I always used to love it when I’d find out about new music from a visit to the record shop. One day, I walked into my favourite store and the guys behind the counter were playing the album “Cold Fact”, by Rodriguez. First I’d ever heard of him, or any of his music. They told me the story about this lost classic. His albums were big in Australia, and South Africa, and New Zealand. But Rodriguez disappeared without much of a trace really.
The album accompanied me back to my student flat, and for a few years there I felt like I had a secret key; loaned to a few friends, made copies, bought an extra copy…and then the internet arrived, catching us all up on so many things. And stories started to circulate about Rodriguez. His songs appearing in films.
There was even a documentary film about Rodriguez. Next minute, I’ve got him on the line, an interview because of the movie, and because as a direct result he is back on the road. He’s talking about his years of back-breaking labouring, dashed dreams, record companies shutting up shop on him.
It felt suddenly very sad to be sharing this story so widely, and also the music, with catalogue browsers that buy on trend.
And when the big tour was fully announced, I had the curse of being the guy writing the review for the newspaper at the time (because we used to have reviews, and newspapers, and reviews in newspapers…)
I went and hear my beloved dream songs crushed by blunt fingers and a pick-up band, sold to Film Festival followers, who specialised in the bland. And worse than the fact that Rodriguez could barely sing and could hardly play, was the yelling audience, calling over and again to the Sugarman for the song of the same name, from the film of the same name. They were essentially just yelling “Dance, Monkey, Dance!” They were basically there so that the next day, at work, they would be cooler than anyone else at the water cooler, they would be able to say they had been there. They had been out getting some culture, eh.
And it had all paid off for them, their film fest concession ticket clicked.
Now they had seen the guy in concert. But he was shit.
All it did, was (further) prove the industry to be shitty, cruel, and shallow.
Rodriguez thought he was being given a second shot at his first dream. But actually, the dream he was so sure he was now living was being crushed of its juice right in front of him. That’s what I remember thinking as I wrote my review, for next to no money. And knowing I’d never be able to listen to that music I had loved so much. No. Never again.