The Buddies: Duckman (parts 1 & 2)

Phil Austin talks about The Buddies' 1966 single "Duckman" in an interview edited from his chat with Fred Wiebel for Firezine Vol. 1 #4 (winter 1998):

PHIL AUSTIN: I had been in the Army and I got involved in a Psychological warfare unit. That’s where I met the guys who I started recording with; a guy named Lee Bernhardi, who later used to direct Barney Miller, and married one of the Lennon Sisters—Janet—and a guy named Ron Budnick. Out of that we started doing this thing called “Duckman”, which because I forget why exactly but Gary Usher of Decca Records cut a single on. We were theoretically a group called The Buddies. “Duckman” Part 1 and Part 2 died a quick death. It was based primarily on the fact that Lee Bernhardi could do a really killer duck voice. It’s sort of a parody of the Batman television show, which must have been on the air at that time. Ron Budnick was a San Bernadino DJ. Ron really didn’t do voices, he was a disc jockey and he plays the police chief or something. Lee and Ron, the two other guys, are really good I thought, very bizarre. Lee plays just the duck voice, that’s all. I do almost all of the voices. I play the worst voice on it too, which is the wimpy side-kick voice. Gary was very good about the music. That music must have been actually composed for the record. He had at his time there as a house A&R man at Decca and later Columbia Records, access to symphony orchestras, if you wanted to put it on a budget. That music is not canned, he had that music played. In fact I believe a friend of mine from high school wound up doing the arranging for it... It’s just so odd. It’s really simple-minded and good-hearted. It was such a nice piece of work really. It could have been just awful.

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