Hazard Bros. in the Humma

Shock G. w/ Soma Rasa @ The Roxy (LA)

Shock G + Money B w/ Soma Rasa @ The Roxy.

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Sampology @ The Plush Lounge

Metaphysical @ The Plush Lounge

Karl + Kina @ The Roxy (LA)

LA in da House @ The Plush Lounge (LA)

MC Handy in the Humma!

MC Handy @ The Roxy (LA)

Soma Rasa recently spent 2 weeks in Los Angeles as a part of the Musexpo Conference - With 2 shows in LA; one at The Roxy and the other at the Key Club (Plush Lounge). Below is their tour diary that was originally published in Scene Magazine ( Australia ).

TOUR DIARY - LOS ANGELES -April '06 - WEEK 1
WEEK 1 (Published April 26 '06 - Scene Magazine)

By the time this goes to press we'll be on a plane to LA.. Shit is crazy right now! Soma Rasa is a blur of activity. We no longer sleep and LA is seeming more and more like the right place for us to be right now.

Thats right, we are heading to L.A to perform a showcase at The Roxy in West Hollywood as part of the Musexpo Conference a.k.a. "the united nations of music". QLD Trade and Q Music have really helped to make this happen for us and we are hitting it with all guns blazing. We never thought we were the kind of band that would be into doing showcase gigs and going on about how good we are to strangers but hey, it's L.A., weve been invited, lets go, let's turn it on and turn it up !

Were taking the full band; the Hazard Brothers, Kina, Sampology, our VJ Bree and we are flying MC Handy to LA from London where he has been for the last couple of months doing a residency at Fat Records club night "Chew The Fat" at The End. All up the 6 of us are doing an 11 day stay in LA. To top it off we also have the 4 members from L.A Hip Hop luminaries Digital Underground joining us onstage for "Say What You Say" at The Roxy show on May 2nd. All up 10 artists from 3 countries.

As soon as we heard that we were selected to showcase in L.A we were straight onto contacting Digital Underground (LA locals) to try and hook up with them and get them on stage at The Roxy gig. Within a day or two we had replies from all members locking in for the show and all the rehearsals when we arrive in LA. The DU guys have been a great support for the trip helping us hook up an extra show in L.A at The Key Club on Sunset Blvd. Shock G has also offered to give us a tour of L.A. when we arrive, couldn't think of a better tour guide!... He told us the other day that the hotel we are staying at in West Hollywood is across the road from where Tupac got his first tattoo back in the day when Digital Undergroud were shooting the video for "Same Song"; Shock said he loved this part of town; "it is my home away from home" - "I sleep well there". Comforting words for a band that doesn't sleep.

We have been rehearsing at "Out Loud" in West End for a couple of weeks getting the tracks ready and refined into a 30 minute set. In the last 2 weeks we have also put together a 9 track CD release for the U.S titled "Step Up" along with a DVD featuring new film clips and a documentary we filmed last year when we recorded "Say What You Say" with Digital Underground. This must arrive in L.A by Wednesday next week! Last minute freak outs included a conversion of all of our DVD videos to NTSC for US video format and packaging dilemmas. We have also been flat out getting together packages and releases to represent other Freefall Records artists Teschnik and Whispa at the conference and make them massive overseas stars before Australia fully realises how great they are. If all goes to plan, all our promo should arrive by the time we get to LA - if not....well.. we will tell you about that next week.

So far the tour is a technical nightmare, the live show needs 3 laptops to run or to even barley make sense... what has become of us? Sampology (our DJ who has been filling in for DJ Kristian while he has been re-located in the UK for 6 months) has Serato software that he uses to scratch (from vinyl records) audio sounds of his laptop, Bill has Ableton Live to run the backbone of the Soma Rasa set and Bree is using Arkaos to mix our live visuals. No wonder we are freaking out....traveling 6 people 20,000 Km in the hope your computer works.... thank god for Drums!

No really everything is cool.

Next stop, LA on the 26th May, where we move into our West Hollywood Hotel for 11 days, then straight into rehearsals with the full band, Digital Underground and MC Handy at Swinghouse rehearsal rooms; a radio interview on Indie Indie 103.1 FM, press interviews and a QLD band welcoming function put on by Musexpo and A R Worldwide, did someone say "free drinks"...

TOUR DIARY - LOS ANGELES - MAY '06 - WEEK 2
WEEK 2 (Published May 3 '06 - Scene Magazine)

April 26

All has come together, we have arrived LAX at 7am and jump in a van with the Boat People and head straight to the hotel. We are greeted by Tina Radburn from QLD Trade and Innovation (LA office) and she takes us straigt to a local diner where we realise that we will not find good coffe for 2 weeks. First day was crazy, no sleep for 40 hours and we still cant sleep, we are all wired, and head straight for the steet as soon as we can. Jobs for the day are to head into the Sean Healy Presents office who is booking our Key Club show on Sunset Blvd. Just of Melrose Ave , the office is a hub of LA hip hop show bookings. We pick up a stack of invites and tickets to our show to start handing out

to everyone that we meet. Next mission; record shopping, lead by Sam we find some wicked stores with an hour from arriving. Back to hotel all trashed 1 am and dan and bill cant get to sleep and head for some clubs. 2 am we find a cool club called the Rainbow Room "LA rocker paradise", we end up drinking beer with the bass player from Whitesnake and Lyrics Born.

April 27

Handy arrives form London and we start showing him about despite his jetlag. Tonight we headed out to a club in Silverlake (about 20 min from West Hollywood ) called The Little Temple, this place is tigt, 2 rooms playing straight up hip hop and a live band in the back room. The venue is made up of about 5 small rooms with people just lounging around and guys breaking in any space they can find, sweat was flying around the room.

April 28

Today is a work day, 12 hr rehearsal at Swinghouse studios.The set is tight and totally going off. we are all vibing and Kina and Mc Handy are coming up with new ideas all day / night. Everywhere we go we travel by Cab and quickly find the cab drivers a great source for a chat and local knowledge. Digital Underground cant't make the rehearsal as planned due to travel delays and we reschedule our rehearsal with them to our hotel on the next Monday night.

April 29.

This morning we head into 103.1 FM for an interview, the number 1 independedt radio station in the US.We bump into the Spazzy's and Dan greets them with an american accent pretending to recongnise them whilst taking photos of them "oh my god it's the spazzy's"; The Spazzys are flattered and dan later confesses he is not American and is from a brisbane band called Soma Rasa. Tonight we head to the Bel Age hotel were there is a welcoming function put on for the Australian bands perfroming during the week, XXXX on tap and Australian wines - things get meessy fast... Kina is introducing everyone to Motley CruesManager while the rest of the band finds a table close to the beverages - First ones there and last ones to leave, we head back to the hotel for an afterparty and end up inviting the people from the rooms around ours and the Boat People turn up along with resing dogs manager who is also in town. Handy is Djing some fresh UK breaks at fullvolume from from his iPod while everyone spills austrialian wine all around the room.

Back to the after party at the Riot and Shock G is in the house entertaining to the roomful of party people. We constructed a makeshift vocal booth and were often recording till the sun came up. Metaphysical dropped a mad rhyme over a new Drum and bass track and MC Handy added his usual super fast flavour.. LA, London and Brisbane come together for this one.

April 30

Bree (our VJ) arrives from Brisbane and wakes us all up and makes us confront our hangover that we worked hard for the night before. We shower and head straigt to the closet diner for breakfast and more bad coffee. Sam reminds dan that we need to get our diary written for scene and we race back to the Hotel.

TOUR DIARY - LOS ANGELES - MAY '06 - WEEK 3
WEEK 3 (Published May 10 '06 - Scene Magazine)

Soma Rasa just touched down in Brisbane ...Jet lagged and a bit sad to leave LA, but there is nothing like returning to breath our fresh air and see a clear Brissy sky.

We stayed at the Hyatt on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood for 11 days.. This Hotel has such a history and is referred to as the riot house even by the people who work there. I can tell you Soma Rasa kept the tradition alive!

Tuesday 3rd of May.

Today is a show day at the Roxy on Sunset Blvd. With Dan the main man at the conference since Sunday, Kina and Bill team up and head to the Musexpo and check out a seminar called Digital Disruption before the rooftop poolside luncheon were it is time to meet and greet. We sound check at 5pm but only get half an hour. We get to run through Say What You Say with Shock and Metaphysical for the first time. The PA sounds tight. We rush to get the projector rigged for visuals before doors open. Just enough time for a burrito at Paquita mas. Back to the Roxy to meet Money and Shock who is sporting a green paisley jacket. We had 5 MC's on stage for "Say What you Say" including the DU crew and our own Mc's Handy and Kina.

Wednesday 3rd May

We wake up to Handy in his cockney accent saying me toungs as dry as the floor of a pigeons loft. Dan and Kina head to the conference with great talks on the state of Independent Lables around the world, Dan manages to get in the ear of the iconic Tony Wilson who founded Factory Records (New Order, Happy Mondays). Tonight we went to the Best Of British showcases held at the Key Club, we saw some great bands with stand outs The Infadels and Bassbooser. We had an after party back at the riot house (again !) and invited Bassbooser over at about midnight to do another session with us while we still had the gear set up. With a heap of people in the room everyone had to be quiet when the record button was hit. At about 3am we met a couple of the guys from the London act Brand New Heavies who were on tour and had just done their own show at the Roxy. We charmed them into the studio to add a bass line to the track.

Thursday 4th May

First real day off for the whole crew and Bree (Soma Rasa VJ) organizes a 25 seater stretch Hummer for a 4 hour tour of LA and Venice Beach . We manage to rope Metaphysical and Studio Dan from Digital Underground along with the Boat People and Troy n Trevlyn into the ride.

Friday 5th May

Our last night in LA and we have our own headline show at The Plush Lounge which is the VIP bar below the Key Club. Before show we have an interview out on Sunset Blvd with musicplustv.com and then into the show. The room came alive with a huge turn out. Something we weren't really expecting. It really felt like a home show for some reason. We hit the stage at full speed Metaphysical was on stage for the whole set, so Impovisation was the key for this one and I think thats when the band is at it's best. Australian and American hands were in the air, bar staff we jumping around and the vibe was massive. Ending the show with Kina on the mic shouting One hand high, two fingers to the sky everybody say peeeeeeace.

Saturday May 6

Quick interview with backstageaccessmagazine.com at the Riot and pack for our flight home, last goodbyes to all our new and old friends. Get home check email, hello whats this an offer to come back and perform in Las Vegas at a high profile awards night? Cant say no more, will keep you posted.