By NOEL MURPHY
‘THE lagerphone has been around for years,
‘To make one, you drink a lot of beers,
‘You shake it up and down,
‘Or you beat it on the ground,
‘In the Didgi-Bodhran-Lager-Harp Song.’
…………
NOW there’s some great lyrics; pure Aussie craftsmanship from the pen of South Geelong concretor and Irish music fan Pearse Hoare.
His DBLH Song, excuse the abbreviation, was written for an annual family concert hosted by sister Kath at Halls Gap.
Brother-in-law Bernie Woolfrey ran up the idea of a lagerphone contest and Pearse applied his tradie’s nous with a few bits of pipe and duct tape to threw himself into the fray.
“I decided to gain an advantage over my worthy opponents by creating my own, made out of a didge with lagerphone attached and an Irish bodhran and a harmonica. I added a whistle on one night,” Pearse told the Independent.
“I made the lagerphone myself with the bottle tops nailed to a couple of pieces of ply.
“I realised there’s not many songs you can do on didgi-bodhran-lager-harp so, being an ideas man, I wrote one and I called it The Didgi-Bodhran-Lager-Harp Song because, like I told you, I’m an ideas man.”
The competition was fierce, Pearse related. The prize was a lagerphone master-crafted by Woolfrey.
But it wasn’t destined to be his.
“For some reason Kath, being a judge, disqualified me. I didn’t win it, I was never going to win it – one of the kids did.”
When not fashioning musical aberrations, Pearse works on a collection of short stories. He’s pretty mum about them for the time being but offered a little about one yarn, involving himself and mates in their early 20s renting a house without a shower.
Footy training and games provided a wash four times a week but three days of BO prompted them to join a basketball side to sweeten their armpits earlier in the week.
“We couldn’t play to save ourselves,” he admitted.
It might not be Shakespeare just yet but there’s sure to plenty of Aussie grit and humour.
As for his didgi-bodhran whatsit, it’s available for use by the punters who frequent Pearse’s local watering hole, the Valley Inn Hotel.
But there’s a catch.
“Yeah, sure, anyone can have a go on it but it’ll cost them a beer,” he said.
