My Christmas Song: Amendment to the Santa Clause

December 17th, 2009

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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.

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

Beatles Rock Band

December 14th, 2009

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

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)

Old Band Pics - Maxwells

November 10th, 2009

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/

3AM insomnia ramblings: the Univox

November 6th, 2009

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.

Happy Birthday Dad

September 15th, 2009

My Dad, Aunts and Cousin Dancing in the Living Room


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

Happy Birthday Louis Armstrong

August 4th, 2009

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

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My First New Orleans Performance

April 21st, 2009

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

robbigtop425

Jelly Roll Morton @ The Conti Wax Museum

January 23rd, 2009

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.

Current Project: ADDA New Orleans Slideshow

January 22nd, 2009

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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.