(It’s the eve of the first day of this year’s edition of Ottawa Bluesfest! Can you tell I’m excited? I bought a full pass when they went on sale back at the end of February and I had no idea if I’d be well enough to attend any of it. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since. I still don’t know how many of the shows I’ll get to but I’m looking at it all as a bonus. To celebrate, I’m taking a pause in our regular scheduled programming. Today, I’m sharing some pics from one of last year’s great sets and hopefully, I’ll have a few more words and pictures to share on the festival over the next 11 days.)
The Tea Party live at Bluesfest July 13 2024
Artist: The Tea Party When: July 13th, 2024 Where: Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa Context: This set of pictures is more than just a record of a rock performance. It also shows and reminds me of one of the many reasons I love Ottawa Bluesfest so much. It has not only given me the opportunity to discover so many excellent acts over the years but it has also allowed me to witness the performance of acts that I would not have otherwise seen. The Tea Party is an example of the latter. The trio originally from Windsor, Ontario were a huge name in Canadian alternative rock throughout the 90s. I knew them by name and because I’d heard them played ad nauseam on the radio, benefactors of our country’s Canadian Content laws. I had nearly forgotten about them but gave them another look in advance of last year’s edition of the festival when I saw their name on the bill and I was pleasantly surprised at how many of their songs I knew and (more importantly) liked and how well they held up. These songs motivated me enough to head down to the festival grounds specifically to see them* and The Tea Party did not disappoint. In their energetic one hour set, they tore through pretty much all their hits (including “The bazaar”, “Temptation”, “Sister awake”, and the song below), impressed with their prowess on multiple instruments, and Jeff Martin did the same with his frontman showmanship. Point of reference song: “Heaven coming down”
Jeff Martin surverying the crowdJeff Burrows at the kitStuart Chatwood on the bassJeff Burrows in the zoneJeff Martin pulling out the big gunsStuart Chatwood on the keysThe trio just jamming away
*And leave before the headlining set by Motley Crue.
At album number three on this best albums of 1990 list, we are getting even more iconic.
Ride is the legendary original shoegaze quartet from Oxford, England. Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Steve Queralt, and Loz Colbert first formed the band back in 1988 and created a buzz with a string of cool singles. They were extraordinary for the genre in that they were relatively commercially successful, even during the first go around, even performing on some of the hip TV music shows at the time. They released four albums but the last did them in and they split acrimoniously in 1996. Of course, they re-formed triumphantly almost twenty years later, in 2014, toured globally a number of times, and have released three more excellent albums. And yeah, they are still a going concern.
“Nowhere” was Ride’s debut album. Originally released with a track listing of eight songs, the version I first heard was substantially longer with a bunch of bonus tracks from an earlier EP tacked on. This wasn’t my first exposure to Ride. I got a copy of it based on my love for their sophomore album, 1992’s “Going blank again”, which was passed to me on dubbed cassette from my friend Tim and I nearly wore out from playing. The debut by comparison was a lot more raw and immediate, with much less programming and a cleaner production. But I grew to love it just as much as the sophomore.
“Nowhere” was genre defining. It is a mass of swirling guitars, intense basslines, heavy drums, and the layered duo lead vocals of Mark and Andy just hanging out deep in the mix. Pure shoegaze perfection. Each of the eight tracks is now a classic but I’ve selected three for you to sample, just in case you’ve never had the pleasure before.
“Seagull“: “You gave me things I’d never seen. You made my life a waking dream.” The opening track on “Nowhere” is a six plus minute explosion of sounds. It is a miasma of four musicians playing the hell out of their instruments. Though somewhat buried in the haze, Loz is going full-on animal on the kit. Queralt’s bass line, though, refuses to be ignored, as muscle-bound as they come, relentless, hammering and holding up everything on a platter. Meanwhile, Bell and Gardener are punishing their guitars, playing against and with each other, conversing between jangle and feedback, and at the same time, their duo vocal attack adds yet another layer to the noise. All of it, like a tangled web to pick through, each line interesting to pull out and examine but all of it best taken together, like a tasty sugar pill that explodes in your mouth.
“Dreams burn down”: “Lying on the floor, the tears are falling down and more, her eyes speak loud but actions speak the best.” On “Dreams burn down”, Gardener takes the lead, singing about the breakup of a relationship, probably one-sided, evoking the despondency of endings. The verses are measured and even and melancholy. The drums laconic, the bass line warm and embracing, and the guitars chime, evoking a haunting, early hours feeling, where the question is raised on whether or not to finish the dregs of that last drink. But each of these verses are rudely interrupted by a burst of noise, as if each of the instruments are ripped away from their corresponding musicians and railed against by a demon intent on destroying them. The volume is flipped to eleven, matching the angst and flood of emotion. It’s almost too much. But just when you are thinking it might be a good idea to get up and adjust it, so as not to anger the neighbours, Andy, Mark, Loz, and Steve right the ship, and you settle back into your comfy spot in the bed of sound, sighing… until the next explosion and the next.
“Vapour trail”:* “Thirsty for your smile, I watch you for a while. You are a vapour trail in a deep blue sky.” “Vapour trail” is easily Ride’s most recognizable and popular tune for a reason. And even Andy Bell, who wrote this particular track, has been quoted as saying that this is the song of which he is most proud from that era. It closes “Nowhere” with a bang and an exclamation point. The funky drums that won’t quit and that string coda leads the listener reluctantly away from such an explosive mess of noise and begs for a click on the repeat button. There has been lots of conjecture over the use of effects to create that sweet guitar line that pulls the whole song together but Bell has been adamant that it came about naturally. They achieved it by twinning twelve string Rickenbackers and you can almost picture Bell looking at Mark Gardener with a nod and a smile, free and easy, embodying the whole mood of the song. It’s eyes closed on the dance floor, not quite dancing but shuffling, and not a care in the world, except for the fear that the song might end. Unfortunately, it does but the ecstasy stays, fading slowly, that beautiful, shimmering C-sharp minor–B–A–E chord progression reverbering in your eardrums.
*Pardon the bit of self-plagiarism here but I couldn’t help it. I don’t think I could have said it better than I did when I posted words for this song when it appeared at number three as part of my best tunes of 1990 list… so I didn’t…
We’ll be back in a handful of days with album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:
I first came across Meat Puppets care of the old MuchMusic late Friday night alternative music video show “City Limits”. I used to sit poised, close to the TV and VCR, and ready to hit the play and record buttons whenever KCC (and later Simon Evans) would announce an interesting or familiar upcoming video.
One night, and I’m not sure why I did, perhaps it was the interesting band name, but I recorded the video for “Sam”, a single off of Meat Puppets’ seventh and first major label album, “Forbidden places”. Of course, in an age before the Internet was in wide use and almost a decade before the establishment of Wikipedia, I had no idea that the trio led by Curt and Cris Kirkwood had formed in 1980 as a punk band and had released so many independent albums already, amassing a small but mighty cult following.
Upon repeat viewings of the aforementioned video, I formed an attachment to the song and the frenetic way frontman Curt Kirkwood delivered the verses, contrasted with his static facial expression in the video. I ended up purchasing the CD* used at ‘Hooked on Video’, my hometown’s only music store, which was located at the eponymously named Bowmanville Mall.
So I felt a little smug when the group attained a certain level of fame and notoriety a couple of years later when Kurt Cobain invited the Kirkwood brothers onstage to join Nirvana for the taping of their now legendary MTV unplugged performance and they recorded a handful of Meat Puppets covers together. “Backwater” was the first single to be released off the album “Too high to die”, the first bit of new material to see the light after that appearance, so of course it did well, charting higher and selling better than anything the band recorded, prior or ever since. Sure I was a bit of a jerk about all the bandwagoners but I didn’t seriously blame any of them because it was a pretty great tune.
Whenever I hear “Backwater”, I am instantly transported back to the summer of 1995, a whole year after its release. It had had lots of time to steep on commercial radio and was recognizable to many. I was working at the recycling division of the steel plant my father worked at**, a summer job he had arranged for me and that I had quit my favoured 7-Eleven post because it paid more. I spent the better part of the first month in that job picking up scrap metal from the ground around the division’s offices, a make-work project to keep me and the other student hire (we’ll call him Todd because I don’t remember his real name) busy until we had real work to cover off. I spent much of this menial time singing songs to myself and “Backwater” came up often and when ever it did, Todd would join in, doing his best mimicry of the Kirkwood vocals but sounding more like Bert and Ernie.
“Some things will never change
They just stand there looking backwards
Half-unconscious from the pain”
Sure, the song definitely had a more mainstream feel than the sound I had gotten used to on “Forbidden places” but it got its lure hooks into me quickly and never let go. It’s got raunchy guitars, a popping time keep, and a driving riff that would not be denied. It plays like a joyride down small town back roads in pickup trucks with lit cigarettes burning in the ashtrays and open cans of watery domestic lager sloshing in the cupholders. Definitely not my memories of glory days but it still spells warmth somewhere.
*I would, however, sell that same CD a few years later at York University’s music store for a few bucks when I needed some beer money.
My (life in) music lists 