Broddie's Gazette No. 12

February 2010

Unknown Country, my new cd, is doing well and in a few weeks we make a film of a track and start putting together work for the year.

It’s a tough scene out there for most folks but hey, what’s new? Tougher for the young acts in a way because they’ve got to make a name for themselves in a scene that doesn’t give a rat’s and the minute they cut off their dreads their audience jumps on their surf boards and paddles away.

But for mad old dudes like me, hey do I care?
......... Yeah I do.

Well whaddya know!
I was in a band in the seventies called the Dingoes and we sold a few records, won a few awards and are credited with being the fathers of the Australian country rock scene that now of course has morphed into New Country.

Last year we were honoured by Aria for this and each got a gold obelisk that I carried home in my car and it cost Kerryn and John from the Dingoes a small fortune to get them back to their homes in the United States.

At the dinner was David Minear, owner of Bombora Records in Adelaide. David being the benevolent, philanthropic chap that he is, offered to finance a Dingoes re-union album. So, a few months later I find myself on a plane flying towards Tucson Arizona where Kerryn from the Dingoes has a studio. Turned out to be cheaper for two of us to go there than them come here.

Okay, cool. Haven’t seen Arizona since the 70’s.

The plane trip over was a nightmare with a grandmother travelling with her daughter and her daughter’s two young kids on a trip to Disneyland and then Vegas. Vegas? With little kids? That’s like taking nuns to a Motley Crue after-gig party. I don’t get it. Do they have Fisher Price poker machines there?

I explained to the granny that the best way to travel is to set your clocks to the destination time zone. And at the appropriate moment take a sleeping pill so you can be reasonably in sync for when you land.

I told her, “Now I’m taking my pill because I have to be ready for work when I get there”.

As I’m trying to sleep she kept prodding me in the shoulder and asking me what I did for a job and climbing over me, and the grand daughter next to her kept screaming and needed to be kept in a strait jacket. On arrival in LA I was exhausted but stayed calm even though I remained anxious for the two ladies and the kids travelling to Sodom and Gomorrah.

The trip to Tucson was easy and laid-back compared to the madness of the Sydney to LA bit.

Kerryn met Chris Stockley and I at the Tucson airport and whisked us off into the desert before depositing us at our accom which was great and run by two delightful ladies called Kristy and Mary Jo. We still communicate via the web and became friends.

My son Perry came over a few days later and hung out with us around his ramblings through the state.

One instance springs to mind with Perry and Chris Stockley and I watching Ultimate Fighting on a huge TV screen and Perry and I explaining to Chris that your forehead cuts easily and there’s a lot of blood but the UFC is decidedly safer than boxing because of far less headshots. It’s just bloodier.

Perry got up to do something in the kitchen and accidentally cut his head with blood spilling everywhere, and being Dad, I freaked out for a minute, running around looking for towels, etc, while Chris sat calmly with his glass of wine totally unaware of what was going on.

Ironic hey?

The recording went well and we laid down 11 tracks.

I used the men’s room at the Congress Hotel one day and realised that’s where John Dillinger was captured in 1934. The pissoir was a real old antique and I figured Hey! I just took a leak in the same urinal that John Dillinger did!

So here it is!

We worked with some Tucson players and here’s Francisco Gomez who played some Latino instruments, I guess, on some tracks.

This is him holding the jawbone of an ass, a percussion scraper type thing. Sounds cool. A very nice guy and proud of what he does with good reason.

So next task is Adelaide and finishing off some parts of the recording.

And then the cd comes out later in the year. Also got a Woodpickers cd to do this year and maybe a new Backsliders cd so I’m kinda busy in a way.

Talk to you soon -
Your pal, Brod

P.S.

I have a few gigs coming up. If they are anywhere near your neck-o-th'woods perhaps we can catch up. To check these dates -

click here

*To order a copy of the album

 click here