Rob Hudak

I never felt the need to write about the passing of my heroes. I was 7 when John Lennon was shot and I remember being at the St. Anthony’s roller-skating party at that age mourning his loss. I couldn’t skate well and it wasn’t a very good night. I still have yet to see a Beatle in person, so I maintained a distance from them that ensures they will always be these men from outer space. But Alex Chilton, who we lost Wednesday night at age 59 was one of the most real people I had ever had the pleasure of seeing perform and only a few months ago had the pleasure of meeting.

I discovered Big Star later than most, at age 24, by which time I had lived a pretty eventful life but found myself in a transitional period that involved growing up for real. Sure there were a few stupid things left for me to do, but the reality of putting aside certain notions about the direction my life would take, along with New York City’s demand that you figure it out real quick, had me at a crossroads that only the best records can get you through.

I found a CD of Big Star’s “#1 Record” that came with a copy of “Radio City” attached. I was living alone in a crappy studio apartment at 56 Ludlow Street (there’s a photo of the Velvet Underground before Mo Tucker was in the band taken on the stoop of the apartment I was living in, right in front of the window my bed was under and the door I walked in and out of every day). Every morning I would be awakened by the Chinese Mafia vegetable distributors who unloaded produce from trucks and hosed excess vegetable debris from the sidewalk in front of the place, which became rat food in the evening. I had nothing but shitty temp jobs to look forward to.

But every morning for three months straight I had a ritual. I’d get up and push play on the CD player. The first chords of “Feel” would creep in, and by the time I got to the shower the song was in full swing. Then I’d hear “The Ballad of El Goodo”, and, as corny as it sounds, the chorus of “There Ain’t No One Going to Turn Me ‘Round” made me feel that as tough as things seemed, somehow I made the right choices. I didn’t know Alex Chilton
personally, but he was my motivational speaker every morning in one of the toughest times I can remember.

Things began to look up.

I met a September Girl who would become my wife. Got a really good job. Made some freinds. Started another band. And yes, Big Star deserves some credit for it.

Then I saw that Alex Chilton was playing the Bottom Line. I got a ticket with my friend Mark. We were excited. We had no idea.

Alex had a three piece combo and was playing his own style of Jazz guitar. He played the “Oogum Boogum” song by Brenton Wood. He played Dave Bartholomew’s “Lipstick Traces”. He played Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You”, explaining beforehand what a great song it is and referencing the man who wrote it. Then yea, he did some Big Star stuff too. By then it didn’t matter. I witnessed a man who had aged gracefully and didn’t really give a crap what anyone thought about it because after all it was entertaining and he played guitar so gracefully and endearingly reached for those high notes he sang with such determination that I thought to myself “That’s what I want to be when I grow up”. I was 27.

Cut to a few years later and the Twin Towers were destroyed. Me and my fellow New Yorkers were living in shock with military vehicles at the corners of our streets. We had to show our I.D.s to get to the corner to buy a newspaper. And jet fighters buzzed overhead every 5 minutes. Alex Chilton had a show less than a month later. I went to it, a bundle of raw nerve.

The club he was playing had decided it would be cute to hang an enormous American Flag behind the stage. You have to understand that at the time we as New Yorkers who were breating in the smoldering pire, were not looking for revenge, or more hatred, or anything but some semblance of something that seemed more real than the surreal reality we were living in at the time. The anti-smoking laws had just been established in some places (bad timing) and this place Alex was playing was one of them. Tension was high. People who lit up (like my friend, the late, great, Bill Peitsch) were hassled by huge musclemen. It was a bright, sit down establishment. Alex lasted about two songs till he stopped in the middle of one and said “Wait, I just don’t feel right about this”… then proceeded to remove the giant backdrop flag, in a very careful, normal way, with the help of his bass player and a few members of the audience (including Bill). Awkward for sure. But it was just the kind of gesture of freedom that we all needed at the time and I’ll never forget him for it. The show went on.

I moved to New Orleans five years later and Alex was playing a block party benefit for his friend who was shot and in critical condition. At that party I met my now good friend Dan, who I would later find was good friends with Alex. Alex gave Dan and his wife Peg, who were his neighbors at time and very good friends, his car to evacuate during hurricane Katrina. Alex stayed behind and ended up shaking in his attic for a week. A testament to his selflessness.

Cut to last year round November. I’m in
my favorite guitar shop in New Orleans about to go to a lesson. I’m hunched over a guitar playing “Ragtime Nightingale” as best as I ever could. I hear a familiar beatnik-cool voice at the counter. I look behind me and it’s Alex Chilton. He’d been waiting for his guitar set-up to come out from the shop, and he’d been listening to me play. I immediately stood at attention and said “Alex Chilton, I’m a huge fan” I then proceeded to tell him the names of good friends we both share. He asked what I was doing in New Orleans and I told him about my son and my wife and my job. He never lost eye contact and moved toward me to take a small classical guitar off the wall. “I just love these short scale classical guitars” he said. It was time for my lesson. In desperation of having to give up the moment I gave him my phone number and told him if he ever wanted to hang out and play or just shoot the shit that it would be a pleasure. He took the number and smiled at me as he played a few notes on the guitar, still looking at me as if figuring out some puzzle.

Now I know I’ll never get that call.

Seeing Alex play the six or more times that I had always brought me joy. Whether with Big Star or his trio or a pick-up band, just his presence made me smile.

I am happy I was able to at least say hello. But knowing he is gone now truly makes me sad.

All I can say is thank you Alex for the songs and the smiles and the inspiration to age gracefully. I’d like to think that I was one of the ones in on that inside joke you always seemed to have a half smile about. You couldn’t hide it from the people who wanted to see it.

Rest In Peace.

Here’s a Christmas song I wrote years ago that I gave an updated recording to this week in my little “home recording studio”. This tune was originally written in 1994 for the Boogie Man Smash (my then band) X-Mas Album. It was a cassette only release we gave away at a holiday gig at Cedars Lounge in Youngstown Ohio. I’ve tried to since get some publishers of Christmas music interested in it but I guess it breaks the first rule of Christmas songs which is to never paint Santa in a bad light. Oh well… Maybe somebody out there will like it and give it a decent recording. (Some lazy horns and Anita O’Day on vocals would be fine by me.) So if you have any famous friends making Christmas albums next year please have them give this a listen as it’s published with BMI and ready for carolers everywhere.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You can download and share as you’d like as well. Happy Holidays.

My son and I have our own way of playing Beatles Rock Band

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

As you can see, daddy needs a little more rock band and a little less po-boys.

(maybe I need Joe Pesci to tell me that, Raging Bull style)

Maxwells, originally uploaded by dfxm326.

Here’s an old photo of the band I played in for 5 years in New York City. We called ourselves the Newborn Naturals after being told we should call ourselves that by some gypsy lady from Long Island who said she had a vision that it should be our name. This was, I think, the night we opened for Link Wray at Maxwells.

From left to right: Alex Feldesman - guitar, Dan Morales - drums, Mark Herny - bass, Rob Hudak - guitar, vocals.

Photo by: Dan McGorry - http://whitenoisemachine.net/

This is my Univox. The only guitar to survive an instrument theft from my Ford Econoline that was parked outside of the YMCA I was working at in Youngstown, Ohio one summer. It was gotten on trade that I would have regretted if it weren’t for this guitar being part of it. I traded a very nice blonde Deluxe Telecaster from the 70s for this Univox, a Teisco Del Ray (red tulip-shaped guitar) and a musty old beat up
vintage Vox practice amp.

The Teisco was stolen from the van along with a Gibson Melody Maker that was given to me when I was 16 by Ray Halliday of San Francisco alt-country band The Buckets, who was then managing Ed’s Redeeming Qualities. It’s sad to have anything stolen, but that MM really was a keepsake. I have this strange feeling I’ll find it again but the truth is it probably ended up under an overpass somewhere in the rain. Sold for crack… who knows.

I think the thief knew the Gibson name (who doesn’t right?) and figured if they were going to run with two guitars they’d take the lighter of the other two, which the Teisco certainly was. Or, maybe they looked at the case for this monster and thought it was some giant screwdriver and not really a guitar after all. The case for the Univox is not only silver, it really does look like it holds a giant screwdriver or some futuristic Flash Gordon type of heavy artillery.

I didn’t appreciate this anomaly until years later when I moved to New York and played with the band Newborn Naturals. The guitar fit our Television-like 2 guitar interplay and buttoned up punk rock aesthetic very well. Alex Feldesman, who was the other half of the guitar duo, played a white Fender Stratocaster, and always got an amazing tone out of it that cut through the murk of even the deadest of rooms. This Guitar fit nicely. It sang when you wanted it to and scratched and clawed when you wanted it to. It didn’t wash together like a Gibson and it didn’t come too clean either, or bright.

The tone and it’s beauty to me seems to stem from the fact that anything you get out of this guitar you have to make happen. Kind of like an acoustic, but not really. Even acoustics are more forgiving in terms of sustain and bends (making the whammy bar on this particularly welcome). I always liked guitars that made you FEEL like you were playing them, and in my collection this one is the king.

I never played another quite like it. That slight struggle to get the best out of this guitar is so consistent that once you’ve locked in to it you’re locked into a moment by moment relationship with this thing. No matter where you’re taking it, it always has a say. So even when I look at this guitar I sense it’s looking back with the eyes of an outlaw and a tricksters grin. A very fun person to have at your hip. Perhaps it’s chip on it’s shoulder grew one day when it caught itself in the mirror. Kind of like the way a kid wears a t-shirt to school that might get him picked on just to drum up some social interaction. The look of this guitar has some strange effect on it’s attitude. It is, after all, a funky looking thing. Not heavy metal, not punk, not quite surf, not quite funk, but all of the above.

This guitar likes to play Ike Turner, 50s rock n roll, selections from Marquee Moon, Steve Cropper licks, distorted octaves, Keith Richards g-tuning-era stuff, and more. It’s a brawler. Dead end kid. A top hat with a knife.

I think it might have decided on it’s own no one was going to take it that day. Probably didn’t even have to put up a fight. It just looked at that crack-head thief the same way it looks at me when I’m thinking of playing - “don’t bother me unless you really mean it”.
You don’t want to take this guy for granted.

My Dad, Aunts and Cousin Dancing in the Living Room

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

I guess this is what my family did before me and my brother were born and there was no internet and probably not a television in the living room, or if there was, there was nothing on worth watching. Either way it’s pretty awesome this was captured on Super 8. I transferred this back in the 90s when computers didn’t like video all that much. I’ll try to make a much clearer copy soon. The music is by the Human Beinz, a band from Youngstown OH (same town where this scene is taking place). My Father went to high school with the lead singer for the band. This was their big hit. The singer from the Human Beinz (his name was Ting) owned one of the first VHS rental stores in our town. The two Aunts dancing are first Aunt Josephine “Poup” Pollazo and then Aunt Sarah Collangelo. The picture on the wall is of my Mom (who was obviously filming - ha!). And that’s my Aunt Coletta Marsco on the phone and Sarah’s Daughter Sally who comes in to dance it out with my dad Martin “Butch” Hudak.

Happy Birthday Dad. I’ve now made you internet famous.

Love, Rob

Today, August 4th, is the non-disputed* official birthday of New Orleans born Buddha-of-the-horn Louis Armstong (*I guess the historians have decided that he really wasn’t born on the 4th of July as was publicized and stated by Louis himself). In honor of this I am posting the track Savoy Blues which Louis recorded in 1927. This track is especially dear to me since it features my guitar hero Lonnie Johnson on a guitar solo, which I think was rare on these types of jass band tracks in those days. He’s accompanied by another guitar played by Johnny St. Cyr (who played banjo with none other than Mr. Jelly Roll Morton). Written by Kid Ory who’s heard playing trombone on this number, this track has New Orleans all over it (even though it was recorded in Chicago). So have a listen and smile along with Louis, cause we are a better world for having had him pass through.

“Savoy Blues” by Louis Armstong And His Hot Five

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Saturday April 25th at the Big Top on Clio Street here in New Orleans I will be performing (in one man band mode) for an audience of friends family and stragglers. Please join us for the evening. More info on the venue at http://www.3ringcircusproductions.com

AIGA New Orleans is having it’s 10 Year Anniversary Birthday Bash at the Conti St. Wax Museum in the french quarter. We got to have a look around the place in preparation and I just had to snap off a photo of my hero Mr. Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. All of the musicians depicted are depicted in their younger days, signifying what they looked like when they lived here in New Orleans. Jelly stayed here through his days playing in the sporting houses in storyville, so I imagine that’s what this scene depicts. His life is fascinating and reads like Homer’s Odesssy. Check out any books you can find on the man, as well as his music of course.

One of the special projects of AIGA New Orleans chapter is the History Of Graphic Design South Louisiana project. Most of the results of this project will live online until AIGA finds a location to house the archives that my colleague Nancy Sharon Collins is collecting. Outside of a collection of oral histories captured on video as well as a digital visual archive, there is one component that I am getting my hands dirty on if only in the production aspect, the ADDA New Orleans slideshow from 1962. At around 30 minutes the slideshow originally was conceived to present local creatives with Advertising experience to a crowd of business types to show them the importance that design can play in their brand. The slideshow narration, jazz guitar sountrack and eccentric photography all combine to produce an effect that is close to watching an episode of Mad Men. I am very honored to be a part of this act of preservation and cannot wait to post the presentation link once we have uploaded the finished piece.