'Diamond Geezer' - The Story Behind The Song

When R.U.S.S. of UK art and music collective BRED PUDDING writes about his elderly father, who recently died suffering from dementia and in a nursing home, it's both moving and funny at the same time. That it is performed over an alternative rock come post-punk backing track makes it even more compelling. The track is called 'Diamond Geezer' and I had the pleasure of working with R.U.S.S. as he brought the track together.

I've known R.U.S.S. for 20 years but it's only since I suffered a massive heart attack in 2017 that I've spent any extended time with him. He helped me through those first months and very soon we were making music together with Bred Pudding being the vehicle for most of our work so far.

As for me, I've been making poetry, art, and music for 40 or more years. It's in my DNA. But R.U.S.S. told me that he'd never written poetry or made music in his life before. I found it hard to believe. He's a natural, especially when writing straight from the heart, or straight from the hip, or even better - both!

He gets angry about lots of things and shares that in his lyrics. He's sentimental too at times. He gives us the sense that if we all pull together things can change and change for the better.

He says he's determined to not become "an old git". We can't escape getting older but we can do all we can to not get caught up in the "old git syndrome" complaining about everything but doing nothing to engage with what's going on now and be a positive part of making a better world.

Much of BRED PUDDING's output is at the intersection of art, music and spoken word poetry with members all contributing works through all three practices. R.U.S.S. and BRED PUDDING also work with slogans, subvertisement, and street art interventions addressing issues such as the role and state of media in the twenty-first century with pieces like "CRAP TV" to politics with "Are We Dead?", "Guantanamo Bay" and "Donald is a Puppet".

Slogans include:

"IT'S ALL CRAP TV"

"SOCIAL DANCING FOR THE MASSES"

"ARE WE DEAD YET?"

"IF YOU CAN'T FIGHT WEAR A BIG HAT"

All coming to a Tee near you soon!

Back to R.U.S.S and his dad as portrayed in "Diamond Geezer, at one point in the poem/song R.U.S.S. says of him:

He was a good footballer

And a bad golfer

He ran the local boys team

Didn't drink much

Smoked a lot

Had a heart attack in his forties

Later he talks about how his dad is now 'lost to the world of dementia' but at heart is still his dad, who he loves 'more than he'll ever know' and yes, he's still a Diamond Geezer!

You might be intrigued as to where the name BRED PUDDING came from - here's what R.U.S.S. has to say on the matter:

"The first lyrics that I wrote were inspired by my growing antipathy towards Donald Trump. I could hardly believe it when he was elected as President of the United States but gave him the benefit of the doubt. Watching his progress from over here in the U.K. was a bit surreal but actually all too real. I was moved one night to start writing and I grabbed whatever piece of paper was at hand. I scribbled furiously and came up with the words to 'Donald Is A Puppet'. When I joined Little Onion at Opium Den Studios to record the track I discovered that I'd actually written the words on the back of my mum's recipe for 'Bred Pudding', well it's bread pudding really but mum had written it as Bred Pudding. We decided there and then that the collective, the band, would be named BRED PUDDING. I then thought it only right to incorporate my mum's recipe into the words and you can hear me declaim the recipe as a quasi-rap middle eight during the track."

Yes, it's true! The song 'Donald Is A Puppet' not only seems to take a swing at Donald Trump but also gives you all the ingredients needed to make R.U.S.S.'s mum's fabulous (I know because I've tasted it) bread pudding!

Diamond Geezer and other tracks featuring R.U.S.S by BRED PUDDING are available on all the usual major platforms including Spotify, iTunes, AppleMusic, Amazon, Deezer, Napster etc.

Watch out for more music, poetry and art from R.U.S.S. and BRED PUDDING in recorded and live forms, I'll be working with them too and will report back here on new ventures in the future!

Diamond Geezer also features on the three-track single from BRED PUDDING 'Back Home To Bermondsey' (Bermondsey being the area of London where R.U.S.S. was born and brought up for the early part of his life, and the home of his favourite soccer club Millwall FC).