Northern Wish

6. Rheostatics - Introducing Happiness
The third of three Rheostatics albums to make my top 10. Stylistically this is definitely the most varied album of their career and also contains the most songs of any one album. Introducing Happiness was the one with the hit. In 1994 Claire was everywhere. They won a Genie Award for “Best Original Song” as it was also the centrepiece of the “Whale Music Soundtrack” which also came out in 1994. It is the third proper studio album in a row to be considered classic Rheostatics after Melville in 1991 and Whale Music in 1992.

Introducing Happiness is a tough nut to crack for the casual fan. It is a grower of an album which gradually lulls you in with each repeated listen. I remember when I first started listening to it that I wasn’t even sure if I liked it. But gradually it rose to the top of my list of rheos favorites. Perseverance pays off as this is rich tapesty of an album. I has the quirkiness of Fan Letter To Michael Jackson and Full Moon Over Russia to the bizarre of Cephallus Worm/Uncle Henry which is kind of like a tripped out version of a White Album era Paul McCartney song. It has the poppiness of Claire and Introducing Happiness, the gentleness of Row and Take Me In Your Hand, and the epic progginess of Onilley’s Strange Dream, In This Town and Digital Beach. And there is some punkiness as well with their take on the Jane Sibbery song One More Colour. The island vibe of Alomar speaks to the environment it was recorded in as the band went to the Bahamas to record this one. Here is an interview with the band about it.

 This album, Whale Music and Melville really are the foundation of what the Rheostatics legend is built on but it is not the whole story. They would go on to record 3 more “regular” studio albums, The Blue Hysteria, Night Of The Shooting Stars and 2067 as well as a “children’s album” The Story of Harmelodia and an album commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada which was Music Inspired By The Group Of Seven. There was also The Nightline Sessions which you really need to hear in order to not understand. No other Canadian band quite captured the feeling of Canada and of being Canadian than the Rheostatics. And very few have a body of work which can even compare in both variety, style, quality of songwriting and musicianship. With the Rheos, either you get it or you don’t. But when you do there is no turning back. When they played their last show at Massey Hall on March 30 2007, people flew in from all corners of Canada and the USA to be a part of it. From Florida to San Diego and from Victoria to Newfoundland. They were just that kind of band. As Gord Downie states at the beginning of their Live Between Us album “we’re all richer for having seen them tonight”. It was like that every time you saw them.

 Here is the excellent video for Claire

and a live version of Fan Letter To Michael Jackson from Much Music

Track Listing is:
1. Fan Letter to Michael Jackson
2. Introducing Happiness
3. One More Colour
4. Claire
5. Digital Beach
6. Earth/Monstrous Hummingbird
7. Row
8. Full Moon Over Russia
9. Take Me in Your Hand
10. Jesus Was Once a Teenager Too
11. Me and Stupid
12. Fish Tailin’
13. Woods Are Full of Cuckoos
14. Cephallus Worm/Uncle Henry
15. In This Town
16. Alomar
17. You Are a Treasure
18. Onilley’s Strange Dream

Introducing Happiness did not chart in Bob Mersereau’s book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.

3. Rheostatics - Double Live
DOUBLE LIVE - the second of 3 Rheostatics albums in my top 10. It is the one which turned me on to the Rheostatics. I was a latecomer to the Greensprouts fold. I had Whale Music on cassette which was given to me by Gary Gottlieb when it came out. I liked it but hadn’t yet had my moment of Rheostatics clarity. That “TA-DA” moment when you all of a sudden get it and are forever converted. I don’t even know why I bought this album to begin with. I know my first show was at the Reverb when they were still making Harmelodia so it must have been back in 1998. My TA-DA moment happened during the following Green Sprouts Music Week at The Horseshoe when they opened with “Saskatchewan” and that was pretty much it for me. It is the kind of moment you have while seeing the Rheos where, as a musician, you seriously consider never performing again. I’ve had many of those moments while seeing them live, 14 nights in a row in the middle of winter, year after year, much to the chagrin of my liver and my bank account. By about day 5 one’s job pretty much becomes a secondary necessity but the exhaustion keeps you from really caring one way or the other what happens. The Rheos were different. They were all phenomenally talented writers, singers and musicians. They would move from jaw dropping best moments you have ever heard from a live band, to roll on the floor laughing hysterically because they were also so funny. Canada has never seen another band like them and I doubt it will again. They were truly one of a kind. They could inspire one to want to be a musician and others to give it up all together.

Anyway Double Live. If you don’t have it, go get it now. I’ll wait….

Got it?
Good.

For me it is the best live album out there but my Rheo-bias may be influencing that opinion. I know, apparently Kiss have a good one as does The Who, but for me, this is the one. It isn’t a single show but is a collection of live performances from clubs, arenas (opening for The Tragically Hip’s Canadian tour of 1996) and in-store performances. It is a great mix of live favorites (Saskatchewan, Shaved Head, Legal Age Life, Horses, Dope Fiends), Rare live performances (Midwinter Night’s Dream, Torque, Torque, Jesus Was Once A Teenager Too) and unreleased obscurities (Royal Albert, Bees, Dead Is The Drunkest You Can Get). The only thing it really didn’t capture was just how funny the band was. Here are a few examples of what I mean from a few shows over the years of the banter they would get into onstage.
1. Song Requests Banter
2. Crazy Fans Banter

There used to be an FTP site for trading Rheostatics live shows but it disappeared years ago. When I started setting up some websites I contacted the band about doing a Live Rheastatics Archive of shows and videos. Check it out if you want to hear some great live shows by the band. It is at http://www.rheostaticslive.com. I also set up a site devoted to their last show at Massey Hall March 30 2007. It is http://www.goodgonedead.rheostaticslive.com. Send me an email if you want to add to the site.

Here is an example of a great live show on the rheostaticslive.com site from Club Vertigo in Victoria BC from January 21 2000 courtesy of Lucky Budd (yes that is his real name).
I even put together a 156 song “Box Set” of live cuts, studio cuts, interviews and radio performances which I may end up posting some day - given band approval.

Here is a clip of them live at their final show performing the final song Record Body Count from the middle of the floor, 4 guys, 1 unamped acoustic guitar and a microphone…..and a human pyramid. It really shows what the band was all about. They could take 1500 people at Massey Hall at their final show, during their final song and make you feel like they were playing in your living room. They were that good. Actually they were the best!

Double Live did not chart in the Top 100 Canadian Albums book by Bob Mersereau….but it should have.

At the beginning of 2007 I got an email from Bob Mersereau mentioning that he was going to be putting together a book of the top 100 Canadian albums. We needed to submit our top 10 picks. I figured I would give it a shot. The funny thing is on any given day I could pick 10 favorite Canadian albums and probably 7 of them would be different from the previous day. Easily I could have included Harvest or Rust Never Sleeps by Neil Young, The Band or Music From Big Pink by The Band, Moving Pictures by Rush, Melville by Rheostatics, Shyfolk by The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Fully Completely or Trouble At The Henhouse by The Tragically Hip, or a dozen others. On that day January 27 2007 this was my number 1 pick:

1. Rheostatics - Whale Music
On any day this will be my number one pick. It is my favorite Rheostatics album, my favorite Canadian album and one of my favorite records. Ever. If you have never heard Whale Music pick it up. The only other albums you will ever hear which are like it are probably other Rheostatics albums.
The cover is beautifully painted by Martin Tielli. The production is masterfully recorded by Michael Philip Wojewoda and the music is sublime. quirky, weird and heartwrenching. From the progressive opening riff of Self Serve Gas Station to the Punk Rock of RDA (Rock Death America), folk rock of Legal Age Life At Variety Store, the sad anger of Shaved Head, the Walter Ostenak inspired Sickening Song, to the Pink Floyd of Dope Fiends And Boozehounds the musical styles are as wide ranging as the content being sung about. Queer is a letter from a son to his brother who has been kicked out of his family home after revealing that he is gay. Dave Bidini in one sentence managed to unify a difficult social issue with Canada’s national pride in the line “I don’t care about the damage, but I wish you were there to see it when I scored at hat-trick on the team that called you a fucking Queer”. Shaved Head deals with a Cancer patient. Soul Glue is related to Benji Hayward who died after the Pink Floyd show on May 13 1988. There is also a slew of great musicians on this album apart from Dave Bidini, Dave Clark, Martin Tielli, and Tim Vesley including Dave Allen on Violin, Neil Peart on Drums and Lewis Melville on Pedal Steel Guitar. The album was named from the Paul Quarrington book of the same name. It was later turned into a movie staring Maury Chaykin, Cynthia Preston and Paul Goss. In one of the many, many shifts in style over the 30 year history of the band they would record the soundtrack to the movie which would lead to their one an only hit single “Claire”. But that is the story for another day. This is my is my Desert Island Disc. Incidentally the Basilosaurus, or Zeuglodon, was an archaic Eocene whale thought to have been about 55 feet long.

Here is the video for Shaved Head

Here is one for King Of The Past

And here is a live version of Soul Glue

Tomorrow Song#2
Incidentally if you go to page 198 of the book The Top 100 Canadian Albums by Bob Mersereau I’m listed as Darrin Cappe, Tempus Fugit, Toronto. I had to mention my own band. More on that later as well.

This album was ranked #19 in The Top 100 Canadian Albums book by Bob Mersereau

Well I guess this is where it all starts. I’m not sure what this blog will end up as. Even if I was to guess it probably would end up being something different anyway.

Why Northern Wish?
Well I’m a Rheostatic fan. Northern Wish is the third song from the album Melville which recently charted at number 38 in Bob Mersereau’s book The Top 100 Canadian Albums. Back in 2000 it ranked number 5 in Chart Magazine’s top 50 Canadian Albums. It isn’t my favorite Rheostatics song, although it ranks pretty high on my list. I think just referencing it makes me feel proud to be from Canada for some reason.

One of the sites I run is rheostaticslive.com. It is a band sanctioned archive of live Rheostatics shows, videos, photos etc. There are other sites as well that I run. They all kind of look the same. It is easier for me to maintain them that way. They idea of them all at the beginning was really just a glorified FTP site so I wasn’t too concerned about creating beautiful websites. Content is the key for me.

So how did it all start?
My taste in music has always been eclectic, ranging from Progressive Rock bands like Yes, Genesis and Marillion to the New Wave sounds of Men Without Hats, New Musik and Spoons.
About 2 years ago (2005) I emailed Ricky Brennan from the band Wheat about setting up an archive site for live shows. To my surprise the band was OK with the idea and I set up the first site thiswheat.com. At the end of 2005 I emailed Gord Deppe about setting up a Spoons site. I was always a fan of Spoons and was amazed that for a band that had so many big songs, there was only 1 site on the web which was known as Carolyn’s Spoons Tribute Page. It wasn’t really being maintained so I emailed Gord Deppe about setting up a Spoons site that would have music, videos, photos etc. He was cool with the idea and that led to Site Number 2 - The Spoons Music and Video Archive.

I then followed that site with Rheostatics Live and The Unofficial Bourbon Tabernacle Choir Site. In 2006 I noticed that Jonathan Moyes had posted some Thomas Trio And The Red Albino footage on youtube from a show they did with The Bourbons in 1992 in Nova Scotia. I offered to host the videos and from there, along with material from him, Stephen Legge, Todd Sauvé, Colin Squires and myself, The Official Thomas Trio And The Red Albino site was born.

Following the last Rheosatics show at Massey Hall on March 30 2007 I set up Good Gone Dead, an archive and memorial to the last show by the best band ever to come out of Canada.

Next came my big idea for a website: The Canadian Music Forum. I’ve been working on it for quite a while. One day it will be done. As of today I have finished the letter “A”. The forum is all set up and ready for action. It is a massive forum of mini forums dedicated to hundreds of Canadian Bands. The site is to mirror the forum’s band list to provide a snapshot of online sites related to each band. Jam Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Myspace, Official sites, fan sites, places to buy their music etc.

Finally there is Fugitland, a site dedicated to my band Tempus Fugit who I have played with on and off since 1987.

There you go, 8 sites in 2 years. Now I’m going to write about stuff I like. Music. Videos. Songs. Youtube. I don’t know, whatever comes to mind.

By the way, if you have any content for any of the sites I have just mentioned, email me at info@thecanadianmusicforum.com.
I’m Darrin