Essential reading for fans of Canadian music. 288 Review originally posted on www.christinavasilevski.com
About the book: In the mid-90s, Bidini’s band, The Rheostatics, was the opening act for The Tragically Hip on their “Trouble at the Henhouse” tour. On a Cold Road is Bidini’s memoir of the tour, compiled from the journal entries he wrote during it. However, the book also aims to serve as a collective history of touring across Canada, and includes anecdotes and recollections from Canadian musicians from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
What I liked: In this book, Bidini captured the allure of travelling and performing on the road, and made it comprehensible to us non-musicians. He made me feel the urge to pack up, get in a van, and drive across the country to visit all of the little hole-in-the-wall places that I could – despite the fact that I still don’t have a driver’s license.
His emotions became my own. I felt the frustration he did when The Rheostatics kept on encountering the rising popularity of The Tragically Hip in unexpected places and comparing it to their own lower level of success. I felt the sadness and alienation he did when he thought he became friends with Joey Ramone, only to meet Ramone at an autograph signing and find out that the other musician looked worn out and didn’t remember him at all. His realization made a cold wave of sadness wash over my stomach: “He had no idea who I was. I left the store. Outside, the rain felt like spiders.” Is there anything else one can say after that?
What I disliked: The book’s structure was disjointed, and the anecdotes provided by other Canadian musicians about the growth of the Canadian music scene in the 50s, 60s, and 70s didn’t mesh with the framework provided by Bidini’s own writing. The stories that the other rockers provided were grouped together by theme, but I often found it hard to detect a throughline between what everyone else was talking about compared to Bidini’s narrative frame.
More egregious, though, was the huge gender imbalance between the number of male musicians that were quoted compared to female musicians. Given the context (Canadian rock in the mid-20th Century) I understand that there probably weren’t a lot of women in the industry. But the number of times that women musicians were quoted or mentioned absolutely pales in comparison to the number of men. I bet that Greg Godovitz had more space in the book devoted to him than all of the women in it combined.
On top of that, most of the men who did mention women in music in any sort of context talked about the wonderfulness of having groupies. I didn’t need to know about how some musician in the 60s got a tongue bath from a willing groupie, or how some lovely angel of a young woman rehabilitated some hapless rocker by taking him in and doing his laundry. Women as sex objects? Rock on! Women as maternal caregivers bringing hope and cleanliness? Great! Women as equals and musicians in their own right? Meh.
The verdict: Bidini is obviously skilled with words, and some stories he captures, like the experience of performing at Maple Leaf Gardens, are imbued with magic. It also helps that I’m a huge Tragically Hip fan, and that I have a copy of “Live Between Us,” their live album made from the same tour that Bidini was part of. However, On a Cold Road still didn’t “spark” to me very much. While I was reading this book, I had some money in my iTunes account, and it never occurred to me to buy a Rheostatics album with it – instead, I spent the money on some Neko Case music. I think that’s pretty representative of my stance towards the book – interesting enough, but not so interesting as to encourage further investigation. 288 This was a fun read. Dave Bidini has a way with words. He is lyrical and real and I feel like I am right there in the bars and arenas absorbing the music. 288 Do not call yourself a Canadian music fan till you've bought and read this book. 288 For any Canadian music fan! 288
Summary On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock
David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking break-ups.
Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse tour, Bidini kept a diary. In On a Cold Road he weaves his colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock - including BTO, Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who, Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong - whom Bidini later interviewed in an effort to compare their experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and unforgettable picture of what it has meant, for the last forty years, to be a rock musician in Canada. On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock
A west to east story of The Rheostatics’ tour with The Hip that was awkwardly interrupted by yarns from other Canadian musicians. I wish it had been more linear, more focused. I also wish Bidini hadn’t relied quite so heavily on his thesaurus. Over all decent writing, bits of Canadian music history and a somewhat interesting memoir. 288 Not what I thought it was going to be. I expected Dave Bidini's adventures with The Rheostatics, not a short sample from him followed by a bunch of other takes from mostly people I'd never heard of.
Abandoned in chapter 1. 288 I liked this one but I didn't love it. Have to agree with other reviewers who said that it needed to be a bit more focused. It was really jarring to read Bidini's prose and observations on the Rheostatics' tour with the Hip, then have that broken up with road stories from other Canadian bands. Bidini doesn't give an introduction to those sections, and it is sometimes difficult to see the connection between what he's writing about and the other artists. When this book is good, it's a great nostalgic look on Canada: our expansive spaces, our small population, our national pasttimes. When it gets away from that, it can be a bit of a slog. Interested to read more Bidini for comparison. 288 The idea for Dave Bidini’s book On a Cold Road: Adventure in Canadian Rock first came about when excerpts from his tour journal were published in the Toronto Star. The dairies depicted the experiences of Bidini and his band The Rheostatics when they opened for the Tragically Hip on a cross-country tour. The Rheostatics are not new faces in the Canadian rock scene. Since 1980, rhythm guitarist Bidini, drummer Dave Clark (later replaced by Don Kerr), lead guitarist Martin Tielli, and bassist Tim Veseley have been playing their quirky art rock for a steady and dedicated fan base. Before their separation in early 2007, the band had released a total of fourteen albums, including Whale Music and Melville, both of which have made it onto numerous “Best of Canadian Albums” lists.
Bidini’s intention with this book, it seems, is to provide a comprehensive and fascinating look into what it means to be a rock musician in Canada. His own tour dairies are the backbone of the book, which is interspersed with tales from well-known Canadian artists. His interviews with various famous players in the Canadian rock scene throughout the last 50 years include Triumph, Trooper, Crowbar, BTO, The Guess Who, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, Goddo, The Stampeders, Max Webster, The Collecters/Chilliwack, and April Wine. Bidini gathers these varied players and presents their stories to show the common ground upon which these experiences are founded. These stories are always entertaining, full of the expected sprinklings of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, but the book deals heavily with some other common themes in a musician’s world as well: the emotional roller-coaster of touring, meeting your idols, the complex relationships between band members, and first musical experiences.
Bidini, being the writer of the band, is fluid with words. He writes with a kind of honesty and openness that makes the reader genuinely like and relate to him. Even when describing his own ego and egg-headedness, Bidini still comes off as a very affable guy – the kind of every-man with whom you can picture yourself sitting down in your parents’ basement and have long chats about life and music. His prose is effectual and has the ability to bring us directly to the places he writes about, evoking the same emotions. The moments feel real and immediate when we read about them, but only a secondary kind of reality, fogged by the dreaminess of memory and nostalgia.
Before picking up the book, I had only a brief introduction to the Rheostatics, specifically through the CBC Radio 3 program hosted by Grant Lawrence. Their music had never struck a chord in me or laid a fairly heavy imprint on my musical memory, so I went into the book with limited expectations but a willingness to learn. What I experienced was something quite rare and interesting, getting to know the band, not through their “obscure, cultish art rock”, but through the literary voice of their rhythm guitarist. Throughout my progress, I would occasionally look up a referenced personality or song on the internet, which helped me to develop a better visual landscape of 70’s and 80’s Canadian rock.
For a debut, Bidini certainly proved himself to not only be one of Canada’s most distinctive musicians, but a fine writer as well. On a Cold Road accomplishes what it sought to do in the beginning: it brings readers onto the road with the bands and the musicians who made up the Canadian rock scene for the last fifty years. Not only is this an insightful read for the seasoned music fan, but it is also an entertaining and poignant story of realizing your aspirations.
288 On a Cold Road is the first book on my list for Canada Reads 2012. The point of Canada Reads is to find the most quintessentially Canadian book for the year to recommend to all Canadians to read.
On a Cold Road delivers what the subtitle says: tales of adventure in Canadian rock by documenting the Rheostatics as they open for the Tragically Hip on a cross Canada tour. Interspersed with Bidini’s poetic expressions of band life, are interviews with the founders of Canadian rock. The book begins quietly dealing with the troubles of the music business, travelling on desolate country roads and playing in high school auditoriums, before building up to the debauchery of groupies and of Yonge Street, playing the hallowed ground of Maple Leaf Gardens, and detailing the end: band implosions. The book takes the reader on quite a tour.
As well, Bidini’s prose is exquisite. In a blizzard, wind “knuckles the roof” of their touring van, and Vancouver is described as a “kiss from a ponytailed girl”. The book is also a love letter to Canada. From experiencing “skin-peeling” prairie cold in playing small towns, to wild nights in Hamilton, the band “got to know Canada way more than [they] ever wanted to”. Through the music, Canada becomes a place “waiting to be explored”.
This book gave me a chance to relive my youth: These were the bands and songs that were playing on the radio when I was in high school and university.
I also felt a different sense of nostalgia while reading the book: The book describes a Canada that used to exist: a country where we citizens had much more in common. All the kids of a certain age listened to the same music. I don’t know if that’s true anymore.
Or at least it felt that way. This was the Canada I knew when I left in the mid 90s to live in Europe. Canada was not the same place when I returned. Canadians had suddenly become diverse without a common sense of self. I didn’t know what Canadians shared anymore.
Also, I initially found the transfer from Bidini’s narrative to the interviews jarring. I needed to YouTube videos of the singers and bands mentioned to remind me of who they were. Certainly they created great songs. Unfortunately, I haven’t remembered their names. Also, until now, I never knew some of these guys/gals were Canadian.
So a combination of the book being set in a Canada Past, and the fact that the musicians are no longer household names made this book feel dated.
Would On A Cold Road then be the ideal book for all Canadians to read this year?
288