Feb 05, 2010 - 04:30 AM

Blue Rodeo plays the General Motors Centre on March 5. The next five columns will look at how their songs weave through the fabrics of our lives.

Blue Rodeo: Part One

Now that Wayne Petti of Oshawa, lead vox for Cuff The Duke, has been co-opted in to back-up vox for Blue Rodeo, I'm serving notice that Hogtown's country/rock heroes are officially considered members of the D-Rock diaspera. Just so you know, that's how it works. It's a mi casa es su casa kind of thing, the D-Rock. We are very welcoming folks. So, welcome Keelor, Cuddy, Bazil, Glenn Milchem and Bob Egan.

So, Petti brings us to Blue Rodeo and Blue Rodeo brings us to us in more ways than one. One can find Canada in their work. Their albums are a state-of-the-nation address in some ways. They are a state of my nation for sure(!!)

That's what brought me to Blue Rodeo back in 1986. I recall throwing myself around the punk club Sammy's (just above what is now the Diamonds Grill on Bond) to the rockabilly beats of Jokers Wild on their debut Outskirts. While others were bugging DJs for Iggy Pop and Siouxie Sioux, I wanted the cowpunk sounds of that band. Occasionally it was played. The gang I ran with would run to the Horseshoe to see them. I saw their debut show at the Bottom Line in New York and over the course of the years even found myself in procession of Keelor's and Cuddy's first band, the HiFi's 45 on 7" vinyl. So, yes, I'm a fan.

Having said that, they fell out of favour with me (along with a whole lot more of what folks called music in the late 90s/early 00s) for quite some time. So I'm happy to say, and not facetiously so, that they're back.

Their new record, a double album, The Things We Left Behind, is among their best and again it seems so relevant to these times. Maybe just my times, but I'm thinking you will find yourself in there, too.

With a band that is just a few years older than I am and part of every Canadian's soundscape their work, which sings about their life experiences, can't help but reflect back our own world to us. As they aged, we aged, as they loved and lost and regained so, too, did we. They are of our age.

Part Two next week

Delicate

Martha and The Muffins

Muffin Music

Yes, that Martha Muffin, the Echo Beach M'm Ms ... still a truly great song and a touchstone for many of the Cancon 80s inspired rock bands reviewed in this corner.

So, what does one do with a band that hasn't released anything in almost two decades: listen with fresh ears; treat them as a new band; and forget the past? The answer is 'yes' and I'd imagine Martha Johnson and Mark Gane would want the songs to be viewed, heard in that context.

But one can't, of course, when one knows the band in question. So, this is no Echo Beach. It's more Black Station White Station or Cooling The Medium-type material. It has a funky vibe and feels as if a lot of studio work went into the tracks. But the truth is Delicate makes little impact. The songs are skillful enough but if I never heard them again, I wouldn't seek them out.