05-04-2003, 03:04 PM
Maybe I'm being unfair to GD. Maybe I should be glad that he has an opportunity to grow, to do new things with other musicians. And Lord knows, I was rooting for him when I found out that there was another solo album in the works. It's just that this new band of his, The Country of Miracles, makes me nervous as hell.
It's one thing to take a bunch of Hip outtakes and record them fast, loose and largely acoustic, like he did with CMG. I like that just fine. It's something else to have an ongoing project, seperate from the Hip. If Gord is dividing his time between two bands, and nobody else in either of them is writing songs, then I'm afraid that the Hip albums and tours will become increasingly rare, and that they'll begin to fade into obscurity. Or even worse, that the songs themselves suffer.
Besides which, I still don't understand the need for another band. So far, with the exception of a few jazzy pieces, I haven't heard any solo stuff that doesn't really fit with the Hip's idiom. The Hip could almost certainly have done a better job of Trick Rider, The Lofty Pines, or Yer Posessed than the group of Canadian folk alumni and old friends assembled to help with CMG.
I can't escape the feeling that Gord is making this record, simply because he's tired of having projectiles thrown on the stage when he goes on tour and having his lyrics drowned out by crowd noise. I can't blame him, but what about the quality of his acompanyment? I don't happen to think that Gord, or anyone else for that matter, is writing guitar compositions as consistently excellent as Rob Baker, or playing them with as much nuance and good good taste as he and Paul Langois. And what about the power and versatility of the Hip rythm section.
Am I paranoid? Do I think too much? Does anyone else have these concerns? In any case, I hope to be proved wrong. With any luck, Gord is just going through a creative boom right now, and The Country of Miracles is just a cute name for a temporary backup band with no coherent lineup. Fingers crossed.
It's one thing to take a bunch of Hip outtakes and record them fast, loose and largely acoustic, like he did with CMG. I like that just fine. It's something else to have an ongoing project, seperate from the Hip. If Gord is dividing his time between two bands, and nobody else in either of them is writing songs, then I'm afraid that the Hip albums and tours will become increasingly rare, and that they'll begin to fade into obscurity. Or even worse, that the songs themselves suffer.
Besides which, I still don't understand the need for another band. So far, with the exception of a few jazzy pieces, I haven't heard any solo stuff that doesn't really fit with the Hip's idiom. The Hip could almost certainly have done a better job of Trick Rider, The Lofty Pines, or Yer Posessed than the group of Canadian folk alumni and old friends assembled to help with CMG.
I can't escape the feeling that Gord is making this record, simply because he's tired of having projectiles thrown on the stage when he goes on tour and having his lyrics drowned out by crowd noise. I can't blame him, but what about the quality of his acompanyment? I don't happen to think that Gord, or anyone else for that matter, is writing guitar compositions as consistently excellent as Rob Baker, or playing them with as much nuance and good good taste as he and Paul Langois. And what about the power and versatility of the Hip rythm section.
Am I paranoid? Do I think too much? Does anyone else have these concerns? In any case, I hope to be proved wrong. With any luck, Gord is just going through a creative boom right now, and The Country of Miracles is just a cute name for a temporary backup band with no coherent lineup. Fingers crossed.
I think that it's cool that Gord is doing solo stuff, but I really never got into the CMG album and I haven't even heard the new solo album. I'm a true hip fan, it's just not the same without the rest of the band in my opinion.