Tag Archives: Gord Downie

Finding an Antidote for Poisoned Music

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The shitty (tragic?) parts of my life have tended to poison things that I love, including favorite music. Low, a band I once saw in concert every year, has been off my playlist ever since Mimi Parker, a member of the duo, died suddenly of cancer. It’s been three years now. As much as I miss the music, I can’t listen. Not yet.

Alan and Mimi play Low music in Fargo (2010)

A similar grief hit when my friend Gord Downie, the lead singer of The Tragically Hip, died although I was more prepared for his death, given his prognosis. It wasn’t grief as much as mourning, as Joan Didion differentiated in The Year of Magical Thinking. I attended one of his final concerts, and then he died. As much as I miss him, his music provides comfort.

Gord singing and contorting at Fort Henry in the ’90s

The poisoning is more intense when it comes on a personal level. I very much enjoyed Modest Mouse until a student I associated the music with committed suicide. And then, as they sing on Polar Opposites, I’m trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.

I’ve had a couple of relationships turn terribly sour and drag the joy of the music with them. The death of an ex made The Red Hot Chili Peppers feel dark and awful, while Sufjan Stevens, once a great passion, was dragged into a quagmire of triggering memories. I’m working on getting his music back into my head.

Sufjan plays Christmas Unicorn at The Bowery Ballroom

In the end, this self-cleaning of music, loving it once and then not, allowing it to creep back in, knowing it again, almost feels like wisdom, or at least the closest I will ever get to a thing like that.

Phil plays one of his last shows at The Capital Theatre

Honest About Being Dead

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I saw my friend Gord last night. He died some two years ago and looked almost happy in spite of the pain, knowing he wasn’t really there. I told him that I respected him for that, being so honest about being dead and then realized I shouldn’t have said that. I changed the topic to how I was still afraid of the dark and that I didn’t know how to work through my hate. I just wasn’t big enough for that.

And then Gord was gone or was in the hallway getting his coat, and I had to get to Abbotsford for a job interview and was waiting for a bus and then watching a school play, hiding in someone else’s bed, waiting for the food to be delivered, still mad about everything but glad I wasn’t dead.

Looking For a Place to Happen with Gord Downie

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There’s been much written about Gord Downie as of late, too much to process, moments paraded like possessions. We were there. Yes, we were.20140504_231609But as intense and real as so much of this seems, it’s more a madness, everyone searching, clicking and posting…for what? Looking for a place to happen?

Monday, August 22 @ 10 am:

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Monday, August 22 @ noon:

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Monday, August 22 @ 3 pm:

P1010577Just like that, from being with Mars to being replaced by a fish story. Isn’t anything supposed to stay? Or does it all have to go away?FinalHip (18)

Why I Love Gord Downie

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With all of this emotional outpouring toward Gord Downie, the musician, I thought I might give a few reasons to love the guy for things other than his music.

1. He’s got a lot of fingers scratching on his hull. I once made the mistake of telling him he’s a very sensitive guy, to which he replied, “I’m not sensitive. Why would you say that?”Why I Love Gord Downie2. What’s this river that I’m in? I doubt he would admit to being funny, but it’s actually his reactions that are the funniest, falling over silently, choking a laugh into himself.

3. We’d climb a tree and then maybe we’d talk. Late, after a party, Gord was getting ready to go to bed and was being followed around by Bill, all through the house, up the stairs, into his bedroom, talking all the time, story after story. Gord never told him to leave, instead just turned off the light, laughing here and there, and let Bill talk on in the dark.

Why I Love Gord Downie4. There’s nowhere that he’s really been. His dream of dreams is not to be on stage, but to be sprawled out on the ground, his children crawling all over.

5. He’s not from downtown. He knows what he knows. Not what he doesn’t.Why I Love Gord Downie6. He worked it in to look like that. He does the work, a fourth line player, the guy you want on the ice with a few seconds on the clock.

Yeah, Gord’s a good guy, all right. Angst on the planks, spittin’ from a bridge.

Gord Downie & The Sadies Play Harvard

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Gord Downie and The Sadies played at The Sinclair in Cambridge on Saturday. 20140503_215803The opening song, Crater, is the kind of music that comes over you and drives hard, perfect for sitting back and imagining that life might not be that bad, that there is joy in the night. View concert clip here.20140503_230605The band offered a superabundance of terrain – rock, punk, surfer, country, folk – melding their new-found energy with sincerity, talent and screams. 20140503_220921And all of this, only the band’s third show together. Their cover of Guided By Voices, I Am A Scientist, makes one wonder what might be next, the hot summer nights ahead, when they will get deeper into their groove.