brainsplotch

The moment that all Tragically Hip/Gord Downie fans have been dreading since May 2016 happened today: we learned of Gord Downie's death.   After battling terminal brain cancer for almost two years, Gord passed away last night at home, surrounded by family and friends.   I learned the news this morning from the official Tragically Hip Facebook page's post. Even though I knew that this was inevitable, it still came as a shock. A bit like getting the glaucoma "puff of air in the eye" test at the optometrist: even though you know that puff is coming, you still flinch when you get the blast of air in your eyeball. I don't mean to be too flippant with the comparison--clearly death is much more profound than a little test at the optometrist's office--but that's the best I can come up with.   So, if you will, this was a "puff of bad news" and I flinched. Even though I was expecting it, it still was stunning.   The entire day has been...

This has been a shit year, there's no other way to put it. (Well, maybe there is a more artful way to put it, but I don't feel like it. Describing it as "shit" just seems more appropriate). I don't think it's necessary to enumerate the many ways in which 2016 sucked. Any year in which David Bowie and Prince died, while Donald Trump was elected president, is automatically a horrible year. All of the other bad things that happened are just more poo clogging the toilet. (Sorry for the scatological metaphors, folks). So why not take a look at the good stuff from 2016, at least from my perspective. The year was a good one for music. It has been a long time since I've been as excited about new music as I was in '16. It started in January when David Bowie released Blackstar ,  an album that has to rank as one of the best of his career, and there is no hyperbole in that statement. It was as if Bowie knew that this was his final statement to t...

The Tragically Hip played what was likely their final concert ever last night. In front of a sold-out crowd at the K-Rock Centre in the band's hometown of Kingston, Ontario, and also witnessed by a national television audience watching a commercial-free broadcast on the CBC. I gave up luxury box/corporate suite seats at the Lansing Lugnuts baseball game in order to stay home and watch the concert--alone in my living room with only two cats and a dog for company (my wife and my two sons went to the ballgame). There you have it, the life of an American Hip fan. I know I've probably been driving my Facebook friends crazy over the last several days with all my Hip-related posts. But this has simply been "the Summer of the Hip" for me, ever since that terrible morning in late May when the world received the news about Gord Downie's cancer diagnosis. A month after that, I bought the Hip's new album Man Machine Poem and have watched the band's tour un...

This has been a Tragically Hip-centric blog for the last few weeks, and will remain so for at least one more post--because on June 17 the Hip released their 13th album, Man Machine Poem . Naturally, I feel compelled to write about it. I don't know if I've ever adequately explained how much I love this band, or how baffled I am that they never made a dent outside of Canada. It's a subject for another blog post to theorize as to why the Hip have never penetrated the States or the rest of the world--but frankly it's a subject that most fans of the band, and the band themselves, are tired of discussing. Though I'd heard of the Hip going as far back as the late '80s/early '90s, and was completely enraptured by Sarah Polley's gorgeous cover of "Courage" on the Sweet Hereafter  soundtrack in 1997. (I liked it so much, in fact, that I bought the CD). It wasn't until early 2006, when I borrowed their hits collection Yer Favourites from the li...

First it was Bowie, then Lemmy, then Merle, and finally on to Prince. Now we have received word that Gord Downie has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. 2016 officially sucks. Now, I know that Gord Downie isn't nearly as famous as aforementioned quartet of iconic musicians, and thankfully Gord is still living, but the news--for the Tragically Hip's biggest fans--is equally as terrible and unthinkable. I've decided that I need to finally follow through on my little essays about all of the Hip's albums, a project I started several years ago on this blog but only made it through the band's first self-titled EP. I've taken some notes on the Hip's debut full-length album Up To Here and hope to post it soon. "Courage, it couldn't come at a worse time"