I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-Fall Nationals The Horseshoe Tavern Toronto (November 17, 2003).

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Violet Archers playing on this same night.  This was night 8 of 13 in the Rheostatics Fall Nationals 2003 Tour.  This was called SoloStatics Night.  Martin played and then Tim and the Violet Archers played.  And then Luke Doucet’s band Veal played (not sure if they were first or last).  Evidently Dave was sick, so he didn’t play.

The band for Martin’s set is Monica Gunter (Violin), Greg Smith (Bass), Ford Pier (Guitar), Michael Wojewoda (Drums), Luke Doucet (Pedal Steel).

It’s a short set (only 45 minutes) and he doesn’t play any Rheos songs (which makes sense).  It opens with “Double X” which is just him on guitar and Monica the violin. He plays very aggressively. It’s great.  Being in a fun mod he mentions that tonight is the solo show for the Rheostatics and whatnot, then he says that that’s not true, the Whatnots are playing tomorrow.

This is the first live instance of “The Temperance Society Choir.”  But he forgets a verse and they all seem to put their heads together trying to remember it until he says “somebody help me with this fucking song.”  There’s some wild bass and guitar noises on this song, too.

For “Sergeant Kraulis,” there’ a big chorus with everyone singing along.  And Martin gets out his Steinberger to really wail  And I love watching him (see video below) make the crazy noises at the end of this song.  Luke Doucet joins them on “Winnipeg.”  It’s a really good, robust version of the song, with Ford Pier taking some of the vocal lines (like “get the fuck off the stage.”)  And also jumping around like a lunatic during the more rocking moments.

They rock out “That’s What You Get for Having Fun” and the cover of “Cold Blood Old Times” (which Martin says they have to play faster).

Before the final song they start asking each other if any of them has any T-Bone, they all say they got mashed potatoes but no T-Bone (which references a Neil Young song, but is still pretty weird).

The set ends with a solo acoustic guitar version of “From the Reel,” which is beautiful.

It’s a really great performance and amazingly, it was captured on video, too.

 

[READ: October 22, 2015] The Sun Has Forgotten Where I Live

In all of the Christian McPherson blurbage, it mentions his two books, Six Ways to Sunday & The Cube People.  And these are the two books of his which I have not read.  Huh.

This was McPherson’s second collection poetry.  It is very much like his first collection: musings on being a dad (which are quite tender and sweet and very true to life) and then darker thoughts about society and such.

And he gets to the crux of what I find hard to know about whether I like his poems.  The entirely of the poem “trying to” consists of this valid exchange:

She came in
while I was trying to take
a nap

she said “You should be writing,”

I said “I wrote a poem”

she said “I don’t like your poems”

she said “slice of life, who cares?”

I didn’t say anything
I just waited until she left
then wrote it
down.

I definitely enjoyed the fatherhood ones, even if, as the above example says they are more slice of life than poems.

“Curse of the Happy Witch” is a cute story of playing a game with your daughter and hearing those dreaded words: “Daddy, do it again!”

“Musical Beds” lists the disturbing image of him realizing his daughter has climbed into the bed that he and his wife had sex in the night before.  But “Monkey Magnet” is all too recognizable when it comes to sharing a bed with a young child.

And then in the slice of life category, the one where he asks his dental hygienist (who is writing poems about a dental hygienist?) if the corollary to their sign “a happy memory is a joy forever” is “a sad memory is a torment forever.”  Never upset someone with dental tools.

And I really got a  kick out of this simple “poem,”

Magic

I chugged down
my last beer
really fast
turns out
there was a genie
in the bottle

I burped up a wish

when I went back
to the fridge
there was
a six pack
sitting
there
behind
the expired
mayonnaise.

I’m not really sure that’s a poem, exactly, but I liked it.

But that’s the thing about contemporary poetry.  Is a poem like a “Letter to the Mayor” which consists almost entirely of the letter A written some fifteen times in a line straight down (followed by some Hs and then the word SPLAT) really a poem?

I also find poems that end with a punchline hard to parse.  Is a poem that ends with the funny line “what a clever way to sell blue jeans” a poem or a joke?

One other thing that McPherson does a lot is to start continuing lines with the same word such as

looking like bits of salt licorice
looking like extinguished candle wicks
looking like metals having

etc.

or “Your Name” which features

you get on the label
you get on the cover
you get on the bandwagon

so you get your name on the T-shirt
so you get your name on the billboard
so you get your name on the door

etc.

I enjoyed the imagery of “Mark My Words” in which each stanza has a different form of the title: scratch them with a penny, smudge them with lipstick, paint them with blood, etc.

I also enjoyed the imagery of “The Dragon” in which he imagines himself a dragon while drunk but comes home stricken when hungover.

McPherson really lets his darker side out with poems like “Canadian Psycho” and “Sick Bastard” and “A Quick Fuck.”

However, when he really gets a metaphor going it’s really great.  Like “How Does Your Garden Grow” which looks at cancer and other medical concerns.  And “The Moth” which has a great metaphor for writing/editing poetry.

The metaphor of “Snapshot” that a poem is like a photo is also done really well.

He ended his last book with advice for writing great poetry.  And he has something similar here, suggesting that people work menial jobs because they need to and that

you
should write
poems
for the same reason.

I find it weird that I don’t know if I’m supposed to like poems like this.  They don’t really feel like poems, but I really enjoy the content.  So, I think I’ll just accept that I like them whether they are “poems” or not.