I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-Lee’s Palace, Toronto, ON (April 5, 2002).

By April, Martin was back in Toronto.  The newer album would be coming out in 2003, and he plays 4 songs from it.  The rest of the songs comes from his first solo album with a couple of Nick Buzz songs, a Rheostatics track and a Joni Mitchell cover thrown in.

For the first three songs, it’s just him and his acoustic guitar.  “World in a Wall” sounds great and he even plays a gnawing sound on the guitar strings (sliding the pick up them).  He’s got cool, aggressive strumming in “Double X.”

For Joni Mitchell’s “River” Kevin Hearn plays piano. It’s quite lovely (and Hearn is applauded, of course). Then Martin plays an outstanding version of “She Said ‘We’re on Our Way Down’” (each live version gets better).

Before playing “My Sweet Relief” he says “stay tuned for Operation Infinite Justice.”  He is clearly keeping this as the band’s name, even if the next album will be changed somewhat to Operation Infinite Joy.

There’s a great percussion sound on “That’s What You Get for Having Fun.”  On Voices in the Wilderness” he finally just comes out and mentions the source of the lyrics: after singing “if you choose not to decide…” he changes his own words to “I know Geddy, he don’t know me” (from the usual “I know him, he don’t know me”).

During “Sgt Kraulis” (one of the newer songs) they have a jam section in the middle it turns reggae and someone starts singing “Legalize It.”  And in “Love Streams” the piano (I assume no longer Kevin Hearn) plays a “stoned” melody when the lyrics speak of being stoned (musical humor!).

“Saskatchewan” sounds great—it’s a really passionate versions (with some backing vocals going “woah woah” near the end).

Martin has fun with “How Can You Sleep?” he seems to be talking during it, expanding on a line in the song ”Want to quit drinking? Cut off your head.”

This is a outstanding show.   The recording quality us great and Martin is in fine and funny form throughout.

[READ: October 20, 2015] Killer Dope

Since I found some McPherson books in the library, I decided to also grab this book.  This is a short story, but it was published by Bad Moon Books (in a limited edition of 150 copies) and was the winner of 2004 New Cat Tattoos.  I believe that it was reprinted in his short story collection Six Ways to Sunday (but I cannot confirm this).

So this story is, as the title suggests, all about drugs.

Our two protagonists are Two Seconds (whose name has a wonderful derivation) and Little Fish (whose name is also cleverly derived).  Little Fish is painting graffiti under a bridge (a UFO flying out of the eye of a kid shooting smack). Two Seconds is watching him add details and believes it to be the best art he had ever seen.

Then Little Fish asks him if he is ready for tonight. 

The two have a plan.  They have been saving up all of their money (mostly from pushing dope, but also from legitimate jobs) and are planning to move to Tokyo.  Two Seconds imagines himself in a jazz club there (he plays a great saxophone).  Their plan involves scoring and distributing $6,000 worth of acid.  They could make more from harder drugs, but Little Fish reasons that you never hear of the police busting up an acid ring.

And so that night they head over to the crack den of the major dealer, Fin.  Fin sizes up the two of them, looks at Two Seconds and says “I don’t like niggers and I don’t like doing business with ’em.”  Little Fish tries to calm the situation, but it’s off to an ugly start (seems that dealing with big time drug dealers is never easy).

Tensions rise, a gun is drawn and their plans change instantly.

I don’t especially like violent drug stories, but this one was fast paced and pretty engaging.  It, of course, makes me laugh that the author photo for this grisly story is of Colin holding his new born baby.  It’s also hilarious to me that the photo is a blurry, pixiliated, photocopied mess.

Like McPherson’s poems, this story was fast paced and pretty exciting with lots of humor sprinkled in.  But oh, so violent!