SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Horseshoe Tavern, Record Body Rheos Day#6, Toronto, ON (November 12, 2001).
Sometimes you would go see Rheos and they would play a show packed with rarely played songs. This is one of those shows – The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos, SRBM, Onilley’s, Jesus Was Once A Teenager Too, Public Square, Halloween Eyes, Satan Is The Whistler, PROD, Martin’s First Day Of School, Home Again…a treasure trove for hardcore fans. This was night 6 of Winter Nationals 2001 aka Record Body Rheos.
This is the only show remaining in 2001. It is also only the second show of this run available on RheostaticsLive.
The recording of this show is spectacular—loud and very clear soundboard recording. It features Michael Phillip Wojewoda on drums–the band’s final drummer before their dissolution in 2007.
Dave as always is very chatty: “Is it the first night for a lot of you folks here? Oh you’ve been here before? Cool. We mixed it up for you tonight. We got a lot of stuff we haven’t played over the last 4 or 5 nights.
Mike says, “A lot of stuff I haven’t played.” Apropos of nothing Martin says, “We’re going to play a new song called ‘Couscous.'” [They don’t].
The show starts with “The Midnight Ride Of Red Dog Ray.” I’d always assumed this song was by Stompin’ Tom, but in fact it was by Washboard Hank Fisher. The songs sounds sounds big and full–much louder than other versions of this song. Tim has lots of backing vocals: “riiiiide” “Raaaaaay.” Dave rolls his rs in the last chorus. It ends and Dave asks “That wasn’t too hard was it, Mike?”
Dave says, “we’ll stay in Ontario for this next number.” It’s a nice, spare version of “Christopher.” I like when Martin is singing “we used to take trips,” he plays the melody on the guitar the same notes. And when he “setters” ‘trips’ a second time he plays the guitar note as well. They have a really hard time with “The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos.” They play it twice way too fast for Tim to sing. The guitar in the beginning feels way too fast even if you don’t know the song. Tim says, “Hey this is way too fast.” Martin agrees: “Bit of a wrist twister.” Tim: “I only go so fat.” They try again, Martin slows down but the drums are the problem. It’s pretty much the same tempo. Then MPW gets it right and Tim does a good job—it’s still a pretty fast song. During the end part they mess up that final riff, but they do manage it after another try.
Martin jokes: “The woods are full of caca” (chukcle).
Tim says, “Speaking of that band, Gordon Cummings’ new band Precious Little is playing with us this week.” He asks when and Dave says “It’s in the paper, Tim.” Tim: “‘I don’t subscribe to such things.”
A fan says something and Dave replies, “I’m not smoking. My playing is pretty hot, but I’m not smoking, sir.” He then tells a story about playing hockey at 2PM at the Annual Green Sprouts Game. He says he normally wears full pads, but this time he wore pants and water got all over him–it looked like I peed myself. Tim: “remember that gig in Victoria when you actually peed yourself?” Dave says something about a toilet and then says “And you were drawing it in your sketchbook.”
Martin has his new robotic voice synthesizer and speaks “SUPERdifficult.” It’s fun to hear this song after so much time in the mid-1990s.
Dave: “I sense that you are a loud crowd. Sometimes smaller bodies of people should be louder”
Martin: “The example of the Belizian howler monkey–small body, loud sound.”
Dave: “Any howler monkeys here tonight?”
They thank the opening acts: Some Guy with a Guitar (is that the guy’s name or are they joking about who it is? I can’t find anyone with that name). And The Keep On Keepin’ Ons they should lose that Dave Love guy he’s gonna destroy them if he doesn’t destroy himself. [Can’t find anything out about him either].
Martin introduces “PIN”: “This is a song about stuff that goes like this.” But for “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” Dave says, it’s a song from The Blue Hysteria which we recorded in 1996.”
Martin: “Really eh? This is song about probiscis monkeys and how good they are at sweeming…swimming.”
When they start there’s a terrible flat note on bass.
Martin says, “No, no, its not gong to be that interesting.”
Dave: “I mean how many fucking songs do we have to have about proboscis monkeys who swim? Shit.”
Tim: “Martin, can you stretch a little?”
Martin: “All my songs are about apes.” Fan: “What about ‘That’s How They Do It in Warsaw’?” Martin: “Polish apes. It’s about a zoo I visited there in the elate 60s. Zoos at the at the time, ooh la la.
Before this gets out of han Dave says “Let’s go capo monkey.”
When Martin gets to the “sweetest ass” part he chimes in: “all red and blue and such.”
When the song ends, Martin says “Archie” in Edith’s voice (why he is talking about All in the Family I have no idea). Dave says, “All I could think of the tragedy in the towers. (this show is just a couple months after 9/11) Archie Bunker lived in Queens and when they showed the footage of the plane wreckage all the houses looked like Archie Bunker’s house.” Martin: “704 Hauser Street.” Dave: “Alright Tim [Mech], atta boy. Pretty good to have a guy feeding you lines in the wings.”
Tim: “No more monkey jokes, Tim.”
Martin: “Yeah, cool it on the ape shit.”
While they’re bantering, someone says, “That last song was really fucking good. Dave: “Thank you, sir.”
This next song [“Mumbletypeg”] is dedicated to Tim’s tie. Dave says that Night of the Shooting Stars is out in a couple weeks. The album cover is a cross between Spinal Tap, Charlie’s Angel’s and Metallica’s black album. And it sounds like a cross between those three things.
Martin: “Precisely. With nothing else.”
Mike: “As a total marketing move the last night of our run here is the night of the shooting stars. So everyone should go up north and watch the Leonids
Martin: “When does the meteor shower start, Mike?”
Mike: “Well 4 in the morning. Until the 18th”
Dave: “We should probably end the night with a processional chant of LEE-OH-NiD.”
Mike: “With flutes and a bus.”
Martin: “The flute bus!”
Dave: “The flute bus, I think The Medieval Babes have it. They did beautiful older music but they added a sexy edge to it.”
They play another song from NotSS called “Reward”: “We’re gonna do a song we did last night but it didn’t turn out to good, so we’re going to try it again for you. No, No, for us. For the greater good. We are true artists.”
“Oneilly’s Strange Dream” sounds so much like “Saskatchewan” in parts. Those three harmonica notes before the solo are just like in “Claire.” Dave seems to fill in on some of the words if Martin forgets them. The end of the song has a really noisy section of chaotic chords and drums. Martin ends the song with the lyrics from the first verse instead of the final verse. Dave rescues the song and Martin finishes it.
Tim: All we did was smoke pot in the Bahamas when we recorded that album. Sorry about that.
Dave tells a very long story about he Bahamas that is very funny (drinking, missing planes, throwing up).
This leads to a mellow, almost acoustic “Jesus.” Martin messes up a lyric and Dave feeds him a line, so he continues.
Dave: “Pretty great fun for a Monday night for us. We’re usually at home watching Golden Girls by this time.
They go all the way back to their debut album for “Public Square,” a song they didn’t even play that much back then.
Someone shouts “Halloween Eyes.” Dave: Halloween has passed, ma’am.” But they play it anyhow. Really goofy. They don’t play it much at all: “Don’t look at me with your Halloween eyes. Don’t hit me with your pumpkin pies. Devils got horns devils got a tail. 666 gonna fuck you up. Some even say that he’s got scales. 666 you’re a sitting duck.” Dave: “They actually really were stones when they wrote that.”
This next song [Bad Time to be Poor] is dedicated to the retirement of Mike Harris [Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 14, 2002. He is most noted for the “Common Sense Revolution”, his Progressive Conservative government’s program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government spending].
“Satan is the Whistler” is sloppy but rocking with more of that robotic voice “he is the whistler.”
There’s an interesting surf guitar like opening to “Four Little Songs.” The whole thing is crazy fun. For Tim’s: “Lets go to France, beautiful France.”
I’m not sure who is singing Don’s part, but they stop “we should get these guy to sing that one.”
Huge creatures prowl the streets tonight
Moon and antlers set the sky alight
Martin: “These beast have antlers, perhaps they’re just moose.” After the first attempt, Dave chides, “Wait that’s really terrible, hold on.” They resume the middle part and then the audience sings along pretty well. During the Neil Young part there’s some gentle jamming with funky bass from Tim. Whoever sings it has a crazy voice. They slow things down at the end for “and my brain goes….” The sound goes slow and woozy.
When they stop that, Martin says, “This is the morning after” and they resume properly, except Dave sings “We drank all our beer and ate all our pizza.” at the end. And then he introduces, “Drunk guy. Drunk guy. Thanks, Justin.” Mike says, “Dave, I love it we your son gets up to sing with us.”
On his way out Martin says, “Rush never sleeps.”
Thanks to The Keep on Keepin’ Ons and the Poppy Salesman (this makes me think the guy with a guitar was Martin).
The encore starts with “CCYPA.” Dave says this is the lead off track or the emphasis track about Canadian politics. As the song ends, Martin says, “Pleased to meet ya. Dave Love of Love Your Stuff Records.”
It’s followed by a wild “PROD.” Dave: “Tim’s got the urge, we got the urge” ….Tim gets a small bass solo. Then “Let’s give the drums some space.” (a small solo). And then they say goodbye.
They come back and Tim asks Martin for a few bars of “Martin’s First Day of School.” “I’ve always liked that song.” Martin: “The last time we played that was in 1992.” Dave: “Not even.”
Martin: “Before the world changed. Before the horrible events of Dave’s birthday.” Dave’s birthday is September 11. He said people were calling him up saying, “Dave, happy birthday. What a tragic day, terrible day, your birthday.”
They end with “Home Again” from Harmelodia and then “Song of the Garden” which they re-recorded fro NotSS.
As they head out, Dave reminds everyone: Tomorrow’s free, so you got no excuse. Tomorrow night: Precious Little at 9:30. John Ford at 10: 25 and Rheostatics later on.
[READ: June 30, 2016] The Instructions
I put off reading this book for six years. And I see that I started to write about this over a year ago.
The book is massive! (Category Thirteen even created a web page comparing the size of the book to other things).
It has been a major conversation piece. I was reading it at the mechanics and an elderly lady and I wound up talking about books for 20 minutes because of it (she was reading Michael Chabon).
I had heard that even though it was big, it was not particularly challenging to read. So while it is physically bigger than Infinite Jest (see the link above), it has about 40 fewer pages (and while it does have footnotes, there are not very many).
This story is all about Guiron ben-Jusah Maccabee, a ten-year old Israelite who may just be the next Messiah.
The book itself looks like a Bible (from the sheer size) and, indeed, as it opened we see that The Instructions were written by Guiron and translated and re-translated from the Hebrew and the English by Eliyahu of Brooklyn and Emmanuel Liebman.
Then there is a note from the publisher in 2013 (the book came out in 2010) saying that Guiron received no fanciable remuneration for his work, but money will go to the Scholars Fund. Whether the U.S. Government “convicts, acquits, or fails to prosecute him for crimes relating to “The Damage Proper,” “the 11/17 Miracle,”: or any other event pertaining to “The Guironic War,” note that the Scholars Fund “in neither a terrorist organization nor a sponsor of terrorist organizations.”
That’s a pretty intense introduction.
The whole 1000 page book takes place in just a few days Starting November 14, 2006 (between second and third period).
Although the book is about Guiron, there are dozens of characters in the book–those who are “faithful” to Guiron and those who are not.
Benji Nakamook and Vincie Portite are his two closest allies. They go to school with him at Aptakisic Junior High. And they are all in The Cage. The Cage is sort of a detention class–a high-security education experiment–the kids have all of their classes in this one room that has more security than any other room.
Guiron has been expelled from two other Jewish day schools. In both instances he was considered brilliant and a genuine scholar but he was removed from both because of his violent tendencies. And those violent tendencies are right up front. As the book opens, Benji, Vince and Guiron are trying to waterboard each other.
The book is full of nicknames and made up slang and it’s a bit clunky to get into at first. There’s even a lot of places where he uses an equal sign to say that something is connected or not: ‘Desormie made the noise “Tch” ≠ anything meaningful.’ There’s a character (a kid) known as The Janitor, there’s also Asparagus, the Flunky Boystar, Blonde Lonnie and Bam Slokum. There’s also Main Man Scott Mookus, who has a mental disability.
And then there’s the teachers, most of whom are the enemy. Desormie is a gym teacher whom they all hate (they claim he is always checking out the girls when they bend over). He has a cumbersome (and hard to parse) Australian accent: “note says you’re wanted in the owfice Make-bee. I said sit down Ayelie.”
Sprinkled throughout the book are “official” documents like Guirons’ Admission record where we get to see what happened to him before.
After a huge introduction to a number of charters, we meet (20 pages in) Eliza June Watermark, known as June. She was beautiful and Guiron instantly fell in love with her. He spends few chapters wooing her (in his own weird way) and they spent the rest of the book together (he has effectively converted her and plans to get married to her –don’t forget that they are ten).
In the second chapter we learn about Ulpan, which is Guiron’s plan for world domination by the Israelites. He has instructed the Israelite children to make pennyguns–using a penny and the tip of 2 liter soda bottle. Everyone who hears the Ulpan should then give it to a new group of Israelites.
The book is also full of ASCII text drawings like “drawing of pennyguns” or “the stage” or a “welcome mat” with words on it.
We also learn about his parents. Tamar is his mother. She taught him to fight–she was a skilled warrior and trained daily. She taught him to take no shit. His father is Judah Maccabee. He is a famous defense attorney and is especially known for defending horribly racist people (and women). He is currently defending a neo Nazi–not because he is a self-hating jew but because he believes in justice.
Although he was kicked out of his old schools, everyone whom he was friends with (which was many people), is still connected to him through his email account. And he addresses his followers as “scholars.”
And with all of this information I’m barely a tenth of the way through the book. So rather than offering a detailed summary I’ll offer a brief summary.
Guiron has charisma and when the kids in the cage start listening to him, they develop their own language that is designed as a fight against authority. The slogan We Damage We (no one knows exactly what it means) gets graiffitied everyone. A bad thing to say about someone: “he is a total dentist.” And if he calls you a Chomsky, forget about it. Example: “but before I’d even tested this chomsky hypothesis,”
The enemies are multiple–some of the teachers of course, but also enemies of Guiron’s Friends, like the basketball team and the ever-present Shovers, a kind of unofficial fan club for the basketball team who wear scarves ad are pretty much just bullies.
My favorite nickname was for Jelly Rothstein whose real named is Angelica–she is in The Cage because she is a biter.
We see his in-school therapist assessment of him. The assessment is highly unprofessional. In fact, his therapist asks out her advisor in a footnote.
In addition to everything that’s going on at school, someone has been vandalizing his house because of his father. The vandal writes “Maccabees aren’t” above their welcome mat. Guiron plans to stay up all night with his pennygun to shoot the person should they come back.
Each new day arrives with the proclamation And then there was morning, Thursday.
Midway through the book we get Part Two: The Guironic War, which occurs on Thursday the 16th. Five new kids come into the school, although they act as one (its very funny the way it is written). They are there to meet Guiron and they plan to help him–he is legendary and they wanted to find if if he was real.
At page 760 there’s a “Commentary on Commentaries” which begins So far…The instruction has predominantly been concerned with things that the general reader, and even most scholars, were not aware of prior to reading The Instructions.” But he says he must look forward to correct some errors,
“In case the reader is scratching his head unaware of the misconstrued motives to which I am referring–whether because he has been living in the wilderness between the end of 2006 and the present, or more likely, because the present in which he is reading this is far enough ahead of the present in which I am writing it that The Instructions has become hegemonic and that the miconstruances thereby forgotten–he’ll just have to take my word that i am justified in temporarily …breaking the mostly old-timey flow of the narrative here in Book 18 in C.E. 2013.
This is all to say that things ascribed to him “Sudden Holiday.” “The 11/17 miracle.” The Damage Proper ” were not planned out in advance by him. He accepts responsibility for bringing the Damage Proper but he did not plan it ahead of time.
This accounts for the culmination on Friday Nov 17 and the pep rally in 2nd period.
Boystar (remember him?) is a future pop star. He has fans and media. He is poised to go huge and they are going to be filming a video for his new single “Emotionalize” in the gym. And this is when Guiron’s Israelites will attack.
There is a section of transcripts from a DVD–a film of the entire event by the cameramen that were there to make the video. This details the (exceptionally) graphic and violent altercation. There is a lot of very explicitly detailed violence to many many people.
There are about 20 other subplots in the book as well. Guiron loves Philip Roth, who makes a cameo appearance in the hostage negotiation sequence of the book. There is the entire romance with Eliza June.
What’s interesting about the book is that the whole Messiah thing seems to have been foisted upon him. He is willing to accept the mantle, and yet it is hard to be a Messiah when yo are ten and going to school and have impulses that get you in trouble. Guiron is precocious and lonely. He is certainly pious, but his parents are always fighting and are much more interested in their own lives than his, which doesn’t help.
And then of course there’s the whole things about Guiron’s narration style (and the fact that it was “translated” from English to Hebrew and then back to English).
This brief review barely scratches the surface of what’s going on in here.
As a character, Guiron is engaging and funny and rather disturbed, to be sure. And your tolerance for a sharp-tongued precocious but misguided narrator will certainly dictate your enjoyment of this (very very long) book. I enjoyed it, although I found myself getting tired of it at times. The fact that it is 1000 pages and only covers roughly four days shows just how much detail is covered. And while the hyper-detail can be fun, it can also be exhausting.
I am glad I read it and there are things I will never forget about the book, but if it had been a little shorter it still would have been an impressive debut novel.
I Just Read About That... 
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