I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS–Northlands Coliseum Edmonton AB (November 12 1996).

Rheostatics opened for The Tragically Hip in Fall 1996.  Some of the shows were online already, but in 2018, Rheostatics Live added about ten more shows.

This is the 4th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour.

For this show their opening music is the Wizard of Oz’s Munchkins singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”  Martin follows with some lovely noodling that segues into a lovely “Song of Flight.”  The band sounds a little bit sloppy, surprisingly.

The song segues into “California Dreamline” and the crowd is appropriately responsive.  “All the Same Eyes” follows, sung by Tim in what seems like a casual way.

“Fat” sounds especially great.  Martin starts the song asking “What are you saying, who are you talking to?”  I wonder if it was directed at someone.  The band sound great and everyone seems really into the “robot/zombie” part.

As the song ends, Dave notes, “There’s a bit of banging going on over there but it was in time to the next song.  If you could do that four times….  Not whooing, banging.  Rumor has it that there’s a hockey team that plays out of this rink.  We’re from Toronto and in the 1980s the Leafs sucked and the Oilers were winning cup after cup and we see the banners and it motivates us.  Tim: and it motivates us to move to Edmonton–for the summer only, of course.

There’s more Tim as he says that “Bad Time to Be Poor,” was a true story.  Then its more Tim with “Claire.”  Martin does some great Neil Young sounding solos in the introduction.  The song sounds great with some cool ripping solos from Martin.

“Dope Fiends and Booze Hounds” always sounds great.  This one has a pretty intro and a small stumble before they rock out.  There’s great backing vocals here.  Martin does a weird ending for the “dark side of the moon” part–it’s more growling and he doesn’t quite hit the awesome high note at the end.

“Feed Yourself” is dedicated to The Tragically Hip.”  Tim: “You can all go get a coffee of something.”  The opening is utterly chaotic in a not so great way.  But they settle down and really rip through the song.  Tim seems to be mucking about near the end.  Dave does go dark and creepy with the end part but in a much less dramatic way than he would if they were the main band.  They absolutely destroy at the end and the crowd is very responsive.  What a fantastic opening set.

[READ: March 4, 2019] The Adventure Zone 1

I loved this book.  It is a graphic novel realization of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.  It is based on a podcast called The Adventure Zone.  The podcast is fun and is a real scenario of friends (in this case brothers) playing a new game of D&D (with new characters).  The podcast is pretty funny if  a little unedited.

The graphic novel is certainly edited.  It’s fun to have a visual accompaniment and the illustrations by Carey Pietsch are terrific with a wonderful comic-fantasy feel. .  If you wanted to hear the comparison from podcast to book, Page 18 syncs up to minute 100:00 in chapter 1 podcast.

But I have one MAJOR complaint.  Why is there so much cursing?  I get that this is a real adventure and that is literally the way people talk when the play the game.  But it is really off putting in this book.  Especially in the beginning when we don’t know these characters well.  Reading them cursing is not nearly as enjoyable as hearing them cursing in the podcast.

PLUS, this book, aside from the voluminous amount of cursing, would be suitable for just about all ages.  The adventure is PG (with maybe a couple of gentle tweaks) and the violence is comedic.  But the point is that this book would be such a great introduction to Dungeons and Dragons to any age and it’s a shame that they blew it. 

So this adventure is a good and interesting one.  They encounter gerblins (I didn’t ever find out why they were called that instead of goblins–I assume it’s just funny) and have to rescue a human named Barry Bluejeans.

In the campaign are Justin (Taako, an elf wizard), Travis (Magnus Burnsides, a human fighter) and Clint (Merle Highchurch, a Dwarf cleric).  They are led by Dungeon Master Griffin.  The encounter various beasties and there are wonderful asides and jokes (just as a real campaign).  The drawings are fun and easy to follow–the gerblilns look bizarre and weird (so when they are killed, it’s not so bad) .

And then we find out that the gerblins want our heroes to kill their boss.  The boss is a big tough guy, but they charm him in a hilarious sequence.

Along the way they are helped by an orc who can’t speak clearly.  Every time she tries to say certain words they are staticed out (I imagine the podcast version of this part os very funny).  They also get involved with a race of dwarves.  They have to find out There some amusing dwarfish problems (such as a glove that will blow you up if you put it on)

Overall the story is not so much the plot as they way they get there and by the time you’ve been through a few battles with them you don’t even mind their cursing as much because you feel like you’re a part of the team.

I do have to wonder how much of this adventure is authentic–although for this book it doesn’t really matter–it’s just fun.  And there are tons of funny jokes throughout–the kind that the best DM will have with his or her players.  And obviously, since these guys are brothers (and their dad), they have all kinds of jokes that trigger each other.

But still. This would be such a great way to get kids into D&D.  Perhaps a kid friendly version could be cobbled together?