SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Jasper Heritage Folk Festival-Day Set (August 3 2001).
Rheostatics played two sets at the Jasper heritage Folk Festival in 2001. They did a day set to promote their new children’s album Harmelodia and then later an evening set full of hits.
This is a fantastic sounding show … the afternoon set at the Jasper Heritage Folk Festival and is unique in that it is an almost complete run through of the entire Harmelodia album including Dave reading parts of the book. One of the earliest shows with Michael Wojewoda on drums.
In the intro Dave explains that they’re playing the entire Story of Harmelodia album, borrowing a page out of Luther Wright and the Wrongs’ book and do a concept program. [I wonder what that was]. We’re going to read a little bit and play a few songs.
The Intro music is kind of like the more we get together, the happier we’ll be. Dave narrates and the music sounds really good.
He tells everyone that the album is available for only $25 over there, easy. How much you got? $15? We’ll take $15. And your hat and your glasses.
Tim sings “Monkeybird” which is, admittedly, not as good as Kevin Hearn’s version, but which is still fine (they have a really hard time with the high note of the “we love the sound.”
“Invisible Stairs” is a twist on the “Twinkle Twinkle” melody–a pretty 2 minute interlude.
During “Popopolis/Drumstein” Martin makes a cool humpback whale sound.
They take a small break, “a little interlude then the program will resume.” Then he says “hurry hurry come on up,” and some girls wish Chrissy Way a happy birthday. Dave jokes Chrissy’s 37.
Tim says that Dot wrote “Loving Arms,” but ripped off The Beatles. Dave replies, “it’s make believe Tim, there’s no copyright in make believe land.”
They don’t do “Father’s Sad Song” (because Gord Downie wrote it?).
The bass is suddenly too loud but otherwise it sounds great. You can compare the concert setlist to the album at the bottom of the post.
[READ: February 21, 2021] “Paris Diary (1992)”
I’m not sure who Mavis Gallant is, but she had the third of three “Memory” sections in this issue of the New Yorker, so here it is. It is indeed a few samples of her 1992 diary. The first few entries are from January.
She writes about three prisoners released from solitary confinement after eighteen years. Two of them are shrunken and need a wheelchair. The third has his daughter to look after him. She imagines what it must be like to get your father back after so long.
Gallant was young when her father died and yet she could not accept the truth. She always imagined he would return. Like how Isaac Babel’s daughter wrote, “Every time a car stopped in front of the door, I expected to see my father step out of it.” But of course, he never did.
Then she recalls Josée de Chambrun (her father ran the Vichy government in 1942 and was tried for treason). She has just died. Mavis and Catherine (whoever that is) saw her in a gallery, eyes full of defiance. After the war, the French either stood behind her or despised her.
The next entry (February) concerns her friend at dinner. She smoked through the meal, juggling fork, knife and cigarette. No one seemed to mind.
The last two entries are from June. First she runs into a man she seems to run into quite often–a man to whom she can think of nothing to say. So she jumps into the post office in hopes of losing him. Thankfully he is not waiting when she emerges.
The final entry is about an old friend (born in 1903). The friend is now wearing a hearing aid and braces on her legs: “Everything is running out, running down, except her pride and independence and sense of justice.”
She tells her friend that the last time she stopped under the awning where they are, a different friend told her that her husband was having an affair and was living with his mistress. But he still brought his clothes home for laundering. The older friend is shocked: “Are there really women who tells such things?”
Of the three Memory pieces, this one was the least enjoyable. But it’s more coherent than Gordimer’s.
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Here’s the Rheostatics’ comparison.
| Concert | Album |
| 01. Intro 0:43 02. The Harmelodian Anthem 2:52 03. Dot And Bug In The Street 0:47 04. I Fab Thee 2:02 05. It’s Easy To Be With You 4:25 06. Monkeybird 4:44 07. The Descent Into Popopolis* 1:02 08. Invisible Stairs 1:53 09. Popopolis 5:24 10. The Music Room 3:39 11. Happy Birthday Chrissy Way 0:28 12. The Sky Dreamed (reading only) 0:58 13. Loving Arms 2:55 14. Father Mourns, Drumstein Schemes 1:40 15. Home Again 3:27 16. Dot And Bug Pop Out Of The Earth 0:39 17. Song Of The Garden 3:36 |
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