ANGEL CITY - Shadows Fall, Sun Rises... Page 4
by Martin Popoff

"Buzz and Chris, they formed a band called GANGajang. And they had been playing, and they haven't actually broken up. They had some hits in Australia with that band. So they were doing that. But we're just fortunate now that they've made themselves available to play with us. And the camaraderie... it happened by accident. You may remember, in 2002, there was the Bali bombing, the terrorist action in Bali, and some time after that we did a benefit concert for people who are victims of that tragic tragedy, over in Perth. And GANGajang were asked to play and so were the Brewster Brothers, so we were all together in one place. They had thousands of people, and the tour promoter asked if we could get up and play some of the old songs together. And we hadn't played with Buzz or Chris for about 20 years, so we thought what the hell, let's give it a shot. So we went out on stage in front of about 4000, 5000 people, and did 'Marseilles', and 'Take A Long Line', and it was like we'd never stopped playing together - it was like magic. So we just looked at each other and went 'Wow, what was that?!' And it all grew from there. So it was an accidental reunion. And put together for the best reasons of all."

As alluded to, there is a live Angels album demonstrating the band's skills as a four-piece... "Yes, we've got a live album with the current lineup. The Angels - Live At The Basement. So many accidental things happen with this band. The accidental reunion in the first place, and then we played The Basement, as a sort of semi-acoustic. I started off doing things like 'After The Rain' and 'Fashion And Fame' on an acoustic guitar, and we had a great night and the crowd loved us, and someone sent us a desk tape of it. We thought, 'Gee, this is great. I wish we had recorded it on multi-track.' And then we called up the engineer and he said, 'Yeah, we've got it on multi-track. I did record it.' So we mixed it up and made an album out of it, and we've done really well with it."

Check out www.brewsterbrothers.com and the extensive www.theangelsband.net for more on the rich musical legacy of John and Rick and their merry music-makers from down under.