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February
 
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The Eltham crowd demands more hot dance songs
gig report
Sat . 27.2.16 Champs' Cool Rockin' Daddies at the Eltham Festival
Sun. 28.2.16 Champs' Cool Rockin' Daddies at the St Andrews pub
Crudd turns side-man for Champs' gigs
29.2.16 -
I didn't know quite what to make of it when Greg Champion first mooted the idea, but I went along to a rehearsal at his place with henchman Wayne Duncan in attendance and it seemed harmless enough. Another refresher on Saturday night and we were hurtling to Eltham in convoy for my initiation as guitar-sub in the Cool Rockin' Daddies.
The crowd in the tent was sedately enjoying Stevie Paige when we arrived and they were seated until about half-way through our first set - and then they started dancing. They didn't want to stop either. (pic)
Greg threw another four numbers into the fray that we hadn't rehearsed and we managed to scramble to the end of our allotted time by the hair on our chinny-chin-chins. A tumultuous initiation!
St Andrews the next afternoon was strangely quiet crowd-wise, but as a result a lot more relaxed for the guitar-sub. I actually understood what was going on in most of the songs and was able to enjoy the world and everything in it.
Will there be a next time? Looking at the sparse selection of Spectrum gigs scheduled .for the next couple of months I wouldn't be surprised.
 
     
 

From the Fringe to Fringe toast..

1) Geoff 'Goof' Miller and me at the GC 2) Tim Seal encourages his guests to join in I'll Be Gone

3) Tim brings some mates up to join in on the reprise 4) What Mike ate at the Bill Putt Memorial lunch at ETC
gig report

Wed. 17.2.16 Mike Rudd's RetroSpectrum at the Adelaide Fringe
Sun. 21.2.16 Mike's celeb spot at Tim Seal's 60th
Mike Rudd's RetroSpectrum at the Adelaide Fringe
23.2.16 -
I was assisted in my recent SA odyssey by Fate to a certain degree, but more often than not by dint (or is that dent?) of human kindnesses and decency. Anyway, the opportunity to appear at the Adelaide Fringe presented itself to me when I was approached by Graeme Dent (see?) to put in an appearance at his mate Tim Seal's 60th birthday party to be held on Sunday last (21st) at a winery (Barristers Block wines) in Woodside, a small town south of Adelaide in the Onkaparinga Valley, the fee for which allowed me and my partner Maria to fly (!) to SA and be accommodated.
I rang Geoff Miller's mate Colin Koch (Golly Gosh) thinking initially that he was associated with WOMADelaide, but discovered it was actually the Adelaide Fringe and that applications were officially closed. However, doors magically opened and I think it was at the Coolangatta airport I effected the deposit, which meant I was on the Fringe bill performing at the German Club on the Wednesday night. (17th)
And that's how it went too, the only change being that I added Geoff Miller (pic 1) to the show to give it a bit of a lift at the pointy end.
I was belatedly concerned that there wouldn't be enough people in the quite large space in the German Club and had arranged to be interviewed with another of Geoff Miller's mates (Ian Henshke) on the Tuesday at 4.30 at the ABC, but the time came and passed and things became a little tense in the ABC Green Room as we wondered what was going on. Ian's producer came out apologetically and said with one thing and another they'd forgotten we were coming and would we mind waiting another forty-five minutes for the interview? As it turned out I got a good fifteen minutes of air time and I'm certain the exposure prompted the late flurry of sales that brought the attendance up close to a full house.
Given my pre-show anxiety the show went off really very well and I was inundated with well-wishers at the end of the night - I could barely carry all the wine I was given! As my presenter, Alan Rosewarne said, you could feel the love in the room.
There was less love on the street when I discovered that I'd parked a little too adjacent to some concrete guttering and dragged a plastic splash-guard of the bottom of our hire car which meant I had to seek assistance from some chaps still lurking in the German Club foyer, including Geoff's brother (!) Adrian.* This meant we had to return the car to the hire car people the next day, but the replacement vehicle we were given was so horribly smelly we had to replace that as well, chewing up a good part of our day.
Fast forward to Sunday, the day of the party. Maria and I had booked lunch at the Bird in Hand Winery, scarcely five minutes from the party venue and had a satisfactory meal too, despite the prescriptive set menu. We arrived at Barristers Block to find the party in full swing with the garden full of guests enjoying the sunshine and a band set up in the folksy-looking open edifice facing out to the garden.
Chief conspirator Graeme Dent came over to our car and we plotted my surprise appearance near the end of the speeches. We waited till the appropriate moment and then Graeme escorted me through the crowd to meet a dumbfounded Tim Seal and I delivered the speech that Graeme had written.
After the speeches Graeme got the crowd's attention again and I commandeered the band's PA to sing my acappella version of I'll Be Gone, (pics 2 & 3) which everybody joined in and then demanded photos be taken of me with just about evcerybody present.
It was great fun and everybody got into the spirit of it all - a lovely way to finish off the trip. The next day before going to the airport Maria and I had an impromptu Bill Putt Memorial lunch at the East Terrace Continental where Bill and I invariably had breakfast when we were in town - I had the French (or Fringe) toast and bacon. (pic 4)

* See Adrian's review of the show in Clothesline

 
     
 
gig report
Mick & Broc at the Elwood Food & Wine Bar Sun. 7.2.16
The Elwood party sputters on..
8.2.16 -
Mick & Broc (that's me and Broc O'Connor) made another appearance at Peter Newson's Elwood Food & Wine Bar yesterday and I suppose a few people noticed what we were up to, but not too many. Not that that's a problem for us, or the audience for that matter. We just play what we play - a mixture of Rudd songs and selections from Broc's solo guitar repertoire adapted for guitar and voice - and we're happy to note improvements here and there from gig to gig. Every now and then the odd song attracts a bit of attention from the crowd, otherwise happily engaged in entertaining itself with food, wine and chat. Songs like the couple of the Beatles' songs, Yesterday and Can't Buy Me Love for instance, and what about Etta James' At Last and Hoagy Carmichael's Georgia on my Mind and Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay etc.. I've not done covers for so many decades now that I'm finding it quite a joyful exercise.
Broc's capabilities on guitar are a revelation for those who simply know him as Spectrum's bassist. His musical knowledge and fluidity contintue to amaze and delight me as I warble at the upper reaches of my range. That's one of the ongoing benefits of our rather ramshackle collaboration, but another one occurred to me yesterday when we had an hour left to fill with half an hour's worth of material. It may sound selfish but I thought that I should get some practise time in for some of the songs I'm doing on my Fringe show that's now looming quite large on the horizon. And so that's what I did - and after some gratifying initial interest the crowd resumed its indifference and allowed me to muddle along without them.
We revved up the last M&B set with some slightly more up-tempo songs and a posse of girls got up and boogalooed in front of us, suggesting we might add a few more shit-kickers to the list. Consider it done, ladies!
 
     
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