School of Hip

In this episode of School of Hip Chaz and Heath are joined by special guest Michael Barclay, author of Canadian best seller The Never-Ending Present: The Story of the Tragically Hip – which has been a constant reference point for this show – as well as the book Hearts on Fire: Six Years That Changed Canadian Music 2000-20005.

Michael takes us on his Tragically Hip journey, from falling in love with the band in his teenage years when they were a live sensation on the Ontario indie rock scene to writing the definitive biography of the band, published in 2018, the year after singer Gord Downie’s death.

Hip news includes the upcoming Gord Downie and the Sadies live album, Live at 6 O’Clock, and a new record by guitarist Paul Langois, Smooth Rock Falls.

Then it’s on to Side 1 of the Hip’s third full length release, the diamond certified Fully Completely. We discuss the heavy Canadiana in the lyrics, running through six tracks, including some of the bands’ biggest hits: Courage (for Hugh MacLennan), Looking for a Place to Happen, At the Hundredth Meridian and Locked in the Trunk of a Car. Also, is Pigeon Camera about incest and sexual abuse? Can it be compared to other popular songs of the era that touch on the topic (see Janie’s Got a Gun by Aerosmith and Pearl Jam’s Daughter).

Hot take on this one, Barclay is not a Fully Completely fan, giving a few of these songs the lowest rankings we’ve ever had on the show! That leads to an analysis of the radio ready production techniques of Chris Tsangarides. We compare Tsangarides to Don Smith whose rougher “live off the floor” recording shaped the sonics of Up to Here and Road Apples.

Whether you’re a lifelong Hip fan or just curious about what makes this band so iconic in Canada, School of Hip is your guide to the sounds and the story of the Tragically Hip, one album side per episode. Episodes drop every two weeks. 

For further exploration: 

School of Hip is hosted on Acast and can be found on iTunes, Spotify and other podcasting platforms. Reach out to us on our School of Hip Facebook Group and our School of Hip Discord.

Also:
Hearts on Fire: Six Years that Changed Canadian Music 2000–2005

The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip by Michael Barclay. 

That Night in Toronto: https://michaelbarclay.substack.com

https://www.hipmuseum.com/

https://hipbase.com/

https://thehip.com/

Chaz Charles is also the co-host of podcasts: RushRash, Regarding… Series, Those Who Are About To Dive: Chronicling Colosseum Track By Bloody Track With Dr. Glund, and he’s a rocktorney on season two of Rock Court. 

Heath McCoy is the author of Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling, available on Amazon.ca and at ECW Press. He appears in the award winning documentary Singhs in the Ring on Crave TV. He is a rocktorney on season one of Rock Court.


GO BONELESS!

Boneless makes a better podcast. Find 20 more like-minded podcast nuggets at The Boneless Podcasting Network. https://goboneless.loveable.app

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of School of Hip:

Chaz and Heath are joined by Nick Lewis, a former journalist who covered Calgary’s arts and entertainment scene with Heath in the early 2000s, writing for the Calgary Herald. Reunited for the first time in well over a decade they share stories from the rock critic trenches.

Nick’s tale of a near fisticuffs encounter with a drunken, belligerent Tragically Hip fan in the ‘90s serves as an intro to the episode’s review of the EP Saskadelphia. Released in 2021 but compiled from lost, leftover tracks from the Hip’s 1991 masterpiece, Road Apples – which were thought to have been destroyed in the devastating Universal Studios fire of 2008 – our reviewers discover that Saskadelphia is far from a collection of throwaways. Rather, it’s a treasure in its own right.

While one poignant track turns talk to the Montreal Massacre of 1989, most of the EP is a wild ride wherein spines crack like whips, skeletons play dumb and the Hip gets their southern rock on. Quality was surely not a factor which led these songs to the cutting room floor three decades ago.

Whether you’re a lifelong Hip fan or just curious about what makes this band so iconic in Canada, School of Hip is your guide to the sounds and the story of the Tragically Hip, one album side per episode. Episodes drop every two weeks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of School of Hip:
Chaz and Heath are joined by special guest Todd McGinity who co-hosts the SeanGeek and FastFret Podcast with his brother Sean. Yes, the same Sean who joined us a few weeks back. Can’t get enough of those rockin’ rollin’ McGinity Bros!
Todd remembers his earliest memories of road apples. No, not the Hip album, but rather the album’s namesake, horse poop, which, when frozen, made for great hockey pucks shot across icy ponds in the McGinity’s youth. (A bit of the Canadian experience for ya,’ Chaz!) Talk also turns fondly to Maritime kitchen parties in the McGinity home and the family band the brothers played in with their dad.
Then Heath apologizes to all of Canada for last week’s regrettable fk up regarding Tragically Hip team ups with TV’s Trailer Park Boys and their appearance on CTV’s Corner Gas. It takes a big man to admit to his mistakes, Heath, but don’t let it happen again!
Then it’s on to Side 2 of the Tragically Hip’s first number one album in Canada, Road Apples.
Tunes include: the Stonesy swagger and spiderweb alphabets of Bring It All Back; the Tom Thomson Canadiana and pistols-at-dawn perfection of Three Pistols; and the deliriously hard-driving On the Verge.
During the simmering slow groove of Fight Heath delivers a hot take which he immediately regrets when Chaz zeroes in on those seething, burning pillows.
Chaz sees shades of Led Zeppelin III in Fiddler’s Green, a beautifully devastating masterpiece and quite possibly the most heart-wrenching song in the Hip’s canon (which became all the more moving on the Hip’s final tour.
Finally, it’s the trippy serenade which drifts this incredible album to a close, Last of the Unplucked Gems. A precursor to Downie’s first solo album, Coke Machine Glow (released 10 years after Road Apples).
Whether you’re a lifelong Hip fan or just curious about what makes this band so iconic in Canada, School of Hip is your guide to the sounds and the story of the Tragically Hip, one album side per episode. Episodes drop every two weeks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of School of Hip:

Chaz and Heath are joined by special guest Paul Beaulieu of the Canadian Music
Scene website and founder of the annual RushFest event, celebrating the music
and legacy of legendary Canadian rock trio, Rush (a band near and dear to Chaz,
who is also the co-host of the RushRash podcast!)

Paul shares stories of his interactions with the Tragically Hip over the years
through his Canadian Music Scene website which celebrates and promotes
Canadian music. Paul met the band on several occasions, behind the scenes at
such history-making events as numerous Juno Awards and the Canadian edition
of the Live 8 concert series, dedicated to aiding impoverished nations. Paul also
discusses the two concerts he attended on the Hip’s emotional final tour, after
singer Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

From there our co-hosts and their esteemed guests begin their track-by-track
review of side one of the Tragically Hip’s first number one album in Canada, Road
Apples. Highlights include two of the Hip’s most beloved singles, Little Bones and
Twist My Arm as well as the soulful balladry of Long Time Running. But truthfully,
the entire side is outstanding with the Stonesy Born in the Water, surreal
Shakespearean nods on Cordelia, and the jazzy cool of The Luxury, the growing
poetic powers of Downie a beacon throughout.

Whether you’re a lifelong Hip fan or just curious about what makes this band so
iconic in Canada, School of Hip is your guide to the sounds and the story of the
Tragically Hip, one album side per episode. Episodes drop every two weeks.

For further exploration:
https://www.thecanadianmusicscene.com
https://rushfestcanada.ca
https://www.hipmuseum.com/
https://hipbase.com/
https://thehip.com/

The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip by Michael Barclay.

School of Hip is hosted on Acast and can be found on iTunes, Spotify and other podcasting platforms.

We love to hear from our listeners! Reach out to us on our School of Hip Facebook Group and our School of Hip Discord

Chaz Charles is also the co-host of podcasts: RushRash, Regarding… Series, Those Who Are About To Dive: Chronicling Colosseum Track By Bloody Track With Dr. Glund, and he’s a rocktorney on season two of Rock Court.

Heath McCoy is the author of Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling, available on Amazon.ca and at ECW Press. He appears in the award winning documentary Singhs in the Ring on Crave TV. He is a rocktorney on season one of Rock Court.

GO BONELESS!

Boneless makes a better podcast. Find 20 more like-minded podcast nuggets at The Boneless Podcasting Network. https://goboneless.loveable.app

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of School of Hip: Chaz and Heath are joined by special guest Stephen Dame, whose website A Museum After Dark at hipmuseum.com has been an amazing source of information for the illustrious co-hosts as they have set out to explore the Tragically Hip’s entire musical catalogue, one album side at a time.

They discuss Dame’s personal connection to the Hip and the origins of the website, which he began compiling 20 years ago, experiencing a huge surge in traffic and media attention with the cancer diagnosis and death of Hip frontman Gord Downie circa 2016-17.

After a free-flowing chat touching on the trenches of Canadian journalism and Calgary’s Stampede Wrestling promotion, the trio begin their track-by-track review of side two of the Tragically Hip’s Canadian breakthrough album, Up to Here.

Conversation highlights include the politics of lyric writing in the band, with Up to Here featuring excellent contributions by both guitarist Paul Langois and bassist Gord Sinclair, which were to be their last as, after this point, Downie insisted that he be the Hip’s lone lyricist. While he was, unquestionably, the band’s great poet, was something lost in the suppression of the other voices?

As well as the considerable artistic merits of Up To Here, the guys also talk about the album’s massive commercial impact in Canada, eventually achieving diamond sales, meaning that on the Homefront the Hip were on par with such music industry chart toppers of the day as Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. This set the underdog band from Kingston, Ontario, on a new trajectory which would define the rest of its career.

Whether you’re a lifelong Hip fan or just curious about what makes this band so iconic in Canada, School of Hip is your guide to the sounds and the story of the Tragically Hip, one album side at per episode. Episodes drop every two weeks.

For further exploration:
https://www.hipmuseum.com/

School of Hip Facebook Group

https://hipbase.com/

https://thehip.com/

The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip by Michael Barclay.

GO BONELESS!

Boneless makes a better podcast. Find 20 more like-minded podcast nuggets at The Boneless Podcasting Network. https://goboneless.loveable.app

Chaz Charles is also the co-host of podcasts: RushRash, Regarding… Series, Those Who Are About To Dive: Chronicling Colosseum Track By Bloody Track With Dr. Glund, and he’s a rocktorney on season two of Rock Court.

Heath McCoy is the author of Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling, available on Amazon.ca and at ECW Press. He appears in the award winning documentary Singhs in the Ring on Crave TV. He is a rocktorney on season one of Rock Court.

School of Hip is hosted on Acast and can be found on iTunes, Spotify and other podcasting platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.