I remember the Solace album really well. I remember it because I was in college and it was 2004 and it was probably snowing outside in Ann Arbor and I played that album for like a week straight. When you dig an album that much you don’t forget who made it. Its tracks may fade, you might not be humming them walking down the street, but the musicians’ names stay with you. They forever become engrained in your listening catalog.
So when I saw that Xavier Rudd was playing the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles I figured hey, let’s give it a shot, maybe he’d hop in the van.
Of the day, I recall that it was hot as balls out. I took a casual lunch break at work and hustled over to Hollywood. When I arrived I found The Buddhaphest sitting outside in a fold-out chair, and Xavier Rudd sitting inside the Van sweating his face off.
He sang to us in an illegal parking spot off of Hollywood Blvd. for about twenty-five minutes. Took out an instrument with like twenty-three strings, I couldn’t figure out how to spell it, my Googling efforts failed. So if anyone knows how to spell it, hip me to that. I do know that it was heady That I know.
It was a heady-ass twenty-five minutes. Dude is Australian to the core, like Australian enough that I didn’t want to even mention I’d ever been there, I just wanted to hear what he had to say, cause I figured he knew it way better. So on that note, I’ll let that trippy-ass instrument that I can’t spell do the talking…