SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Horseshoe Tavern Toronto (February 16, 2001).
There are seven live shows from 2001 on the Rheostatics Live website. In this block, I’m going to talk about the first four shows because the final two of the four are drummer Don Kerr’s final shows with the band.
There is a lovely introduction by the club owner, who thanks the Rheostatics for playing there so much. The sound quality is great and the crowd is really into it. At one point someone shouts out “Californication” (which is a line from “California Dreamline”) and Martin says that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing down the street. Another funny line is when someone shouts out “Jessie’s Girl” and Dave says that there’s a trend in shouting out bad songs. Nobody wants to hear the “Rheos do Rick Springfield.” That’s just bad energy.
“Fat” sounds great and it’s quite a long version. The vocals for the next few songs are fun. Martin is crazy on “CCYPA.” “When Winter Comes” has a great and fun intro.
The notes say that song 12 is “We Went West” but it is actually a cover of a Celtic Blue song “Heading Out West” with Alun Piggins (from Celtic Blue) on harmonica. It works well with them.
“California Dreamline” has some funny banter. Dave says he loves the way Martin says “Sowthern” California. Martin says English is not his first language. But that he is wearing an amazing shirt.
They have a lot of fun with “Legal Age Life” which they open with a “pa pa ooh mow mow” refrain and in the middle they throw in some “I Wanna Be Sedated.” This show also has one of the best versions of “Claire” that I’ve heard.
This is the first version of “Mumbletypeg” that I’ve heard where it includes the spoken word part (like on the record). And I love that they throw in “PROD” into the end of “Four Little Songs.”
This show was simulcast online (which is pretty high tech for 2001, no?). You can also watch the simulcast on the Rheostatics live site.
[READ: April 20, 2015] “If You Cannot Go to Sleep”
I enjoyed that this story was pretty much a fictionalized version of many people’s insomnia. It opens, “First she tries counting.” As it progresses through a series of nights, we encounter her fears, both reasonable and excessive.
But interestingly, before it even gets into her dream fears, she has a long unsleeping thought about the difference between working at a discount store and an upscale store–the discount store must be depressing, but the upscale store must be full of insufferable people–what would be worse?.
Then we learn a bit about her life. She studied French and even lived in Paris for a time. Now she works translating technical manuals and she hates it. Her husband finally quit the job that he hates–something she hoped he would do for years. But now that he did that he has moved to France–without her.
She was doing fine when he wasn’t there–they never seemed to manage to do anything fun together, anyway. But then in the middle of one night her phone rang. She walked down the hall to the phone and saw on the caller ID that it was from France. He didn’t leave a message and there was no way she was calling back. But that call haunted her.
And the following night she is convinced that someone is going to break into her house. She goes through the whole cycle of what to do when she hears a noise–should she attack the guy, or call the police (or will any of that just give away her location). Should she lock the bedroom door? But what if there’s a fire. Then she does exactly what her husband used to do when she was previously gripped by this fear.
She tries taking sleeping aids to make her go to sleep but that just upsets her more.
When she finally falls asleep, the phone rings again, and it’s like everything and nothing that she expected.
I enjoyed this simple and quick story even if there was nothing earth-shaking in it.
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