SOUNDTRACK: BIDINIBAND-The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (December 5, 2012).
The Rheostatics were originally supposed to play 3 Reunion concerts to help celebrate the 65th Anniversary of The Horseshoe Tavern. Unfortunately the concerts got cancelled but Dave stepped in and offered up a free show on Wednesday December 5 2012, what was to be the first of the reunion shows. The show started out with Dave Clark’s Woodshed Orchestra and was followed by Bidiniband. The Bidiniband set was a mix of Bidiniband songs as well as a variety of Rheostatics songs featuring guests such as Dave Clark, The Woodshed Orchestra, Tim Vesely, Noah Campbell, Tim Sweeney, Matt Cowley, Selina Martin, Al and Colin of Jazzberry Ram.
Dave opens the set by wishing: “Happy birthday Horseshoe, 65 years old tonight.”
The set opens with two “new” songs. Bidiniband’s album came out in 2012, but they have been playing most of these songs for years. This is the first show on RheostaticsLive that includes “In The Rock Hall / Rock and Roll Heaven.” “In the Rock Hall” is a fun singalong. And “Rock and Roll Heaven” is a fairly vulgar song about groupies and whatnot.
“Big Men” is even catchier than before and the band sounds great. They play a lengthy version of “Fat” which segues into a slow, fairly traditional version of “The List.” This List ends with… “It’s true… fuck you.”
“We’re going to do a song and then we’re going to have Selina Martin come up and do the exact same song. “Ladies of Montreal” is my most openly sexist song. Not really.” Indeed, after finishing the song they play it once more, this time with Selina Martin singing the lyrics in French!
It segues into a stripped down version of Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio,” which is a very different,loose take on the song. At the end someone asks, “Can you do that one in French?”
This is the first time (on the site) they’ve played “On Camoragh Lake.” There’s a lot of cursing in this song.
Dave asks, “should we go song guest song guest?” Someone says, “Totally man it’s a lot of fun. It’s fun to see a lot of Rheostatics shirts too.” Is Tim Sweeney here? He comes up, “thank god I’m not following Selena Martin. The closest thing to church for me was going to a Rheostatics show, so this feels weirdly like impersonating clergy.” He sings “Ozzy Osbourne.” It seems shaky with the first notes, but he does a great job with the main part of the song.
We’d like to get the Woodchoppers up for this one, if possible. They blow through the really “Take a Wild Ride” and then Dave says, “Lets go to E!” and they segue into “Legal Age Life” with a nice big horn section.
Dave says: We all wish Martin Tielli was here big time, but he’s in Ancaster. We’re thinking of him (yea, he’s the best). There was a really important Knight Rider episode he had to watch. He’s got a really nice TV room, I can’t blame him. 60 channels…. Sausages on the barbecue. Don: Is that one of the channels? Dave: “Nice one, Don.” This next song features Don Kerr. It’s called “Guns.” [some chuckling as it’s a poem written by Dave Clark]. They play “Last of the Dead Wrong Things which opens slowly with great guitar work and backing vocals. And the drums are tremendous. Near the end he shifts the song to “Making Plans for Nigel,” but this time the band sings along with the chorus.
Dave says he brought some stuff from his basement to sell–some old Rheos discs, Whale Music on vinyl and one Five Hole Stories CD (CD?)
Dave calls for Tim Vesely the Slovak Slayer (they don’t call him that). “Tim’s got his electric rock guitar (someone shouts “Palomar”) “Its Tim Vesely of the Rheostatics and The Violet Archers (or The Violent Archers as I like to say). Tim: “I don’t need any bass for these songs.” Dave: “It’s overrated. Only 4 strings, how hard can it be?”
It’s nice to hear “Claire” and to have Tim back. There’s a good solo from Paul and then he says, “We’ll do one more Rheostatics cover for you,” and they play “Bad Time to Be Poor.” Which he introduces as “This song is for Tim Hudak [a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2016 who represented the ridings of Niagara South, Erie—Lincoln, and Niagara West—Glanbrook.]
“All Hail Canada” is new to the shows–it’s a cynical look at Canadian politics.
Then: “Do the guys from Victoria want to come up and sing now? Come on it’ll be fun. Jazzberry Ram, the nerds from Vancouver. They do a great version of “Quuer” and put their own spin on it. After the song, Dave says, Do yo mind if Matt joins us? He’s okay, really.” Matt Cowley comes up to sing a gleeful “My First Rock Concert.”
Dave takes a moment:
I meant to say something profound about this night but I’m lost because we’re in the soup of this experience. He says he has been writing in cafes (cause I’m from Toronto, so I’m cool I write in cafes. He’s listen to music and Rheostatics would come up on YouTube. He’d enjoy the songs and marvel at the parts they played. Then he would listen more and he would cry and wonder… maybe we should try to play again. It didn’t happen, but that’s not to say it won’t ever happen as long as you never stop listening to your Rheostatics records and crying, anything is possible.
The opening of “The Land is Wild” sounds an awful lot like “Horses” the way it opens. Dave says this song existed in the Rheostatics for a couple of months but then they broke up. This version really rocks (the backing vocals are tremendous). You can hear Dave’s guitar get staticky near the end. The song segues into “Yemen” sort of, but the statics is too much and they have to stop to fix it. Dave tries to gt things going again: “Can we start off where that last song ended I think it was building to an interesting place. Or was it not?” But the static is irreparable.
“Terrible time in the night to have technical problems–during the last song.”
Dave says, “Okay folks one more. The crowd shouts: five more. 100 more! Dave: That would be impossible.
Take it into the crowd! There’s some inaudible chatter and laughter but I think save heads out into the crowd with the guitar to play Stolen Car. Not sure who is singing–but he’s a bit off on things. At one pint he says, “my son told me I’d fuck up.” Dave: “you fucked up good though.”
Doug–says “I grew up listening to that shit.” He then talks about a dream: he was trying to play Take 5 but the strings were all mushy (The band plays a bit of “Take Five.” Then Dave talks about a dream he had about shows that never happened. They did play shows where nobody showed up.
Tim’s my favorite was in Winnipeg or Alberta, a university pub gig “1/2 price wings plus live music.” There was nobody there yet there was set list from the band that played the night before. We took it and went song by song off the list and made up songs on the spot. I think it was B-52s in Winnipeg a lunch hour gig named not after the band or even the plane.
Audience: “How were the wings?” “Half Price.”
We played in Red Deer to two guys who had just come back from putting out fires in Kuwait and a sound man who put his headphones into the TV to listen to The Cosby Show–it was an important episode. Don: But we got a good bag of weed out of it. Dave: In red deer at Mortimer’s in the Capri Hotel. The Shell sign with the s burnt out. We should have known… that’s rock n roll.
bzzzt “I don’t think it’s the cable” “Put a mike on it!” “That’s why we need a professional studio engineer. Don’s side career is that he runs the Rooster Recording studio!
“Horses” sounds great. Everyone is into it and the addition of horns at the end is great with someone singing along with the horns: bup bup bup. And then it rocks to the end. Despite the cable, it’s a great set with super guests. Not bad a for a free night.
[READ: April 13, 2017] Sweet Tooth: Wild Game
“Wild Game” is the concluding book in the Sweet Tooth story. And it remains as dark as anything.
It also begins, like Endangered Species, with a storytelling section–the book turned sideways with a lot of text. It catches us up on what happened in a succinct style. How the environmentalists were able to return to the dam, how they invited our heroes to stay (Johnny and Bobby accepted–Bobby needs to hibernate after all) but the rest decide to head to Alaska, to their destiny.
Their crew is now Jepperd, The Fat Man (the guy they met out in the woods), Wendy, Gus and Becky. Lucy is now dead and Dr Singh fled to get to Alaska on his own (he had an epiphany that may have sent him over the edge–he seems to think he might be a preacher, or even a savior).
When they finally arrive in Alaska, sadly Abbot and his team are waiting for them. And Abbot is especially angry at his brother. Which leads to a flashback provided by Nate Powell. It shows Abbot and Johnny as children with their abusive father and how Abbot always stuck up for Johnny even when Abbot went to the military and Johnny had long hair. When the Sickness began, Johnny was taking care of his ungrateful father and Abbot was at war. He had returned–with far less hair, and far more attitude. He took Johnny away from their dad and brought him to the camp where we found them at the beginning of the story. Of curse Abbot wasn’t in charge at first but he quickly made everyone know just how powerful he was.
And just how much things have changed.
Dr Singh meanwhile had been looking for information about Gus’ father. Could he rally have been a lowly janitor? While searching, he comes across Dr Thacker’s journal (I love the continuity). And he learns a fascinating but of history about Gus and his father.
While browsing through the barracks our heroes learn that there are many more hybrids living here–they are feral but not mean. In fact they are quite taken with Becky. But they are quite fearful. And they meet Dr Singh who has some pretty tough truths to impart.
But there is no time for any of that. Because Abbot and his men are coming. And Jepperd needs to get everyone prepared.
Can anyone possibly survive? Yes, some do, but several others will die in the bloody confrontation.
The final chapter of the series is outstanding, It looks very different–clearly Lemire’s work but with a starkly different, somewhat softer appearance. Gus appears to be chased by more humans. But Gus looks different somehow, And that’s when we learn that he is.
And the conceit of the last chapter is that each little segment begins This is a story. Starting like the beginning with This is a Story of a little boy who lived in the woods. And that story moves along through many years–through happiness and bloodshed. Through conflict between friends and love between enemies. And it has an incredibly touching ending.
What a great story. If you can handle the violence and gore, it is so worth it for the ending,
Lemire is a master storyteller.
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SOUNDTRACK: HANSON-Tiny Desk Concert #659 (October 16, 2017).
It should come as no surprise that Hanson has been around for 25 years. What comes as a surprise is that not only are they still together, but that they have been together all of these years and have a huge fan base.
I Just Read About That... 