SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Alt House, University of Western Ontario, London, ON (January 23 1997).
This show takes place at the University of Western Ontario, an unusual location for the band, but they had an appreciative crowd. There’s a long introduction in which Don Kerr is late to get to the drums. They say that he’s sick and, in fact, they’re all sick, but they don’t sound sick when they play.
The college atmosphere seems to relax them. Indeed, Martin tells a very lengthy story about a painter near his home town in Italy (as an introduction to “Motorino”). He rarely talks much on stage so this banter is a rarity. Dave asks if the fans like the banter. He takes a poll. Songs and banter? Much cheering. No banter. Apparently one vote. Upon hearing that one vote, Dave says, that guy, security! Some fans shout “only banter no music,” but the band doesn’t acknowledge that.
They once again mention martin’s new Chickadee banner and they even throw in some jokes about chickadees in “Four Little Songs.”
This show they explain that they get a little bored playing older songs so they like to mix them up a little. “Record Body Count” sounds rather different and it has a very pretty guitar outro by martin that leads into the intro of “Michael Jackson.”
The opening band was People From Earth, the band that Martin’s brothers were in. I can’t find out much about them and I can’t find any music from them, but I’m very curious to know what they sound like.
This is a really enjoyable show. The recording level is a little too quiet at times, but the sound is quite good.
[READ: February 24, 2014] Keon and Me
This rush of Rheostatics music has had me investigating what the band has been up to since they split up. They have all released some solo records, and Dave Bidini seems to have devoted a lot of his time to writing as well. In addition to his column at the National Post, he has written a dozen or so books. I’ve already read his two earliest books (which were about touring and hockey respectively) and thought I’d read some of his other books too (about baseball, hockey, touring, hockey, hockey, music etc). I thought about reading his third book, but then–amazingly coincidentally–his newest book, Keon and Me was staring at me from a pile of new books at work.
How exciting! Sure it was out of sequence, but that was fine.
The only problem (and the reason I wasn’t too too excited to read it in the first place) was that I had no idea who Keon was. I had gleaned that he was Dave Keon, a hockey player. But I’d never heard of him. It turns out he was the captain of the Toronto maple Leafs in the 70s, during the Leafs’ heyday. Aside from his achievements, which were quite impressive, what was most impressive about Keon was that he only got into one fight in his entire career–and that was in his last game with the Leafs–which garnered him a 2 minute penalty. That’s pretty impressive given that it was the era of goons and thugs when fighting was often more important than hockey.
But this book isn’t really a biography of Keon. Rather, it is a memoir of Bidini growing up and loving Keon. And of his fanaticism to the Leafs (who have sucked ever since Keon left). It is also the story of young Dave Bidini, grade schooler, who was bullied by the classroom thug (and biggest Flyers fan).
This is an amazingly moving story. It is told in alternating chapters. Chapters about “the boy” look at Bidini growing up. Chapters told in the first person are set in the present.
The story set in the present is Bidini’s quest to bring Keon back into the fold of the Leaf family in the crazy hope that once Keon has forgiven the Leafs, they will start to win again–like the curse of Babe Ruth but for hockey.
So what is this curse?
Well, the Wikipedia summary is easier to copy than it is for me to try to summarize myself, so:
When Keon’s contract expired at the end of the 1974-75 season, Leafs’ owner Howard Ballard made it clear that there was no place for Keon on the Leafs. The Leafs believed they had some strong young prospects at centre who needed more ice time, and Keon was again asking for a contract with a no-trade clause. The 35-year-old Keon was told he could make his own deal with another NHL team, but any club signing him would have been required to provide compensation to the Leafs. Ballard set the compensation price so high that other teams shied away from signing him, even though the Leafs had no intention of keeping him. In effect, Ballard had blocked Keon from going to another NHL team.
Keon wound up joining the World Hockey Association, playing well for teams that had no financial backing, so Keon was in a kind of limbo. Every time he tried to return to the NHL, Ballard still had the rights to him. Man, that sucks. So, clearly, Keon has every right to disparage the team and he has largely refused to participate in any Leafs activities (although in recent years he has shown up for some events). And Bidini noted that The Leafs did very little to celebrate his legacy either.
Bidini’s plan is to track down his hero, tell him all about what he meant to young Dave and, well, hope for magic to happen. Of course, keon is notoriously tight lipped about the Leafs, and he has publicly expressed that he will not participate in team activities. So what is Bidini going to do? Fly down to Florida and show up at his door?
These present day chapters are interspersed with Bidini’s recollections of growing up in Etobicoke. He loved winter, he loved playing street hockey, he loved the Leafs. The early chapters are wonderful reminiscences of growing up in suburban Toronto, watching the Leafs play and learning everything about them. School was okay too, except for Roscoe. Roscoe was the bully. He picked on a British boy mostly. The boy was fat and dressed far too formally for school. He was an easy target and Roscoe honed right in. (In the 70s there was a “boys will be boys” attitude so very little was done to stop Roscoe. And soon enough, Dave became the target. Roscoe knew that Dave was a Leafs diehard and since Roscoe loved the Phillies, (the team that Dave hated the most), it was gametime.
Dave especially hated the Phillies because they were bruisers–getting into bench clearing brawls all the time. Since Keon was basically a pacifist, the Phillies were the anti-Keon and he hated them.
The scenes of Dave’s being bullied are more emotionally scarring than physically damaging–it was a lot of sitting on him, occasional punches and shoving his face in the grass which I’m sure hurt, but was far more emotionally devastating). And Roscoe always wanted him to say that the Leafs sucked.
He idolized Keon who never fought back, and since Dave was growing up as a good Christian boy, he knew right from wrong and wanted to follow his hero by never fighting. So he never did. This got him called all kinds of names and got him gobbed on and his clothes torn but like Keon, and a man named Gandhi, Dave never fought back. This upset Roscoe but may also have prevented harsher beatings.
The recounting of his childhood is really quite moving–Bidini remembers it vividly and has the language (insults and all) down perfectly. Even the happy moments are fun and filled with the language of childhood. Writing it in the third person also seems to make it more real, like we can see “the boy” as he struggles with himself and others.
Several things conspire to break the bullying by Roscoe, which I’ll save because, the story is actually quite riveting and shouldn’t be spoiled.
Back in the present, an adult Dave works hard to find Keon. he interviews all kinds of hockey players and takes pieces of advice. He also decides that maybe his own albatross is Roscoe. So he decides to hunt him down and confront him adult to adult. This leads to a scene where the catharsis comes in an unexpected way.
What’s also interesting is that the book is about writing the book–about what he will say when and if he meets Keon, about what will happened when the journey is over. Although Bidini imagines the skies parting, Keon dropping a puck for the Leafs and them winning the Stanley Cup, life isn’t like that. But like every sports fan, we can always hope it will be.
This was a great, enjoyable story, even if you don’t care about Dave Keon.
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