Brandon Cruz
Eddie is a Punk: The Courtship of Eddie 1970-1997
Taang!
I thought that my flashbacks from the late 1970s had ended a long time ago. Somehow, though, I knew…
I was born two years too late for the whole The Courtship of Eddie’s Father experience, but the last season was enough to make me hate the Beatles’ “Fool on the Hill” for ever and ever. I vaguely remember…. was it Herb Edelman? I don’t know, but some dude who was Eddie’s dad’s friend, the “Polynesian” housekeeper and the underlying gloom of the entire show: here’s a little kid whose mom died and his dad, a man with only one friend, is trying to raise him, and it’s the late 1960s. If it were now, or even twenty years ago, it’d be totally different, because there’s day care and no one has a cleaning lady. But back then… Well, my seven-year old sensibility knew enough to recognize that The Courtship of Eddie’s Father was not a comedy.
Anyway, the kid who played Eddie was Brandon Cruz, who went on to become a punk rocker in 1977. I vaguely remember someone in eighth grade mentioning that they saw “Eddie” on TV and he had green hair and was into punk rock.
Why’s this matter? It matters because this album is dedicated to the memory of “Eddie” and the late Bill Bixby and the late Harry Nilsson, who wrote some of the “Eddie” tunes. The first five songs are all “Eddie,” starting with three Bixby/Cruz duets (“Oh, Daddy What If?” and “Best Friend” ) from the show or some related TV appearance. Then it’s a Nillsson/Cruz version of “Best Friend.” And finally, a Cruz/Dolenz variation. That’s Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.
And it’s really, really punk rock, too.
The remaining seven songs are LA punk rockers from all the bands Brandon Cruz has been in during the 1990s, those being Harmful If Swallowed, Twister Naked, the Brandon Cruz Band, and the Ugly Truth.
Taang!, 706 Pismo Ct., San Diego, CA 92109
