SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Record Runner, In Store Acoustic, Ottawa, ON (November 29 1996).
I have
already posted about this show before. And I concur with my assessment of what I said last time.
But I wanted to add a few things. This was recorded by someone in the audience, I assume. The sound is good (you don’t hear the audience at all, which strangely almost makes it seem like there is no one there). But it’s not perfectly clean.
This is an acoustic set done on the morning of their second night opening for The Tragically Hip. (Dave says that you shouldn’t buy their new shirts at the show that night because they had to charge the same amount as the Hip and you will be able to get their stuff cheaper when they come by again in a few months).
In addition to some interesting renditions of fan favorites, we have a fan singing “The Ballad of Wendell Clark.” It’s notable not only because of the fan singing it but because they doesn’t really play that song live, at least not circa 1996/1997. They also throw in some Stomping Tom Connors during the song.
As an intro to “Four Little Songs” Dave says that they were planning on writing a bunch of different little songs so that you might never know which ones they would play on any given night. He says it’s very easy to write little songs like that and it would be fun. That seems to have never happened though. You don’t hear too many acoustic Rheostatics shows. You can download it here.
[READ: February 11, 2014] Zombillenium No 1
The cover of this book was so arresting I had to check it out. I don’t know Arthur de Pins. He’s a French artist and this is his first book to get distribution in America, I believe. You can tell he’s European from the artwork–I wonder why that is.
Well, I loved this story. It is very very funny and extremely twisted. And there is something about the main character Gretchen that is so appealing (I love that her nose is so strangely bulbous, which makes her even cuter, somehow).
As the story opens, we see a man hitchhiking. After a few panels, it is revealed that he is a mummy. One car speeds away from him, but another soon pulls up. It is driven by a vampire and there’s a skeleton in the passenger seat. They know who he is, and they’re bringing him back where he belongs. Which is to Zombillenium: “The Family Amusement Park for Chills and Thrills.”
Aton, the mummy, was leaving the park because he was sick of working there. He was a 3,000 year old mummy but no one respected him and now one was scared of him. Kids made fun of him and, worst of all, he had to sell cotton candy.
The public believes that all of the workers at the park are just people in costume, or even animatronic machines. But in fact, all of the employees are actually zombies, or ghosts or werewolves or whathaveyou. And they have signed a lifetime contract.
The plot thicken as the car crashes into a pedestrian, killing him. They “take care” of him and when he wakes up he has two puncture holes in his neck and is slated to be the new employee.
The scene jumps to Gretchen, dressed in goth clothes and trying to buy cigarettes in a bar. While she is sitting there (getting harassed by drunks), the guy we just saw get hit by a car comes in with a gun. Gretchen uses some mind control on him and sends him back out into the street (where he is hit by the car). She runs out to see what happened (the slapstick is very funny), and then she realizes where he went.
Inside the park, we see all manner of crazy creatures (including a Michael Jackson zombie doing the Thriller dance). The guy who was hit by the car, whose name is Aurelian, is working cotton candy. But he soon transforms into a hugely scary beast–right in front of the customers (actually scaring a woman to death). Well, this is just what the park (whose sales have been plummeting) has been looking for: someone who is actually scary. And that’s when the internal politics take over–the zombies are up in arms because it looks like Aurelian may be ousting the zombies after whom the park was named.
Of course, when Aurelian reveals his true nature, things go to a new level of scary.
Incidentally, the story of Gretchen and her witchy development is great. There’s a drawing of her relaxing on a couch that was fantastic–de Pins captures the exact pose of someone lounging on a couch. Not that this is terrifically hard, but it conveyed so much in just one panel, that I was instantly impressed with his work. He has already written book two (which is out in France) and is working on book three. I can’t wait.
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