didn't have to sign up for a pass when i first surfed up the page. here's the article:

FORMER Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst is looking forward to becoming reacquainted with American folkie Rodriguez, who enjoyed success in Australia in the 1970s and early 80s and who is coming back here next year to play a series of shows, including at Bluesfest in Byron Bay. 

Hirst's ties with the Detroit-based muso go way back. Rodriguez, who released two albums with little fanfare in the early 70s, scored some success in Australia, New Zealand and, much later, South Africa. He toured here a few times, including with the Oils in 1981, before returning to Detroit and to musical obscurity.

Hirst told SD this week how, when the Oils were on tour in the US years after their joint tour, they were playing Detroit and the promoter asked them who they would like to have on the guest list. "I said, 'Well, we don't know anyone in Detroit but it would be really good if you could locate Rodriguez.' He said, 'Who?', because most 
people in America didn't know who Rodriguez was."
They did find him, and the singer, who by then had been working in construction for a few years, turned up front and centre with his wife during the Oils show. "He just grinned for the entire performance and then came backstage to say hello," says Hirst. "Every time we played Detroit after that he would come and say hi to us."

Rodriguez's current renaissance is due in part to the recent documentary on his life, Searching For Sugarman, which focuses on his belated fame in South Africa in the 90s and the bizarre assumption by some of his fans thereafter that he was dead.

One of Hirst's current bands, the Break, is to be Rodriguez's backing band for his Australian visit, although Hirst reveals the group will also be performing material from a new Break album, due for release in March. The outfit, which features fellow former Oils Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie and Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie, has added former Hunter and Collector Jack Howard to the line-up, whose trumpet, says Hirst, adds a certain je ne sais quoi to their Morricone-meets-Joe-Meek surf psychedelia.


--- In powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au, Johnny Love <oceanside3033@...> wrote:

so cool Jack Howard is new member of The Break
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/surfing-a-new-wave/story-fn9n8gph-1226509077606