The Tragically Hip & An Indian

October 18, 2017October 18, 2017 - Roshan

I first heard about the Tragically Hip back in 2001. I was online in an internet cafe and chatting with a couple of Canadians about this and that. I do not remember either of them but I do remember that both of them suggested that I listen to The Hip. Now, the band hadn’t penetrated the Indian rock music crowd and hence I had never heard of them before that day. I remember one of these sites where you download limited individual mp3s from various bands so I checked out a few. And I played the song Ahead By A Century.

That was my introduction to The Hip, the voice of Gordon Downie who was like no other. My fav songs of band also includes Wheat Kings, Bobcageon, Courage, 38 Years Old, New Orleans and Problem Bears. He was a poet and a lyrical genius. He didn’t sing like most people did; it was like he was pouring emotions out instead – lamenting, screaming, thoughtful, sarcastically and otherwise. He could go softer like in Wheat Kings or Bobcageon. He was an activist and spokesperson for the indigenous people of Canada and for the environment. And he touched people with his music.

Goodbye Gord! We will keep listening to your music until our time is done. Peace.

RIP Gordon Downie

October 18, 2017March 28, 2022 - Roshan

Canadian rock musician, writer, and occasional actor Gord Downie, who was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, passed away last night after a more than year-long battle with brain cancer. Canada mourns the loss of one of its most celebrated musicians, and the industry is undoubtedly poorer without him here. But before he passed Downie had the rare privilege to make peace with the inevitable and to wish the nation, and his millions of fans, goodbye. He undertook a sprawling farewell tour across Canada in the summer of 2016 that will be remembered as among the most important to grace the nation — an extraordinary gift bequeathed by a dying man to those who adored him.

Downie was born in the small town of Amherstview, Ontario, in the early months of 1964. He attended high school in nearby Kingston, where he was the lead singer of a punk-rock group called The Slinks. Downie’s classmates, Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker, had a band of their own at the time, called The Rodents, and the three admired one another’s taste and sound. At a certain point they decided to abandon the nearly obsolete punk scene and form a rock band together. They called it The Tragically Hip.The Hip honed their style in small clubs around the city. By the time they graduated Kingston Collegiate and enrolled in University — Downey elected to study film at Queens — their live show, consisting mainly of covers of bar-band staples, had become popular enough locally that they were performing nearly every weekend.

With the Hip, he released 14 studio albums, two live albums, one EP, and 54 singles. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 16 Juno Awards. He released five solo albums: Coke Machine Glow (2001), Battle of the Nudes (2003), The Grand Bounce (2010), And the Conquering Sun with The Sadies (2014) and Secret Path (2016).

The Tragically Hip announced on their website on 24 May 2016 that Downie had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. Doctors at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre confirmed the same day that it was a glioblastoma, which had responded favourably to radiation and chemotherapy treatment but was not curable. Downie toured with the band in summer 2016 to support Man Machine Poem, the band’s 14th studio album. The tour’s final concert was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario on 20 August 2016 and was broadcast and streamed live by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on television, radio and internet. It was viewed by an estimated 11.7 million people. His wife, herself a cancer survivour who separated from him a while ago, and he have 4 kids.

You Can Tell A Lie

October 18, 2017 - Roshan

How Comfortable Are You With Lying?

It depends. Sometimes you lie because it’s the safe thing to do and you want to avoid a long talk, discussion, debate or argument. That’s ok depending on what the thing is – if it’s something that has caused hurt or can cause hurt or worse to anyone, including yourself, then I do not think it is good to lie.

When it’s something much smaller and you just want to be left alone then it’s ok to lie. When someone asks you something that you do not wish to debate or talk about and it’s none of their business then it’s ok to lie. I do it all the time. Because people are nosy and if I want them to stop, rather than saying something rude, I lie so that they will stop asking nosy questions.

Do not lie if it’s gonna cause someone pain and it leads to other stuff that you do not want them or yourself to go through.

Prompt from The Learning Network at The New York Times