A newsletter for the Didjeridu player......August 2002 Volume 8 Issue 8
by Ed Drury
This is part two of an on going interview I did with Derek Furlong of "The Red Earth". Derek's been playing didj for a long time and as you are about to discover, his style and power come from a rich set of experiences both in Australia and his native UK.
[Ed] Eventually you returned home. What was the didjeridu situation in the UK at that time? Where there other didjeridu performers about? I'm wondering after experiences such as you had in Australia you felt to be back in the UK with your new desires to perform. Did you begin to teach didjeridu at that point as well?
[Derek] Coming back to the UK was really difficult. I had such a good time and met up with many interesting people, it was a shame it all had to end, but already I was planning another trip.
I started performing straight away with the didge, I had a good solid style now and spent a few days in London busking on the underground and venturing to Portabello Road. I got good crowds when I played and earned a lot of money. Where ever I went I was always doing something, maybe a stint at schools, or a pub gig, as well as Radio shows and I even made BBC Radio 2!
The didgeridoo scene was in its early beginning here in the UK. Outback with our friend Mr. Wiggins were doing their stuff and they seemed to be quite an influence. You would turn up at a party and find an outback tape playing. You would hear rumors of Stephen Kent, (whom I have not met to my knowledge) but there were very few 'good' players about. Occasionally people would say to me, "yeah I saw a didgeridoo player the other day". Occasionally I bumped into the odd player busking. I did a little teaching then, it was crude and early in development, but still it was a beginning.
It was an interesting time in the UK then, you would go out busking and people would shout "Oy Rolf". The didge was just on the edge of being that more accepted, but not quite there yet. I studied every angle of playing I could. For me at that time it was competitive, I simply wanted to develop a style of playing that would stick out, make people listen. That hunger was still there and I would endlessly listen to the well-known recording players, making sure I could do what they could on the tape.
At the end of 91 I really was struggling to get a job, I ended up in the red light district of Bradford in a bed sit, pretty broke with just the didgeridoo for comfort. This was where I started to develop the kind of playing I do today, and am well known.
Those days were really sobering for me. I was financially completely broke and could not get a job. I was on the dole and pretty depressed. I survived by routine, getting up early, doing some weight training then practicing the didgeridoo, literally all day! It was all I had and all I wanted; it was a lonely time but a very spiritual time. I was completely obsessed and kept up this routine for nearly 6 months! However, my style and ideas where flourishing!
I eventually returned to the Lakes and got a job delivering fruit and vegetables, I saved like crazy for that second trip to Australia. I got the cash and I was off once again. I knew I needed to go, to progress even further I needed to really observe those traditional players, but I also needed to see Alan Dargin.
[Ed] So back to Oz. What did you find awaiting you there? Did you get to see Alan Dargin?
[Derek] It was not long before I got back to Australia, It was risky at the time because I set off with very little money and would need to earn it busking. but I desperately needed to get that second trip in. The first trip was fantastic but this trip was going to be really focused.
You see at that time I was developing a style of playing that I wanted to be very unique. Most didgeridoo players play slow, I wanted to turn it around and make it go fast, but also incorporate some other aspects of traditional aboriginal playing mixed with western influences, particularly harmonics and overtones.
To my mind the best didgeridoo player I had ever heard was Alan Dargin, absolutely streets ahead of anyone . His style was similar to my angle of the speed, but I really wanted to see him play to get some further ideas, but mainly to meet him have a beer and a chat, you know. I also needed to see more traditional playing so I could incorporate it into this 'new style' I was formulating.
My first task 'down under' was to earn money, so spent a lot of time busking at Circular Quay in Sydney. I earned an incredible amount of money and really found the style I was pushing worked. It was different and it raised a few eyebrows and kept the dollar and 2-dollar coins rolling in! I asked the other buskers and didge players where I might find Alan, but he was very elusive, hard to track down.
I finally met Alan quite by chance in a bar at Darling harbor. It was really good to meet him and we had a cracker of an afternoon drinking while Alan and I played the didge in the bar. We had a good old chat and put the didge world to rights. It was a memorable time and we would meet again several months later.
A couple of days after this meeting I took a plane to Darwin, which would be my base camp from which I would seek out the Territory and experience some more traditional playing which would fix more pieces of the jigsaw into place.
[Ed] If Darwin was your base camp, what directions did you go from there? Where did you find your greatest lessons on the traditional forms? Where you surprised by what you saw and heard?
[Derek] There were many choices from Darwin and my first destination was Katherine. I made a sub base at the Youth Hostel there. Through some contacts I managed to meet up with a Tribal elder who I shall name as BH (It is worth mentioning here that BH was happy for me to use his name among close friends but not in the general populous, much of the stuff here will be of a similar vein and I will mention areas and refer letters to names when I can. What I experienced was very special and those 'in the know' will understand why I choose to conceal names and some places).
We played together for quite a while and it was a magical time for me. I told him of my quest and how long I had been playing for. I told him about how I started and my background etc. I was very privileged indeed to go to his home share his stories and play didgeridoo with him. Out of that meeting I acquired some exceptional didgeridoos which I chose myself and watched them being painted. One of those instruments is a very special instrument indeed with an extremely rich 'spiritual' sound.
Through a favorable contact in the Land Council I managed to obtain passes through some aboriginal Land and through further contacts, and much pleading and promises of keeping quiet about arrangements to fellow travelers I got out to a few places in what is known as Kakadu NP and Arnhem Land. Here I had the great privilege of meeting a few traditional players and playing with them. These were the type of players you would not come across on the 'circuit' if you know what I mean. Players is actually the wrong phrase to use, these are spiritual people within a deep routed pattern of life, but actually being allowed to witness some of the things I did was very, very special, and still lives with me today and comes out when I play.
If I were to sum up my experience and write down a few words to describe what traditional playing did for me it would be this.
"I was inspired by traditional playing, but also puzzled about it, and deeply moved"
In the greater scheme of things the traditional way of playing taught me a whole new way of approaching the didgeridoo, particularly from the breathing aspect, which I was very interested in. The rhythms too, were both complex and very simple. It took some watching and figuring out as too what was going on inside the mouth to make the sounds. Often I would have to practice for hours afterwards to try to recount what I heard.
Much of what I learned is incorporated in my playing today, but shaped and formed in a different package. The breathing or knowing how to breathe is at the heart of my didgeridoo playing. The didgeridoo for me is about rhythm; this is what people tune into. You can vary the speed; complexity and the tones, overtones, harmonics and sounds, and that will help. But again at the heart is rhythm and that will either sell it or if you don't hit the mark, kill it.
My time in the Territory was spent going out and about and then returning to Darwin where I would try to organize more trips through the contacts I had made. I was definitely in the right place at the right time in those days, the contacts made it though and I have a lot to thanks them for. At that time in Darwin (1992) I was quite the talking point and local people were coming to see me at the Youth Hostel. I was teaching quite a bit too at that time and also did some performing. I actually came on after a stripper in one bar! What a fantastic reception I got!
One of the most memorable places I played at in Darwin was at a house, but this was a house with a difference. It was basically 3 very large steel tankers welded together (I joke not). I got the story that the owner, who at the time was away, wanted a cyclone proof home. Playing in this house one afternoon with an outside temperature of over 39c (god knows what the temperature was inside) had the didge echoing all around this thing!
Visit Derek's band at http://www.the-red-earth.com. There you will be able to listen to samples from their new CD!