From Thin and Wicked Prairie Winds Come In

Hello. Welcome to Daily(ish) for Wednesday, October 18. It's currently 10 degrees out. It feels like six degrees with, wind chill. Power's back on.

We had a big storm windstorm blow through, I guess, is the proper way of saying that. The province last night and, killed the power right in the middle of a game of Overwatch while I was playing, which was kind of funny. I had that. Host just went completely dark. Everybody's still I was asleep.

Was like 11:00. So kids didn't notice, but, yeah, my, Overwatch partners, whoever I was playing with, six killer or sixty eight or whatever their names were, might have wondered why I disappeared all of sudden. And, I don't know. It didn't come on until 03:30 or four in the morning, think, is when then randomly there's a light all of sudden on in the living room that obviously was left on that, we didn't realize when going to bed when the power's out. So, that's my story about the power or lack thereof.

This episode daily is brought to you by Patreon supporters possibly like you. Patreon.com/ichris is where you can go to check out how you can support my podcasting efforts a little more directly with a dollar or two month, for in exchange for an episode or episode or two a month as it seems to be the case lately. But I really appreciate everybody who's supporting me there, whether you have in the past and had to stop or started and stopped or changed your amounts or whatever the the case may be. It's all very much appreciated and all sort of goes back into not sort of, it all does go back into helping, fund what we're doing with good stuff. And, sometimes we're we're we're kind of lurching forward in spurts and starts at times, it feels like.

And, I'm sure at times you're like, woah, just get off your butt and do this thing already, more often. And, that's definitely where Kyle and I are hoping and wanting to be, but, just life happens as it goes as we go along. So and one of those things that's life happening as we go along here, particularly for anybody who's paying attention to Canada, Canadian news, music in general, maybe, is a Canadian band, a very popular Canadian band, Tragically Hip. Lead singer Gord Downey died today of cancer. He, they had announced it, in 2016 that he had cancer, terminal brain cancer, and went out on tour in support of their thirteenth album.

And they didn't say specifically it was their farewell tour, just that it it would depend on his health, obviously. And, they had a the final concert of that tour was held in August 2016, and it was broadcast on the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and, streamed into everything. And I think most of Canada tuned in in some form or another either out of curiosity. I know I was I was visiting my aunt and uncle and they headed on, on their farm. And my cousins were went into like drove into Winnipeg to go to like watch it together collectively, on a big screen somewhere in Winnipeg.

And, so a lot of Canada, whether or not definitely not all of Canada, obviously, but, I'm sure there are folks who are blissfully unaware perhaps of of this concert. But I just remember it was a significant event. It was kind of I was driving to Winnipeg at the time when the announcement came out, and so I basically played Treasure Hip music all the way there. They have, 14 albums stretching back to '92, I think, their first album that came out fully completely. And, they're a band that's like I was I was sort of comparing it.

I was I happened to see like a little YouTube, you know, watch this video next thing of of a Nickelback video of like, why does everybody hate us or something. In a in a certain sense, they're kind of like they have been as tragically hip are by no means comparable, I don't think, to Nickelback in terms of how loved they are. I guess maybe the inverse would be true. Their tragically hip was universally loved in Canada. Nickelback universally hated.

It would be the sentimental. There's obviously people who hate the tragically hip and people who love Nickelback. But, they're just kind of ubiquitously they're they're everywhere in Canada and whether you like them or not. And like, I went through a period, I think they they kind of, like I said, broke through, late eighties into the nineties, definitely were super popular band in the nineties and and into the February. And for me, I that was right when I sort of latched onto U2 as a band and Tragically Hip kinda felt like this in in my opinion, like at the time, my sort of ignorant opinion at the time, the sort of cheap Canadian knock off band that rock band or whatever that Canada liked just because they're from Canada.

But if they were actually, out in the world, whatever that meant, they wouldn't be as popular because they're just another rock band playing a few riffs or whatever. Nothing too interesting about them. For me, it wasn't until I was it was late nineties, mid nineties, somewhere in there. I was in a band and we're just playing some covers and stuff and the lead singer brought, tragically hip song, Wheat Kings to play. And and, so I was I was a guitar player.

Was learning it in, just acoustic ballad kinda sounding song. And, but it was a song that was about the, the case of David Milgaard, who had been wrongfully committed, served twenty three years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. I think it was, I don't have the information from you, but, like, DNA evidence exonerated him, I believe. And, and so the tragedy of the hip wrote this song in response to, what what had happened to the to Dave Milgaard. And, and so just in hearing the lyrics, hearing the song, it's also about the Saskatchewan story where I'm from.

And, and so just kind of like I don't know. Something about it hit me. The the tune, the lyrics, the the line of late breaking story in the CBC and Nation Whispers, we always knew that he go free. Just kind of like encapsulating what, I didn't even understand the depth of the story at the time myself even, but in the lyric just covering a whole country almost with with a song, was something that kinda spoke to me and, just kind of drew me into this band. Even though I didn't really dive too hard into the band, they they had an album that came out in the yeah.

'90 seven was live between us, which I bought. I think that was the first treasury hip album I bought. And, as with u two, for me, a band often comes alive. The songs are great on the album, but especially come alive when they're playing them live. If they can translate whatever energy and enthusiasm and excitement and and, overall goodness of a song to a live setting, that's where it really connects for me.

And so Live Between Us was a great sort of introduction to this band that I'd heard on the radio, but hadn't really heard in in concert, had never gone to a show, never actually ended up going to a show, which I wish I had. And but sort of was me at in late nineties and, sort of coming to terms with being Canadian, coming to terms with a musician in Canada, and and sort of up to that point, it sort of has turned my nose up at being okay with listening to Canadian music. They're sort of like either with in Canada anyways, you kind of either identify as being really strongly Canadian in I would guess it would this would be the case in a lot of artistic endeavors. And either you're strongly Canadian or you kind of like go the other extreme, like, don't want anything to do with Canadian music or art or whatever because I want to be bigger than Canada or some some sort of snobbery or ignorance. I don't know.

Whatever the case is there for me, it it was sort of, arrogance or whatever that I think is how it, translated. And for me, Tragically Hip and Gord Downey in particular as a lead singer kind of helped bring me back to that idea that it was okay to be Canadian. It was cool to be Canadian. It was it was it was, there was power in what the stories that we had to tell as Canadians. Whether or not the rest of the world paid attention didn't really matter.

Because they didn't Treasury Hip didn't ever I know I I would guess they sought after some measure of fame or success outside of Canada, but they kind of seemed to let the music and the stories they were telling speak for themselves and not have to try and chase after American generally, an American fame and success in order to feel like they had made it. But, yeah, like I said, whether you wanted to listen to them or not, the songs they're just played, I mean, probably these days, where you don't hear radio as often, It's you don't get exposed to the songs as much, but definitely growing up and, you know, getting my first job and, working and stuff like that and driving to and from work or school and things like that, the the hips songs, you just you can't avoid them almost in Canada. And, even more so than, like, maybe Rush or somebody that gets a bit more, knowledge, I guess, is a Canadian band down south because they're sort of like the Rush is sort of the cool band to to either bring up or pick on or whatever in movies and things like that often, whereas Tragically Hip wouldn't wouldn't be brought up in in movies as someone's obscure favorite band from Canada or whatever often.

But songs like from second album in 1989 up to here, Blow It High Do, New Orleans is Sinking, 38 years old, then, '92, Courage at the hundredth Meridian, on Fully Completely. Even today, obviously, you're hearing them. There's radio stations just playing nothing but Treasury Hip obviously in Canada, across Canada, I'm sure. They're definitely here in Saskatoon. That's the case on our local rock station.

When a voice like this is cut short, even at age 53, which I know a 20 year old me would have said that's quite old. No. 41 year old me says he had lots of life left to live and life to create yet, is cut short with, especially something like cancer and, you know, sort of being aware of it for the last year and a bit and knowing that this day would probably come. It feels like as a nation, we're, you know, you're kind of preparing for it, but, it's still obviously very sad when it actually happens. And so his his work in later years I'm sure it was part of much of his life, but, publicly anyways, later years in his life of, helping sort of expose and help push Canada Canada towards, dealing with the Canadian Indian residential schools and just the havoc and and destruction that that wrecks upon our First Nations people.

His last album, his solo album, Secret Path, which was released released last year, is also a a book that, I know is read our kids read, I think, in school or maybe in libraries anyways. And and so, you know, just starting almost another chapter of sort of helping a bit of activism in in pushing Canada to where we'd be better. As good as we are, we could be better. And and so just even that in in that getting cut short, and he, yeah, he will be missed. I don't know how to end this, other than I would love to just send it out with a song, one of their songs, but I don't know how legal that'll be, so I won't do that, I guess.

But you can I'll put links in in the show notes to some YouTube videos and stuff you can check out. And, of course, you can look on iTunes or Spotify or Apple Music, whatever you use. Tragic the Tragically Hip is the band. There's a collection of sort of greatest hits album called Your Favorites, from a few years ago that you can, check out, and that's that'll give you a good summary of of the the band's career. Or you're so inclined, just start it, back at the beginning and listen all the way through for a heavy dose of Canada.

So thank you Gord Downey for a life well lived and, for your music and for your love of Canada that inspired me to love my country in a new way. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Bye.