The Tragically Hip: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

Search: "Grace, Too", "Ahead by a Century", "Flamenco", "Bobcaygeon", their willingness to give exposure to deserving bands like the Rheostatics and Eric's Trip
Destroy: "Little Bones", most of their fans

Damm now I feel like reviving that Sloan thread. mmmmm Sloan.

Ain't that the truth. But more than the content rule it really is the border deal. Thus, the Hip aren't worth spit here near LA, but as you might imagine tons of bands from Mexico and all over Central and South America can sell out arenas without even trying.

Though I wont bite on the Sloan troll sorry.

forgot one more destory: How much they are played on the radio. There is a saturation point and the hip are well past it. Retro, AOR, alt.rawk, life crisis "Mix" stations and lowIQ Network all have 3 or 4 songs in rotation at once it seems.

I thought that was a pretty darned good album. The lyrics to "Fireworks" are priceless and "Something On"--the ode to Ice Storm '98--is wick.

Music@Work's all right - I liked "Stay" something much. Day For Night's probably their best: "Grace, Too" is terrific, and the lyrics to "Nautical Disaster" are unmatched... "Fireworks", off Phantom Power, is happenin'...

Gordon Downie's solo album, Coke Machine Glow is terrific. Spans genres, with touches of Hayden-like acoustic folk, Clive Holden-evoking spoken-word, and even a brush of bluegrass. The track "Chancellor" is fan-fuckin-tastic, and "Vancouver Divorce" ain't half-bad either.

Whaddya know.

i only heard part of gord downie's solo album but i found it really, really good. it's a very modest, unassuming record production-wise. but the way he plays that cheap sounding acoustic guitar is fantastic. it's not encumbered by the pointlessness of the four other members of the hip.

definitely the most psychedelic and 'head' of the hip albums.
No argument there, my friend.

you are all crazy: my favourite album is "music @ work". wonderfully dark moodiness. the second half of the album is very spooky and intimidating, capped off by the absolutely goregous 'as i wind down the pines.'

After hearing "Fifty Mission Cap" a couple of times on a long road trip, I've decided that I've held out too long. I need to finally start giving this band's full albums a chance. How loaded with hits is Fully Completely? Also, how crazy is it that it's 17 years old?

Did they ever record the "Limelight" cover BTW?

Hm, Music @ Work is really good.

Had a live album years ago, didn't do much for me aside from "Courage" which was outstanding, though I prefer the cover version from the "The Sweet Hereafter".

I have also been thinking that it's about time that I finally buy some Tragically Hip albums (decision unrelated to road tripping). I think there's some kind of unwritten rule where every Canadian living abroad must own "Fully Completely" (I have never owned it!)

"Music At Work", the song, is surely their most underrated single? And Sundar, how can you hate on "Wheat Kings"?

I like it a lot more than I did 7 years ago!

Every single time I hear the line "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans" from Sloan's "Coax Me", I think of these guys.

Fully Completely has the hits but I think Music @ Work is much more creative and interesting musically. I downloaded Day for Night as well but I'm not sure what I think. "Nautical Disaster" is classic though. I should probably check out Phantom Power next.

phantom power is their best imo

Every single time I hear the line "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans" from Sloan's "Coax Me", I think of these guys.

really? in my experience theyre a group almost everyone can agree on to at least some extent but no one ever gets obsessive about because it feels like theyve always just existed as a fact of life if you grew up in canada over the last 30 yrs or so.

"Fifty Mission Cap" really annoys me lyrically, because there aren't any lyrics, just words. It's as if Downie wrote the song for the sole purpose of retelling the Bill Barilko legend, and didn't bother to put anything personal or poetic or vivid into what amounts to a mere anecdote. Unless I'm missing the big picture and it's a metaphor for something-or-other (quite possible.)

Ha, I just learned what a "fifty mission cap" is from the Wikipedia page. I think this might actually weaken the song a little for me. I'd assumed it was just a term for a cheap hat from the Salvation Army or something that a kid who was obsessed about hockey might wear. I thought it was a song about a kid learning a piece of history from a hockey card. So it's actually about a WWII vet who learned the story from a hockey card even though he was probably in his 30s-40s during the time period in question?

I mean, I think the lyrics work OK with the music.

Just heard the new Gord Downie single on Radio 2. It's nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETUZ9Dhe_UI

Hm, streamed the whole album on his website. I like it. Surprising extended instrumental passage on "Broadcast".

Does anyone who's not Canadian give half a cardboard shit for these guys?

(Full disclosure: I'm canadian and I have ambiguous feelings 'bout them; the above is a serious question)

i'm canadian as well, and aside from the singles, i really cant' say i care much about them.

They're popular in Buffalo.

holds up hand

I'm British and I like them. Mind you, when I saw them play in London a few years ago I felt like I was the only British person in the audience.

Probably a bunch of beefy thirtysomething dudes with sports shirts on screaming "WOOOOOOOOOO! FUCKIN A!" making up the Canuck contingent, yes?

I find this interesting. Anagram, if you don't mind playing 6 questions:

How did you first hear them, what was the first album (&/or singles) you heard from them, and can you articulate their appeal to you?

Well I'm hardly an expert on their back catalogue, there are just a few songs I've heard of theirs that I really like. And of course I didn't discover them for myself, there was a Canadian involved – a girlfriend who made me a mix CD which included "Bobcaygeon". I treasure that song, it has this beautifully loose, loping quality which I love and the lyric kind of moves me in a strange way as well. So then I got the album it came from, Phantom Power, and the other standout track on that was "Fireworks" which I think is a blazingly powerful song. The only other album of theirs I have is Fully Completely and off of that one I adore "Wheat Kings" for its forlorn acoustic guitar and the note of bruised longing in the guy's voice.

Am I the only person who hears a resemblance to REM, especially Document-era? The first time I heard Downie's voice I thought I was listening to Stipe, they sound so similar. The lyrics may not be as enigmatic but (especially on a song like "Fireworks") they share this tumbling wordiness that I like. And there's a crunchiness, a kind of swagger to a lot of Hip songs that puts me in mind of REM sometimes.

Probably a bunch of beefy thirtysomething dudes with sports shirts on screaming "WOOOOOOOOOO! FUCKIN A!" making up the Canuck contingent, yes?
from what i've seen, yes. but it's always fun to yell "play some fuckin' hip" at a show.

They do sound a lot like REM.

Does anyone who's not Canadian give half a cardboard shit for these guys?

(Full disclosure: I'm canadian and I have ambiguous feelings 'bout them; the above is a serious question)

My husband is a really big fan.

new hip record coming out october 2nd, now for plan a

http://www.thehip.com/images/TTH-NFPA-CVR_500.jpg

01. At Transformation
02. Man Machine Poem
03. The Lookahead
04. We Want To Be It
05. Streets Ahead
06. Now For Plan A
07. The Modern Spirit
08. About This Map
09. Take Forever
10. Done And Done
11. Goodnight Attawapiskat

first two singles are bangin':

http://soundcloud.com/the-tragically-hip/streets-ahead

http://soundcloud.com/the-tragically-hip/at-transformation

also i love that last downie solo record. hope abandoning bob rock to his toys has done them good

Listening to Road Apples for the first time in a while. They really perfected that Athens-not-Athens sound for a while, yet I feel like a tourist when I'm listening to them. They definitely have US fans, but they should've had many more.

downie is my favorite lyricist

I've never paid close attention, but phrases definitely jump out at me from time to time.

well for instance in "at the hundredth meridian"

a raven strains along the line of the road
carrying muddy old skull
the wires whistle their approval
off down the distance.

or this line in "throwing off glass" which reminds me of the character charlotte douglas in a book of common prayer

and just like after she heard
the word "iridescent"
and everything was iridescent for awhile

Ooh, I like that one.

gord downie was recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. they're going on one last tour

i'm inconsolable

"one last tour" is probably an exaggeration/mischaracterization but they're determined to make the upcoming one their "best one yet" and I can't stop crying

very sad news

Wow. Very sad.

Wow did I suddenly realize how much I took this band and this man for granted

the new album (produced by kevin drew) is prob going to be great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgXphurrsE0

ofc i am having a really tough time listening to this song right now

also i completely missed that gord released an album with the sadies in 2014, guess i wasn't searching for gord solo album news. it rocks

i don't think i ever went out of my way to celebrate gord as a lyricist in this thread except to say he's my favorite, but i legit think he's one of the best of his generation. he's the writer whose work taught me how words can interact with each other rhythmically. the lyric sheet to day for night and his solo album battle of the nudes specifically are invaluable to me, and i return to them still when i'm trying to remember how i'd ideally like to form phrases (the lyric "I love your paintings, don't take your colors away / I've grown more fearful of them every day" from "vancouver divorce" drops into my head more or less all the time, also i can't think of anyone who wrote better specifically about divorce/estrangement)

ach, this made me really sad this morning.

been listening to the hip nonstop for the last six months

jamming to their songs while driving to and from work

thinking of gord's family now

If you're not Canadian, you can't appreciate how huge a story this is here--maybe not Bowie/Prince level, but close. Not a big fan, but I love "Fireworks" and "Music at Work."

for a canadian to be bowie/prince level (world) famous, they would have to play down their canadianness

bryan adams, celine dion, neil young, drake, etc, though far more popular in the world stage, would not unite as many canadians

That's what I meant--how they seemed to tap into something deep in the Canadian imagination that would puzzle anyone who isn't Canadian. (And even puzzles me to an extent, although I feel it when they sing about Bobby Orr in "Fireworks" or in something like "Bobcaygeon.") When Q-107 used to do their big holiday-weekend countdowns, before they started playing Simple Minds, they'd be dominated by the usual names--Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, etc.--and right alongside them in number of songs placed would be the Tragically Hip. It's something that would make no sense to anyone not here.

i got into the tragically hip bc i heard sarah polley's version of "courage" in the sweet hereafter and thought the phrasing the chorus was kind of asymmetrical and interesting; it took me a while to decide i liked it. was also attracted to the dedication in the title. made it feel like poetry, which it was.

then a little later i moved to canada for 10 months, which'll do it. it was right after in violet light came out, so "silver jet" and "the darkest one" were on muchmusic all the time. on some kind of retrospective music video show i saw "nautical disaster" which revealed to me immediately how deep the band got.

speaking of "courage," i love when gord organizes his songs around a quote, especially this one which is almost entirely a john cage paraphrase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIwb2NrYZ98

also it is extremely funny to me that in the first post on this thread sund4r called fully completely "fumbling towards ecstasy"

This all makes me wish they had ever meant anything to me, but I must confess as a lifelong Canadian they have never resonated with me for some reason. Still, this is obviously just the worst news.

a woman who was very special to me loved them

so a lot of memories (in general as well)

Didn't realize they'd played Saturday Night Live; this is another one I liked, "Grace Too." Spooky song that I always thought might be about a serial killer or something ("They'll be no knock on the door").

http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2014/10/Throwback-Thursday-The-Tragically-Hip-on-SNL-1995

I was thinking that "Fireworks" would be in the running for my favourite song ever by a band I spent years hating. Their early records struck me as so affected--you can see some of that in the SNL clip, although it works in the context of that song. "Fireworks" just roared (and chimed) past all that. The whole Bobby Orr verse is brilliant, and "I never saw someone say that before" reminds me of Bo Diddley singing "You should've heard just what I seen."

i love the parallel construction of that song re: the verse about hockey and the verse about the cold war, and how fixations and tensions in both are diminished when exploring a connection with someone else. it's a song about scale and perspective

I remember that SNL appearance in 1995 really well for some reason. There was a lot of the usual "who cares if Americans don't get the Hip, they're ours" talk, but people also argued that the Dan Akroyd appearance hurt them because it emphasized that they were an uber-Canadian phenomenon, which is almost an explicit invitation for Americans to ignore them. In other words, instead of trying to give the Hip a celebrity rub, complete with Canadian flag waving, they should have introduced them like any other band and let their music stand on its own merits.

True: Fell asleep one Saturday night in 1995. Came to just as the Hip were playing their first song on the show. Was in a fog. Getting my senses together. Had never heard them before. Immediately enchanted. Went out the next day, Sunday, and bought Day for Night, the album they were touring/promoting. Have loved them ever since. Gord Downie is my favorite vocalist/lyricist.

also it is extremely funny to me that in the first post on this thread sund4r called fully completely "fumbling towards ecstasy"

Not going to defend my 14-year-old posts for very long but I meant Fumbling Towards Ecstasy! Girls were always singing along to that Sarah McLachlan album as well as "Wheat Kings" by the Tragically HIp.

Anyway, I actually never bothered to actually look into entire Hip albums on my own until the late 00s, probably because it never seemed necessary, but they had a pretty solid catalogue, I grew to realise. Music @ Work was p cool. This is sad news; best wishes to Downie.

lol i was wondering if it was intentional. i also love that mclachlan album

There was a character on Oz that looked to me like Gord Downie (the lawyer, I think, who bites the head off another inmate's penis). He/they also resembled certain portraits of Beethoven.

I was thinking that "Fireworks" would be in the running for my favourite song ever by a band I spent years hating. Their early records struck me as so affected--you can see some of that in the SNL clip, although it works in the context of that song. "Fireworks" just roared (and chimed) past all that. The whole Bobby Orr verse is brilliant, and "I never saw someone say that before" reminds me of Bo Diddley singing "You should've heard just what I seen."

― clemenza, Wednesday, May 25, 2016 5:46 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya the first songs i heard by the hip were off their first album and they seem affected because, as performers, they were still searching for an image and style and trying to appear comfortable with them

up to here (their first album) is a totally different album from phantom power (where fireworks is on), and it's a band with 9 years of performance experience. gord's intonation and style became much more natural and he had already matured as a performer

and fireworks is about as canadian as they get i would say?

idk I feel like there are a lot of contenders

As I wrote upthread, I must be one of the few British people who like this band. This Canadian girl I loved made me a mix CD with "Bobcaygeon" on it and I've been playing that song, "Wheat Kings" and "Fireworks" on repeat all day and remembering how much I loved her.

this is a very good article by the way

http://www.tsn.ca/fully-completely-1.494972

personal stakes
will get raised and get raised
till your story gets compelling
if you lacked the sense
or were willfully dense
is forever in the telling
the surface is green
and the dark interweaves
in a lonely iridescence
it's terribly deep
and the cold is complete
and it only lacks your presence
and nothing else

and fireworks is about as canadian as they get i would say?

For me, although I guess they had many other songs just as Canada-specific. I played it for my class today (hitting mute for the obscenity), but first I had to set the context by playing a YouTube clip of Henderson's goal. Not one student out of 25 knew about the goal or the series. They're 12, and about three-quarters of my class is Indian or Pakistani. I said, "Look, you just have to know about this to be truly Canadian." What was nice, though, was that when I asked "What does he mean by 'We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger'?", one guy was able to explain that.

Was just listening to "Music at Work" (the song) which holds a special resonance after working in a Toronto Office that did indeed pipe in 97.3 EZ Rock "My music at work" for many of the years that I was there -

"Everything is bleak
It's the middle of the night
You're all alone
And the dummies might be right
You feel like a jerk
My music at work"

GOT THAT RIGHT

Is it just me or does Gord deliberately ape Morrissey with those lalalas?

The Bruce McCulloch directed video is perfect too.

im not familiar with that song/video, will check it out later.

obviously ticket scalping sucks in general but there's something especially awful about these final hip shows selling out in minutes and tickets going for thousands on the resell market.

ya gord kind of does that moz thing

matt murphy did something slightly similar on a few tracks as well

Yeah, part of me would love to go to one of the shows, but it is a weird thing. All of these big musical deaths lately, and the way people share their tributes.. so much of it seems like it's things we should remember to say while they are still with us.

But then this situation here - is Gord one of the first who is actually experiencing his own public eulogizing? god that must be strange.

It happened to Wilko Johnson as well. Miraculously, he recovered.

https://www.facebook.com/dcappe/videos/vb.501784800/10154260232384801/?type=2&theater

that was nice

thanks

Are people angry at scalpers or at Ticketmaster and whatnot for what's going on? I can see being really angry at the ticket services--if people are buying tickets in bulk and reselling, you would think that would be controllable. (I don't know how you can prevent people who only buy two or four seats from reselling.) Getting angry at professional scalpers, though...This is what they do. Do people think they're going to suddenly be guided by morality and conscience because of the situation? That would seem to be a line of work with as much of a conscience as the banks or oil companies.

new one is their weirdest album since music@work

xp. I think it just puts into stark relief and focus how crappy a set-up the whole concert ticket buying system is because it's literally depriving people of a chance to see their favourite band for the last time before the lead singer passes away from a terminal illness unless they have a ton of money laying around.

also im sure, if they wanted to, ticket-sellers could make tickets non-transferable, that would end scalping.

I got two tickets to their Sunday Toronto show /bragging2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX-PqWQsgfE

;_;

wow. their guitarist still has the exact same hair he had in 1992!

I trust everyone (Canadian) will be doing their patriotic duty and watching the final show live on the CBC this Saturday?

i'm going to the thing! first ever Hip show, too.

not sure

might watch a bit of it

xp. good answer.

not xp. bad answer tut tut

hey the last bit will be the best bit

which is what i plan on watching

maybe

Starting...

Wasn't expecting him to shred his throat so much from the start. Don't know how he'll make it through the whole thing.

that is the way he sings live

or at least that was my experience in seeing them

Really going for it on this one.

Makes sense, Brad.

Watching cbc with goodwill even tho these guys mostly bored me

Idly wondering if they'll mention baton Rouge when they inevitably play "New Orleans is Sinking"

they're playing "fireworks"! my favorite song about nuclear terror and falling in love with someone who doesn't care about hockey

jeez I love gord so much

Doh was so busy I forgot this was on just tuned in now

this show is incredible

I'm really glad they're doing "Nautical Disaster" for a second encore!

"Locked in the Trunk of a Car" to start the third encore!

I actually kind of like that they're still going after the climactic screaming in "Grace, Too".

There must be something in my eye

I feel v alienated from my countrymen tonight

wld love to see NoMeansNo or Propagandhi get even 1/1000 the love when their day comes tho

I will be totally verklempt at the last Blue Rodero show, tho

i can see disliking the hip, even tonight watching some of the songs in the later verses or the outro section quite a few of them seem a bit plodding and pat. they can legitimately rock at times but not necessarily all the time. and i can see not liking gord's vocals or his eccentric, goofy stagecraft. im no huge fan, and am not that familiar with the breadth of their discography, but there's at least a couple dozen of their songs i find great and that i love.

but watching tonight legitimately moved me. im an immigrant to canada, lived here four years, am a permanent resident - my canadian wife sponsored me. this move is permanent and i will apply for citizenship when im eligible in a few years. i often find it hard to get to grips with the canadian national identity, and while i now consider this country home, i sometimes feel there's a paltry number of things for me to identify with or gather a sense of solidarity or belonging from. im scottish, from glasgow, in scotland and in glasgow there's a plethora of identifying and particular elements to life that mark you out as living in that particular place and belonging to it - speaking dialect that is non-intelligible to other native english speakers, a certain definable harsh, sardonic, gallows humour, a pub and a bookies on each corner etc. i don't feel much of that in canada i like hockey ok, im not sure canadians are as polite as people make out, i hate tim horton's, and i live in one of the few places in canada where it isnt cold in the winter. so i dunno, for me cultural things seem to be the things i think of as canadian. you know like old nfb documentaries, the log driver's waltz, alice munro short stories, trailer park boys, and especially the tragically hip.

id never heard of the hip before i moved to canada. my wife was aghast at this. theyre huge in canada but virtually unknown elsewhere, whereas most other bands that are huge in canada crossover somewhat. this makes them more particulary canadian for some reason. then there's the lyrics, multiple hockey references, references to canadian towns, history, people etc. - i found out what the summit series was from googling "hockey goal 72" after hearing the song fireworks. then there's gord downie, quite dorky and canadian for a rock star, and plenty wordy lyrically but still earthy and somehow blue collarish despite his pretensions. so i have thought of them as this dorky, endearing, authentic expression of canadiana. the obvious emotional resonance of the farewell tour before gord dies of terminal brain cancer (which my maternal grandfather died of) and the final show in their hometown, broadcast live and uninterrupted on the cbc, attended by the prime minister - who you know is legitimately a fan who smoked weed in his dorm room listening to fully completely in the early 90s. i dunno, it just got to me.in any case there are much worse things to have as a national symbol than a nerdy 90s alt-rock band.

his voice was def... noticeable to me.

Great post jim

I was almost relieved that they didn't play Long Time Running last night. I know it's easy to write off as a stereotypical bar ballad, but even before recent events, that song was already so nostalgic to me (literally takes my mind back to being in Kingston in the 90s) that I might get teary dwelling on it. Got to love the connection power this all has had though. Just amazing.

Glad Downie used some of his time to kinda hold Trudeau to task, but I fear it might have been too good-natured to register that way to most.

definitely didn't feel that way in the room. downie seemed (unduly) adoring, like he had drunk the kool-aid.

Man this thread is hovering near the top of the New Answers almost as long as Sund4r's Tea Party thread that one time ILX went through an ion storm and that was the only thread that you could post on.

Canada just endured an ion storm

Ha, I had no idea they've released six albums since Music @ Work.

new one's actually good!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/arts/music/tragically-hip-gord-downie-final-show.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-3&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

think this nyt story, along with the new yorker piece quoted in it, are a pretty good explainer for people outside of Canada.

new one's actually good!

Yeah, I listened to the last two this morning. I was pretty impressed. I even thought of Eno and Berlin-era Bowie at times.

Is there a Hip album that encapsulates their project well? I've only heard stray early singles, and I respect Downie as a lyricist, but I haven't found a punctum in their music yet.

day for night. lot of classics on that record but it's also a sustained dark mood

a lot of people would say fully completely but day for night is the deeper, more interesting picture imo

the poppiest and most accessible intro to the hip would prob be phantom power

Thanks!

the poppiest and most accessible intro to the hip would prob be phantom power

Is this poppier than Fully Completely, with its six singles and diamond certification? I mostly either pull out FC for a 90s hit machine or Music @ Work for more engrossing art-rock. Day for Night is good, though. "Nautical Disaster" is classic.

Is this poppier than Fully Completely, with its six singles and diamond certification?

imo in terms of being way more melodic and catchy, yeah!

does anyone know a Gordon outside of Canada who goes by Gord

Lots of Gordons in Scotland, never met a Gord.

is gord not a diminutive outside of canada?

anyway, thoughts on the hip...

i have a lot of musician friends who don't like them. i'm going to guess that in their younger years, the hip left a bad taste in the mouths of one or two of them. these days, these same guys just have no opinions on them. i have no strong opinions on them.

i watched the last three songs of the concert and the discussion that followed (on cbc). the only thing that 'resonated' with me was that their music was playing in the background in some key points in my life. i rarely listened to the radio, except citr (a campus/university radio station), because as someone who participated more in the underground music scene, mainstream radio just didn't do anything for me.

my ex wife actually really liked these guys in the early 90s. she listened to a lot of tracks from up to here. that and a handful of other songs remind me of particular moments and events in my life. some of them are really simple, like walking with her to iga and hearing them being played there, to more joyous or darker events. she also liked the handful of pop rock acts that were usually mentioned in the same breath. when i heard about gord's diagnosis i actually texted her and teared up, i guess because of the memories of our relationship and their music playing in the background.

in my very small circle of musician friends, there was a feeling that the hip's music wasn't as nuanced and it mostly catered to radio listeners and bar-goers. it was a little too 'local-sounding' (almost as bad as the notorious 'vancouver rock' label). in retrospect, i think that's a bit pretentious. but vancouver in the 90s had a totally different feel. at least in my circle, feeling proud of local talent or canadiana made us feel a little too small-townish, which said more about us, but we were interested in the cool, artsy american bands. i guess this is what happens when you really are a small town in the 90s. incidentally, a lot of us loved sloan, specifically twice removed, which had a more artsier image -- a band a few hip fans disliked.

there's no doubt national identity in western canada is quite different than in the rest of canada. we probably have more in common with our fellow cascadians than with calgarians, so this definitely has something to do with it. most of my friends are recent immigrants to canada (first or second generation canadians), so for us, a national identity means something very different than loving hockey and listening to the same popular bands. in fact, i have quite a few friends who hate hockey. but they still have a soft spot for team canada when they win gold in the olypmics. it's a love-hate relationship that's difficult to explain. some friends hate rock, and only listen to rap and grew up talking in american slang. what unites us is probably difficult to articulate, especially in just a few sentences, so i just won't even try. these are obvious subcultures, and it's sometimes not cool to talk about them when a larger cultural force is uniting the country. but you know what, these subcultures feel united as well and have no problems with the larger cultural forces in the country, so it's okay. there's room for everybody.

anyway, canada is a complex and diverse place, each province with its own identity. but that's what makes it a pretty cool place i think. and it's pretty awesome that a band was able to unite so many different types of people from all over the country. the band are breaking up for unfortunate reasons, but their music will always be a part of a specific time in my life that i will always remember as bittersweet, weirdly enough much like the band's 'end'

Every actual person here is Canadian, including the Milwaukee Brewers guy!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gord_(given_name)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/tragically-hip-cbc-broadcast-ratings-1.3730276

story says that over 11 million people watched or listened to the broadcast through various media. which would be around a third of the population of the country

I believe that figure only measures the number of streams online or on TV. So, e.g., a couple of hundred people watching in a bar counts as only 1 stream. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual viewership was closer to half the country.

Aw:

http://globalnews.ca/news/2896740/the-tragically-hip-in-kingston-who-was-the-couple-seen-making-out-during-bobcaygeon/

Speaking of said song/town/etc

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/bobcaygeon-belts-out-tragically-hip-moment/

Never met a Gord myself but am sad to hear the guy has a glioblastoma. I had a friend die from that a year ago, it takes no prisoners.

Me too -- had a friend hang on for about 18 months with it, until earlier this year.

IIRC 18 months is the life expectancy, so "hang on" is the right expression to use. My friend made it three years, which was a miracle.

At one point I made a little list of various famous people who had it and how long they lasted, it was usually about seven eight nine months.

i feel like they made a LITTLE dent here in the states early on and then they kinda disappeared from view until now. and they do kinda seem like something that could have been more popular in the u.s. but i don't know how extensive their touring was. that's the live or die answer to popularity in the states. rush had to tour relentlessly in the states for years in order for their smash album to be the smash that it was.

reading the early sections of this thread is a little bit alternate universe for me. but obviously there are huge bands all over the world who are huge in their homeland but non-existent elsewhere. we have phish here...

Just speaking for myself, I've always been a bit torn on how to rep for them artistically because it's hard to point to brilliant singles or unassailable albums that will paint a representative picture of "what is good". It's more like a cumulative appreciation that's built up over the years, and much credit to Gord himself, it's his lyrics and delivery, so many super memorable turns of phrase.

I'm working through their albums, especially the ones I haven't listened to in their entirety before. I really like both Up to Here and Trouble at the Henhouse. I skipped through "Trickle Down" from the former but otherwise it's a p satisfying mix of classic bluesy hard rock and 80s REM. I like the guitar tones and Downie's delivery of the melodies on the latter. Day for Night might actually be my least favourite so far. Too many of the songs don't really stand out or go anywhere for me, although "Nautical Disaster" is one of their best songs imo. I like "Scared" too.

Unlikely sentence alert, but I'm really thankful now that Nickelback arrived on the Canadian music scene. The subsequent siphoning off of obnoxious fans really did the Hip a huge, long term favour.

day for night takes a while, even though i guess i was recommending it as an intro upthread lol

gord's lyrics are probably never better than they are on that record, e.g.

interesting and sophisticated
refusing to be celebrated
it's a monumental big screen kiss
it's so deep it's meaningless

TPoH's Moe Berg has a nice write-up on his site.

so i was a witness to an accident last week, and the guy that got hit got back to me via email to thank me... he's a Gord!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuHj20v2oKs

gord's putting out a new double album in october, produced and occasionally co-written by kevin drew, called introduce yerself. if it's anything like secret path it should be lovely and crushing

Gord Downie has passed.

http://www.thehip.com/news/statement/

Fuck...

RIP

Damn, RIP.

RIP

RIP

I've still never listened to a Tragically Hip album. They were entirely a radio and MuchMusic band for me, which I'm guessing is true for most Canadians. It was only last year when they were getting so much attention that it dawned on me how much they were in the ether.

Their final concert last year was an extraordinary Canadian moment.

OTM.

Was just listening to Phantom Power on my last long drive.

god i am so crushed

Good story on the new album:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/arts/music/gord-downie-tragically-hip-dead-final-album.html

It's amazing how much great music this man managed to make, in this last phase of his life. (I particularly like Secret Path)

RIP.

Their final concert last year was an extraordinary Canadian moment.

Even as someone who felt completely alienated from the event and the Hip phenomenon more broadly, this is pretty clear, though the way Trudeau used Downie as a prop to make it seem like his government was going to take indigenous issues seriously is a bit sickening in retrospect

RIP

For me, one of the most mesmerizing things about Gord Downie was the many references -- real or alleged -- in his lyrics. There were times when I liked them more than the music itself, and I would read up on where he might've gotten an idea for some of them. It has made me ponder more about his music and how he approached music-making. His death is such a great loss to the music world. It has also motivated me to listen to his solo work, which I admittedly never listened to much.

I would like to share this web-site that has briefly catalogued some of his lyrics' meaning http://www.hipmuseum.com/directory.html

Rest in peace, Mr. Downie.

Per the description here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Time_Running

The documentary film based around last year's tour will be on Netflix at the end of November (exception being Canada itself, where it will be on Crave TV).

oh good i've been wanting to watch that

i love the hip museum website, it has been my favorite thing on the internet for like.... 15 years now? anyway i hope you enjoy his solo work, sound of space; battle of nudes is one of my favorite albums of all time and my favorite thing he ever did and is also home to my favorite guitar tones

BradNelson, it's funny you should mention it. I was just telling someone that I am kind of a "tone nerd." I'll make sure to listen to Battle of Nudes tonight. Thank you.

of course! it brings me so much joy to be able to recommend that album to anyone

armed with skill and it's FRUSTRATION
and grace
too

erroneous apostrophe ruining previous post sorry

So many good lyrics, so many great turns of phrase, man, RIP Gord. :(

rest in peace Gord

Their final concert last year was an extraordinary Canadian moment.

― dinnerboat, Wednesday, October 18, 2017 6:57 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as an immigrant here it was a very strange and sui generis event of national unity to observe. was out for a walk during the earlier part of the show and could hear it and see it through people's apartment windows and it was on the tv in bars. streets were noticeably quieter. then watching the show, the prime minister was in the crowd, middle-aged hoser men in the crowd were crying their eyes out at the denouement. my next door neighbour, a real normy type from the prairies got home from watching it at the bar after and was shittered listening to the hip for hours into the am.

rip gord.

gord was my favorite writer; i would not necessarily be a writer at all had i not encountered his lyrics at a v impressionable age (14). i can't believe, after introduce yerself comes out next week, i'm never going to hear another new gord downie lyric. when i think about this i just lose my shit entirely

it's been 25 years since i lived in canada; while i was aware of them -- i managed to dub someone's cassettes of the first two albums -- my friends were mostly dead/neil-heads who thought the hip were a little too edgy or something. i didn't realize how pan-canadian they'd become until gord's sickness was announced -- i saw someone today comparing it to the u.s. reaction when springsteen goes, which doesn't quite seem to capture it

rip

Yeah--a little bit, but there's a better analogy out there...I don't know: Johnny Cash? Tom Petty? Quintessentially "Canadian" (whatever that means) in the same way they're quintessentially "American" (whatever that means). Springsteen feels like an abstraction to me; Canadians who were really affected by Downie's music seem to feel like they knew him.

Even as someone who loves one-and-one-only song ("Fireworks"), I can see that. That song comes from somewhere I know.

"phantom power" was an unbelievably meaningful record to anyone who lived through the great 1998 ice storm like me (albeit on the other side of the border), as one of the only real pieces of media that ever directly referenced an event that absolutely devastated a very small part of the us and canada and intensely affected that region long after everyone had more or less forgotten about it.

of course they were a kingston band, so they wouldn't not write about something like that, but it always struck me as a good microcosm of downie's ability to find these little squirreled-away events in canadian history and turn them into great songs. years from now that storm is going to be as distant a memory as all the other obscure historical references in hip songs, and i really hope there's another gord downie someday to keep writing about them.

^^^ otm

i don't think there is a good analogy. they're much younger than anyone who could possibly be an american analogue, for one thing. and the fact that they *didn't* move to california, unlike many of their predecessors, is key -- there's no comparable act for any of the 'quintessentially american' candidates

fwiw john k samson still lives

fair point, and samson is extremely good at it too, but he's never quite caught on with the crucial drunk-leafs-fan demographic

watched the final concert with my best friend from highschool, he was a huge fan then and still is, and I always sort of heard them by proxy with him. Seeing all the support and empathy for Downie and the celebration of him as an artist was a beautiful thing.

Downie makes me proud to be a canadian tbh

Canadians who were really affected by Downie's music seem to feel like they knew him.

Just like that killer whale.

Also I don't think there is a british equivalent.

50 Mission Cap. pic.twitter.com/fdMDy0ZGyY

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 18, 2017

For Gord. pic.twitter.com/5OJLWyyrV6

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 18, 2017

The coverage up here has included one hockey player after another being interviewed; Downie was the lead story on TSN (Canada's ESPN). He and Bobby Orr were supposed to be in close contact the past couple of years.

the documentary long time running (which i think will be available on netflix later this month) is one of the most beautiful and well-composed rock documentaries i've ever seen. i cried multiple times ofc

also the new gord album is v hard to listen to but is full of wonderful songs that feel almost improvised sometimes in their austerity and specificity. drew's production glows

it’s on netflix, i really highly recommend it https://www.netflix.com/title/80205085

Not on Canadian Netflix doh.

i believe it's streaming on crave tv (?) in canada

oh i have that, cool!

i watched it again last night and cried again

Yeah, I blubbed like a big girl, the bit when they're about to go on stage and he's whispering in his colleague's ears, broke me.

seeing the fans crying at the shows just kills me

Damn much music did a retro lunch special today and played only tragically hip

the new (only) hip book, never-ending present, is p good so far. some filler (there's an early chapter about hip cover bands which is just barely interesting) prob bc the band apparently didn't participate in it much (which sounds like them) but still fascinating and full of amazing downie quotes

i knew their origin story pretty well but not at this level of detail, and the bill barilko chapter is just extremely heartening

"opiated" gets a few sentences in the book, and between that and its appearance the documentary, i'm belatedly realizing it's one of my favorite hip songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzxoGcBsk-8

book has gotten me so deep into this band again that i'm watching old live sets on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn83UvFzbjg

i ponder the endlessness of the stars
ignoring said same of my father

either it'll move me
or it'll move right through me
fully
completely

i love the chapters in that book that swerve away in weird directions - barclay's curiosity isn't bounded by his fandom, he lights up by the unexpected digressions etc, and i do too.

i'm deeper into it and i'm starting to agree! the openers chapter was nice if only as a snapshot of the impact they had on the careers of other canadian bands

however i'll never forgive barclay for being kinda needlessly dismissive of music@work

you're beau-
tiful
terrific

your eyes
empty
pacifics

man
machine
poem

^^ what a song and lyric

oh i finished the barclay book last year and it’s fine. it makes a lot of choices i wouldn’t have. the manager interviews/stories are both numerous and tedious

but it did make me realize that man machine poem is an even better record than i thought at the time. kind of a masterpiece, up there with day for night and music @ work

Thanks for alerting ilx/us, well *moi*, to the book. Might give Thom as a valentine present. He's a massive fan.

Gord's birthday today.

i was wondering why i felt so bad

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-covid-19-kills-nine-infects-34-staff-at-bobcaygeon-nursing-home/

there's a dream he dreams where the high school's dead and stark
it's a museum and we're all locked up in it after dark
the walls are lined all yellow, grey and sinister
hung with pictures of our parents' prime ministers

new gord solo album is awesome, i prefer it to the more sketch-oriented introduce yerself. a lot of the lyrics share lines with man machine poem songs so it feels like the gord solo version of that record. the production's kind of obnoxious with vocal effects and instrumental shifts but i am here for it bc it reminds me of battle of the nudes

the "new" tragically hip "album" (aka EP-length collection of lost songs) is good, if you love road apples it'll hit the spot

Well, the medicine man started seeing red
You think the snake just dreams up the poison in his head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXPTu_lqgXU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTsm1fM59Lc

This is kinda amazing -

https://www.straight.com/movies/weird-connection-made-between-folk-horror-and-hip

I honestly had been wondering about the name of that album a few weeks ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6bRuOyJTVo