"And when I do my suicide for you/I hope you miss me too..." (Herman
Brood,
"Rock And Roll Junkie")
How prophetic. How pathetic.
I'm not the obituary writer around here, or anywhere else, for that matter. And
hell, at my age I've seen so many of them come and go; by 1970 Hendrix, Janis
and Brian Jones were already gone from some sort of excess. John Lennon was
taken from me twenty years ago. Yet these are shared losses, people mourned by
millions, with tributes and news coverage everywhere you looked.
When Herman Brood, one of my favorite rock and roll artists, jumped to his death
from the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton on July 11th, I didn't see it on the news.
Nor did I read it in the paper, or even see it mentioned on any of the several
music lists I belong to. Nope. I got an email from a friend of mine, whose
business takes him abroad a few times a year. "I thought his American fan would
want to know," he wrote me, making sure I picked up on the singular inference.
Not that he was far from wrong, as the small dash of American fame that Herman
Brood had in my country came and went in about a year. But his music touched my
life in all its ragged thick-accented glory, and when I read that email about
his suicide, my heart sank and a little part of it went with him.
In 1979, I was working in a record store by day and a rock club by night when
"Saturday Night"
crept onto the American Top Forty. 
Hell, I had given up on radio by then,
so I didn't hear it, but that's why the record must have been available and in
stock. One of the great treats of working in a record store used to be the
ability to pick up something that looked interesting, open the shrinkwrap, and
slap it on the store sound system (bonus points if you had outside speakers).
It
was the terrible age of disco, when r&b sections were temporarily renamed "black
music" (and no one blinked, believe it or not) before eventually earning the
"disco" moniker. One day, while stocking the records, I stopped to look closer
at this garish album cover; pink and shocking green, airbrushed tight spandex
ass captured in mid-gyrate. "Herman Brood and his Wild Romance," I
thought, "yep, sounds disco to me!"
Then I flipped the cover over. Song titles like "Skid Row," "Dope Sucks" and
"Rock And Roll Junkie" didn't sound too disco to me. "Time to crack the shrink
wrap on this puppy," I thought, and when the needle hit the groove the speakers
exploded with the majesty, the power, the pure fucking beauty of rock and roll.
"I'm a heart and soul/rock and roll/heart and soul rock and roll junnn-
kiiiiiiiieeeeee!" Ohhhh, YEAH! Brood, a former porn star and junkie, was part
Eddie Cochran and part Bobby "Blue" Bland, combining American soul and rock (and
sometimes jazz) into a red-hot stew. His own songs rang out with lyrics about
drugs, street life and heartbreak; his cover songs ranging from Motown to Elvis
Costello to John Hiatt. I was able to grab Street, the only other record
I could find, as an import. Then, when "Saturday Night" started to get some
airplay, the band was brought to the US to perform some promotional club shows
and radio broadcasts.
Right about the same time, Cha Cha hit the streets, a live document that
featured many of the tracks from the studio records along with some incredible
covers. 
The band was in peak form, and the set ran one track into
another,
Brood's boogie-woogie piano bouncing off Danny Lademacher's brilliant guitar
playing, the rhythm section of Ani Meeman on drums and Freddie Cavalli on bass
in lockstep throughout. Background singers that would have made Marvin Gaye
weep. I still maintain to this day that Cha Cha is the best live rock and
roll record ever made, better than Live At Leeds and Get Yer Ya Yas
Out and Stand In The Fire. Somehow, in the death knell of disco and
the over-saturation of New Wave, a band from Amsterdam was carrying the banner
for pure, unadulterated rock and roll.
Somebody at the record company decided that if Rod Stewart could dump The Faces
and go Hollywood, why not Herman Brood? So they set him up with some studio cats
in 1980 to release Go Nutz, and while boasting a combination of good
originals and strong Motown covers ("Beauty's Only Skin Deep," "I'll Be
Doggone"), the sound of the band was antiseptic compared to the raw energy of
his own band. The album tanked in America, and Brood would never make an impact
here again.
I was used to jumping through hoops to track down good music; my favorite artist
at the time was John Hiatt, (another unappreciated artist who entered my life
because I found Slug Line in a bin and was intrigued by the song
titles.). I wrote to Herman's label, Ariola, and eventually his manager, Coach
van Dyck, who took a year to respond but sent me two albums and an autographed
photo of the man when he did. Wait A Minute and Modern Times
Revive found Brood back in his natural habitat, and he continued to create
great original music while never forgetting to tip a cap to his roots with
covers of Phil Spector groups, American r'n'b and pop soul groups like Martha
And The Vandellas. Buehnensucht was yet another great live performance in
1985, and then three long years went by before the 1-2-3 punch of Yada Yada,
Hooks, and Freeze. I would always get them about a year after they
came out, because god knows they weren't getting press or airplay over here. And
although I had been online since 1984, the concept of a CDNOW or an All Music
Guide was years away in 1990. Thankfully, one of my best friends - as
musically obsessed as I am - was also a Brood fan. Over the years we tracked
down everything the man released, sharing our latest finds with each other
like kids on Christmas morning.
In the nineties he returned to painting, his first love (he was an art school
student after all), occasionally making an appearance at a festival, and later
performing a few shows in coordination with a compilation released by the record
company. When he turned fifty in 1996, it was as if Europe finally decided to
make him a national monument. A televised concert that paid tribute to the man
brought together many musical contemporaries, and Brood seemed comfortable and
happy; an album celebrating the event - called 50, naturally - followed.
His next release, Back On The Corner, showed that his musical style now
encompassed a little more jazz, a little crooning (Ol' Blue Eyes) and swing.
Earlier this year, Ciao Monkey saw a return to his rock and roll roots,
and I was thrilled. I didn't imagine that he would ever make it over to the
States again, but I would be able to get all his music through mail order and
continue to savor every moment. Most of his records are out of
print, of course, but my well-worn vinyl albums are intact.
Then I got that damned email. At first I thought it was a sick joke, but soon
found confirmation on the wire services. I read where he just couldn't fight the
fight of sobriety anymore, and he knew the battles were getting tougher.
He had
been at the bottom and knew where he was headed, and he didn't want to be there
again. With a career as an artist, writer and rock star firmly established, his
paintings and music a large legacy, Brood decided to check out of life, not just
the hotel. I can't comprehend what finally compels anyone to take their own
life, but I've lived through so much death in my life I'm almost numb in my
acceptance of it. All that means is that I'm not shocked by anything; it doesn't
make it any easier.
I heard there was a note in his pocket. For me, the note is forever embedded in
my mind in his music. Goodbye, Herman, I hope you have finally found peace. Your
music and I have had a wild romance, and it's still one hell of a ride.
