Bob Brozman @ The East Brunswick Club Review

Bob Brozman is, perhaps, best known for his instructional books and DVDs but in between publishing and filming, he also manages to maintain a relentless touring schedule. His tour of Australia was no exception – over 20 shows in a month, travelling to all parts of the country. This was one of Brozman’s final shows before heading home to California but despite his obvious weariness, Brozman managed to maintain an amazing intensity throughout his two hour-long sets.

It seems that Brozman is a born teacher and he could not help but add an educational element to the performance. In fact, we started off the show with a 3 year old chant used by Indian preschool teachers (we later progressed to the 4 year old and 5 year old chants). Brozman also played the eccentric teacher by continually offering us funny little snippets of wisdom on music and life in between (and sometimes during) songs: “There’s only two types of songwriting – songs about death and those about sex and trying to get it... the rest is God Save the Queen and Happy Birthday and they’ve already been done.” His delivery was entertaining and never got too heavy-handed or preachy. Brozman knows that he’s there to entertain us but sneakily throws in some lessons and political points (he’s definitely not a fan of Sarah Pallin), hoping that we’ll take something away from the show.

Brozman is a musical shapeshifter. While his outward appearance stayed the same - a nerdy guy with glasses in a Mambo t-shirt, on the inside he took on numerous different musical forms. We heard Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Django Reinhardt, Lonnie Johnson, and the famous calypso artist King Houdini (among many others). These constant changes in style made the show very captivating but may have disappointed blues fans wanting to be immersed in Brozman’s slide guitar skills.

Although he is a small guy, Brozman managed to completely fill the stage at the East Brunswick club with the sheer number of his weird and wonderful instruments. There were his trademark National guitars (literally – he now has his own signature instrument), ukuleles, a lap steel, and a 22 stringed instrument from India called a chaturangi. The instruments were so impressive that they actually drew a crowd during the break between sets. There were 10 or 15 of us jostling for space in front of the stage trying to get a closer look while Brozman signed merchandise at the back of the room.

No doubt transporting this many instruments around the country must be a logistical nightmare but it is a testament to Brozman’s passion given that he would probably put on a good show with any old piece of junk with strings on it. He has, however, used the experience to educate others – his website has a whole section dedicated to giving advice on packing and flying with guitars.
Brozman's playing focussed heavily on rhythm. He strummed, beat and banged different part of his various string instruments to cajole different sounds out of them. He also played a wooden drum, which almost acted as an extension of his main instrument – sometimes it was hard to tell whether he was strumming or drumming. Brozman is also an expert at manipulating microphones to create different sounds. He constantly swayed his instruments back and forth and around the microphone, creating interesting tones.

Brozman did leave rhythm aside for a song (he told us that he was out of his comfort zone but he would try it anyway). The song was instantly recognisable –a bluesed up improvisation on a lap steel using the melody of Waltzing Matilda. He pulled it off well without any percussion.

After getting his Aussie buddy and roadie, Skip Sail, up on stage to perform a soulful improvisation around a Charlie Patton song, Brozman grabbed one of his ukuleles, jumped off the stage and darted through the crowd, singing a calypso song. He ducked and weaved around the audience, finishing in the middle of the room. There were cheers and applause until he shouted “Before I go I’d like to impart my religious philosophy”. The room fell deadly silent – Brozman had really captured the audience. “I’ve got it down to four words,” he said. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Brozman’s show was lively, fun and, god forbid, even a little education al and I don’t think I’ve been an asshole since.