I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Group Of Seven Live, Ottawa, ON (October 21 1995).

This concert, available from Rheostatics Live, is a recording of the band playing their Music Inspired by the Group of 7 live.  I’m not sure how many of these shows there were, or even if this is the show in its entirety (it seems like it, but there’s no intro, and maybe there was more after the set?).

At any rate, the Group of 7 album is almost entirely instrumental–scored music that is certainly rock, but quite different from typical Rheostatics fare.   In this live setting, we have piano,  upright (and bowed) bass and cello.  And yet it is distinctly Rheostatics.  Band friend (and Barenaked Lady) Kevin Hearn plays piano (he joins them on many of their live shows) as he helped them compose the original soundtrack.

The band doesn’t say much during the set.  In fact, they don’t talk at all until the half way point, when Bidini introduces everyone and talks about how they came to write this music.  He talks about crossing Canada and is generally a jovial fellow.  And then he talks about the reworking of “Northern Wish.”

The Group of 7 album is probably my least favorite Rheostatics album because it is basically a score (I do like it, and think it’s a great audialization of the Group of 7, but it’s not like their proper albums).  And there are some beautiful songs here.  One of the most interesting is “Boxcar Song,” which has a great riff.  It also includes the reworking of “Northern Wish.”

Incidentally the album’s tracks are just listed as one through twelve, but they have gained names from live shows.  And they don’t match up exactly with the album in this concert setting, as this makes it seem that the final song is the long waltz, which it isn’t.

Anyhow, this download isn’t a top ten.  Unless you really like the CD, in which case this is a must hear.  The show includes the samples from the album and a bunch of very interesting takes on the songs.

For a brief news story on the collaboration, check out this from CBC’s The National from 1996.

and part two

[READ: February 2, 2014] Celluloid

I actually assumed this was a new title, as it just came across my desk the other day, but I see that it is three years old.  I’ve always admired McKean’s work, which I think is grotesquely beautiful.  His characters always seem somewhat pained, and the angles of his lines are often harsh.  So I was really unsure what to expect in an “erotic” story from him.

The fact that one of the first few pages states that this book is not to be sold to anyone under the age of 18 should let you know that by erotic, they mean explicit. (I did notice that the caveat was buried a few pages in, though).  And, indeed it is.  Far more than I imagined it would be.

This is the story of a woman.  There are no words at all in the story so that’s all I can tell you.  She is talking on the phone to a man.  They seem to end the call in a less than happy state.  She returns home, takes and shower and while wearing nothing, turns on the film projector (of course) in her living room.  This first section is done in McKean’s line drawing style.

The film strip that clicks on is clearly film, but it is quite distorted.  You can see that it is “porn” but you can’t really see anything.  Then the film melts, but leaves the residue of a doorway on the wall.  She walks through the door and into a world that is very different from her own.

This one is more, if you will, fleshed out.   Although it is sepia tone, it feels much more vibrant that the original pages.  It’s like a scene from Eyes Wide Shut with people milling about in various stages of coupling.  Then they begin watching a film.  The images are much much more explicit, and then the hands in the room begin doing the things in the film to her.

When that’s over, she goes through another portal into a much more colorful realm (with lots of photos of grapes, which, yes, look like breasts) and a woman with several pairs of breasts.  Later, while in bed, a demon sits naked over her and things proceed dramatically from there.  The penultimate section is done in a collage style (that I tend to think of McKean’s signature style).  It is also explicit, but in a cut up collage sort of way that makes it seems less so.  The final section contains full-page photographs of the woman (naked) with an audience watching her.

Perhaps, indeed, she has entered the film?  Perhaps the various stages of fleshing out have led her to become more three-dimensional?  Whatever the case, this is totally NSFW.