Phileas Fogg with a Guitar The transcendental power of music rides a global whirlwind. Mark D. Dunn

by any means, faced a similar void. What was In China, Bidini finds that the essence of rock Around the World in 57½ Gigs he if not the frontman of an underappreciated ’n’ roll is alive and well, and largely ignored by the Dave Bidini Canadian rock band? With these questions before state. In relation to western popular music, China McClelland and Stewart him, Bidini sets out on a scaled-down global tour, is a time capsule. The Beatles, Bidini learns, are 311 pages, hardcover backpacking with some friends into “the greater huge, as are tribute acts. Without the burden of isbn 9780771014659 world of rock ’n’ roll.” 40 years of popular music—a history the author The author’s search for identity is the launch relays in a three-page Joycean sentence—Chinese point of Around the World in 57H Gigs, not its youth are able to discover rock on their own o be blunt: either you love the Rheostatics, primary concern. Quite early into the jour- terms. The scene, as Bidini describes it, is as vital or you’ve never heard of them. There is a ney—which over the course of a year saw the and exciting as the early days of rock ’n’ roll in Tthird possibility, one involving taste that author perform in Britain, Finland, Russia, North America. I won’t get into. China, the United States, Canada and Africa’s The most powerful chapters of the book come With the release of their first album, 1987’s west coast—it becomes clear that the search for toward the end as the author tours West Africa Greatest Hits, the Rheostatics became Canada’s self is a search for community. Wherever Bidini with War Child Canada, a non-profit group pre-eminent underground phenomenon. Loved travels, he meets young musicians playing exotic advocating for health education and children’s by critics and musicians but largely ignored by versions of American music. The book’s driving rights in war-ravaged areas. Here Bidini visits mainstream media, the Rheostatics entered the concern—beyond the superficial angst of the Buduburam, a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana national music scene at a time when the hits of author’s personal identity—is how music, poli- that, nearly two decades after the Liberian civil the 1960s and ’70s were on permanent repeat tics and culture mix in unique, yet similar, ways wars began, has become a small town and home and Neil Young’s chestnut “Helpless”—with its around the world. for generations of young people who have never invocation of “a town in North Ontario”—was Planning his tour, Bidini muses, “when most known anything but life in exile. the most Canadian song on the airwaves. While touring musicians study their gig map the first The author meets the King’s Jubilee, a group the Canadian music scene slept, dreaming of the time, they almost never tremble with excitement, with one CD to their credit although they past, the Rheostatics charged into the game with wave their passports, and shout, ‘Finland!’.” But it have no instruments with which to practise songs about hockey, beer and hoser history. The is in Finland that the journey begins. and infrequent access to recording equipment. Rheos danced a limbo below the perceptions Summoned to the land of Nokia by a fan Eddie Amilcar and Terry Williams, members of of the masses, producing strange and beautiful from Tampere, a city of 200,000 in the south of King’s Jubilee, relate horror stories from the war music for a small, appreciative audience. Over Finland, Bidini enters a surreal world of celebrity “without any of the shock or sadness that [over- the years, the band released eleven studio record- obsession. Finnish pop culture, it seems, has its whelm]” both author and reader. As Terry tells ings, a children’s book with companion CD, a live own Britney in Olympic-jumper-turned-rock- Bidini, “one of the most difficult aspects of the double album recording and a movie soundtrack. casualty Matti Nykänen, whose descent from war was how muted we became … Music is one They also toured with an exhibition of the Group superstar into weeping lounge act with a prison of the ways we can sustain our voices, no matter of Seven sponsored by the National Gallery of record has mesmerized the public. That’s the what’s happening at home.” The experience leaves Canada. What other working class prog-rock art lurid backdrop: Bidini himself ends up jamming Bidini wondering if Canadians’ “habit of ignor- band from Etobicoke can boast having shared the with folk musicians in pubs, making real music ing our culture [is] so deep that we’d forgotten stage with Tom Thomson and Lawren Harris? for often impassive audiences. what it was in the first place.” In 1998, Rheostatics’ co-founder Dave Bidini The Finland chapters, four in all, establish Music in West Africa is not the ego-driven published his first book, On a Cold Road: Tales Bidini’s voice, allowing the author a chance to farce of North American pop but a lifeboat car- of Adventure in Canadian Rock. Now an essential entertain his reader. Bidini’s writing is sharp and rying cultural memory and the hope for a better title in the rock canon, On a Cold Road docu- witty. He possesses a journalist’s eye for detail world. A young rapper named Lus, taking his ments the Rheos’ cross-Canada tour as the open- and a knack for meeting strange characters. His message to a classroom of children, sings about ing act for the Tragically Hip while it traces the willingness to jump into situations, to open his his home: stories of many forgotten musical pioneers who pages to others’ stories and to set aside his own braved the black ice and frightening diners of the narrative agenda and ego make Bidini a top- I see the children begging by the streetside Trans-Canada Highway. notch storyteller. In many ways, Bidini’s writing I see the children begging by the streetside Bidini’s eighth book, Around the World in recalls the experiential journalism of George It’s hard to believe what we see now 57H Gigs, begins with the end of the Rheostatics. Plimpton, who humbled the authorial voice with It’s hard to believe. Band co-founder Tim Vesely’s announcement a bumbling narrative persona that directed the in an Edmonton hotel room that the time has spotlight to the story and its participants. Part of the power of music is its ability to pro- come to say goodnight to a 30-year partnership The adventure forges on into countries dev- cess events that overwhelm the mind. With this sends Bidini into a musical identity crisis. As any astated by war and oppression where music, we power, music offers unimagined possibilities in retiree will attest, the vacuum after a lifetime of learn, is more than entertainment, more than a the face of oppression and horror. With Around dedication is often more difficult to face than spectacle to accompany a night of hard drink- the World in 57H Gigs, Dave Bidini gives his read- the nine-to-five grind. Bidini, not a nine-to-fiver ing—where it is a means to survival. Here Bidini’s ers a taste of the transcendental power of music writing rises to the challenge, casting off intro- and its ability to carry the cultural essence of the spection and ego to absorb as many of the stories people from whom it emanates. It is a story as Mark D. Dunn is a writing instructor on probationary status as he can from young people clinging to music as varied and full as the music it describes.m at Algoma University College. one clings to a life raft.

April 2008