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Cold Fact | 
 enlarge | Artist: Rodriguez
Label: Light In The Attic
Category: Music
List Price: $21.98
Buy New: $10.44
You Save: $11.54 (53%)
New (43) Used (10) from $10.44
Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 12616
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 36
UPC: 826853003629
EAN: 0826853003629
ASIN: B001BKVWYG
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Tracks:
| • | Sugarman | | • | Only Good For Conversation | | • | Crucify Your Mind | | • | This Is Not A Song, Its An Outburst | | • | Hate Street Dialogue | | • | Forget It | | • | Inner City Blues | | • | I Wonder | | • | Like Janis | | • | Gommorah (A Nursery Rhyme) | | • | Rich Folks Hoax | | • | Jane S. Piddy |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It s one of the lost classics of the 60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in colour and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion, and, of course, jumpers, coke, sweet mary jane . The album is Cold Fact, and what s more intriguing is that its maker a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working on a Detroit building site, unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was born in 1942 to Mexican immigrant parents in Detroit, Michigan. He recorded Cold Fact his debut album in 1969, and released it in March 1970. It s crushingly good stuff, filled with tales of bad drugs, lost love, and itchy-footed songs about life in late 60s inner-city America. Gun sales are soaring/Housewives find life boring/Divorce the only answer/Smoking causes cancer, says the Dylan-esque Establishment Blues. But the album sank without trace, thanks, in part, to some of Rodriguez s more idiosyncratic behavior, like performing at an industry showcase with his back to the audience throughout. As his music career became a memory, Rodriguez s legend was growing on the other side of the world. In South Africa and, to a lesser extent, Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand, Cold Fact had become a major word of mouth success, particularly among young people in the South African armed forces, who identified with its counter-cultural bent. But Rodriguez was an enigma not even the label knew where to find him and his demise became the subject of debate and conjecture. Some rumors said he d died of a heroin overdose or burned to death on stage. But the tide began to turn in 1996, when journalist Craig Bartholemew set out to get to the bottom of the mystery. After many dead ends, he found Rodriguez alive, well, free and perfectly sane in Detroit, ending years of speculation. Rodriguez himself had no idea about his fame in South Africa (the album had gone multi-platinum, Rodriguez has received not so much as a Rand in royalties), and embarked on a triumphant South African tour followed, filling 5,000 capacity venues across the country. Rodriguez was still largely unknown in the northern hemisphere until 2002, when Sugar Man, the album s extra-terrestrially wonderful lead track, was picked up by David Holmes. The DJ discovered the album in a New York record store, and included it on his Come Get It, I Got It compilation, re-recording the song with Rodriguez for his Free Association project a year later. Now, Light In The Attic is set to commit Cold Fact to CD for audiences in the UK and America, who can finally find out why halfway across the world Rodriguez is spoken of in the same reverent tones as The Doors, Love and Jimi Hendrix.
Album Description
It's one of the lost classics of the '60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in colour and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion, and, of course, "jumpers, coke, sweet mary jane". The album is Cold Fact, and what's more intriguing is that its maker, a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working on a Detroit building site, unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
A recovered treasure September 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Also heard it on NPR and discovered it. It's a brilliant album, cover-to-cover, one of the true ones you can listen to in order and just sit back and enjoy. It really has a theme and a progression.
Beautiful stuff.
Totally Relevant (38 years later) August 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I heard bits of the Album on NPR and I was blown away at how this was a forgotten album. The messages of this album is so relevant back then (although maybe not accepted by people), as it is now. The style and the sound is well at home today - I'll say much more so than back in the 1970s but it is well worth a listen.
Just relax and listen to this album and let it hit you.
Deep...very deep October 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What I love most about this album are the lyrics. They truly send shivers down my spine and have meaning on many different levels. I know his work was meant to be a social/political commentary, but it works just as well as a wound licker for after one of those nasty break-ups.
The south african band - Just Jinger - did a great cover of Sugarman if you like this song.
Mellow, cool blues/rock guitar riffs and smoothe vocals - experimental at times with synthesizer. Rodriguez is definitely a hall of famer in my books. We need more Rodriguez in our lives!
what a flashback! July 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thought I was the only person on the planet that remembered Rodriquez - Cold Fact! I do a web search and lo and behold, there's a cult following for him. Strangely enough the cult following was in SA (where I heard him) and Australia. I heard him (and even remember the album cover) back in high school over 30 years ago and remembered the one track "I Wonder", yet I don't remember what I had for lunch! I went to school near Durban, SA and the album floated around at parties and such. His haunting music has stayed with me ever since, I will be buying Cold Fact now!
AAAAAAH, The 70's April 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I must have bought 10 copies of this album when it first came out. I gave most of them to my friends, so many in fact that I don't own a copy myself. I was the music freek (nut!!) amongst my friends and since I thought that Bob Wills or Jimmy Reed would have been a bit much for them, I played Cold Fact. Since I couldn't be bothered bringing the album to their houses each weekend, I bought them copies and left them there. Every time we gathered for a Fri/Sat night out we would put on Rodriquez, toke up, have a few drinks, eat pistachio nuts and groove to "Sugar Man" et al. I have to admit I haven't heard this album for over 25 years but I can still sing the words to nearly every song!!!! I am amazed that this album had such a small audience; mainly in Australia and Sth Africa, as it is an iconic release. Australia had an extemely vibrant Pop music scene in the 70's thanks to Ian "Molly" Meldrum and his popular Countdown TV show. Along with Rodriguez, Countdown broke ABBA, which is a good or bad thing depending on one's perspective. If anyone out there, in a moment of madness, wants to find out what the average!! Aussie music buff was getting off on in the early 70's grab a copy of a Rodriguez album and see how off the planet we really were.
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