Discovering Downie DEWVRE Podcasts and Such

It's a bonus episode! Join Craig as he sits down to talk with Dale Robertson a 30-year veteran of the Canadian Music Industry.
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[1:06] Hey there listeners, this is Craig and today on Discovering Downey I am joined by Dale Robertson. Dale is a 30-year veteran of the Canadian music industry and he is here to share a few stories about Gord and the Hip. Welcome Dale, how's it going?

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[1:22] Thank you Craig, it's going very well, I'm happy to be here. This is, you know what, my first podcast participation ever. Oh wow, Wow. Okay. Well, I'm pretty new to this too. So we'll just see how it goes. But I have you on today to talk a little hip because I know you're a big fan and that's how I met you is talking about the hip. And your name was a name that would come up over and over through our mutual friend, Matt Pinch. And I thought I'd just share a quick story about how I met Matt that you probably don't know. So it was grade seven for me and Matt was a year younger in grade six, but we were in a class together and my good friend had moved out of town that summer and so I was without a close friend at school and one day we were seated next to each other and Matt started talking to me about WWF wrestlers and he was very enthusiastic and I didn't know too much but I went home and made sure to watch that you know Saturday night and came back to school the next week with a little bit more knowledge about wrestling and and we would spend our days drawing wrestlers on on blank pieces of paper and then we would take our compass and one at a time drop the compass on each of the wrestlers and if it hit we would make a little tally and after 10.

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[2:46] Hits that that wrestler would be eliminated from the the battle royale and so that's how that's how we met and then we ended up you know matt was the first person i ever met who played guitar he He got a guitar for his birthday, I believe, and I would pick it up and I just fell in love right away. And so I, you know, started playing shortly after that. And we ended up actually starting our first band together and, you know, started playing cover music. And within a year we were playing all original. And yeah, that was my first band experience with along with our buddy Blair, who you know, and our friend Bob on drums. And yeah, how about you? How did you get to know Matt?

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[3:23] So i met matt when he joined bmg while i was working there um here in vancouver and he came on board as a street team member i think it was around 1998 or so um he then became our street team leader uh which you know the really cool thing about the street team pro programs that the labels were utilizing was that it was a great sort of starting ground for uh somebody getting into the music industry and to get hired from there because typically as a street team member you're volunteering you were out there you know putting stickers on bathroom walls or um putting posters up on either walls where you're allowed to or in street corner you've seen those you know uh let's say uh the new trouble charger album at that time coming soon blah blah blah so So Matt was part of that. And then he ended up moving into the radio promotions department within BMG until 2004 when he was an unfortunate victim of the Sony BMG merger. Right. And that was phase one. You know, it's very typical for these mergers where, you know.

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[4:38] You become a victim to the downsizing you know it affected me eventually in 2007 where we had an office of 11 and the next day there were only two left i was one of the nine wow um but yeah it's just you know that's the nature of the beast and and uh the music industry is volatile it's just that crazy you know you love it and you can also kind of despise it at the same time because of some of the um debris that it can leave in its wake but uh you know you're in it for the music you know it's um i would have to say that the hip were probably a major catalys

This week on the podcast Craig, Justin, and Kirk experience Gord's second record, the blistering, Battle of the Nudes.

This week on the show, jD, Craig, Justin, and Kirk wrap up Coke Machine Glow and pick their MVP tracks. Join us won't you?
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[0:56] Minneapolis hotel room. Here I sit, cool as a garage, writing by lightning. I don't mean lightning as a metaphor for inspiration. I mean lighting. Intermittent lightning. By lightning really turning it on. A lightning-powered hotel room. It's the most lightning I've ever seen in one room.

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[1:19] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downey.

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[1:28] Hey, it's J.D. here, and I'm joined, as I am every week, by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, it's Gord's solo ventures that remain uncharted for our trio. Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late Gord Downie. Come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order, embarking on our quest of discovering Downey. This is the second of two parts of our gang covering Gord's first solo record, Coke Machine Glow. If you listened to part one, we discussed the album as a whole and then got into a song by song breakdown. Down on this episode we'll pick up where we left off with a song that has to be about cottage country doesn't it well in my head it is craig why don't you kick things off with your thoughts on black flies right.

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[2:31] Away what hit me was the laminar flow line because i was at that show and i'm not sure if this was something that he did all through the the roadside attraction the first tour that I saw. But the Vancouver show or the Seabird Island show in 1993, I believe.

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[2:50] Um maybe 94 93 um he goes off on this rant about the laminar flow and you can actually find it online too and uh and he's talking about you know it's the flow of liquid and he's sort of talking about the crowd and the movement of the crowd and this was my first hip show we're talking i'm not sure how many thousands of people there are 20 000 this wave of people and this is like the early hip fans right this is this is roadside a partying crowd yep and it was this it was in the In the middle of nowhere. That's your first hip show? Huge. Wow. Yeah, huge. Yeah, just in the middle of a forest, really. And, you know, just like you see on the videos with, like, Canadian flags and drunk, you know, jock types. And I was quite young. I think I was 18 at the time. And not really knowing how to take gourd. Like, I loved the hip at the time. Like, I think fully completely. I'd either just come out or was about to. Loved that album. Loved, you know, the band since up to here. And at one point, and you can actually see it in this video, he starts getting angry with someone in the crowd saying, don't look at them, look at me. Like, you know, referencing, you know, the other band members. And he was obviously joking, but at the time I had no clue. He just looked, I was like, this guy really is starved for attention because not only does he sing all the songs and he's talking in between all the songs, he's talking over top of the guitar solos. And at first I didn't know how to take that. I thought it was really...

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[4:15] It was really jarring for me being a musician and, and I was kind of thinking, what are the other bandmates think of this? Like he's, um, of course over the years you get to, you come to appreciate that and, and know it's just a part of the act. Right. But, but yeah, that, um, don't look at, don't look at them. Look at me.

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[4:32] You have to find the clip. It's so good. It's called laminar flow. Find it on YouTube. It's so funny. My friend, I went to the show with who I still am in contact with. He would always talk about the laminar flow and I didn't remember it really. And then he, He, a few years ago, pointed out the video to me and I'm like, oh yeah, I do remember th

Welcome to Discovering Downie. I'll be your host, jD as we listen in on the experiences and analysis from three huge fans of The Hip who have a blind spot for Gord's solo works. Meet Craig, Justin, and Kirk as they part in this epic 11-part podcast.
We kick the show off by starting at the start with Coke Machine Glow part 1.
Transcript:
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[1:26] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downy.

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[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm joined by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, Gord's solo ventures remain uncharted territory for our trio.

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[1:47] Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late gourd downey so come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order embarking on our quest of discovering downey we've assembled quite the motley crew here to talk uh to talk about gourd's oeuvre and we're excited to do that we're going to do this all summer long so buckle up fellas how are you doing not too bad living the a dream amazing excited excited to go on this jaunt with you you gents for sure yeah it should be pretty fun i agree i agree completely i i am i am from a hip starved uh area of the world which you know i guess most of the u.s unfortunately was hip starved for a long time but specifically down here uh in the la market i got to see some amazing shows in really small places but like to, to like find a hip album in a record store or, you know, like anything that comes close to hip preference for me, I just like, I get all giddy. So when we, you know, we connected to talk with other hip fans, um, was pretty exciting, but then just to learn more about Gord, um, yeah, this is, this is going to be quite the adventure, my friends, quite the adventure.

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[3:17] Yeah, I think so. What do you think, Craig?

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[3:20] Yeah, I've been sitting in this room, my office slash music room, with a couple of unopened Gord CDs that I have collected over the years and just looking for the right moment, I guess. And along came that moment, and thanks to you, JD, to make this happen and to bring me on board. Ah, but I am but one hand on the rudder. The other three hands you see belong to Kirk, Justin, and Craig. Egg so there's that justin tell us about your experience with the hip so uh the u.s is hip starved for the most part but uh growing up in vermont we are just quebec junior and uh we get a lot of uh tv and radio stations uh down here in the greater burlington area so i i grew up with hip on the radio and um i didn't really know anything about him but in high school i discovered phantom power on my own.

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[4:19] And, uh, that was it. I've been hopelessly blissfully lost ever since. And, um, my dad was kind of a hip fan, but you know, I think he was from like the old, you know, the, the hip crowd that they were trying to get rid of in the nineties, you know? And, uh, and so when I, when I came along, it was music at work and, you know, kind of the newer stuff that, that the old man probably wouldn't have liked too much, but, um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I got to see three hip shows and I was at the show in Ottawa two nights before the finale, uh, which was really amazing. Um, I got to see him in a basketball gym in Burlington and I got to see him in a bar in Albany, New York. And, uh, I feel like I got the, a pretty good sample size. Uh, I love them. I love them. Yeah. How about you, Craig? You have a unique role in this trio as well with your Tragically Hip experience. Share some of that with us.

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[5:19] Um, yeah, I've, I've been a big hip fan way back going to probably grade eight when I, when I first heard, I think New Orleans on the radio and, uh, you know, I liked it and I, um, I didn't buy the album right away. I was into heavier stuff at the time. I was a big GNR

A special sneak-peak at the new Gord Downie-based podcast, Discovering Dowie. Coming to your podcast outlet on May 17th.

Welcome to Discovering Downie! Each week, Craig Rogers, Justin St. Louis and Kirk Lane are joined by jD to experience one of Gord Downie's solo outings.