Brian Cadd “Moonshine”

This is one of those albums that, song by song, might elicit an expression of “what the hell?”—in both good and bad ways. The overall sound, and the playing, and arrangements, are great—but the songs… they’re all over the place—and sometimes all over the place within one song. But there are so many good moments, it makes the off-putting ones forgivable—and all of it fairly impressive—also considering all compositions are by Brain Cadd. I’ve only listened to it a few times, so far, and I’m still not sure if the songs are going to grow on me like a loyal dog or a fungus. We’ll see, but probably not by the end of this review. When I grabbed the record from the $3 rack, my thoughts were, gratuitous liquor reference, check. $3, check. 1974, my favorite year for records. A dude I’ve never heard of, excellent. Also, I was unfamiliar with the label, Chelsea, not that it’s unusual—I just hadn’t seen it—and its slogan—“…A Constant New Beginning”—which confuses me to this day. And even listening for the first time—the country and western influence, and—just going by his look (all black, including a hat, beard, medallion) (and there’s another cover that’s totally country). And what I assumed was a name, Cadd, given to him by disreputable ladies (though, as it turns out, Cadd is his real name—he changed it at one point to Brian Caine, and you can hardly blame him). So, it turns out he’s from below the Mason-Dixon Line—but way below—because, of course, it turns out that Brian Cadd is from Australia. Also, he shares a birthday with my dad, but he’s much younger. Actually, he isn’t that old (born 1946), and he is a major recording artist, and he is still at it.

He's got a website, and a tour scheduled, and I had that chilling moment where—since Summerfest is going on here—thinking that he might be in the room next door at this moment! Though, apparently bands find it difficult to park the rock buses at the Plaza Hotel, and are also warned that they don’t have shopping baskets at the Metro Market, so they stay elsewhere. But you never know! It just happened that I fell into the YouTube Midnight Special Rabbit-hole last week and I just happened to come across Brian Cadd! On one of those international episodes—they play the first two songs from this record (which are two of the better ones) and he’s got quite a hot band, fun one to watch—also, he’s wearing, not all black, but what almost looks like a multicolored silk clown suit. It turns out, there is no shortage whatsoever of Brain Cadd info, appreciation, interviews, music, clips, and history on the ol’ ’ternet—and I could spend the next month digesting it all and re-spewing here—or I could spend the next half-hour spellchecking and posting what I’ve written here—so I’ll do that. Feel free to go on your own Cadd odyssey if you so desire. Personally, I’m going to keep this record out and give it few more listens, see what grows on me and what doesn’t.

7.4.25