Getting Hip to The Hip

This week on the show, jD, Craig, Justin, and Kirk wrap up Coke Machine Glow and pick their MVP tracks. Join us won't you?Transcript:Track 1:[0:56] Minneapolis hotel room. Here I sit, cool as a garage, writing by lightning. I don't mean lightning as a metaphor for inspiration. I mean lighting. Intermittent lightning. By lightning really turning it on. A lightning-powered hotel room. It's the most lightning I've ever seen in one room.Track 2:[1:19] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downey.Track 3:[1:28] Hey, it's J.D. here, and I'm joined, as I am every week, by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, it's Gord's solo ventures that remain uncharted for our trio. Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late Gord Downie. Come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order, embarking on our quest of discovering Downey. This is the second of two parts of our gang covering Gord's first solo record, Coke Machine Glow. If you listened to part one, we discussed the album as a whole and then got into a song by song breakdown. Down on this episode we'll pick up where we left off with a song that has to be about cottage country doesn't it well in my head it is craig why don't you kick things off with your thoughts on black flies right.Track 4:[2:31] Away what hit me was the laminar flow line because i was at that show and i'm not sure if this was something that he did all through the the roadside attraction the first tour that I saw. But the Vancouver show or the Seabird Island show in 1993, I believe.Track 4:[2:50] Um maybe 94 93 um he goes off on this rant about the laminar flow and you can actually find it online too and uh and he's talking about you know it's the flow of liquid and he's sort of talking about the crowd and the movement of the crowd and this was my first hip show we're talking i'm not sure how many thousands of people there are 20 000 this wave of people and this is like the early hip fans right this is this is roadside a partying crowd yep and it was this it was in the In the middle of nowhere. That's your first hip show? Huge. Wow. Yeah, huge. Yeah, just in the middle of a forest, really. And, you know, just like you see on the videos with, like, Canadian flags and drunk, you know, jock types. And I was quite young. I think I was 18 at the time. And not really knowing how to take gourd. Like, I loved the hip at the time. Like, I think fully completely. I'd either just come out or was about to. Loved that album. Loved, you know, the band since up to here. And at one point, and you can actually see it in this video, he starts getting angry with someone in the crowd saying, don't look at them, look at me. Like, you know, referencing, you know, the other band members. And he was obviously joking, but at the time I had no clue. He just looked, I was like, this guy really is starved for attention because not only does he sing all the songs and he's talking in between all the songs, he's talking over top of the guitar solos. And at first I didn't know how to take that. I thought it was really...Track 4:[4:15] It was really jarring for me being a musician and, and I was kind of thinking, what are the other bandmates think of this? Like he's, um, of course over the years you get to, you come to appreciate that and, and know it's just a part of the act. Right. But, but yeah, that, um, don't look at, don't look at them. Look at me.Track 4:[4:32] You have to find the clip. It's so good. It's called laminar flow. Find it on YouTube. It's so funny. My friend, I went to the show with who I still am in contact with. He would always talk about the laminar flow and I didn't remember it really. And then he, He, a few years ago, pointed out the video to me and I'm like, oh yeah, I do remember that trim. Gord had the big beard at the time. He had the almost like pajamas on. And when the pajama top came off, he had the Save the Human shirt on, which I actually saw in one of the videos for this album. So he brought the shirt back out for Coke Machine Glow. And the timing of that wouldn't have been too far removed from the Killer Whale time. Probably not, yeah. I don't remember him doing that. But again, I was young and it was craziness. It was it was a fun fun time see the bull moose checking out another drac, like sorry that was the highlight i made from from a lyrical standpoint and then you know from a musical standpoint and i think i also read about this um it's pretty prevalent where they're strumming the piano strings and they brought a mic and recorded it and just love that love that like what's that and uh they decide to bring bring bring in the bring in the mic and record the track so on to lofty pines all right let's go to lofty pines where paul langlois shows up and makes uh an appearance one of two appearances.Track 4:[5:59] On this record to provide his sublime backing vocals god damn is this guy good.Track 4:[10:46] I think it was a week or so ago, I took a trip up north. I think you guys know about. And I was driving back and it was, it was raining and which we don't get a lot of rain. We don't get a lot of anything in California other than the sun. So, you know, when it's raining out, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember listening as I was driving and buddy I was with was, you know, was, I think he was taking a nap or working on something. And I remember going, the mood, you know, my mood was, okay, I got a long drive. And, uh, there was kind of like a monotonous monotony that had been coming from song after song after song, because this is typically slower than that hip stuff, um, that, that I was used to. Um and and i know that they made a conscious effort or at least gordon made a conscious effort to keep the hip away from this right like i read as well like they didn't they didn't want to record anywhere that the hip had recorded they didn't want to use any of the gear but then paul who's right his that's his long longest friend or buddy for sure yeah yeah and then he comes in and and And he's on another tune as well, I believe, on this album.Track 4:[12:06] But you hear that, and for me, driving, I was just, I got that like, okay, thank you. Thank you for giving me a little just reconnection. I know this is Gord, but I also know that Gord is that kind of heartbeat and pulse and provides the lyrics to. And I liked having that friend along, me personally. Um and uh and i couldn't you know i couldn't get the you know twin peaks type lofty pine uh connection correlation uh going there not not that i was you know fully into the twin peaks world or whatnot but yeah so uh that's what i had for my some of my notes the the lines that are in french i was hoping for something revealing and it's literally just i was born for the heat we can't, I was hoping one of you guys would research that. I was too lazy. They, my only note for this song. Yeah. If you could see my notebooks, just better call Paul. Cause he's, um, he just is so effortless. I just picture Gord being in the studio. Like, ah, yeah, I can't quite get the sound I'm going for here. And.Track 4:[13:16] Calls up Paul and he just comes in and, you know, smoke hanging out of his mouth. He just rips off one take and that's how I, it's just so effortless. You can just tell by the, you know, he's just sang with Gord for so long, sung, sang with Gord for so long that he, he just knows what to do. I guarantee it was one take and he was done. Yeah. Again, it gave me that, uh, just, uh, the combination is something that, that, That definitely fills you up.Track 4:[13:42] When I was doing the research as well on the French part, the first thing that came up was, I want to say a province in Quebec, but it was like a lake chalet.Track 4:[13:53] So that's where I was going at first and then obviously did a little deeper and found out. No, not quite, but thought we were referencing something there at one point. Well, I mean, that could be. There's a lot of lofty pines in Quebec and a lot of lakes. So you never know. The Lofty Pine Hotel was in cottage country in Ontario until I don't even know when. Like, not that, like, pretty recently. So, to me, I hear this song and...Track 4:[14:26] It's like one of those, it sounds sticky. It sounds muggy. It's like one of those August nights in the city where, you know, it's extra hot because air conditioners are spitting out hot heat. Like the city's just got this almost dense air that you're walking through. The cool side of your pillow is sweating, you know? That's the kind of heat.Track 4:[14:50] And they're just daydreaming about getting up to the cottage. Just getting the fuck out of dodge and going to the cottage dreaming of those lofty pines i don't know that's that's sort of what i get from it so just a real quick note building on what you just said about it's so freaking hot and the spectacular part in the lyrics and there's a matchbook or whatever that falls like we needed something hotter right yes you know and here's matches you know i didn't get that but yeah totally what do you believe he's referring to in the uh i give the editor my pitch a series on the cultural wealth uh about the era of catalogs and lists i just think he's good at creating protagonists uh i think it's like a protagonist of this song um like but i but i guess i'm very literal yeah don't don't make me say hitler again no i don't i think this is i don't know literal more literal you know but he's proven to not do that so often that it seems like not likely but that's how like he's answering a question that we haven't asked you know let's go to the next track which is boy bruised by butterfly shake I really didn't have anything to say about the song for a while.Track 4:[16:14] And then I listened to it, um, actually just today. And it kind of came to me that this is.Track 4:[16:21] Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness or life and death somewhere in the middle um you know he he references someone was crying i as i lay in the dirt i could hear their hearts breaking but i wasn't even hurt so that's kind of like i'm slipping away and i don't feel anything sort of thing that's just how i interpreted the line i came across um something just by chance glancing through the cd booklet last night um and there's a little article it says bruised by a butterfly chase and it looks like um it's actually photocopied from a newspaper it says four-year-old andrew herrit holds his winnie the pooh blanket at a hospital in halifax the kentville boy survived a 20 meter fall from a cliff at blommadon provincial park while chasing butterflies during a family outing so it could be very literally about a boy down down down falling yeah exactly yeah it made so much sense when i read that so yeah there's an extra song and i didn't get to listen to it yet but is it this it's it is down down down yeah it's the same lyrics yeah yeah and i guess that makes sense the grass felt so good and there's they're talking about he didn't have shoes so that makes sense that it's a four-year-old um the day was so blue i must have tripped i don't know do i remember falling away nothing that i hold on to and not being afraid so that's when you're that young you probably don't have much.Track 4:[17:46] Memory of it as an adult and especially i would assume there's some trauma there and justin though i i.Track 4:[17:53] Mean just your your first explanation that that in between um before we.Track 4:[18:00] Heard the story like you took me there and i think musically it does as well like my notes are the guitar like you know guitar is prevalent in some of these other songs but you don't hear.Track 4:[18:12] Guitar lines and guitar melodies as much and there's some very clear guitar work going on here both acoustic and electric which you also don't really get a lot of in in these songs or you know the song is almost poppy yeah it's super radio absolutely and i thought it could be a hip song yeah yeah you know those and i guess obviously see that could be true to anything, but change up some of the instrumentation, change up some of the tempo and, and, uh, yeah, yeah, you're definitely in hip territory. Definitely hip territory. Let's go to mystery, a sonic soundscape. Yeah. And, and it really is, it starts off in, in that sonic soundscape world and then goes to the spoken word. Sorry, a bit of humor. You know, one of my favorite flicks is, so I married an ax murderer and turn off the base. It's your rollers. The soccer game is on somewhere.Track 4:[19:13] There's a soccer game. and uh being being you know the background with that i i at a loss in the sense of that that journey that gourd's going through and and doing some research and finding you know with with the book of poetry that came out uh that he was you know it was not received from the poetry world as it were um and yeah it was yeah they they it was not received from a it's like oh this is just you know and they made the joke of oh yeah what what are you going to do give bob dylan a a pulitzer or uh you know uh it it's just it's that being someone that's written songs before and and And I can't say that I've written poetry, but it's very much frowned upon to have, you know, they said, you know, Jim Morrison killed that. So why is anybody else doing it? And so then the counter argument goes.Track 4:[20:17] Well, yeah, it sells well because of who Gord is and what he does and how he moves people. And then what came afterwards was, yeah, in the libraries and in the bookstores, there was a lot more people in the poetry section than had ever been there before. So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to be completely inclusive or exclusive? And does the inclusivity then start damaging the art? I'm of the belief and the ilk that you need people to dive into both lyrics, dive into poetry, dive into the spoken word side. So, yeah, sorry, I digress. And this is just coming off the song Poets on Phantom Power, which in live shows, he's sort of, don't tell me what the poets are doing. I don't want to know. I don't care about the poets. Or it could be perceived that way, whether he meant that or not.Track 4:[21:21] I know from a musical standpoint, this song gave me vibes of, of the rain song by Led Zeppelin. And I know it sounds nothing like it, but if you listen, and it took me a while to figure out what it was, but if you listen to the bass notes, he's playing really high in the register and it just gives that cascading feel of, of the rain song. And, um, yeah. And, and near the end too, he's playing up the neck on the bass and it's just some really nice playing. Yeah, I have avant-garde. I would imagine that the Dinner is Ruined gang had a heavy influence on this. Yeah, and this is the other Adam McGaughan track as well. So that guitar you hear, the little classical guitar, that's McGaughan. Ah, cool. Sorry, help me understand, not being as familiar outside of in the research, does he hold a special place in a Canadian heart?Track 4:[22:14] Um adam mcgoyne he was a filmmaker i i can't say i'm an expert on him but he's um he had a movie called the sweet hereafter which was very well received i believe it won awards and actually i believe uh didn't sarah harmer sing i think a version of courage on the soundtrack sarah polly sarah polly right right yes yeah well i'll have to do a little more research and check some of that that out justin were you familiar at all only from reading the never-ending present book had i had i heard the name no anything else on mystery uh only that the the phantom power outtake version is so drastically different and also equally amazing it is so yes the one on phantom power is so dark and so so moody and i have here a note that it's almost like a more depressing version of landslide by fleetwood mac it's just haunting oh yeah yeah yes like i mean they're wildly different but so funny they share the same dna ultimately what's i think what's funny is that the version that's on the phantom power re-release would have been recorded two years before this so this is reimagining this is part two yeah it makes you wonder is it just that he really loved the words and he you know the track got cut for whatever reason just didn't fit in maybe with the album and he it was something he really wanted to put out there and And, you know, I'm glad he did. I love both versions.Track 4:[23:43] Okay, next up, we get a song of 3-4. It's got a country-ish little tinge to it.Track 4:[23:50] And that's Elaborate. Elaborate.Track 4:[29:10] I imagine cowboys after having driven cattle across the plains, just sitting around a fire, drinking a beer, you know, and somebody's got a guitar and then somebody works out a mandolin three minutes into the song, you know, but it's about, it's about death. It's about somebody's sick, somebody's dying, has cancer. And in the poem version in the book, the title also has a parenthetical Toronto No. 2, which Music at Work has the song Toronto No. 4, which is about Gord's grandmother dying. So there's a common thread there. I don't know. It is very much a end of the day.Track 4:[29:51] Things are happening and they may not be coming to us. Yeah, I have a tough time hearing this, knowing what we know about what happened to Gord. Like, I can't help but hear it through that filter, and it makes it difficult to listen to for me. Yeah, I had the same thing, JD. It felt to me like a song that was meant to have a little bit of, I don't want to say humor, but a bit of lightheartedness to it in a way. But then knowing what we know... What happened with Gord, it definitely changes the way you hear it. Interestingly, my head went to Now for Plan A instead of Gord's own diagnosis. And also, I'm not sure if you guys heard this at all, but again, I'm less of a lyric guy, more of a music guy. The mandolin solo comes in, a little mandolin melody, and it reminds me so much of Neil Diamond's Play Me. And I swear, if you listen to it, you'll know what I mean. It's so funny. It doesn't quite go in the same place, but it's very close. Yeah. Great tune. And at the end, they're kind of going on for a while. And then Gord kind of clears his throat, like as if to say, come on, wrap it up, boys. I have that in my notes. So JD, if we're going on too long, just clear your throat and we'll know it's time to wrap up. No, not at all.Track 4:[31:11] One thing that I picked up on, which is a timestamp on this album, is Gord mentions cell phone. And a lot of bands in the late 90s, early 2000s for just like a three or four year period mentioned cell phones because that's when they came out. We didn't have cell phones before 98, 99. And if we did, they were in a bag that weighed 30 pounds. So I thought it was interesting that cell phone was topical for their 2000s. It's a country song. You said it. It's a country tune. That's my first note is country tune. And then you hear the guitar tremolo, that ringing, that just doing single notes and it's just ringing. And then the mandolin. But yeah, you're talking about modern topics on a cowboy song, on a country tune. There's also a great live version of this I found. It's the black and white. It's like a full concert that someone's put on YouTube. There's this pretty epic Gord rant on it. And he's talking about stem cell research and the Pope. And it's worth a watch for sure.Track 4:[32:18] And he actually, and he dedicates the song to Dave Bedini, which I found interesting from Reostatics. He's still alive. So I don't, I don't know why he just says, you know, the songs for, for Dave. I wonder if he went through a battle with a family member. Yeah. Possibly maybe, maybe a mutual acquaintance or yeah. Who knows? The beauty of the beauty of where, where we're being taken on this, this particular album is, is pretty incredible yeah and then you go into frigging a polka right with you're possessed.Track 4:[32:52] Yeah yeah i did not expect that coming i'm just like you're hearing all these songs that are very kind of melancholy yeah you know outside of canada geese that that that has a little bit of drive to it yeah you're another two man yeah and then now for two but if you guys know um have you.Track 4:[33:11] You guys seen spinal tap i'm guessing oh of course okay so my mind went right to you know yeah yeah the the nigel and david uh st hubbins their first song the you know the dune duga dune dune dune walking down the railroad track to get dune dune dune dune wait for my babe to bring me back um that's where my mind went but um funnily enough my my daughter picked this song out uh we were in the car listening to the cd and she wanted to pick a song so she went through the the track listing and she picked you're possessed because uh her favorite hip song is you're not the ocean this is my 11 year old daughter and so she loved the spelling of of year and uh she put this song on and her reading of it like the i told her what what i was thinking and she said this sounds to me like emmett otter, and i'm not sure if there's a ref i can see kirk knows what i'm talking about so here's a quick Oh my gosh. We could just be finished right now.Track 4:[34:09] I grew up in a small town called Peachland in the Okanagan in BC. A small town. We had maybe, I don't know, a couple thousand people when I lived there. And we had two channels. We had channel four, CBC, and channel nine, CTV. And there was no cable company in town. But on the outskirts of town was a large satellite dish, like a huge satellite dish that someone put there and uh and so the whole town got free hbo for years like pirated stolen hbo i'm talking like five six seven years and uh let's go every you know three months you'd come home turn on hbo and it'd be scrambled and so that it would be all down for a couple days until they repositioned the satellite and so every christmas time and you know this is early 80s Emma Daughter's Jug Band Christmas would come on HBO.Track 4:[34:59] And to me, I just thought this was a thing that everyone knew. And as I got older and I found a DVD copy in a bargain bin at Zeller's or something, I started talking about this show to people and no one...Track 4:[35:14] Except for the people i know from peachland know this show and it is it's a jim henson production from about 1977 it's and it's like it's a cult classic it's just paul williams yeah, and to me yeah that's what my daughter said and i was like yeah that's that's it this is this is a jug band you know with a tuba instead of a jug t-shirts i have stickers i um am on the verge of learning river bottom nightmare band to cover with our band um right christmas does not happen in the Lane household. I'm the same way. Emmett Otter's plays. We have, you know, obviously the DVD copy. And in fact, it's a running joke. Sorry, JD and Justin, if you haven't seen it, but like anything that's $50, Craig, $50, that's a lot of money. So my whole family, anything that's 50 bucks, the first response is $50. Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, anytime we have mashed potatoes, just mashed potatoes i love mashed potatoes hey yeah man how are you doing catching anything good today sorry guys so jd and justin you haven't seen that christmas your life will will begin begin to exist afterwards so let's let's change the focus for episode two please the music is so good and it's this christmas story doesn't once mention you know religion jesus it doesn't once Once mentioned Santa.Track 4:[36:44] And it's the best Christmas show you'll ever see. It's so sweet. Huh. The music. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing. It tears me up every time. And I love that connection that your daughter has to this song, Craig. I mean, that's, I really did start welling up. Not only finding someone that loves him and Otter, but that she made that connection. Yeah, it's really cool. That's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. And of course, Paul's back singing the backups here. And I have to ask, have you guys been to Boston? They mentioned Lansdowne Street, Fenway Park. I'm guessing Lansdowne is. So that's where Fenway Park is. And that's my only note on this song was just after that, he says, no one's going to hurt me like you did. Well, he's talking about the Red Sox. He's totally talking about Bill Buckner missing the catch or the grounder in 1986 to throw it away. Maybe, or I watched a live version of this as well. And he tells a story and I don't remember all the details, but he tells a story about a fight with his brother, Patrick. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure if it could be, you know, a brotherly story. Well, and Patrick was the sound guy for the garden where the Bruins play and the Celtics play.Track 4:[37:57] Um, and of course the, um, Harry Sinden, the Bruins coach was the godfather. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. yeah sure he wore the sweater in um courage in the video for wow yeah this is a great great tune i mean just in all of it you know you've got the spoken word stuff you've got uh some of the melancholy stuff and and and then boom you know you get this boom boom and and the solos uh.Track 4:[38:28] Yeah we're at a pool party in 1946 and uh and also quick canadian tie-in um another i know j uh jd you know the other canadian classic with a tuba can you you know what i'm talking about i don't off the top we talked about this spirit of the west and if venice is sinking oh my god like tuba part yeah yeah so the only two songs i can think of featuring a tuba i'm sure there are others but it last i checked there weren't that many bands featuring a tuba not enough every irrelevance i spoke a lot already on this last one but i can i just share my experience with this one because so i'm doing doing dishes i'm often listening to um music or podcasts when i'm doing dishes and and uh i'm listening to this song and i'm just getting into it's just this beautiful like instrumental sounding song. I love the tremolo guitar.Track 4:[39:22] And I was just thinking, okay, this is probably, maybe there's no words on here. And I was really digging it and thinking, okay, I like this. I like this choice of an instrumental near the end of the album. And then all of a sudden Gord starts singing and just this beautiful melody. And then the snare comes in halfway through the verse and I'm just like elevating. I'm just like my mood. And what I thought of later when I was thinking of how to explain this was the Vince McMahon meme, you know, the levels of Vince McMahon's like elation. And so I'm like- Which doesn't play so well now.Track 4:[40:01] And level one, that's the instrumental. Level two, Vince is the singing. And then all of a sudden he hits me with, catharsis my arses is capable of more flesh and i'm like oh it's the line from from the from the live album and you know um and then i'm just like loving this song and all of a sudden the there's the piano and so i'm all of a sudden on fourth level vince and just when i think i can't love the song anymore that trumpet comes in at the end and it is so tasty just the the muted trumpet tasteful perfect like the both the piano and the trumpet play just enough they don't overplay and i just love this song who did the horns it wasn't this from another can't think of his name though is it andy mays i'd have to look at that i i don't that sounds familiar yeah yeah well i'm pretty sure that's who he's talking about an emperor penguin as well right like the first two lines yeah yeah tony or trump that was my other thought yeah i like the tony yeah there's There's another line that I can't remember which live show it's in. It might even be from the live between this album, but it's leading into a head by a century. He talks about adolescence in essence is all about trust. And that, that line pops up in here.Track 4:[41:20] Um, I don't think he mentions adolescence in this song, but yeah, I'm looking at the credit. So does Andy Mays, is it? That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job, JD. And one thing, um, did you guys notice in the, uh, in the credits to this album it's very specific it mentions the type of guitar being played by each member the type you know the types of drums and um and it very clearly says that gourd was playing on a gut string guitar which is you know the old old style string made of you know, animal guts basically yeah and it just gives a way different um you know timbre.Track 4:[41:57] I like the echo on the snare on this particular and, and it sounded like a standup bass. I'm not sure if it was a standup bass. It was just the way the notes were played. Um, but you know, I, I have a jazz reference obviously in my notes. So yeah, I agree. Craig musically, it was phenomenal. And then, then again, you're not quite sure we're going to get a spoken word or, and then you get the, you know, the beautiful, the beautiful voice and the beautiful, uh, song. Hmm.Track 4:[42:28] It's it's definitely one of the best ones on the on the record i think i i love the song i'm i'm a big fan as well i i love when he leaves little breadcrumbs in in a what seems to be like an improv rant or a throwaway rant not that any of them are throwaway but you you turn it turns out that it's been a line in his notebook for five years prior and it's got six underlines under it you know like god damn it i'm going to use this line somewhere down the line yeah when it presents i'm going to rhyme catharsis that's right i've got this great lyric i'm gonna use it sometime you know and uh i think that's so cool he's so talented let's just go right now to insomniacs of the world, good night.Track 4:[43:56] Thank you. I can see the line of your reserve, I can contemplate it from here, there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart. I can see us writhing in a phone booth or laid back in the dewy grass of our youth and gathering our sweetnesses and wishing on the never-ending sun.Track 4:[48:05] So, the research that I saw, this was supposed to be the name of the album? Does that jive with what anyone else saw? Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, that's what I heard. And then um again capping it off with you know more of a spoken word and just straight up i can see the line of your brassiere i can contemplate it from here there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart i know um one thing i noticed was um.Track 4:[48:42] What I picture here is, is there's a point where he starts recapping some lyrics from some other songs. I know he brings up the Fenway park again. And what I think this is, is, is recordings of Gord in the middle of the night, grabbing his tape recorder when he's got a melody going through his head. And he's kind of singing because it almost sounds like he trails off. Sometimes he doesn't always have the full melody melody developed. And I think this might be his like audio journal, like little excerpts.Track 4:[49:09] Wow. listen to it again i i swear i'm i'm very quite confident in this that's amazing that and a perfect bookend as well to to star star painters just um bookends the album the spoken word on both sides the sort of um i don't know that's i think it's an organ this time not an accordion but a similar sound and oh and julie uh dwaron is pocketed or is credited with with playing the a pocket trumpet so just a just basically a tiny trumpet shakespeare pops up in in some of the hip works and there's that um if i could sleep there's a chance i could dream which is from hamlet um he changes it a bit because it's perchance and shakespeare right so it's it's interesting yeah right this line yes arguably the most notable line that shakespeare ever wrote and changes it and keeps it the same but just that little word change like what what does that mean what is that all about and more to the point and it's the elephant in the room, is the version from phantom power.Track 4:[50:20] Where do you guys stand on those two versions? Can you enjoy them both? Can they both be your children? Or if I asked you to make a selfish choice, which one would you choose as a preference? I can't answer it because I don't know the one from Phantom Power as well. That's cheating, but okay. But I do remember. It sure is. That means I just don't love one of my children, right? Right. Um, I do remember him screaming the line at live shows and in some performances. I had heard that reference and, and heard a scene that reference for in some. Yeah. My preference is, is this one. I, I, I really like this, this version of it. One thing that I really is so amazing about this song is it lulls you like you're ready to until the crash. Yeah. That's the same thing. Massive cymbal crash. Yes. Oh God, I love it. I love that so much.Track 4:[51:25] And fast forward to the final album that the hit put out, Man Machine Poem, and there's the song Insomnia. Insomnia. Which was supposed to be Insomnia. Yep. And if you read the liner notes in that, Insomnia is scratched out in every line. And I don't know what that means, but interesting.Track 4:[51:44] Well, I think the whole record is interesting. what did you guys think overall is an experience with the record and uh after you tell me that what is your mvp track and you have to pick one this time justin i'm gonna go first i'll make it easy because i think i've already referenced it and and and it it's you know probably unlikely but But Star Painters was my, and again, it's the lyric. It's that line. Like anytime I hear that line, whether I'm walking the dog and I listen to it or if I'm driving and I hear it, you know, the scaffolding. Scaffolding.Track 4:[52:29] The scaffolding is in its place. The Star Painters are taking over now. And then your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way. So for me, it was that line. And I think it's because, again, I wanted to separate and I'm glad that I had the wherewithal to be able to go. I wasn't looking for hip light. I was looking for Gore Downey. And, and you didn't, I, it's me personally. And I think we even mentioned it with, with the book ending with the spoken word, you were going to get Gord Downie and you were in a, not just, you're not just going to get the energy that we know and from the hip, but you know, that he's going to take all these, these amazing musicians that were part of obviously his career.Track 4:[53:20] His musical background that, that, that created the hip and that he's going to give them that opportunity for them to get together. And then just when you hear the story about how they recorded it and where they recorded it and, uh, you know, meshing that together at the same time, he's, he's, he's, he's writing, you know, he's putting out the book along with it. So I'm, I mean, yeah, a little bit of criticisms on some of the recording maybe techniques and could have used a few more mics here and there. But that's just, I guess, the musician in me. But overall, I can understand why it was what I would assume mostly fairly well received. And again, I know there's a lot of hip fans that weren't even going to give it a chance. And then the song that I chose as my MVP kind of pushed him away from the get-go, at least for me. So, yeah, I'm...Track 4:[54:22] I'm glad I found the hip or maybe I should say the hip found me and I'm glad I didn't give up on them. And, uh, you know, the energy and, and the feeling that Gord always gave me when I, uh, had the great chance to see, uh, see the band and see him. And even when I met him, I actually, I wore this shirt on purpose. This is the shirt that I was wearing when I met Gord backstage house of blues Anaheim. It's a harley davidson shirt with big letters hd and the ac are masked with a canadian flag, yeah and this i got this up in vancouver on a trip when i went up there i fancied myself i was going to be a harley rider one of these days and and still don't have a bike um but went through that phase and uh i wore this shirt because i felt like i needed to because i'm you know go see the hip. And, uh, and this is the first thing he said, he just goes, that's a really nice shirt, man.Track 4:[55:23] And he shook my hand and, and, uh, and there was just this gentleness about him. And, uh, you know, I was starstruck and I don't typically get that. I mean, I'm, I'm in a business where I meet people all the time and I'm in LA and Hollywood and, and, and done all that, but this guy is different. And it was a moment where I definitely paused and couldn't put together a whole lot of words. I didn't know that I was necessarily going to meet him. I wore this in honor of that moment and taking this journey with you guys. So I am so excited because I think this was a great start.Track 4:[56:07] Outside, I've heard a little bit of some Secret Path. I absolutely had not heard anything from any of the other albums outside of Coke Machine Glow, and again, a little bit from Secret Path. So I'm just, I'm really jazzed, right? Because I get to dig, you know, we get to dig deeper into this individual that's just, wow, he's pretty special. And you could see, you know, the impact that he's had on so many. So I'm excited about this journey and I'm picking that song and I'm sticking to it. Nice. Craig, how about you?Track 4:[56:45] Well, being one of those hip fans who took a bit of a break around this time, and not that I completely abandoned them, I think for me, I was just at an age where I was just exploring so much music. I was in school for music, so I was being bombarded by classical music and music from all through the ages. And on top of that, I was getting into a lot of more experimental music. And I just started drifting away from not just the hip, but all the bands I had been listening to in the 90s. And, you know, a lot of those bands I did come back to, some I didn't, but I came back to the hip big time, kind of the mid 2000s or, you know, yeah, around 2006, probably. And um and so for me i this is an album i never gave a chance i'd heard you know a couple songs here and there chancellor and vancouver divorce i think but um i'd never listened to the whole thing and wow i'm i'm so grateful for this opportunity to do this it's just i love this album i i put it up there with with you know some of those great hip albums and um my my um mvp track is every irrelevance i again i explained already the vince mcmahon meme um that that was me during this song just i by the end i was just you know spent lying down with the smoke.Track 4:[58:14] Justin uh it's sentimental for me with it's trick rider um because my daughter is six um and And I build bike ramps for her, you know, and, and then tell her don't ride so fast off that bike ramp. I just built you, you know, and, um, don't ask me to explain. Um, and, Yeah, I just, that's, it drives, you know, it really, yeah, I don't know. I love that song for different reasons. I also really love Canada Geese just because it's a sweet rock song. And I know, I just like what I like. I grew up on Yes and listening to 22-minute opuses that were way beyond what a 13-year-old kid should be listening to. So, I get weird stuff and I get out there stuff, but I also just love rock and roll.Track 4:[59:06] And, uh, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good rock and roll song. I, and I'm going to echo you guys that I'm super excited for this platform. Um, because as a kid in the States who had the secret about the hip, you know, my last name is St. Louis. So everybody thought I was Canadian and I was a Montreal Canadians fan. So everybody, you know, they'd pick on me. And then I talk about the tragically hip, which was in the periphery, you know, nobody, nobody listened to it, but they'd at least heard of them. And then be like, Oh, that's who the hell is that? Why are you listening to that? And it's stupid. Well, now I can finally celebrate it and talk about it, you know, and, and I'm Canadian for the next eight weeks. Oh, that's great. Eh? Yeah.Track 4:[59:49] Well, this has been a great deal of fun.Track 4:[59:55] This Saturday afternoon. You'll be listening to this on a Monday, of course. If you have anything you want to shout out to us, please send us an email. We would love to hear from you. The email is discoveringdowney at gmail.com. That's discoveringdowney at gmail.com. You can also find a link on our website, discoveringdowney.com, and there's a link to email us right from there, which makes it easy peasy. So it's been a blast doing this with you guys this week. I'm really looking forward to where we go and learning more. I am a somebody who has listened to all the records, and I've listened to them on a number of occasions, but I have a very poor short-term memory, and it's tough to recall them sometimes. Times so it's been really fun going through this and listening the shit out of this record and then getting to talk about it with somebody it's like a book club so i had a lot of fun and if you like what you heard send us an email discovering downy at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you, and on behalf of kirk craig and justin pick up your shit.Track 1:[1:01:13] Thanks for listening to Discovering Downey. To find out more about the show and its host, visit DiscoveringDowney.com. You can email us at DiscoveringDowney at gmail.com. And hey, we're social.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Discovering Downie. I'll be your host, jD as we listen in on the experiences and analysis from three huge fans of The Hip who have a blind spot for Gord's solo works. Meet Craig, Justin, and Kirk as they part in this epic 11-part podcast.We kick the show off by starting at the start with Coke Machine Glow part 1.Transcript:Track 2:[1:26] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downy.Track 3:[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm joined by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, Gord's solo ventures remain uncharted territory for our trio.Track 3:[1:47] Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late gourd downey so come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order embarking on our quest of discovering downey we've assembled quite the motley crew here to talk uh to talk about gourd's oeuvre and we're excited to do that we're going to do this all summer long so buckle up fellas how are you doing not too bad living the a dream amazing excited excited to go on this jaunt with you you gents for sure yeah it should be pretty fun i agree i agree completely i i am i am from a hip starved uh area of the world which you know i guess most of the u.s unfortunately was hip starved for a long time but specifically down here uh in the la market i got to see some amazing shows in really small places but like to, to like find a hip album in a record store or, you know, like anything that comes close to hip preference for me, I just like, I get all giddy. So when we, you know, we connected to talk with other hip fans, um, was pretty exciting, but then just to learn more about Gord, um, yeah, this is, this is going to be quite the adventure, my friends, quite the adventure.Track 3:[3:17] Yeah, I think so. What do you think, Craig?Track 3:[3:20] Yeah, I've been sitting in this room, my office slash music room, with a couple of unopened Gord CDs that I have collected over the years and just looking for the right moment, I guess. And along came that moment, and thanks to you, JD, to make this happen and to bring me on board. Ah, but I am but one hand on the rudder. The other three hands you see belong to Kirk, Justin, and Craig. Egg so there's that justin tell us about your experience with the hip so uh the u.s is hip starved for the most part but uh growing up in vermont we are just quebec junior and uh we get a lot of uh tv and radio stations uh down here in the greater burlington area so i i grew up with hip on the radio and um i didn't really know anything about him but in high school i discovered phantom power on my own.Track 3:[4:19] And, uh, that was it. I've been hopelessly blissfully lost ever since. And, um, my dad was kind of a hip fan, but you know, I think he was from like the old, you know, the, the hip crowd that they were trying to get rid of in the nineties, you know? And, uh, and so when I, when I came along, it was music at work and, you know, kind of the newer stuff that, that the old man probably wouldn't have liked too much, but, um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I got to see three hip shows and I was at the show in Ottawa two nights before the finale, uh, which was really amazing. Um, I got to see him in a basketball gym in Burlington and I got to see him in a bar in Albany, New York. And, uh, I feel like I got the, a pretty good sample size. Uh, I love them. I love them. Yeah. How about you, Craig? You have a unique role in this trio as well with your Tragically Hip experience. Share some of that with us.Track 3:[5:19] Um, yeah, I've, I've been a big hip fan way back going to probably grade eight when I, when I first heard, I think New Orleans on the radio and, uh, you know, I liked it and I, um, I didn't buy the album right away. I was into heavier stuff at the time. I was a big GNR fan and I was kind of a metal guy. And, uh, then I heard 38 years old and funnily enough, I thought it was, um, uh, Tracy Chapman at first, when I first heard the voice, the vibrato and, you know, it's just on faintly in the background. And then I kind of turned it up and this is a good tune. And then, you know, they, they announced it was the hip. And so I went out and got the CD. I think I maybe ordered on Columbia house through my, uh, through my parents or, you know, five CDs for, for a penny or whatever. And, uh, 12 here in the U S yeah.Track 3:[6:09] And yeah, I've been a huge hip fan ever since. And, and, um, yeah, I've been to, I think maybe 15, 16 concerts and, um, yeah, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I started playing in a hip tribute and it's just been a blast to sharing the music with, you know, the fans who don't get to see them anymore. And, you know, I wish I could, I wish they were still around and I could quit my job as a hip tribute guitar player, but unfortunately they're not playing anymore. I wonder if there's a Tracy Chapman angle, I wonder if we can get Luke Combs to cover some hip stuff and get them on the mainstream radio. you. It's a great idea. It's actually not. I don't think I want to hear that. No, but definitely giving them the credit they deserve. And man, Craig, like I seriously got goosebumps when you'd mentioned Tracy Chapman, like, you know, if you guys saw the Grammys, you know, that was performed and Tracy just sounded amazing. And, uh, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. And, and yeah, I think you hit that spot on that. I haven't looked it up, But I'm guessing if you look up the release date of Fast Car and up to here, I'm going to guess they're within a year. Yeah, that's probably very true.Track 3:[7:27] So let's start at the start here with Coke Machine Glow. Kirk, any nuggets that you gleaned from production notes, anything like that, that you gathered on your fact-finding mission? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I, I actually did because I'm a musician as well and, and, and do appreciate, uh, what goes into making an album. Um, uh, there, there was some pretty good information out there and, you know, especially knowing the hips catalog and, you know, they've had, they've had some different experiences from different producers and engineers and, and different recording experiences. And, um, so, you know, of course you're going, well, I'm going to get a lot of that. And, and then boom, you get hit right upside the head with, you know, But in the research that I did, I mean, they basically just, you know, had a couple, I think they had a kick mic and an overhead mic and just kind of a room mic. They played everything acoustic because they wanted to hear Gord's vocals.Track 3:[8:30] They were in, I believe, in the studio that is no longer there. It was like a loft in Toronto that was owned by a couple of musicians that were a part of, you know, the band that was there and part of the recording team. Um and obviously getting all their you know getting all their schedules together and and you know various musicians from from various different bands within the area and uh and they just wanted this to be uh just kind of that raw essence right that it you know for us as hit fans at least for me like that's where i fell in love is like whether you listen to the music or see them live, like the energy that comes out of every song is, is palpable on so many different levels. And, and, you know, I think those that, that have had the experience to enjoy their music and especially live, like there's such an energy to it and whether it's, uh.Track 3:[9:29] You know, whether it's one of their upbeat, you know, just rocking tunes or, or, you know, a simple acoustic there, they really know how to capture the emotion. And this album, Coke Machine Glow, I mean, yeah, wow. I mean, it was, again, it just felt like maybe one mic in the room and they just were circled around each other and they went for it. And one of the other notes that I heard that I thought was pretty surprising is they got a lot out of what was actually recorded and it sounded a lot bigger than what took place. I can get that. You could get a small little eight-inch speaker and, uh, put a mic on it and it could sound like you've got, you know, four Marshall, you know, full stacks grinding in front of you. So, you know, there's definitely some magic that can happen in the studio, but, um, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, you know, I do a lot of stuff in theater and we always talk about how the set or the lights or the sound can become a character. And I think for me, the production elements of Coke Machine Glow became a part of the album.Track 3:[10:37] It had to be done that way, in my opinion, to be able to capture the energy that it did. Yeah it's very sparse sounding production wise like obviously there's songs and we'll get into them really rich and really lush and uh you know have a lot going on but predominantly this record like you said is pretty sparse craig i wonder what you learned um in your research about the album proper.Track 3:[11:09] Well, I went into this with a different approach where I purposely didn't look at any info for the first couple of weeks. And then I actually planned on recording this without having looked it up, but I decided I couldn't not. And the reason I had to look at the liner notes is because I was hearing all these voices that I recognized from Canadian bands. And what I was really thinking about was um what was can con and and the uh you know all the if you don't know the the story of can con basically it's the canadian content rules that um you know radio stations in canada have to play a certain amount of you know canadian written produced um music and the variety of musicians playing on this album we've got you know sky diggers we've got eric's trip we've got the hip We've got Dinner Is Ruined, who wasn't a band I had heard of out West, but looked them up today and quite interesting. And just this all-star cast of musicians from all these really cool indie bands. And that's what really struck me. Yeah, I couldn't put it better. An all-star group. And I should have mentioned, I guess, The Odds, of course, with Stephen Drake. He was so heavily involved with engineering and playing bass on it. And, and, uh, that was the voice that actually I was referencing. And I'll talk about that on the track when it comes up. Oh, cool. Okay.Track 3:[12:36] Justin, I'm wondering for you what the title means to you. What does it evoke? Um, I kind of, my brain goes to the golden rim motor in right. And late at night in a hotel, just kind of looking out the window and there's that freaking coke machine that's probably buzzing and nothing's cold in it and there's that glow lighting up a couple of cars outside the hotel room um it seems like a pretty good time to write an album or a book of poetry yeah just in my my mind went the same place yeah the lofty pines motel the the golden rim motor in.Track 3:[13:19] Yeah. There's a couple other hotels mentioned on this record as well. There's the Phoenix. Um, I'm trying to think, is there another one? Hmm. There's a poem, uh, in the book, Minneapolis hotel room. Oh, wow. Yeah. So definitely a road record, huh? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And the other thing I think that, um, I didn't know going into this, that it was so closely connected to the phantom power album with a lot of songs that now with the re-release of phantom power we're we're seeing alternate versions of you know mystery and some of these other songs which is really really neat to discover at the same time yeah i agree with that i i delved pretty deeply into the the poetry book and it was amazing how many references to hip songs especially of that era um but even dating back to the early nineties with some live shows and how long this material had incubated. I bought, I don't know which album, but it came with a recording of a concert in 94. And there are several references that made their way into the poetry or into the lyrics of some of the songs.Track 3:[14:31] It's not on the music album, but it's in the, I think it's the first poem in the book was was bumblebee what is now bumblebee as the bonus track from phantom power right um the usa today bit was in this concert in 94 and it took you know years for that to come out and and there are other references from that show that are that are in coke machine globe of the album and the book it's it's really interesting how long it took for all this stuff to, surface. You have to imagine though, that as, as a writer, you know, you're going to go into recording an album and, and, you know, Gord being primary, you know, after a time writer, you can end up with some stuff that just doesn't make it. And, you know, it's hard to let go of stuff. You know, if you've, if you've done any type of creation, I don't care if it's video creation or writing or poetry or songs or whatever, like it's hard to just let that stuff go. Cause it's, It's whether you're telling a story about yourself or something you experienced or, you know, you want to get it out there, especially if you're a creative person. So I imagine Gord had, you know, and you read all the time and you hear on the interviews and he carries around a notebook and is basically writing every day.Track 3:[15:47] So uh but it is it is amazing and especially being a hip fan to see you know i noticed that as well when i was listening to some of the bonus stuff like hey wait that's a hit song why is that on here yeah you know and then you got to go back and you got to find the album that it's on because i was like justin i i wasn't introduced until the hip you know until i think 2000 uh with a canadian friend that i worked with and then i actually took a trip up to vancouver and it was like there's hip everywhere and i was like this is what's this all about how come i don't know about these you know this this band so yeah you know that i i really kind of came into play during that time and and beyond so of course i love the stuff that that came before it but for me there's something about being a part of what gets released when you're you know i'm i'm buying the albums or cds as they're coming out and then i'm seeing the tour so you know of course that heavy content with with, with those particular albums. So yeah, I have to imagine a lot of that, uh, came back in, into this particular one. And I mean, how long was the band together before this came out? 12 years, something. Almost, almost 15 or 20, maybe.Track 3:[16:57] Yeah, well, yeah, from the very beginning, but since the recording stuff started, so, you know. 87, the first one came out in 87. Yeah. This, to me, it felt like a release valve for everything that Gord couldn't or wouldn't put on Hips. It wasn't polished, you know what I mean?Track 3:[17:18] And he had all, I mean, there's a hundred pages of poetry and all these songs that are, you know, objectively strange.Track 3:[17:27] Um, and I, I think it just stuff that he knew wouldn't fly on a hip album that he had carried with him for years. And like I said, that show in 94 that he was work workshopping this stuff and it didn't make the cut with the band. So let's use it up now. Now, I'm very curious, as we get into the songs, to hear what you guys are thinking about some of these songs in their objective strangeness, as you put it, Justin. Or, you know, are some of them hip-adjacent? Are there any on here that you think, you know, the band could have put together? Obviously, other than the last track, which they did, and we can compare and contrast that when we get there. But are we ready to go into this record track by track? Let's do it. All right, we start with Star Painters. Who wants to kick this one off?Track 3:[18:29] Well, I'll take it. Yeah, Star Painters to me was like a palate cleanser. This was like Gord saying, this is not a hip album. And right off the bat, it's, it's a little strange. Uh, you got the accordion and, um, you know, the almost like a spoken word type thing. And yeah, it's just very obviously not the hip. So the first line, um, is, uh, ended up in music at work with freak turbulence. The myth is neither here nor there. So there are definitely, you know, there's some continuity there. And I think those two albums came out the same year. Didn't they? 2000. Coke Machine Glow was 2001 Okay well But Very close Very close They were likely recorded Right around the same time Yeah Yeah.Track 3:[19:19] There are themes that do persist for sure. But yes, this is not a hip song to be clear. I agree. And Craig, yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. You know, Gord was like, hey, come along for the ride, but this is going to be something different.Track 3:[19:40] And I really appreciate it. I mean, and I've heard that this song actually turned people away, right? Right. Like they didn't want to give it any more of a listen because of it. And, you know, I can say, yeah, I can say that, you know, for me again, I'm hip starved. So I'm actually really surprised at myself that I didn't dive in at the time and that that it really took this project to, you know, get me to start paying attention. Attention and at first it was difficult you know obviously this song but the entire album was like you're like you wanted a little more hip but then you had to understand you know what he needed to get out this song honestly for me is is one of my favorites off of the album and i'll tell you why it's the line the star painters are taking over now the scaffolding is in place your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way like i heard that and i just stopped and smoking your joint.Track 3:[20:50] Packing it up yeah getting the next one it it it it's it's it's gordon it's it's it's the, this is this song this album is not going to be for the faint of heart and uh and you know strap in like you said buckle up so i i had never heard anything by the dinner is ruined but you know trying to dive into to see what these guys are about the avant-garde and very strange ambient sounds and there's uh accordion and all kinds of weird stuff and that's very much dinner is ruined i i did listen to them um during this process and with that in mind on On the rest of the album, they feel pretty restrained compared to what they would normally have written or put out. But I think on this first one, they're just kind of like, to hell with this. We're going to do what we're doing. Yeah, sequencing is so important. You know, when you make a record, there's no accident that this song is first, like Greg said. You know, that sort of palate cleanser, introducing what the concept of this record is going to be. And you're right like if you came here expecting fully completely part two you know you're barking up the wrong fucking tree so there's that yeah vancouver divorce.Track 3:[26:08] Yeah, definitely a departure from the first track from Star Painters, right? This is a, I mean, almost written for radio hit. It's so easy to listen to and it's so addicting. The thing that really struck me, and it took me a couple of listens to hear it, but the bass is just one note over and over like a heartbeat, just a rhythm. And it's just the same note for 20, 25 seconds. And then, you know, it, it moves on from there, but, um, it was really, it was lovely. Um, but I, uh, one of the things that, that started to strike me and I don't know if it was Vancouver divorce or, or something else, but I think there's two schools of thought about this album. And again, this is a common theme with Gord Downie is it's either a little bit about Adolf Hitler or it's really a lot a bit about Adolf Hitler.Track 3:[27:13] There are so many ties to World War II throughout this album and the book and everything that Gord kind of does. Um, and I, I, I tried not to think about that going into all this, but it does, it does kind of get there, um, pretty quickly. I think, I don't know. I don't know if Vancouver has anything to do with the song or it's just, it fits well, you know, like the way that he explained writing Bob Cajun, it just, it rhymes. Right that's the town we're using you know i know in one of the live clips i saw before this song he said something about you know if if this couple can't make it in in paradise which in this case paradise is vancouver um debatable debatable maybe but um he um yeah then then i guess they can't make it anywhere yeah and i i didn't get any world war ii from it but i i didn't dive into lyrics quite as heavily i'm more of a music guy the lyrics are the last thing i digest when i listen to music so it takes me multiple listens um i don't typically read lyrics i like them to sort of hit me you know over the years um yeah did you guys get the uh the hortons reference.Track 3:[28:27] That one made me chuckle so the thing that i that i picked up on the hortons thing is he says sitting here at the hortons so you know this is important nobody sits at a tim hortons well they used to it used to be it used to be like a bar yeah oh yeah and it had lots of tables and chairs Yeah. And that's, that's far different from our experience with, with any Hortons chain down here. Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is interesting is that syllabically he could have said Tim Hortons, but instead he says the Hortons. The Hortons. I wonder if that's like to avoid the.Track 3:[28:57] Commercialism of saying Tim Hortons or like, it's just an interesting choice when it's the same number of syllables. Yeah. And I also think just, um, a lot of times Gord will choose a word that is almost unrhymable on purpose. And I think this is one of those cases Hortons. So it must be important and important. Yeah. It's, it's just, I love that. I love that. How about you, Kirk?Track 3:[29:21] What do you think? From a music standpoint? Cause like Craig, I, I, I do, do i i enjoy both and and and i'll end up reading lyrics as i go and and in this particular thing it was hard not to read uh a lyrics just to understand the connection as you're listening but this is one of those songs as well when when you think about it here you know how they recorded like holy crap how did they get that big of a sound out of what you you know at least in the the research that i did was very minimalist type of recording you know this kind of a squarish box and and and not really acoustically treated and you know in in you know you know in in the heart of toronto and all kinds of other stuff going on like i heard as well like they were being evicted and so they only had a certain time schedule to be able to get this recorded and then you hear the story about how like they're having a party downstairs and they're throwing couches around and gourd shows up and in his cowboy hat and goes uh hey would you guys mind you know being quiet for a little bit i'm i've tried to record i just can't imagine you're in that room and gourd down he walks in and says hey i'm recording tracks upstairs i think he was with kevin hearn from uh.Track 3:[30:36] You know uh bare naked ladies and and and uh and then they go back up and they record but just the fullness of this, this album. Um, and to me, I, you know, that's the thing I wanted to mention. Uh, uh, I believe it was this tune when you hear the keys, I don't know that Kevin got a credit on it, but I know he recorded a couple of tunes here. And so for me, I'm actually a pretty big BNL fan and I've seen them 20 times, something like that. But Kevin Hearns keys was very kind of prevalent. Um, and even if it wasn't him, you could, you could definitely hear the influence of it. So the powerfulness of this song is, is, is palpable for sure. Yeah. Yeah, looking it up, I think it was, sorry, it was, yeah, Jose Contreras played the organ on this tune. So he's the leader of By Divine Right, which is another very cool Canadian band that I remember listening to. I had their first album. But yeah, Kevin Hearn is definitely all over this album. Them yeah i gotta say as well from a lyrics perspective my money there's a phrase in this song that belongs on the podium along with you know it could have been the willow nelson could have been the wine you know taking advice from a prost or taking a compliment from a prostitute the line which by the way i play that song every night for my daughter at bedtime and my wife still Still haven't caught on yet.Track 3:[32:00] That's a good line. What the hell is this? You said it's art. Just fucking mirror it. Mirror. Yeah. Like you hang up your hat when you write a line like that. You just, you're done for the day. Put your briefcase together and you walk out the door, punch out, you know, that's a fucking great lyric. So I think, I think if, if I may, the, the person being divorced is an artist in this story. Right. right? And there are many references to art. There's the line, when the stampede's an optical course, when ancient train has hit old transient horse. And ancient train and old transient horse were capitalized. And I said, what the hell is that? So I deep dove that. And it is in reference to horse and train, which is a Canadian painting, which is based on a poem written by a South African anti-apartheid poet with the line and against a regiment. I oppose a brain and a dark horse against an armored train, which is just spectacular imagery.Track 3:[33:03] But again, tying in the art theme to the first line is such classic Gord Downie writing. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You've just blown my mind. Blown my mind. Like for real. This is track two. So get me. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say too, the noise guitar at the end by I'm assuming Dale Morningstar is just amazing. I have a thing for loud, screechy feedback guitars. It just puts me in this state of zen for some reason. Like if you know the song Drown by Smashing Pumpkins, there's like four minutes of feedback at the end. And to me, that is so relaxing.Track 3:[33:45] I have that same thing written down, Craig. I have excellent screeching guitar going into and continuing through the third verse and out. One of the other things I have written down, though, I just want to share with you guys quickly. This is just sort of funny. When he says he's sitting at the Tim Hortons, or he's sitting at the Hortons, I know that's not true because on two occasions, I was walking down the Danforth and saw him sitting in the front bench of Timothy's Coffee, coffee, which is like a, like a Starbucks adjacent brand that doesn't exist anymore, but it used to. And it was minutes from his house. I didn't know where his house was, nor did I stalk him, but I knew it was in the area, like minutes away. And he would just sit there and he was sitting there with a, with a fucking notebook the one time and another time he was on a Mac book. But to me, it was, you know, one of those cool moments that I was like, I live in the same neighborhood. It's Gord Downie. This is so cool.Track 3:[34:41] Man, I wish that the Tim Hortons here in the States had a place to sit because mostly you just find them at a rest stop on the highway or you go in and you order a donut and you leave kind of establishment. No Hortons down here in California. I have to travel. Thankfully, I get to travel a lot for work. And if I see a Hortons, it's like, it's immediate picture and text to my family because we did a road trip and, you know, we went through Detroit and we went through Niagara and went through Toronto. And so my family fell in love with Tim Hortons. So is there a sponsor, right? JD? Oh yeah. The big sponsor. I'm eating Timbits right now.Track 3:[35:22] Mmm. Delicious Timbits. Thanks Tim Hortons. Um next up is uh sf song and to me this is like observational songwriting 101 to me i can just picture him under the covers of his hotel room with a pillow over his head trying to drown out the sound of this chambermaid tap tap tapping and knock knock knocking on the door it sounds as though and then him walking through the lobby and out into the front area of the phoenix hotel and he just describes everything he sees now i'm sure there's more to it than that but to me that's just beautiful.Track 3:[36:03] Yeah. Yeah. For me, one of my first shows was actually in San Francisco at the Fillmore West. And, um, you know, there's been some, you know, or so I've, so I've researched, there's been some pretty classic, uh, um, shows that have happened there. And, you know, I, I had a pretty, pretty amazing experience as well. I was with, with the Canadian friend that had, um, you know, introduced me to them and, and, uh, uh, but you, when I heard that song at first, I just immediately thought, you know, I'm like, hmm, I wonder if he was writing the song when he was there, when I saw him in 2000. And, uh, you know, whether he is or not, that's what I'm going to go, go to, go to bed with and stick to. I also noticed and really appreciated, um, uh, the breathing in the beginning of the song. Um, and then the reference towards the end, uh, about it, uh, uh, I miss my lung, Bob.Track 3:[37:04] That we talked about and, and, and, and then remembering the ads, remembering the ads that were going around at the time on the sides of buses and on, um, on, on billboards and, uh, you know, growing up in, in, in Southern California and, and, uh, seeing smoking ads. And then all of a sudden smoking ads start going away. And then you see the ad of, I miss my lung, Bob, or Bob, I miss my lung. I like to paraphrase. Yeah. I, uh, that's one of the lyrics I had to look up. I had no clue that was an actual thing. So that was pretty neat to, to come across those posters. I remember them from when I was a kid, of course, I'm East Coast, so it's not like they were around here, but I do remember seeing it on the news or something like that, the campaign.Track 3:[37:52] The other thing that struck me was Chambermaid and the references to Chambermaid, which are a continuation of Phantom Power, right? With vapor trails and escape as a hand. Right. Right. I also picked up on the click, click, click. You mentioned J.D. Off the top and those sounds. And he later on experimented with those types of things like drip, drip, drip and We Want to Be It and the chick, chick, chick of the matches in Seven Matches.Track 3:[38:24] Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a little thing I picked up on. And also, I have a note here about just the low register, like just him singing in that beautiful low voice. And he, on this album, covers so many different subtleties in the way he uses his voice. Like a song like Coming Up Canada Geese, all of a sudden he's just a totally different singer, singing very um yeah almost like an indie indie rock singer yeah totally get that um you know also i think there's many examples of him singing in alter egos on on this record really expanding his repertoire you know as it were right like we start to hear him singing like this on the post phantom power records uh on occasion and um it's not startling because we're sort of used to it should we move on to trick rider only if you want me to cry right like this okay so this song says it's it's dedicated to c it's i believe it's his daughter I don't know. On the album that comes along with the new release, his daughter, I'm blanking on the name, starts with a C, reads this poem.Track 3:[39:53] So I'm guessing she was the girl on the horse.Track 3:[39:56] So I can't remember the name, Claire maybe or Chloe or I forget. Makes complete sense.Track 3:[40:04] I don't know this, so I'll ask it. How many kids does Gord have and are they spread out in age quite a bit? I don't know the second part of the question, but I know he's got four. There's Lou and Willow, who both played on his former partner's record, played keyboard and drums, respectively. And then there's Willow, who is an artist, like painter and jewelry artist, and she's very talented. She did the away as mind cover as well I did know that I think I think I asked that question because at the end you know of Gordon's life he did that interview with Peter Mansbridge, and talked about his son and got very emotional and his son was young he referenced his age and said he was quite young and this was 2016 or 17 whenever the interview was, and which would have been 15 years after this album came out.Track 3:[41:03] So, that's where my head went with how many, how old, just trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I was going to make mention when I was doing a little bit of research, there was a, uh, uh, you know, a fan video, uh, when, when I guess they toured this album and I believe they were actually in, uh, it might've been in Vancouver when they're playing it, but he was, you know, having an exchange with, with someone in the audience about, you know, uh, your nightlights on going to bed. And uh i think the fan might have been thinking that the song was about something else and and he referenced that right back to her very quickly in kind of a snide mark saying i don't think it means what you think it means about going to bed and and uh that stuck out to me it was you know one that he had no problems interacting with the fan and and kind of correcting them on on their interpretation uh of the song but it the song is is is beautiful and in so many different ways and you know all of us being fathers and and and having you know those experiences and and then obviously having the emotional tie-in with with gordon and what he's done with the band you know in the tragically hip and and and then with his solo stuff and and uh it it's it's gorgeous it's beautiful whatever adjective you can come up with that that uh you know brings that feeling to you.Track 3:[42:31] As a father in those moments when you're just you can't even can't even process i did this i had a hand in this and this human is is going to grow out into the world and And I'm a better human because of it. And to be able to, you know, put that, um, you know, in lyrics and in a song, uh, again, just adds to the, uh, adds to the amazement, uh, that that gentleman was able to give us.Track 3:[43:04] Yeah. And the vocal performance by both Gord and, uh, Julie Dwaran is, is so full that they have such control of their voices. Pitch perfect, emotional, just such a song. Her soft awe in the background puts this song over the top. It wouldn't be the song without her contribution to it. That's no disrespect to Gord, but the song isn't the same without Julie Dwaran. And I thought that my favorite father-daughter song was Thrown Off Glass from In Violet Light, But this one, my daughter is the one jumping off shit. She is trick riding 24 hours a day and I'm like, oh my God, kill me. Yeah. So I looked it up. It is Claire Downey who reads the poem on the new edition. So I'm guessing that's who C could be. Got to be.Track 3:[44:05] The song is way too personal for it not to be. is is julie did i understand that she's she did some stuff with the hip as well yeah, yeah she sang um in some live shows with them and i think was part of some tribute stuff at the end too i may be wrong um i know i know kate fenner was um on one tour as a backup music Music at work. But I feel like, I'm pretty sure I've read, yeah, that Julie was on, doing some backups on one of the albums. I could be wrong. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like, maybe now for Plan A, possibly. That sounds right. I know, although I know... Oh, yeah. Oh, that's her name. Yeah.Track 3:[44:52] Also from Kingston. There's another woman who does now for planning the title track. Yeah, Sarah Harmer. She's the vocal on... Anyways, that's a different album, different band. Different podcast. Different podcast, yeah. Oh, and I have to... Last thing about Trick Rider for me is that slide guitar that just doesn't quite hit the note. I just love it. It's kind of that quarter tone or something. It reminds me of, if you know the Faith No More cover of Easy, right before the solo when Mike Patton goes up to the, ew, and almost like purposely is in between notes. I just think it's so neat. I was going to say both vocally and musically with a variety of instruments throughout several songs, obviously this one as well, is there's just that, it's not quite there, but it's also, it adds again to that character of the song. I heard something or read something about one of the musicians, I believe the guitar player that, that was part of this, like he hit a note and he, he would just beat the shit out of it until it became the note that was right for the song, whether it started off right or not, he, it, it was going to become that.Track 3:[46:03] And, and I love that thought or that prospect, right? We get so, we get so caught up in, Oh, everything's got to be perfect. I got to tune my guitar up exactly right. I've got to have the mic place perfectly. And I've got to have, you know this tonality and and sometimes it's just good to just just let it go and let that emotion come through more so than you know the technical note of itself yeah yeah there's no such thing as a wrong note if it's you know played with with with confidence and intention and yeah yeah so next we go to a song that i think could totally be a hip jam to me this song he's singing It's the first song on the record where he's singing in a tone in a register that we recognize.Track 3:[49:09] So Craig, you said it, um, this is punk rock and Gord loved punk rock, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's old guy punk rock. Like it's, it's, this is guys who are not punk rockers anymore trying to, to do punk or at least the story, right.Track 3:[49:26] Um, within the song. And, and I'm not saying that about the musicians that played the song. I'm saying that about the story Gord tells here that, you know, they're, they're, they're buying weed from each other in a cornfield, right? In the dark you know um like i can picture my old man and his uncles or and his brothers my uncles just you know hiding from the cops at age 50 55 years old just feeling like be cool man shut up uh i love this song yeah great song i i gotta say i'll take the bullet guys here's my first criticism even though as much as i love um how they recorded it my goodness gracious i needed the drummer to use some sticks and not brushes like i needed to feel that those drums coming through in this song and and to make it punk rock like it was like they they you know hey let's find the jazz drummer to do the punk song um and not that it didn't serve it well and it's a in fact probably what i would have liked was that drum track with the brushes and another drum track on.Track 3:[50:35] Top of it with sticks and then also maybe adding the mics to get more of the tonality of the drums but again now that's just the music guy and me going i wanted to hear that i needed to hear that snap i needed to hear that crack i needed to hear the pop right sorry gonna use a uh a breakfast cereal reference but um i i i i wanted that for this song still love it it's It's funny because it opens on snare hits. Right.Track 3:[51:08] Yeah. But if I'm not mistaken and I'll, I'll completely eat my words, I believe they use brushes throughout Craig. Do you, did you go that deep or what did you think? I didn't, but I know for me, I definitely noticed that it, it, it felt like it should be heavier but i think that's part of what gave the song character was those heavy guitars that almost sounded like they were played at a low volume in a room jamming and i i thought it just gave it a unique character and and i have to say though my favorite part is actually at the end when when all of a sudden i actually picked up a guitar today just to see what was going on with this and and they go up from you know they're playing and you know you're one four five e e b and a and then um they go right up they just go up to that f and i know the first time i heard it it's just just so striking it just sounds so out of place and then after you've heard the song a couple times just so perfect such a such a great dissonance and.Track 3:[52:05] Really really um almost like a two you know 2000s indie rock feel almost like an arcade fire kind of three years before arcade fire was doing it kind of thing so wow it felt like a one take demo to me and they said fuck it it's good like run it i like that we'll do it live yeah me too do it we'll do it keep it but kirk yeah i think um it would be really interesting to see what the hip would have done with with that song like a fully polished yeah you know but but i felt the same about the next song chandler um you're listening to it again today in fact and again was like man with some different instrumentation you know change changing the tempo a bit on this is this is absolutely the uh potentially a hip song uh for me you know uh and uh yeah hard hard not to uh go into you know as he speaks about letting the opening the window inviting the vampires in and if i'm not mistaken this this song did pretty well was it a single.Track 3:[53:15] I don't think any of the solo stuff did particularly well. It was sort of under the radar, especially after this record came out. This record was highly anticipated, but I think early on the word got out that it wasn't hip, and so there were a lot of hip people that jumped up. A lot of people stayed on board, don't get me wrong. but um there was a good cohort that sort of veered away and it's interesting that the sum of the parts you know um the hip are it just goes to show you how magical they are as a as a fivesome because you take one component away you know and it's just not the same like gort sinclair's solo record is dynamite so are you know paul's three records they're really really good but they're not the hip yeah you know so i'm just and i think this is where i got it from i'm just you know looking looking up on spotify and if you go to gordonie this song has the most downloads of all the solo stuff oh okay so that that makes a lot of sense yeah i know there's a there's definitely a video for this yeah yeah but i i don't recall ever hearing.Track 3:[54:31] This song anything from this album on the radio i i had i did hear some later songs um but definitely not that you know that i heard so this is where hitler comes in big time um the.Track 3:[54:47] Hitler had a very odd sleeping pattern. He stayed up very late and would go to bed at like 6, 6.30 in the morning and then get up at noon and just spend his whole day working out maps and plans and this is where the advancement is and all this stuff. And there are so many, if you read between the lines references about the night of a thousand missteps, the loss that made him dogged, or it could have been the doggedness that caused the loss in the first place.Track 3:[55:18] And Chancellor, I mean, that was Hitler's position, you know? Wow. Marching armies in the night, smiling strangers riding by on bikes. That would be, you know, when the allies come into Paris or something, you know? Children's smoking, which there was a huge anti-smoking campaign in Germany during World War II, sloganeers. And he mentions in one of the first lines, invite the vampire in, open the windows before we go to bed to get the coldest air in the room, which is just before the sun comes up. And then at the end, talking about a few things that vampires don't like, all the things referenced between the vampire references are Hitler-ish things. So I don't know it that's that's where my head went and then um before you are wow i know that but but damn it i'm following gordon's path you know and he like i said he references justin you're taking us into dark places my friend and the word chancellor for me it was like hmm and then i started to kind of read into it and i was like yikes and by the way guys spoiler alert this won't be the last time i talk about hitler during this thing not that i love him let's put that out there but there are There are some real references to the war throughout this album. Yeah, that's really interesting.Track 3:[56:41] My mind went a completely different direction. I was thinking like a chancellor of a university. And again, I didn't read the lyrics. I didn't dig that deeply in. But it was funny because my daughter really likes this song. We kept playing in the car and I was explaining what a chancellor of a university was. And she said, oh, I thought it was like Chancellor Palpatine. Wow. and it turns out she was she was the right one yeah i guess she was she was closer than i was yeah wow look at that cross my read is so completely vastly different again my read is like bittersweet and romantic uh the chorus yeah i couldn't be a chancellor without you on my mind if i wasn't if i wasn't obsessed with you or thinking about you all the time time. Um, you know, who knows what I could have become. And on the, and in the video, isn't he riding around? He's on the swan boats. It's just, it does not make me. Swans. Yeah. Yeah. He does not make me, uh, feel like, like, uh, like he's referenced, referencing world war two, but that's fascinating. I can't wait to hear it again now.Track 3:[57:49] But at the end of that video, if you watch the full video at the very end, he's, it's revealed that he is the guy working the dock at the, at the swan boats and he takes off his coat and underneath it is a uniform that says guy. And he's the one taking the coins or the tokens or whatever for the people to ride the swan boats. So it's kind of like, uh.Track 3:[58:13] You know, when Hitler was a struggling artist before he became this global force and kind of took control, you know, he was romanticizing the idea of, of being chancellor of Germany. Wow yeah wow and i don't know wow reference to it or yes it's dark man because and again think of think of uh the song scared every hip show you go to everybody's everybody's slow dancing that's not a slow dance it's like we talked about in the other podcast it's like yeah that's the hips trick right or it's gorge yeah yeah 38 years old same thing long running same thing fiddler's green you know and and on and on and on these slow slow songs are are yeah miserable yeah and i have to say good yeah yeah yeah yeah and and the the vocal phrasing that the gourd uses on this just that, laid back where he just sort of hesitates on certain words i just just love it he's so unique that way. I think that's what separates him as a singer, is that phrasing.Track 3:[59:22] Oh, yeah. This is a really hard album to sing. And you guys are musicians and you play guitar and other instruments. I've always been a singer. And I cannot keep up with Gord on this album. I just can't. Like the chorus of this song, like, I'm discovering uses for you. But the way he throws uses for you together, it's like, it's almost like one overlaps the other. And it's like, that's impossible. And then on the more quaint side, I love that he rhymes pajamas by mispronouncing in a gourd-like way windows to rhyme with pajamas, right? Instead of windows. Oh, so great. By the way, that uses line, again, going back to Hitler's underlings, you know, doing experiments on twins and stuff like that. Like, this is, I think this is a dark one. I'm going to listen to it again tonight. And I can't wait to hear it. No.Track 3:[1:00:19] I hope I'm wrong. I think you're right. No, we know he likes the Second World War.Track 3:[1:00:26] And, you know, we've heard references to, you know, Nazis moving works of art or Russians moving works of art, you know, to stave off the Nazi army. And really quick, sorry, really quick shout out for the piano player. I'm guessing it was um hern but but man that piano is is really nice improvised piano solo yeah yeah it's a very sweet sounding song yeah bait and switch man yeah he got us the never ending present i was listening and and if you're a you know canadian of my age you knew right away who was singing backup so that was Stephen Drake because my mind went right to Wendy under the stars and um and you know right back to my you know my first car and being you know 16 years old and listening to the radio and and hearing the odds for the first time and and yeah just an unmistakable voice the harmonies are very distinct you know distinctly the odds and distinctly The one thing that I picked up was he mentioned his shoes were polished, which as we learned in the longtime running doc that he polished his shoes before every show.Track 3:[1:01:46] So I think he's talking about himself and it's kind of an introspective – I mean, he says I in every song, but I think this one might actually be about himself personally.Track 3:[1:02:00] I picture him standing on Broadview Avenue waiting for the streetcar. He says bus, but in my head it's a streetcar. And all the rest of the lyrics are the stuff that happens until the bus crashes the hill. Him dropping money inside the little money grabber on a bus. There's talk of that um but what i really what i really love about this song is how ahead of his time he is because this is like living in the present like being in the moment is so important and i've learned like through my mental wellness journey like how important it is to live in the moment and the idea that the moment can be never ending if you come about it with the right frame in my mind is so refreshing to hear. Amen. And of course they named the, um, uh, Michael Barclay wrote the book with using the title of the song.Track 3:[1:03:05] Sorry, I'm going to take a little detour off of this that I just have to bring up being, being the, uh, for the South American and someone that, uh, uh, you know, again, was always starving for hip. I've loved in this journey, discovering other Canadian bands. You guys were mentioning the odds. And, you know, I did the research a little bit on the dinner's ruined. And of course, you know, of the real statics from, you know, grace too. And we're all richer for having heard them. And, um, uh, I'm, I'm very excited, you know, during this to be able to take a dive into that music that I never got. Right. Cause I like Justin, you were lucky because you get a lot of that music, uh, in the Northeast.Track 3:[1:03:49] Um, no, no, no, we only get the hip and rush. Rush. There's no Canadian music except for the hip and Rush. I will say that. And Alanis, of course. but to do as a you know as a musician and and and being a big fan of many canadian bands you know rush is up there for me bare naked ladies is up there for me um obviously the tragic the hip is up there for me um but these other bands uh blue rodeo that has i think a little bit of a a um you know it did well here in the states um of course alanis and some of the others you know i want to I know more about the, uh, the ones that didn't get, uh, similar, similar stories to the tragically happened. And I'm really excited about taking that journey as well. And I love that, you know, that's one of the things that I've heard about in different, uh, uh, reading and, and interviews is Gord was such a proponent of getting, I mean, music out there, but, but specifically, obviously Canadian music and, and giving, you know, these, these not as well-known bands an opportunity.Track 3:[1:04:56] So, um, sorry, I just needed to take that little side journey there and, and, and share that with you guys. I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. Just going off what you were saying, yeah, apparently Gord would actually stand side stage and watch a lot of these bands. Like he would just stay there for the whole set. And all these bands, you know, Eric's Trip and The Odds, they were all change of heart. They all played with the hip.Track 3:[1:05:23] And for me, it's been fun because I've been doing the same thing. I was listening to The Odds last night and I couldn't believe how many hit songs they had. You know they're a band i enjoyed but never really really got into i think i've seen them live a couple times but man they had their pop song they were yeah that's exactly it they were they're you know pop writing you know machines but yeah i'm excited i'm excited about the journey for sure and and especially getting connected with you guys and having the experience you know know, uh, um, uh, being from Canada and, and, and really experiencing that not only on the radio, but, but live as well, that, uh, that's going to be a great journey. Cause isn't it great when you go to see, you know, you go to see one of your favorite bands and the opener shows up, you never heard of them. And, and all of a sudden they become, you know, one of your favorites and you're, you're falling around and, you know, and then it's always hard if they do make it, you're kind of like, man, that was my band, but I liked it when they were small, you know, I want them to be big, but not that big. I, that's, I mean, I mentioned it with, with the hip, you know, like all my experiences and I got to see them, I don't know, seven, seven, eight times, something like that.Track 3:[1:06:36] Like the biggest venue I saw them in was, was probably 1200 people. And, um, you know, the Troubadour, I got to see them in and, and, and up in San Francisco, the Fillmore's, you know, it's, it's over a thousand, uh, might be closer to actually, I'm not sure. I'll have to look that up. But the thing that I loved about it is, you know, I'm a hockey guy. And I think I mentioned the story to, to you, JD, like we're close to the ducks and the Kings and, and most hockey teams are, you know, 50 plus percent, if not close to 70% Canadians. And so I'd go to a show, I'd be in Hollywood and I'd look over and be like, Oh, Hey, look, there's Luke Robitaille or, you know, Oh, there's Chris Pronger. There's, you know, Scott Niedermeyer, you know, I'm hanging it out and oh oh hey paul korea how's it going you like the hip too you know and um what an experience and then canadian actors as well i got to meet dan akroyd at at the house of blues hollywood and he introduced the hip on stage and then you know he's rat so uh you know for me it's so weird um when you talk of this band they were a club band to me you know i i've seen what they've done and where they've played. And so anyway, I I'm, I'm taking us off the, the album, but just wanted to share that with, with you gents. No, that's cool.Track 3:[1:08:04] So now we take a hard, right. And, um, we get the track, the soundscape, uh, nothing but heartache in your social life.Track 3:[1:11:14] Did you say a hard right or a hard Reich? Because again, the Hitler.Track 3:[1:11:20] I'm serious. So again, this goes back to the poetry and there's a poem called Toiletten in the book and it is about Hitler's, I'm not even inferring this, this is about Hitler's podium at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and it now has signs pointing tourists to the toilet. Um, and the, uh, similarities between that poem and this song or spoken word, whatever, um, it's a hundred percent about that. And Gord even stumbles on a lyric that they, that they leave in the song, um, when the podium sprouting weeds and he stumbles on rendered ridiculous by the time. So the podium is this massive concrete structure that when you see film of Hitler speaking to 150,000, 200,000 Germans during wartime, that's where this is. But it's still there, and it's sprouting weeds, and the podium and its purpose have been rendered ridiculous by the times. When are you thinking of disappearing? I mean, when are you falling off the map when the unknown that you're fearing is in the clearing? That's totally about surrendering in the war and the allied forces moving across the field to wipe out the Nazis.Track 3:[1:12:46] When you're getting king-size satisfaction in the turnstiles of the night from all the shaky pill transactions, if that's not Jewish prisoners going to a concentration camp running down the train tracks in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is. It's, again, a very dark thing, and I think it leads to Hitler's suicide. That's when are you thinking of disappearing? Yeah.Track 3:[1:13:16] And it is interesting to note that the asterisk that comes with the title in the lyrics, it says Dale Morningstar provided echoing screams at the end of the song. It doesn't just say backing vocals or call and answer. It's echoing screams. I was wondering who was calling back and forth with them. They kind of sound like, even though the topic sounds quite serious, they're having some fun with it. At the end kind of yelling back and forth with each other and um and also of note um adam agoyan the filmmaker plays plays uh the classical guitar on this track and and one other track and so he's uh i think i read that that maybe this song was sort of based off some some things he brought in, came into the studio one day and they they sort of riffed off what he was doing and put this sort of spoken word. I also got, I don't know if you guys got this, but I almost got like an M&M vibe, like just like attitude wise. And of course I believe this would have been before M&M anyways, but, but just that, that sort of attitude and way he was rattling off these lines.Track 3:[1:14:29] Yeah, I get it. Absolutely. So the other me, you know, I was trying to get my, my head out of World War II with this, and it was easy to see in 2024 that Gord predicted the future of social media, right? This is before Facebook and MySpace and all this stuff, but this is 100% in line with everybody's mental health problems stemming from not having enough likes on their posts, right? This could absolutely be interpreted 20 plus years later in that way, if you were to look at it from that angle. Yeah, I...Track 3:[1:15:13] Obviously still like absorbing everything in the referencing that you're speaking of, uh, Hitler and world war two and, and how, you know, JD and Craig were like, didn't necessarily get that right away. I, I definitely, you know, heard the references. I, I knew of the references from some of the hip tunes. Um and uh and then just seeing this whole journey that he's taking with just coming out there with a solo album in the first place and then you hear about how um and again it's it's you know i don't know the exact i haven't spoken with the other members but some of the solo stuff really caused a bit of a rift within the band and then if you start thinking about the product of the hip you You know, this is where a big portion of their fan base starts turning away.Track 3:[1:16:04] And I wonder if that tension came through in some of the music. For me and you, Justin, we discovered them during this time. And like most bands, you don't become close to them. And, you know, I'll take a few exceptions. You know, Led Zeppelin. I wasn't there when the albums came out. But the band meant a lot to me later in life. But nothing like, I'll give an example of other bands, Rush and Barenaked Ladies. I went to those shows when those albums came out, same thing with The Hip, as it relates to 2000 and beyond. And so my reference point is there. Um, and then Gord goes off and decides to, to do this solo work. And, um, and not only does he does the solo work, but he starts taking that poetry side in the book that comes out along with it. He starts throwing in spoken word and we could spend a lot of time with the discussion about poetry versus spoken word versus lyrics versus, um, uh, you know, the, the, the written prose and, and, and where it all comes together and the different attitudes towards it. Um, but I, I'm, I'm honestly kind of shaking inside just thinking about the, the ability that, that Gord has to take a historical perspective.Track 3:[1:17:23] Area and put it into a spoken word and or song. But then in the same breath, depending on how you come at it, you get something completely different. If you don't know those references specifically, you're going to find something from a meaningful standpoint. So sorry. I mean, you really got me goosebumps in there, Justin. Well, I think that if I had never read lyrics from the hip, I would never have approached it from this angle.Track 3:[1:17:51] But it's kind of hard to not look at some of that stuff. He did an interview in the early 90s with some TV, whatever, and they said, what are your songs about? And he said, all of our songs are about war. And I remember seeing that on YouTube about 10 or a dozen years ago and thinking, oh, okay. Now, whether he was speaking Speaking of literal war or a relationship or conflict within the band or whatever, family, something, but there's a struggle or something that needs to be resolved in each one of these songs. And so I've, for better or worse, looked at a lot of hip stuff from that point forward, whatever year it was, as is Gord talking about literal war here. And that's just where I picked up on. Was he a history-type major? Did he have family that maybe participated in the war? There is a short poem in the book that is about his grandfather serving in World War II.Track 3:[1:18:56] Yeah, I could see that. Both my grandparents served in World War II, and I was a history major, and so I can see where that tie comes from.Track 3:[1:19:08] I hope we can move past the war stuff soon. Thanks justin yeah anything else from you craig well yeah i know i have nothing to add other than i love the little bait like bass kind of jazz odyssey thing that steven drake goes off on at the end if you if you notice the last like five seconds he just does this little improvised producer as well noodle it's pretty right bass player yes yes yeah engineering okay engineer anyways yeah Yeah, engineer. Well, that's what we got for you for this first episode. We're going to take a break and recuperate and recalibrate and take some electrolytes and we'll be back. Now, pick up your shit.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Discovering Downie! Each week, Craig Rogers, Justin St. Louis and Kirk Lane are joined by jD to experience one of Gord Downie's solo outings.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

jD makes a call for your Gord Downie cover song submissions.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dewvre podcasts & such has several new podcasts in the pipeline we think you're gonna love. Here is the first one. It drops on February 19th. You can subscribe at linktr.ee/rembreakdownSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

jD is back with some holiday greetings!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

jD shares his version of the song Montreal to shine a spotlight on the atrocity that was the École Polytechnique massacre on December 6th, 1989 where 15 lives were lost and 14 more were injured.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

jD, Dan from London, Pete and Tim are joined by a very special guest on this episode that is dedicated to the new reissue of Phantom Power for its 25th anniversary.And make sure to listen to the VERY END!Transcript:[0:05] On August 31st, 2023, The Tragically Hip dropped the first track from the Phantom.[0:12] Power 25th Anniversary box set, a song called Bumblebee.I will always remember this day because my friends Dan from London, Pete and Tim were in Toronto for our big live finale and the four of us were off to Kingston to visit the Bad Houseand sightsee the tragically hip scenes in Kingston.The first thing we did inside the car was fire up Bumblebee.It was so odd to hear something so familiar but so new to my ears.I hadn't heard this melody or these bending guitar licks before and I wanted more.[0:53] Lucky for us there are several other tracks included on this box set.Songs we either hadn't heard, or maybe we've heard snips and pieces of in live performances, or maybe on a bootleg.And of course there are complete song ideas that wound up on Gord's first solo record, Coke Machine Glow.There is also a fantastic live show from Pittsburgh, demos, and alternate versions of songs that did make the final cut.In essence, this is an exciting time to be a hip fan.Although we are all collectively gutted that we'll never see our boys on stage again, as long as I've been a hip fan, I've clamored for these songs that somehow wound up on the cuttingroom floor.And I'm sure you have too.[1:41] Today we'll get a sense of what Dan, Pete, and Tim think of the Reissue and we'll speak with a very special guest about the making of this spectacular box set and so much more.So sit back, relax, and let's start getting hip to the hip.Track 4:[2:23] Hey, it's Shadeen here and welcome back to Getting Hip to the Hip.This is an out-of-sequence bonus, episode for everyone.We are going to be talking today about the box set of Phantom Power, and I am joined as always by my friends Pete and Tim, and today's special guest again, Dan from London. How's itgoing, everybody?Well, Dan got his ears lowered, looks like Dan got his ears lowered.Yeah, I lost some hair over the course of the last thing, yeah.He was shorn. Maybe it was his younger brother stepping in. Yeah.[3:07] So fellas, when we last left off and we talked about Phantom Power, I recall the conversation really revolving around fireworks.You guys both really loved that song.Something On was a little underwhelming for you.You got into Poets, you thought that was a good kickoff and here we are just like six months after, not even six months, like four months after releasing that episode and The TragicallyHip goes out and releases a 25th anniversary box set of Phantom Power.So we thought it would be cool to get the band back together and talk about that for a little bit.And we'll be joined by a very special guest who we won't reveal quite yet.Is there anything that in particular, Pete or Tim, you remember about your experience with the record, thinking back, and Dan, for you following one of them, what was your experiencewith the record in general?[4:24] Um, it's funny because I went back and I found my notes from the original and it's it's just crazy to look at.It's like it's a it's a time it's a time capsule because, yeah, there were certain songs that was like, this is good.And like and now I look at, like, some of the songs that I was.[4:44] You know, Gugu and Gaga over and I love fireworks, but I mean, by by and far, you know, Bob Cajun is probably one of the most just, I mean, it's on loop in my home.So many, so many days. She also listens to it as well, right?Oh, yeah, she absolutely loves that song. We're listening to the live version today, we went for a hike.[5:07] And Cherrigan Falls. Poets is like, I think didn't, didn't, goodness, 50 Mission, didn't they?They came out with Poets when they played the live event.That song just, I had like one line written for that song. And this is the line, this is how sad it is. Dig it.Verse phrasing is key to the song. Lines go to the next measure.Layers and guitars. Nice. Now I'm just like, I hear that song.And I just fucking stop what I'm doing. And I just like, I fucking love that song.It's crazy how this album grew on me like a fucking virus. It's amazing.Timmy? Great. Yeah. Great, great question, JD, for sure.I mean, there's still a few on it that I'm not a super fan of, just to start off being negative here.Like, the rules to me is still a yawner, you know, but like, I kind of dig Chagrin Falls more than I did last time.I don't think I was anti, but in Emperor Penguin, I've read so many times across platforms that people love Emperor Penguin, and that song's slowly growing on me too. It's one of myfaves.There's still some really good ones in there.[6:31] Thompson Girl I could still live without. That's another one that grew on me, Timmy. I feel you, but I grew on it.With the new songs, and this is a question for a few minutes ahead, but somebody asked with the new songs, are any of those potential replacements for what's on the original?Oof. So yeah, that got me thinking a little bit.Tim, why do you always have to embroil things in controversy?I mean, that just is a controversial question.I mean, probably because of aliens, I guess. Oh, stop it.[7:15] Dan, what did you think of Phantom Power? I mean, Phantom Power is an absolute solid album.It's just a kicker, isn't it? I mean, I always love something on, I think it was the first track I got into off the album and I still absolutely love it. I think that song kicks ass.Something about the bass drum and the bass just driving it and the timing is just fantastic.Obviously, yeah, Bob Cajun.That always used to come on at a certain point on my commute when I was arriving at a certain station and I now still have overwhelming feelings when I pull into that station.[8:02] I can't believe how big a song can be, how overwhelmingly amazing a song can be.But yeah, I mean, the other stuff, I mean, Escape is at hand, I think, is just my favorite track on the album.You know, again, it's a whole other different story and different sentiment that it carries.And I don't know, I think that is a Bob Cajun and Escape is at hand, I think that just works a genius.And I can't say much more than that.Yeah. You know, the loss related with Escape Is At Hand is so relatable for me. And probably everybody.But I tend to live with you, Dan.I think Escape At Hand is... There's something about that song that just hits home, I think, probably for most people.[8:58] Maybe not sociopaths. I don't know. Maybe not.I think, Dan, you hit on the point. It's crazy how songs, even if you listen to them and enjoy them, it's like they get to a point where you've listened to them so many times, and perhaps thesame situation, like you said, pulling into that particular tube station or whatever it is, that maybe you don't hear it for a while, but then you hear it again, And, and just like a flood ofmemories and images come back.Just weird how the human brain works, man. I mean, this summer, we were go, go ahead.I mean, I just, I was just gonna say also in terms of that as well, it's the same station that I come into, I used to come into every time Fiddler's Green came on as well.So there's a time in all the albums where some of this stuff happens.[9:49] That's cool. That's cool. So have any of you guys had a chance to listen to the bonus tracks or the outtakes or the live show or any of it?And if you haven't, that's cool.All of it. All of it? Yeah. Yeah.I'm just happy to have more live music from these guys.For the obvious reason. It's a nice sounding show. So I read some kind of critique, so it's not the best sounding live show they played. I mean, who cares?I'm just happy to have more live music. That's an easy go-to wherever I am, in the car, on a plane, whatever.So as far as the new songs go? Yeah, back to your question.Yeah, I dig most of them. What's the best of the bunch? Eh, I don't know, I'm not there yet, I wouldn't say I'm there yet, I kinda like them all for different reasons.[10:52] Vegas Strip may be the least, but I like all these songs. I haven't gotten to it yet.It's my least favorite, but I still really like it.Yeah, like Songwriters Cabal isn't my favorite, but I love that song.Mystery, just lastly. Mystery is kind of a phenomenal ending to this group of songs.It's just this somber kind of tearjerker.Yeah, that was that was a happy listen. Joy meant either you fellas dabble.[11:31] I dabbled today and a couple of days last week, not yesterday, but I think Thursday and Friday in the fly stuff, which I concur with Timmy, I just love the live shit and I don't give afuck If it was a, you know, if it was a tape recorder jammed behind a, you know, bathroom stall and you got it picked it up in the background.It's just cool to hear this band live, but I loved it. Um, of the new tunes.I agree. I'm not there yet, but I, I got, um, I did hear bumblebee a lot when that came out, cause that dropped first, if I'm not mistaken, right. It dropped the day we went to Kingston.Kingston.So we got to it on the way to Kingston. That was fun. That's right.But I would say of the new tracks, I think the strongest one is Insomniacs. Me too.I just think it's very brawling, fucking harking back, just cool, fucking, just has that cool, easy, fucking hip, early shit to it.Early feels to it. Yeah, you know, has the road apples feel to it or something.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I like that too. I could be swayed.[12:50] Okay. Dan? Yeah, and I mean for me, I've listened to the extra tracks.I mean, I still love Bumblebee.[13:04] There's something about that with the guitar bends, that like, I mean, I think we next sort of hear those kind of guitar bends on my music at work.Something very similar happens towards the end of that, doesn't it?But in terms of the live stuff, there's a few little things going on in there.I mean, obviously, when you get down to 100th Meridian, there's a kind of improvised extract of Bumblebee in there, which is fantastic.And also, in the Chagrin Falls live version, he breaks into Born Free, but in the alternate version of Chagrin Falls, he's singing Chagrin Falls with a Born Free kind of lilt to it.So there's these kind of little parallels between some of the stuff that's been chosen, I think.Yeah, so maybe that's the reasons for some of those selections.Yeah. To you for choosing this live this light those like cuts you mean I Think so. Yeah.Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely some some thread woven throughout.Yeah Too bad. We don't have anybody to ask We might get some insight from our special guest Yeah, we should kick to him right now.We'll go to a song and then we'll come in with our special guest Johnny fucking thing.Track 6:[17:35] Hello, hello, hello, hello, I hear you guys now. There we go. Oh good. Am I good?Am I good? Yeah Hello Hi johnny Good doing well Sorry about that Hi, that's my fault. Not yours.I'll take full credit for that We're just waiting for one more to join Okay, he's uh in the waiting room now.Oh, there he is amazing how everything just Clicked and then johnny came on because we were having some severe problems, Dan, can you hear us? Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Can youhear me? Yeah. Grant.[18:18] How you doing technically there, Danny? Good. Can you hear me?I can hear you. I can see you.Perfect. So then are you done? Are you done taking the McDonald's in London?London? London. Yeah. Yeah. My dad, my dad's hometown. He's from Woolwich.Woolwich, really? Yes. Oh yeah. South of the river. And we got to Canada and some friends would say, are you from London, Ontario or London, England?And my dad would just shoot back, he'd go, there's only one, London.Ooh. Although they have a Thames where the Canadian one. Ooh. Anyway.[18:59] That's beautiful. Isn't there in London, Missouri or something, too? There's a London... Oh, they're all over the place.Yeah. What's the deal with that? What's the deal?I think there's one in India also. You can't throw a shoe without hitting a London, is basically what you're saying. Yeah.All right. Well, let's get things on the road here.Johnny, just a brief introduction. We've ran a podcast from May 2, 4 to Labor Day this summer, where I took my friends that have never heard of the hit before. One is in Spain, Malaga.One is in Portland, Oregon. That's Tim and that's Pete, who is from Spain.And then Dan is from London.And we took them through a record a week, starting with the Baby Blue record and working up to Man-Machine Poem and just.[19:54] Inculcated them into the world of Tragically Hip.We ended up with a big party at the end downtown at the Rec Room.We raised like almost four grand for Donnie Wenjack.Oh that's amazing. Incredible.Yeah, so that's our story. I'm sorry I had to get the The music stuffed down your throat like that.[20:19] Can you imagine doing it, Johnny, like of a band that you've never heard of, right?And I've heard of you guys, but like never heard of you guys. I mean, I never heard it.But it's crazy how we did get it literally shoved down our throats.And now we were going back today talking about Band and Power, about what our first reactions were for it.And even compared to now, how much everything's just grown on us.It's just like, and we're diehard fans now, but go back a year from today, we didn't know. That's incredible.Wow. It's crazy, man. Thanks for sticking with it. It's not always easy.My Spotify algorithm is still totally convoluted, but a lot of a lot of hit playing in there.So Johnny, let's start at the start and get to know a little bit about you as the drummer of The Tragically Hap.And youngest member of The Tragically Hap. That's right, that's right. It's a dig.[21:27] It's Gord Sinclair's birthday today, right? It is indeed.Yes. Yes. I had dinner with him and Paul the other night in Toronto, and we had a nice evening.And, you know, we're 40 years young next year.I was in high school when we started, and I guess here we are.Wow. Wow. Who, before you got into the band and as you guys were forming, um, you know, your sound and your, you know, cadence, who were your big influences?I've, I know Stuart Copeland came up at one point. Oh, without a doubt.Yeah. I've heard a story about an exam or something like that, that you missed.That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. Uh, and we later ended up working with Hugh Padgham, the great British producer. and Synchronously was coming out and it came out on the daybefore my.[22:29] My math exam for Mrs.Griffordy and Lynn got this record and I listened to it.I'd heard Every Breath You Take on the radio, but then when I heard Synchronicity II and just the blistering drumming of Stuart, I just had to drink it all in.I remember making the decision. I was like, I can listen to this record, I can study for the exam.If I don't study for the exam, I'm going to summer school, which I did.And then I took one day off to go see them at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, but it was worth it because that was, that was really my education was living, eating and breathing.And if you were a drummer in the eighties, who, uh, the guy, he was instantly identifiable by a snare drum.Um, just the hit one snare drum, there was Stuart Copeland.So, And this was an era of drum machines, don't forget, this was Len drums and sequencers, and I loved all that stuff too, absolutely did, but to be on the radio, and Stuart was it, he was,and I'm still finding things out about him, that he held the drumstick between two fingers, he didn't hold it, he held it up here.[23:48] Instead of the two fingers, which is the traditional way to hold the drumsticks.But he invented a way to play and invented a kit, which was a sound, you know.And he really, I can't say enough things about Stuart Copeland.Yeah, he's amazing. But I'll also listen to Alan White of Yes, who was fantastic. and of course, you know, Neil Peart, Bob Rush.That's a pretty good pedigree.Well, you try and take a little bit from each guy, you know, you don't want to be a lab rat. You don't want to copy them.You want to just take all the little things you like the right hand from this guy, this snare drum from that guy, the bass drum.And of course, the great I saw him the other day, the Manu Katché, Peter Gabriel's drummer, who is the Picasso on the drums. He has hands down, Art Picasso on drums.High praise. Dan?Yeah, so yeah, those are your sort of past influences. But who do you enjoy listening to now? Who does it for you now?Well, it's really funny because what's on my turntable right now is Heavy Weather by.[25:12] Weather Report and I'm listening to Jaco Pastorius.I'm trying to get as much of him into me because he was the guy really, you know. You hear Geddy Lee talk about him, you hear.So I'm listening to a lot of bass players these days and loving it.So that's what's going on.[25:36] I gotta I gotta ask you, just because you mentioned synchronicity, this is just a this is just a note.And if you didn't know it, then I think we brought it up with Paul.But do you know that that record had 33 different covers?[25:53] I did, yes I did. I didn't know that I thought it had.I thought it had. Well, I guess it would because each guy was sort of on one of the strips and it changed.But I didn't know there were 33. 32 or 33. But yeah, it was when I found and some some versions are rarer than others. But that record is.And that song Mother is just nuts. And isn't Stewart Copeland singing that song?No, that song is Andy Summers, and I heard a story, they did part of it in the Moran Heights in Montreal and the engineer asked Hugh if he could bump himself off a cassette in the day.In those days there was no internet so it was cool. The engineers usually got to be able to do that.Here's a record I'm working on, just happens to be with the police.And he asked Hugh Padgham if he could leave that song off.A lot of people hated it. It's a hard song to listen to if you're not into the record. You know, what went into the trash bin was I Burned For You, that was slated to go on that record.And think about how that would have, you know, from Sting's soundtrack work, would have changed that record. Totally.[27:22] I'm a little curious of then and now also, when you first started playing drums, I raised a drummer.I have a 21 year old who plays drums.Awesome. Actually, yeah, the past year or so he's been out of the country and he's been more focused on DJing, techno of all things.But he's, you know, can hear kind of a drummer influence. But anyways, you know, we got him on hand drums early and drum lessons early.And I lived through, you know, a drum set in the basement.Just anywhere you went in my house, you had to go outside or take a call.It was just, you know, what was it like for you in your early years playing drums? Like what pushed you over to the drum set or being interested in it? And...Conversely, do you still play now? Do you still have access to a drum set or a drum set at home?[28:13] Great questions. Number one, my brothers had a friend who had a drum set and they said to me, they went and got the snare drum and they said, we'll get you the snare drum.And after a year, if you're still playing, we'll go get the rest of the drum kit.And I'm still playing. And so they Then I had an eye injury, which for three weeks I had both eyes sort of closed off with cotton batting.And it was a really weird, weird accident.I still, when I'm explaining it to people, my dad was on the phone.He was a pediatric cardiologist and he was talking to the hospital and we were at a friend's house.And it had this jar of erasers and pens and pencils and elastics and he was talking and I remember he had his hand on my head like that and I grabbed an elastic band and a pen, and I shotthe pen into my eye and yeah it was very bizarre I thought it was shooting at the other end so it went right in and I remember my dad saying to my mom don't touch it leave it leave it andshe was trying to pull it out and so I went in and my sense of hearing was heightened.[29:33] I could hear my dad walk down the hall after he had his morning rounds.I could hear the cadence of his footstep and so you know for that three weeks where I was unable to see, it just kicked that.At about seven years old into a different gear for me. I started hearing rhythm everywhere.As you do with your indicator of your car, to industrial sounds, trucks backing up. I can put a rhythm into it.Like your son, his, like you're saying about drumming, and now he's DJing, his internal clock is always going as a drummer because that's where it started. Absolutely.Yeah. So it's the same. Drummers are that way. You just pick those things up.And then second question. No, I'm not playing. I'm kind of doing what your son is doing with drum machines.But I have two drummers in the house, two nine-year-old boys.[30:29] And one is a lefty. And I would set a kit up for him and then my other son, Finn, and then I would forget about Willie.And then, so I just said, well, I'm going to set it up on the left for you because he has a great acoustic kit, a set of Gretsch 1960s.And now I play left because I'm not the drummer that I'm not, you know, I'm not that drummer anymore. So now I'm discovering all kinds of new things about playing on the left side, andleft-handed drummers I find are way more creative.It's funny you mentioned that because we often notice when I've gone to shows with my son, we'll just say immediately that guy's left-handed.You just see it like that. That's very cool.Ringo was left-handed, they say, and that's why no one could ever duplicate the way he got around the kit.Yeah. His left hand pushed his right hand, I think.Phil Collins, Ian Pace, they're not good drummers.They're incredible drummers. Those two guys for me, Ian Pace and Phil Collins.Phil Collins, the stuff that I listened to today, and I'm like, how is he doing that?How is he doing that? He was incredible.He really was. He is incredible.[31:48] Johnny, you've been hard at work on the Phantom Power reissue, the box set, the amazing box set.I got it last week, and it was so fun to open and just touch the vinyl, and the book that's inside is really wonderful.I'm just, I'm so curious what a project like that.[32:17] Entails like from a from a time perspective. And I know you guys are hard at work on another one for next year.Like, when does that begin? And what does that process even look like?Like, is it just climbing Everest or what?It's really fun. It's really great therapy for us.You know, we get to talk about the past and if one guy doesn't remember it, someone else will.We have weekly calls and it's fun.We didn't do any therapy after Gord passed away and we really should have.We have just all kind of dealt with things and I think really right now that this is our therapy.I'm in Toronto, so that's where the tapes are. I'm very happy to do it and we're digitizing things and Phantom Power was a different one because it was in different formats.It was on D88, little digital tapes.[33:11] DAT machines were around and kicking at that time.We also had our 2-inch machine and then Pro Tools, the dreaded Pro Tools was coming in.Well, you didn't have to make a decision and you could have a hundred tracks on something and and I was like the you know There was such economy when we were going to tape andAnd I really liked that.So, you know, if you look at the early records, we're still I, Think there's the most that we used was 18 tracks You know Don Smith would consolidate things and that was really a goldenperiod So, it's not as daunting as you think, it's been fun, it's been fun, it's been a discovery.[34:00] You know, to listen to some of those tracks and hear Gord Downie speaking in between takes is really these beautiful moments.So yeah, it's been a lot of fun.Robbie is in charge of the box set, putting it all together.So he's doing all of that stuff.And you know, Gord and Paul are very involved in it. But they have solo careers too.So, um, you know, uh, but we are, we're all together on this.Uh, it's not me, uh, just doing, um, the tape stuff there. They're involved in it too. Very cool.Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask in terms of the project from the offset, uh, you know, when you're going through the tapes and covering all of these tracks and these, these different takesof the tracks that you have, what, what shape, you know, with those tracks in, did they require a lot of work to get them up to spec, or was there anything that was kind of left off that was,you regard as pretty good, but it was still a bit too rough around the edges to include?[35:04] Well, if we did any editing back in the day, if it was tape, we would do chunk editing.We would take the ending of one, with the hip, we would play a tune, it'd be great, be great and we would get close to the end and then we'd anticipate the ending and I'd make the otherguy speed up so we get to it and then our producer would say well the ending of this one's good so let's take the last four bars so there we go there's the track.So they were in pretty good shape you know the tape that we got was really forgiving.The crazy thing is I heard about the Rolling Stones going back and doing stuff that they did in the early 60s.And the early 60s tape actually lasted better than the stuff they made in the 80s.They had to do very little to get them back into shape, which is cool.You got to bake them in what essentially is an easy bake oven for tapes at a low temperature and it just sucks all the humidity out.And so record companies are obviously very well prepared to do all that sort of stuff and then it's just digitizing them.But when you first have a go through the tape after it's been baked and it's coming off the head and going through a board at the studio, it never sounds better.You know and they shoot it over to Pro Tools and they say now we have it We've have it and I always say well it sounded better a few minutes ago when it was going through the machineand so, Yeah Tape is king.We lived in the Golden Age. We really did in the in the 80s and 90s When you when you still were spinning tape.[40:59] So I imagined with coming across tapes, you guys did so much work, you know, in the recording process that I imagined it was just so fun to go through. It has been.It was, you know, but, you know, talk about Bob Cajun being an example.We only really have two versions of that.[41:23] And Gord Sinclair and I had a conference and we were like, well, we can play that again and we can play it better. And we were like, yeah, let's do it.And so the version you hear is the demo version, really.It's just we said we would go back and address it later. I think we went on tour and then it was Steve Berlin listening to it, which was really cool because he he recognized you can't beatyour demo.And that's what bands try and do.And he was so smart with it. And he said, I'll let you play it again.But you're not going to beat this. It's just there's a vibe there.And Gordon and I were like, we're going to beat it. We're going to do it. And we never did.And so I always loved that, that he did that because as a producer, I wouldn't have done that.And I would have screwed it up if I was producing that record.And he had the brainpower and the knowledge and he'd made so many great records before that he just, he let us play it, but we never beat it.It's our biggest song, too. Well, we were talking before, I absolutely love that song.That song is the soundtrack of this past summer for my wife and I.You jammed it down her throat. Oh, yeah. She drank the Kool-Aid, man.Let me tell you. She sure did.I've tried. We're getting there.[42:46] That's the pocket of that song, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, and if Robbie was here, I'd maybe change it just to be sweet to him, but it's you and Gord.It's just that the pocket's so tight with that.But you said something earlier about tape, and I want to just touch on it real quick because you were talking about how they have Pro Tools and this and that, and how you would havemade a different decision with Bob Cajun.But we cut a record in this last March, our band, we did our second record.And the engineer was using Cubase, which is just another version of Pro Tools or whatever.You've got a million, you can do a million tracks. But like he was like, no, you're going to do this many. And I'm like, no, I don't like that.He's like, nope, that's it.Yeah, because you get to a point to where you could just you just go crazy.And you could do 25, 30 tracks, you know, on one take or 25, 30 takes.And it's just it's stupid at that point.You've got to appreciate the moment that it is, you know, whether it's, you know, you're never better than your demo, like you said. You know? Yeah.And and I don't know, I guess.[44:01] There was, and not to get off the topic of, of, of, of Phantom Power, but for me, and I know we all had this, this reaction.We felt like I felt like In Between Evolution was the Johnny Faye record.[44:17] Really? Yeah, and there's... I don't remember that record, really.Well, yeah, there's a specific thing. That's crazy because there there's at the end of certain songs, there's little, you know, hi-hat touch, there's a rimshot, there's just little sprinkles of youthat is the last sound you hear on multiple tracks and or, or the beginning of a track.And I'm like, I wonder if there's something to this, but they must have just been the take that you guys did and it's taking up, maybe so.That was confusing record.Well, it's interesting about the tape to dress the tape thing.Yeah. And you have limitations. You got to make decisions.Uh, and you know, and I didn't say that I read Keith Richard's book and he was like, give me eight tracks and I'll write you a hit.And, you know, when they went to 16, he was like, man, okay, but I can still do it. Nay. And it's true.Um, you know, that, that the a hundred guitar tracks or whatever, the layering and, and, uh, it's just, you know, it goes, just lets up on records, John Bonham.I worked with a guy named Terry Manning and he had, John Bonham got very upset with him because Terry Manning said to me, I was the guy who put the third microphone on thedrums, he didn't like that, he only wanted two.[45:36] Only wanted two. So yeah, Inbetween Evolution was, we worked with Adam Casper, he was fantastic, obviously he's a guy who worked with Pearl Jam and we were very chuffedabout working for him, with him.And we seemed to move around studios a lot.For me that was a little bit confusing, so I never knew what we really had in the can.And it was in Seattle, where I love. I absolutely love Seattle.And so that was cool to be there. But yeah, I don't sort of...It's just a record that's easy to associate with you.And I think at that time too, we were looking at videos. I remember talking about this video I saw of you.You were so in the friggin zone playing live.You broke a cymbal and somebody just came like middle of the song.You just kept going along, replace cymbal.That would be Mike Cormier. He was my drum check and he was amazing.He could tell when they were broken. He sort of mid-song and he'd say, should I wait for the end of the song? I was like, no, just get rid of it.[46:44] Yeah, you know, we're going through something now where we're going back even further and with Up To Here.And a question was asked earlier about is there some songs that were left off?And there was a song that was left off, Up To Here, and it's called Wait So Long. and it was a really, really special song.Our producer and his manager and some people at the record company really thought that that was the lead track.[47:15] It ended up being Blow It High Dough, I believe.Or New Orleans is sinking. But Wait So Long is a great track, and that will come out next year.Oh, that's exciting. We have a mix of it and everything from Don Smith, so that's fully intact.So when we looked through the tapes and thought, oh, what do we need to remix?There was that one, you know, the lettering. It was like, okay, we got that one.So that'll be great to get out.You know, hear what people think about that. So one of our go ahead, Judy.So I have an ammo system set up at home. So I've been listening to the mix and Dolby Atmos.And I'm just curious about how that works when you're when you're doing a mix of that because there are instrumentations and sounds that I've never heard in those songs before.And now all of a sudden, they're they're shooting over my head.And it's, it's really fucking tremendous. It's a great way to experience music.But I just wonder what it's like.Do you have a mixer that just takes care of that?Because I noticed there was there's three writing credits for mixers on the Yeah, on the album.So I'm just curious if one is just for Dolby Atmos, sir.Yeah, well, we had a guy in the first couple, I think he did Road Apples.[48:43] And his name is Rich Chicky, and you might know him because he's done all the Rush stuff.He's like the Rush in-house guy for Atmos.Since then, we've had our key engineer, Mark Braykin, has been doing the Atmos stuff because he built an Atmos room.[49:00] You're right on this one. Phantom Power has a lot of stuff. I was sitting in the back of the room when they were mixing that and it's like there's some backwards guitars and somestuff that just goes out and it makes sense.I'm not gonna lie, I'm not the hugest fan of, I get it, you know, let's send the hi-hat into outer space, changes the groove, changes the groove for a five-piece band, we're not gonna lie.[49:29] On an album like Road Apples, which Rich did, and he did a great job.I just don't get it. On Phantom Power, which would be the closest thing that we would ever have to Dark Side of the Moon, I get it.You sit in the back of the room and hear the backwards guitar or stuff swirling around. It's cool.But I know people want this in their headphones, but I guess I'm a little bit like Monomix guy.I don't mind that either. I love it. I love that. Yeah.Dan? I'm with you, Joni.[50:04] Coming back to the other aspect of the box set, which is the live recordings, I mean, what criteria do you sort of use for selecting the live recording?I mean, out of the three that have been, you know, re-released.[50:18] Obviously one was the Horseshoe, but the other two have been from, like, American venues.Would you perhaps, like, choose the American gigs because they might be lesser known to a predominant Canadian audience?Or, I don't know, how do you choose? We pick a gig that has fewer clams in it and less mistakes.We just kind of really, we really do.We did a live record called Live Between, it was way back in the day, and we argued about this.We had really sort of a good old fashioned fight about it.And Gord Downie wanted one from this place called the 40 Walk Club, which we'd listened to and it was a great, great version.It was a great night.And it's where REM, I think, got their start.And so we were sort of between that and another couple.[51:12] And then we ended up picking Detroit because it sounded good.Um, I think that's kind of what we go on when we're, we're picking these, um, these live, uh, albums and Gord Sinclair's son, um, is the one who really goes through them and says, there'ssomething here.He knows the hip really well. And so he really kind of directs us.So there's so many tapes out there. Um, and so he, he sort of says this one, um, from, uh, Chicago second night, a house of blues.This, this one's got something there. And so Colin Sinclair is really in charge of that.I don't think any other guy in the hip can take credit for it.[51:52] Can I just ask as well then, so what percentage of hip shows do you think were actually recorded, you know, documented?[52:00] It would depend on the period. One tour we went out with D88 machines, other eras we let people tape, like Fish Show or Grapevold Head, we would set up a little area where theycould get stuff off the board.That was cool. And there were some remote stuff, not a ton of 24-track, tape stuff. We would do stuff for Westwood One.Most of this stuff is going to be in-house, or a record company generated through a live truck, Usually in LA or New York, we have one coming up from a show we did in the States forRecord Day next year.Not a ton. There's not a ton. Two scoops in this session. That's great.That are coming out?[53:05] You mentioned Zeppelin too. I was going to ask you about Hedley Grange, but I forgot what I was going to say. You know where Bonham did that thing with the, for, for, um.[53:16] When the levee breaks, you know, yeah, they put the mics up on the stairs. God, that's so cool.But, but no, that was Jimmy. That was Jimmy Page. That was Jimmy Page doing that.He engineered page based on that. That's that's such a it's such a I mean, never in in history. Can anybody recreate that sound? I mean, it's just so cool.No, the sound of like a double bass almost, but people people don't understand that there's the economy of it.If you worked with one of These older guys, I always say that Don Smith was like Rudy Van Gelder, he got it.He knew, he kept on coming into the studio, back in the control room.He would make the live room, the studio sound, the control room sound like the live room. And he was constantly tweaking like that.[54:02] The guitar, if you listen to the Zeppelin, it's all the stuff that's implied in the chords I think.The drums are what everything is hanging off of. The guitars are really quite small, you know, you know, there's these these bands that came out in the 80s that were trying to be likeZeppelin, use 24 microphones on the drums.It sounded horrible, you know, and for John Bonham, it was just the way he played. He was really good.Incredible jazz sensibilities, an incredible groove. And he was able to move, you know, all four of those guys were spectacular.We went on the road with them. We went on the road with them, Paige and Plant, through the States, and it was incredible.[54:49] Yeah. Never a nicer, never a nicer guy than Robert Plant. He was so, so nice.Oh, yeah. That's that's, that's, that's amazing.Yeah, I'm a huge, I'm a huge Zep fan. But I just got to ask you real quick about the song Fireworks.Is there, there's got to be some Rush influence in that. I just hear so much like spirit of the radio in that tune.It's just such a, I think that when that song, when we heard that song on this record, Tim and I both, I was like, that was for our first favorite song on this record. Oh, that's sweet.[55:26] Don Smith's mix on the box set is really interesting.Because for Phantom Power, where we mixed it three different times.Yeah, I mean, Neil, I got to meet him a couple of times.He was obviously a huge influence and I would say, yeah, yeah.I went trick or treating as him one year. I crank called him.[55:50] Oh my gosh, amazing. Love Rush, man, love Rush.J.D. be mindful of the of the clock too on the thing. You're on mute.Yeah, we can't hear you, J.D.Oh, sorry about that, guys. I was just going to say we've got a minute 45 left of this session before it cancels out.So, Tim, if you've got a quick one and then we'll bid adieu.Well, I just had one of our pod listeners asked about Bumblebee and basically was like, why didn't this make the album?You know, this it could fit in there so well. So just a quick comment on that.And yeah, yeah, that was one that was that was on on the list.And I think it just, we just sort of Gord Sinclair was putting the sequences together for that.And it just for us, there was just something maybe missing. It's really great.[56:46] And I love the line when the moon's a water balloon.It just is so great. That's so Gord. You know, yeah.And I look at every time I look up at a supermoon and it looks like a water balloon. I think it's very cool.Well, it made the box set. So that's, yeah, that's important.Yeah. Well, Johnny, we really want to thank you so much for your time.It means a lot. And thank you gents for, for all your promotion to the hip. Our pleasure.Keep ramming, keep ramming it.Hopefully not your family. They love it too. It happens.Track 1:[57:29] Thanks for listening to Getting Hip to the Hip. Please subscribe, share, rate and review the show at gettinghiptothehip.com.Find us on Twitter and Instagram at gettinghippod.And join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash fully and completely.Questions or concerns? Email us at JD at getting hip to the hip.com.We'd love to hear from you.Track 6:[58:25] I can't wait for the music at work box set as well, just so you know, just so you know, we're dying for that one. Oh yes, please, please.I'll tell you, I'll tell you the one that I was listening to last night and the demos are really great and and I'm really pushing for this one is in violet light.Oh yes. Yeah. In violet light. The demos were just incredible.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gordon Edgar Downie - 1964 - 2017Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

There is a new podcast is debuting on Dewvre podcasts and such next week. Check it out and subscribe where ever you get your podcasts!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy