I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BIDINIBAND-The Carleton, Halifax, NS (February 13, 2015).

This is the most current solo show from anybody on the RheostaticsLive webpage.

Bidiniband’s third album came out in 2014 and this show chooses from it pretty heavily.

The show starts (Dave sounds either like he has a bit of a cold or he’s just worn out) with Dave saying “We’re going to start with a song about the cold, because it is.  Fucking snow, eh  Wow.”  “The Grey Wave” has great chord changes in the chorus.  It is a slow folkie song about cold and snow.  I like that he whispers “let’s go” before the buzzy but quiet solo.  The chorus comes out of that fairly rocking (a least for this set).

Dave continues, “I have some news.  Last night I was offered cocaine in the bathroom of the Alehouse.”  (Don, on drums, whispers, “in exchange for what?”).  Dave: “I think the guy just wanted to be my friend.  He was a bit of an asshole.  Cocaine is the one drug I think where when people offer it to you and when you say no, they apologize for having assumed you wanted any.”

Someone else notes: “I like that we’re the rock band from Toronto and we’re the ones shocked by all the drugs everyone is doing.  We were in BC and we were shocked at the big jug of MDMA being passed around.”

“Everyday Superstar” is a rocking, swinging song.  I love that the chorus is “I’m an animal out of control” but it’s kind of slow and mellow and at one point he says “its true.” And there’s this lyric: “When it’s hot, I’m gonna be Bon Scott you be Lita Ford.”  At the end of the song, someone asks, “Does everybody in the house know what bass face is?  You never know when Haddon is going to a picture of you with that face.”  Dave tells a story that Haddon Strong had a subscription to a magazine and it was addressed to Hardon Strong.

Introducing “My First Rock Concert” he says, “this is a song about music.  I bet you think it’s ‘Proud Mary’ but it’s not.  That was done last night.”  He sings it kind of whispering/spoken.   In the middle, Paul plays the riff to “Brown Eyed Girl” while Dave is singing “you’re either a mouse or Steven Page.”

“Take A Wild Ride” is s short song that segues at the same fast tempo into “The List” which is, again, almost spoken.  He throws in some other people who have made the list.  Jian Ghomeshi and Joel Plaskett (he was in Thrush Hermit) and at the end he says, “only kidding about Joel.”

“Big Men Go Fast On The Water” is a great-sounding song–in this version, the guitar riffs between verses sound like Boston.  They played this song last night at “Stolen from a Hockey Card” at the Spats Theater.  Dave was disappointed there were no spats there.  He says, “If I’ve over pattering, just tell me.”

We wrote this song “Bad Really Bad” about the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Three chords and the truth.

“In The Rock Hall” is about the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland from a poem written by Paul Quarrington  Once again he almost whispers, “C’mon Halifax, let’s rock.”   About “Ladies of Montreal,” he says, “I didn’t think there were enough songs in indie rock well, elderly indie rock, independent seniors, about beautiful women… boobs, you know.  It came in a dream.  I had to write it.”  Dave says it is sexist although I don’t exactly know what he’s saying with the French words.

Getting ready to play “The Motherland Part 1,” he asks, “Jerry you brought your flute, did you?  Oh fuck’s sake.  It’s okay. I think I told you last night but we were both pretty hammered.”  “The Fatherland” is “a heavy metal political song…political metal… politometal.”  It totally rocks and at the end Dave says “I don’t understand, the dancing girl left and we’re playing our most uptempo tunes.”  Before they complete the trilogy with “The Motherland Part 2” someone in the band asks, have you got the cocaine?–its pure MDMA.  Don rehashes the story about him throwing up at a party in the closet because of hot knives.  The middle of Part 2 really rocks.

“Last Of The Dead Wrong Things” is quieter for sure but the chorus and backing vocals are great.  Where there’s usually a drum solo there’s a kind of quiet freak out.

He says, “we’re going to do one more” (boo) …well how many more do you deserve?  Seventeen, eh, you have a very inflated view of yourself.”

“We’ll do ‘Fat,’ (a song “by Rheostatics band”), it has similar chord shapes don’t hold that against us.  Did I tell you we were playing this one?”  “Would it matter?” Let’s have a round of applause for Kevin Lacroix on the bass and Don Kerr on the drums.  Paul Linklater on guitar.

“We played with Corb Lund yesterday, from Alberta.  He’s very handsome and very accomplished.  “Really really handsome.”  Kevin: “I made out with him.”  Dave: “I made out with a guy who I thought was Corb but who was really the cleaning guy for the hotel….  Last night on this very stage he intoned, he evoked the name of Washboard Hank Fisher….  You’re not going are you, it’s going to be a good song.”  They have Lots of fun with “The Midnight Ride Of Red Dog Ray”  with over the top backing vocals.  And in the solo, we get Paul Linklater, one more time pickin’ and grinnin.’

Before the next song Dave says, “What are you guys laughing at?  I can see you in the mirror, you know.  This is my favorite club coz I can watch my rock moves, they’re top ranked.”  Don:  “That’s actually Dave’s mirror, he brings it to every club and says that.  It’s embarrassing.”  Dave mentions a famous story (doesn’t know who it’s about) about a heavy metal singer who was hammered and he saw the guy in the mirror and thought he was mocking him.  So he challenged him to a fight.  That’s rock n roll.”

“You got a weak bladder Jerry?  I’ve got a weak bladder, too.  I’ve peed myself twice during this set.”

This is an album by Bidiniband called The Motherland.  It’s a delicious record and I’d like you to buy it.  All of you.  It’s only $10.  Produced in Toronto in a studio  … by professionals.  Trained professional sounds.  Nothing like what you’re hearing tonight.

There’s a great buzzy bass sound on “Desert Island Poem” which is “a funny song about cannibalism.”  Dave gets pretty crazy at the end.

It segues into a wonderful surprise of them playing”Queer.”  And then a terrific version of “I Wanna Go To Yemen” with a fun wild sliding solo.

He wishes everyone a good night and they leave for a few seconds.  “If we take a break we probably won’t play anymore.  But that was break…  We probably should have taken a longer break and milked it more… but we didn’t.”

“Do people who come to lean along the bar are they into the music?”  Kevin: “Those are some of the best people in Halifax…but the creme d la creme starts right here.”

Jerry didn’t find his flute did he?  Dave asks for a hand for the opening act, Communism Music, look them up

The first encore is the hilariously offensive song “Take A Bath Hippie.”   Sample verses:  “This ain’t the 1960s / These are brand new modern times / everyone is equal and everyone is doing fine,”  “Your revolution ended the day Trudeau retired.  A land of Stephen Harper… we got the country we desired.”   He asks, “You guys got hippies out here?  Probably not. You got Buddhists.  That’s just as bad.  They lie around in their robes  eating flowers.  Shaving each other’s heads.  Sacrificing a goat here and there.”

 We’re all getting G&Ts?  Thank you people of the night.  Kevin: “Treating us all equally?  Like my parents.  My parents would bring us all something she wouldn’t bring me a G&T without bringing one to my sister.”  Dave: They were saints.

FYI, tomorrow, there is Hockey Day in Canada–a ton of games on and footage from the concert last night with Theoren Fleury, Rich Aucoin, Buck 65, Miranda Mulholland, and the ever handsome Corb “The Boner” Lund and The Barra MacNeils.  Dave did a short movie about John Brophy, that’s gonna be on.  “Fuck, it’s Saturday… just sit at home and watch hockey.  It’s what we are supposed to do.  If you don’t, Stephen Harper will have your ass.  But I’ll save you because I’m the hockey guardian.  No I’m not, I’m just tired.”

We’ll try to do one last song.  Have we done “Take a Bath Hippie?”  We’ll save it for next time.  I’m trying to not do a typical show closer tune.

Last gig Kevin played with this band he was playing drums.   I guess it didn’t go well because he’s been demoted to bass. (ha ha).  Dave: “You’ve got the best bass player joke about what happened to Gordie Johnson.”  Kevin: “oh no that’s just nasty.”  Dave “You’re right, its for later in the washroom when were doing coke.”

They play a surprising “Stolen Car.”  It’s so weird to hear Dave sing this song (which he wrote)–he whisper sings it (and can’t really hit the notes).  It segues into a folkie
“Legal Age Life -> Do You Wanna Dance -> Legal Age Life” with them singing, “Oh yeah music is fun.  Friends are fun.  Rock n roll is fun.  Sloppy and fun.”  They end with a Johnny Cash line get rhythm when you get the blues.

Who would have guessed that just seven months later Rheostatics would reunite?

[READ: November, December 2017 & January 2018] West End Phoenix

West End Phoenix is a newly created newspaper.  It was inspired by Dave Bidini.

I have loved just about all of the music that Bidini has created (with Rheostatics and Bigdiniband) and I have loved just about all of the books he has written.  So why wouldn’t I love a newspaper created by him?  Well, possibly because it serves a community that I do not live in and have very likely never visited.  That’s right, this is a community newspaper for a community that isn’t even in my country.

And it is terrific.

But why on earth would I want to read it?  Can I really like Bidini that much?

Well, here’s the pitch for the paper:

Slow print, small run, mighty and true, the non-profit West End Phoenix is a community newspaper dreamed up by writer and Rheostatic Dave Bidini, giving voice to the swirl of neighbourhoods that make up one of North America’s fastest evolving catchments.

Patron-supported and ad-free — and devoted to the magic and power of print — the Phoenix invites you to join the chorus of readers around the city as well as Canada’s best writers, photographers and illustrators as we produce a new monthly broadsheet for our times.

The West End Phoenix, a monthly community newspaper for Toronto’s West End, launched in October 2017. Dreamed up by musician (Rheostatics), writer and publisher Dave Bidini, it is a home-delivered broadsheet devoted to telling the stories of a diverse, compelling and quickly evolving catchment, from the Junction Triangle to Parkdale, Christie Pits to Baby Point.

Inspired by a summer working at the Yellowknifer, a vital smalltown paper in the Northwest Territories, Bidini imagined the Phoenix as a way to reflect his own community and to provide a place for the journalists, artists and storytellers who live there to work there, too.

Contributors reflect the broadest range in both experience – from legendary voices to young writers – and perspective. Their views illuminate the catchment and transform the idea of a community newspaper.

Bidini is joined by deputy editor Melanie Morassutti and senior editor Susan Grimbly, both formerly of The Globe and Mail, and bolstered by a board and advisory council that includes Grid founder Laas Turnbull, writer Margaret Atwood, J-Source managing editor H.G. Watson, creative collaborator and Gladstone Hotel president Christina Zeidler, recording artist Odario Williams, media strategist Ali Rahnema and filmmakers Nicholas de Pencier and Jennifer Baichwal.

Now with its third month arriving at my house, I can say with confidence, that this is a speculator newspaper and more communities would be better served with its like.

It’s a big broadsheet, the kind you have to fold three or more times to be able to read it easily.  That inconvenience is part of the charm and joy of newspapers.

My own community has a newspaper and it pales in comparison.  In fairness to my newspaper, our community is not metropolitan, so we may not have quite the kind of interesting local stories (or people) that West End Phoenix does.  Except that West End Pheonix writers make it a point to go out and find interesting stories to wrote about.

It is inspired by famous people and yes there are famous contributors, but there are plenty of non-famous people doing a lot of work for this paper.

It’s not merely which high school sports won or which Boy Scout Troops went where or, god forbid, that fricking Kellyanne Conway was here (I gasped at that and wondered how excited they’ll be to tell people they met a felon when she justifiably gets arrested).  (My town skews right wing, disastrously).  These writers actually investigate.  They seek out interesting people, businesses and happenings.

Regular features include an article on a place that was around for a while and has shut its doors for good.  (Our town could certainly do that).  Or a place that has been around for a while and is still open.  I’m not sure if we have anything as interesting as the story behind the chandelier king of Parkdale, but we’ll never know until we ask.  There’s also the barbershop started by a man who arrived in Toronto from St Lucia in 1967 and has thrived cutting black people’s hair.

There are long essays about families united and divided.  It’s a great opportunity to get to know people in the community–something our paper does not do at all.

There’s also news that affects the community both big and small. Did you know that people are drinking ayahuascha and getting high?  It’s a huge (mostly illegal) business in Toronto.  Perhaps it is here, too.

Or a story about the resurrection of women’s wrestling in Toronto–after a deal with the WWE and the failure of said deal nearly wiped out a popular pastime.

Some smaller but probably more important news to the right people: “repeat offender leaves piles of cold cuts in Bloor West Park.”  Or “How Air BnB is ruining neighborhoods.”

I did mention famous people.  Alex Lifeson, guitarist for Rush has now contributed two personal/nonsensical stories (illustrated by Casey McGlynn).  This new issue features a story by Kevin Hearn. The first issue also had a tremendous drawing by artist Jeff Lemire.

And then there’s the familiar aspects to which West End Phoenix has added some extra shine.   Classified Ads?  Sure, but these have been spruced-up and made entertaining to read whether you’re looking for anything or not.  Real ads with amusing inspirational commentary

Or how about a section in which community members sound off on a topic?  My community newspaper seems content to be inoffensive (while still managing to talk only about the local Republicans and almost never mentioning the Democrats).  This month: “Are your neighbor’s Christmas lights an eco-scourge?”  Previous burning question: “Is it okay to throw dog poo in someone else’s garbage bin?”

Or how about The West End Somewhat Arbitrary Tree Map by Jason Logan in which he talks about some notable trees like the oldest tree in High Park or the first tree he saw turn red.

This paper, being created by artists, also features poetry (what??), and a Pet of the Month (a lizard and a donkey so far).

Each issue has gotten better, with strong writing and great visuals.  Will I ever get to the West End?  No idea.  But I feel like I’m a part of the community.  Often more than my own.

Thanks Dave and his family and everyone else who works to make this cool paper.