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Archive for the ‘Rheostatics’ Category

Mike Chen–We Can Be Heroes (2020)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, Farm Fresh, Mike Chen, Mind Robber, Rheostatics, Storyteller, Superheroes, Supernatural, Throwing Star, Violence, tagged on February 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-3rd Annual Green Sprouts Music Week Night 3 (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

Third night of the third annual Green Sprouts Music Week held at Ultrasound Showbar September 18-23 1995. Shorter mid week set though I believe the first song is missing and not sure if there were any encores. The show focused predominantly on Blue Hysteria material they were working on at the time with 8 of the 14 songs being unreleased. The show builds pretty nicely to epic song territory. The last four songs alone make up almost 1/3 of the show.This tape starts with “All the Same Eyes,” which sounds great–martin adds in some cool noisy guitar effects.

But, as seems to happen a lot for these guys, there’s technical problems.  The first song does appear to be missing because after this, Dave says something about being only two songs in.  Someone shouts “Tell me a story, Dave.” “I don’t have a story at the ready.”  “Tell us the Milli Vanilli story.”  “I don’t have a Milli Vanilli story….  And if I did I wouldn’t be at liberty to release that information.”

Martin tells everyone, “On New Years Eve we sat down and wrote four songs and if we made a whole song of any of them it would be awful.  So we put them into one song.”  “Four Little Songs” comes out perfectly.  Dave says that he’s in Neil Finn’s kitchen.  At the end of the song “And now they’re gone,” he asks, “Did you eat them?”

Introducing “Desert Island Poem” Dave talks about writing a song about cannibalism already: IOn “Oneilly’s Strange Dream” he has to eat his friend to survive.  So we have reprise the theme in this song.  Tyler from Farm Fresh adds some scratching.  Don says “I feel like we’re being attacked by one of those beam swords from Star Trek or Star Wars.  Everyone cracks up that he can’t remember light saber.

Martin says he was once hurt by a toy torpedo.  Did one of your brothers do that to you?  Martin: The mean one, the one they don’t talk about.   Gus, the hidden Tielli.

Then comes three Tim songs in a row.  In “Introducing Happiness’ Tim sings “your sister lives in … wherever the hell she is.”

Dave asks “How are the cats doing?”  Tim: “They’re a little bored.”  Dave” Bring them to the show–all kitties half price.”  But…  Is Dale [the Rooster] here tonight?  There would be a problem.

Up next are “Connecting Flights” and “An Offer.”

Martin follows up with “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” which has some outstanding drumming in the chorus.

Dave plays “My First Rock Concert” and I noticed that instead of “Paul Weller was Christ” he says he’s seen “The Special Beat thrice.”

They’re going to take a little break (it’s pretty early for that, frankly) and then they come back for “California Dreamline.”  Martin had no monitor and couldn’t hear anything–“I sang it deaf.”  Don: “That was def man.”

It’s weird how many people are talking but then how many people are excited to hear it.

A gorgeous “Northern Wish” segues into “Saskatchewan” which has a cool buzzing sound that goes from one ear to the other.  Was that on purpose?

Throughout the week, there is some concern in the audience about people standing up.  I guess this is a seated venue, maybe with tables?  Before they start “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson,” Dave says, “you can stand up now.”  As they start the song, Dave starts singing Bowie’s “Fashion” (turn to the left).  Then he starts singing a refrain that pops up a lot this week and I cant figure out what it’s from

It’s tuesday night in the discotheque / I can’t dance what the heck / I’m an Uzbek.

Farm Fresh gets the Michael Shout out and Tyler does a scratching solo.  There’s a fantastic vocal ending from Martin and Tim.

They follow this with “When Winter Comes, with a stomping honky tonk guitar before the main riff comes in.  Someone else is sings the “blue Canadian winter” part.

Dave says they’re going to do a couple more, but the tape only has one more–a really good version of “Fat.”

[READ: February 20, 2021] We Can Be Heroes

S. brought this book home and after describing the premise I wanted to give it a read.  I’d never read Mike Chen before.  Apparently his books are typically a lot darker than this one.  So I’m glad I read this as I don’t think I’d like the darker ones.

This one comes from an amusing premise.  It also comes from a short story that he wrote that had a similar premise but when in a different direction.  In that story (called “Anonymous,” from Storyteller Vol. 1 No. 3 which I can’t find anywhere) two superheroes meet in A.A.  The premise of the novel is similar–two superheroes meet in a memory loss group.  But it’s that memory loss that really changes the direction of the story.

The book opens on Jamie Sorensen–a villain. He is the Mind Robber and he is robbing a bank.  He is able to look into people’s minds and flick through their memories like pictures on a phone (I liked that detail).  He can read them or erase them or just stun people’s memories with a flick of his finger.  He doesn’t want to hurt anyone in the bank, but people are afraid that he is going to wipe out their entire memory.  He just wants to get a ton of money so he can go to the tropics and hide out for the rest of his life–not an ambitious villain, really.  Plus he had heard that banks are insured so as long as he doesn’t take too much at a time, no one really gets hurt. (more…)

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Scott Westerfeld–Leviathan (2009)

Posted in Al Purdy, Alternate Reality, Animals, Death, Jane Siberry, Keith Thompson, Platinum Blonde, Rheostatics, Scott Westerfeld, Sexism, Steampunk, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Technology, Teenagers, Trilogy, Violence, World War I, YA Books, tagged on February 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-3rd Annual Green Sprouts Music Week Night 1 (Ultrasound Showbar, Toronto Ontario September 18 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.

He writes:

Rheos had just come off of the 2nd Another Roadside Attraction tour with The Tragically Hip in July. The band would perform their Group Of 7 commission in Ottawa a month later and during this run were working on material for what would become The Blue Hysteria album. Some of the working titles are listed (Crescent II, Two Flights) as well as Drumheller which would end up as “Desert Island Poem” on Dave’s first Bidiniband album The Land Is Wild.

I don’t regret missing many shows that I’ve missed, but I do very much wish that i had been able to go to a few nights of a Green Sprouts Music Week.  Seeing them in a small club with them chatting away and experimenting seems like it would have been a wonderful experience.

As the tape starts on this first night, someone asks

“Are we going to play that song tonight?”
“What song?”
“The $1.79 song.”
“Of course it wouldn’t be a Green Sprouts…”

Never find out what that is.  But then Dave tells the audience

The plan is over the next 7 days to pay every song we know and even songs don’t know.  He says that it’s Roger the sound man’s first Green Sprouts week and he hasn’t caught Green Sprouts fever yet.  This is also Don Kerr’s first green sprouts, too.

We’ll lay a couple old ones to start.  Someone shouts “YAY!”  Dave: “Hey you haven’t even heard the new ones yet.”

They start with “Me & Stupid” which features the spoken part of the poem “Wilderness Gothic” by Al Purdy:  “Something is about to happen two shores away a man hammering the sky”

Dave: “The great thing about green sprouts is you forget different stuff each night.”

Up next is “another Southern Ontario song” “Fish Tailin’.”

Then Martin unveils his new (as yet unpainted double neck) guitar: “overcompensating for the lack of headstock for the last 6 years.  Now he’s got a guitar with two big ones.”

Tim gets the first new song with “All the Same Eyes,” a song that doesn’t change much between now and the record.

In what will be a theme for the week, they have a really hard time coordinating the opening countdown for “Four Little Songs.”  They have to start it three times.  And they mess up the 4321 at the end.  Martin’s verse seems different.

Kevin Hearn joins them for the next song.  Dave says they stole some part of “Four Little Songs” from [Kev’s “on patrol?  Cabs On patrol?   No idea].

Kevin plays on “Fan Letter” and in they chant “Farm Fresh” instead of Michael.

Over the course of the week we’ll get more details about the creation of “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine.”  Onm this first night, Martin forgets the second verse.

Dave says that Neil Peart said that he preferred playing smaller places (meaning arenas) because he could hear himself (he preferred arenas to open air venues).  But in arenas there’s big speakers but it sounds small.  But it’s snugsville in here, boy.

It’s been a long time since we did this song (“Palomar”), which gets a good response.  After which “it’s the fall but we can still play summer music” (“Introducing Happiness”).

Dave says he saw Asleep at the Wheel and the last song everyone did a solo.  Then the lead singer had a guitar shaped like Texas, but instead of his solo, he picked up three balls by his feet and did some juggling. The last one he threw up in the air and it landed on the brim of his cowboy hat.  They’re working on that for later in the week.

They start the new “Connecting Flights” but can’t find a capo.  They do an improv “capo shortage,” a goofy bit a fun.  Up next is the new “Desert Island Poem,” which sounds great.

Then comes the popular section.  A rocking “California Dreamline” which segues into a lovely “Song of Flight” and right into “Fat.”

They haven’t played “Queer” in a while (which is a surprise).  As they start Dave says, “now there’s a little matter of the words.”  Someone recites them for him.

Dave is going to play “My First Rock Concert” every night this week and the and are kind of learning it on the fly.  In the middle of the song, some words are different.

Dave: “I sense something funky coming on (start of “Soul Glue”).

The last song before “our first encore” is a rocking version of Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour.”  I love their version.

Heading into the encore break Don says, “We just played 18 songs without a pee break.”

That reminds him of a gig they played in Pennsylvania: drinks were free until the first person has to pee.  It was a real classy establishment.  The most boring place on earth–Harrisburg, PA.  It’s a great place if you have a huge bladder.

Martin says “My assessment of tonight is that it started out very vague and hazy, like we haven’t played in six months or like we’re getting back together after a year breakup.  But it gelled together in the last three or four songs.”

Martin tries to remember the new song “A Midwinter Night’s Dream.”  He doesn’t go for the high note in the middle of the song–choosing a lower growl instead.  It works pretty well, but I love the high note.

Dave jokes: You don’t know what it was like touring in Platinum Blonde town after town having to play the hits with the drummer under the stage playing the parts for the fake drummer on the stage.

A delicate “Take Me in Your Hand” is followed by Don Kerr’s first time playing “Northern Wish.”  Martin gets the first line but missed the rest of the verse and starts the song again.

The first night ends with a ripping “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds.”  There’s a drum solo for Don and then martin ends the song with interesting guitar effects.

It’s a good start to a great week.

[READ: February 20, 2021] Leviathan

I signed C. up for a YA program at the library.  His subject was steampunk and they chose this book for him.  S. had read this series and loved it, so I decided to give it a read while it was still in the house.  I found it to be a fast and fun read.

The story is set in 1914, the dawn of World War I. But it’s an alternate reality–one where zeppelins and other hydrogen-based flying machines dominate the air  It also has a very cool component of animal/machine hybrids that are really quite impossible to explain except to say that the Leviathan is a living airship that is made out of whale–they are in side of a whale–but it’s also a machine.  Or something.  Best not to think too much about that.

It’s here that I should mention the drawings by Keith Thompson. They are wonderful pencil-looking drawings–dark but detailed.  They really help to get the visuals down of thes extradoridfanly machiens tah Westerfeld has createa.  I’m not always certain that I could picture the without the drawings.

The book opens on teenaged Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Austrian throne.  While he is playing with toy soldiers, imagining a war, two of his servants enter the room and tell him they are off to do some training in the dark–his father’s orders.

The machine that Aleks is being taken to is a Cyklop Stormwalker.  This is a giant machine that walks on two legs (Star Wars, yes). Alek has never piloted something this large before, but they tell him it’s important for his training. But Alek senses something is wrong and that’s when they tell him this is not a drill.  His parents, the King and Queen of Austria, were killed that very night. He is probably another target and they are trying to keep him safe. (more…)

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Tim Probert–Lightfall: The Girl & The Galdurian (2020)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Mark Malibu & the Wasagas, Martha and the Muffins, Pigs, Rheostatics, Sly & The Family Stone, Sly and the Family Stone, The Kinks, The Who, Thieves, Threats, Tim Probert, Tom Waits, tagged on October 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Mowat Collegiate Late (1982).

This Rheostatics show dates all the way back to 1982, when the band was very very different.

This is the second oldest show I have been provided with to date… (based on the fact that Chemical World is introduced as a new song and it isn’t played on the other Mowat show on the site). From Mowat Collegiate in Scarborough it is slightly later in the year and has much clearer sound.

These old shows confuse me because I can’t tell who is singing.  To me it sounds like Tim singing lead on all the songs, but I didn’t think he was the main singer back then.  Or is it that Dave Bidini’s voice is so much different because they were all just babies?  I assume it’s Bidini doing the talking, and his voice is sure different (not Tom Waits different, but still).  I’m also not sure who is playing what.  I assume Tim is on bass, but he doesn’t usually play bass when he sings.  Dave Clark is also very quiet (he is usually full of jokes and poetry and whatnot).  I’m assuming that’s David Crosby (not that David Crosby) on lead guitar.

And somebody is playing with a high pitched oscillator type sound for the first few songs.  I wonder who is doing that while apparently playing their actual instruments. 

This set starts out with “National Pride.”  A funky, bass-slapping, bass-sliding song that shows that the early Rheos were far more into funk than anything else. 

The set (actually I guess it is two sets) is full of covers.  But each one is done in their new wave-ish ska-ish, not sounding anything like the original, style

The Kinks’ “Well Respected Man About Town” is almost unrecognizable with the bouncy bass in the verses and the entirely un-Kinks-like quality to the rest of the song.

“Chemical World” is described as new song (it’s one of the few from this era that has survived a little).  It starts out with Dave Clark on drums. It’s all new wave guitar and a lolloping bass.

“Girl in My Magazine” is a full-on ska song with bouncy guitars and a big fat bass.

Then they run through “Louie Louie” which sounds like the original in some ways–melodically–but it’s still got that big funky bass sound going on. 

Dave (or Tim) keeps encouraging everyone to come up and dance.

Up next is the “single which we’ll be handing out after our next set (we’re playing twice) called “Satellite dancing.”  It’s got the same basic sound but with a kind of blues riff underpinning the ska guitars.

As the song ends, someone says, stay tuned for Mark Malibu & the funky Wasagas.  Interestingly Mark Malibu & the Wasagas broke up in 1982, but reformed with all the original members in 2014 and have released three albums.

Presumably after a break and they are back with a new set of different songs.

This set opens with a lengthy bass intro and echoing reggae guitars which turns into a lengthy drum solo.  It’s called “Reggae Trenchtown Jam” and it’s basically just a nine minute jam.  In the middle of the song while encouraging people to dance, someone says, In Missouri and Kentucky they’ve outlawed… [can’t hear the rest].

Up next is “My Generation,” which is “on that record.”  This is , like The Kinks’ cover, a very unusual new wave version of the song–again almost unrecognizable.  Despite the prominent bass in this set, there’s no wailing bass solos like ion the original.  There is a wailing guitar solo though and the song jams out about five minutes.   

Up next is the shortest song of the night.  “Man of Action” is under three minutes with more of those reggae guitars.

Then comes a song by Sly and the Family Stone.  “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” sounds like one of their own songs, they have so taken it over.  Surprisingly, given their funk, this sounds nothing at all like the original.  Even the super catchy chorus is done in a very different way.  They are indeed being Mice Elf.  There’s a jamming section at the end with some serious slap bass.

Up next is “an old ska song” called “The Suburb Shuffle.”  I can’t find anything about this song.  Although the introduction says “I’m sure everyone in Scarborough can relate to it.  It’s about green houses and black driveways and well-cut lawns and flowers in the sidewalks.   It has nothing to do with Martha and the Muffins.”  It is indeed a suburban ska song.

They end the set with “Shake Your Body Thang” and “we want everyone up on stage, especially Mark Malibu.”  I think this one musty be Tim singing.  The jam this one out for nearly nine minutes.  Mid way through, they invite people on stage.  There’s a break down when it’s just drums and vocals.  It’s got everything a 1982 collegiate rock band should have.

It’s impossible to believe that these are the same guys.

[READ: October 22, 2020] Lightfall Book 1

This is an enchanting first book in a new series. Tim Probert’s illustrations are wonderful–a fantastic soft palette and delightfully unusual characters.

Set in the land if Irpa, we first meet Bea and her cat Nimm. Bea is somewhat nervous by nature. Especially when it comes to a small jar with a flame in it which she is meant to be guarding.

Bea lives with her adoptive grandfather named Alfrid the Pig Wizard. Alfrid is, as the name suggests, a pig and a wizard and he makes potions for people. But he is also very forgetful. He leaves reminders for himself, but they don’t always help.

Bea ventures out to get some ingredients for a potion. She is in a tree, when the branch breaks. As she hangs on for dear life, a tall froglike creature walks past (on two legs), and as she falls out of the tree he catches her. The creature is Cadwaller, known as Cad. (more…)

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Dave Bidini–Midnight Light: A Personal Journey to the North (2018)

Posted in Athanaskan, Books about writers, Calle 13, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corb Lund, Culture Shock, Dan Mangan, Dave Bidini, Délı̨nę, Northwest Territories, Dené, Dog Sleds, Domestic Violence, Drinking, First Nations, Folk on the Rocks Festival, Friendship, Funny (ha ha), Homelessness, Humiliation, iLe, Non-fiction, NPR/PRI/PBS, Politicians, Prison, Puerto Rico, Regrets, Relationships, Religion, Research, Revenge, Rheostatics, Rush, Sahtú, Science, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Sports, Supernatural, Superstitions, Tanya Tagaq, Terra Lightfoot, The Globe and Mail, The Sun, The Telegram, The Yellowknifer, Tiny Desk Concert, Toronto Star, Travel, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Violence, West End Phoenix, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories on August 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: iLe-Tiny Desk Concert #874 (August 3, 2019).

It’s not very often that you hear a song that is all percussion.  But the first song of this set is only percussion and (Spanish) vocals.

iLe is a singer in the Puerto Rican band Calle 13.  Her most recent solo album Almadura:

is filled with metaphors and allegories about the political, social and economic conditions in Puerto Rico.

When vocalist Ileana Cabra Joglar and her band visited the Tiny Desk, they’d just arrived from the front lines of the historic demonstrations taking place in Puerto Rico. Two days earlier, they were part of a crowd of tens of thousands who were on the streets calling for the resignation of embattled Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. (Rosselló recently stepped down, effective August 2.)

Right from the start, it was clear what was on iLe’s mind in her song “Curandera” — “I am a healer / I don’t need candles to illuminate / I bring purifying water to cleanse / Removing pains so they never return” — as congas and percussion shook the room with an Afro-Caribbean beat.

This is the song in which all of the band members play percussion–primarily congas although Ismael Cancel is on the drum kit.  While everyone plays congas, it is Jeren Guzmán who is the most accomplished and who plays the fast conga “solo.”

In the chorus of the slow-burning “Contra Todo,” iLe sings about channeling inner strengths and frustrations to win battles and remake the world. Her lyrics are rich with history, capturing the spirit of the streets of San Juan even as she stood, eyes closed, behind the Tiny Desk. Her entire performance is a startling reflection of this moment in Puerto Rican history.

“Contra Todo” has a rich deep five string bass from Jonathan Gonzalez and two trombones (Joey Oyola and Nicolás Márquez). Two guitars (Bayoán Ríos and Adalberto Rosario) add a kind of percussive strumming and a quiet song-ending riff.  Jeren Guzmán plays the congas with mallets, something I’ve never seen before.

By the time iLe and her band launched into “Sin Masticar,” they’d already captured the full power of protest, as their musical arrangements raged with the intensity of a crowd joined by a shared cause and pulse.

“Sin Masticar” has a super catchy chorus, perhaps the best way to get people involved in a protest.

[READ: August 2019] Midnight Light

Two years ago Dave Bidini co-founded The West End Phoenix, a newspaper that is for people in Toronto’s West End.  It’s print, it’s old school, and it’s pretty awesome.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to the West End, but I find the writing and the content to be interesting and really enjoyable.

It’s no surprise that Bidini has worked in journalism and loved and hated it.

I’ve always loved newspaper: the smell of the ink and the rough of the newsprint weighted in my hands, their broadsheets flapping like Viking sails.  When I was a kid, our family read them all–the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Sun, and before that The Telegram–at the kitchen table with each person drawing out whatever they needed: comics, sports, business, entertainment (and yet never Wheels, the Star’s automotive supplement).

He started writing before he picked up a guitar.  When he was 11 he submitted a poem about a hockey player to The Sun‘s “Young Sun” section.  It was accepted and he won a T-shirt.

In 1991, he was asked to write a regular column for a Star satellite weekly called Metropolis.  The day his first piece was to be in print he waited at the nearest newsbox for the delivery man.

But he had no stamina and fewer ideas and he was eventually let go.  Which led to writing books.  But he still wanted to write for the paper and then he remembered: Hey, Yellowknife had a newspaper.

This book is about journalism.  But it’s also about the Canadian North.  And while the journalism stuff is interesting–and the way it ties to the North is interesting too, it’s the outsider’s perspective of this region of the world (that most people don’t even think about) which is just amazing to read about–the people, the landscape, the conditions.  It’s fascinating. (more…)

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Caleb Crain–“Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” (Harper’s, August 2019)

Posted in 99%, Activism, Caleb Crain, Canadian Music, Excerpt, Harper's, Occupy, Positively Stompin', Protests, Rheostatics on August 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: POSITIVELY STOMPIN’-“Jump on My Wheels” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Positively Stompin’ certainly sounds like a certain kind of music.  So it’s a little surprising how quietly this song starts out with just acoustic guitar.  The song picks up with some slower stomping about midway through although a ripping guitar solo really activates the buzz in the song.

It’s a short lived buzz though as the song more or less settles into a kind of Southern Rock, which is a bit ironic coming from a band from Toronto.  I cant find much out about this band, although they did have an album out called Junk Drawer.

[READ: August 1, 2019] “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution”

This is an excerpt from Crain’s novel Overthrow. which is about the Occupy movement and protests.

Lief and Matthew were together when Lief’s phone started buzzing.  Lief read the text–its happening. police were everywhere.

They decided to go check it out–many of their friends would be going as well.

They brought earplugs–the police have some kind of sound weapon that they bought after 9/11.

The city was sleepy and quiet. So quiet and still, that it felt abandoned. (more…)

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Donald Antrim–“The Pancake Supper” (New Yorker, December 27, 1999 & January 3, 2000)

Posted in Canadian Music, Donald Antrim, Funny (ha ha), Huh?, Humiliation, New Yorker, Pancakes, Rheostatics, Short Story, The Jack Family, Therapy, Work on July 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE JACK FAMILY-“You Are My Sunshine” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

According to Reno Jack’s biography: The Jack Family was a bunch of musicians who jammed out to whichever song was chosen by whoever was singing. Unrehearsed and free floating each member choosing an alias with the last name Jack just having fun away from the pressures of presenting original music. The band had names like Reno Jack, Bunk “Everyone Drums” Jack, Chief Don Jack, Mercedes Jack, Monterey Jack, Nevada Jack, One-Eyed Jack, Y “Tip” Jack and The Jackets backing singers.

This is the slowest, mopiest take on “You Are My Sunshine” I have ever heard.  Reno Jack is know for “country blues” and this version sounds like the most depressing part of both genres.

[READ: July 30, 2019] “The Pancake Supper”

Thomas suggested that all of the teaching analysts go out for a pancake supper twice a year.  Not at the fancy pancake house, but at the modest open-all night Pancake House & Bar.

Because Breakfast foods, except for cereals, that contain inordinate amounts of sugar, have, in my experience, a comforting, antidepressant quality.

The first to arrive was Manuel Escobar who disagreed with that sentiment: “I suppose that is true is you are an American.”

Escobar flirted with the waitress.  He also wanted to make love to Thomas’ wife.  Thomas was introspective about this:

It has occurred to me from time to time that an affair between this man and my wife could be harmless enough, and might solve a variety of problems in my home life.

Up next was Maria who immediately praised Escobar’s work. (more…)

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Edna O’Brien–“Forbidden” (New Yorker, March 20, 2000)

Posted in Canadian Music, Edna O'Brien, Farming, Irish Writer, Lost & Profound, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Parenting, Rheostatics, Short Story on July 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOST & PROFOUND-“All Consuming Mistress” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Lost & Profound has a fantastic name.  They are from Calgary and were originally called The Psychedelic Folk Virgins (quite a different concept). The band is based around the married musicians Lisa Boudreau (vocals) and Terry Tompkins (guitars).

This is a slow song sung by Lisa Boudreau.  The credits don’t list a violin, but it sure sounds like there’s one on the song.  Maybe it’s an e-bow.  This song, a low-key folk song seems to be a good representation of the band’s sound.  A find this a moody and enjoyable song.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “Forbidden”

This is a story of a woman and her mother.  A symbiotic relationship of two women on a farm in Ireland.

In dream, my mother and I are enemies, whereas in life we were so attached we could almost be called lovers.

Her mother was a superstitious woman who looked for augurs and signs.  So that when the narrator began writing, her mother said that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation.

Her mother hated the books she brought home from college and when she wrote fanciful pieces for a railway magazine her mother seethed. (more…)

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T. Coraghessan Boyle–“The Love of My Life” (New Yorker, March 6, 2000)

Posted in Babies, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Clark, Death, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Rheostatics, Sex, Short Story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle, The Bookmen, Tim Mech, Tim Vesely, Toronto Blue Jays on July 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE BOOKMEN-“Huggin’ at My Pillow” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

The Bookmen were the creation of legendary Toronto musician and independent music promoter Dave Bookman.  This is a fun bluesy stomper that sounds like a song of lost love, although the final line of the chorus might reveal the truth:

I’m huggin at my pillow but it’s just not the same
My pillow don’t know the score of the Blue Jays game.

I really enjoyed this song, so it’s no surprise to see that the rest of the band consists of Tim Mech, guitar tech for Rheostatics, Tim Vesely bassist for Rheostatics, and Dave Clark drummer for Rheostatics.  Shame I can’t find a copy of their only release Volume One: Delicatessen.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “The Love of My Life”

I have really enjoyed the more recent stories from T.C. Boyle.  I haven’t read one of his older stories in quite some time, so I don’t remember if this story is representative or not, but holy crap was this story dark.

And yet it started so sweetly.

It is the story of two high school students, Jeremy and China who are madly in love.  That spring break, they were planning on going camping–a lovely five day stretch of gorgeous weather and solitude.  The first couple of days were wonderful–they didn’t even bother putting clothes on.

They were ever so much in love. He even practiced his AP Spanish on her: Tu eres el amor de mi vida.  She tried to reply but she was taking French.

They were also excellent students–he was heading to Brown (his father’s alma mater) and she was almost but not quite the class salutatorian. (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–“Just Keep Going North: At the border” (Harper’s, July 2019)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, donald tRUMP, Essays, Harper's, Immigrants, Mexico, Nogales, Mexico, Racism, Rheostatics, William T. Vollmann on July 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-“Woodstuck” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

I’d heard this song on several live bootlegs, but I was very curious about the original recording.

It’s a stomping folk song with great backing vocals and a very funny chorus.

You can’t go back to Woodstock baby, you were just two years old You weren’t even born

And this wonderful verse

Before they were kissing the earth now they’re washing their cars
Before they were feeling stoned now they’re feeling bored
Sure you shed your clothes but you shed no blood
Poor hippie child don’t sit and wait for another summer of love

Was it worth getting this whole compilation for a two and a half minute joke song?  You bet.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “Just Keep Going North: At the border”

William T. Vollmann continues to amaze me with his dedication to writing about issues that matter.

This lengthy essay is Vollmann’s attempt to discover what is happening at the border after trump warned of migrant caravans coming up from Mexico in February of 2019.

He decided to go to the Arizona border, a place he knew little about, to save himself from prejudgment (he is from California and knows that border situation a little better).  He went to the internationally bifurcated town of Nogales.  Nogales said it would sue the federal government if it did not remove the new coil of razor wire.

He talks to an immigration lawyer from Tucson who says in the old days it was no big deal to cross the border–you could come and go. There were some small changes in the mid-eighties.  Then 9/11 caused big changes.  It had been bad before trump but trump’s policies at least opened peoples eyes to what was happening here. (more…)

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David Szalay-“Something True” (Harper’s, July 2019)

Posted in Balfa Brothers, Cajun Rambler, David Szalay, Excerpt, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Rheostatics, Seattle, WA, Sex, Swamperella on July 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CAJUN RAMBLERS-“Venez à Louisiane” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Cajun Ramblers’ music sounds like it should–a cajun flare in a bouncy two-step (as the lyrics even say).  There’s even a verse in French.  This song seems so un-Canadian but that’s because Peter Jellard, an English musician, was busking in Paris and heard a recording of the Balfa Brothers, leading to a life long infatuation with Cajun music.  After a six-week trip to Louisiana he founded the Cajun Ramblers who performed a mix of Cajun and Zydeco around Toronto.  He was also in Swamperella

[READ: July 12, 2019] “Something True”

This is the story of a woman returning home.  She has been in Seattle visiting her daughter Wendy.  It had been fun but exhausting, sightseeing everywhere.  She was not looking froward to what she had to return to.

She had had a health scare.  The doctor assured her that she was fine–nothing to worry about–but she was shaken.  The doctor could sense that she was very upset so he invited her for a drink.  And the he called her again the following week to go to an exhibition on Buddhist sculptures.

But she was a sixty year-old married woman, she couldn’t imagine going on a date.  Officially, it wasn’t a date but how could it not be?

After a few more outings she told her husband that she was in love with someone else. (more…)

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