Wednesday, April 04, 2007
It normally snows in winnipeg in april. It frequently snows in may as well.
the constantines were a lot of fun. but the fact that I got on the wrong bus this morning is an indication of the danger of weekday shows.
in the cover department, points are awarded to the cons for closing with a complete straight and slightly understated version of "thunderstuck." it was kindof amazing that they resisted the urge to ham it up.
marks were awarded for creativity to jon rae & the river for their cover of townes van zandt's "two hands" In no small part because it is really fun to be the guy who recognizes the cover and gets to sing along. unfortunately, they received low technical merit scores for turning an upbeat spiritual into a half-time, strident blues tune for no visible reason. the song isn't sad or tortured and I don't think there is sadness and angst hidden in it waiting to be revealed. but that is my opinion.
on the topic of music, I am curious if "one great city" by the weakerthans resonates with a larger audience. It is filled to overflowing with specific geographical references to winnipeg. and consequently, is very resonant here. There is an actual male angel on top of the legislative building who faces northward. At the city limits, the signs say "Welcome to Winnipeg--One Great City!". there is a chain of stores called "The Dollar Store." And there is a large underground walkway downtown with polished stone floors not to mention the more obvious guess who and jets references. for those of you who have never been here (most of you), does it work for you or is it a sop to us?
the constantines were a lot of fun. but the fact that I got on the wrong bus this morning is an indication of the danger of weekday shows.
in the cover department, points are awarded to the cons for closing with a complete straight and slightly understated version of "thunderstuck." it was kindof amazing that they resisted the urge to ham it up.
marks were awarded for creativity to jon rae & the river for their cover of townes van zandt's "two hands" In no small part because it is really fun to be the guy who recognizes the cover and gets to sing along. unfortunately, they received low technical merit scores for turning an upbeat spiritual into a half-time, strident blues tune for no visible reason. the song isn't sad or tortured and I don't think there is sadness and angst hidden in it waiting to be revealed. but that is my opinion.
on the topic of music, I am curious if "one great city" by the weakerthans resonates with a larger audience. It is filled to overflowing with specific geographical references to winnipeg. and consequently, is very resonant here. There is an actual male angel on top of the legislative building who faces northward. At the city limits, the signs say "Welcome to Winnipeg--One Great City!". there is a chain of stores called "The Dollar Store." And there is a large underground walkway downtown with polished stone floors not to mention the more obvious guess who and jets references. for those of you who have never been here (most of you), does it work for you or is it a sop to us?
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 1:43 PM 
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As with any song about somewhere I've never spent significant time in, it's cool and I get it the overall feeling, but I don't "get it" in the same way that I would if I did live there. It's like the Aussie DJ said about the song I sent you yesterday, "This is DC" by DJ Eurock. He said, "I imagine if there are a select group of listeners that have lived in DC, all the references make sense to them." He just had to appreciate it as a cool song. Now that I live in Chicago, I know where the Humboldt Park that's mentioned in Urge Overkill's "Woman 2 Woman" is, so it's an added layer.
As a Winnipegger/Northern Ontarian, I am not your target audience, but this is a question I have pondered ever since I began to love The Weakerthans years ago, pre "One Great City". (A love which I admit has grown to somewhat ridiculous proportions). When Reconstruction Site came out, I read in Uptown or Exclaim or some other Canadian weekly that the only Winnipeggers who had a problem with the song were the ones who had moved to Vancouver or Toronto. The author went on to propose that the song is about the way that people feel about their respective cities all over the world, and not a shot at Winnipeg specifically. In fact, many of my friends latched onto the song, substituting Oshawa, Montreal, or their city of choice in the chorus line. I can just as easily substitute Sudbury, my other hometown. To me, this song is not much different from John K’s previous songs about his relationship with his city, except that the Winnipeg references are more explicit and there are more of them. When I was in Southern Ontario for undergrad, lost in the sprawl that is Toronto and surrounding area, there was nothing like throwing in my overplayed Weakerthans CDs to restore a sense of place, wherever that place happened to be at the time. Check out this article in Geist, written when “One Great City” was just a twinkle in John K’s eye: http://www.geist.com/issues/feature.php?id=41
-CMM
-CMM
# posted by 
: 2:42 PM
: 2:42 PM
PS - The Golden Boy isn't actually an angel, but a boy. What may look like wings from the ground is actually an armful of wheat. http://www.gov.mb.ca/legtour/golden.html I only know this because when he was taken down for clean up a few years ago, I saw him up close at The Forks. What is ironic is that he faces the north, the home of Manitoba's "mineral resources, fish, forest, furs, hydroelectric power and seaport, where his province's future lies", but also Winnipeg's North End, one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods. -CMM
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# posted by : 3:16 PM
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