SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Scotiabank Saddledome Calgary AB (November 15, 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 6th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour.
Dave introduces the show: “Hello people of Southern Alberta, let us entertain you. Let us kick your ass.”
The show starts with “Fat” and Martin gets some cool wild guitar sounds. The backing vocals are great and the end of the song really jams out.
Tim’s “All the Same Eyes” seems to rock out a bit more than usual with some scorching guitars from Martin. They follow it with “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson” and they have fun with it. Dave has to announce, “stop making faces, this is serious stuff.” During the middle part, Dave chants, “Michael’s getting married, Michael’s having a baby, Michael’s going down.” They stretch out the “it feels good” part with a mellow jam and Martin doing some great falsetto.
Dave talks about Melville millionaires sticker on his guitar. He says “we played in Melville, Saskatchewan–the best town in Canada. Martin talks about them playing The National hotel. They had two nights there and after the first night, someone spray painted outside of their door: “Go home noise pigs.”
Martin introduces “Sweet, Rich, Beautiful, Mine” and Dave says “and we’re not going home.” Martin makes some great weird noises from his guitar and, once again, there’s more amazing backing vocals from the band.
Don announces: “We’ve got a new record out, it’s been out about a week. This next song is on it, that last one was on it. It’s available tonight.”
Then comes two songs from Tim. It starts with “Bad Time to Be Poor” which has scratchy guitars from Martin. It sounds great and Dave says “That’s getting played on the radio and we’re awfully happy about that and thanks to those who are playing it.” Up next is the second Tim song with “Claire.” Dave says this next song is from Whale Music, underwater music–aquarium rock, they’re calling it.
Dave says they played hockey last night at Max Bell Arena–home of the Calgary Canucks–Calgary’s greatest team. It was them and the Hip & the crews. The score was 17-17. It was a great game–we were fortified on ice.
After a rocking “Self Serve Gas Station, ” Dave says, “The people in Edmonton said the people in Calgary didn’t know how to rock.” Tim: “That’s not true.” It’s a great intro to another blistering version of “RDA” which they sing as “Rock Death Canada.”
Even though I love the Rheostatics’ longer sets, these 45 minute nuggets are really tasty. And the band is in peak form at these shows.
[READ: March 4, 2019] On a Sunbeam
I really enjoyed Walden’s memoir Spinning, which was all about competitive skating and a young girl coming out. So this story threw me a bit because it is about a crew of workers aboard a space ship whose job is to help repair derelict structures.
And it starts right in the middle with no explanation. We just see a teenaged girl looking out a window at a floating city. Her name is Mia and she is being brought to a crew that she’ll be working with for the foreseeable future. The crew consists of Alma, the de facto leader, Char, the actual captain, Jules, a young girl who is actually Alma’s niece, and Elliot. Elliot is a mechanical genius, is nonbinary (goes by “they” rather than he or she) and does not speak.
Mia and Jules bond pretty quickly, but it’s going to be tough work–up at 5AM and a lot to learn.
The story flashes back to five years earlier. Mia is at school and, although a freshman, is already defiant. She gets in trouble for skipping out on a mandatory assembly and sneaking into the gym to look at what turns out to be flying machines. While in detention, she meets Grace. Grace is shy but a defiant in her own way. They form a pretty quick bond.
Grace is unfamiliar with the school that they’re at (for reasons that will become clear later) and Mia is exited to tell her about the one things she likes there–the sport of Lux. Lux is what she was sneaking around the gym to investigate. I have no idea what is supposed to happen in the game. You apparently fly fish-shapes planes and collect planets? It’s not relevant, but it sounds pretty cool. Grace asks if Mia will play this year, but Mia laughs–it’s only for Juniors and Seniors.
Grace trying to help out her friend, runs to the coach and asks if Mia can help them out in some way. The coach says they don’t usually do this, but if she wants to clean the machines, that would be fine. Mia is super psyched.
Turns out that Mia isn’t very popular at the school. The mean girls pick on her and when they see that she’s with Grace, they jump in to pick on Grace, to. The girls even steal Grace’s special necklace, which Mia vows to get back.
Having access to the gym means that Mia risks everything by taking one of the ships out for a small fly around the gym. She flies around an almost instantly crashes it.
This gets her and Grace in a lot of trouble (and that’s why we find out that Grace is somewhat immune to getting in trouble there). But while Mia is working on a job she flashes back to this memory. And while she is sort of drifting off, she walks into an off-limits area and is almost killed as she breaks the floor. This act of carelessness gets the ship, and especially Char, in trouble.
Amazingly Alma isn’t mad at Mia. But she realizes that maybe Mia would be better served if she worked with Elliott and learned more technical aspects of the job. This upsets Jules who is now going to be bored again, but Mia learns a lot and really bonds with Elliott.
With Char being punished, they have a new Captain who simply refused to warm up to the crew. Things are pretty crappy.
In another flashback we learn about Grace’s life before school and that her family was calling her from school to come back right away. Grace doesn’t want to go and of course Mia doesn’t want her to go either. But she must, it’s unavoidable. Mia wants to have a special goodbye for her but as she is rushing off to Grace’s room, she is interrupted by someone. And things get ugly.
Mia tells this story to the crew and we realize that Mia hasn’t sen Grace for five years and really knows nothing about what happened to her. The crew is devastated by this story and that’s when Alma tells her that she is familiar with where Grace lives. It’s a very dangerous place, especially for outsiders, but she has been there. And maybe, just maybe they could go there and see if Grace is okay. (Missing Char, Alma understands what it’s like to miss your girlfriend).
The second half of the book is quite different from the first. The first was kind of a slow introduction of this world (with so much left unexplained) and the fascinating structures that the characters worked on.
The second half is full of danger.
We learn about the world that Grace lives in. We also learn about Elliott’s past and why they don’t speak. All of the crew’s lives are in danger when they go to Graces’ home. And Grace doesn’t even know they are coming.
Jules is overcome by the atmosphere of the location (in a weird but very cool sidestory), Elliott is almost killed and it’s very possible that the ship will have to leave before Mia can come out of hiding.
It’s a really strange but powerful story. There’s lots of action, but also a lot of humor and tenderness. Walden’s drawing style continues to intrigue me. So many things feel unfinished–like she has erased parts of things to make them more mysterious. That was prevalent in Spinning as well. But this book is also full of fully realized psychedelic outer space images which are really cool and quite pretty to look at.
I Just Read About That... 
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