This weekend I managed to get my hands on Canada's own The Tragically Hip's new album, In Between Evolution - which will be in stores tomorrow (6/29). The Hip are one of the biggest rock bands in Canada & have been for more than a decade, though they've never been able to crossover here in the U.S. I listened to them a lot while I was in college, and I discovered that their albums all get better & better the more you listen to them. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to the new disc that much yet, but I'm willing to bet it ages similarly as well. I spent much of Sunday nite importing my old Hip albums into iTunes, and I still like them quite a lot after not having listened to them for almost two years - when I saw them summer '02 touring in support of In Violet Light @ First Avenue, which had no air conditioning that nite (the hottest, sweatiest show I've ever been to, btw).

MP3 The Tragically Hip - "Grace, Too"
I was introduced to The Hip in 1994 through my brother Alan, around the time they made a valiant attempt to find an American audience w/their Day For Night LP. The less-sad-back-then Dan Aykroyd introduced them on SNL, and they substituted the opening lyrics of this song with: "she said I'm tragically hip..." This song is still often a set opener at The Hip's very solid live shows - frontman Gordon Downie really knows how to work a crowd.

MP3 The Tragically Hip - "Tiger The Lion"
From 2000's Music@Work, this song was kind of a departure for The Hip at the time. Initially I was turned off by it, but I came back to it after seeing them perform it at a free Canada Day show in Central Park NYC & now it's one of my favorite Hip tracks. Downie's odd lyrics about John Cage's views on art backed-up by The Hip's heavy instrumentation finally clicked for me somehow, & I'm certainly glad that it did.

BTW: If you're reading this Juhi, do you remember keeping me company at The Hip's fall 2000 show @ NYC's Town Hall? I remember having a good time, but I just hope you weren't too bored.

I may post some more Hip tracks as the week continues, as long as I'm still feeling that it's still a worthy enterprise. I hope y'all enjoy...



Today, I felt kinda like Nate (played by fellow native-minnesotan Peter Krause) towards the end of this past sunday nite's episode of Six Feet Under, minus all that widower-single-dad-sexaholic stuff. I can, however, empathize with his desire to MOV curl up in the fetal position (6.2mb) & forget about the rest of the world. Unfortunately, I think I end up feeling that way a bit too often. Anyway, enough depressing nonsense.

Hopefully tonite's !!! show @ the Triple Rock will help to brighten my spirits.

BTW: You may need the 3ivx video codec for that 6FU video.

This entry was posted by mr gilbert at 6/28/2004 06:05:00 PM.