SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Fall Nationals, Night 5 of 10, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (November 15, 2004).
The Rheostatics, live at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, November 14, 2004. This was the 5th night of their 10 night Fall Nationals run at the Horseshoe.
Most of the shows they played a lot of the same songs, but this one has a lot of unique shows for this Fall Nationals. About four or five that are only played tonight (and maybe on guest vocalist night).
The show begins with the only instance of “Onilley’s Strange Dream,” a long mellow jamming intro with Tim playing bass and Dave strumming while Martin plays some melodies and then begins the song properly. Its slow and quite pretty and it’s nice to hear. It’s followed by the crazy squealing guitar melody intro of “When Winter Come.” Martin has to play the whole intro three times as it seems like they’re messing with him. Mike says “that’s a big matzo ball hanging out there.” The band sounds great playing this (although lyrics are certainly messed up). Martin: “That was a memory test.” Dave: “Indeed, a middling grade.” Then Mike jokes: “That’s a nice shirt, Martin, did you and Selina go shopping at the same time?” You can hear them talking about Valu Village “There’s an umlaut over the U at the one in Yorkville.”
Then they play the only version of “Superdifficult.” It sounds great because Tim is certainly reliable. As evidenced by the greatness of “Marginalized,” too. “Polar Bears and Trees” is rocking and fun. And then he introduces the opening track from our new album, “Shack in the Cornfields.” As with many of these longer songs, each night’s show makes the song sound even better.
Even though I tend to like the sound quality of the Clarkson download, you can hear a lot of chatter in the background during the quiet parts. You also can’t hear the poem during “Try To Praise This Mutilated World.”
For “Pornography,” Dave plays a different opening, which is nice. And Chris Stringer is on the tambourine. Dave says that Chris should take a solo next time. On the tambourine? No the guitar. There’s some strange whooping in the crowd and Mike acknowledges the “pack of bonobo monkeys.” Then comes
“Who Is This Man, And Why Is He Laughing?” written by “Michael Alexander Wojewoda “a direct descendant of Czar Nicolas” and Jennifer Eveline Foster on the accordion. The song sounds wonderful with the accordion. You can hear Mike talking in Polish. It’s followed by the mellow “Here Comes The Image” with two keyboard solos full of synth trippiness.
For “Power Ballad For Ozzy Osbourne” they are going to play the intro this time. They sing it–Dave says he hasn’t sung it in so long. “I think you sing it higher.” They futz their way through it and then get to the main song.
Dave starts talking to the crowd after the song: “No I haven’t smoked weed in a long time. A little bit of hash every now and again.” Mike: “It’s like your shift from beer to Fine Scotch.” Dave: “But formerly lots of dope.” The crowd goes crazy. Dave: “oh, you like me, now.”
You can really hear the lyrics on “In This Town,” which gets two plays during the series, as does Christopher. You can hear Martin say “we haven’t played Christopher.” So they do. It’s kind of slow but Martin is really into it and he plays a cool echo-filled solo.
After yesterday’s karate discussion, there is no trouble during “Little Bird, Little Bird” and only one hoo and one ha. But the song is surprisingly intense for such a mellow piece. Dave thanks everyone for coming out on a Monday night. He talks merch an Martin gets mad because he sang the song with Dave’s book title, but he forgot to plug it. Dave says from now on he could sing “On a cold road {by Dave Bidini} somewhere in the south of Ontario.” Someone in the audience shouts, “Dave, your books are great.” Dave: “Thank you, ma’am, should not everybody have a copy?” Mike: “Shameless.” Martin: “I read your new book too. It was way more ambitious than I thought. You said it was just teaching kids how to play music.” Dave says he just pulled it out of his ass. Mike: “you just pulled that out of your ass? You’ve got a great ass!” Dave: “All the girls in Vancouver wanted to touch my bum. I wanted to ask Claudia if that was a trend. The band starts playing a jazzy riff: “Merch music!” It’s not like its going to be half off on Friday or Saturday because we want to get rid of it, It’s already half off. You know that place in Yorkville, Value Village with the umlaut over the u? It’s way better than that.
They finally get to “Fat” which has a lot so synth in the intro with staticky washes.
They leave for an encore break that’s about 2 and a half minutes of Martin’s guitar echoing.
When they come back Dave plays Memorial Day. Dave says they’re going to do a Rheostatics song from a long time ago that he was thinking about. We have people from America and we’ll play this for our American visitors. Someone shouts “Kill George Bush.” “Me? I’m not the man for that job.”
You hear people shouting requests. Dave says, “You’re not just reading song titles off the CDs over there?” The guy retorts, “Don’t make me say ‘Claire.'”
Then comes the only “Shaved Head” of the run. It’s suitably slow and intense. The slow twinkling guitar at the end segues perfectly into “One More Colour” which totally rocks. There’s no coda ending on it, it’s just done and so are they.
The End.
[READ: April 14, 2017] Decelerate Blue
The only other story I know from Adam Rapp was a violent one called Ball Peen Hammer. The art in that story was really dark and violent.
This book is very different from that one. There’s a different artist first of all–Mike Cavallaro whose style is great: really sharp black and white images with a lot of expression in the faces. But the story is very different as well, and I thought it was great.
Set in the not too distant future when speed is everything. People read abridged versions of stories, they sleep standing up (it’s more efficient) and they say “Go” at the end of their sentences.
The story starts out with people putting go on the end of their sentences, which is puzzling. But it really works–it lets people know that you are done talking and it is their turn to speak.
We open on a family at the dinner table. The father and mother have fully embraced some new lifestyle, with the mom calling the dad’s story “so hyper!” But when the daughter, Angela, says “Congrats, dad.” the mom replies, “Nice brevity with the congrats. But you dropped your Go, hon. Let’s not forget out Goes. Go.”
We learn that everyone has chip in his or her arm and are scanned wherever they go. As such, Angela hates going the Megamall. Recently a boy’s arm was ripped off in a scanner port because he had tampered with the chip.
But the father says that he is glad that there is a scanner. He believes in the Database, all brought by the Guarantee Committee.
I really like the detail that she is wearing a Chicago Cubs shirt with their round logo and then later we see that the Guarantee Committee logo is almost exactly the same.
Angela says she thinks she knows of people who know how to remove the chip. And she wonders if her parents have ever heard of the book Kick the Boot by Kent Van Gough. She says that this book is a masterpiece and that he predicted the speeding up of things: The Database, ID Chips, cameras everywhere, wild animals branded with marketing logos. Basically the end of humanity.
Her parents are displeased about this book, but they change the subject to say that they are moving Angela’s grandfather to a relocation center. She is freaked out about this and goes to visit him.
Her grandpa is old school–pre-accelerated living. They have a nice chat and then he tells her that he buried something for her–something he always wanted to give her.
She goes to look for the box, but as she digs in the ground, a hand reaches up, grabs her and pulls her underground.
The boy asks if she is Edith Bee, which she isn’t, obviously. He is very suspicious of her, but she convinces him that she is old school and no threat to him. And he tells her all about the underground.
He shows her all of the people who are down there–the ones using analog instruments to pay slow folks songs, the people singing along and just doing nothing. They grow their food in the ground with fertilizer. They even have a Staring Cow, whose presence helps to lower people’s heart rate.
She meets the trio in charge of the underground: Cathy, Can and Santiago and they determine whether she has the right mindset for the community. Then she meets Gladys, a woman who has just gotten her blue dot–a sign from the underground that she is completely free of Guarantee Committee control.
Gladys shows her around and even gives her an air kiss (where people puff on air (since there is less underground) and then kiss). When one of the rather ugly boys hears that they air kissed, he is super jealous. But his annoyance proves to be the least of their problems.
Angela stays underground for a few days–her absence has been noted (we see that her parents have discovered her copy of Kick the Boot). Then the underground is notified of a shipment that needs to be delivered to them.
An operative above ground has created a pill that will slow things down even more. It is called Decelerate Blue. They need someone to go to the surface to get the package. Angela volunteers. She believes that she has not been gone that long so she should be able to move around freely. The leaders reluctantly agree and Gladys really reluctantly agrees.
Will she be able to make it back safely. Will the pills actually do anything? It is really some kind of cult? And what happens when she passes a scanner–will she be recognized?
I appreciated the irony that ties the end of the book back to the opening dinner conversation, but the emotional impact of the end of the story was the best part.
This was a fascinating story–all too believable and wonderfully told and illustrated.
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