Latest album Sancho, released on vinyl 2022
Tim Freedman writes:
I started writing the songs for “Sancho” when Sancho died. It was May 2019 and I got the call that a minute down the road at Royal Prince Alfred
Hospital our tour manager of twenty years had died after a massive heart attack.
My nickname for Greg Weaver was Sancho because he was always there for me, the steadfast offsider to the impractical, impetuous, disorderly Don Quixote, who most lead singers impersonate from time to time.
In 1987 he made a great desk tape on cassette of my band while mixing a show in Bondi, and I thought “If I ever get serious I’ll get this guy, he’ll make us sound good”. So in August 1997, a month before we released “Eternal Nightcap”, I hired him, and we got to work.
I’ve written some sad songs about blokes in my time, from “Buy Now Pay Later” to “The Curse Stops Here”, but I wanted to make the title track “Sancho” different, and write a joyous song about the good times on the road. The pain of returning to those memories when we realise how much we miss him makes it a very important song for the whole band. We’ll know it’s sounding good if there is a ghost of the big guy air-drumming behind the sound desk. He would have loved mixing this song with the
stacked harmonies and the art rock ending because first and foremost he was a music lover who enjoyed a challenge.
The other song about Greg, “Sancho In Love”, started with me listing some of his favourite things like sleeping on tour buses and the sound of laundromats, along with some of his catchphrases. Greg worked with a lot of big bands as his reputation grew. Boy and Bear thought I should mention Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream in the song, and Ballpark Music loved his portable tour iron with which he would press his Bisley shorts.
So the album is called “Sancho” and it is dedicated to the memory of Greg Weaver.
Track Listing:
1. Catherine Wheel
2. Nobody Knows I Love You
3. Sancho
4. In The Last Life
5. Cambridge Three
6. (You’re Making Me Feel Like I’m) 50 Again
7. Get A Hotel Room
8. Sancho In Love
9. Man About A Dog
10. Ballad of Bertie Kidd