Exclusives
Podcast: The Great Cross-Canada Playlist
By Dave Bidini
May 1, 2007



Need a soundtrack for your next road trip? Rheostatics guitarist, author and devoted wanderer Dave Bidini shares his city-by-city playlist. Click the icon to hear the podcast.

CHARLOTTETOWN , P.E.I.

I was driving up the Island from Kensington to Charlottetown in the summer of 2006 when I achieved what I consider to be Canadian pop nirvana. I’d just passed Cheese Factory Road when a French-Canadian pop station from the Gaspé played “Down to the Line” by BTO, right before it ran a Canadian Tire commercial in French.

HALIFAX , NOVA SCOTIA

Weddings, Parties, Anything wrote “Saturday Night in Halifax” in Australia, then sang it about 6,000 times during their Canadian tour in the summer of 1988. WPA was known for a lot of things, most notably being the drunkest band to ever appear on MuchMusic.

MONTRÉAL , QUEBEC

Growing up young and Italian in the ’70s, there were very few role models outside of the Esposito Brothers. And Gino Vannelli didn’t make things any easier. Still, “(I Just Want to) Stop,” with its line about “When I think about those nights in Montréal,” made me acquiesce, and realize that it could have been a lot worse.

KINGSTON , ONTARIO

The Inbreds were a two-piece band: bass and drums. They were brilliant, if very small. We first heard their music at CFRC in Kingston, and a year later, we were touring Canada with them. “Prince,” from their first album, Hilario, is about a crippled dog that gets around by lying across a skateboard. The dog is from Kingston.

TORONTO , ONTARIO

“Well it’s snowing in the city and the streets and brown and gritty” is one of the lines from “Alberta Bound” by Gordon Lightfoot, one of the best Toronto songs ever written about Alberta by a folk singer from Orillia.

WINNIPEG , MANITOBA

Of course, it has to be The Weakerthans’ “Pamphleteer,” but it could be “Don’t Be Denied” by Neil Young, too. Souls get kicked around and faces are smushed in the hard snow. Most of the characters leave, but great chunks of life are left cemented in the ice and oil.

BRANDON , MANITOBA

We met Farm Fresh in Brandon. We’d been sent their tapes before our 1994 tour with the Tragically Hip, and when the tour hit Winnipeg, we walked out on stage to “Space, Part 2,” which name-checks all of the important Brandon monuments: Isis Health Spa, Roto’s Restaurant, the Record Barn, et al.

SASKATOON , SASKATCHEWAN

Streetheart were originally from Saskatoon. They had a song called “Action,” which Q107 and CHUM-FM made into a hit in the 1970s. I saw Streetheart open for Styx at Maple Leaf Gardens, and they blew the headliners away. I wrote about this in my high school newspaper, and suffered through months of angry Styx fans calling my house and threatening me at dinnertime.

CALGARY, ALBERTA

When the Stampeders were looking for a name, their manager, Mel Shaw, burst into the room and announced: "I've got it, boys! I've got it!" They said, "Great, Mel, as long as it's not the Stampeders." Kelly Jay reminds of Calgary, too. And Chixdiggit, natch.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

The first time the Rheos toured Vancouver in 1987, we were driven around town by Nardwuar the Human Serviette and his friend, Hugh. He showed us the old hippie enclaves and the site of long-dead punk clubs. As a result, my impression of the city is forever attached to Nardwuar's band, The Evaporators, whose record, Welcome to My Castle, still lifts me off my feet.