2016 in 2017

Almost nobody releases new music in January. Many of my weekly columns this month involved me cleaning off my desk and rooting through my inbox to see what I missed.

Highly recommended: Nicolas Jaar, Débruit, Doing it in Lagos: Boogie, Pop and Disco in 1980s Nigeria

As always, these reviews originally ran in the Waterloo Record.

Streaming is great for sample purposes, but please find a way to directly support your favourite artists financially.

Doing It in Lagos: Boogie, Pop and Disco in 1980s Nigeria – Various Artists (Soundway)

In the past decade, we’ve seen enough compilations of ’70s West African Afrobeat to safely assume that that well has run dry. Hell, just before his death this month at the age of 70, even the elusive William Onyeabor emerged from hiding (and would likely not approve of the use of the word “hell”). The always-reliable Soundway Records, which is the rare label to have invested in modern acts while still scouring the globe for lost gems, now shifts its focus to the 1980s, from which they now present this stunning new Nigerian collection.

On Soundway’s website and in the liner notes by Uchenna Ikonne, this material is presented almost apologetically, as if the great legacy of Fela Kuti and Afrobeat was somehow tarnished once Nigerian musicians embraced the cultural steamroller that was disco. “It’s perhaps not for the purists who think they know what African music should sound like,” warns the Soundway website.

Poppycock. Yes, the influences of Chic, Cameo, Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind and Fire, New York hip-hop and Washington go-go are all more than evident here, in a hybrid style that Ikonne tells us was simply called “boogie.” It’s no less original than the way the previous generation had refracted the sound of Stax soul, James Brown, Sly Stone and other American greats. As happens around the world all the time—just as Jamaican ska was born as an ersatz take on New Orleans R&B—it’s the local transformation of an external influence that results in something greater. One of the only analogues from this side of the pond would be Talking Heads’ Remain in Light: a record, of course, heavily influenced by Fela Kuti. Here, Mike Umoh’s “Shake Your Body” wouldn’t sound out of place smack dab in the middle of Stop Making Sense. 

This is disco and electro like you’ve never heard it before, taking the intricacy and skill and precision required to play the polyrhythms of Afrobeat and applying that to Western club music of the day. That’s not to suggest that a subgenre like go-go is more simplistic—far from it—simply that it’s much different than what we hear here. If, now or then, there was to be any concern about watering down an Indigenous sound in service to Western norms, there’s no question from whence this music came. In the words of Odion Iruoje, one on the best tracks here, “Which one you de? You’re still an African.” (Jan. 19)

Stream: “Fellas Doing It in Lagos” by Hotline; “Don’t Give Up” by Willy Roy; “Identify With Your Root” by Odion Iruoje

Bremer/McCoy – Forsvinder (Raske Plader)

This young Danish duo—25-year-old bassist Jonathan Bremer and 24-year-old pianist Morten McCoy—are not hot young firebrands eager to show off. On the contrary, their third album displays delicacy and restraint, a minimalist approach that invites the listener to lean in. McCoy started his career at 13 in a popular Danish ska band (perhaps the only time I’ll ever type that phrase); Bremer has a side project in a surf band. Here, they take their time: melodies are rarely hurried, while Bremer’s bass dances lightly underneath. Forsvinder is a hypnotic record, never more so than when McCoy’s electric piano gets lost languid quarter notes that linger in delay loops on “Cirklen.” (Jan. 19)

Stream: “I Eet,” “Ny Begyndelse” “Cirklen”

Communism – Get Down Get Together (Zunior)

For the past 25 years, Don Kerr has been one of the busiest musicians in Toronto: as a producer, engineer and drummer. Rarely, however, has he taken the lead role, outside a rare turn on the mic from behind his drum kit with the Rheostatics, or on a ukulele duo album with Ron Sexsmith. Here, he fronts his own power pop band—again, from behind the kit—with guitar wizard Paul Linklater (Bidiniband) and bassist Kevin Lacroix (Sexsmith, Selina Martin). All three men are nimble multitaskers and harmony singers, so even the sunniest, straightforward pop song twists and turns with prog touches. The ahistorical naivete of the problematic band name is redeemed somewhat by the earnest positivity and critical thought that these middle-aged dads and Bernie Sanders supporters bring to their songs. It’s their combined musical chops, however, that push this project far beyond a novelty name. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “Take Care of Each Other,” “Forgiveness,” “Crapitalism”

Débruit – Débruit & Istanbul (Ici)

Gaye Su Akyol – Hologram Imparatorlugu (Glitterbeat)

We could use some good news out of Turkey right about now, for a variety of reasons, but especially after the New Year’s Eve massacre at an Istanbul nightclub.

French/Belgian producer Débruit, a.k.a. Xavier Thomas, went there in 2015 to collaborate with six local artists and to soak up the local flavour. He sought out elders like Okay Temiz, a jazz guitarist, and Roma clarinetist Cüneyt Sepetçi, as well as newer artists like singer Gaye Su Akyol and guitarist Murat Ertel, from alternative band BaBa ZuLa. Débruit is a synth player whose interest in funk, dub and African rhythms makes it easy for him to adapt to the cross-cultural pollination that has made Turkey such an important bridge between cultures for centuries. Not that he’s interested in merely throwing local sounds and players on top of dance tracks; though every track is deeply rhythmic, they’re just as likely to be intended for the cinema as they are a disco. On the tracks where he does not employ collaborators, his melodies and rhythms are obviously drawn from his new surroundings without ever sounding slavish to antiquated ideas of the local folk music.

On her own record, Gaye Su Akol roots herself in traditional-sounding melodies but is backed by a modern rock band who excel in hypnotic, mid-tempo grooves, the lead guitar and violin harmonizing leads while the oud provides an insistent rhythm over the bass and drums. Everything, of course, is in a minor key, which makes the album sound even more mournful, considering the current situation—and yet simultaneously strong and defiant. (Jan. 12)

Stream Débruit: “Kaçiyorum” (feat. Gaye Su Akyol), “Duman” (feat. Murat Ertel), “Çevreler”

Stream Gaye Su Akol: “Akil olmayinca,” “Nargile,” “Berdus”

Escondido – Walking with a Stranger (Kill Canyon/Cadence)

When you read about the new Nashville, the generation of artists setting up shop in the legendary music mecca who don’t necessarily adhere to country music orthodoxy, the type represented in the younger musicians on the fictional TV show Nashville, this is the kind of band that comes to mind. Escondido is a male-female duo who make dreamy, hazy, country-tinged music with twang that would be just as at home in the California desert (where they split their time). David Lynch is a huge fan, and listening to this evocative, cinematic music, it’s not hard to figure out why. Escondido sound like a less lethargic Mazzy Starr, a rootsier Beach House, and are one of the most underrated Americana acts of 2016. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “Footprints,” “Apartment,” “Try”

Future Peers – s/t (Phi Ro Sigma)

Rock bands who claim to be influenced by electronic music are usually po-faced Radiohead disciples, determined to evaporate the visceral joy of loud guitars. That’s not the case with Toronto’s Future Peers, who employ glitchy sounds, odd synth patches and vocoders in their peppy pop songs propelled by live drums and ragged guitar riffs. Produced by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes), and recorded during a five-month sojourn in L.A., Future Peers’ debut picks up the since-fizzled promise of mid-2000s indie rock and carries it to—well, the future. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “Better Love Lost,” “Time Went Away,” “F--k Noises”

Gringo Star – The Sides and In Between (Nevado)

Yes, worst band name ever. But this Atlanta four-piece rock band (signed to Canadian label Nevado, home to the Wooden Sky, Jordan Klassen, and who launched Bahamas’ career) are a refreshing rock’n’roll revival act equally at home with ’60s psychedelic garage pop and ’90s indie rock and alt-country. They’re obviously a seasoned live act, based on their instrumental skill and chemistry together, and they have songs that echo the rowdier side of early Wilco and the snarl of prime Pavement, with some of the twee glee of the Elephant 6 bands. There’s much here that’s reminiscent of the debut by Foxygen a few years back, before that band went well off the rails; it sounds like there’s no danger of that ever happening to Gringo Star. (Jan. 12)

Stream: “Rotten,” “Get Closer,” “Heading South”

Nicolas Jaar – Sirens (Other People)

This 26-year-old Chilean-American electronic musician was last heard as one half of the psychedelic electronic rock duo Darkside; here, on his second solo full-length, Jaar reveals more layers of his sonic personality: singing in Spanish, exploring ambient drone, performing incredibly sparse pop songs that recall late-period Talk Talk, making hazy electronic cumbia, writing a ’50s-style 6/8 ballad sung in falsetto, paying tribute to the band Suicide in ways Radiohead would surely appreciate, or placing post-punk bass lines over ’90s jungle breaks with a bass clarinet in the mix just for kicks. Had I heard this when it came out in September—always a busy time for major releases—it would surely have found a spot on my best-of-2016 list. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “The Governor,” “Three Sides of Nazareth,” “No”

Jadea Kelly – Love & Lust (Fontana North)

Kelly has toured with neo-roots duo Whitehorse and sung with metal band Protest the Hero (from her hometown of Whitby, Ont.), but on her own she creates the kind of deceptively soft pop at which Sarah McLachlan once excelled: languid enough to lull you with its beauty, but with a bite underneath the portrays the artist as anything but a pushover. Kelly’s third album finds her writing her way through heartbreak and deception: “Mariah” is a swipe at a lover’s mistress; “Paper Thin Heart” is particularly devastating. She has some top-notch help here: drummer Gary Craig (Blackie and the Rodeo Kings), keyboardist Jason Sniderman (Blue Peter), backing vocals from Bahamas’ Afie Jurvanen, string arrangements by Jesse Zubot (Tagaq), and bass by Run With the Kittens’ Nigel Hebblewhite. There’s a reason that level of talent wants to work with Kelly, who splits her time between Toronto and Nashville—a town where she no doubt feels right at home. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “On the Water,” “Can’t Outrun,” “Good Girl”

Lowlands – Erie (Chelsea)

Formed in Toronto as buskers in 2010, this group relocated to Guelph and easily found a home for their sparse take on modern roots music; Erie is their third album, released late last fall, showcasing the high lonesome lead vocals of banjo player Gordon Auld, who has more than a bit of early My Morning Jacket in him. Pedal steel player Matt Monoogian provides welcome texture, augmenting the electric guitar of co-songwriter Abrahm Del Bel Belluz. Producer Gavin Gardiner of the Wooden Sky clearly sees kindred spirits in this band; he also put out this record on his band’s own label. (Jan. 5)

Stream: “Broken Man (Black Mask III),” “In the Cold,” “Wind Blows Back”

Supermoon – Playland (Mint)

Not sure what it is about Vancouver that always inspires a certain fetish for early ’80s British indie pop in the wake of Joy Division, the band The Organ being the prime example in the mid-2000s. But here comes another generation of rainy-day women in the form of Supermoon, whose lilting, melodic guitar lines are stronger than the lead vocals, the rhythm section quiet but insistent. All songs are under three minutes long; they know not to overstay their welcome. This digital album (also available as a double-seven-inch single) is a promising start; Supermoon is still waxing, you might say. (Jan. 19)

Stream: “Night Division,” “If You Say So,” “Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves”

Northern Wishes: Rheostatics p4

Final excerpt from Have Not Been the Same today, to mark the eve of the penultimate Rheostatics show tonight at the Horseshoe. Who's the ultra-secret opening act? Full report tomorrow.
For Dave Bidini's perspective on the impending break-up, look here. For parts one through three, look no further. For an excellent and thoughtful obituary, check out Howard Druckman's fine piece of writing in Eye Weekly here. I couldn't have said it better myself. Even more illuminating are comments from Laura Barrett, Feist, and others here.



After the release of Introducing Happiness in 1994, Dave Clark became increasingly disenchanted with the band’s state of affairs. “We ended up getting stuck in business, which is the worst place for any band to be,” he says. “I’m the type of person who doesn’t deal well with an overload of negativity. We would go out and have these incredibly ecstatic live shows, with everything from the deepest angst from the darkest pits of our being, to the brightest, happiest times. Certain people started to feel the pressure of commercial aspirations. We were working hard, had girlfriends and were trying to get a life. At the same time, spending that much time with the same four people locked us into a pattern of socializing, so everything was a little bigger than it could have been.”

Things came to a head while the band was touring in the UK in the fall of 1994. “You could see that people were getting tired,” says Clark. “We’d get to a gig and all people would do was complain about their gear. I thought, ‘Fuck, a year ago we were playing on gear that we were hammering together.’ For me it was becoming less about the music and more about everything around it. The joy of it just left me. I enjoyed the people – Dave, Tim and Martin were fun and really nice guys. Martin in particular is hilarious; no matter how much angst was going on between us, he was always very funny and is to this day. But I knew I had to quit and I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because it would be quitting something that had been such a huge part of my life.”

Looking back, Vesely says of Clark, “He thought we were more industry-oriented than we actually were. His interest had gone further and further away from keeping within the mainstream. It might have appeared that that’s what we were doing, because people would latch onto the song ‘Claire,’ even though we were doing all this other stuff. He was reacting against that more than he should have. We definitely weren’t as far apart as he thought we were – or we thought he was.”

In October, 1994, the Rheostatics played two fateful gigs at the Zaphod Beeblebrox club in Ottawa, with Dinner is Ruined opening the show. “They set up all this wacky gear,” says Clark, “and I hung out with them because it was exciting to hang out with different people. They were really eccentric guys.” With a hint of disdain, Clark continues, ‘This was just after that single ‘Claire’ on the charts, and we started to get more of a collegiate audience. It was different; we were getting more guys [in the audience], I don’t know why. [Dinner is Ruined] played, and people felt threatened and wanted to beat them up. Of course, they weren’t afraid at all. I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is great!’”

“All hell broke loose,” says Morningstar. “That was the phase of DIR where we just brought all sorts of shit on stage and tried to make as much racket as we could and keep it going. It was a college drinking crowd, and they were booing us. Dr. Pee ran out into the crowd along the stand-up bar with a microphone, looking for whoever was booing us. I found some movie poster, and I hurled it into the crowd and it hit some gal in the head. This guy came up to me and tried to start a fist fight with me while I’m on stage, and I was like, ‘Hey, fuck you!’ It was pandemonium, fucking lunacy. Clark was just snapping pictures. The next night was all-ages, and these kids were totally into it.”

Morningstar continues, “But after the first night, Pee and I went to a party somewhere in Ottawa and then left to go back to our hotel room. This was Ottawa, it was October, and it was freezing out and Pee had the window rolled down. I told him, ‘John, roll the window up.’ He just said, ‘Michael Stipe.’ Because Michael Stipe always has to travel in his own van so he can have the window down, apparently. I said, ‘Fuck off, Michael Stipe, you’re not Michael Stipe, roll up the window.’ I pulled the van over and said, ‘Look man, it’s fucking cold, have some decency and roll the window up! I’m giving you to ten, either roll the window up or get out!’ He got out and said, ‘Alright, fuck it.’ We were miles away from where we were supposed to be, and I said, ‘John, ten count. Here we go… bye!’ I drove off to our buddy’s house, and didn’t hear from John. The next night at soundcheck, the Rheos were asking, ‘Where’s Dr. Pee?’ ‘I don’t know, left him by the side of the road.’ He showed up. He had slept in a parking lot garage. He ran into some prostitute and her john, who woke him up and turned him on to some hash. The Rheos were like, ‘What? You guys did what?’

“Later that night, while we’re playing on stage, halfway into our set, I heard this drum. I turned around and there’s Dave Clark playing his drum kit on stage with us. Clark’s been a part of every gig ever since. He told me he was hearing voices on stage that night telling him, ‘This is your part. You belong in this. This is part of your future.’”

“After that I was a big fan,” says Clark. “They had freedom and a real spirit. It wasn’t cerebral. It wasn’t from the head down; it started at the crotch. I started going out on gigs with them, and they didn’t even ask me to learn any music.”

Clark’s last gig with the band was playing “Claire” on Rita McNeil’s CBC-TV variety show. After that, they held a band meeting. Says Vesely, “We sat down eventually when his days were up and he was ready to quit and we were ready to tell him to quit. He came up with this ultimatum list of all these points. At the time, we thought, wow, you can’t bring an ultimatum to the band and say ‘this is what we should be doing.’ So we said, ‘Yeah, maybe you should look for something else.’”

Clark says, “When I was leaving the band, I said, ‘This is the way I’d stay in the band: if we had Kevin Hearn join the band; change our management; and start paying ourselves so we can live’ – and a bunch of other things that subsequently happened, but I didn’t have the patience to stick around.” Vesely concurs: “A couple of years down the road we ended up being at all those points, which is a bit unfortunate. Maybe that’s what it took.”

Immediately after his departure, Clark booked a gig at Ultrasound with Lewis Melville, Kevin Hearn, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir guitarist Andrew Whiteman, and Rheostatics guitar tech Tim Mech. He dubbed it The Woodchoppers Association, and it was completely improvisational, free-form music, which continues today with an ever-revolving cast of characters.

Clark and the other members of the Rheostatics had an acrimonious relationship for years, and they didn’t bury the hatchet until the band’s 20th anniversary shows in March, 2000 at Ted’s Wrecking Yard in Toronto. Dinner is Ruined opened two shows, and at the end of the second show, Clark sat in with the band for the song “People’s Republic of Dave.” “It was nice to see the guys,” says Clark. “It tied a bowtie on something that will be looked at as a beautiful and wonderful time. I strongly reiterate: the time that stuff was going down, when I wasn’t enjoying it, was very, very small compared to the other 99 percent of it that was fantastic. The band was magic. I’ve since had that magic with other bands and other people.”

After Dave Clark’s departure, the Rheostatics were determined to continue. Introducing Happiness had only been out for four months, and “Claire” had just won a Genie award for best original song. After a month, they started to get antsy and decided to move on. Their first call was to Don Kerr. “I saw the name Rheostatics everywhere, all my life,” says Kerr, “but I never saw them until two years before I joined the band, when they walked into the studio.” Kerr had never heard Whale Music before, and the first time he saw them play was at a benefit gig at Sneaky Dee’s, where Kerr was accompanying cellist Anne Bourne.

Kerr got the call to join in February, 1995, and the first song he played at his first Rheostatics practice was “A Midwinter’s Night Dream,” a Tielli song that would appear on Blue Hysteria. Their first gig together was an unannounced shot opening for London, Ontario smart-rock band Adam West at the Horseshoe. The second was in Calgary, kicking off a western tour. The band took on much more of a rock edge right away, with a faster version of “Saskatchewan” and a more straightforward, riff-rock approach to “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson,” from Introducing Happiness. The latter was released as a 7” single, marking Kerr’s first recorded Rheostatics appearance.

Because Dave Clark was such an integral part of the band’s sound, the difference was jarring at first. “I loved Dave Clark,” gushes Yvonne Matsell. “I adore Don as a person, and he’s wonderful as a musician. But that was really hard for me to deal with, hearing Don play the first couple of times. All their material is in my head, because sometimes they’d come in [to Ultrasound] and rehearse for hours at a time. I remember waiting to hear Dave’s fills, and it was throwing me off. But now, he’s been a great choice.” Kerr knew that he had an uphill battle for the fans’ acceptance. “At first there were some drummer fans who said, ‘I could play those parts better than that guy,’” says Kerr. “But most fans knew that it was a different thing.”

The band’s next project was a commission, like the Whale Music soundtrack. This time, the National Gallery in Ottawa wanted the band to compose music to celebrate a retrospective of paintings by the Group of Seven. The band would debut the music live at the Gallery. To pull it off, they enlisted the help of Look People keyboardist Kevin Hearn to help them with the composition and performance.

“We just scraped it together,” says Kerr about the initial performance. “We had never even run through the whole thing. We thought we’d have the day to rehearse it at the sight, but we got there and the P.A. was still in the truck. The only time we did the whole thing was in front of the audience. It was amazing to turn around and look at the visuals.” The multi-media show was accompanied by projections of film and slides thematically linked to Group of Seven work.

When it was over, they decided to work on the music a bit more and commit it to disc, which they did in the space of two weeks. They would perform it live on two other occasions, this time with Bob Wiseman filling in for Kevin Hearn, when the exhibition travelled to Toronto and Vancouver. “It made me think that the sky’s the limit,” says Bidini. “The fact that if that project became a reality, created its own momentum and had a life of its own, then anything’s possible. I didn’t think we’d be able to pull it together, that people would like it and that it would be an important part of our career, but it has.”

The time had now come to focus on a new album of songs, The Blue Hysteria, which again marked a few changes for the band. They had been dropped by Sire in 1995 due to “corporate ennui,” says Bidini. Not only was Blue Hysteria the first “real” album with Kerr, but it was the first time since Melville they decided not to work with Wojewoda. The songwriting and arrangements were also quite a departure.

“When we went to the Gas Station and started recording,” says Bidini, “we all thought we were going to record live and be a bit more rock. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t want to work with [Wojewoda], because we wanted it to sound more like four guys playing together. There were some things we wanted to try. I thought editing ourselves would be a problem on Blue Hysteria, but it wasn’t really. To me, Introducing Happiness sounds more self-indulgent, but not in a bad way.”

“When I joined the Rheos,” says Kerr, “everyone was like: ‘Yeah! We can play some straight-ahead rock now, and no one’s going to turn the beat around on us!’ I was having fun; I like to play more groove-oriented than Dave Clark sometimes. But everyone was unleashing these rock songs, and I don’t like rock music at all. I like something to be straight ahead, but grooving and soulful, like the Bourbons. It was like everyone was getting their ya-yas out after Clark was gone. There are some dumb heavy metal approaches. ‘Bad Time to Be Poor’ is a good song. Everyone just wanted to plow, and I’m thinking, ‘Hey, I like to do the weird shit too!’ But that was just a phase.”

There was some interest from other major labels for Blue Hysteria, but the band decided that they were better off charting the waters themselves – especially with a raw, warts-and-all rock record. “[Major labels] never know what to do with any of our records,” says Bidini. “There’s no ‘Claire’ on [Blue Hysteria], that’s for sure. But then again, there was ‘Claire’ on the last one, and it didn’t really matter.”

Through some twist of fate the Rheostatics landed their second hit single with another Vesely composition, “Bad Time to Be Poor,” a pointed swipe at the individualistic turn in Ontarian society following the election of an arch-conservative provincial government: “It is a bad time to be poor/ ‘cause we don’t give a shit no more/ if you want to go for help don’t look next door/ the line’s been drawn and staked outside.” That climate also seeps into Bidini’s “Feed Yourself,” a homicidal tale that details a girl’s gruesome murder and the urban paranoiac witch hunt that follows.

Otherwise, Blue Hysteria falls short at a time when they were poised to capitalize on increased awareness of the band. As a first impression for new fans, The Blue Hysteria does not suggest the rich history of the band nor their continuing potential. The two best songs – “Feed Yourself” and Tielli’s “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” – were bettered on the band’s 1997 Double Live album. Oddly enough, the album’s most enduring performance is a goofy ode to The Who’s “A Quick One” entitled “Four Little Songs,” a live favourite consisting of four linked vignettes sung by each band member.

Upon the album’s release, the Rheos were chosen to open for The Tragically Hip on a 30-date cross-country arena tour in November, 1996. It was an experience Bidini would later detail in his 1998 book On a Cold Road, where it would take on mythological meaning, and rightfully so – it was a nod of approval from the country’s biggest rock band, one that would expose the band to hundreds of thousands of new fans.

The Rheostatics had played with the Hip before, both on multi-band festivals: Canada Day 1994 at Molson Park in Barrie, and in 1995 on the Another Roadside Attraction tour. Both incidences had them on in the middle of the day, and this time they were the opening act. That tour undoubtedly brought them plenty of attention, new fans, and for Bidini, the opportunity to eloquently write his way into the CanRock pantheon. The members of The Hip would sing the band’s praises in many interviews, and on stage Gord Downie would sing excerpts of Blue Hysteria material in the middle of Hip songs.

Not only did it give the band short-term publicity, but a permanent place in Hip mythology. On their live album Live Between Us, recorded at the tour’s Detroit stop, Downie opens the show – and the album – by saying, over the beginning of “Grace Too,” “This is for the Rheostatics – we are all richer for having seen them tonight.” Says Tielli, “I was up in the rafters when he was saying that. I was up on the catwalk, 200 feet above the audience. I was shaking in my boots, mortified and grateful as hell.”

Earlier that evening during The Hip’s soundcheck, Bidini was interviewed and modestly downplayed the importance of the tour. “It’s going as well as can be expected,” he said. “We’re all a little sick of doing short sets and the same kind of response night after night. It’s a little hard to keep playing just for yourself, because that’s all you can really take back from it, but it sounds really good. We played in Vancouver, and the best night was the second night of the tour. As soon as we came out on stage, a big 350-lb guy in a Team Canada sweater, got out of his seat, stood at the top of the stage and started waving his fists in the air before we’d even played a note. He was our audience, and it was great.”

Reflecting for a minute, Bidini continued, “I thought about what [this tour] would be like with Dave Clark. His whole thing was to really take things to the extreme, and he would have relished this scenario. We’re playing it pretty straight. Then again, compared to the Hip, we probably sound like the Local Rabbits: we’re moving around, going crazy, trying funny things, playing weird, goofy music. We feel like we won some kind of lottery.”

Don Kerr recalls, “We were basically musical ushers as people were finding their seats. We just went for it. We wanted to be ourselves. There was none of that thing: ‘We gotta scale it down, play the same songs every night and hit them with the most impact.’ Although we felt that way a bit at Maple Leaf Gardens. It was Toronto, and we wanted to be tight and exciting. That was an unbelievable thrill, playing two nights at Maple Leaf Gardens. The second night I rode my bike there.”

Those two gigs closed the tour, and ended a productive 18-month period that saw the Rheostatics redefine who they were, setting a template for the five years to follow. Kerr was now juggling commitments with Ron Sexsmith, his old friend who began touring the world in 1995 on the heels of an international recording contract. In 1998, he’d enlist Vesely into Sexsmith’s band, which ensured that the Rheostatics became more of a part-time band that focused on specific projects and limited touring. They released the comprehensive Double Live album, a session recorded for the final night of David Wisdom’s Night Lines program, and a kaleidoscopic children’s album—The Story of Harmelodia— produced by Wojewoda that picked up where the sonic experiments of Introducing Happiness left off. In November, 2000, they entered the Gas Station with producer Ian Blurton to start recording their first “real,” non-project album since The Blue Hysteria. [This would be 2001's Night of the Shooting Stars, the best of the late period albums.]

On that night in 1997 at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Bidini mused about the band’s future. “I was thinking about ways to take our music to another level,” he said. “It all starts by sitting down with the guitar and a crazy idea and seeing how far you can take it. It’s the same process whether you’re writing your first song or your thousandth. We’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before – by us, and by other band’s standards, too.”

-end-