Courtesy photo The Gin Club, a power-pop band from Australia, is on its first tour of the United States. The group is promoting its new "Junk" album.

Courtesy photo The members of Gin Club cite Radiohead, The Pogues, Crowded House and The Drones as influences.

This sounds pretty cool: a bunch of bands we've never heard of from a lot of places we've never been will play all weekend during the inaugural Indie International Rock 'n' Roll Showcase at the adventurous Experi-mental Cafe. Don't whine about the dumbbell traffic in Oxnard — you'll endure very little travel time, comparatively speaking. The Gin Club is coming from Australia, and some of the other bands are from England and even Minnesota, so argument defused.

The Friday and Saturday gigs are of the ever-affordable free variety, and the Sunday showcase will cost a half-dozen George Washingtons to get you inside. How could you not get behind something like that right here in the 805?

Then again, don't look too closely at the geography angle. Moorpark and Oxnard, home to a couple of the bands, are not international if you're already in the 805. Trust me, I have a social science credential and have taught geography. Anyway, new music at a cool place — this is why music matters.

"Live in your world; rock in our cafe," said Experi-mental Cafe manager Peter Bouloukos. The showcase "is going to be enlightening," he said. "I really cannot put into words how talented all the artists are, specifically Sunday. Each band has a long résumé and great history."

Singer-songwriter types Natalie D. Napoleon (no relation to Bonaparte or Dynamite) and Ed Vallance are worth checking out, and how could you not want to get the lowdown on Ghetto Cowgirl? More adjectives than you can digest for each act can be found on the venue's MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/experimentalcafe.

Also worth the drive is The Gin Club, purveyors of pure power pop, and those six-part harmonies sure don't hurt either. They got it going in Brisbane in '03, cite all sorts of cool bands as influences and have three albums, including their latest, a two-CD epic, titled "Junk," which is most definitely not an example of truth in advertising.

An e-mail exchange with Gin Club guitarist-vocalist-drummer-bassist Ben Salter revealed the following:

So what's the latest in Gin Club world?

Well, we've just finished a three-week tour of the east coast of Australia with another Aussie band, Mike Noga and the Gentlemen of Fortune. We covered about 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) in a Toyota commuter van.

Been to America before? California?

When I was a little kid we went to Disney World. I was too scared to get my photo with Mickey Mouse — maybe I was wise beyond my years. The Gin Club have been to Canada though.

Do Australian fans drink more than other fans?

Um. I have no idea. We really only have Australian fans at the moment.

What have you wonderful guys learned on the road?

Before bed: one vitamin B, two Nurofen Plus and 500 milliliters of water.

What was your strangest gig?

Well, we recently did one on the 75th floor of a high-rise building on the Gold Coast for a cement company. That was pretty strange.

No doubt. The usual easy one: What does the band sound like?

We sound a bit like The Band, The Pogues, The Triffids and Crowded House playing cricket against Radiohead, Spiritualized and The Drones, with RZA from the Wu Tang Clan umpiring.

Very good. You've obviously answered that question more than a few times. Is there anything that makes the band distinctly Australian?

We're all from Australia, and we write about Australia, and we love Australia. Well, all except Ola (Karlsson). He's from Sweden, but even he writes about Australia. To be honest, I don't go in for parochialism or ultranationalism too much, but we can't help but be influenced by what is around us. We would rather talk about our own culture and experiences than ape bands from the U.K. or U.S. like so many of our contemporaries do.

And what's next?

We're coming over to see you guys!