SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Fall Nationals, Night 2 of 10, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (December 9, 2005).
This series of shows contains the final Rheostatics live shows that are left to write about–except for their “final shows” and their “reunion shows” (which I really hope to see some day).” This was the 2nd night of their 10 night Fall Nationals run at the Horseshoe. Ford Pier was once again on keyboards.
This show was slightly longer than the previous night. Unlike the 2004 Fall Nationals, however, they are not promoting an album, so there is a lot more diversity of songs. Although there are a few “new” songs.
As the show starts, Dave says, Thanks to TruthHorse for the films. [TruthHorse is a sketch comedy troupe who makes a lot of short films. Like this one].
They have a lot of fun teasing the intro of “Onilley’s Strange Dream.” You can hear Ford Pier and Martin occasionally playing the melody, but it takes almost four minutes before Dave says “we’re trying to set the record for playing the longest sustained G chord…. Ronnie Milsap currently has the record.” Ford Pier goes on a lengthy bullshit rant about Medieval scholars and Boethius and chords and colors and physical and celestial bodies. He says essentially that the G chord should make you think of the color blue and the sun. After five minutes, Martin starts singing. He doesn’t seem to recall all the lyrics, but Dave helps him out. The song fades out and picks up with an interesting opening to “Fan Letter To Michael Jackson.” It’s pretty rocking with a lengthy jam in the middle and a big keyboard section (“Ford are you ready to feel alive.”).
Dave chats with the audience: “How old are you? Happy 22nd.” The belligerent man with “her” says “Sing it to her, I’m not joking, right now.” What? “Happy Birthday.” Dave: “Oh if we did that the union would be all over us. I don’t even now it. We’ll dedicate this completely inappropriate political rant to you, if you’d like.” That rant would be a rocking “Bad Time to Be Poor.” Dave introduces Tim: “Straight from the Czech Republic.” Tim: “Slovak.” Dave: “That’s what I meant.” Tim ask the birthday girl: “Are you Heather? Oh. Three birthdays today.” Dave: “There have been three babies born here tonight and they have all been named Rheostatics.” Mike: “Just imagine the cruelty on the school ground.”
“Record Body Count” has a lot of organ in the background which changes the sound somewhat. Next comes “Four Little Songs” which they start but don’t actually get going. Mike: “What, no melody?” The song takes off and sounds good. Then for the third verse: “Here’s Ford Pier to sing you a song.” Over a circusy keyboard melody he sings about a magnificent driver.” No sure if it’s a real song or improv. At the end Ford Pier plays the “soulful sounds” of Canadian Airlines. The music they would play as you boarded….before they folded.
Then comes Tim’s new song, “Sunshine At Night.” It rocks with a good thumping bass line. It’s followed by “the civic premiere” of a new Martin song “Teen On The Staircase.” It’s pretty spare to start. And it’s either not finished or Martin is just having a hard time. It’s got simple lyrics: “Teen on the staircase, wash your interesting hair.” They get lost on the song and finally jump to the chorus. The lyrics seem very stream of consciousness.
Dave chastises someone: “It’s very dangerous to hide beer bottles under the poinsettia. You;ll cut your foot. What are you doing? You must be from Brampton.”
Mike says: “Fuck the sophistication, let’s go with the stupid” Dave messes up the first line of “Me and Stupid” “What the fuck happens in this song anyway?”
“The Tarleks” starts in the wrong key. No one notices and they get along quite well and then stop. “Shit that was sounding good.” Then Ford picks up his earlier thread: “This is what I was referring to, it was moving a different organ than we are used to.” He mentions INXS and a New Sensation. And then Martin says “INXS is one of the only relevant bands from the 80s.” Which is a pretty bold statement. They pick up where they left off in the correct key.
Next comes two of Dave’s acoustic songs “Song Ain’t Any Good” & “Pornography.” It makes me laugh that there’s a line in “Song Ain’t Any Good” that dismisses writing songs about unicorns or cats, and yet later they play Happiness which is about cats.
“I Fab Thee” comes as a surprise. It’s a rollicking bouncy version where Martin sings “caught you masturbating” which is not in the original kids song.
Dave notes that “Were entering the shank part of the evening.” I didn’t know what it meant last time either.
Ford asks if anyone noticed that there’s a different backdrop this evening.
Then it’s two Tim songs, “Introducing Happiness” and “Marginalized.” Marginalized has some trippy synths which takes some of the bite out of the crunchy guitars. But it sounds kind of funky this way.
Mike asks if anyone has a drum key and amazingly someone does (why doesn’t he?) Then Tim asks if anyone has 20 bucks.
Dave has some kind of guitar trouble during “The Land Is Wild” but they don;t get sidetracked. It’s followed by “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds” in which the middle drum solo section finds Dave playing the guitar soloing riff from another song (I can’t place). They take a break and for some reason, Martin mentions again that he smokes Gauloises Blue just like John Lennon and Bruce Cockburn.
After the break, Tim plays a solo version of a new Violet Archers song “Truth.” It will appear on 2008’s Sunshine at Night. Dave mentions that they have the Violet Archers debut album as well as Martin’s solo albums and Dave’s books. Ford talks about positive visualizations and about his 2005 accomplishment list. One of them was playing a Fall Nationals. “The other 9 or 10 items on the list… once the first domino has fallen… there’s three whole weeks left.”
Then comes two bird songs. “Take Me In Your Hand” is slow and spare–at first just drums and acoustic (with some keys on top). There’s no coda at the end. After making him feel like a little bird, then comes “Little Bird, Little Bird.”
Someone requests “Whats Going On.” Dave says we’re doing our whole whale music album Wednesday. They guy says, I have an exam. Well, you’ll have to fail. You can surely fail a course to come and see us.
The last three songs are fun rocking versions of “PIN,” “Fish Tailin'” and “Soul Glue.” For the last song, someone starts playing “Soul Clue” and then stops and Mike chants: Veto. But then they play it again and everyone is happy. The show was just over 2 hours. And as they walk off, they thank Creaking Tree String Quartet and TruthHorse.
[READ: July 7, 2017] The Amazing Crafty Cat
This was a cute book about crafting and creativity. I was totally caught off guard the way it started. We see Crafty Cat in her room creating something (and saying Purrfect, which I didn’t like). Crafty Cat keeps an eye out for colors and shapes that work together. And with lightning fast paws, Crafty Cat makes it look easy. Crafty Cat has made a panda clip and Crafty Cat is a Big Winner and a Crafting Genius!
But then we hear a voice say “Birdie, you’ll be late for school.” And that’s when we learn that Crafty Cat is the imaginary alter ego of a little girl named Birdie.
I was so relieved by this because I was afraid that the whole book was going to be Crafty Cat making crafts (which would have been a strange book, to be sure).
This breaks the Crafty Cat spell–she’s not ready to go to school just yet. And she certainly doesn’t want to talk about homework.
But nothing can really bring her down because today is her birthday! And everything will be perfect because she has a box of panda cupcakes! She imagines that everyone will love them, even the mean girl, Anya. (The flashback to Anya’s birthday is really hilarious–her birthday treat was playing a game called “I’m the queen and you’re all my loyal servants.”
But on the way to school she trips and crashes all of the cupcakes everywhere on the road. A good Samaritan runs over to help (and then there’s a very funny moment in which the good Samaritan gives her a hard time for not cleaning up the mess she made.
When she finally arrives at school (and is able to sort of clean up her own mess) Anya immediately demands to have her cupcake. But the bell rings and they have to go to class. Birdie says she’ll call her mother to make sure she brings the extra cupcakes to school.
In what was the funniest thing I’ve read in forever, Birdie calls home, but her mom can’t bring the cupcakes because they’ve been sent elsewhere. So instead sh’s going to have Birdie’s Granddad bring snacks to her.
This was my favorite joke and I’m going to spoil it because it was so funny, but if you don’t want the joke spoiled skip past this next paragraph
Birdie tells her grandfather the cupcakes have to be special and black and white. That’s super important! And if they have panda ones, definitely get those. Grandpa only really paid attention tho the black and white part and he shows up with….olives and cottage cheese! Oh that cracked me up.
Can she craft her way out of that? Of course not. No one can craft with olives and cottage cheese, but the way the olives are dealt with is very funny and since she is crafty, she is able to overcome the crisis, in a fun way.
I liked that the crafts were explained in detail at the end and were all easy enough to do, and I’m really glad that the story behind the crafts was enjoyably and surprisingly funny.
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