SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Horseshoe Tavern Toronto (February 15, 2001).
This was night 2 of 4 of the Horseshoe Tavern‘s 53rd Birthday bash. Clark (the band) opened the show.
The Rheos play seven songs from their soon to be released Night of the Shooting Stars (those songs are bold), including the two songs they didn’t play the previous night.
Jeff Cohen, owner of The Horseshoe gives a great intro to the band.
“King Of The Past” is an exciting opening. Tim seems to get lost on the lyrics but musically it sounds great. It’s followed by “Christopher” which also has a nice slow intro and some great jamming during the solo.
“The Fire” is a new song that I feel they didn’t play much after this tour–it features alternating leads from Martin and Dave and a harmonica! “The Reward” is the other new song they didn’t play the night before.
There’s some talk of Napster. Dave says, “I don’t know if it is shut down but there’s a lot of neat stuff on the Rheostatics section that we don’t even have tapes of. He says to check out “our performance of “Claire” with Rik Emmet (I would love to hear that). People may have already heard “P.I.N.” on Napster.
“Christopher” was dedicated to Jeff of Kansas City. Dave thanks the people who come from out of town to make a vacation of their four night run.
“We Went West” is followed by two songs from Harmelodia. “I Am Drumstein” is kind of crazy, with Don singing parts of it. At the end Dave tells him, you would have been asked to leave Drumstein’s orchestra for that last cymbal hit. It’s followed by a sweet “Home Again.”
The crowd finally gets to hear “Record Body Count” which has a slow opening. Tim and Martin have a hard time with the words in the beginning prompting Martin to ask “Who wrote this?”
Then they call Ron Sexmith up on stage for his song “So Young.” During the set up, Dave says that years ago when Ron released his first album Grand Opera Lane Don Kerr was on drums. Ron sounds a bit like Jim James.
Then comes the old song “Bread, Meat, Peas & Rice” which is simple and fun. Martin does a kind of trumpet solo with his mouth. Dave says “That’s for the premieres over in China.” Someone shouts “They’re in Korea.” Dave: “Did they move? I didn’t get the memo.” It’s followed by “Remain Calm” which almost seems like a response to the previous one.
Martin introduces “The Sky Dreamed” as a sweet song called “Bug’s Song.” Is it possibly Don singing on it? Then Martin plays a lovely “Song Of Flight” which segues into a terrific “California Dreamline.”
There’s two more poppy new songs, “Song Of The Garden” and “Mumbletypeg.” They miss the spoken middle part, and it sounds like DB is still tinkering with the lyrics, but it sounds great nonetheless.
Heading into the encore break, they play an amazing “Horses” (Martin even busts out the robotic voice to recite part of it) and a stellar “A Mid Winter Night’s Dream.” (I wonder if I’ll ever get to see that live).
After the encore break, someone requests “PROD” but Dave says we’ve got four nights to play that one. So instead, he sings “My First Rock Concert” and then a terrific take on “Aliens” with a little jam section in the middle. Dave starts singing “Artenings Made of Gold,” but Martin doesn’t remember it. But there’s some very cool drums in this part.
The tape ends with a delicate version of “Bad Time To Be Poor” which gets cut after a minute or so.
This was another fantastic show.
[READ: February 13, 2019] “Plastic Parts to Help with Life”
This was actually a series of short micro-fictions or flash fictions or whatever we’re calling them these days. Although these are not really that short (1/4 to 1/2 a page as opposed to just one paragraph). They’re all mildly amusing slices of modern life–each with an absurdist twist. This comes from the author’s “third book in a trilogy of miniature fiction.”
“In the Privacy of Their Own Condo”
He agrees to watch a Woody Allen film because she wants to watch Blue Jasmine. He finds Woody Allen movies too emotional and loud. Sure enough, there’s a car scene where they yell at each other for a full minute while driving. He flings off the covers and flees the room, naked. She’s not going to give up on the movie, although she does turn the volume down. Can anything salvage this debacle?
“Protest”
This one opens, “Bryce said to me during dinner, ‘You look like Jack Nicholson when you smile.'” Of course, this leads to a discussion of The Shining. Why do I look like I have a drooling leer? The talk was interrupted by protesters in the driveway. They are out there most nights anyway with bullhorns and signs. And they had many things to protest. (more…)
After releasing five new albums in 2017, KGATLW spent 2018 re-releasing their first five releases. These were out of print and hard to find. And now they’re back.
I Just Read About That... 