SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-3rd Annual Green Sprouts Music Week Night 5 (Ultrasound Showbar, Toronto Ontario September 20 1995).
It has been a while since I’ve listened to a live Rheostatics show. Darrin at Rheostatics Live has added a number of new shows in the last eight months. Like this full week of shows from the Third Green Sprouts Music Week.
Fifth night of the third annual Green Sprouts Music Week held at Ultrasound Showbar September 18-23 1995. The first song is Tim Vesely performing a rap he wrote along with Farm Fresh and Rheos and then perfected the following night. If you ever listened to or attended all the shows of a GSMW run you know how the band kind of builds through the week and really hits a stride a few shows in – this is one of those types of shows. Interesting to hear how even within single songs they were working on the transformation from night to night as they worked them out in front of a crowd – Desert Island Poem aka Drumheller is a great example. Song Of Flight/California Dreamiline/Digital Beach/Earth is a particularly great run from this show. Don sings Never Forget for the second time and also second time ever singing lead at a live show. Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine features Tamara Williamson who co-wrote the song. All in all a great show. It is funny looking back at shows that have the impression of classic setlists but in fact half of the songs had not even been recorded yet and were pretty unfamiliar to fans.
This recording opens with a freestyle rap from Farm Fresh. I’m assuming that’s Tim on bass, and maybe someone else joining them?
Farm Fresh (Tyler, Pat and Ronnie) does “Space Song” and then Tim does a great story-rap about touring and listening to the Farm Fresh cassette and really loving it. is tim playing bass with them
Then Farm Fresh does some more rapping and when they leave someone (Don?) says that seriously they fought over the Farm Fresh tape–which van would get to listen to it.
When everyone leaves there’s some weird swirling music that lingers while martin starts “A Mid-Winter Night’s Dream.” He can’t reach the high note at the end–his voice kind of craps out but it’s still good. The jam at the end makes up for it.
There’s a raw “Feed Yourself.” Dave has changed “like a box of chocolates or a Beatles song” to “like Preston Sturges or a Beatles song.” But they get the crashing end part perfect.
Tim’s “All the Same Eyes” has some fun harmonics on the second guitar.
Dave says: Friday night is rock night. Each night is a like a snowflake–each one is unique. Like, Martin’s guitar did not break down last night during that song. And the new songs we have not yet worked out our dance moves yet. Donny was playing the lower drums with his hands and the hi-hat with his feet.
Tim: and the crash cymbals with his teeth.
Dave: I aspire to have all gold teeth like Sticky Thompson in Ziggy Marley’s group.
They begin “Aliens” which I thought would make everyone pretty excited. But there’s a lot of chatter. At the end, Dave says, “that was nearly my chance to grab the brass ring of lead guitar.”
There’s a screaming person in the crowd again and Dave says, “nice scream. We hear you.”
There’s a long tech delay so they do “My First Rock Concert.” Dave asks, “Does everyone know who ELO was?” When it’s done Martin says that was the mystery song. We’ve never rehearsed it, we just let it develop live. Dave then talks about the five flash pots and asks if the guy from the Yardbirds died when a flash pot blew up in his face. Or is that like the pop rocks guy story. Someone shouts Same guy!
Dave asks, Martin, if we play “Four Little Songs” will that cheer you up? It will. During Dave’s part he asks, “who votes for a guitar solo?” The 4321 at the end is perfect and at the end (“now they’re gone”) he asks several people if “you took them?”
The noisy crowd continues to irritate. Dave wishes there was a button you could use to highlight something or other and then Don says, a button to eject screaming fan. Or let them live? Someone shouts “make them buy beer.” Then as Tim starts the next quiet song someone shouts “shut the fuck up!”
Tim get a few songs now. “Connecting Flights” and “An Offer” (It’s only the third time we’ve played this, so be gentle). The falsetto seems a bit of a struggle.
Then comes Don’s song, “Never Forget.” Dave asks if he ever sang in his old new wave band. Only backing vocals. “Last night was the first time I was completely naked in front of the people.” So Dave introduces: Second time for the Don Kerr Band.
Dave invites Tyler from Farm Fresh on stage, but they are doing an interview. They play “Drumheller” (or “Desert Island Poem” as it’s also called). Drumheller’s a weird place man. We had great Greek food there once and terrible Greek food in the same restaurant.
As Martin plays a gorgeous “Song of Flight” he makes cool whale sounds. (Whales lived in Canada once). It segues into a lovely “California Dreamline” and then into “Digital Beach” and then into a wild “Earth/Monstrous Hummingbirds.” It’s, as Darrin says a great sixteen minutes.
Someone asks if “Earth” is about Dave’s family. Bidinis were the first humans.
Someone shouts “Winnie Cooper.” Dave: “The Wonder Years? I don’t follow. Lets meet outback later and talk about it.”
A ripping “Queer” come next with a “riff so nice, play it twice.” Dave messes up some words (which hardly ever happens). There’s a jam of the intro to “King of the Past” but no vocals. Did Tim just not want to play it?
Tamara from Mrs. Torrance is invited up, and while Dave is talking he says to someone “Hey don’t fuck with me” (!) [What happened?] Dave: I wish we wouldn’t swear as much, but we don’t swear as much as the guys in Farm Fresh do.
Tamara wrote the chorus to “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine.” The two of them singing this together gives me goose bumps. Martin says: “That song was for Winnie Cooper.” Dave: How do you know about The Wonder Years? Martin: “Late at night, lonely, kind of lukewarm depressed.”
Dave: Was she like the Miss Beedle? [from Little House on the Prairie]. Martin: No, she’s like Jan.
Up next is “Fat” with a great jam at the end. Martin says “You hurt me with your rocking.” And then proceeds to rock out a cover of jane Siberry “One more Colour.”
The recording cuts off after about a minute of “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson,” so who knows what else happened on this Friday night.
[READ: February 12, 2020] Ready Player Two
I really enjoyed Ready Player One quite a lot. It was certainly one of my favorite books of the year. I didn’t know there was supposed to be a sequel, but when I heard about it, I imagined it might be a lot of fun.
And while the book is largely the same in structure, the tone of it was really disappointing to me.
Set several years after the events of the first book, Wade (Parzival) and his helpers Aech, Daito, and Art3mis are all in charge of the empire that controls the OASIS. They have bought out their competition and are basically a giant monopoly. They are the only company making legit equipment to access the OASIS and each of them multi-billionaires.
They do a lot of philanthropic activities, especially when it comes to giving poorer people access to the OASIS. And each one of them his his and her own pet causes to which they donate millions of dollars. But primarily they (or at least Wade) is taking care of himself. His house is palatial and costs billions of dollars. He has made everything fit his heart’s (nerdy) and he wants for nothing. Much of his money and energy is spent on building security measures for himself. (more…)
I had posted about this record back in 
I Just Read About That... 