..successfully defy the medical profession
in concert with governments for decades, in the process clogging up
the courts and generally enriching the legal profession, a profession
that we all know will argue for or against any proposition for a buck.
The advertising industry often quotes the example of the former East
Germany, which they would tell you was lured back to the West with
the promise of Levi jeans, pop records and flashy automobiles. It
might surprise you that some former East Germans - and Russians for
that matter - are nostalgic for the good old days of the German Democratic
Republic and the Soviet Union and were quite comfortable with just
the one brand of detergent - and just the one brand of car for that
matter. By contrast today, we have the increasingly common psychiatric
condition caused by being confronted with too many choices leading
to a state of confusion and even desperation, especially among the
elderly. (Settle down!)
The elephant in the room is that the poor on the planet will always
be poor and will never be spoiled for choice and so advertising for
them is not only irrelevant but a moral affront - for those of us
that can afford to be moralistic anyway. The frustration is that while
there is currently enough of everything to go around, advertising
is now stroking the affluent bit's consumer class and telling us we
must now buy multiples of everything – like two or three cars,
a TV for each room etc. so we can keep the corporations solvent.
This all maybe true, but I’m getting bored with the topic and
I need to do some advertising of my own. The fact is that 2017, the
year we’re still enduring, is a watershed year for me and my
bands, and while it seems obvious now, I’ve only just come to
realise that fact.
I’ve got more variations of the band these days than you can
shake a stick at, starting with the mother-ship Spectrum with its
own particular variants, Spectrum to Ariel, (with former Ariel-ist
Glyn Mason), and Spectrum plus, (with another Mason, this time Madder
Lake’s Brenden Mason), then there’s the acoustically inclined
The Mike Rudd trio (formerly 1st BASE), with piano accordionist George
Butrumlis and bassist Jeremy Alsop, the recently invented Mike Rudd’s
Indelibles, the latest iteration of the four-piece Spectrum that plays
selections of my music from Then to Now with some blues thrown in,
and what about Mick’n’Broc, the fun cover duo I have with
Spectrum’s bassist Broc O’Connor, and even just me, Mike
Rudd solo, possibly accompanied by an errant loop pedal but otherwise
on my own, and there are even more – truly! (See the Booking
page if you don’t believe me – or just see the Booking
page).
Despite this dizzying array of options I’m actually playing
less and as a result enjoying it less. Gone are the halcyon days of
playing three or four gigs a week with the loyal Spectrum chaps, who
didn’t find it necessary to moonlight in other bands to make
ends meet.
It’s a measure of how precarious things have got when the loss
of Spectrum’s two formerly dependable regular gigs round Melbourne
threatens our very existence – honing our skills and arrangements
live and in public is a thing of the far distant past. Now I sometimes
struggle to even find my voice and remembering the niceties of arrangements
without going through a refresher course before the one-off gig we’ve
fluked is a real challenge. It’s taken a lot of the fun out
of performing live.
Then there are the occasions where you look at the audience and think
that there’s nobody in the room old enough to have the faintest
clue what we’re on about and even if the I’ll Be Gone
song thankfully almost always gets recognised, the majority of the
audience thinks that we’re playing a cover. My life flashes
before my eyes in such situations and it takes a considerable act
of will to bring things back into focus.
It’s not just this year of course, this has been going on for
a lot longer than that and it’s not just me that I’ve
got to think about either. Mind you, the chaps involved do have other
gigs to fall back on and the gigs with me have been so infrequent
lately they might scarcely notice they’ve vanished altogether.
Anyway, this is my problem and hardly advertising. Advertising presents
you with selective truths or untruths to encourage you to buy something.
Listening to me gurgling is not encouraging. There are gigs already
in 2018 but I’m of a mind to be selective and focus on recording
in the coming year as far as the music is concerned.
The Bloody Newsletter is another creative outlet and this column and
my bro’ Dick’s Toolbox will continue to amaze and/or dismay
in the coming years. In this regard however I do have something to
advertise. I’m delighted to introduce a new contributor to The
Bloody Newsletter in Dr Warren ‘Wazza’ Sellers, an old
friend from Art School days who’s recently returned with Dr
Marg Sellers to live in the northern climes of the North Island of
New Zealand and who has just agreed to be TBN’s Kiwi correspondent.
I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime I’m very
sorry for the lateness of this month’s TBN but we can all look
forward to the new issue momentarily in the fast-approaching New Year
and perhaps subsequent issues of TBN being on time can be the first
New Year’s resolution. Thanks for taking the time to read this
and I’ll see you then. |
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