Canadian musician and author Greg Godovitz continues to be an open book with the release of his new memoir Up Close And Uncomfortable — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
As a member of Fludd, Godovitz held eight Top 10 hits — including Cousin Mary, Brother and Me and Turned 21. As a member of Goddo, he released 11 albums while touring extensively. He’s been a member of The Backdoor Blues Band, The Pyggs, Sherman and Peabody, The Mushroom Castle, The Carpet Frogs, The Anger Brothers and The Pretty Ones (“I started playing bass guitar in that band in 1964,” he says of the latter, “but I wasn’t very good — until I started practising”).
He’s got a new group, The Greg Godovitz Coalition; he released a solo album, aMuseMe with Loverboy’s Paul Dean on production; he’s written well over 200 songs, but says “some of them stink,”; he had a weekly radio show where guests would hang up on him because he was goofing on them; he’s met two Beatles, three Rolling Stones, two Kinks, and one Virgin billionaire; he’s set his sights on preserving music history. All this to say, in his 57+ years in the industry, Godovitz has seen it all. And luckily for audiences, he’s thrilled to set his tall tally of tales free.
The first peek behind the curtain came in 2011 thanks to Godovitz’s autobiography Travels With My Amp. An instant hit, the release went on to become a national best-seller with three printings. “After the success of Travels With My Amp, people wrote in asking for more, so I started the process again,” he shares. “After 100 pages of more insanity, I realized I was just repeating myself. This is why there’s no sequel to Travels; I decided on something different.”
While he notes Up Close And Uncomfortable is equally as funny, “it isn’t quite as disgusting as the first book.” He discusses “sitting next to a shape-shifting alien on a late-night flight,” he muses, adding that he was the recipient of an outer space implant in his brain as a result. He shares “one of my much-requested recipes that only got the reader drunk if they followed my instructions.” He recalls trying to finagle his way “into the last will of Aunt Toni when I found out she had an original Van Gogh stashed in Geneva … You know, normal, everyday stuff. Like meeting Ringo, or spending a night in jail for hiding a computer mouse, or starting my own radio show … Everyone who has read it says it’s very funny and, considering the current state of our world, that’s not a bad thing.”
Visit his website for more info.
