flew to Australia to work with him in person? I looked at the cost of flights, which ended up being around $300 total for me thanks to credit card points & it was decided upon!
Initially the idea was to go in September. Evan & I were going to go to Brisbane to attend a music conference there that Max, Leena, & Emma were all planning to go to, but the timing ended up being rushed & the renovations of Songbird were running behind. We instead opted for October/November with Max calling to talk to us about doing a songwriting camp for Leena’s birthday at the start of the month. So we booked flights & loitered. That’s not true, we kept very busy, I even got back in the studio with Jess to work on more music as well. We had also talked about throwing an “American Style Halloween Party” (Halloween isn’t really a big thing in Australia apparently) at the newly renovated Songbird Society, but they had just wrapped a long string of obligations, including hosting a very successful songwriting camp themselves, so we decided against it.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi
I was elated to be back in Australia. Two times in one year?! WHAAAA?! & it was spring, one of my favorite seasons! We flew from Nashville to LA, LA to Auckland, Auckland to Adelaide. We’d never flown Air New Zealand before, but it was lovely, truly lovely! We departed the states on the 26th & arrived the morning of the 28th. Sounds like a hella long span of time, but you have to remember the international dateline, so we’d technically left the late afternoon of the 27th from Adelaide’s perspective & arrived the morning of the next day. Our plans were immediately thrown a bit of a wrench as Leena had developed Rhinovirus & I was dealing with some mysterious sinus ailment, of which the antibiotics that I started on the 25th were not helping in the slightest. So it was either also viral or was entirely my allergies being a brat (less Charli XCX, more snotty child). Additionally both Max & Leena were naturally pretty run down from all of the amazing work they had been doing the last couple of weeks, & we were fairly worn down from traveling, so we opted to delay the start to our production for a couple of days.
October 28th-31st
Our trip started with an immediate visit to the South Australia Music Awards, where Leena & Max were up for the award of “Best Recording Studio” for Songbird Society. We attended the event, Max & Leena were gracious enough to get us tickets, & we ran into literally everyone we’d ever met in the South Australian music community. It was a fun night all in all, some great performances from some of the nominees & an exciting look into the South Australian music world.
The next handful of days were spent revisiting some old favorites; brekkie at Seven Grounds, walks through the Adelaide Park Lands, pastries from Against The Grain, groceries from Woolworths, a pass through the Adelaide Central Market, hangs, vibes, recovery, etc..
At one point we ventured into the city to Adelaide’s OzAsia Festival, a festival the celebrates the arts of different creators & cultures across Asia, to see a friend of the Hurrell’s, San Dragan, perform. Naturally a festival celebrating Asian arts also included a ton of food stalls offering anything from Satay Squid to Kimbop to Nasi Goreng to Bao to Lumpia to Saag Paneer. Naturally we took advantage of this. We were met here by Max & Leena’s friend Alex & made the rounds.
Over the course of our time there I had Takoyaki (one of the only ways I’ll still eat octopus, they’re too intelligent), a Hojicha Affogato complete with Red Bean Paste, Indonesian Fried Chicken battered in crushed up instant ramen & Korean Buldak, some of Evan’s Chicken Curry, & a Taro/Pandan Soft Serve topped with fresh Jackfruit, Grass Jelly, & Tapioca Boba. All in all, I was living my best life.
On Halloween Sophie & her fiancé were kind enough to invite us all over for a halloween game night, Ev & I went into the city to get some bangin’ sandos at Bottega Bandito before heading back to Bowden & the studio to try & piece together some last minute Halloween costumes. After rummaging through Max & Leena’s closets we came up with some actually fairly solid costumes for the four of us. I went as Milo Thatch from Disney’s Atlantis, Evan went as a gender bent Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) from Jurassic Park, Leena went as the Portland Frog (if you know, you know), & Max was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. We had a wonderful evening of food, friends, & games, responsibly distanced as to not get the other guests ill.
November 1st
The following day was a stunner. The weather was sitting in the high 70s with a soft warm spring breeze, so we went to the beach. Max stayed behind to work on a mix for a different client, so Leena, Evan, & I went to Henley. We got sandwiches, fish tacos, & coffee at Joe’s Henley Beach, but also happened upon an amazing brand of coconut water, Sip Coco. It would become Leena & my hyper fixation the duration of the trip. I was partial to the pineapple, the passionfruit, & the ginger, where as she was really into the lychee flavor. Sip Coco, if you’re reading this, please distribute to The US ASAP. Emma met us after lunch & we walked down onto the beach, found a spot to plop & finished out the afternoon chatting & basking in the sun.
South Australia has been experiencing a really bad blue-green algae bloom since the tail end of last summer, (shout out to climate change & industrial farming for that one), so it can actually be dangerous to go to the beach/get in the water at times. The day we went, & the reason we went down to the beach so readily, was that the bloom was not showing that many signs of activity. Typically when the water is foamy & hella murky, it is an indicator of the bloom. If you’re headed to the beach in South Aus, especially with sensitive skin or a sensitive respiratory system, be advised on the current state of this aquatic bush fire.
Max joined us later in the afternoon, he & I went for a swim reassured by the ‘shark alarm plane’ passing overhead several times with no audible warning. Then we all dried off, wrapped up, & went back to the studio to get ready for dinner.
I’m realizing that this day, Nov 1st, is definitely shaping up similar to my normal travel blogs, I did warn you we may dip our toes into that realm from time to time, but all in all it was a fun day to speak on, especially going into dinner.
It’s worth noting here, as I have several times in other blogs, that I have a running travel list that Evan & I share in my phone. It gets updated near constantly & is sectioned off by Continent, Country, State/Territory, City, & even Borough/Neighborhood. I had added a plethora of stops to the Adelaide portion of the list, all of which were corroborated by fellow foodie, Alex, a few days prior at OzAsia. Dinner was one of the picks from my list. Tonight’s as +82 Pocha, a Korean street food restaurant tucked under a skyscraper in the CBD (Central Business District).
In short. It smacks. Hard. We ordered a plethora of things to share, all of which was outstanding. We got Kimchi Mondu Dumplings, Kimchi Jjigae (one of my absolute favorite Korean comfort foods), a Honey Butter Korean Fried Chicken (IYKYK Honey Butter Chips), Bulgogi, their housemate Honey Lemon Soju, &, what has become my new obsession, Truffle Parmesan Tteokbokki. Heavenly.
November 2nd-6th
The next day Max & I started production on my song, I was finally feeling well enough. We mostly spent the day building out the track, I played more bass guitar than I ever have in my life, but what we ended up getting was really cool & I can’t wait to be able to share it with you all! Early next year, I promise ;)
We hit a bunch of cafes the following day including a return to Seven Grounds & a trip to My Kingdom For A Horse where we met up, once again with Emma. We also did a bit of errand running around town for the week to follow.
We hit up He Said She Said in their new Prospect location on the 4th before returning to the studio to spend the afternoon filling in guitar parts & cleaning up some bits of the track. I once again became more of a ‘multi-instrumentalist’ than I typically am on the songs I record with producers, but I really surprised myself with guitar, much like I had on bass two days prior.
I ended the evening with a horrendous migraine that sent me to bed early for a couple hours, but I was eventually drawn out by the smell of the Smoked Brisket Pho we had ordered from Ông Vietnamese Kitchen. Y’all. Y’all. Bars. No notes.
We made our way out of town a bit the following afternoon, eventually ending up on a small hike just off the summit of Mount Lofty. We saw a singular Kangaroo (unusual), had a time doing a bit of call & response with some Lorikeets, & saw the biggest parrot I’ve ever seen, a Black Cockatoo. The sunset & the view from up top was outstanding as well. Afterwards we struggled & failed to find a salad for dinner, ending up at their local Indian spot, Taste Of Bollywood, which was lovely!
It’s worth noting when you go to Adelaide that it is very difficult to find vegetables on a menu. Even a quick scroll through Uber Eats shows you Pizza, Pasta, Burgers, Sandwiches, Pizza, Pizza, Pasta, Fried Korean, Pasta, Burgers, Noodle-y Thai, Pizza, Pasta, Dumplings, Noodle-y Thai, Sandwiches, & on, & on. We were desperate for something green & wouldn’t unfortunately get that until the next day.
The next day we made our way to Ballaboosta, a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurant that had some really solid food & vegetables aplenty! We shared orders of Cauliflower with Tahini, Batata Harra, & a big Mediterranean Salad. Then I got Malfoof & Evan got Shish Tawook. Additionally we ordered a whole half of their Toblerone Cheesecake to take away for late when Emma was coming by to brainstorm for her short film with us!
We ending our after by tracking vocals for the song. Leena vocal produced & we cleared out the live room where Ev & I had been sleeping to set up for the session.
All in all I ended up singing or making various sounds for probably six hours total. Even though that was the case, I wasn’t overly tired vocally, which thanks to Leena’s guidance, was a very nice relief!
Emma joined us around eight or nine & we spent the rest of the evening laughing away & trying to propose ideas for a specific segment of Emma’s short film that was to be shot the following weekend over a rather varied, but delicious, order from Sunny’s Pizza.
November 7th & 8th
Initially, as read above, the plan was to have a writing camp for Leena’s birthday, but the more time went on the more it fell apart. It definitely wasn’t from a lack of trying or planning, especially on Max’s behalf, it just ended up not being a workable thing for most people involved. So we opted out in hopes of doing it again at some point soon! Instead we set about a day of “Leena’s Favorite Things.”
Morning began with decorating the house with streamers, lights, balloons, & of course, a dirty taro latte from Seven Grounds. We then took an uber down to Glenelg, the main popular beach town in the area, in an attempt to have lunch at Uniqorn Eats, a restaurant specializing in rainbow foods. Unfortunately, Uniqorn Eats had a sign on their door saying that they wouldn’t be open until 3pm so we putzed around the town for a bit before returning….unfortunately again, Uniqorn Eats didn’t have an open kitchen until 5pm even once they’d opened………wild. So we had to pivot & ended up at Bottega Gelateria (bae) & Beach Burrito Company for Birria Burritos.
After lunch we hoped a car back into town for some time at the arcade, a few drinks, & a couple of rounds of mini golf at Holey Moley.
On the way back to the studio we stopped off at Plant 4 to pick up Leena’s ‘birthday cake’ which consisted of two large boxes of the most bangin’ vegan cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had from one of the food stalls there. They came complete with an extra box filled with extra icing for the rolls.
The next day was also a part of the birthday celebrations. When Leena was in ADHD decision paralysis about not knowing what she wanted to do for her birthday, I had asked her if she could do anything at all, what it would be. Her answer to that was “lay on the floor & be covered in puppies.” I took that as a cue & turned to the internet. What I found was a puppy yoga class happening literally five streets over from their house & the day after her birthday. Leena had taken it upon herself to text a bunch of her friends, asking if they wanted to join, almost all of them did so she ended up booking out both sessions. Max, Emma, Evan, Ellie (Vocal Lab), Leena, & I all attended the first session, which was about 30 minutes of yoga followed by 30 minutes sat on the floor playing with cocker spaniel puppies. Then we left Leena there, went & grabbed a few groceries, & headed back to the studio to work some background vocals on the song, do a bit of fine tuning, & a bit of final additions before we were to head off in the next couple of days.
The majority of the second group of friends who did puppy yoga were the women whom Leena had met in her “New To Adelaide” group when she had first moved in. They came over following the session & we all had some of the cinnamon rolls, sat around chatting, & eventually shifted to watching various videos on their projector.
At some point here, Evan let slip to Max that I had been looking for some bottle brush essential oils to obtain before departing Australia, as the blooming bottle brush smelled outstanding, so he took it upon himself to make some. He went out front to their tree, cut off a branch, some leaves, & a flower or two & set them in oil to diffuse…olive oil…
The sentiment was there, truly. I appreciate him taking it upon himself & trying. Genuinely I do. It was endearing. Essential oils are made of pressing the plant in question, then that is mixed with an oil like jojoba, not olive. I thanked him for trying, then told him that he could use it for cooking, a statement I have since redacted as bottle brush is fatally toxic to ingest as it is a member of the Eucalyptus family. At least the wood parts are, the flowers & leaves are actually used in traditional medicines & teas. The infused olive oil has since been discarded…I hope.
November 9th & 10th
We started our final full day in Adelaide with brunch at Mister Sunshine’s. Ev & I split the Breakfast Gnocchi & the Steak Sandwich. The gnocchi was definitely the stand out here. Afterwards we dipped back to the studio to start packing up all of our things & put down just a feeeeeew more things on the track that my brain had thought up overnight.
Dinner was a group favorite, Busan Baby. We once again rallied the troops & went in for a shared smorgasbord of ‘busan’ Korean food. Emma once again attended, as did Alex, but we also added Kaurset to our dining party! Together we devoured Bulgogi Bibimbap, Giant Chicken Katsu, Japchae, Tteok-bokki, Soy Garlic Korean Fried Chicken, Ban Chan, & Kimchi. After dinner we went back to Bowden & visited Seven Grounds’ sister restaurant, Lunar Landing, for dessert. I got a Genmaicha Latte (Genmaicha is my absolute favorite tea & I was beyond excited to have it in latte form), a Pandan/Coconut Tiramisu, & some form of Mango/Passionfruit Mousse filled shell that was in the shape of a mango.
We wrapped our evening with a group watch of SNL & a lovely evening of lovely people & their company.
We had a late morning flight. Evan & I got up, did a final bit of picking up, & then of course headed down to Seven Grounds for one last Dirty Taro Latte & one last Salted Caramel Vietnamese Cold Brew. We got to the airport around 9:30am with our flight to Auckland departing around 11:55. We made it through security, got a bit of breakfast then boarded our flight leaving behind a laidback work holiday, close friends, & the warmth & renewal of spring.