Farewell Gordon Downie

Xelebes

Delerium ex Ennui
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For those who have been watching what's going down in Canada know that Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip played his last show and the show was broadcast across the country uninterrupted during the middle of the Olympics. The reason for this was due to Downie's terminal cancer in the brain. He was healthy enough to do a short tour before the eventual death will remove his voice and there is a huge following of The Hip in Canada. Some want to hyperbolise the importance and say that they were the Beatles or something and I can't jive with that. If I want to make comparisons. . .

For those who vaguely have heard of the band especially in their modest tours of the US, the band had huge success in Canada. Nine #1 albums in Canada, and had very poor sales in the US, hitting #129 at their very highest. Part of this difference was due to a void in the Canadian music scene, especially in southern Ontario, filled by The Hip. The Tragically Hip filled the void similar to what Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp filled in the US a decade earlier. And if I am going to be making comparisons of the Hip to any other international artists, it will be to those guys. I am not familiar who filled that role in the British Isles or Australia so if anyone wants to chip in, they can.

The Void

Canada's entertainment industry was founded in a Montreal back in the 1848 with the establishment of Anglo-Canadian Music Publishing. This was a move to pursue control over the dominion after the Rebellion in 1837, especially after secret societies were publishing songs complaining of the outcome (re: Un Canadian Errant). 1848 is also the year that Stephen Foster publishes his first mega-hit, Oh Susanna. Heh. Montreal would see many advancements in music recording, especially under Victriola. Under Canadian copyright culture, music would be broadcast directly to radio, something that would not happen in the United States until the 1920s, I believe. Still, music performance spaces were highly irregular with theatres showing American and British plays. Montreal would also see the first cabarets open up during American prohibition starting in 1924. The work of Conrad Gauthier ensured that the cabarets would sneak in Canadian content - even if it was in French. Soon, French became the standard at these cabarets as early as 1928. The first star from Canada was an Irish immigrant who spoke French and introduced puert à beul in French. Anyways, the centre of Canadian music was in Montreal. Wilf Carter and Hank Snow also recorded in Montreal.

Recording in Toronto was slower to start, especially given that Toronto was Canada's 2nd centre and mostly saw print publishers hold office there - subsidiaries of presses based in London and New York for the most part. Ruth Lowe managed to have a couple songs broadcast on CBC while George Wade entertained with his square dance music throughout the Great Depression on the radio. Developing sound studios in Toronto was a slog, having to compete with Montreal. By the time of the implemtation ofCan Con regulations in Canada in 1969, Montreal still had a controlling hand for both English and French recordings while the studios used by London and Quality Records in Toronto were adequate at best. Given the demand of records, they were suitable for artists like Stompin' Tom, The Ugly Ducklings, and such.

The big change that would sink Toronto's recording industry was two fold. Firstly the October Crisis of 1970. The revolutionary work of the terrorist organisation, the FLQ, drove many Anglophone businesses to leave Quebec to Toronto. That might be a good thing but that also meant more of the recordings would be made in Toronto's less luxurious recording studios. This meant that a sense of inferiority would be observed by anglophone Canadians. Secondly came the big Hifi movement of sometime around 1973 and 1975. It was one of the hypothesised moments previously discussed here that identified as 1974 as being one of the worst years for pop music. This advancement in technology meant it was no longer financially feasible to record marquis artists in Toronto. Stompin Tom certainly felt pressure to record in Nashville but refused and made a protest against the Junos and CARAS for encouraging artists to travel abroad to record.

The end result of this effect saw Canadian anglophone music being performed less to Canadian audiences and as a consequence was too often disorienting and considered second-rate.

In Montreal, more francophone artists would dominate the studios producing high quality recordings. Montreal became the second home of disco between New York and Paris and this was very popular in the francophone population. Céline Dion would record on the latest technology in 1982 when she made her debut.

The Recovery

As the hi-fi movement caused terror, it allowed 4-track recorders to come down in price. This allowed small, independent recording labels to seek out punk and garage bands. This resulted in bands like The Demics to record the song that was considered the best of the Toronto scene for many decades. This song would be the cornerstone for a recovery of the Toronto's music scene and would set the tone for many Toronto bands.

First would come the success and investment of Rush into Anthem Records in the late 1970s and early 80s. While Rush would make the decision to have Anthem Records solely devoted to publishing music by Rush, their helping hand to artists like Kim Mitchell and Nash the Slash. Another helper was Duke Street with artists like Jane Siberry and Alert Records in the 1980s. The investment into recording studios in Toronto resulted in organisations like CARAS to step away from their policy of pushing artists to the US and UK to record. It is in this environment that we see the rise of the nationalist wave of artists in Southern Ontario in the late 1980s.

Back To the Hip

The Tragically Hip are from Kingston and made their first appearances in 1987 and 1988. They were among a wave of bands looking to challenge the status quo of Canadian music. The Rheostatics spearheaded it, with them prodding Stompin' Tom to exit retirement. But it must be said that The Hip took upon themselves to be the flagship. All of the bands were timid yet eccentric. The dress was naff, even by the standards of the 80s. However, they soon developed infectious followings as they made sure to sing directly to Canadian audiences. They made sure to not scrub their music for audiences elsewhere. And perhaps it held them back from international success? Maybe. The executive from MCA in New York thought differently and pushed The Hip pretty hard. And Canadians in the US tried pushing the Hip hard (see: The Hip's performance on SNL after heavy prodding from Dan Ackroyd.)

Anyways, sitting in Edmonton and having never visited Toronto, it is hard for me to get too excited about the Hip. I mean, it got heavy rotation on the radio and Ahead By A Century is the song that sticks in my head the most. I have never particularly associated them with "Canadianness" but given that CBC Radio 2 has been heavily pushing such notion around in the last decade, there is a strong urge for me to reject it. And I think I can justify it. The nationalist wave was not seen everywhere in Canada. Heck, it was mocked in Vancouver. It was too often seen as "Toronto-centric", which in truth it was. But on a stand-on-its-own basis, I appreciate their songs. Bobcaygeon is a just a simple, good song that takes a look back at a painful moment in history to comment on the changing life of rural Canada.

The Hip do not have a special place in me. I am not a terribly big fan of them. But their music is that pleasant ambling music you want to hear in a mix of songs to remind yourself that songs can have an audience near home, if not right there. I think most people want some of that on occasion,

Last night, one of the biggest music events in Canadian history took place. I tried to listen in on it, since I have no TV. The pre-show on the radio was on and it had everything I didn't like about the band. That thrown-upon notion of Canadianness that for me is very difficult to relate to, being slathered on so thick that it made a barrier for me to keep on and listen to the band hiring. It's difficult. There is a lot of music that comes before them and a lot of music that comes after them that tell the stories of Canada and they tell stories of Canada that is outside the humbling that happened in Toronto. Even worse, having the term thrust upon sounds to me like a sales pitch for me to listen to second-rate music. We do not need to be reminded that we had this humbling, it is best to have it as a footnote in history more than the main feature of the marquis board.

So I will sit back and at my own pace flip through the songs on my own terms. And to Gordon, fare thee well and let the end be merciful. It is a bastard that the end comes this way but I am happy that you took this way to go out to laugh at it and give one last fight to spend it with the ones you love.

And for the Americans still confused, a tribute by Pearl Jam.
 

VeryBigBeard

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Gord Downie embodied AW's motto, "Write hard".

There are a lot of great obits today, but this one by Stephen Marche, written last year as a dying Downie performed his final tour, is worth a read, particularly if you're an American slightly confused by what all this is about:

Small-town hockey fans howl their biggest anthems in parking lots after games; assistant professors of Canadian literature listen to their later work while jogging.
 

Jan74

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Oh is this a double thread then? I didn't realize it was in the music forum, will have to go check it out.
 

Jan74

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I thought they were a great Canadian band, but if I had my choice to see Barenaked Ladies or the Hip, I'd go see the ladies. I think they were like the Grateful Dead in terms of not ever becoming mega stars like The Beatles, but had a loyal following.

This is jmho and maybe I'm wrong on the GD reference I'm just going by something I remember from watching a bio a million years ago.
 

AW Admin

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Going to merge this thread; please keep your hands inside the vehicle. We're joining the Music forum thread.
 

Jan74

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Going to merge this thread; please keep your hands inside the vehicle. We're joining the Music forum thread.

Ha...thanks I was wondering what happened, that's neat you can merge threads, I could have a lot of fun if I were admin. lol! Oh the power! Ok that's just my wacky sense of humour rearing its ugly head :evil