SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Hillside Festival 20th Anniversary, Guelph ON, July 7, 2003 (2003).
Until recently this was the only Rheostatics show listed on the live website for 2003 (a bunch have recently been added). And there are none for 2002. I don’t actually know if they didn’t tour much in 2002 or what.
But this is a fun set (and is just barely over an hour) with lot of guests and an interesting selection of songs.
The start with “Self Serve Gas Station,” and then “Song of the Garden” (since Kevin Hearn is with them and later “Monkeybird” too) and “P.I.N.” Then they play “Marginalized,” the first time I’ve heard them play it live. Tim says he wrote it the night George W. Bush was elected.
Since Kevin is therer, they play a Group of 7 medley. I recognize “Wieners and Beans,” “Blue Hysteria” and “Yellow Days Under a Lemon Sun.” Lewis Melville guests “on the ocean” for “California Dreamline,” There’s a nice referential moment when the line “all the naked ladies” makes Dave comment “Steve, Ed, Kev, Tyler.”
More guests come out for”Claire” Chris Brown and Kate Fenner offer backing vocals. And there’s a mellowish version of “Stolen Car” that is pretty cool.
“Horses” is a fun version since every guest gets to take a solo. And at the end, Dave asks Martin to “ride the wild donkey” so instead of making horse sounds from his guitar he makes donkey sounds. How??
The set ends with a rollicking encore of Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour,” a rare treat. This is a great show.
[READ: April 10, 2015] “A Death”
I loved this story. King sets it in the past (the location they are in is soon to become a state: “although we are not one of the United States just yet, we soon will be”), in a place which I assumed was Maine since he writes so much about Maine, but which I see mentions Fort Pierre which is in South Dakota, so which makes more sense.
It is a deceptively simple story. A girl has been killed. The sheriff has a suspect. The townsfolk assume the suspect did it. So what’s the problem?
As the story opens, Jim Trusdale is working in his yard when the sheriff comes up to his house and arrests him. Jim says he ain’t never heard of the girl who was killed. The sheriff asks where his hat is and Jim can’t account for it. That’s enough for the sheriff.
Turns out it was the girl’s birthday. She was given a silver dollar. Later that day she was found dead and Jim’s hat was found on her person.
But Jim keeps maintaining his innocence. And the sheriff has his doubts. He’s never seen someone so firecely defend himself despite the evidence. And the sheriff never found the silver dollar after all.
Nevertheless, the town has convicted him. There is a trial. A citizen reluctantly steps up to defend him only when the town assures him they wont hold it against him as long as he doesn’t get Jim free.
Jim is found guilty and the townsmen quickly get to building a gallows.
And yet all the while, the sheriff suspects that Jim is innocent.
I loved the way this tied together. It was simple yet wonderfully told.
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