Los Angeles-based musician Trevor Hall is performing in Gainesville after the release of his most recent album, which details his new perspective on life.
While the acoustic folk and reggae artist has friends in Gainesville and has even stayed overnight on the way to shows in other cities, this is his first performance in the college town. Hall is now on tour after the late August release of "KALA," a musical look into Hall’s personal journey of changing the way he perceives time.
Kala means "time" in Sanskrit, the primary sacred language of Hinduism.
"(It’s) kind of the healing process of looking at time as a space and as growth," Hall said, "and there’s learning, rather than as something that we’re running out of."
Something about time went off in the artist’s brain when he visited his grandma last year. He was pushing her around in her wheelchair when she said, "Isn’t time such a wonderful gift?"
After taking her words to heart, he spent the last year and a half thinking about that moment. The memory led to his meditations about time and the cycles of the earth — the inspiration of the album.
Most of the songs were written in Maui over the winter. Although Hall called the time there special, he said he doesn’t have to necessarily be in a magnificent place to write music.
"So it’s more about where I’m at on the inside, you know," Hall said, "and for me songwriting is a process of getting quiet, you know, kind of getting to silence through sound as ironic as that is."
Once he finds that silence, the music is usually created before there are any words to the song. He doesn’t try to write a certain song or a certain style but lets the "energy" speak to him, he said.
He said the sound gives him the language.
"The music kind of creates a mood," Hall said, "creates a color, even, an energy that inspires the words, you know."
With his music attracting an eclectic crowd, no matter how many times he plays in the same city, the performer said he never knows what to expect.
Recently, he was playing a show in Vancouver — where he has performed before — and after 11 p.m., the venue became a nightclub. His group had until 10:45 p.m. to play its set, and as the clock grew closer to 11 p.m., the nightclub’s crowd began to trickle in and mix with what he describes as "hippie Trevor Hall fans."
The crowd became a total clash.
The nightclub began playing heavy metal for no other reason than to run all the hippies out of the venue.
Pat Lavery, owner of Glory Days Presents, wrote in an email High Dive is excited to bring Hall in for his first Gainesville show.
"Trevor has a really broad audience that bridges the gap between reggae and world music, and folky singer/songwriter stuff," Lavery said.
Hall will perform Friday at the High Dive, located at 210 SW Second Ave. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show begins at 10 p.m. Tickets are available for $18 at the door or $15 in advance on ticketfly.com.
Los Angeles folk and reggae artist Trevor Hall is performing Friday at High Dive, 210 SW Second Ave. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show begins at 10 p.m.
