Podcasts about canada geese

The Canadian Wildlife Service reports that there are approximately seven million Canada geese across North America, making their presence more noticeable than ever. The Canada goose is often hailed as a national symbol for Canada. However, many Canadians and Americans have had frustrating encounters with Canada geese, from their loud calls to their tendency to congregate in urban areas. The Agenda, in partnership with Detroit PBS' Great Lakes Now, explores how we got here and what steps are being taken to manage the goose population. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Earth Rangers, a science podcast for kids who love animals and nature, Earth Ranger Emma takes flight with Canada geese on an epic 8,000-kilometre migration!

The Two Bobs episode 280 for Monday, April 28, 2025: What are The Bobs drinking? Rob enjoyed a Barrel Aged Behemoth from Three Floyds. https://untp.beer/lgnar Robert nursed a Juice Head Double IPA from Solace. https://untp.beer/myp80 Follow us on Untapped at @RobFromTTB and @lowercaserobert or we'll poop in your beer fridge. This week's CRAZY NEWS was drafted before Shedeur Sanders. A drunken Florida Man® wearing a pink wig, fake breasts and a pink thong was busted outside an Applebee's while attempting to get into the wrong car. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/applebees/thong-man-275830 A Pennsylvania woman was busted after shitting in a liquor store's beer cave. https://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/beer-cave-horror-708941 A man in Louisiana rode a horse through a Walmart claiming it was his emotional support animal. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14599535/man-rode-horse-walmart-excuse-Louisiana.html College students in Canada were held hostage by a gaggle of Canada Geese outside their home. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/aggressive-canada-geese-waterloo-tiktok-videos-chasing-students-1.7506039 Financial experts (not including Rob) are recommending that investors diversify portfolios into several harebrained schemes. https://theonion.com/financial-experts-recommend-diversifying-portfolio-with-multiple-harebrained-schemes/ Please share the show with your friends, and don't forget to subscribe! Visit www.thetwobobs.com for our contact information. Thanks for listening! Leave us a message or text us at 530-882-BOBS (530-882-2627) Join us on all the social things: Follow us on Blue Sky Follow us on Twitter Check out our Instagram Find us on YouTube Follow Rob on Untappd Follow Robert on Untappd The Two Bobs Podcast is © The Two Bobs.  For more information, see our Who are The Two Bobs? page, or check our Contact page.  Words, views, and opinions are our own and do not represent those of our friends, family, or our employers unless otherwise noted.  Music for The Two Bobs was provided by JewelBeat.

The Queens finish their very first side quest by completing Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki! In the finale of this chaotic alien-demon-violin-donut-shop novel, your favourite Queens learn new facts about koi fish, converse about the technological limits of toad-faced demons, and discover what it means to be comfortable in one's own skin. Queen Tay is shocked at a teenager's night on the town, Queen Alix judges, just a bit, an alien mother, and Queen Marissa shares all her newest favourite quotes, as we see the twists and turns of this truly chaotic story come to their conclusion. Or, in other words, join your favourite Queens on this side quest as they read Chapter 19 to the end of Light from Uncommon Stars.At the end of the podcast, your Queens shout out their fave and least fave characters. They also play a brand new game called Your Alien Cover Shop, where they create their (you guessed it!) own alien cover shops.Content Warnings:Please take care of yourself. We talk about the following in this podcast: Domestic AbuseRapeSexual AssaultSexual HarassmentTransphobiaHomophobiaTorturePhysical AbuseEmotional AbuseGore & ViolenceMisogynySexismChild AbuseDeathRacismDeadnamingSuicideSuicidal Thoughts/IdeationYou can support our project by donating here.If you'd like to join our Discord server, you can do so here. Find us on Instagram at @queensoffantasypod. Please also consider checking out our sister podcast, The Book Jar Pod. If you'd like to find a specific Queen online, please see:Alix: Personal Instagram | StoryGraphTaylor: Personal Instagram | StoryGraphMarissa: Personal Instagram | The Book Jar Pod | StoryGraph | Crowned HeathensBackground music via https://www.FesliyanStuTimestamps00:00 Excerpt from the Novel0:45 Intro2:50 Short Summary3:18 Start of In-Depth Analysis3:28 CW: Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Sexual Assault, Homophobia, Child Abuse8:33 Breadsticks and the Endplague12:07 CW: Homophobia, Transphobia24:52 No More Yo Mama Jokes40:15 CW: Abuse, Homophobia, Miscarriage, StillbirthThe Bartok Madness1:25:12 Canada Geese?1:27:53 CW: Transphobia, Abuse, Deadnaming1:29:19 CW: SA, Sexual Harassment, Transphobia1:52:26 Book Reviews!2:19:33 A Game: Your Alien Cover Shop!2:29:23 Fave and Least Fave Characters2:31:07 Outro & Socials2:33:28 Bloopers

Controversial Goose Management – Special Guest - Kaitlyn Barnes | The Green Way Outdoors Podcast After Kyle Green spoke out against goose gas chambers in a viral video, he got the attention of the Michimmgan DNR. So we invited Waterfowl Biologist Kaitlyn Barnes to come on the podcast and give the Department of Natural Resources' side of the story. In this episode of The Green Way Outdoors Podcast, we sit down with Kaitlyn Barnes, the Waterfowl Biologist for the Michigan DNR, for a deep dive into the most pressing waterfowl management issues affecting Michigan hunters and beyond. We engage in a strong but friendly debate over Canada goose population control, including the controversial use of gas chambers and nest destruction. Is this the right way to manage nuisance goose numbers, or is there a better solution? Other hot topics include: ✅ 2025 duck population projections – What can hunters expect next season? ✅ Deer culling – Should hunters be involved? ✅ Wood duck boxes – How hunters can help conservation efforts, but what they need to know before setting one up! Whether you're a Michigan waterfowl hunter, a Midwest conservationist, or just love the outdoors, this episode is packed with insight, debate, and must-know info for the 2025 hunting season!

Canada Geese are making their way back to Canada / Got an old Wool HBC Blanket kicking around? / Go eat some chocolate covered raisins / Quizzing Canadians / An original Beatles Demo

In preparation for my upcoming project Constable Ambisonic (more on that soon), I was in Manningtree Station car park for 5am to meet my friend photographer Simon Rogers. It was damp but mild and we walked the paths of the Stour Valley as far as Flatford and back, simply to get back in to the swing of being up early, in the field, listening and recording. In this, the third recording of the morning, one can hear two Great Spotted Woodpeckers working on different trees, Chiffchaff, Robin, Wren, Moorhen, Coal Tit, Pheasant, Wood Pigeon and Dunnock, as well as a flock of Graylag and Canada Geese in the distance. A wheezing pug and her owner also put in an appearance.

If you have not seen any Canada geese yet this year, you should soon. The migration is on, and some stay in the state year-round — for example, along the Missouri River.

I have had a lot of conversations with biologists and ornithologists over the years, trying to learn about how different animals sleep. Are the functions of sleep in humans similar to similar animals? What about different kinds of animals, like insects, or birds?More recently I have seen the Canada Geese along the Eramosa River where I live, standing or sitting still on the frozen river and wondered what's up with the one-legged standing? When I got to thinking about birds resting, roosting and sleeping, I realized that I had a bunch of questions. Sometimes a book comes along with some good insight into the subjects I am wondering about, and at this moment, it was Roger Pasquier, and his new book Birds at Rest: The Behavior and Ecology of Avian Sleep, which helped to answer many of my questions. I arranged for an interview was very glad to talk to him. Do small songbirds have any special adaptations for sleeping through long freezing winter nights? Does photoperiod change the amount of time birds sleep? How does the changing climate affect birds at rest? Do birds dream?Roger Pasquier has taken the time to collect the information from a ton of various studies into avian rest and sleep and consolidated them into a useful and interesting book, and then taken the time to discuss some of this research on the show. Again, I am forever grateful to the folks who can help us, me, learn to better know the land. To learn more :Birds at Rest : The Behavior and Ecology of Avian Sleep by Roger F. Pasquier. Princeton University Press, 2025.

It's a bit of a free-for-all Monday covering Canada Geese, exploding gas cylinders, a terrible tourism slogan, and vaping. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ducks Unlimited Podcast: Season Wrap-Up Live StreamHosts: Dr. Mike Brasher, Katie Burke, Matt HarrisonLocation: Ducks Unlimited HQ, Memphis, TNPresented by: Purina ProPlan & Bird Dog Whiskey

Rentenaar Road is just a flood-prone, gravel road through blackberry briars on the east side the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area. It does not look particularly special or inviting. But it is. It's a portal to the kingdom of birds that have come to this island every winter for time immemorial. And, unless you're there to hunt, it's as close as you can get to the large flocks of Snow Geese, Canada Geese, Tundra Swans, Sandhill Cranes and various ducks and coots.The sound of these large flocks is visceral. A tradeoff of coming here though, for the uninitiated, is the manifold shotgun rifle reports that distract from the enjoyment of the natural soundscape. (I'm sure for the hunter it's an exciting sound, like the chime of a slot machine for a gambler. Tomato, tomawto.) The island is also under a commercial flight corridor; the noise of which is inescapable. Here's a tip: Check the hunting season calendar to visit on an off day, or come in February, when there's still lots of birds and the duck hunting season is concluded. Any reports you hear should be distant and less frequent. And, maybe bring some galoshes. I came on a gray February day and walked down the lane, until I came to the flooded area, and I just stood there with water all around me, soaking up the wildlife sound until a rain shower came. You know, I often feel like my soundwalks are kind of like Tootsie Pops; the sweetest part encased inside. You have to spend some time to get to it. That's the way I feel about the end of Rentenaar Road Soundwalk. I just love the sound of the gentle rain starting, falling on the pond-like puddle; the way the rain seems to calm the thousands of birds nearby. I quietly take off my recording hat, and hold it close to the puddle surface. It's an entrancing sizzle that concludes the piece. I hope you can spend some time with it. Rentenaar Road Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) tomorrow, Friday, October 18th.Two more things: * Yesterday I offered an amuse-bouche alternate of this walk with galoshes on. Check out Rentenaar Wade Soundwalk here:* Also this Friday, Nov. 1st, Cultural Norms (20th Anniversary Edition) by my old indie pop band Blanket Music will be released. It features several bonus tracks, with parallels and through-lines to the state of the nation today. Hear it on all streaming platforms. (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, and YouTube…) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadcrouch.substack.com/subscribe

Despite recent declines in some goose populations, fresh data suggest that hunters have reasons to be optimistic about the number of young birds flying south this fall. Dr. Mike Brasher is joined by goose experts Josh Dooley (US Fish and Wildlife Service) and Frank Baldwin (Canadian Wildlife Service) to discuss indices for arctic and subarctic goose populations from Alaska to Atlantic Canada. Many areas experienced early spring and good to excellent conditions for nesting, with multiple indicators suggesting better production than what was experienced a few years in the past. New data and hunter reports from the prairies support these conclusions, so good luck to goose hunters as you head afield.Listen now: www.ducks.org/DUPodcastSend feedback: DUPodcast@ducks.org

It looks like the investigation into Mayor Adam's fundraising machine is growing. The search is on for two creeps attacking kids in Queens. A Long Island town has a new way to chase away Canada geese. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.comAnd now we return to our soundwalk series on quiet spots in the city. This is part two of two. But before we get to that, I'd just like to take a minute to reflect on my journey to get here.On April 29, 2022 I released Chapman Beach Soundwalk. It was both extremely simple and, to me, experimental. It was in a nutshell: a natural soundscape with musical soundtrack. I had no basis to believe that the idea would commercially viable, and to be honest, while it has shown promise, it hasn't really caught on in a big way either. Still, I persuaded myself to keep doing it, as a practice. And so, here we are, two and a half years on, and we've come to soundwalk #50. Let me tell you, it is possible to be both proud and embarrassed at the same time. Proud because, well, fifty! Embarrassed because, well, you know—fifty. A string of 50 non-hits, if you will. At a good clip, too! So, for #50, we are rediscovering Reed Canyon, another “hidden” natural area near downtown Portland, Oregon. Type it into a mapping app, and it won't know where to go. This is because is not a nature park and is not public land. It's on the Reed College campus, and thankfully, the campus welcomes neighbors, near and far, who enjoy walking the trails that wind around the canyon's lake shore and through a wetland environment on its east end. The canyon was formed by Crystal Springs, which erupts from the broad plane of inner SE Portland next to huddle of buildings forming the Reed College Campus. According to a historical overview, surveys indicate Reed Lake is the oldest naturally occurring lake in Portland. That's not saying an awful lot, as Portland topography isn't especially dotted with lakes. It also depends on where you draw the city limits, of course. If anything, the city has filled in most of the lakes it once had, alongside the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Let's go ahead and name those lakes, and when they were filled in, for posterity. I'd estimate Portland lost more than 75% of its total lake surface area in the last century. Historical Lakes of Portland, Oregon* Guild's Lake c. 1913-1926* Kittridge & Doane Lakes c. 1930* Mud Lake c. 1930* Switzler's Lake & Columbia Slough unnamed lakes c.1930* Ramsey Lake c. 1964* Mock's Bottom c.1980So, being able to walk around a natural lake in Portland anymore is a rare thing! And just to be clear, while the basin is natural, the Reed Lake water level has been maintained by a small dam built in 1929.This walk takes place on a drizzly leap year day—February 29th—of this past year. Winter and Spring are perhaps my favorite seasons here. Waterfowl motor around. Mallards, Buffleheads, Hooded Mergansers, Wigeon, Gadwall, and Canada Geese are all common visitors. Huge flocks of geese sometimes wheel overhead, attracted to the all-you-can-eat lawn buffet the campus provides just over the canyon rim. Songbirds sound so sweet here in this intimate and reverberant canyon, that you can easily forget that there's a city all around you.My composition features almost all solo performances of piano, unplugged Wurlitzer electric piano, a “soft clarinet” synth pad, and a “bottle” synth sound that I think sounds like droplets. Oh, and zither. All performed unrehearsed, warts and all. Why? Well, because, for now, it conveys what I want to convey; some alchemical expression forged in the naïveté—the grasping. Part of me thinks I'll eventually work myself out of a job here. Meaning, my music will become by degrees more spare and quiet and adrift that eventually all the will be left is the natural soundscape.It reminds me of a trope of architecture writers that goes something like, “The design sought to blend seamlessly with the landscape.” It seems like four out off five articles in Dwell magazine used parade that one out. Meanwhile, walls of glass and rectilinear volumes were de rigueur. There's a limit to the blending that can occur with that design language, and it's far from “seamless”.When you boil it down, I think it's pretty common to try and convince other people you are doing something thoughtfully, when really we're all just kind of clunky. Nothing is seamless. So why try and convince? Embrace Your Clunkiness! I say.Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you can spend some quiet time with Reed Canyon Soundwalk. Or better, head on over there in real life, if you can. It's nice. You'll like it.Reed Canyon Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, September 20th.

It's time to get back to the Big Apple, and get after the Big Goose Molt Migration! We have made it a tradition to travel to Basswood Lodge each September to set our sights on big flocks of giant honkers finding their way into the St. Lawrence River Valley! Nick McNamara owns and operates Basswood Lodge and he has mastered the skill set of calling and decoying these awesome migrators! In this episode, Chad is alone on the microphone talking about his experiences at Basswood, as well as how you can book a hunt at this amazing place! Welcome to The Fowl Life Outfitter Series! This episode is brought to you by SecureIt Firearm Storage Systems, Bad Boy Mowers, Basswood Lodge, Benelli Shotguns, Federal Premium Black Cloud, Hi Viz Sights, Rob Roberts Custom Gunworks, JARGON Goose Calls, Realtree Brand Camo, Banded Hunt Gear, Greenhead Gear Canada Goose Decoys, KERSHAW Knives, The Provider Culinary, LEER Toppers, Mickey Thompson Tires, and Corning Ford.

Darkness Syndicate members get the commercial-free version with all artwork created for the YouTube and podcast thumbnails: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yyrmhxcbSOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…“Forever Autumn” (“Murder of Crows”) by Weirdo family member Mark Towse (submitted at WeirdDarkness.com): https://twitter.com/MarkTowsey12“I Was Hired To Murder Myself: by Thamires Luppi: https://www.creepypasta.com/i-was-hired-to-murder-myself/“Are Those Monsters Real” by Weirdo family member Mike King (submitted at WeirdDarkness.com)“The Canada Geese of Lake Pleasant” by A.S. Lowe: https://www.creepypasta.com/the-canada-geese-of-lake-pleasant/“The Hothfield Witches” by Weirdo family member Ken DaSilva (submitted at WeirdDarkness.com)Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2024, Weird Darkness.= = = = =Originally aired: 2019

The only immigrants we hate are Canada Geese. I was attacked by a Canada Goose while backwards peeing up a small candiru in Dave Grohl Alley while he was getting Kate Middleton pregnant with a bastard using his 22 foot drumstick that only Tom Bunyan could of used. Beware of Unculums & Uncubi & Homouncubus

Tony Vandemore is the utmost authority when it comes to everything waterfowl. Waterfowl habitat, farming for waterfowl, hunting waterfowl, guiding for waterfowl, cooking waterfowl, and most of all…….living waterfowl! Tony is an O.G. and he has built Habitat Flats into an empire! Tony studies ducks and geese on a daily basis, which gives him a huge advantage when the season arrives. He's a family man first, but we all know that his second love after his family are mallard ducks and Canada Geese! We are honored to call Tony a friend, and to have him back on the show! This episode is brought to you by Habitat Flats Missouri, Benelli Shotguns, Federal Premium Black Cloud, Hi Viz Sights, Rob Roberts Custom Gunworks, Banded Hunt Gear, Greenhead Gear Decoys, Avery Outdoors, Realtree Camo, Corning Ford, KERSHAW Knives, Safari Club International, MyOutdoor TV, PECOS Outdoor, and The Provider Culinary.

Host Chris Jennings is joined by DU magazine contributor John Pollmann to discuss a popular topic – freelancing the prairies. Pollmann's experiences as a South Dakota resident provides a different perspective to freelancing and the pair discuss common tactics, including best practices to approach landowners.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

As waterfowlers peer ahead to the approaching hunting season, botulism has become a headline in the West and state agencies have released results from their 2024 waterfowl breeding population surveys. Today's conversation begins with Jeff McCreary, DU's director of operations for the Western Region, giving the latest update on avian botulism in the Klamath Basin and the solutions that DU and partners are trying to deliver. We then go across the country with Nathan Ratchford, Dr. Dan Smith, Dr. John Coluccy, and Dr. Mike Brasher to review results from state waterfowl surveys in California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. What were population and habitat conditions like this spring? How do these data inform harvest regulations and our knowledge of duck populations? And what can hunters take from these surveys as we await the release of the much larger U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl status report.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Schubes and Nathan take the stage in Vancouver once again, this time to cover some chapters of The Lost Hero where drama is brewing! In classic fashion, we end the show with a rap battle, this time improvised! Topics include: Northern Washington, Smirnoff Ice, Baja Blast, Riz, Orbitz, game recognize game, Hill Tam, visual eyy-ds, department store shopping, opossums, DW, Chicago's metro system, retellings of myths, being remembered, Sum by David Eagleman, Willis Reed, negotiation, blood fountains, Comedy Central Roasts, swole bros, Mortal Kombat, diamond mining commentary, Bonesaw, 4DX, dishwashing logistics, graveyards, Nandor, Katie Ledecky, The Beatles, shopping husbands, Canada Geese, and more! Watch the video version of this episode: youtu.be/xlfxdjzam94 TNO on TOUR: www.thenewestolympian.comlive Thanks to our sponsor, Fabric by Gerber Life! Get started at www.meetfabric.com/newestolympian — Find The Newest Olympian Online —  • Website: www.thenewestolympian.com • Patreon: www.thenewestolympian.com/patreon • Twitter: www.twitter.com/newestolympian • Instagram: www.instagram.com/newestolympian • Facebook: www.facebook.com/newestolympian • Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/thenewestolympian • Merch: www.thenewestolympian.com/merch — Production —  • Creator, Host, Producer, Social Media, Web Design: Mike Schubert • Editor: Sherry Guo • Music: Bettina Campomanes and Brandon Grugle • Art: Jessica E. Boyd — About The Show —  Has the Percy Jackson series been slept on by society? Join Mike Schubert as he reads through the books for the first time with the help of longtime PJO fans to cover the plot, take stabs at what happens next, and nerd out over Greek mythology. Whether you're looking for an excuse to finally read these books, or want to re-read an old favorite with a digital book club, grab your blue chocolate chip cookies and listen along. New episodes release on Mondays wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PART 2: On this episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast, host Katie Burke sits down with Joe and Donna Tonelli, avid hunters, collectors, and historians. Joe shares his early introduction to hunting through family traditions, while Donna's expertise in writing about decoys and ducks adds depth to their shared passion. Tune in to hear about their journey into the outdoors, from childhood memories to their love for hunting and collecting decoys.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Back to Wisconsin, we go! This time Chad and Joel are joined by Wisconsin royalty and Head of Travel Wisconsin, Craig Trost! Craig knows Wisconsin inside and out and it shows in his passion for everything Wisconsin! From Milwaukee to Madison to Osh Kosh to Green Bay to cheese curds to fish fries to beer to old fashions to Harley Davidson….and then obviously to the outdoors! The hunting and fishing in Wisconsin is second to none! Whether it's giant whitetail or gobbling Eastern turkeys to mallard ducks to Canada Geese to Walley to perch and beyond! We absolutely love Wisconsin! This won't be the last time Craig is on the show! Now let's get to Wisco! This episode is brought to you by Travel Wisconsin, Bad Boy Mowers, The Provider Culinary, Wando's Bar Madison, Benelli Shotguns, Federal Premium Black Cloud, Hi Viz Sights, Rob Roberts Cusfom Gunworks, Banded Brands, Avery Outdoors, Jack Link's Jerky, and VORTEX Optics!

They are majestic flying in a "v" overhead. A symbol of fall and spring. A true National treasure. And also, Canada geese can be...just total jerks.They flock to cities and universities, nesting and aggressively defending those nests, and leaving metric tons of goose poop just about everywhere. And you don't want to get on their bad side. This is the story of the many and varied efforts Canadian institutions have made to figure out how to live in peace with these creatures. If it's possible.GUEST: Tom Jokinen, writing in The Walrus We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemailOr @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

These geese are very adaptable. Where they see open space with a good supply of grass and water, they will move in. Some geese opt out of migration entirely, like the ones who spent last winter at Logan's First Dam.

Rangers are using wolf decoys to scare the Canada geese away from display gardens and popular picnic areas. Gardens director Wolfgang Bopp spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

As it began to hail, Marlon Inniss saw several Canada Geese doing something odd. Rather than trying to shield their heads, the geese pointed their bills skyward, directly into the path of the hail. The geese were pointing the smallest surface area of their sensitive bills, the narrow tip, into the hail — minimizing the impact. Inniss's video of the behavior helped reaffirm an observation made by naturalist Aldo Leopold one hundred years before of Northern Pintails adopting the same stance.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

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?Transcript:Track 1:[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.Track 2:[1:19] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downey.Track 3:[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.Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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...Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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 that trim. Gord had the big beard at the time. He had the almost like pajamas on. And when the pajama top came off, he had the Save the Human shirt on, which I actually saw in one of the videos for this album. So he brought the shirt back out for Coke Machine Glow. And the timing of that wouldn't have been too far removed from the Killer Whale time. Probably not, yeah. I don't remember him doing that. But again, I was young and it was craziness. It was it was a fun fun time see the bull moose checking out another drac, like sorry that was the highlight i made from from a lyrical standpoint and then you know from a musical standpoint and i think i also read about this um it's pretty prevalent where they're strumming the piano strings and they brought a mic and recorded it and just love that love that like what's that and uh they decide to bring bring bring in the bring in the mic and record the track so on to lofty pines all right let's go to lofty pines where paul langlois shows up and makes uh an appearance one of two appearances.Track 4:[5:59] On this record to provide his sublime backing vocals god damn is this guy good.Track 4:[10:46] I think it was a week or so ago, I took a trip up north. I think you guys know about. And I was driving back and it was, it was raining and which we don't get a lot of rain. We don't get a lot of anything in California other than the sun. So, you know, when it's raining out, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember listening as I was driving and buddy I was with was, you know, was, I think he was taking a nap or working on something. And I remember going, the mood, you know, my mood was, okay, I got a long drive. And, uh, there was kind of like a monotonous monotony that had been coming from song after song after song, because this is typically slower than that hip stuff, um, that, that I was used to. Um and and i know that they made a conscious effort or at least gordon made a conscious effort to keep the hip away from this right like i read as well like they didn't they didn't want to record anywhere that the hip had recorded they didn't want to use any of the gear but then paul who's right his that's his long longest friend or buddy for sure yeah yeah and then he comes in and and And he's on another tune as well, I believe, on this album.Track 4:[12:06] But you hear that, and for me, driving, I was just, I got that like, okay, thank you. Thank you for giving me a little just reconnection. I know this is Gord, but I also know that Gord is that kind of heartbeat and pulse and provides the lyrics to. And I liked having that friend along, me personally. Um and uh and i couldn't you know i couldn't get the you know twin peaks type lofty pine uh connection correlation uh going there not not that i was you know fully into the twin peaks world or whatnot but yeah so uh that's what i had for my some of my notes the the lines that are in french i was hoping for something revealing and it's literally just i was born for the heat we can't, I was hoping one of you guys would research that. I was too lazy. They, my only note for this song. Yeah. If you could see my notebooks, just better call Paul. Cause he's, um, he just is so effortless. I just picture Gord being in the studio. Like, ah, yeah, I can't quite get the sound I'm going for here. And.Track 4:[13:16] Calls up Paul and he just comes in and, you know, smoke hanging out of his mouth. He just rips off one take and that's how I, it's just so effortless. You can just tell by the, you know, he's just sang with Gord for so long, sung, sang with Gord for so long that he, he just knows what to do. I guarantee it was one take and he was done. Yeah. Again, it gave me that, uh, just, uh, the combination is something that, that, That definitely fills you up.Track 4:[13:42] When I was doing the research as well on the French part, the first thing that came up was, I want to say a province in Quebec, but it was like a lake chalet.Track 4:[13:53] So that's where I was going at first and then obviously did a little deeper and found out. No, not quite, but thought we were referencing something there at one point. Well, I mean, that could be. There's a lot of lofty pines in Quebec and a lot of lakes. So you never know. The Lofty Pine Hotel was in cottage country in Ontario until I don't even know when. Like, not that, like, pretty recently. So, to me, I hear this song and...Track 4:[14:26] It's like one of those, it sounds sticky. It sounds muggy. It's like one of those August nights in the city where, you know, it's extra hot because air conditioners are spitting out hot heat. Like the city's just got this almost dense air that you're walking through. The cool side of your pillow is sweating, you know? That's the kind of heat.Track 4:[14:50] And they're just daydreaming about getting up to the cottage. Just getting the fuck out of dodge and going to the cottage dreaming of those lofty pines i don't know that's that's sort of what i get from it so just a real quick note building on what you just said about it's so freaking hot and the spectacular part in the lyrics and there's a matchbook or whatever that falls like we needed something hotter right yes you know and here's matches you know i didn't get that but yeah totally what do you believe he's referring to in the uh i give the editor my pitch a series on the cultural wealth uh about the era of catalogs and lists i just think he's good at creating protagonists uh i think it's like a protagonist of this song um like but i but i guess i'm very literal yeah don't don't make me say hitler again no i don't i think this is i don't know literal more literal you know but he's proven to not do that so often that it seems like not likely but that's how like he's answering a question that we haven't asked you know let's go to the next track which is boy bruised by butterfly shake I really didn't have anything to say about the song for a while.Track 4:[16:14] And then I listened to it, um, actually just today. And it kind of came to me that this is.Track 4:[16:21] Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness or life and death somewhere in the middle um you know he he references someone was crying i as i lay in the dirt i could hear their hearts breaking but i wasn't even hurt so that's kind of like i'm slipping away and i don't feel anything sort of thing that's just how i interpreted the line i came across um something just by chance glancing through the cd booklet last night um and there's a little article it says bruised by a butterfly chase and it looks like um it's actually photocopied from a newspaper it says four-year-old andrew herrit holds his winnie the pooh blanket at a hospital in halifax the kentville boy survived a 20 meter fall from a cliff at blommadon provincial park while chasing butterflies during a family outing so it could be very literally about a boy down down down falling yeah exactly yeah it made so much sense when i read that so yeah there's an extra song and i didn't get to listen to it yet but is it this it's it is down down down yeah it's the same lyrics yeah yeah and i guess that makes sense the grass felt so good and there's they're talking about he didn't have shoes so that makes sense that it's a four-year-old um the day was so blue i must have tripped i don't know do i remember falling away nothing that i hold on to and not being afraid so that's when you're that young you probably don't have much.Track 4:[17:46] Memory of it as an adult and especially i would assume there's some trauma there and justin though i i.Track 4:[17:53] Mean just your your first explanation that that in between um before we.Track 4:[18:00] Heard the story like you took me there and i think musically it does as well like my notes are the guitar like you know guitar is prevalent in some of these other songs but you don't hear.Track 4:[18:12] Guitar lines and guitar melodies as much and there's some very clear guitar work going on here both acoustic and electric which you also don't really get a lot of in in these songs or you know the song is almost poppy yeah it's super radio absolutely and i thought it could be a hip song yeah yeah you know those and i guess obviously see that could be true to anything, but change up some of the instrumentation, change up some of the tempo and, and, uh, yeah, yeah, you're definitely in hip territory. Definitely hip territory. Let's go to mystery, a sonic soundscape. Yeah. And, and it really is, it starts off in, in that sonic soundscape world and then goes to the spoken word. Sorry, a bit of humor. You know, one of my favorite flicks is, so I married an ax murderer and turn off the base. It's your rollers. The soccer game is on somewhere.Track 4:[19:13] There's a soccer game. and uh being being you know the background with that i i at a loss in the sense of that that journey that gourd's going through and and doing some research and finding you know with with the book of poetry that came out uh that he was you know it was not received from the poetry world as it were um and yeah it was yeah they they it was not received from a it's like oh this is just you know and they made the joke of oh yeah what what are you going to do give bob dylan a a pulitzer or uh you know uh it it's just it's that being someone that's written songs before and and And I can't say that I've written poetry, but it's very much frowned upon to have, you know, they said, you know, Jim Morrison killed that. So why is anybody else doing it? And so then the counter argument goes.Track 4:[20:17] Well, yeah, it sells well because of who Gord is and what he does and how he moves people. And then what came afterwards was, yeah, in the libraries and in the bookstores, there was a lot more people in the poetry section than had ever been there before. So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to be completely inclusive or exclusive? And does the inclusivity then start damaging the art? I'm of the belief and the ilk that you need people to dive into both lyrics, dive into poetry, dive into the spoken word side. So, yeah, sorry, I digress. And this is just coming off the song Poets on Phantom Power, which in live shows, he's sort of, don't tell me what the poets are doing. I don't want to know. I don't care about the poets. Or it could be perceived that way, whether he meant that or not.Track 4:[21:21] I know from a musical standpoint, this song gave me vibes of, of the rain song by Led Zeppelin. And I know it sounds nothing like it, but if you listen, and it took me a while to figure out what it was, but if you listen to the bass notes, he's playing really high in the register and it just gives that cascading feel of, of the rain song. And, um, yeah. And, and near the end too, he's playing up the neck on the bass and it's just some really nice playing. Yeah, I have avant-garde. I would imagine that the Dinner is Ruined gang had a heavy influence on this. Yeah, and this is the other Adam McGaughan track as well. So that guitar you hear, the little classical guitar, that's McGaughan. Ah, cool. Sorry, help me understand, not being as familiar outside of in the research, does he hold a special place in a Canadian heart?Track 4:[22:14] Um adam mcgoyne he was a filmmaker i i can't say i'm an expert on him but he's um he had a movie called the sweet hereafter which was very well received i believe it won awards and actually i believe uh didn't sarah harmer sing i think a version of courage on the soundtrack sarah polly sarah polly right right yes yeah well i'll have to do a little more research and check some of that that out justin were you familiar at all only from reading the never-ending present book had i had i heard the name no anything else on mystery uh only that the the phantom power outtake version is so drastically different and also equally amazing it is so yes the one on phantom power is so dark and so so moody and i have here a note that it's almost like a more depressing version of landslide by fleetwood mac it's just haunting oh yeah yeah yes like i mean they're wildly different but so funny they share the same dna ultimately what's i think what's funny is that the version that's on the phantom power re-release would have been recorded two years before this so this is reimagining this is part two yeah it makes you wonder is it just that he really loved the words and he you know the track got cut for whatever reason just didn't fit in maybe with the album and he it was something he really wanted to put out there and And, you know, I'm glad he did. I love both versions.Track 4:[23:43] Okay, next up, we get a song of 3-4. It's got a country-ish little tinge to it.Track 4:[23:50] And that's Elaborate. Elaborate.Track 4:[29:10] I imagine cowboys after having driven cattle across the plains, just sitting around a fire, drinking a beer, you know, and somebody's got a guitar and then somebody works out a mandolin three minutes into the song, you know, but it's about, it's about death. It's about somebody's sick, somebody's dying, has cancer. And in the poem version in the book, the title also has a parenthetical Toronto No. 2, which Music at Work has the song Toronto No. 4, which is about Gord's grandmother dying. So there's a common thread there. I don't know. It is very much a end of the day.Track 4:[29:51] Things are happening and they may not be coming to us. Yeah, I have a tough time hearing this, knowing what we know about what happened to Gord. Like, I can't help but hear it through that filter, and it makes it difficult to listen to for me. Yeah, I had the same thing, JD. It felt to me like a song that was meant to have a little bit of, I don't want to say humor, but a bit of lightheartedness to it in a way. But then knowing what we know... What happened with Gord, it definitely changes the way you hear it. Interestingly, my head went to Now for Plan A instead of Gord's own diagnosis. And also, I'm not sure if you guys heard this at all, but again, I'm less of a lyric guy, more of a music guy. The mandolin solo comes in, a little mandolin melody, and it reminds me so much of Neil Diamond's Play Me. And I swear, if you listen to it, you'll know what I mean. It's so funny. It doesn't quite go in the same place, but it's very close. Yeah. Great tune. And at the end, they're kind of going on for a while. And then Gord kind of clears his throat, like as if to say, come on, wrap it up, boys. I have that in my notes. So JD, if we're going on too long, just clear your throat and we'll know it's time to wrap up. No, not at all.Track 4:[31:11] One thing that I picked up on, which is a timestamp on this album, is Gord mentions cell phone. And a lot of bands in the late 90s, early 2000s for just like a three or four year period mentioned cell phones because that's when they came out. We didn't have cell phones before 98, 99. And if we did, they were in a bag that weighed 30 pounds. So I thought it was interesting that cell phone was topical for their 2000s. It's a country song. You said it. It's a country tune. That's my first note is country tune. And then you hear the guitar tremolo, that ringing, that just doing single notes and it's just ringing. And then the mandolin. But yeah, you're talking about modern topics on a cowboy song, on a country tune. There's also a great live version of this I found. It's the black and white. It's like a full concert that someone's put on YouTube. There's this pretty epic Gord rant on it. And he's talking about stem cell research and the Pope. And it's worth a watch for sure.Track 4:[32:18] And he actually, and he dedicates the song to Dave Bedini, which I found interesting from Reostatics. He's still alive. So I don't, I don't know why he just says, you know, the songs for, for Dave. I wonder if he went through a battle with a family member. Yeah. Possibly maybe, maybe a mutual acquaintance or yeah. Who knows? The beauty of the beauty of where, where we're being taken on this, this particular album is, is pretty incredible yeah and then you go into frigging a polka right with you're possessed.Track 4:[32:52] Yeah yeah i did not expect that coming i'm just like you're hearing all these songs that are very kind of melancholy yeah you know outside of canada geese that that that has a little bit of drive to it yeah you're another two man yeah and then now for two but if you guys know um have you.Track 4:[33:11] You guys seen spinal tap i'm guessing oh of course okay so my mind went right to you know yeah yeah the the nigel and david uh st hubbins their first song the you know the dune duga dune dune dune walking down the railroad track to get dune dune dune dune wait for my babe to bring me back um that's where my mind went but um funnily enough my my daughter picked this song out uh we were in the car listening to the cd and she wanted to pick a song so she went through the the track listing and she picked you're possessed because uh her favorite hip song is you're not the ocean this is my 11 year old daughter and so she loved the spelling of of year and uh she put this song on and her reading of it like the i told her what what i was thinking and she said this sounds to me like emmett otter, and i'm not sure if there's a ref i can see kirk knows what i'm talking about so here's a quick Oh my gosh. We could just be finished right now.Track 4:[34:09] I grew up in a small town called Peachland in the Okanagan in BC. A small town. We had maybe, I don't know, a couple thousand people when I lived there. And we had two channels. We had channel four, CBC, and channel nine, CTV. And there was no cable company in town. But on the outskirts of town was a large satellite dish, like a huge satellite dish that someone put there and uh and so the whole town got free hbo for years like pirated stolen hbo i'm talking like five six seven years and uh let's go every you know three months you'd come home turn on hbo and it'd be scrambled and so that it would be all down for a couple days until they repositioned the satellite and so every christmas time and you know this is early 80s Emma Daughter's Jug Band Christmas would come on HBO.Track 4:[34:59] And to me, I just thought this was a thing that everyone knew. And as I got older and I found a DVD copy in a bargain bin at Zeller's or something, I started talking about this show to people and no one...Track 4:[35:14] Except for the people i know from peachland know this show and it is it's a jim henson production from about 1977 it's and it's like it's a cult classic it's just paul williams yeah, and to me yeah that's what my daughter said and i was like yeah that's that's it this is this is a jug band you know with a tuba instead of a jug t-shirts i have stickers i um am on the verge of learning river bottom nightmare band to cover with our band um right christmas does not happen in the Lane household. I'm the same way. Emmett Otter's plays. We have, you know, obviously the DVD copy. And in fact, it's a running joke. Sorry, JD and Justin, if you haven't seen it, but like anything that's $50, Craig, $50, that's a lot of money. So my whole family, anything that's 50 bucks, the first response is $50. Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, anytime we have mashed potatoes, just mashed potatoes i love mashed potatoes hey yeah man how are you doing catching anything good today sorry guys so jd and justin you haven't seen that christmas your life will will begin begin to exist afterwards so let's let's change the focus for episode two please the music is so good and it's this christmas story doesn't once mention you know religion jesus it doesn't once Once mentioned Santa.Track 4:[36:44] And it's the best Christmas show you'll ever see. It's so sweet. Huh. The music. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing. It tears me up every time. And I love that connection that your daughter has to this song, Craig. I mean, that's, I really did start welling up. Not only finding someone that loves him and Otter, but that she made that connection. Yeah, it's really cool. That's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. And of course, Paul's back singing the backups here. And I have to ask, have you guys been to Boston? They mentioned Lansdowne Street, Fenway Park. I'm guessing Lansdowne is. So that's where Fenway Park is. And that's my only note on this song was just after that, he says, no one's going to hurt me like you did. Well, he's talking about the Red Sox. He's totally talking about Bill Buckner missing the catch or the grounder in 1986 to throw it away. Maybe, or I watched a live version of this as well. And he tells a story and I don't remember all the details, but he tells a story about a fight with his brother, Patrick. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure if it could be, you know, a brotherly story. Well, and Patrick was the sound guy for the garden where the Bruins play and the Celtics play.Track 4:[37:57] Um, and of course the, um, Harry Sinden, the Bruins coach was the godfather. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. yeah sure he wore the sweater in um courage in the video for wow yeah this is a great great tune i mean just in all of it you know you've got the spoken word stuff you've got uh some of the melancholy stuff and and and then boom you know you get this boom boom and and the solos uh.Track 4:[38:28] Yeah we're at a pool party in 1946 and uh and also quick canadian tie-in um another i know j uh jd you know the other canadian classic with a tuba can you you know what i'm talking about i don't off the top we talked about this spirit of the west and if venice is sinking oh my god like tuba part yeah yeah so the only two songs i can think of featuring a tuba i'm sure there are others but it last i checked there weren't that many bands featuring a tuba not enough every irrelevance i spoke a lot already on this last one but i can i just share my experience with this one because so i'm doing doing dishes i'm often listening to um music or podcasts when i'm doing dishes and and uh i'm listening to this song and i'm just getting into it's just this beautiful like instrumental sounding song. I love the tremolo guitar.Track 4:[39:22] And I was just thinking, okay, this is probably, maybe there's no words on here. And I was really digging it and thinking, okay, I like this. I like this choice of an instrumental near the end of the album. And then all of a sudden Gord starts singing and just this beautiful melody. And then the snare comes in halfway through the verse and I'm just like elevating. I'm just like my mood. And what I thought of later when I was thinking of how to explain this was the Vince McMahon meme, you know, the levels of Vince McMahon's like elation. And so I'm like- Which doesn't play so well now.Track 4:[40:01] And level one, that's the instrumental. Level two, Vince is the singing. And then all of a sudden he hits me with, catharsis my arses is capable of more flesh and i'm like oh it's the line from from the from the live album and you know um and then i'm just like loving this song and all of a sudden the there's the piano and so i'm all of a sudden on fourth level vince and just when i think i can't love the song anymore that trumpet comes in at the end and it is so tasty just the the muted trumpet tasteful perfect like the both the piano and the trumpet play just enough they don't overplay and i just love this song who did the horns it wasn't this from another can't think of his name though is it andy mays i'd have to look at that i i don't that sounds familiar yeah yeah well i'm pretty sure that's who he's talking about an emperor penguin as well right like the first two lines yeah yeah tony or trump that was my other thought yeah i like the tony yeah there's There's another line that I can't remember which live show it's in. It might even be from the live between this album, but it's leading into a head by a century. He talks about adolescence in essence is all about trust. And that, that line pops up in here.Track 4:[41:20] Um, I don't think he mentions adolescence in this song, but yeah, I'm looking at the credit. So does Andy Mays, is it? That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job, JD. And one thing, um, did you guys notice in the, uh, in the credits to this album it's very specific it mentions the type of guitar being played by each member the type you know the types of drums and um and it very clearly says that gourd was playing on a gut string guitar which is you know the old old style string made of you know, animal guts basically yeah and it just gives a way different um you know timbre.Track 4:[41:57] I like the echo on the snare on this particular and, and it sounded like a standup bass. I'm not sure if it was a standup bass. It was just the way the notes were played. Um, but you know, I, I have a jazz reference obviously in my notes. So yeah, I agree. Craig musically, it was phenomenal. And then, then again, you're not quite sure we're going to get a spoken word or, and then you get the, you know, the beautiful, the beautiful voice and the beautiful, uh, song. Hmm.Track 4:[42:28] It's it's definitely one of the best ones on the on the record i think i i love the song i'm i'm a big fan as well i i love when he leaves little breadcrumbs in in a what seems to be like an improv rant or a throwaway rant not that any of them are throwaway but you you turn it turns out that it's been a line in his notebook for five years prior and it's got six underlines under it you know like god damn it i'm going to use this line somewhere down the line yeah when it presents i'm going to rhyme catharsis that's right i've got this great lyric i'm gonna use it sometime you know and uh i think that's so cool he's so talented let's just go right now to insomniacs of the world, good night.Track 4:[43:56] Thank you. I can see the line of your reserve, I can contemplate it from here, there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart. I can see us writhing in a phone booth or laid back in the dewy grass of our youth and gathering our sweetnesses and wishing on the never-ending sun.Track 4:[48:05] So, the research that I saw, this was supposed to be the name of the album? Does that jive with what anyone else saw? Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, that's what I heard. And then um again capping it off with you know more of a spoken word and just straight up i can see the line of your brassiere i can contemplate it from here there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart i know um one thing i noticed was um.Track 4:[48:42] What I picture here is, is there's a point where he starts recapping some lyrics from some other songs. I know he brings up the Fenway park again. And what I think this is, is, is recordings of Gord in the middle of the night, grabbing his tape recorder when he's got a melody going through his head. And he's kind of singing because it almost sounds like he trails off. Sometimes he doesn't always have the full melody melody developed. And I think this might be his like audio journal, like little excerpts.Track 4:[49:09] Wow. listen to it again i i swear i'm i'm very quite confident in this that's amazing that and a perfect bookend as well to to star star painters just um bookends the album the spoken word on both sides the sort of um i don't know that's i think it's an organ this time not an accordion but a similar sound and oh and julie uh dwaron is pocketed or is credited with with playing the a pocket trumpet so just a just basically a tiny trumpet shakespeare pops up in in some of the hip works and there's that um if i could sleep there's a chance i could dream which is from hamlet um he changes it a bit because it's perchance and shakespeare right so it's it's interesting yeah right this line yes arguably the most notable line that shakespeare ever wrote and changes it and keeps it the same but just that little word change like what what does that mean what is that all about and more to the point and it's the elephant in the room, is the version from phantom power.Track 4:[50:20] Where do you guys stand on those two versions? Can you enjoy them both? Can they both be your children? Or if I asked you to make a selfish choice, which one would you choose as a preference? I can't answer it because I don't know the one from Phantom Power as well. That's cheating, but okay. But I do remember. It sure is. That means I just don't love one of my children, right? Right. Um, I do remember him screaming the line at live shows and in some performances. I had heard that reference and, and heard a scene that reference for in some. Yeah. My preference is, is this one. I, I, I really like this, this version of it. One thing that I really is so amazing about this song is it lulls you like you're ready to until the crash. Yeah. That's the same thing. Massive cymbal crash. Yes. Oh God, I love it. I love that so much.Track 4:[51:25] And fast forward to the final album that the hit put out, Man Machine Poem, and there's the song Insomnia. Insomnia. Which was supposed to be Insomnia. Yep. And if you read the liner notes in that, Insomnia is scratched out in every line. And I don't know what that means, but interesting.Track 4:[51:44] Well, I think the whole record is interesting. what did you guys think overall is an experience with the record and uh after you tell me that what is your mvp track and you have to pick one this time justin i'm gonna go first i'll make it easy because i think i've already referenced it and and and it it's you know probably unlikely but But Star Painters was my, and again, it's the lyric. It's that line. Like anytime I hear that line, whether I'm walking the dog and I listen to it or if I'm driving and I hear it, you know, the scaffolding. Scaffolding.Track 4:[52:29] The scaffolding is in its place. The Star Painters are taking over now. And then your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way. So for me, it was that line. And I think it's because, again, I wanted to separate and I'm glad that I had the wherewithal to be able to go. I wasn't looking for hip light. I was looking for Gore Downey. And, and you didn't, I, it's me personally. And I think we even mentioned it with, with the book ending with the spoken word, you were going to get Gord Downie and you were in a, not just, you're not just going to get the energy that we know and from the hip, but you know, that he's going to take all these, these amazing musicians that were part of obviously his career.Track 4:[53:20] His musical background that, that, that created the hip and that he's going to give them that opportunity for them to get together. And then just when you hear the story about how they recorded it and where they recorded it and, uh, you know, meshing that together at the same time, he's, he's, he's, he's writing, you know, he's putting out the book along with it. So I'm, I mean, yeah, a little bit of criticisms on some of the recording maybe techniques and could have used a few more mics here and there. But that's just, I guess, the musician in me. But overall, I can understand why it was what I would assume mostly fairly well received. And again, I know there's a lot of hip fans that weren't even going to give it a chance. And then the song that I chose as my MVP kind of pushed him away from the get-go, at least for me. So, yeah, I'm...Track 4:[54:22] I'm glad I found the hip or maybe I should say the hip found me and I'm glad I didn't give up on them. And, uh, you know, the energy and, and the feeling that Gord always gave me when I, uh, had the great chance to see, uh, see the band and see him. And even when I met him, I actually, I wore this shirt on purpose. This is the shirt that I was wearing when I met Gord backstage house of blues Anaheim. It's a harley davidson shirt with big letters hd and the ac are masked with a canadian flag, yeah and this i got this up in vancouver on a trip when i went up there i fancied myself i was going to be a harley rider one of these days and and still don't have a bike um but went through that phase and uh i wore this shirt because i felt like i needed to because i'm you know go see the hip. And, uh, and this is the first thing he said, he just goes, that's a really nice shirt, man.Track 4:[55:23] And he shook my hand and, and, uh, and there was just this gentleness about him. And, uh, you know, I was starstruck and I don't typically get that. I mean, I'm, I'm in a business where I meet people all the time and I'm in LA and Hollywood and, and, and done all that, but this guy is different. And it was a moment where I definitely paused and couldn't put together a whole lot of words. I didn't know that I was necessarily going to meet him. I wore this in honor of that moment and taking this journey with you guys. So I am so excited because I think this was a great start.Track 4:[56:07] Outside, I've heard a little bit of some Secret Path. I absolutely had not heard anything from any of the other albums outside of Coke Machine Glow, and again, a little bit from Secret Path. So I'm just, I'm really jazzed, right? Because I get to dig, you know, we get to dig deeper into this individual that's just, wow, he's pretty special. And you could see, you know, the impact that he's had on so many. So I'm excited about this journey and I'm picking that song and I'm sticking to it. Nice. Craig, how about you?Track 4:[56:45] Well, being one of those hip fans who took a bit of a break around this time, and not that I completely abandoned them, I think for me, I was just at an age where I was just exploring so much music. I was in school for music, so I was being bombarded by classical music and music from all through the ages. And on top of that, I was getting into a lot of more experimental music. And I just started drifting away from not just the hip, but all the bands I had been listening to in the 90s. And, you know, a lot of those bands I did come back to, some I didn't, but I came back to the hip big time, kind of the mid 2000s or, you know, yeah, around 2006, probably. And um and so for me i this is an album i never gave a chance i'd heard you know a couple songs here and there chancellor and vancouver divorce i think but um i'd never listened to the whole thing and wow i'm i'm so grateful for this opportunity to do this it's just i love this album i i put it up there with with you know some of those great hip albums and um my my um mvp track is every irrelevance i again i explained already the vince mcmahon meme um that that was me during this song just i by the end i was just you know spent lying down with the smoke.Track 4:[58:14] Justin uh it's sentimental for me with it's trick rider um because my daughter is six um and And I build bike ramps for her, you know, and, and then tell her don't ride so fast off that bike ramp. I just built you, you know, and, um, don't ask me to explain. Um, and, Yeah, I just, that's, it drives, you know, it really, yeah, I don't know. I love that song for different reasons. I also really love Canada Geese just because it's a sweet rock song. And I know, I just like what I like. I grew up on Yes and listening to 22-minute opuses that were way beyond what a 13-year-old kid should be listening to. So, I get weird stuff and I get out there stuff, but I also just love rock and roll.Track 4:[59:06] And, uh, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good rock and roll song. I, and I'm going to echo you guys that I'm super excited for this platform. Um, because as a kid in the States who had the secret about the hip, you know, my last name is St. Louis. So everybody thought I was Canadian and I was a Montreal Canadians fan. So everybody, you know, they'd pick on me. And then I talk about the tragically hip, which was in the periphery, you know, nobody, nobody listened to it, but they'd at least heard of them. And then be like, Oh, that's who the hell is that? Why are you listening to that? And it's stupid. Well, now I can finally celebrate it and talk about it, you know, and, and I'm Canadian for the next eight weeks. Oh, that's great. Eh? Yeah.Track 4:[59:49] Well, this has been a great deal of fun.Track 4:[59:55] This Saturday afternoon. You'll be listening to this on a Monday, of course. If you have anything you want to shout out to us, please send us an email. We would love to hear from you. The email is discoveringdowney at gmail.com. That's discoveringdowney at gmail.com. You can also find a link on our website, discoveringdowney.com, and there's a link to email us right from there, which makes it easy peasy. So it's been a blast doing this with you guys this week. I'm really looking forward to where we go and learning more. I am a somebody who has listened to all the records, and I've listened to them on a number of occasions, but I have a very poor short-term memory, and it's tough to recall them sometimes. Times so it's been really fun going through this and listening the shit out of this record and then getting to talk about it with somebody it's like a book club so i had a lot of fun and if you like what you heard send us an email discovering downy at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you, and on behalf of kirk craig and justin pick up your shit.Track 1:[1:01:13] Thanks for listening to Discovering Downey. To find out more about the show and its host, visit DiscoveringDowney.com. You can email us at DiscoveringDowney at gmail.com. And hey, we're social.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/fully-and-completely/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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?Transcript:Track 1:[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.Track 2:[1:19] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downey.Track 3:[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.Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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...Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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 that trim. Gord had the big beard at the time. He had the almost like pajamas on. And when the pajama top came off, he had the Save the Human shirt on, which I actually saw in one of the videos for this album. So he brought the shirt back out for Coke Machine Glow. And the timing of that wouldn't have been too far removed from the Killer Whale time. Probably not, yeah. I don't remember him doing that. But again, I was young and it was craziness. It was it was a fun fun time see the bull moose checking out another drac, like sorry that was the highlight i made from from a lyrical standpoint and then you know from a musical standpoint and i think i also read about this um it's pretty prevalent where they're strumming the piano strings and they brought a mic and recorded it and just love that love that like what's that and uh they decide to bring bring bring in the bring in the mic and record the track so on to lofty pines all right let's go to lofty pines where paul langlois shows up and makes uh an appearance one of two appearances.Track 4:[5:59] On this record to provide his sublime backing vocals god damn is this guy good.Track 4:[10:46] I think it was a week or so ago, I took a trip up north. I think you guys know about. And I was driving back and it was, it was raining and which we don't get a lot of rain. We don't get a lot of anything in California other than the sun. So, you know, when it's raining out, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember listening as I was driving and buddy I was with was, you know, was, I think he was taking a nap or working on something. And I remember going, the mood, you know, my mood was, okay, I got a long drive. And, uh, there was kind of like a monotonous monotony that had been coming from song after song after song, because this is typically slower than that hip stuff, um, that, that I was used to. Um and and i know that they made a conscious effort or at least gordon made a conscious effort to keep the hip away from this right like i read as well like they didn't they didn't want to record anywhere that the hip had recorded they didn't want to use any of the gear but then paul who's right his that's his long longest friend or buddy for sure yeah yeah and then he comes in and and And he's on another tune as well, I believe, on this album.Track 4:[12:06] But you hear that, and for me, driving, I was just, I got that like, okay, thank you. Thank you for giving me a little just reconnection. I know this is Gord, but I also know that Gord is that kind of heartbeat and pulse and provides the lyrics to. And I liked having that friend along, me personally. Um and uh and i couldn't you know i couldn't get the you know twin peaks type lofty pine uh connection correlation uh going there not not that i was you know fully into the twin peaks world or whatnot but yeah so uh that's what i had for my some of my notes the the lines that are in french i was hoping for something revealing and it's literally just i was born for the heat we can't, I was hoping one of you guys would research that. I was too lazy. They, my only note for this song. Yeah. If you could see my notebooks, just better call Paul. Cause he's, um, he just is so effortless. I just picture Gord being in the studio. Like, ah, yeah, I can't quite get the sound I'm going for here. And.Track 4:[13:16] Calls up Paul and he just comes in and, you know, smoke hanging out of his mouth. He just rips off one take and that's how I, it's just so effortless. You can just tell by the, you know, he's just sang with Gord for so long, sung, sang with Gord for so long that he, he just knows what to do. I guarantee it was one take and he was done. Yeah. Again, it gave me that, uh, just, uh, the combination is something that, that, That definitely fills you up.Track 4:[13:42] When I was doing the research as well on the French part, the first thing that came up was, I want to say a province in Quebec, but it was like a lake chalet.Track 4:[13:53] So that's where I was going at first and then obviously did a little deeper and found out. No, not quite, but thought we were referencing something there at one point. Well, I mean, that could be. There's a lot of lofty pines in Quebec and a lot of lakes. So you never know. The Lofty Pine Hotel was in cottage country in Ontario until I don't even know when. Like, not that, like, pretty recently. So, to me, I hear this song and...Track 4:[14:26] It's like one of those, it sounds sticky. It sounds muggy. It's like one of those August nights in the city where, you know, it's extra hot because air conditioners are spitting out hot heat. Like the city's just got this almost dense air that you're walking through. The cool side of your pillow is sweating, you know? That's the kind of heat.Track 4:[14:50] And they're just daydreaming about getting up to the cottage. Just getting the fuck out of dodge and going to the cottage dreaming of those lofty pines i don't know that's that's sort of what i get from it so just a real quick note building on what you just said about it's so freaking hot and the spectacular part in the lyrics and there's a matchbook or whatever that falls like we needed something hotter right yes you know and here's matches you know i didn't get that but yeah totally what do you believe he's referring to in the uh i give the editor my pitch a series on the cultural wealth uh about the era of catalogs and lists i just think he's good at creating protagonists uh i think it's like a protagonist of this song um like but i but i guess i'm very literal yeah don't don't make me say hitler again no i don't i think this is i don't know literal more literal you know but he's proven to not do that so often that it seems like not likely but that's how like he's answering a question that we haven't asked you know let's go to the next track which is boy bruised by butterfly shake I really didn't have anything to say about the song for a while.Track 4:[16:14] And then I listened to it, um, actually just today. And it kind of came to me that this is.Track 4:[16:21] Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness or life and death somewhere in the middle um you know he he references someone was crying i as i lay in the dirt i could hear their hearts breaking but i wasn't even hurt so that's kind of like i'm slipping away and i don't feel anything sort of thing that's just how i interpreted the line i came across um something just by chance glancing through the cd booklet last night um and there's a little article it says bruised by a butterfly chase and it looks like um it's actually photocopied from a newspaper it says four-year-old andrew herrit holds his winnie the pooh blanket at a hospital in halifax the kentville boy survived a 20 meter fall from a cliff at blommadon provincial park while chasing butterflies during a family outing so it could be very literally about a boy down down down falling yeah exactly yeah it made so much sense when i read that so yeah there's an extra song and i didn't get to listen to it yet but is it this it's it is down down down yeah it's the same lyrics yeah yeah and i guess that makes sense the grass felt so good and there's they're talking about he didn't have shoes so that makes sense that it's a four-year-old um the day was so blue i must have tripped i don't know do i remember falling away nothing that i hold on to and not being afraid so that's when you're that young you probably don't have much.Track 4:[17:46] Memory of it as an adult and especially i would assume there's some trauma there and justin though i i.Track 4:[17:53] Mean just your your first explanation that that in between um before we.Track 4:[18:00] Heard the story like you took me there and i think musically it does as well like my notes are the guitar like you know guitar is prevalent in some of these other songs but you don't hear.Track 4:[18:12] Guitar lines and guitar melodies as much and there's some very clear guitar work going on here both acoustic and electric which you also don't really get a lot of in in these songs or you know the song is almost poppy yeah it's super radio absolutely and i thought it could be a hip song yeah yeah you know those and i guess obviously see that could be true to anything, but change up some of the instrumentation, change up some of the tempo and, and, uh, yeah, yeah, you're definitely in hip territory. Definitely hip territory. Let's go to mystery, a sonic soundscape. Yeah. And, and it really is, it starts off in, in that sonic soundscape world and then goes to the spoken word. Sorry, a bit of humor. You know, one of my favorite flicks is, so I married an ax murderer and turn off the base. It's your rollers. The soccer game is on somewhere.Track 4:[19:13] There's a soccer game. and uh being being you know the background with that i i at a loss in the sense of that that journey that gourd's going through and and doing some research and finding you know with with the book of poetry that came out uh that he was you know it was not received from the poetry world as it were um and yeah it was yeah they they it was not received from a it's like oh this is just you know and they made the joke of oh yeah what what are you going to do give bob dylan a a pulitzer or uh you know uh it it's just it's that being someone that's written songs before and and And I can't say that I've written poetry, but it's very much frowned upon to have, you know, they said, you know, Jim Morrison killed that. So why is anybody else doing it? And so then the counter argument goes.Track 4:[20:17] Well, yeah, it sells well because of who Gord is and what he does and how he moves people. And then what came afterwards was, yeah, in the libraries and in the bookstores, there was a lot more people in the poetry section than had ever been there before. So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to be completely inclusive or exclusive? And does the inclusivity then start damaging the art? I'm of the belief and the ilk that you need people to dive into both lyrics, dive into poetry, dive into the spoken word side. So, yeah, sorry, I digress. And this is just coming off the song Poets on Phantom Power, which in live shows, he's sort of, don't tell me what the poets are doing. I don't want to know. I don't care about the poets. Or it could be perceived that way, whether he meant that or not.Track 4:[21:21] I know from a musical standpoint, this song gave me vibes of, of the rain song by Led Zeppelin. And I know it sounds nothing like it, but if you listen, and it took me a while to figure out what it was, but if you listen to the bass notes, he's playing really high in the register and it just gives that cascading feel of, of the rain song. And, um, yeah. And, and near the end too, he's playing up the neck on the bass and it's just some really nice playing. Yeah, I have avant-garde. I would imagine that the Dinner is Ruined gang had a heavy influence on this. Yeah, and this is the other Adam McGaughan track as well. So that guitar you hear, the little classical guitar, that's McGaughan. Ah, cool. Sorry, help me understand, not being as familiar outside of in the research, does he hold a special place in a Canadian heart?Track 4:[22:14] Um adam mcgoyne he was a filmmaker i i can't say i'm an expert on him but he's um he had a movie called the sweet hereafter which was very well received i believe it won awards and actually i believe uh didn't sarah harmer sing i think a version of courage on the soundtrack sarah polly sarah polly right right yes yeah well i'll have to do a little more research and check some of that that out justin were you familiar at all only from reading the never-ending present book had i had i heard the name no anything else on mystery uh only that the the phantom power outtake version is so drastically different and also equally amazing it is so yes the one on phantom power is so dark and so so moody and i have here a note that it's almost like a more depressing version of landslide by fleetwood mac it's just haunting oh yeah yeah yes like i mean they're wildly different but so funny they share the same dna ultimately what's i think what's funny is that the version that's on the phantom power re-release would have been recorded two years before this so this is reimagining this is part two yeah it makes you wonder is it just that he really loved the words and he you know the track got cut for whatever reason just didn't fit in maybe with the album and he it was something he really wanted to put out there and And, you know, I'm glad he did. I love both versions.Track 4:[23:43] Okay, next up, we get a song of 3-4. It's got a country-ish little tinge to it.Track 4:[23:50] And that's Elaborate. Elaborate.Track 4:[29:10] I imagine cowboys after having driven cattle across the plains, just sitting around a fire, drinking a beer, you know, and somebody's got a guitar and then somebody works out a mandolin three minutes into the song, you know, but it's about, it's about death. It's about somebody's sick, somebody's dying, has cancer. And in the poem version in the book, the title also has a parenthetical Toronto No. 2, which Music at Work has the song Toronto No. 4, which is about Gord's grandmother dying. So there's a common thread there. I don't know. It is very much a end of the day.Track 4:[29:51] Things are happening and they may not be coming to us. Yeah, I have a tough time hearing this, knowing what we know about what happened to Gord. Like, I can't help but hear it through that filter, and it makes it difficult to listen to for me. Yeah, I had the same thing, JD. It felt to me like a song that was meant to have a little bit of, I don't want to say humor, but a bit of lightheartedness to it in a way. But then knowing what we know... What happened with Gord, it definitely changes the way you hear it. Interestingly, my head went to Now for Plan A instead of Gord's own diagnosis. And also, I'm not sure if you guys heard this at all, but again, I'm less of a lyric guy, more of a music guy. The mandolin solo comes in, a little mandolin melody, and it reminds me so much of Neil Diamond's Play Me. And I swear, if you listen to it, you'll know what I mean. It's so funny. It doesn't quite go in the same place, but it's very close. Yeah. Great tune. And at the end, they're kind of going on for a while. And then Gord kind of clears his throat, like as if to say, come on, wrap it up, boys. I have that in my notes. So JD, if we're going on too long, just clear your throat and we'll know it's time to wrap up. No, not at all.Track 4:[31:11] One thing that I picked up on, which is a timestamp on this album, is Gord mentions cell phone. And a lot of bands in the late 90s, early 2000s for just like a three or four year period mentioned cell phones because that's when they came out. We didn't have cell phones before 98, 99. And if we did, they were in a bag that weighed 30 pounds. So I thought it was interesting that cell phone was topical for their 2000s. It's a country song. You said it. It's a country tune. That's my first note is country tune. And then you hear the guitar tremolo, that ringing, that just doing single notes and it's just ringing. And then the mandolin. But yeah, you're talking about modern topics on a cowboy song, on a country tune. There's also a great live version of this I found. It's the black and white. It's like a full concert that someone's put on YouTube. There's this pretty epic Gord rant on it. And he's talking about stem cell research and the Pope. And it's worth a watch for sure.Track 4:[32:18] And he actually, and he dedicates the song to Dave Bedini, which I found interesting from Reostatics. He's still alive. So I don't, I don't know why he just says, you know, the songs for, for Dave. I wonder if he went through a battle with a family member. Yeah. Possibly maybe, maybe a mutual acquaintance or yeah. Who knows? The beauty of the beauty of where, where we're being taken on this, this particular album is, is pretty incredible yeah and then you go into frigging a polka right with you're possessed.Track 4:[32:52] Yeah yeah i did not expect that coming i'm just like you're hearing all these songs that are very kind of melancholy yeah you know outside of canada geese that that that has a little bit of drive to it yeah you're another two man yeah and then now for two but if you guys know um have you.Track 4:[33:11] You guys seen spinal tap i'm guessing oh of course okay so my mind went right to you know yeah yeah the the nigel and david uh st hubbins their first song the you know the dune duga dune dune dune walking down the railroad track to get dune dune dune dune wait for my babe to bring me back um that's where my mind went but um funnily enough my my daughter picked this song out uh we were in the car listening to the cd and she wanted to pick a song so she went through the the track listing and she picked you're possessed because uh her favorite hip song is you're not the ocean this is my 11 year old daughter and so she loved the spelling of of year and uh she put this song on and her reading of it like the i told her what what i was thinking and she said this sounds to me like emmett otter, and i'm not sure if there's a ref i can see kirk knows what i'm talking about so here's a quick Oh my gosh. We could just be finished right now.Track 4:[34:09] I grew up in a small town called Peachland in the Okanagan in BC. A small town. We had maybe, I don't know, a couple thousand people when I lived there. And we had two channels. We had channel four, CBC, and channel nine, CTV. And there was no cable company in town. But on the outskirts of town was a large satellite dish, like a huge satellite dish that someone put there and uh and so the whole town got free hbo for years like pirated stolen hbo i'm talking like five six seven years and uh let's go every you know three months you'd come home turn on hbo and it'd be scrambled and so that it would be all down for a couple days until they repositioned the satellite and so every christmas time and you know this is early 80s Emma Daughter's Jug Band Christmas would come on HBO.Track 4:[34:59] And to me, I just thought this was a thing that everyone knew. And as I got older and I found a DVD copy in a bargain bin at Zeller's or something, I started talking about this show to people and no one...Track 4:[35:14] Except for the people i know from peachland know this show and it is it's a jim henson production from about 1977 it's and it's like it's a cult classic it's just paul williams yeah, and to me yeah that's what my daughter said and i was like yeah that's that's it this is this is a jug band you know with a tuba instead of a jug t-shirts i have stickers i um am on the verge of learning river bottom nightmare band to cover with our band um right christmas does not happen in the Lane household. I'm the same way. Emmett Otter's plays. We have, you know, obviously the DVD copy. And in fact, it's a running joke. Sorry, JD and Justin, if you haven't seen it, but like anything that's $50, Craig, $50, that's a lot of money. So my whole family, anything that's 50 bucks, the first response is $50. Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, anytime we have mashed potatoes, just mashed potatoes i love mashed potatoes hey yeah man how are you doing catching anything good today sorry guys so jd and justin you haven't seen that christmas your life will will begin begin to exist afterwards so let's let's change the focus for episode two please the music is so good and it's this christmas story doesn't once mention you know religion jesus it doesn't once Once mentioned Santa.Track 4:[36:44] And it's the best Christmas show you'll ever see. It's so sweet. Huh. The music. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing. It tears me up every time. And I love that connection that your daughter has to this song, Craig. I mean, that's, I really did start welling up. Not only finding someone that loves him and Otter, but that she made that connection. Yeah, it's really cool. That's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. And of course, Paul's back singing the backups here. And I have to ask, have you guys been to Boston? They mentioned Lansdowne Street, Fenway Park. I'm guessing Lansdowne is. So that's where Fenway Park is. And that's my only note on this song was just after that, he says, no one's going to hurt me like you did. Well, he's talking about the Red Sox. He's totally talking about Bill Buckner missing the catch or the grounder in 1986 to throw it away. Maybe, or I watched a live version of this as well. And he tells a story and I don't remember all the details, but he tells a story about a fight with his brother, Patrick. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure if it could be, you know, a brotherly story. Well, and Patrick was the sound guy for the garden where the Bruins play and the Celtics play.Track 4:[37:57] Um, and of course the, um, Harry Sinden, the Bruins coach was the godfather. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. yeah sure he wore the sweater in um courage in the video for wow yeah this is a great great tune i mean just in all of it you know you've got the spoken word stuff you've got uh some of the melancholy stuff and and and then boom you know you get this boom boom and and the solos uh.Track 4:[38:28] Yeah we're at a pool party in 1946 and uh and also quick canadian tie-in um another i know j uh jd you know the other canadian classic with a tuba can you you know what i'm talking about i don't off the top we talked about this spirit of the west and if venice is sinking oh my god like tuba part yeah yeah so the only two songs i can think of featuring a tuba i'm sure there are others but it last i checked there weren't that many bands featuring a tuba not enough every irrelevance i spoke a lot already on this last one but i can i just share my experience with this one because so i'm doing doing dishes i'm often listening to um music or podcasts when i'm doing dishes and and uh i'm listening to this song and i'm just getting into it's just this beautiful like instrumental sounding song. I love the tremolo guitar.Track 4:[39:22] And I was just thinking, okay, this is probably, maybe there's no words on here. And I was really digging it and thinking, okay, I like this. I like this choice of an instrumental near the end of the album. And then all of a sudden Gord starts singing and just this beautiful melody. And then the snare comes in halfway through the verse and I'm just like elevating. I'm just like my mood. And what I thought of later when I was thinking of how to explain this was the Vince McMahon meme, you know, the levels of Vince McMahon's like elation. And so I'm like- Which doesn't play so well now.Track 4:[40:01] And level one, that's the instrumental. Level two, Vince is the singing. And then all of a sudden he hits me with, catharsis my arses is capable of more flesh and i'm like oh it's the line from from the from the live album and you know um and then i'm just like loving this song and all of a sudden the there's the piano and so i'm all of a sudden on fourth level vince and just when i think i can't love the song anymore that trumpet comes in at the end and it is so tasty just the the muted trumpet tasteful perfect like the both the piano and the trumpet play just enough they don't overplay and i just love this song who did the horns it wasn't this from another can't think of his name though is it andy mays i'd have to look at that i i don't that sounds familiar yeah yeah well i'm pretty sure that's who he's talking about an emperor penguin as well right like the first two lines yeah yeah tony or trump that was my other thought yeah i like the tony yeah there's There's another line that I can't remember which live show it's in. It might even be from the live between this album, but it's leading into a head by a century. He talks about adolescence in essence is all about trust. And that, that line pops up in here.Track 4:[41:20] Um, I don't think he mentions adolescence in this song, but yeah, I'm looking at the credit. So does Andy Mays, is it? That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job, JD. And one thing, um, did you guys notice in the, uh, in the credits to this album it's very specific it mentions the type of guitar being played by each member the type you know the types of drums and um and it very clearly says that gourd was playing on a gut string guitar which is you know the old old style string made of you know, animal guts basically yeah and it just gives a way different um you know timbre.Track 4:[41:57] I like the echo on the snare on this particular and, and it sounded like a standup bass. I'm not sure if it was a standup bass. It was just the way the notes were played. Um, but you know, I, I have a jazz reference obviously in my notes. So yeah, I agree. Craig musically, it was phenomenal. And then, then again, you're not quite sure we're going to get a spoken word or, and then you get the, you know, the beautiful, the beautiful voice and the beautiful, uh, song. Hmm.Track 4:[42:28] It's it's definitely one of the best ones on the on the record i think i i love the song i'm i'm a big fan as well i i love when he leaves little breadcrumbs in in a what seems to be like an improv rant or a throwaway rant not that any of them are throwaway but you you turn it turns out that it's been a line in his notebook for five years prior and it's got six underlines under it you know like god damn it i'm going to use this line somewhere down the line yeah when it presents i'm going to rhyme catharsis that's right i've got this great lyric i'm gonna use it sometime you know and uh i think that's so cool he's so talented let's just go right now to insomniacs of the world, good night.Track 4:[43:56] Thank you. I can see the line of your reserve, I can contemplate it from here, there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart. I can see us writhing in a phone booth or laid back in the dewy grass of our youth and gathering our sweetnesses and wishing on the never-ending sun.Track 4:[48:05] So, the research that I saw, this was supposed to be the name of the album? Does that jive with what anyone else saw? Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, that's what I heard. And then um again capping it off with you know more of a spoken word and just straight up i can see the line of your brassiere i can contemplate it from here there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart i know um one thing i noticed was um.Track 4:[48:42] What I picture here is, is there's a point where he starts recapping some lyrics from some other songs. I know he brings up the Fenway park again. And what I think this is, is, is recordings of Gord in the middle of the night, grabbing his tape recorder when he's got a melody going through his head. And he's kind of singing because it almost sounds like he trails off. Sometimes he doesn't always have the full melody melody developed. And I think this might be his like audio journal, like little excerpts.Track 4:[49:09] Wow. listen to it again i i swear i'm i'm very quite confident in this that's amazing that and a perfect bookend as well to to star star painters just um bookends the album the spoken word on both sides the sort of um i don't know that's i think it's an organ this time not an accordion but a similar sound and oh and julie uh dwaron is pocketed or is credited with with playing the a pocket trumpet so just a just basically a tiny trumpet shakespeare pops up in in some of the hip works and there's that um if i could sleep there's a chance i could dream which is from hamlet um he changes it a bit because it's perchance and shakespeare right so it's it's interesting yeah right this line yes arguably the most notable line that shakespeare ever wrote and changes it and keeps it the same but just that little word change like what what does that mean what is that all about and more to the point and it's the elephant in the room, is the version from phantom power.Track 4:[50:20] Where do you guys stand on those two versions? Can you enjoy them both? Can they both be your children? Or if I asked you to make a selfish choice, which one would you choose as a preference? I can't answer it because I don't know the one from Phantom Power as well. That's cheating, but okay. But I do remember. It sure is. That means I just don't love one of my children, right? Right. Um, I do remember him screaming the line at live shows and in some performances. I had heard that reference and, and heard a scene that reference for in some. Yeah. My preference is, is this one. I, I, I really like this, this version of it. One thing that I really is so amazing about this song is it lulls you like you're ready to until the crash. Yeah. That's the same thing. Massive cymbal crash. Yes. Oh God, I love it. I love that so much.Track 4:[51:25] And fast forward to the final album that the hit put out, Man Machine Poem, and there's the song Insomnia. Insomnia. Which was supposed to be Insomnia. Yep. And if you read the liner notes in that, Insomnia is scratched out in every line. And I don't know what that means, but interesting.Track 4:[51:44] Well, I think the whole record is interesting. what did you guys think overall is an experience with the record and uh after you tell me that what is your mvp track and you have to pick one this time justin i'm gonna go first i'll make it easy because i think i've already referenced it and and and it it's you know probably unlikely but But Star Painters was my, and again, it's the lyric. It's that line. Like anytime I hear that line, whether I'm walking the dog and I listen to it or if I'm driving and I hear it, you know, the scaffolding. Scaffolding.Track 4:[52:29] The scaffolding is in its place. The Star Painters are taking over now. And then your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way. So for me, it was that line. And I think it's because, again, I wanted to separate and I'm glad that I had the wherewithal to be able to go. I wasn't looking for hip light. I was looking for Gore Downey. And, and you didn't, I, it's me personally. And I think we even mentioned it with, with the book ending with the spoken word, you were going to get Gord Downie and you were in a, not just, you're not just going to get the energy that we know and from the hip, but you know, that he's going to take all these, these amazing musicians that were part of obviously his career.Track 4:[53:20] His musical background that, that, that created the hip and that he's going to give them that opportunity for them to get together. And then just when you hear the story about how they recorded it and where they recorded it and, uh, you know, meshing that together at the same time, he's, he's, he's, he's writing, you know, he's putting out the book along with it. So I'm, I mean, yeah, a little bit of criticisms on some of the recording maybe techniques and could have used a few more mics here and there. But that's just, I guess, the musician in me. But overall, I can understand why it was what I would assume mostly fairly well received. And again, I know there's a lot of hip fans that weren't even going to give it a chance. And then the song that I chose as my MVP kind of pushed him away from the get-go, at least for me. So, yeah, I'm...Track 4:[54:22] I'm glad I found the hip or maybe I should say the hip found me and I'm glad I didn't give up on them. And, uh, you know, the energy and, and the feeling that Gord always gave me when I, uh, had the great chance to see, uh, see the band and see him. And even when I met him, I actually, I wore this shirt on purpose. This is the shirt that I was wearing when I met Gord backstage house of blues Anaheim. It's a harley davidson shirt with big letters hd and the ac are masked with a canadian flag, yeah and this i got this up in vancouver on a trip when i went up there i fancied myself i was going to be a harley rider one of these days and and still don't have a bike um but went through that phase and uh i wore this shirt because i felt like i needed to because i'm you know go see the hip. And, uh, and this is the first thing he said, he just goes, that's a really nice shirt, man.Track 4:[55:23] And he shook my hand and, and, uh, and there was just this gentleness about him. And, uh, you know, I was starstruck and I don't typically get that. I mean, I'm, I'm in a business where I meet people all the time and I'm in LA and Hollywood and, and, and done all that, but this guy is different. And it was a moment where I definitely paused and couldn't put together a whole lot of words. I didn't know that I was necessarily going to meet him. I wore this in honor of that moment and taking this journey with you guys. So I am so excited because I think this was a great start.Track 4:[56:07] Outside, I've heard a little bit of some Secret Path. I absolutely had not heard anything from any of the other albums outside of Coke Machine Glow, and again, a little bit from Secret Path. So I'm just, I'm really jazzed, right? Because I get to dig, you know, we get to dig deeper into this individual that's just, wow, he's pretty special. And you could see, you know, the impact that he's had on so many. So I'm excited about this journey and I'm picking that song and I'm sticking to it. Nice. Craig, how about you?Track 4:[56:45] Well, being one of those hip fans who took a bit of a break around this time, and not that I completely abandoned them, I think for me, I was just at an age where I was just exploring so much music. I was in school for music, so I was being bombarded by classical music and music from all through the ages. And on top of that, I was getting into a lot of more experimental music. And I just started drifting away from not just the hip, but all the bands I had been listening to in the 90s. And, you know, a lot of those bands I did come back to, some I didn't, but I came back to the hip big time, kind of the mid 2000s or, you know, yeah, around 2006, probably. And um and so for me i this is an album i never gave a chance i'd heard you know a couple songs here and there chancellor and vancouver divorce i think but um i'd never listened to the whole thing and wow i'm i'm so grateful for this opportunity to do this it's just i love this album i i put it up there with with you know some of those great hip albums and um my my um mvp track is every irrelevance i again i explained already the vince mcmahon meme um that that was me during this song just i by the end i was just you know spent lying down with the smoke.Track 4:[58:14] Justin uh it's sentimental for me with it's trick rider um because my daughter is six um and And I build bike ramps for her, you know, and, and then tell her don't ride so fast off that bike ramp. I just built you, you know, and, um, don't ask me to explain. Um, and, Yeah, I just, that's, it drives, you know, it really, yeah, I don't know. I love that song for different reasons. I also really love Canada Geese just because it's a sweet rock song. And I know, I just like what I like. I grew up on Yes and listening to 22-minute opuses that were way beyond what a 13-year-old kid should be listening to. So, I get weird stuff and I get out there stuff, but I also just love rock and roll.Track 4:[59:06] And, uh, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good rock and roll song. I, and I'm going to echo you guys that I'm super excited for this platform. Um, because as a kid in the States who had the secret about the hip, you know, my last name is St. Louis. So everybody thought I was Canadian and I was a Montreal Canadians fan. So everybody, you know, they'd pick on me. And then I talk about the tragically hip, which was in the periphery, you know, nobody, nobody listened to it, but they'd at least heard of them. And then be like, Oh, that's who the hell is that? Why are you listening to that? And it's stupid. Well, now I can finally celebrate it and talk about it, you know, and, and I'm Canadian for the next eight weeks. Oh, that's great. Eh? Yeah.Track 4:[59:49] Well, this has been a great deal of fun.Track 4:[59:55] This Saturday afternoon. You'll be listening to this on a Monday, of course. If you have anything you want to shout out to us, please send us an email. We would love to hear from you. The email is discoveringdowney at gmail.com. That's discoveringdowney at gmail.com. You can also find a link on our website, discoveringdowney.com, and there's a link to email us right from there, which makes it easy peasy. So it's been a blast doing this with you guys this week. I'm really looking forward to where we go and learning more. I am a somebody who has listened to all the records, and I've listened to them on a number of occasions, but I have a very poor short-term memory, and it's tough to recall them sometimes. Times so it's been really fun going through this and listening the shit out of this record and then getting to talk about it with somebody it's like a book club so i had a lot of fun and if you like what you heard send us an email discovering downy at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you, and on behalf of kirk craig and justin pick up your shit.Track 1:[1:01:13] Thanks for listening to Discovering Downey. To find out more about the show and its host, visit DiscoveringDowney.com. You can email us at DiscoveringDowney at gmail.com. And hey, we're social.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gettinghiptothehip/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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?Transcript: Track 1:[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.Track 2:[1:19] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downey.Track 3:[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.Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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...Track 4:[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.Track 4:[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 that trim. Gord had the big beard at the time. He had the almost like pajamas on. And when the pajama top came off, he had the Save the Human shirt on, which I actually saw in one of the videos for this album. So he brought the shirt back out for Coke Machine Glow. And the timing of that wouldn't have been too far removed from the Killer Whale time. Probably not, yeah. I don't remember him doing that. But again, I was young and it was craziness. It was it was a fun fun time see the bull moose checking out another drac, like sorry that was the highlight i made from from a lyrical standpoint and then you know from a musical standpoint and i think i also read about this um it's pretty prevalent where they're strumming the piano strings and they brought a mic and recorded it and just love that love that like what's that and uh they decide to bring bring bring in the bring in the mic and record the track so on to lofty pines all right let's go to lofty pines where paul langlois shows up and makes uh an appearance one of two appearances.Track 4:[5:59] On this record to provide his sublime backing vocals god damn is this guy good.Track 4:[10:46] I think it was a week or so ago, I took a trip up north. I think you guys know about. And I was driving back and it was, it was raining and which we don't get a lot of rain. We don't get a lot of anything in California other than the sun. So, you know, when it's raining out, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember listening as I was driving and buddy I was with was, you know, was, I think he was taking a nap or working on something. And I remember going, the mood, you know, my mood was, okay, I got a long drive. And, uh, there was kind of like a monotonous monotony that had been coming from song after song after song, because this is typically slower than that hip stuff, um, that, that I was used to. Um and and i know that they made a conscious effort or at least gordon made a conscious effort to keep the hip away from this right like i read as well like they didn't they didn't want to record anywhere that the hip had recorded they didn't want to use any of the gear but then paul who's right his that's his long longest friend or buddy for sure yeah yeah and then he comes in and and And he's on another tune as well, I believe, on this album.Track 4:[12:06] But you hear that, and for me, driving, I was just, I got that like, okay, thank you. Thank you for giving me a little just reconnection. I know this is Gord, but I also know that Gord is that kind of heartbeat and pulse and provides the lyrics to. And I liked having that friend along, me personally. Um and uh and i couldn't you know i couldn't get the you know twin peaks type lofty pine uh connection correlation uh going there not not that i was you know fully into the twin peaks world or whatnot but yeah so uh that's what i had for my some of my notes the the lines that are in french i was hoping for something revealing and it's literally just i was born for the heat we can't, I was hoping one of you guys would research that. I was too lazy. They, my only note for this song. Yeah. If you could see my notebooks, just better call Paul. Cause he's, um, he just is so effortless. I just picture Gord being in the studio. Like, ah, yeah, I can't quite get the sound I'm going for here. And.Track 4:[13:16] Calls up Paul and he just comes in and, you know, smoke hanging out of his mouth. He just rips off one take and that's how I, it's just so effortless. You can just tell by the, you know, he's just sang with Gord for so long, sung, sang with Gord for so long that he, he just knows what to do. I guarantee it was one take and he was done. Yeah. Again, it gave me that, uh, just, uh, the combination is something that, that, That definitely fills you up.Track 4:[13:42] When I was doing the research as well on the French part, the first thing that came up was, I want to say a province in Quebec, but it was like a lake chalet.Track 4:[13:53] So that's where I was going at first and then obviously did a little deeper and found out. No, not quite, but thought we were referencing something there at one point. Well, I mean, that could be. There's a lot of lofty pines in Quebec and a lot of lakes. So you never know. The Lofty Pine Hotel was in cottage country in Ontario until I don't even know when. Like, not that, like, pretty recently. So, to me, I hear this song and...Track 4:[14:26] It's like one of those, it sounds sticky. It sounds muggy. It's like one of those August nights in the city where, you know, it's extra hot because air conditioners are spitting out hot heat. Like the city's just got this almost dense air that you're walking through. The cool side of your pillow is sweating, you know? That's the kind of heat.Track 4:[14:50] And they're just daydreaming about getting up to the cottage. Just getting the fuck out of dodge and going to the cottage dreaming of those lofty pines i don't know that's that's sort of what i get from it so just a real quick note building on what you just said about it's so freaking hot and the spectacular part in the lyrics and there's a matchbook or whatever that falls like we needed something hotter right yes you know and here's matches you know i didn't get that but yeah totally what do you believe he's referring to in the uh i give the editor my pitch a series on the cultural wealth uh about the era of catalogs and lists i just think he's good at creating protagonists uh i think it's like a protagonist of this song um like but i but i guess i'm very literal yeah don't don't make me say hitler again no i don't i think this is i don't know literal more literal you know but he's proven to not do that so often that it seems like not likely but that's how like he's answering a question that we haven't asked you know let's go to the next track which is boy bruised by butterfly shake I really didn't have anything to say about the song for a while.Track 4:[16:14] And then I listened to it, um, actually just today. And it kind of came to me that this is.Track 4:[16:21] Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness or life and death somewhere in the middle um you know he he references someone was crying i as i lay in the dirt i could hear their hearts breaking but i wasn't even hurt so that's kind of like i'm slipping away and i don't feel anything sort of thing that's just how i interpreted the line i came across um something just by chance glancing through the cd booklet last night um and there's a little article it says bruised by a butterfly chase and it looks like um it's actually photocopied from a newspaper it says four-year-old andrew herrit holds his winnie the pooh blanket at a hospital in halifax the kentville boy survived a 20 meter fall from a cliff at blommadon provincial park while chasing butterflies during a family outing so it could be very literally about a boy down down down falling yeah exactly yeah it made so much sense when i read that so yeah there's an extra song and i didn't get to listen to it yet but is it this it's it is down down down yeah it's the same lyrics yeah yeah and i guess that makes sense the grass felt so good and there's they're talking about he didn't have shoes so that makes sense that it's a four-year-old um the day was so blue i must have tripped i don't know do i remember falling away nothing that i hold on to and not being afraid so that's when you're that young you probably don't have much.Track 4:[17:46] Memory of it as an adult and especially i would assume there's some trauma there and justin though i i.Track 4:[17:53] Mean just your your first explanation that that in between um before we.Track 4:[18:00] Heard the story like you took me there and i think musically it does as well like my notes are the guitar like you know guitar is prevalent in some of these other songs but you don't hear.Track 4:[18:12] Guitar lines and guitar melodies as much and there's some very clear guitar work going on here both acoustic and electric which you also don't really get a lot of in in these songs or you know the song is almost poppy yeah it's super radio absolutely and i thought it could be a hip song yeah yeah you know those and i guess obviously see that could be true to anything, but change up some of the instrumentation, change up some of the tempo and, and, uh, yeah, yeah, you're definitely in hip territory. Definitely hip territory. Let's go to mystery, a sonic soundscape. Yeah. And, and it really is, it starts off in, in that sonic soundscape world and then goes to the spoken word. Sorry, a bit of humor. You know, one of my favorite flicks is, so I married an ax murderer and turn off the base. It's your rollers. The soccer game is on somewhere.Track 4:[19:13] There's a soccer game. and uh being being you know the background with that i i at a loss in the sense of that that journey that gourd's going through and and doing some research and finding you know with with the book of poetry that came out uh that he was you know it was not received from the poetry world as it were um and yeah it was yeah they they it was not received from a it's like oh this is just you know and they made the joke of oh yeah what what are you going to do give bob dylan a a pulitzer or uh you know uh it it's just it's that being someone that's written songs before and and And I can't say that I've written poetry, but it's very much frowned upon to have, you know, they said, you know, Jim Morrison killed that. So why is anybody else doing it? And so then the counter argument goes.Track 4:[20:17] Well, yeah, it sells well because of who Gord is and what he does and how he moves people. And then what came afterwards was, yeah, in the libraries and in the bookstores, there was a lot more people in the poetry section than had ever been there before. So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to be completely inclusive or exclusive? And does the inclusivity then start damaging the art? I'm of the belief and the ilk that you need people to dive into both lyrics, dive into poetry, dive into the spoken word side. So, yeah, sorry, I digress. And this is just coming off the song Poets on Phantom Power, which in live shows, he's sort of, don't tell me what the poets are doing. I don't want to know. I don't care about the poets. Or it could be perceived that way, whether he meant that or not.Track 4:[21:21] I know from a musical standpoint, this song gave me vibes of, of the rain song by Led Zeppelin. And I know it sounds nothing like it, but if you listen, and it took me a while to figure out what it was, but if you listen to the bass notes, he's playing really high in the register and it just gives that cascading feel of, of the rain song. And, um, yeah. And, and near the end too, he's playing up the neck on the bass and it's just some really nice playing. Yeah, I have avant-garde. I would imagine that the Dinner is Ruined gang had a heavy influence on this. Yeah, and this is the other Adam McGaughan track as well. So that guitar you hear, the little classical guitar, that's McGaughan. Ah, cool. Sorry, help me understand, not being as familiar outside of in the research, does he hold a special place in a Canadian heart?Track 4:[22:14] Um adam mcgoyne he was a filmmaker i i can't say i'm an expert on him but he's um he had a movie called the sweet hereafter which was very well received i believe it won awards and actually i believe uh didn't sarah harmer sing i think a version of courage on the soundtrack sarah polly sarah polly right right yes yeah well i'll have to do a little more research and check some of that that out justin were you familiar at all only from reading the never-ending present book had i had i heard the name no anything else on mystery uh only that the the phantom power outtake version is so drastically different and also equally amazing it is so yes the one on phantom power is so dark and so so moody and i have here a note that it's almost like a more depressing version of landslide by fleetwood mac it's just haunting oh yeah yeah yes like i mean they're wildly different but so funny they share the same dna ultimately what's i think what's funny is that the version that's on the phantom power re-release would have been recorded two years before this so this is reimagining this is part two yeah it makes you wonder is it just that he really loved the words and he you know the track got cut for whatever reason just didn't fit in maybe with the album and he it was something he really wanted to put out there and And, you know, I'm glad he did. I love both versions.Track 4:[23:43] Okay, next up, we get a song of 3-4. It's got a country-ish little tinge to it.Track 4:[23:50] And that's Elaborate. Elaborate.Track 4:[29:10] I imagine cowboys after having driven cattle across the plains, just sitting around a fire, drinking a beer, you know, and somebody's got a guitar and then somebody works out a mandolin three minutes into the song, you know, but it's about, it's about death. It's about somebody's sick, somebody's dying, has cancer. And in the poem version in the book, the title also has a parenthetical Toronto No. 2, which Music at Work has the song Toronto No. 4, which is about Gord's grandmother dying. So there's a common thread there. I don't know. It is very much a end of the day.Track 4:[29:51] Things are happening and they may not be coming to us. Yeah, I have a tough time hearing this, knowing what we know about what happened to Gord. Like, I can't help but hear it through that filter, and it makes it difficult to listen to for me. Yeah, I had the same thing, JD. It felt to me like a song that was meant to have a little bit of, I don't want to say humor, but a bit of lightheartedness to it in a way. But then knowing what we know... What happened with Gord, it definitely changes the way you hear it. Interestingly, my head went to Now for Plan A instead of Gord's own diagnosis. And also, I'm not sure if you guys heard this at all, but again, I'm less of a lyric guy, more of a music guy. The mandolin solo comes in, a little mandolin melody, and it reminds me so much of Neil Diamond's Play Me. And I swear, if you listen to it, you'll know what I mean. It's so funny. It doesn't quite go in the same place, but it's very close. Yeah. Great tune. And at the end, they're kind of going on for a while. And then Gord kind of clears his throat, like as if to say, come on, wrap it up, boys. I have that in my notes. So JD, if we're going on too long, just clear your throat and we'll know it's time to wrap up. No, not at all.Track 4:[31:11] One thing that I picked up on, which is a timestamp on this album, is Gord mentions cell phone. And a lot of bands in the late 90s, early 2000s for just like a three or four year period mentioned cell phones because that's when they came out. We didn't have cell phones before 98, 99. And if we did, they were in a bag that weighed 30 pounds. So I thought it was interesting that cell phone was topical for their 2000s. It's a country song. You said it. It's a country tune. That's my first note is country tune. And then you hear the guitar tremolo, that ringing, that just doing single notes and it's just ringing. And then the mandolin. But yeah, you're talking about modern topics on a cowboy song, on a country tune. There's also a great live version of this I found. It's the black and white. It's like a full concert that someone's put on YouTube. There's this pretty epic Gord rant on it. And he's talking about stem cell research and the Pope. And it's worth a watch for sure.Track 4:[32:18] And he actually, and he dedicates the song to Dave Bedini, which I found interesting from Reostatics. He's still alive. So I don't, I don't know why he just says, you know, the songs for, for Dave. I wonder if he went through a battle with a family member. Yeah. Possibly maybe, maybe a mutual acquaintance or yeah. Who knows? The beauty of the beauty of where, where we're being taken on this, this particular album is, is pretty incredible yeah and then you go into frigging a polka right with you're possessed.Track 4:[32:52] Yeah yeah i did not expect that coming i'm just like you're hearing all these songs that are very kind of melancholy yeah you know outside of canada geese that that that has a little bit of drive to it yeah you're another two man yeah and then now for two but if you guys know um have you.Track 4:[33:11] You guys seen spinal tap i'm guessing oh of course okay so my mind went right to you know yeah yeah the the nigel and david uh st hubbins their first song the you know the dune duga dune dune dune walking down the railroad track to get dune dune dune dune wait for my babe to bring me back um that's where my mind went but um funnily enough my my daughter picked this song out uh we were in the car listening to the cd and she wanted to pick a song so she went through the the track listing and she picked you're possessed because uh her favorite hip song is you're not the ocean this is my 11 year old daughter and so she loved the spelling of of year and uh she put this song on and her reading of it like the i told her what what i was thinking and she said this sounds to me like emmett otter, and i'm not sure if there's a ref i can see kirk knows what i'm talking about so here's a quick Oh my gosh. We could just be finished right now.Track 4:[34:09] I grew up in a small town called Peachland in the Okanagan in BC. A small town. We had maybe, I don't know, a couple thousand people when I lived there. And we had two channels. We had channel four, CBC, and channel nine, CTV. And there was no cable company in town. But on the outskirts of town was a large satellite dish, like a huge satellite dish that someone put there and uh and so the whole town got free hbo for years like pirated stolen hbo i'm talking like five six seven years and uh let's go every you know three months you'd come home turn on hbo and it'd be scrambled and so that it would be all down for a couple days until they repositioned the satellite and so every christmas time and you know this is early 80s Emma Daughter's Jug Band Christmas would come on HBO.Track 4:[34:59] And to me, I just thought this was a thing that everyone knew. And as I got older and I found a DVD copy in a bargain bin at Zeller's or something, I started talking about this show to people and no one...Track 4:[35:14] Except for the people i know from peachland know this show and it is it's a jim henson production from about 1977 it's and it's like it's a cult classic it's just paul williams yeah, and to me yeah that's what my daughter said and i was like yeah that's that's it this is this is a jug band you know with a tuba instead of a jug t-shirts i have stickers i um am on the verge of learning river bottom nightmare band to cover with our band um right christmas does not happen in the Lane household. I'm the same way. Emmett Otter's plays. We have, you know, obviously the DVD copy. And in fact, it's a running joke. Sorry, JD and Justin, if you haven't seen it, but like anything that's $50, Craig, $50, that's a lot of money. So my whole family, anything that's 50 bucks, the first response is $50. Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, anytime we have mashed potatoes, just mashed potatoes i love mashed potatoes hey yeah man how are you doing catching anything good today sorry guys so jd and justin you haven't seen that christmas your life will will begin begin to exist afterwards so let's let's change the focus for episode two please the music is so good and it's this christmas story doesn't once mention you know religion jesus it doesn't once Once mentioned Santa.Track 4:[36:44] And it's the best Christmas show you'll ever see. It's so sweet. Huh. The music. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing. It tears me up every time. And I love that connection that your daughter has to this song, Craig. I mean, that's, I really did start welling up. Not only finding someone that loves him and Otter, but that she made that connection. Yeah, it's really cool. That's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. And of course, Paul's back singing the backups here. And I have to ask, have you guys been to Boston? They mentioned Lansdowne Street, Fenway Park. I'm guessing Lansdowne is. So that's where Fenway Park is. And that's my only note on this song was just after that, he says, no one's going to hurt me like you did. Well, he's talking about the Red Sox. He's totally talking about Bill Buckner missing the catch or the grounder in 1986 to throw it away. Maybe, or I watched a live version of this as well. And he tells a story and I don't remember all the details, but he tells a story about a fight with his brother, Patrick. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure if it could be, you know, a brotherly story. Well, and Patrick was the sound guy for the garden where the Bruins play and the Celtics play.Track 4:[37:57] Um, and of course the, um, Harry Sinden, the Bruins coach was the godfather. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. yeah sure he wore the sweater in um courage in the video for wow yeah this is a great great tune i mean just in all of it you know you've got the spoken word stuff you've got uh some of the melancholy stuff and and and then boom you know you get this boom boom and and the solos uh.Track 4:[38:28] Yeah we're at a pool party in 1946 and uh and also quick canadian tie-in um another i know j uh jd you know the other canadian classic with a tuba can you you know what i'm talking about i don't off the top we talked about this spirit of the west and if venice is sinking oh my god like tuba part yeah yeah so the only two songs i can think of featuring a tuba i'm sure there are others but it last i checked there weren't that many bands featuring a tuba not enough every irrelevance i spoke a lot already on this last one but i can i just share my experience with this one because so i'm doing doing dishes i'm often listening to um music or podcasts when i'm doing dishes and and uh i'm listening to this song and i'm just getting into it's just this beautiful like instrumental sounding song. I love the tremolo guitar.Track 4:[39:22] And I was just thinking, okay, this is probably, maybe there's no words on here. And I was really digging it and thinking, okay, I like this. I like this choice of an instrumental near the end of the album. And then all of a sudden Gord starts singing and just this beautiful melody. And then the snare comes in halfway through the verse and I'm just like elevating. I'm just like my mood. And what I thought of later when I was thinking of how to explain this was the Vince McMahon meme, you know, the levels of Vince McMahon's like elation. And so I'm like- Which doesn't play so well now.Track 4:[40:01] And level one, that's the instrumental. Level two, Vince is the singing. And then all of a sudden he hits me with, catharsis my arses is capable of more flesh and i'm like oh it's the line from from the from the live album and you know um and then i'm just like loving this song and all of a sudden the there's the piano and so i'm all of a sudden on fourth level vince and just when i think i can't love the song anymore that trumpet comes in at the end and it is so tasty just the the muted trumpet tasteful perfect like the both the piano and the trumpet play just enough they don't overplay and i just love this song who did the horns it wasn't this from another can't think of his name though is it andy mays i'd have to look at that i i don't that sounds familiar yeah yeah well i'm pretty sure that's who he's talking about an emperor penguin as well right like the first two lines yeah yeah tony or trump that was my other thought yeah i like the tony yeah there's There's another line that I can't remember which live show it's in. It might even be from the live between this album, but it's leading into a head by a century. He talks about adolescence in essence is all about trust. And that, that line pops up in here.Track 4:[41:20] Um, I don't think he mentions adolescence in this song, but yeah, I'm looking at the credit. So does Andy Mays, is it? That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job, JD. And one thing, um, did you guys notice in the, uh, in the credits to this album it's very specific it mentions the type of guitar being played by each member the type you know the types of drums and um and it very clearly says that gourd was playing on a gut string guitar which is you know the old old style string made of you know, animal guts basically yeah and it just gives a way different um you know timbre.Track 4:[41:57] I like the echo on the snare on this particular and, and it sounded like a standup bass. I'm not sure if it was a standup bass. It was just the way the notes were played. Um, but you know, I, I have a jazz reference obviously in my notes. So yeah, I agree. Craig musically, it was phenomenal. And then, then again, you're not quite sure we're going to get a spoken word or, and then you get the, you know, the beautiful, the beautiful voice and the beautiful, uh, song. Hmm.Track 4:[42:28] It's it's definitely one of the best ones on the on the record i think i i love the song i'm i'm a big fan as well i i love when he leaves little breadcrumbs in in a what seems to be like an improv rant or a throwaway rant not that any of them are throwaway but you you turn it turns out that it's been a line in his notebook for five years prior and it's got six underlines under it you know like god damn it i'm going to use this line somewhere down the line yeah when it presents i'm going to rhyme catharsis that's right i've got this great lyric i'm gonna use it sometime you know and uh i think that's so cool he's so talented let's just go right now to insomniacs of the world, good night.Track 4:[43:56] Thank you. I can see the line of your reserve, I can contemplate it from here, there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart. I can see us writhing in a phone booth or laid back in the dewy grass of our youth and gathering our sweetnesses and wishing on the never-ending sun.Track 4:[48:05] So, the research that I saw, this was supposed to be the name of the album? Does that jive with what anyone else saw? Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, that's what I heard. And then um again capping it off with you know more of a spoken word and just straight up i can see the line of your brassiere i can contemplate it from here there's no need for breathlessness when we're so far apart i know um one thing i noticed was um.Track 4:[48:42] What I picture here is, is there's a point where he starts recapping some lyrics from some other songs. I know he brings up the Fenway park again. And what I think this is, is, is recordings of Gord in the middle of the night, grabbing his tape recorder when he's got a melody going through his head. And he's kind of singing because it almost sounds like he trails off. Sometimes he doesn't always have the full melody melody developed. And I think this might be his like audio journal, like little excerpts.Track 4:[49:09] Wow. listen to it again i i swear i'm i'm very quite confident in this that's amazing that and a perfect bookend as well to to star star painters just um bookends the album the spoken word on both sides the sort of um i don't know that's i think it's an organ this time not an accordion but a similar sound and oh and julie uh dwaron is pocketed or is credited with with playing the a pocket trumpet so just a just basically a tiny trumpet shakespeare pops up in in some of the hip works and there's that um if i could sleep there's a chance i could dream which is from hamlet um he changes it a bit because it's perchance and shakespeare right so it's it's interesting yeah right this line yes arguably the most notable line that shakespeare ever wrote and changes it and keeps it the same but just that little word change like what what does that mean what is that all about and more to the point and it's the elephant in the room, is the version from phantom power.Track 4:[50:20] Where do you guys stand on those two versions? Can you enjoy them both? Can they both be your children? Or if I asked you to make a selfish choice, which one would you choose as a preference? I can't answer it because I don't know the one from Phantom Power as well. That's cheating, but okay. But I do remember. It sure is. That means I just don't love one of my children, right? Right. Um, I do remember him screaming the line at live shows and in some performances. I had heard that reference and, and heard a scene that reference for in some. Yeah. My preference is, is this one. I, I, I really like this, this version of it. One thing that I really is so amazing about this song is it lulls you like you're ready to until the crash. Yeah. That's the same thing. Massive cymbal crash. Yes. Oh God, I love it. I love that so much.Track 4:[51:25] And fast forward to the final album that the hit put out, Man Machine Poem, and there's the song Insomnia. Insomnia. Which was supposed to be Insomnia. Yep. And if you read the liner notes in that, Insomnia is scratched out in every line. And I don't know what that means, but interesting.Track 4:[51:44] Well, I think the whole record is interesting. what did you guys think overall is an experience with the record and uh after you tell me that what is your mvp track and you have to pick one this time justin i'm gonna go first i'll make it easy because i think i've already referenced it and and and it it's you know probably unlikely but But Star Painters was my, and again, it's the lyric. It's that line. Like anytime I hear that line, whether I'm walking the dog and I listen to it or if I'm driving and I hear it, you know, the scaffolding. Scaffolding.Track 4:[52:29] The scaffolding is in its place. The Star Painters are taking over now. And then your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way. So for me, it was that line. And I think it's because, again, I wanted to separate and I'm glad that I had the wherewithal to be able to go. I wasn't looking for hip light. I was looking for Gore Downey. And, and you didn't, I, it's me personally. And I think we even mentioned it with, with the book ending with the spoken word, you were going to get Gord Downie and you were in a, not just, you're not just going to get the energy that we know and from the hip, but you know, that he's going to take all these, these amazing musicians that were part of obviously his career.Track 4:[53:20] His musical background that, that, that created the hip and that he's going to give them that opportunity for them to get together. And then just when you hear the story about how they recorded it and where they recorded it and, uh, you know, meshing that together at the same time, he's, he's, he's, he's writing, you know, he's putting out the book along with it. So I'm, I mean, yeah, a little bit of criticisms on some of the recording maybe techniques and could have used a few more mics here and there. But that's just, I guess, the musician in me. But overall, I can understand why it was what I would assume mostly fairly well received. And again, I know there's a lot of hip fans that weren't even going to give it a chance. And then the song that I chose as my MVP kind of pushed him away from the get-go, at least for me. So, yeah, I'm...Track 4:[54:22] I'm glad I found the hip or maybe I should say the hip found me and I'm glad I didn't give up on them. And, uh, you know, the energy and, and the feeling that Gord always gave me when I, uh, had the great chance to see, uh, see the band and see him. And even when I met him, I actually, I wore this shirt on purpose. This is the shirt that I was wearing when I met Gord backstage house of blues Anaheim. It's a harley davidson shirt with big letters hd and the ac are masked with a canadian flag, yeah and this i got this up in vancouver on a trip when i went up there i fancied myself i was going to be a harley rider one of these days and and still don't have a bike um but went through that phase and uh i wore this shirt because i felt like i needed to because i'm you know go see the hip. And, uh, and this is the first thing he said, he just goes, that's a really nice shirt, man.Track 4:[55:23] And he shook my hand and, and, uh, and there was just this gentleness about him. And, uh, you know, I was starstruck and I don't typically get that. I mean, I'm, I'm in a business where I meet people all the time and I'm in LA and Hollywood and, and, and done all that, but this guy is different. And it was a moment where I definitely paused and couldn't put together a whole lot of words. I didn't know that I was necessarily going to meet him. I wore this in honor of that moment and taking this journey with you guys. So I am so excited because I think this was a great start.Track 4:[56:07] Outside, I've heard a little bit of some Secret Path. I absolutely had not heard anything from any of the other albums outside of Coke Machine Glow, and again, a little bit from Secret Path. So I'm just, I'm really jazzed, right? Because I get to dig, you know, we get to dig deeper into this individual that's just, wow, he's pretty special. And you could see, you know, the impact that he's had on so many. So I'm excited about this journey and I'm picking that song and I'm sticking to it. Nice. Craig, how about you?Track 4:[56:45] Well, being one of those hip fans who took a bit of a break around this time, and not that I completely abandoned them, I think for me, I was just at an age where I was just exploring so much music. I was in school for music, so I was being bombarded by classical music and music from all through the ages. And on top of that, I was getting into a lot of more experimental music. And I just started drifting away from not just the hip, but all the bands I had been listening to in the 90s. And, you know, a lot of those bands I did come back to, some I didn't, but I came back to the hip big time, kind of the mid 2000s or, you know, yeah, around 2006, probably. And um and so for me i this is an album i never gave a chance i'd heard you know a couple songs here and there chancellor and vancouver divorce i think but um i'd never listened to the whole thing and wow i'm i'm so grateful for this opportunity to do this it's just i love this album i i put it up there with with you know some of those great hip albums and um my my um mvp track is every irrelevance i again i explained already the vince mcmahon meme um that that was me during this song just i by the end i was just you know spent lying down with the smoke.Track 4:[58:14] Justin uh it's sentimental for me with it's trick rider um because my daughter is six um and And I build bike ramps for her, you know, and, and then tell her don't ride so fast off that bike ramp. I just built you, you know, and, um, don't ask me to explain. Um, and, Yeah, I just, that's, it drives, you know, it really, yeah, I don't know. I love that song for different reasons. I also really love Canada Geese just because it's a sweet rock song. And I know, I just like what I like. I grew up on Yes and listening to 22-minute opuses that were way beyond what a 13-year-old kid should be listening to. So, I get weird stuff and I get out there stuff, but I also just love rock and roll.Track 4:[59:06] And, uh, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good rock and roll song. I, and I'm going to echo you guys that I'm super excited for this platform. Um, because as a kid in the States who had the secret about the hip, you know, my last name is St. Louis. So everybody thought I was Canadian and I was a Montreal Canadians fan. So everybody, you know, they'd pick on me. And then I talk about the tragically hip, which was in the periphery, you know, nobody, nobody listened to it, but they'd at least heard of them. And then be like, Oh, that's who the hell is that? Why are you listening to that? And it's stupid. Well, now I can finally celebrate it and talk about it, you know, and, and I'm Canadian for the next eight weeks. Oh, that's great. Eh? Yeah.Track 4:[59:49] Well, this has been a great deal of fun.Track 4:[59:55] This Saturday afternoon. You'll be listening to this on a Monday, of course. If you have anything you want to shout out to us, please send us an email. We would love to hear from you. The email is discoveringdowney at gmail.com. That's discoveringdowney at gmail.com. You can also find a link on our website, discoveringdowney.com, and there's a link to email us right from there, which makes it easy peasy. So it's been a blast doing this with you guys this week. I'm really looking forward to where we go and learning more. I am a somebody who has listened to all the records, and I've listened to them on a number of occasions, but I have a very poor short-term memory, and it's tough to recall them sometimes. Times so it's been really fun going through this and listening the shit out of this record and then getting to talk about it with somebody it's like a book club so i had a lot of fun and if you like what you heard send us an email discovering downy at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you, and on behalf of kirk craig and justin pick up your shit.Track 1:[1:01:13] Thanks for listening to Discovering Downey. To find out more about the show and its host, visit DiscoveringDowney.com. You can email us at DiscoveringDowney at gmail.com. And hey, we're social.

Host Chris Jennings is joined by Kelley Powers and Brook Richard with Higdon Outdoors, MOMarsh, and Power Calls to discuss calling whitefronts. Richard grew up hunting and guiding “specklebellies” in south Louisiana and has followed them north as their main wintering landscapes have shifted. He has called in competitions and is eager to teach others. Richard breaks down the basics of calling these fantastic geese and even walks through step-by-step scenarios of when, why, and how to put whitefronts in the decoys. www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Beginning in spring 2025, for the first time in over 25 years, light geese wintering in Texas will find it a quieter and more welcoming place. That is because in April 2024, Texas became the first state to officially end their use of the Federally allowed Light Goose Conservation Order. On this episode, Kevin Kraai, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) waterfowl program manager, joins Chris Jennings and Dr. Mike Brasher to discuss this recent decision and explain the reasoning behind it. Join us for part 1 of this fascinating and intricate story about how the complex interplay of numerous factors are driving changes in Texas waterfowling, why TPWD believes the Conservation Order is no longer needed, and what they hope to achieve by ending it in their state.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Spring is a time for waterfowl nesting, and it's also a time when our feathered friends venture into our neighborhoods and back yards looking for a safe place to lay eggs and raise their brood. On this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher and guest host Dr. Jerad Henson are joined by Tim Jasinski of the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center to share expert advice on how to deal with these annual visitors. As a wildlife rehab specialist, Tim is always eager to provide guidance and insight on the curious ways of waterfowl and other wildlife that make unexpected and sometimes unwelcome entrances into our world. Covering everything from injured birds to aggressive geese, hen mallards in flower pots, and duckling in swimming pools, there aren't many things Tim hasn't experienced. Join us as we learn from the expert and hear a few fascinating stories in the process. And the question we all need answered… Should I feed bread to park ducks??www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Welcome to the podcast for alpaca people!Alpacas are such a delight to have in your life. I look at them and smile - and sometimes laugh. And then notice their eyes that look back. Hidden depths. I don't think I expected to be caught as much as I have been.Spring advances and the alpacas are happy to have the larger birds - Canada Geese and Pheasants around in their midst, literally. More grass is welcome and sun for sun-bathing and encourages dust-bathing too! Make room for a half-hour holiday with your alpacas.Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoyed it.If you would like to be in touch, please contact me by email - steve@alpacatribe.com - or leave me a voicemail from your browser.Alpaca Tribe is hosted and produced by Steve Heatherington of Good Podcasting Works, which is part of The Waterside (Swansea) Ltd

In this episode, we tour the makings of an Alipie Garden atop massive boulders in Sparta, NJ. You'll enjoy the lineup of highly deer-resistant perennials, creating movement cascading down the boulders. We wrap up with a lineup of spring flowering bulbs, one with a skunk smell, leading to a lesson of acceptance of Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese as many call them. I hope you enjoy the story. Related Stories and Helpful Links:   Planning an Alpine Garden Winter Flowers and Folklore – blog postEp 98. Winter Flowers and Folklore Etiquette of Pilfering Rocks – blog postEp 97. Etiquette of Pilfering Rocks 8888 I'd love to hear your garden and nature stories and your thoughts about topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com. Thanks so much for tuning in. You can Follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook and Instagram #MaryElaineStone.Episode web page —Garden Dilemmas Podcast Page Thank you for sharing the Garden of Life,Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer                                        AskMaryStone.comMore about the Podcast and Column: Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries. It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about. Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.comDirect Link to Podcast Page

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.comThe conclusion to the five-part Lower Columbia River soundwalk series brings us back to the Washington shoreline, three miles upriver from where we last visited, at a place called Frenchman's Bar. Though it takes an hour by car to drive from Willow Bar to Frenchman's Bar, they are literally just around the corner from each other on the water. And of course, this is how the birds experience it. Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, Canada Geese and others often overnight on Sauvie's Island and forage by day across the river in The Vancouver Lowlands. There are plenty of opportunities to capture fly-bys and fly-overs in field recordings here, but there is also plenty of competition in the soundscape from industrial sources. In addition to the planes, trains, and autos, you'll often hear hulking cargo ships chugging by. If you listen closely you'll hear a crew pounding on the hull of one such ship in the distance, close to the end of our soundwalk. I left it in, half because it was an interesting sound, and half because there's only so much noise one can get rid of without messing it up. Incidentally, I also left in the subtle sound of me setting up a stationary recording rig. I'll share that field recording next week on Soundscape, the companion podcast to Soundwalk, all linked up with this Substack newsletter. I visualize it like an H2O atom! And maybe now is a good time to catch you up, since I don't send emails as often as I'm posting. Recently I shared A Brief History of Soundwalks, taking a look at a couple examples of soundwalks, new and old, and arriving at a tentative answer to the question what is a soundwalk? (In the words of Christopher Robin, "It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear and not bothering.”) Also, I shared a soundwalk through the Black Artists of Oregon Exhibit at Portland Art Museum and field recordings of the charming American Dipper at Wildwood and some Trumpeter Swans and allies at Ridgefield NWR. Subscribers enjoy 5 min excerpts while premium subscribers get the complete recordings (10-90 min). Available in your podcast app and here.For the Frenchman's Bar Soundwalk score I used a lot of the same voices that we've been hearing in this batch. In particular, I try to follow the swells of sound from the abundant geese and cranes with synth pads and vibrating drones. This time I swap out the electric pianos for the intimacy and warmth of an acoustic piano and celeste. It's both quiet and loud; a dynamic outing!Frenchman's Bar was named by Donald and David Scherruble who grew up in the area, heirs to the 120 acre farm that would become Frenchman's Bar Park in the late 1990's. The Scherrubles listened to their colorful "Old Frenchman" neighbor speak of his adventures when they were kids on the farm. Don Hamilton penned this story with an ear for the brothers' lively storytelling for The Oregonian September 9, 1985:Frenchman's Bar really has a French connection. That connection is the late Paul Haury, a Frenchman who once deserted a doomed ship,Well before the turn of the century Haury, then 15, was an apprentice river pilot in France hoping to make his living on the sea. He signed on as a cabin boy on a wooden saling ship bound for Vancouver, British Columbia, via Cape Horn. It was to pick up a load of lumber and take it to the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii. But the cabin boy who hoped to make his life sailng was treated poorly."He jumped ship, he did," David Scherruble said. "He used to come to the house and tell my mom and dad about how there was this big old hollow cedar tree and he hid in it while the searchers (from the ship) looked for him. They walked right past him, they did, and didn't even see him. That's the story he told."After about three days the searchers gave up the hunt for their cabin boy and set off for Hawaii. In mid-Pacific the ship hit a fierce storm and went down with all hands.For five years Haury's parents in France believed he was dead. By the time he wrote to tell them he hadn't perished, he had made his way north from Vancouver and was working as a commercial fisherman in Alaska.In 1915 Haury bought five or six acres along the Columbia and moved to the Vancouver area…Interestingly, Haury, who died in 1937 while in his 70s, never saw the stretch of beach named for him. The bar was created by dredge spoils when the Columbia River channel was deepened by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1940s.It might also be worth mentioning that Frenchman's Bar is about a mile upriver from Tena Bar, which in 1980 provided a break in the infamous D.B. Cooper skyjacking mystery. A kid found $5800 in bundles of decomposing cash in the sand. Serial numbers on the bills matched those in the $200,000 ransom. (Funny how that seems like not so much today.) How did these bundles end up buried in the sand at Tena Bar? The FBI put a lot of energy into trying to answer that question but apparently few definitive conclusions could be drawn. There is absolutely no shortage of conjecture online. In 2020, a scientist ruled out quite a few timeline scenarios by testing the bills for diatoms. “Because the bills only had one season of diatoms on them, and did not have diatoms that bloom in the winter, Kaye theorizes that the money came out of the water and landed on the bank of Tena Bar after only a few weeks or months.”Today the Tena Bar area, bound by a sand and gravel company, has No Trespassing signs posted every 10 meters. Well, I guess that's about it for this one. Thanks for being here with me.

Is there anything better than mallard ducks and Canada Geese and Baseball, well wiggle ball? Haha, heck no there isn't! Chad and the crew are back in Kansas with Premier Prairie Adventures and this time they brought a heavy hitter with them. One of the best all-around baseball players ever, Will “The Thrill” Clark is in camp to shed light on his career and his passion for chasing ducks and geese! Number 22 is on today's show to help keep Chad humbled and to let him know that his swing really wasn't all that good. Also on the show is Hunter McLemore from Banded Brands, Hunter our guide who works PPA, and the founder of PPA, Randy Young! It's a great cast and a strong conversation! Now let's……Play Ball! Or let's…..Take ‘Em! This episode is brought to you by Benelli Shotguns, Federal Premium Black Cloud, Hi-Viz Sights, Rob Roberts Custom Gunworks, Jack Link's Jerky, Banded Brands, Avery Outdoors, and Greenhead Gear Decoys!

The hoots of the Greater White-fronted Goose inspired a nickname, the “Laughing Goose.”  A little smaller than Canada Geese, these gray-brown birds are named for the band of white around the base of their pinkish-orange bills. Greater White-fronted Geese are strong, athletic fliers. When family groups come in to land at a roost, they employ a slip-sliding or “falling leaf” maneuver to quickly lose altitude—from over a thousand feet above the ground.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why Canada geese are secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Chris Jennings and Dr. Mike Brasher discuss updates from across the world of waterfowl. Reports are emerging of minor avian flu outbreaks across the US. What do you need to know? How have recent weather patterns influenced migration and hunting. What's behind above average duck counts in Missouri and record lows in Louisiana? Get the latest update on duckDNA, and learn about new science on the dogs of Chernobyl. Lastly, we dispel myths about HIP certification and harvest estimation.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Host Chris Jennings is joined by Jay Anglin, WF360 Great Lakes migration editor, and the two discuss current conditions across the Great Lakes Region. Anglin, who keeps a keen eye on the migration in the region went into detail about Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, while touching on other Great Lakes states. Warmer temperatures have the puddle duck migration stalled out, but Anglin has heard of many hunters overcoming this and having success. For more details, download and listen.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

I love New York and here's why! The outdoor lifestyle is insane in upstate NY and the molt migration for Canada Geese is off the hook! On this episode of The Fowl Life Podcast, Chad is joined by the owner of Basswood Lodge, Nick McNamara, and The Midwest host of the Fowl Life podcast, Joel Kleefisch. Everything molt migration is up for discussion and the guys don't miss a beat! From what UP the geese are to the scouting to the crops to the moon phase to the limits to the chicken wings to the celebration of each hunt, it's all here! Enjoy! This episode is brought to you by The Provider Right Wing Sauce, Corning Ford, Benelli Shotguns, Federal Premium Black Cloud, Hi Biz Sights, Mickey Thompson Tires, Cabela's, KERSHAW Knives, and Banded Brands!

It's the time of year that geese migrate south for the winter. Isn't it? So why are there so many geese still hanging around, setting up housekeeping on our parks and golf courses? Did they decide to forgo the long trip north? In the early 1900s, non-migratory geese were brought in by the hundreds to populate wildlife refuges. Now, while many Canada Geese migrate south for the winter, these other geese stay -- and multiply.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

In Keep Canada Weird Jordan and his pal Aaron Airport seek out and explore offbeat Canadian news stories from the past week. Tonight your hosts discuss; a Canada Geese atack 1000 mysterious condoms a drunk woman who WONT STOP TWERKING an honest obituary Series Links Keep Canada Weird Series: https://www.nighttimepodcast.com/keep-canada-weird Send a voice memo: https://www.nighttimepodcast.com/contact Join the Keep Canada Weird Discussion Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/keepcanadaweird Provide feedback and comments on the episode: nighttimepodcast.com/contact Subscribe to the show: premium feed: https://www.patreon.com/Nighttimepodcast apple podcasts: https://applepodcasts.com/nighttime Contact: Website: https://www.nighttimepodcast.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/NightTimePod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NightTimePod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimepod Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/nighttimepodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the DU Podcast, dedicated Arkansas outdoorsman and freelance videographer Austin Brown joins host and DUTV producer John Gordon. Together, they dive into the fascinating world of waterfowl hunting TV, shedding light on the intricate challenges that come with capturing the essence of this beloved outdoor sport on camera.www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Hosts Chris Jennings and Dr. Mike Brasher are joined by Sydnie Wells, host of Barstool Outdoors. Wells explains how she became a part of Barstool, and discusses what her experiences have been hosting the show. Wells, an avid deer hunter also shares some of her best days afield, including hunting with her father, Tim Wells. As a strong advocate for conservation, Wells explains how others can create compelling content to engage with a broad audience from a hunter's perspective.www.ducks.org/DUPodcastwww.barstoolsports.com/shows/85/barstool-outdoors

Aleutian Cackling Geese, which have a slighter build and shorter beak than Canada Geese, build their nests on a chain of islands off the western coast of Alaska. In the 1700s, fur traders introduced foxes to the islands, nearly wiping out the geese. For decades, they were believed to be extinct. But in the 1960s, a biologist discovered about 300 birds nesting on Buldir Island. Habitat protections have allowed their populations to recover.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

With over $1.1 Billion raised and 6 Million acres conserved, the Federal Duck Stamp Program is the most successful and efficient wetlands conservation program on the planet. Katie Burke and Mike Brasher go behind the scenes with Jerome Ford, assistant director of USFWSMigratory Bird Program, and Suzanne Fellows, manager of USFWS Duck Stamp Program, to learn about its history, conservation successes, art competitions, and new efforts underway to grow interest and investments in this iconic program.www.ducks.org/DUPodcastwww.fws.gov/service/buy-duck-stamp-or-e-stamp