National Post Hip Week: Borderline Success

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Here's the latest article from the National Post's 'Tragically Hip Week' series... I hate this subject. It makes no sense & it doesn't matter. The Hip play to the size of crowds in The States that thousands of band would give their left nut to be able to play to...


Borderline Success
Ben Kaplan - National Post

Is there any other band today that screams Canadiana so much as The Tragically Hip? The Kingston-brewed rockers kick off their summer touring season June 28, and to mark the occasion we’re spending this week in Arts & Life looking at all things Hip. Today: Ben Kaplan on why the band never cracked the U.S. market.

Robert Christgau began writing about music for Esquire in 1967. Thanks to his work in Playboy, Village Voice and Rolling Stone, the writer has earned his place among the most esteemed music critics in the world. In 2000, Christgau listened to Music @ Work by The Tragically Hip. He began his critique with two words: “Blame Canada.”

It’s a response not uncommon amongst American rock fans.

“We have pockets in the States where there’s great support, but there’s also an element of ‘every country supports their own,’ ” says The Tragically Hip’s guitarist Rob Baker, adding that the group can tour with an English act such as Stereophonics and swap headlining spots based on which side of the pond they perform.

Continue to full article HERE.

What about Bob?

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National Post Hip Week: Kings Of This Town

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Kings Of This Town
Source: Jesse Kinos-Goodin, National Post

Is there any other band today that screams Canadiana so much as The Tragically Hip? The Kingston-brewed rockers kick off their summer touring season June 28, and to mark the occasion we’re spending this week in Arts & Life looking at all things Hip. Today: Jesse Kinos-Goodin on how Kingston, Ont., embraces its hometown heroes.

When Gord Downie sings “12 men broke loose in ‘73, from Millhaven maximum security,” during a Kingston, Ont., performance, the hometown crowd loses its collective mind. After the initial yells, glowing cellphones and lighters normally fill the air as The Tragically 
Hip frontman continues to tell the fictional story of a jailbreak from a prison in Bath, the small town just outside Kingston where The Hip also have a recording studio.

Despite lyrics saying that “one of the dozen was a hometown shame,” 38 Years Old, from the 1989 album Up to Here, is still a local favourite, says Doug Elliot, who worked with the band countless times over the years when he was music director at Kingston’s K-Rock radio station. Elliot, who is now program director of Oshawa’s The Rock 94.9, calls the five-piece band, consisting of Downie, guitarists Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay, “part of the fabric” of Kingston, and while he means that figuratively, it could also be taken quite literally.

Continue to full article HERE.

38 Years Old - Digital Lyric Art

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The original content and digital art is provided by Tragically Hip Tour.  All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only. All lyrics and album art are reproduced here for reference and educational purposes only and they belong to the originally credited artist and label.