I am Hodgie Smodgie, world-class guitarist, whale whisperer, Tibetan monk.
Biography taken from Wikipedia.org:
Hodgie "the Electric" Smodgie was born Hodgiphilus Electrophilis Smodgophalaphroozenfrakensteinen. He began his music career as a roadie for Mick Jagger and played backup guitar for "Air Supply" in the 80s. Hodgie became heavily influenced by the mountain music of Swedish goatherds and spent three years living among them. An artistic disagreement about how to properly play the blockflöjt, as well as a few political actions he undertook in that regard, led to his being banished from that area and three other European countries.
Hodgie then produced five major albums along with his friend and cowriter, Dadio McDuck, the "princess of polka." His guitar style mixed flamenco morals with Jimmy Buffet-style egoism. Disheartened with the worldliness of showbiz, Hodgie pursued a degree in Ecology Underwater Studies, and became Dr. Smodgie. He has made seven trips to save various aquatic animals with Greenpeace. In fact, it is said that he can speak to whales and knows when they are in trouble before even they know.
In 1991, Hodgie married Ayame Narita, world champion female Sumo wrestler. They have since been married-divorced-and-remarried 21 times.
In 1999, Hodgie was involved in a scandal, when his lifelong guru, Shambo, was arrested for manufacturing a controlled substance. Shambo had been running a cocaine factory using funds donated by his followers. Hodgie had contributed over 1.21 million dollars.*
*Editor's note: Claims made about Shambo and the Peaceful Way having to do with cocaine and corruption are entirely false, as is Professor Ronald T. Greenblot's edited volume, Meditation, Money, and Maelstrom: New Findings on the Shambo-Cult Scandal. Greenblot is a hack. The debate we had while he was giving a "convocation lecture" at the University of Oregon totally would have proven me right if the campus police Gestapo hadn't dragged me out just as I was winning.
Biography taken from Wikipedia.org:
Hodgie "the Electric" Smodgie was born Hodgiphilus Electrophilis Smodgophalaphroozenfrakensteinen. He began his music career as a roadie for Mick Jagger and played backup guitar for "Air Supply" in the 80s. Hodgie became heavily influenced by the mountain music of Swedish goatherds and spent three years living among them. An artistic disagreement about how to properly play the blockflöjt, as well as a few political actions he undertook in that regard, led to his being banished from that area and three other European countries.
Hodgie then produced five major albums along with his friend and cowriter, Dadio McDuck, the "princess of polka." His guitar style mixed flamenco morals with Jimmy Buffet-style egoism. Disheartened with the worldliness of showbiz, Hodgie pursued a degree in Ecology Underwater Studies, and became Dr. Smodgie. He has made seven trips to save various aquatic animals with Greenpeace. In fact, it is said that he can speak to whales and knows when they are in trouble before even they know.
In 1991, Hodgie married Ayame Narita, world champion female Sumo wrestler. They have since been married-divorced-and-remarried 21 times.
In 1999, Hodgie was involved in a scandal, when his lifelong guru, Shambo, was arrested for manufacturing a controlled substance. Shambo had been running a cocaine factory using funds donated by his followers. Hodgie had contributed over 1.21 million dollars.*
*Editor's note: Claims made about Shambo and the Peaceful Way having to do with cocaine and corruption are entirely false, as is Professor Ronald T. Greenblot's edited volume, Meditation, Money, and Maelstrom: New Findings on the Shambo-Cult Scandal. Greenblot is a hack. The debate we had while he was giving a "convocation lecture" at the University of Oregon totally would have proven me right if the campus police Gestapo hadn't dragged me out just as I was winning.
Hodgie 1968 - 2014: A Discography
NOTE: Under Construction
The Dadio Years
1. (1969) "Greatest Hits Volume One." It's pretty bold for a band to label their very first album "greatest hits," but that's exactly what Dadio & Hodgie did. Their hits "Egghead" and "The Potato Incident" climbed to the "chop of the tarts," as their agent Carl Shanks put it, and the duo became an instant cult classic.
2. (1971) "Greatest Hits Volume Two: The Boxette." Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I must be a Dadio & Hodgie fan! The duo's second album had a darker edge to it with the strange song, "Jamaican Bobsledding Team," which eerily predicted events that would take place in 1988 (as seen in the 1993 film Cool Runnings).
3. (1974) "Dr. Watson's Liver." The band had hit a creative rough patch until Dadio met a strange, British man in a men's restroom in Omaha, Nebraska. The man offered Dadio $2,000 for his liver and became immortalized in a song that went all the way to #7 in Thailand's "Hot 400" and has been called both "disturbing" and "unintentionally hysterical" by USA Today's Robert Plumber.
4. (1977) "Anti-Claus Superstar." Dadio & Hodgie's attempt at a Christmas album resulted in this "toor da farce," as Dadio described it to the press. The pair were able to use their connections to have ABBA make an uncredited appearance in the album's grooviest number: "Disco Fiasco."
5. (1978) "Suckling the Nipple." As the title song proclaimed, this album was a return to the "polka roots" that had inspired the duo to create music in the first place. The influence of their mentor, 1920s convicted sex offender Jack "the Ripper of" Polka, could be seen throughout the album, perhaps most especially in their song "Teddy Grahams."
6. (1982) "The Pirate Album." Dadio & Hodgie's concept album told the story of a little boy (played by Dadio) whose Australian parents, played by Sally McKenzie and Paul Hogan, are addicted to video games. He escapes in a fantastical journey which involves a flying ship (Skanky Beth), a fight with cats, a tutoring session on speaking like an academic, and--finally--a lesson on how to love oneself.
7. (1984) "Timmy's Tape." This album was destroyed after Hodgie went into a gluten-induced rage. Only one copy exists with the album's eponym, Timmy O'Brien, who appears in the band's second concept album. The story of this mini-musical is that Dadio has been adopted by an Irish father who neglects him in favor of his spoiled, biological son (Timmy). When Timmy falls down a well, accusations fly, and Dadio runs away to New York. There a "bum" obsessed with puppets (played by Randy Newman) teaches Dadio that no obstacle is too big to overcome. Dadio is reunited with his family after Timmy has been found again. "I've been on such a guilt trip," Dadio says, "by ninjas I have been stripped. / It kind of sucks that little Timmy's fine."
8. (1986) "The Country Album." The band's last album, though it was never completed. Hodgie appears only at the very end of the album, because of his many trips to Africa in 1986 to save elephants from "the stresses of human chauvinism and anti-elephant stereotypes." (In fact, Hodgie’s famous Korean-speaking elephant is often accused of causing the Dadio-Hodgie breakup. The elephant, Koshik, disagreed frequently, through a translator, with Dadio about writing credit and other matters related to “baendeu," meaning “the band” in Korean. Dadio once described Koshik as a “cold” elephant, but has since recanted his statements, even admitting recently that “I doesn’t know where I am… how de hell I know what cauz breakup… what iz breakup?”) This album marked Dadio's unsuccessful attempt to break into the country music scene, although his song--"The Dadio Train's Comin' Down (I Wanna Die with a Rich Man)"--did make it to number 39 of Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40. Hodgie returns at the end of the album, kicks Dadio's new bandmates (T-Bone and Clive) out of the studio, and tries to introduce Dadio to the "world's largest mosquito," a self-proclaimed "vampire" from Norway. The album also features a Dadio & Hodgie attempt at rap, "Yo, Yo, It Makes Mo Sense."
9. (1986) "Dadio Meets the Care Bears." This album only exists as studio backtracks and notes. It was a planned concept album featuring Dadio's attempts to acquire land in Care-a-Lot by duping the Care Bears. Both Big Daddy Kane and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince have expressed interest in acquiring the rights to this album and completing it. Dadio has shown little interest in selling it for anything less than two million dollars, and Hodgie has made a few comments in public that he does not want the album made because of its "racist" and "demeaning" depiction of bears.
The Solo Years
1. (1986) "A Big Flop." Hodgie based the title of his first solo album on the "flopping" sound a whale makes when re-submerging into the ocean, after his producer, Quincy Jones, rejected Hodgie's original title, "Blow Hole." The album largely consisted of underwater sounds, which Hodgie recorded using a French-made hydrophone. In recent years, Hodgie has revealed that the sounds were produced by his then-wife, Jhanu Smodgie (née Gopal), as she swam in their private pool, humming to herself. While many attribute the Dadio-Hodgie breakup to Hodgie's obsession with making an "ocean tones" album, Hodgie has maintained that the "mojo had died" years earlier. The album was a monstrous flop. One New York Times review consisted entirely of expletives, and an entire East Coast record store chain (Thunder-n-Lightning Music) declared bankruptcy after patrons staged 24-hour-long protests outside their stores. The day of the album's release (April 24th, 1986) is popularly known as "the day the music died." In 1993, a marine mammal scientist at Sea World Orlando discovered that the album can cure constipation in orca whales and dolphins. In 2003, at a ceremony attended by Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, Hodgie received the "Animal Humanitarian of the Year" award for saving the lives of 27 constipated sea creatures.
2. (1990) "Happy Good Day." While most failed to grasp the pun, Hodgie intended the album to have two meanings: "Happy Good Day" and "Have a Good Day." The album, a critique of capitalist culture, consisted of seven tracks in which Hodgie played lead guitar, each sung by a different person: Cyndi Lauper, Tom Selleck, Mick Jagger, Simon Le Bon, Bono, Big Daddy Kane, and a mystery voice revealed years later to have been Dadio suffering from disorientation. The album was not well-received, except for the single, "Kudos to Life, Baruch atah Hashem," which ended in a chorus that involved 48 various musicians and stars singing in unison. The single was meant to raise money to provide "education and literacy for incarcerated animals all across the globe." Unfortunately, Hodgie found himself at odds with many of his friends after an anonymously-released phone tap revealed that Hodgie did not indeed believe that dogs and cats could ever learn how to read. Accused of using the single as a way to direct funds toward his own animal-rights organization, 4-Crits United, Hodgie apologized publicly on the Donahue Show and needed to be hospitalized after fainting on air. The album has broken two records: It was the most expensive album produced in 1990; it also made Cracked's "Worst Albums of All Time" sooner than any other album before or after, only three months after its release.
The Dadio Years
1. (1969) "Greatest Hits Volume One." It's pretty bold for a band to label their very first album "greatest hits," but that's exactly what Dadio & Hodgie did. Their hits "Egghead" and "The Potato Incident" climbed to the "chop of the tarts," as their agent Carl Shanks put it, and the duo became an instant cult classic.
2. (1971) "Greatest Hits Volume Two: The Boxette." Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I must be a Dadio & Hodgie fan! The duo's second album had a darker edge to it with the strange song, "Jamaican Bobsledding Team," which eerily predicted events that would take place in 1988 (as seen in the 1993 film Cool Runnings).
3. (1974) "Dr. Watson's Liver." The band had hit a creative rough patch until Dadio met a strange, British man in a men's restroom in Omaha, Nebraska. The man offered Dadio $2,000 for his liver and became immortalized in a song that went all the way to #7 in Thailand's "Hot 400" and has been called both "disturbing" and "unintentionally hysterical" by USA Today's Robert Plumber.
4. (1977) "Anti-Claus Superstar." Dadio & Hodgie's attempt at a Christmas album resulted in this "toor da farce," as Dadio described it to the press. The pair were able to use their connections to have ABBA make an uncredited appearance in the album's grooviest number: "Disco Fiasco."
5. (1978) "Suckling the Nipple." As the title song proclaimed, this album was a return to the "polka roots" that had inspired the duo to create music in the first place. The influence of their mentor, 1920s convicted sex offender Jack "the Ripper of" Polka, could be seen throughout the album, perhaps most especially in their song "Teddy Grahams."
6. (1982) "The Pirate Album." Dadio & Hodgie's concept album told the story of a little boy (played by Dadio) whose Australian parents, played by Sally McKenzie and Paul Hogan, are addicted to video games. He escapes in a fantastical journey which involves a flying ship (Skanky Beth), a fight with cats, a tutoring session on speaking like an academic, and--finally--a lesson on how to love oneself.
7. (1984) "Timmy's Tape." This album was destroyed after Hodgie went into a gluten-induced rage. Only one copy exists with the album's eponym, Timmy O'Brien, who appears in the band's second concept album. The story of this mini-musical is that Dadio has been adopted by an Irish father who neglects him in favor of his spoiled, biological son (Timmy). When Timmy falls down a well, accusations fly, and Dadio runs away to New York. There a "bum" obsessed with puppets (played by Randy Newman) teaches Dadio that no obstacle is too big to overcome. Dadio is reunited with his family after Timmy has been found again. "I've been on such a guilt trip," Dadio says, "by ninjas I have been stripped. / It kind of sucks that little Timmy's fine."
8. (1986) "The Country Album." The band's last album, though it was never completed. Hodgie appears only at the very end of the album, because of his many trips to Africa in 1986 to save elephants from "the stresses of human chauvinism and anti-elephant stereotypes." (In fact, Hodgie’s famous Korean-speaking elephant is often accused of causing the Dadio-Hodgie breakup. The elephant, Koshik, disagreed frequently, through a translator, with Dadio about writing credit and other matters related to “baendeu," meaning “the band” in Korean. Dadio once described Koshik as a “cold” elephant, but has since recanted his statements, even admitting recently that “I doesn’t know where I am… how de hell I know what cauz breakup… what iz breakup?”) This album marked Dadio's unsuccessful attempt to break into the country music scene, although his song--"The Dadio Train's Comin' Down (I Wanna Die with a Rich Man)"--did make it to number 39 of Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40. Hodgie returns at the end of the album, kicks Dadio's new bandmates (T-Bone and Clive) out of the studio, and tries to introduce Dadio to the "world's largest mosquito," a self-proclaimed "vampire" from Norway. The album also features a Dadio & Hodgie attempt at rap, "Yo, Yo, It Makes Mo Sense."
9. (1986) "Dadio Meets the Care Bears." This album only exists as studio backtracks and notes. It was a planned concept album featuring Dadio's attempts to acquire land in Care-a-Lot by duping the Care Bears. Both Big Daddy Kane and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince have expressed interest in acquiring the rights to this album and completing it. Dadio has shown little interest in selling it for anything less than two million dollars, and Hodgie has made a few comments in public that he does not want the album made because of its "racist" and "demeaning" depiction of bears.
The Solo Years
1. (1986) "A Big Flop." Hodgie based the title of his first solo album on the "flopping" sound a whale makes when re-submerging into the ocean, after his producer, Quincy Jones, rejected Hodgie's original title, "Blow Hole." The album largely consisted of underwater sounds, which Hodgie recorded using a French-made hydrophone. In recent years, Hodgie has revealed that the sounds were produced by his then-wife, Jhanu Smodgie (née Gopal), as she swam in their private pool, humming to herself. While many attribute the Dadio-Hodgie breakup to Hodgie's obsession with making an "ocean tones" album, Hodgie has maintained that the "mojo had died" years earlier. The album was a monstrous flop. One New York Times review consisted entirely of expletives, and an entire East Coast record store chain (Thunder-n-Lightning Music) declared bankruptcy after patrons staged 24-hour-long protests outside their stores. The day of the album's release (April 24th, 1986) is popularly known as "the day the music died." In 1993, a marine mammal scientist at Sea World Orlando discovered that the album can cure constipation in orca whales and dolphins. In 2003, at a ceremony attended by Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, Hodgie received the "Animal Humanitarian of the Year" award for saving the lives of 27 constipated sea creatures.
2. (1990) "Happy Good Day." While most failed to grasp the pun, Hodgie intended the album to have two meanings: "Happy Good Day" and "Have a Good Day." The album, a critique of capitalist culture, consisted of seven tracks in which Hodgie played lead guitar, each sung by a different person: Cyndi Lauper, Tom Selleck, Mick Jagger, Simon Le Bon, Bono, Big Daddy Kane, and a mystery voice revealed years later to have been Dadio suffering from disorientation. The album was not well-received, except for the single, "Kudos to Life, Baruch atah Hashem," which ended in a chorus that involved 48 various musicians and stars singing in unison. The single was meant to raise money to provide "education and literacy for incarcerated animals all across the globe." Unfortunately, Hodgie found himself at odds with many of his friends after an anonymously-released phone tap revealed that Hodgie did not indeed believe that dogs and cats could ever learn how to read. Accused of using the single as a way to direct funds toward his own animal-rights organization, 4-Crits United, Hodgie apologized publicly on the Donahue Show and needed to be hospitalized after fainting on air. The album has broken two records: It was the most expensive album produced in 1990; it also made Cracked's "Worst Albums of All Time" sooner than any other album before or after, only three months after its release.