My earliest Hip memory was when I won a free promotional CD at a swim meet that had the LBU version of "Springtime" on it. I remember not being able to figure out the lyrics, but listening to that one track for a whole summer. I also distinctly remember my mother commenting on GD's signing in a negative manner, to which I retorted something similarly disparaging about her vocals.
The first memory I have of the Hip was seeing their video for Blow at High Dough on TV while working at my part-time job (electronic department in a Zellers). I was 15 or 16 at the time. I didn't love the song immediately, but of course it grew on me. A while later on my way home from high school one day, I went into a record store to by the CD... I remember I had just enough money in my pocket, in fact I was 3 cents short.
j-monster Wrote:The first memory I have of the Hip was seeing their video for Blow at High Dough on TV while working at my part-time job (electronic department in a Zellers). I was 15 or 16 at the time. I didn't love the song immediately, but of course it grew on me. A while later on my way home from high school one day, I went into a record store to by the CD... I remember I had just enough money in my pocket, in fact I was 3 cents short.
that's very strange because i was short on cash as well, not sure what it was, but the guy at A and B sound pitched in the rest because in his words.."everybody should own this"..that's my earilest hip memory
I remember seeing the cover of Road Apples and thinking, "Nice horse..."
Seeing the video for Small Town Bringdown, being minorly curious, then hearing NOIS on the radio a few months later, and being sold. That was roughly 17 years and thousands of dollars ago.
I must have heard of the hip before this, but my first clear memory was when I was at a camp. This was before Phantom Power was released.
We had been out sailing by the main hub of the camp when it started to rain really hard. We couldn't go back to our campsite because we had to canoe back but we could go out on the water with the lightning. So we were all soaked ot the bone crowded into the counsellors office/cabin. There was a radio playing and ABAC came on. One of the counsellors said to all of us "does anyone know who this is?". None of us knew; we were pretty young. Then he said "It's Canada's greatest rock band The Tragically Hip."
My next clear memory was at my grandparents cottage. Their cottage is just outside of Bobcaygeon and our neighbours there had Phantom Power. They told us about the song called Bobcaygeon and I listened to the album.
I'm late to the party. My first memory is hearing "Killer Whale Tank" on the radio, 97.7 HTZ FM out of St Kits. Thought it was really cool, but I was 12 or 13 and didn't realize just what an obsessive dork I'd become.
Didn't really get into the band 'hardcore' as the kiddies would say, until I was 16 and started to drive. I'd cruise around the GTA flipping through radio stations hoping for Hip tunes.
Believe it or not, at that time, ('96&'97) you could drive around for an hour or two and hear at least three hip songs on the various NY/Ont radio stations.
Man, I miss driving into the Niagara Escarpment, for no other reason than driving into the Niagara Escarpment, with the windows down and screaming along with "Live Between Us."
"Thank you Rheostatics! Thank You Everyone!"
I can remember watching muchmusic back when it was actually a good channel and seeing the videos for NOIS, Blow, Locked and 100M, those were the first times I really got to see and hear the band and right away I was a fan. My first album was Fully Completely and it wasn't long after that that I had EP, UTH and RA. Saw my first concert in 95 at Copps in Hamilton.
Playing on the Commodore 64, back in '89, when my step father comes home and plops down a new cassette. Kinda black, with 5 scruffy looking, blurry guys on the cover.
I think I kinda liked them at first, but nothing hardcore. But Road Apples got me hooked.
Now my girlfriend wonders why I have to download any shows off the Hip Tracker that I can find.....
She's a fan too, just not obsessed like the rest of us.
first hip memory: just singing 50 Mission Cap over and over again in my head after hearing my brother spin Fully Completely a few times ... I wasn't certain of any lyrics besides "Bill Barilko disappeared that summer, he was on a fishing trip" ... just kept repeating that line to myself, because it was so cool -- I'd already known about the story of Bill Barilko from one of those "Weird and Wacky Sports Stories" Books that we always had hanging around our house.
I was going on a summer trip for five weeks to France, so I got a hold of my brother's copy of FC and made myself a tape of the songs I liked best after one listen: Courage, 100th, Pigeon, Lionized, Locked, 50 MC, Wheat Kings, The Wherewithal, and Eldorado. I also added Blow at High Dough and New Orleans is Sinking to the tape, because I had heard of those songs before. I blew my brains out listening to that tape over and over and over and over again that summer, and I was hooked for life.
My brother left for university in the fall and took his Hip tapes and CDs with him, so I had to go out and buy my own and I've never looked back.
As a result of the tape I made to take to France, Fully Completely, Looking for a Place to Happen, and We'll Go Too always seem like the "new" songs from that album to me.
ct
Growing up in Kingston I knew of the band, and their music was played regularly on 1380 CKLC... the only "rock" station that the city had until 5 years ago. I wasn't much of a fan until I went into my "addicted to SNES phase!" A buddy and I played NCAA basketball, Super Tennis and Street Fighter for hours with Road Apples on repeat. To this day, everytime I play the album I think of playing NCAA in the basement.
Sneakin into the Lakeview Manor, I was 'bout 17. Regular guys playin again, but they were getting more popular. Word was on the street. So a group of friends would hang down at the cheap beer bar. Hippies hit the stage, Gord in a one piece jumpsuit, whached out as always. Held onto the mic and jumped straight up and down throughout the whole song, of every song. Never forget it. Thinking man no wonder that cat's so thin! Oh beautiful memories. Davis was a cool sound. That was it till about the time Bobcaygeon came on, being I have family in Nogies Creek, song hit home and I was hooked again. Amazed how far the band had come.
Look at em now, still doing what they love, their way. BRAVO Hipsters!!
tina
i was given day for night as a gift from a cool aunt when i was in grade 6 prolly never really got past grace too in listening to it...skip forward to a couple weeks after finishing public school and a buddy and i wake up at 4 in the morning and line up at centennial hall to see the hip, got tix to the second nite showed up not really knowing what to expect and became hooked, i remember screaming along to grace because it was the only song i knew, i remember hearing 100th and being amazed, must have been singing it for a month after the show
I can't remember the first time I'd actually heard the Hip, but the first concert was back on the DFN tour at the old Buffalo Aud.
I was in 10th grade and 5 of us packed into my friend's 86 Dodge charger - I remember listening to Road Apples & DFN on the way there, screaming it at the top of our lungs. We had floor seats which everyone stayed in nicely while the Rheostatics played but as soon as our boys took the stage and that very first hit of the bass drum on that opening of "Grace, too" the chairs got shuffled off to the side and people just ran towards the stage.
Security guards were trying to stop the people from the back of the floor from getting near the front, but me and a friend of mine made it right to the front were we danced all night.
After the show, I bought the t-shirt with the gargoyle thingies on it and wore it unti it fell apart. (no joke - one day it just disinegrated in the washing machine).
Yeah - I guess you could say I made the transition from hip fan to rabid hip worshiper that night.
- Good thread!
The first thing I remember is being 11 or 12, and hearing that the Hip would be the next band on the radio, and changing the channel. It took about 5 more years when a friend hooked me on ABAC for me to appreciate them.