| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Documentary |
A door clicks shut.
"Do not disturb" swings to and fro on its handle.
A lonely Dutch legend aimlessly wanders the halls of the esteemed Amsterdam Hilton. He is, inarguably, the biggest rock and roll star his country has ever known. He is not, inarguably, the biggest rock and roll star to have ever wandered these halls.
Room 902. Seventh floor.
He finds the door and touches it. Room 902.
The Amsterdam Hilton, March 26, 1969 – The suite that is room 902 becomes the most famously photographed hotel room in the history of the world. Behind its doors lie one John Lennon and his peacenik artist wife Yoko Ono. They are in bed for the entire world to see; in bed for "peace" they say. It is a "Bed-In" to protest the bloodshed happening in a small Asian jungle country over a thousand miles and damn near a half-century away. In Vietnam, they say, both Americans and Vietnamese - young and old - are dying horrible deaths in the dark, dank, and damp jungle, in monsoon soaked rice fields, and in thatch hut villages.
So in a plush suite near the top of the Amsterdam Hilton, in an awfully cozy looking white bed, the biggest rock and roll star on the planet is holding court with his hippie-artist wife in an effort to "raise awareness" about these outrageous horrors that are occurring in our world – right now, while we lay here, under these blankets, atop these pillows, getting photographed.
It's a wonder they could even sleep at night.
Brood smiles... or is it a wince... or does he even care... or can he even care?
His hand touches the "9." It's shaking. Next the "0." Still shaking. He ignores the "2."
Fucking hand...
* * * *
"I've had enough; maybe I'll be seeing you around. Make it a great party."
– suicide note left behind by Herman Brood, July 11, 2001
"Herman Brood jumping from the Amsterdam Hilton for us was like – I don't know, maybe Elvis blowing his brains out in the awareness of his own hopeless condition and some sort of premonition of something evil to come."
– Ad Vanderveen, Dutch musician
It is, without a doubt, the most horrible and horrifying sort of self-evaluation – suicide is. And it is not something that any of us can or should pretend to understand. I have no idea of really knowing what went on in Herman Brood's mind that day, just as I have no comprehension of the personal horrors and demons he was grappling with. I can only imagine. And even at that, I would likely wind up entirely off the mark. But what I do know is what Herman Brood left behind. What I can do is mine the essence of Brood, an essence shared with us through a lifelong recording career, his prolific efforts as a painter, his untutored and painful poetry, his shockingly effective turns as an actor, and his hard-earned reputation as the penultimate sex and drugs and rock and roll star. A star that shone so brightly and with such white-hot intensity in his homeland (and much of Europe) that it is damn near impossible for anyone outside the Netherlands to comprehend. Ad Vanderveen (himself an wildly talented Northern European Neil Young doppelganger) wasn't just talking out of his ass when he brought up Elvis Presley, he was simply speaking as plainly as he could to American ears - ears that had remained mostly deaf to Brood's music. If Elvis had been the King of America then Herman Brood was a Dutch God; the rock and roll Buddha of the Netherlands; the absurd and utterly illogical heir to a legacy of Dutch artists that stretches far into the heavens and kisses the cheeks of Rembrandt and Van Gogh; themselves seated at the left and the right hand sides of His throne. In his own country Herman Brood was a Very Big Fish... as big as they come. It would be a very long time indeed before anyone with feet on terra firma in the Netherlands and with Dutch blood running through his or her veins would forget the legendary Herman Brood.
Herman Brood (pronounced "Broat" /bro:t/; Zwolle, November 5, 1946 – Amsterdam, July 11, 2001) was a Dutch musician, painter and media personality. Brood was the Dutch personification of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
With the band 'Herman Brood and his Wild Romance' he made his best known album 'Schpritz' (a play on the German word for injection needle), containing anti-drug use songs like 'Dope Sucks', but also 'Saturday Night'. Brood swore off most drugs, reducing his drug use to alcohol and a daily shot of speed. When in 2001, he found out that he had only a few months left to live, Herman took matters into his own hands and, depressed by the failure of his drug rehabilitation programme.
