The concert in Somerville starts in a couple hours... woohoo!

http://www.rollingstone.com/sections/news/text/newsarticle.asp?afl=&NewsID=11178&ArtistID=14

> For the Tragically Hip, "Big in Canada" Is No Small Thing
>
> Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip on "Music@Work" and
> Canada-size success
>
> Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip has often pondered why his
> band -- the most popular rock act in Canada for nearly a decade
> -- has yet to crack the American market. It's not that the matter
> particularly troubles the frontman, but he's faced with the
> question nearly every time he submits to an interview.
>
> "I used to spend a lot of time trying to nail it, because I'd be
> asked so often," he admits. "The person would usually feel that
> they had to tip-toe into it, and an editor would be breathing
> down their neck to make sure they got the elbow of the story --
> which I guess is that one."
>
> Case in point, this time around, he's asked if "the America
> thing" has ever worked its way into a song. "I don't think so,"
> he says after a moment. "Any time I've tried to deal with it, or
> talk about it or answer it, it's always been inadequate. Without
> exception.
>
> "At this point in time," he continues, "I feel mercifully kind of
> non-plussed about it."
>
> And not without reason. Although the Hip doesn't move units in
> the States like they do on their own turf, they have nonetheless
> steadily established a healthy American cult audience while
> remaining bonafide monsters of rock back home. Make all the
> Canadian jokes your heart desires, but say this much about them
> -- Canadian rock fans stick by you. While great American rock
> bands like R.E.M. and Pearl Jam have seen their sales shrink in
> the last few years, the Hip's ninth album, Music@Work, debuted at
> No. 1 last week on the Canadian album chart. Coming in at No.  2
> and 3? A couple of also-rans named Eminem and Britney.
>
> The Tragically Hip's following is so loyal, in fact, that when
> advance copies of Music@Work leaked onto the Web and eBay weeks
> before the album's release, it was the fans -- not the band --
> that started a campaign to report the offending parties.
> Metallica would kill for fans like that.
>
> "There were people who were stepping in on our behalf, buying it
> and then squashing it or blocking it or hiding it, or putting it
> away without listening to it," Downie says with no small hint of
> wonder. "That kind of stuff, I guess it's unheard of, and dare I
> say typical when it comes to us. And I guess that makes me proud
> in a sort of way. Our fans know what to do."
>
> One good thing about the leak of band's music on the Web, notes
> Downie, is that it allows the numerous Tragically Hip cover bands
> in Canada to keep up with them. "I suppose they're all boning up
> and rehearsing as we speak," he says amusedly, though he swears
> he's never had the desire to check them out. "I've had friends
> who come back from them and tell me it's like being on acid, and
> the last time I did acid, it was a very, very lousy situation.
> There's too much moral complexity in my life to risk it any
> more."
>
> Bar a couple of stand-out anthems ("My Music at Work" and
> "Putting Down"), Music@Work finds the Hip navigating moodier
> territory than they did on their last album, 1998's Phantom
> Power. That album, which like Music@Work was produced by Los
> Lobos' Steve Berlin, was hook-for-hook the Hip's most accessible
> outing since their breakthrough 1992 effort, Fully Completely. By
> contrast, Music@Work leans heavily towards the dark and
> mysterious, with guitarists Rob Baker and Paul Langlois, bassist
> Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay winding their way through
> rhythmic jams almost as hypnotically convoluted as Downie's
> famously impenetrable lyrics. Well, almost. In "Tiger the Lion,"
> Downie juxtaposes a theory on the nature of art borrowed from
> John Cage with an image of fighter pilots addressing each other
> by their nicknames while discussing the great unknown.  Downie
> laughs readily when asked if the rest of the band ever calls him
> to task, demanding, "What the hell does that mean?"
>
> "I can get caught up with meaning," he admits. "Does it have
> enough meaning? What is the meaning? Is there a meaning here, and
> if asked by someone, which is really the only time it comes into
> play, what can I say? But all you're really striving for is one
> decent line per record. That's advice I gave someone once, and
> now I'm trying to take it myself."
>
> On Music@Work, that line may well be the nugget in the last verse
> of "Train Overnight": " . . . if it's not a Canada of a pain /
> we'll entertain the idea of a train." A "Canada of a pain,"
> Downie elaborates when pressed, is "pretty goddamn big. It's the
> second largest pain in the world, next to China. But China
> doesn't have an extra syllable, and I don't want them mad at me."
>
> Not that Downie has ever been shy about alluding to Canada in his
> lyrics, be it via geographical citations or hockey references.
> But he insists he's never been a nationalist. "I can say that
> with a straight face," he says. "If I do believe in a country,
> it's the country of me. At the risk of sounding immodest of
> self-obsessed or overly concerned with my identity, I can't help
> it -- that's sort of a national past time." Perhaps to that end,
> Downie's recently recorded his first solo album, an endeavor he
> sees as an "obvious, logical conclusion of learning how to be a
> songwriter."
>
> "I think it's beautiful," he says a little shyly of the effort.
> "I mean, that's what people close to me tell me." But before he
> sees it released, there's Music@Work to work, as the Hip set out
> on their American tour this week. "The theory is that I will be
> refurbished and reinvigorated," he says of the road ahead. "And I
> think that will probably be true. It's a strange thing. I'm just
> sort of blissfully confused by it all. But it's a good
> confusion."
>
> So how does the frontman of the biggest band in Canada spend his
> time when he's not at work with his music? Hockey, of course,
> though not the NHL variety, which he says he's soured on of late.
> These days he's more likely be spotted watching a women's hockey
> game, or playing incognito at the outdoor rink near his Toronto
> home. The kids there know him only as "The Goalie Who Lives
> Across the Street."
>
> "I'm never seen without my mask, and I don't talk to anybody,"
> Downie laughs. "And these kids, they come up to my thigh and
> they're shooting at you from all directions, asking you how much
> your head weighs with your helmet on. There's birds flying
> overhead and it's beautiful. That's hockey."
>
> RICHARD SKANSE
> (June 28, 2000)

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/