Dave Reed: CD Junkie
David Reed
May 30, 2014 • Last Updated June 1, 2014 • 5 minute read
Consider what it means to be Canadian
Bidiniband - Motherland
(Fontana North, 2014)
I first met Dave Bidini about 15 years ago and my car got towed. We all have those moments when you know that your life has been impacted, and this was one of them (meeting Bidini, not the car getting towed). I was a wide-eyed young music teacher with a dream to teach CanRock alongside Beethoven in my classroom, and the Rheostatics were to be my next unit of study. Little did I know that their music would become entrenched in the soundtrack of my life for years to come.
I was sitting in a dark bar near Queen and Bathurst in the middle of the afternoon, eagerly awaiting our arranged meeting. Back in those days people could smoke in pubs and restaurants. There was a light haze in the air on that fateful afternoon and a couple of regulars were slumped at the bar. I sipped my Canada Dry and waited.
When Bidini strolled into the room I didn't recognize him at first. A three-day beard and mesh-back baseball hat gave him an everyman look that was incongruent with what I expected from a rock star. He casually plopped a plastic grocery bag on the table and offered me a firm handshake. The bag was filled with Rheostatics CDs and VHS tapes for an upcoming project that would bring the Rheostatics to Belleville for a concert with my high school music students, and Bidini was meeting me to discuss details. Fellow Rheostatics Tim Vesely and Don Kerr joined us shortly thereafter, but Martin Tielli was unavailable as he "didn't like mornings."
As we chatted about the upcoming concert, my mind kept being interrupted by the shocking realization that I was sitting at a table with three-quarters of the Rheostatics. They were very encouraging and blindly trusting of my ability to pull the whole project together and write all of the choir and horn charts. Their confidence was contagious.
That first collaboration was a smashing success. Over the coming years we would perform a few shows together including a full-scale musical theatre adaptation of their Story of Harmelodia album (with soundtrack CD produced by Vesely) and a class trip to the Horseshoe. Yes, that actually happened. Thirty kids took a bus from Belleville to the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, to sing onstage with the Rheostatics.
My wife and I followed the Rheostatics around the province of Ontario for about five years, like Canadian Deadheads. There were shows in bars, concert halls, and a particularly memorable outdoor concert on the Rideau Canal in winter. We stood on the ice with hand-warmers stuffed in our boots, toques pulled down low and scarves pulled up over our noses like arctic ninjas, listening to the Rheostatics in the shadow of Parliament Hill. Could there me a more Canadian experience?
We attended the final concert at Massey Hall, with tears in our eyes. Was this the end of the music we loved so dearly? Thankfully, no. The music carried on in other forms. Martin Tielli has released some stunning solo work, Vesely released a couple of fantastic records with the Violet Archers, and Don Kerr has been playing steadily with Ron Sexsmith, and with Bidini.
This new post-Rheos musical adventure is called Bidiniband. Dave and Don are joined by guitarist Paul Linklater and bassist Doug Friesen (who also teaches music), and the music is spectacular. A press release describes the album as "performances that blend prog-rock grandiosity and experimentalism with touches of heart-melting Americana and pure foot-stomping rawk." I couldn't have said it better myself. Listen to this record with headphones.
The Grey Wave begins with Don Kerr sounding like a slightly more funky Bonham and the kit has a natural reverb that evokes the iconic sound of When The Levee Breaks. Linklater's lead guitar has a warm tone and simple yet compelling lines, while Bidini's acoustic guitar strums away in the right ear. Friesen's bass is unassuming yet grounding. The lyrics are thought-provoking and deserve multiple listenings to really digest them.
This formula continues throughout the album, yet the album has no formula. Bidini sounds as comfortable as he ever has, confident and basking in the joy of making music with like-minded talented folks. You can hear the chemistry between these fellows and the sum is even greater than the inspiring parts.
Ladies of Montreal describes late night partying on Saint Catherine Street after a Ken Dryden shutout at the forum. The song is fun-loving and irreverent.
The Motherland has a punk feel, with crunchy guitars hammering along on three or four chords with punctuating lead guitar lines and lyrics that seem to warn of the danger of complacency. One can sense a hint of the Sex Pistols here, with similar discontent but less rage. The Fatherland speaks more to the danger of mindless following, with a similar crunchy guitar pulse.
(The Return of) Fat is a new recording of a Rheostatics track from the 1996 album The Blue Hysteria. This new reworking has a swing feel and some blistering violin playing by Miranda Mulholland.
All Hail Canada points an accusing finger at the Harper Government's actions with lyrics like "I hate to think that everything could disappear in four small years ... the only country but the States not to sign the Kyoto accord...betrayed a past, the mutilation of the laws protecting our fisheries...the waterways destroyed ... Conservative ideologies that bound and gag ... unless there's civil unrest there won't be another next time." Woody Guthrie would be proud of Bidini for writing this one.
Other highlights include Hey Jesus!, Everyday Superstar and the epic closing track Say The Names, which includes the voice of Al Purdy punctuating Bidini's feeling that we have drifted as a nation.
With this new record, Dave Bidini is asking us to consider what it means to be Canadian today. He speaks to us and for us. I'm thankful that he spoke to me at the Paddock so many years ago, and I'm still listening. You should too.