The Art of Reinvention

Editorial

Casting an eye back over the history of rock, it’s not easy finding good examples of artists who’ve risen to the top of their game and come back bettering their last effort under a new moniker. Blur’s Damon Albarn made a pretty good crack of it with Gorillaz, Dave Grohl’s done OK with The Foo Fighters as well. It’s a hard thing to do, and a brave endeavour– to reinvent yourself.

I came across a great example of artist re-invention this week at The Tote in Collingwood watching my old friend Dan Brodie & The Grieving Widows as a part of The Tote’s 30th Anniversary gigs. Dan and I have been playing gigs for years together dating right back to our teens when were rival Battle of the Bands contestants, and I’ve seen him take on many monikers over that time.

Local music lovers from the early 2000s vintage will remember Dan as the hot new EMI signing around the time alt-country was some sort of a buzz term for the local A&R community. Kasey Chambers was doing her thing for the heartbroken dames across the land back then, reeling in the ARIAs and winning much radio love.  It seemed Dan might have just been the male equivalent EMI were looking for to take the singer-songwriter thing into the new millennium the way Paul Kelly had done 20 years earlier.

For whatever reasons things didn’t quite work out that way for Brodie and Co, taking only three measly years post signing his deal to find himself rubbing shoulders with a vastly different artist roster with guys like Jet, Wolfmother and The Living End, eventually leading to the termination of his deal with the recording giant not long after.

Sadly this, coupled with the usual sob-story about bad management, meagre radio support and general artist disillusionment became the catalyst for a lengthy disappearance from the music scene from Dan with a general odds-on assumption that this might have been it for him as a musician.

At this gig, however, I saw one rejuvenated artist swagger through a brand new set with a brand new sound thinking to myself how impressive it was to witness such lust hungry vigour, like a teenager starting out for the first time. Gone were the cowboy hats and Miller shirts, and the all too convenient leaning on a best-of-the-days set. Dan’s thrown all this into the wind for some dirty rock and roll guitar and swampy garage blues boogie, and the result is a really great band with some really great songs coming into rare thirty-something peak form.

Something we see all too often these days is lazy artists who rest on the one thing that brought them to fame, never daring to try anything new for the rest of their careers. I guess if you’re AC/DC or Barnesy, why bother? You’re guaranteed to be played every day without fail on Australian commercial radio, and as long as you have a willing paying audience to see you every time.

But it’s a really gutsy thing to see an artist at any level start again and try something new.  I came away feeling inspired and determined not to become one of those oh-so-very-lazy-trading-on-the-old-days artists myself which really, could be such an easy thing to do.

That’s the great thing about live gigs. When it’s all said and done and it’s just you and the unforgiving audience, there’s really no bullshitting anyone.

Dave Larkin, Citysearch

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