SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-3rd Annual Green Sprouts Music Week Night 3 (Ultrasound Showbar, Toronto Ontario September 20 1995).
It has been a while since I’ve listened to a live Rheostatics show. Darrin at Rheostatics Live has added a number of new shows in the last eight months. Like this full week of shows from the Third Green Sprouts Music Week
Third night of the third annual Green Sprouts Music Week held at Ultrasound Showbar September 18-23 1995. Shorter mid week set though I believe the first song is missing and not sure if there were any encores. The show focused predominantly on Blue Hysteria material they were working on at the time with 8 of the 14 songs being unreleased. The show builds pretty nicely to epic song territory. The last four songs alone make up almost 1/3 of the show.This tape starts with “All the Same Eyes,” which sounds great–martin adds in some cool noisy guitar effects.
But, as seems to happen a lot for these guys, there’s technical problems. The first song does appear to be missing because after this, Dave says something about being only two songs in. Someone shouts “Tell me a story, Dave.” “I don’t have a story at the ready.” “Tell us the Milli Vanilli story.” “I don’t have a Milli Vanilli story…. And if I did I wouldn’t be at liberty to release that information.”
Martin tells everyone, “On New Years Eve we sat down and wrote four songs and if we made a whole song of any of them it would be awful. So we put them into one song.” “Four Little Songs” comes out perfectly. Dave says that he’s in Neil Finn’s kitchen. At the end of the song “And now they’re gone,” he asks, “Did you eat them?”
Introducing “Desert Island Poem” Dave talks about writing a song about cannibalism already: IOn “Oneilly’s Strange Dream” he has to eat his friend to survive. So we have reprise the theme in this song. Tyler from Farm Fresh adds some scratching. Don says “I feel like we’re being attacked by one of those beam swords from Star Trek or Star Wars. Everyone cracks up that he can’t remember light saber.
Martin says he was once hurt by a toy torpedo. Did one of your brothers do that to you? Martin: The mean one, the one they don’t talk about. Gus, the hidden Tielli.
Then comes three Tim songs in a row. In “Introducing Happiness’ Tim sings “your sister lives in … wherever the hell she is.”
Dave asks “How are the cats doing?” Tim: “They’re a little bored.” Dave” Bring them to the show–all kitties half price.” But… Is Dale [the Rooster] here tonight? There would be a problem.
Up next are “Connecting Flights” and “An Offer.”
Martin follows up with “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” which has some outstanding drumming in the chorus.
Dave plays “My First Rock Concert” and I noticed that instead of “Paul Weller was Christ” he says he’s seen “The Special Beat thrice.”
They’re going to take a little break (it’s pretty early for that, frankly) and then they come back for “California Dreamline.” Martin had no monitor and couldn’t hear anything–“I sang it deaf.” Don: “That was def man.”
It’s weird how many people are talking but then how many people are excited to hear it.
A gorgeous “Northern Wish” segues into “Saskatchewan” which has a cool buzzing sound that goes from one ear to the other. Was that on purpose?
Throughout the week, there is some concern in the audience about people standing up. I guess this is a seated venue, maybe with tables? Before they start “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson,” Dave says, “you can stand up now.” As they start the song, Dave starts singing Bowie’s “Fashion” (turn to the left). Then he starts singing a refrain that pops up a lot this week and I cant figure out what it’s from
It’s tuesday night in the discotheque / I can’t dance what the heck / I’m an Uzbek.
Farm Fresh gets the Michael Shout out and Tyler does a scratching solo. There’s a fantastic vocal ending from Martin and Tim.
They follow this with “When Winter Comes, with a stomping honky tonk guitar before the main riff comes in. Someone else is sings the “blue Canadian winter” part.
Dave says they’re going to do a couple more, but the tape only has one more–a really good version of “Fat.”
[READ: February 20, 2021] We Can Be Heroes
S. brought this book home and after describing the premise I wanted to give it a read. I’d never read Mike Chen before. Apparently his books are typically a lot darker than this one. So I’m glad I read this as I don’t think I’d like the darker ones.
This one comes from an amusing premise. It also comes from a short story that he wrote that had a similar premise but when in a different direction. In that story (called “Anonymous,” from Storyteller Vol. 1 No. 3 which I can’t find anywhere) two superheroes meet in A.A. The premise of the novel is similar–two superheroes meet in a memory loss group. But it’s that memory loss that really changes the direction of the story.
The book opens on Jamie Sorensen–a villain. He is the Mind Robber and he is robbing a bank. He is able to look into people’s minds and flick through their memories like pictures on a phone (I liked that detail). He can read them or erase them or just stun people’s memories with a flick of his finger. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone in the bank, but people are afraid that he is going to wipe out their entire memory. He just wants to get a ton of money so he can go to the tropics and hide out for the rest of his life–not an ambitious villain, really. Plus he had heard that banks are insured so as long as he doesn’t take too much at a time, no one really gets hurt. Continue Reading »