Rock & Roll Junkie For some reason, I thought of
Herman Brood today. He never really did come to much here in the US, but
he was quite the deal elsewhere, I’m told. It happens that way sometimes.
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All I really know of his music is from an album we got at the record store I worked in, way back in the late seventies – early eighties. I didn’t remember the title until I did a little googling this afternoon, but I recognized the cover right off.
Shpritsz is what it was, and it sounded really good to me. It holds up pretty well, too. At least the songs I’ve been able to find on Youtube do, anyway.
“Saturday Night” was the song that garnered what little attention the album received here, but
“Rock & Roll Junkie” was the one that stuck with me back in the day. (Well, that and a song called “Hit”, which I wasn’t able to find today.) It’s a little weird to hear him sing “when I do my suicide for you, I hope you’ll miss me too”, given the way he checked out. (Wiki says,
“In 2001, depressed by the failure of his drug rehabilitation program and after finding out that he had only a few months left to live, Brood took matters into his own hands. He committed suicide on July 11 by jumping from the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel at the age of 54”.)
Life is full of cheap irony. Speaking of which, here’s
“Dope Sucks”.