Dean's favourite albums #10 - Cold Fact - Rodriguez

My friends had been talking about this album from the 70’s for a while, and they had played me a few tracks and I had liked them, so it was on my list of albums to check out for a quite some time. Then, in March 2010, I was on my lunchbreak from work and walking through the city, when I happened to pass the laneway where Basement Discs is located, and saw a sign – “Rodriguez – in store today”, so I thought this was too good an opportunity to let pass. As I walked down the staircase to Basement Discs, I heard the crowd applause. Of course, he had just finished his performance as I arrived…damn…but he was hanging around to sign copies of his album. I lined up and the shop assistant asked me what I thought of his performance, I explained that I missed it and I think he thought I was a bit odd! Waiting in the line, Rodriguez, looking just a little frail, posed for a photo for the lady in front of me. Then, as it was my turn, I was asked to pause…Rodriguez produced a backpack and started fumbling through it for something. Eventually he produced a bottle of red wine, which he proceeded to drink straight from the bottle! After a swig, he chatted and signed my album, and that is the story of how I came about owning a copy of “Cold Fact”.

 

Hailing from the US, Rodriguez released “Cold Fact” in 1970, and it was a massive flop, barely troubling the US charts. But for some random reason, it became a cult classic in South Africa, and to a lesser extent, Australia. In more recent times, the man was the subject of the Oscar winning documentary “Searching for Sugarman”, something which I still haven’t seen but am quite keen to, which has brought some belated attention to Rodriguez in his home country.

 

In terms of describing the album, I find it very hard, and the best I can do is borrow from the review on allmusic.com: “There was a mini-genre of singer/songwriters in the late '60s and early '70s that has never gotten a name. They were folky but not exactly folk-rock and certainly not laid-back; sometimes pissed off but not full of rage; alienated but not incoherent; psychedelic-tinged but not that weird; not averse to using orchestration in some cases but not that elaborately produced. And they sold very few records”. I think this sums it up quite well.

 

 Its Dylanesque, in terms of the stream of consciousness lyrics, which sometimes don’t make sense, and seem to have an undercurrent of protest in them, but it would be wrong to dismiss this as just another wannabe Dylan album. Its full of highlights for me -  the catchy “I Wonder” and “Sugar Man”, “Rich Folks Hoax”, “Hate Street Dialogue” and my favourite track on the album, the wonderfully titled “This is Not a Song, its an Outburst: Or, the Establishment Blues” (today’s link)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzGrQy7cwU

 

For those that know the album, how would you describe it to someone who has never heard it?

 

Coming up next – a beautiful album from the suburbs of Australia