SOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-The Starlight Club Waterloo, ON (September 24, 2008).
This Martin Tielli show is the final solo show (excepting a Bidiniband that I am saving) on Rheostatics Live that I have to write about.
This is the first show of a tour at The Starlight Club in Waterloo Ontario. Just prior to release of The Ghost Of Danny G Part 1. Only live recording I have to date of “Ship Of Fire” and “Our Keepers.”
As Martin comes out he says, “This is our first show, we’re starting it here at my favorite club.”
This is a new band
Selina Martin – acoustic guitar, vocals, bowed saw ; Monica Gunter – piano, synth, viola, vocals ; Greg Smith – bass, vocals ;
Ryan Granville-Martin – drums, vocals, glockenspiel. There’s a lot of Martin up there. Martin says, “My name is Martin because my mum’s last name is Martin.”
I really enjoyed this set a lot . The sound quality is excellent and the band is in tremendous form.
“Dead Is The Drunkest You Can Get” starts with just acoustic guitar and voice. But when the get to “just like a child” the backing vocals come in. And the xylophone sounds pretty. It’s quite a surprise when the drums kick in mid way through the song. “That’s What You Get For Having Fun” opens with some quavery violin and guitar trills–very different from the Nick Buzz version. It’s overall more rocking and less cabaret style.
“Love Streams” sounds really pretty on piano. He says, “that was a song I did a long time ago with a group called Nick Buzz.” “(A Romantic Place) She Said, ‘We’re On Our Way Down'” opens with a musical saw! He tells us, “I have to adjust the teleprompter here.” He says it’s tough one, it’s a song I wrote about a place I love in Toronto. A bar called the Inter Steer. I wrote it in the bar while other music was going. There’s too much music in pubic places, I think. We should ban it.” It has some great low acoustic guitar trills. Overall, it’s a pretty spare song with Martin on guitar and the saw playing along. When it ends he says “sorry about my brain… my brain my brain.” That’s one of my favorite chorus of any song. It’s by Wayne Omaha.
“That’s How They Do It In Warsaw” has a false start and lots of laughter. He describes it as a “bit of a rockabilly number,” and when it’s over he says, “there were some devil notes in there. Satan! Frightening music that rockabilly.”
He opens “The Underbrush” by saying , ” the next few songs are on my subscription series records. These 2 record are about growing up in rural southern Ontario.” This one is about a feral child. Then he tells a story about his sister: She had an afro but she used to wear a towel on her head pretending she had straight hair. I used to ask her what is wrong with an afro, it’s awesome…. We don’t talk anymore. She lives in Brampton.
I love that you can hear the footsteps like in the beginning of the album and love how quiet and delicate it is with lovely backing vocals.
He busts out the vocoder for “Something In Those Woods.” And then plays the beautiful “Watersriders” They guitar is terrific and the keyboards add wonderful atmospherics. I love the guitar melody on “I’ll Never Tear You Apart” as well.
He tells a little bit about the subscription series: I had a bout of bravado about 4 or 5 years ago. I’d do a subscription series and do 4 or 5 records in a year. Then we blew the entire budget on the first record, Operation Infinite Justice, uh Joy. Justice was the name that Bush gave to the first war on terror. The town I’m writing about is Priceville. Someone has heard of Priceville? Priceville is where my grandparents live. His Italian grandparents are from a town near Verona, Italy. A month ago I celebrated for a week because I finished all of the paintings. The art is an important part of these records. I was hoping to have it ready for Halloween because there are spooky musings about ghosts and spirits. But now I’m hoping Christmas.
“Beauty On” jams through the whole first part even the normally quiet intro: “i am not.” It sounds great with the percussion. But he asks, “Did we drop a verse n that song, it seemed too short. He confesses, “I like working in bars because you can drink cocktails while you do your job that you get paid for. I have a passione for the cocktails.
It’s nice to hear him do a Rheos’ song: “Take Me In Your Hand” is quite slow and different-sounding with the female backing vocals. The coda on bells and melodica(?) is charming.
“My Sweet Relief” sound nice with the piano and Neil Youngish with the backing vocals. “A Hymn To The Situation” is solo piano. he interrupts the song to say “At the end of the next verse, there’s an axe and I want some heartfelt applause for the idiot I’m portraying, not an idiot…an honest guy.” The crowd responds wonderfully. He says that he’s been trying to rearrange “Sane, So Sane” so much that that’s the only way it can be done now. It sounds good you can really hear the “lesbian pasta, please” lines.
He then says, “the next song is one I wrote with a certain hockey writer/sports writer. Nice fellow, very gregarious.” “Saskatchewan” opens sounding like “I’ve Got Sunshine on a Cloudy Day” and the band jams it for a moment before playing a really good version of the song–appropriately rocking.
He uses the robotic voice thing again for “Sergeant Kraulis.” It sounds great but when he gets to the end, it feels like he wants to do something else but it just sort of fades out with him playing weird notes. The backing guitarist plays the notes that should come next, but he says “That’s the end.”
Then he introduces a “Totally new song. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be on my next record after I finish this subscription… debacle.” He says “Our Keepers” is “full of hate… the most invigorating emotion, hate… the most delicious, invigorating, joy-inducing emotions. bloody ..and loving.” The song totally rocks and the middle section is pretty classic rock sounding. It’s shame it’s only available on More Large Than Earth (We Will Warn the Stars).
Apropos of nothing he says, “this is Buddy Holly’s Stratocaster–midi Stratocaster. The light keeps things from getting too spontaneous.”
Then it’s back to the music with “another song I wrote with this Armenian-looking guy who writes columns for the Star and is on the radio a lot. I stole the song and changed the entire meaning of it.” “Stolen Car” sounds great. The backing vocals are different, but Martin is the heart of this song and he songs it great.
Then it’s back to “Sergeant Kraulis” with the “Reprise.” The song picks up with the repeated notes from earlier and then Martin repeats primarily the “we were opening packages” mantra on the robotic voice. The end is a long jam with wild soloing from Martin. At the end, We had to pick up the last bit of that song.”
During the kind of encore break, he says “thanks for helping us kick this little tour off.”
The intense “Ship Of Fire” has a rather Neil Young sound but with some cool synths. This is the only recorded live version of it which is a shame because it is intense live. There was more robot voice at the end.
Martin begins tuning and says, “Let’ do ‘Voices from the Wilderness.'” And you hear someone say “Oh, yeah, okay!” There is a hunt for capos “Capos have been located.” More tuning Martin says, “Talk someone, while I tune.” Selena sings “G… A….” (as Martin tunes those notes, then asks, “So uh what’s things like in Waterloo? I never get to spend any time here. Just soundcheck, show. It seems like a swell place.” Martin chimes in: “I got to spend a lot of time here when I was a kid–Kitchener/Waterloo. There was a big cemetery we used to play in.” Someone asks, “Did they used to be two towns that grew together, kind of like mold? But good mold on cheeses. When we get big we’ll have people who can tune guitars for us–were working on that. You know Gibson has expensive guitars that actually tune themselves. I think Jimmy Page had one a really l long time ago.. because he could. Voices has a lovely guitar melody and bells. I like that he puts in the line “I know Geddy, but he don’t know me.”
[READ: April 20, 2017] Giant Days Vol. 4
I was so excited to see two volumes of Giant Days out! This meant I could read them right after each other.
And its a good thing because the third book ended with a bombshell that Esther was dropping out of school.
Chapter 13 opens with Esther storming around her house, her parents quite upset about her decision. But Esther is certain and she even goes out to find a job. She gets one at Bakerymax as a sausage roll technician.
And how is Esther enjoying being home? She runs into her old best friend Sarah (who has fun hair) and they catch up. There is a wonderful joke about textiles. And then she sees her ex, Eustace. But he just looks at her and walks away. It’s ugly being home.
Meanwhile Daisy is so upset to have found out that Esther is not returning that she talks to her grandmother for advice (I love the way she twists anything her gramma says into something good for her). Daisy and Susan decide to go and find her to bring her back. They show up at Esther’s house and her parents are thrilled to see them (and thrilled to offer them so free luxury–Esther’s parents are loaded!). (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-“The Dogs” (MGM Grand Garden Arena, Friday 10, 31, 2014).
In honor of Halloween, these Ghost Box stories will be attached to a recent Phish Halloween show [with quoted material from various reviews]. 
