Broddie's Gazette No. 8

Early January 2009
I’m sitting on my porch with 4 brush bronzewings and an echidna feeding at my feet. I’m typing into my trusty French Hermes typewriter. It’s a sturdy little gem. Encased in a leather satchel it goes anywhere and has seen the horrors of war. I picked it up at a trash and treasure market in Dien Bien Phu while holidaying there on an end of season Footy trip where I experienced the horrors of young country footballers drunk and belligerent in a foreign land.
 
You know, when you think about it, a sure way of improving our relationship with Asian and South East Asian countries would be to ban all Footy teams and Netball teams from having their end of season trips outside of Australia. Perhaps there should be large holiday camps built for them in the desert where they can go apeshit without damaging international goodwill any further than they already have. Actually, come to think of it, Villawood is perfect!
 
And if they do have to travel internationally they should be made to undergo a cultural sensitivity test in regards to the land they are visiting.
 
While travelling they should also be heavily sedated so as not to cause trouble in planes etc.
 
You might think to yourself that these are harsh words coming from a musician, considering that musicians themselves aren’t exactly saints.
 
But the difference is that the puniest flight attendant can easily get a musician in a headlock, take him down and beat the shit out of him. You can’t do that with football or netball players.. You can with golfers and cricketers because they’re Nancy boys anyway but a netballer from Dubbo fuelled up on premix-flavoured anti-freeze …. No way!
 
Now, this is where I have to sell something ...
 
My new album is close to release. Matt Walker, my dear friend, has produced something very strong, and dare I say it, way beyond all the other snivelling, self-pitying singer songwriters in Australia ....... like me.
 
Shannon Bourne and Matt play great guitars on it, Grant Cummerford plays bass, Laurie Ernst is on percussion and backing vocals and Garth Hudson is on Keys and accordion on a few tracks.
 
And of course the wonderful Dave Manton engineers and plays some keys on it.
 
For those music aficionados, Garth played with The Band, one of my favourite groups ever. He and his wife Maude were very kind to me over this album and I thank them very much.

To elaborate on the Garth connection ...
 
I first met Garth Hudson back in the days with The Dingoes when we lived in San Francisco around, say, 1977. We were recording an album at His Master’s Wheels Studio in San Francisco. It was a funky place with Star’s Guitars, a real good store, at the front on the left of the building. Upstairs, Lane Poor would take mind-altering substances and spend a long time building weird guitar electronics, like LED lights in Nils Lofgren’s guitar neck, or 4 pickups that ran down the neck of a bass guitar.
 
Across the road from the studio was Red Power’s HQ in San Francisco. This was about the time that Leonard Peltier and other Sioux were on the run from the FBI for having a shootout with them, so the studio and the Red Power building were under surveillance, especially when later on we were recording with Buffy Saint Marie. While Buffy was there different Plains Indian guys would come in like Floyd Westerman, who was in Dances with Wolves, and Buffy’s husband, Sheldon Wolfchild. Their son Cody would occasionally play on the floor with my son Perry. They were just little guys.
 
I can clearly remember two FBI agents with short hair, sunglasses and in grey suits sitting in a grey car that was so unobtrusive it really stuck out . They’d be there for days and they’d just sit there. I felt like making them a cuppa and taking it out to them but I figured they wouldn’t appreciate it.
 
Anyway, I digress ...
 
We were making this album and a track wasn’t working right so we got in Mal Logan, the NZ keyboard player, to put some organ on it. He did a fine job and helped knit the track together. But something was missing and Elliot Mazer, the producer and owner of the studio suggested that maybe Garth Hudson would do a great part.
 
We sat there stunned and said, “ Okay”.
 
Garth came into town and spent a few days with Elliot and the band and did some great work. I got on well with him I guess because it was a little guy/big guy thing (classic pal set-up) and we both shared a love for archaic words so we would be throwing words around like curmudgeon, or rapscallion, etc.
 
He also intimated to Elliott that he would be interested in coming on the road with us as The Band had broken up. We went into a huddle and felt that we’d be looking at him in awe rather than the audience, plus in hindsight, because of certain folks’ “lifestyles“ it wouldn’t have worked anyway. The Dingoes was one of those bands where some members cheerfully tried to destroy as much as they could while having as much fun as possible.
 
So thirty years later here we are with Garth on the new cd and quite happy to work on any future tracks I do!
 
All I need to do now is win the lottery so I can get him out here!
 
That’s about it.
 
Talk to you when the album comes out -
 

  Brod

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