So I’m late to the NB party, but now I’m very happy to be here. Turns out New Brunswick is rad and I was the one who was missing out all these years.
If you ever doubt that Canadianity is a thing, check out Canada Day at Captain Dan’s in Parlee Beach. It’s on full display on the colourful front lawn of the Algonquin Resort in St. Andrews by-the-Sea in fall. It’s in Plaster Rock during the annual World Pond Hockey Championship, where 120 teams from all over the globe compete to have the best time of their lives.
It’s certainly in the party atmosphere of downtown Freddy Beach, where Taggart and I found ourselves hosting the FredRock Festival a couple of years ago. Check out these headliners:
•Hey Rosetta!
•Joel Plaskett (whose first band, Thrush Hermit, wrote and recorded a Street Cents theme)
•Blue Rodeo
I say all the time that Bruce Hornsby is my ride-or-die music chick. He’s been riding dirty with me for many of the big moments of my life, both happy and sad. I didn’t realize just how much Blue Rodeo’s been there too. I learned this from seeing them live again after a few years.
Not unlike with New Brunswick, it took seeing Blue Rodeo up close to cement just how much I loved it. On a warm summer night, they played long and sounded great, triggering all the powerful, where-were-you-when musical memories.
They say the world is divided into Lennon people and McCartney people, and similarly you have to choose between Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor. All I can say is that I wanted to be both that night as they traded licks and hits on a relentless set list that included “Try,” “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet,” “’Til I Am Myself Again,” and “Diamond Mine.” Cuddy. Keelor. Cuddy. Keelor.
I don’t know that I’ve seen an audience more rapt, more willing to sing along with every word.
They saved “Lost Together” for their final encore and invited other bands up to sing. Taggart went up and shared a mic with Greg Keelor, who even asked him if he knew the words to the third verse! Isn’t that crazy? Keelor was going to let Taggs sing the whole verse. How bahddish is that? Never know when that kind of knowledge will come in handy.
We went back to Fredericton on our Comedy & Canadianity tour and played Vault 29. It was the last show of our tour, and there were probably 250 bahds there, having a ball. There was a pond hockey team that had just won a tournament that day, and they called themselves the Bahds. They even gave us official Bahd jerseys.
See? New Brunswick is rad.
East Coast Seafood and the Stones
Taggart
Jonathan can attest to the number of fish-related meals I try to fit in when I’m out east. When in Rome, bahds. The pile of lobster the caterers brought in for the Rolling Stones’ Magnetic Hill show in Moncton in September 2005 was six feet high. An absolute mountain of it on ice, with an alien-sized barrel of melted butter. It was enough to be opening for the Stones for the third time, to meet and have a quick chat and get a picture with them before they were whisked onto the stage, enough to hear Mick say nice words about OLP as they started into “Tumblin’ Dice,” but that fuckin’ lobster and melted butter, bahd. It was all about that experience of crushing a plateful or three of that glory.
What a production that show was. They had dozens of semis and hundreds of people working for them—such a large stage to set up, they had a second full production crew that was already in the next city, because it took days to build. It was like they threw up Liberty Village in Toronto in three days. So big! They had group tours going around, looking at the Stones’ equipment onstage. Not a meet and greet, just a tour of their shit up close. These people were paying thousands of dollars for this. That’s when you know you’re big, eh? Holy boats. I mean, it’s pretty cool to see first-edition amps, priceless guitars and worn-out drums, but to throw down a couple K to look at it? Whatev-salad.
My Afternoon with the Donald
Torrens
It used to be harder to drive through NB before the highways were twinned. You could get stuck behind a big rig for several hundred kilometres of woodland, with nothing to think about but how much money the Irvings must have from owning all those trees. Not to mention the gas stations. Not to mention the taquitos that they sell at said gas stations.
The Irvings aren’t New Brunswick’s only Royal Family. One-third of the world’s french fries come from Florenceville-Bristol—home to the McCain family empire. McCain is also known for those ridiculously tasty Deep ’n Delicious cakes. And the punch that made Roberto Alomar a household name.
Saint John, New Brunswick, is home to Moosehead, Canada’s oldest independent brewery. It was founded in 1867 by Susannah Oland and is still run by the Oland family to this day. Chances are pretty good you’ve pounded some of their fare into your wordhole on a hot summer’s day. Though locals would probably recommend Alpine.
Saint John is also home to Donald Sutherland, for my money one of the greatest actors in the history of the craft. His onscreen presence is captivating. His eyes are piercing. His voice is equal parts soothing and terrifying.
When I was in California, my friend Lynn was producing the Canada Day special for the CBC. It was a big show in Ottawa every year, and the great challenge is to make an annual event seem especially memorable. She came up with the idea of getting Canadian superstars to sing the national anthem, and she would cobble the performances together into an impressive montage. Since I was in LA, she asked if I’d go with the camera operator to field-produce two of the singers: William Shatner and Donald Sutherland. Obviously, I was in like Crocs.
Shatner’s part went as expected. He was firm but fair, businesslike but brief. Then we packed up and left for our arranged meeting place with Mr. Sutherland.
When we’d traded emails, he asked where we should meet. Being relatively new to LA, I first suggested one of the only landmarks I knew: the entrance to the Santa Monica Pier. Seeing as it’s maybe the biggest tourist attraction in all of LA, that’s exactly where you don’t want to meet if you’re Donald Sutherland, for so many reasons that are clear to me now.
Fortunately, he owned a property not too far away that was vacant at the time, and he suggested we could meet there for some privacy.
We arrived at the appointed time. The gate swung open. As we were gathering our gear, I suddenly felt the coolness of a shadow, and I turned to see Donald Sutherland standing behind me, all eight feet of him, backlit by the harsh California midday sun.
“Hello,” I said.
Crickets. He smiled but said nothing for what felt like an eternity. It was probably four seconds. He’d already started to turn when I heard . . .
“You can set up upstairs.”
The camera dude and I looked at each other. Were we supposed to follow him?
We did, and I took the opportunity to quickly give D-Suth the once-over. Not only was he tall and commanding, but his long hair was whiter than the moguls at the Calgary Olympics in ’88!
I followed him up the stairs and offered, weakly, “You know, I’m from the Maritimes.”
Silence. Did he not hear me? Should I have not spoken? Why was I ever even born?
“Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”
I told him. He listened, genuinely interested, and introduced us to his wife, Francine, who is lovely and French-Canadian and charming. We set up in the most beautiful vacant space I’d ever seen in my life.
As the camera guy was setting up, Donald told me this story about Saint John (I’m paraphrasing, but the gist of it was something like this): During the Second World War, towns and cities in the Maritimes were debating whether they should have a lights-out curfew just in case bombers were going to target them. After much discussion, the town council in Saint John decided the hell with it. Might as well leave the lights on, because if a bomber flew over, the crew would probably assume the town had already been destroyed.
Donald Sutherland is funny AF.
He then sang the anthem in his beautiful singing voice, in both official languages, in one take.
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They thanked us for our time and we went downstairs to pack up. As the cameraman was putting gear in the trunk, I got in the passenger seat to write some edit notes while they were fresh in my head.
Suddenly, I was in shadow again. I looked out the passenger window and all I could see was a lengthy thorax. It was Donald. He put his hand on the window, and I thought it must be some kind of Hollywood greeting, so I put my hand on the window to touch his, like you would against the glass at a prison visit.
No, he gestured. Put the window down.
Oh.
Only problem was, the windows were electric and the cameraman had the keys. Hard to explain that to someone’s midriff through a closed window. It suddenly felt very hot in the car, so I pushed the door open, and in the process moved Donald Sutherland back.
Guess what he wanted?
To invite me to a screening of a film he’d made the next day in Santa Monica.
You can take the bahd out of the Maritimes, but you can’t take the Maritimes out of the bahd.
New Brunswick Gotta Do’s
SCOPE Hopewell Rocks. It’s kind of a two-fer, because the experience is totally different at high and low tide. Give yourself time to experience both.
CRUSH the Boar Poutine at the Tide & Boar Gastropub in Moncton. Parm-encrusted haddock is another solid move too. And brunch there is tight.
TAKE A RIP into the Saint John City Market or Fredericton Boyce Farmers Market. Both are friendly and fun destinations.
POP into the Imperial Theatre. Musicians will tell you that this Saint John gem is one of the nicest-sounding venues in the entire country. Doesn’t matter who’s playing, just make sure you take in a show there.
VAS-Y to the Village Historique Acadien in Caraquet. If you’re into history, get a taste of what life was like as far back as 1770.
Nova Scotia: Rum & Cokers and Practical Jokers
Bahd Bands
Sloan
Joel Plaskett
The Trews
April Wine
The Stanfields
Wintersleep
The Rankin Family
Ashley MacIsaac
Natalie MacMaster
Ria Mae
Port Cities
Jenn Grant
Rain over St. Ambrose
Five Notable Bahds
Anne Murray. Belongs in the Bahd Bands section, yes, but deserves special recognition for the fact that she’s sold well over fifty million records worldwide. Keeps it low-key these days, in typical Canadian fashion. To get an idea of just how good a singer she is, try singing “Snowbird.” You can’t.
Classified. Doesn’t front, pretending to be something he’s not. Raps about what he knows—fatherhood, being from the East Coast, living in the country. Solid lyrics combined with a keen ear for samples. Only going to get bigger. Does a lot of good for a lot of people on the side too.
Ellen Page. This Oscar nominee hails from Halifax and got her start on local fare like Pit Pony and Trailer Park Boys before Juno changed everything. A terrifying tour de force in Hard Candy. Changed lives with Gaycation on Vice.
Nathan MacKinnon. On this list not only for his mad skills on the ice but also for the grace and humour with which he handles being the second-most-famous NHLer from Cole Harbour.
Sidney Crosby. Won some gold medals, a couple of Stanley Cups, a world championship or two. But really achieves bahd status for how low-key he keeps it when he’s home in the summers. Like, shopping-at-Sobeys low-key. Like, Anne Murray low-key.
There’s Lobster Stew and Lots to Do in Halifax
Torrens
My family moved to Nova Scotia when I was twelve, to be nearer to my aging grandmother. Halifax might as well have been New York City to me at the time. Everything felt so sprawling, intimidating and exciting.
I’d never lived in an apartment before. It was a two-storey unit with a wooden spiral staircase in it, right across the street from the Public Gardens. If you’ve been to Halifax, you’ll know that Spring Garden Road is the main drag downtown, and we were just steps from the buzz.
Maybe you’ve been to a Concert on the Hill on Canada Day, or maybe your ancestors arrived in Canada through Pier 21, as tens of thousands did.
Halifax boasts the second-deepest saltwater port in the world, if you can call that boast-worthy. It also has a small, walkable downtown core and multiple universities, so the vibe is young and energetic.
As daunting as I found the sheer size of it, though, I also quickly embraced the opportunities there.
When I was sixteen, I got a job at the Halifax Lobster Feast. It was an all-you-can-eat lobster buffet on the Halifax waterfront, on a converted Dartmouth ferry boat. For $29.95 you could crush all the fresh mussels, scallops, haddock, chowder, rolls, salad, rice and dessert you could stand.
Most folks would eat one or two lobsters. One night, a gentleman from Texas who weighed close to five hundred pounds came in with his son, who was close to four bills.
We watched in horror as the man ate seventy-nine lobsters, every bite carefully dipped in butter. These were called canners, so they’d be between a pound and a pound and a half including the shell.
His son ate close to sixty.
My boss kept saying, “Get over there and stop them!”
“How?”
“Offer them some rice pilaf or drop off warm rolls!”
Nothing doing. These hustlers were all about lobster in their gobsters. We watched helplessly as they sunk us, with their buttery chins shining in the candlelight.
The Menu at the Halifax Lobster Feast, Circa 1990
$29.95 all-you-can-eat
Salad Bar
Soup
Chowder
Rolls
Mussels
Rice Pilaf
Lobster
Pie
Jell-O
Early Atlantic Touring with OLP
Taggart
One of my earliest experiences as a touring musician was a cross-Canada tour opening for 54-40 in 1994. They were and still are a great band, and they always treated us amazingly.
They were touring their Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret album, a tribute to a legendary Vancouver supper-club-turned-punk-bar of the same name that was closed down. The band bought the famous sign and had it onstage behind them. It did create an amazing vibe, but the sign was fucking huge, and arduous to get in and out of some of the smaller club shows on the tour. My best friend, Alex, was helping out as my drum tech, and I had such a blast hanging out with him for weeks.
The eastern Canada run might have been the most fun. I remember being in Cape Breton at some small upstairs club (probably the biggest nightmare venue for that sign). The place was totally rammed and a sweat box—one of those places where the crowd merges with the band, like an insane house party. I really got a great taste of how wonderful the music fans are in the Maritimes. They get right into it. Serious bahds.
What’s Your McBeef?
Torrens
I was at St. Pat’s High School in Halifax and got invited to audition for this new CBC show for kids. It was a consumer affairs show, based on a British show called Money Penny.
I had several auditions and came close, but didn’t get the job at first. A kid named Chris did. He was a skateboarder and much cooler than me. It was probably the right decision.
Luckily for me, it didn’t work out with Chris and Street Cents—or the other way around—and I was hired full time for episode 3 of the first season after doing a Street Test segment in which I ate only fast food for a week. Hardly a stretch, considering that’s what most teenage boys eat anyway, plus I worked at McDonald’s, where I got a free meal every shift.
McDonald’s was actually a very formative experience for me comedically, starting the very first day I worked there. My shift manager asked me to take the french fry rack across the street to the gas station to get the wheels aligned. In my crisp new uniform and so anxious to please, off I trotted across a busy street, pushing the unr
uly fry rack.
When I got to the station and asked the mechanic whether he could help, he didn’t even say anything. He just pointed in the direction of the restaurant. I turned around to see the entire store, employees and patrons, pointing and laughing at me in the window. I’d been had, and good.
They stuck me in the kitchen at first, and I got pretty good and fast at making burgers and breakfasts.
Working the drive-thru was where I got to experiment a lot with where the good-taste line was and what was funny across the board.
One night in particular, the drive-thru was bumpin’ and an impatient guy kept asking me to take his order. I was busy and told him politely I’d be right with him.
After thirty seconds or so, he said, “Take my order, bitch!”
Well, that wasn’t very nice. So I just responded the way anyone else would in the same situation.
“Hold your bird, captain. I said just a second. Is your date being paid by the hour?”
Can you imagine? Some acne-laden, headset-wearing sauce bucket throwing that at you through the drive-thru speaker?
He slammed the car in park and stormed inside, demanding to talk to the kid working the drive-thru, but I was nowhere to be found. Good thing he didn’t look in the walk-in freezer out back, where I was shivering and howling.
Another time near the end of my fast food career, I was working the drive-thru one Sunday afternoon when a vanload of Boy Scouts came through. Not sure why exactly I thought it would be a good idea to poke happy faces in the buns of their Quarter Pounders with Cheese. It just struck me as so funny to think of someone opening their burger and seeing it smiling up at them.
Turns out the doughy red-faced Scout leader didn’t share the same sense of humour. He parked in the parking lot and marched in, with his little Scout ducklings behind him. He waved me over, held up the smiling burger and asked me if I thought that was funny.
I didn’t want to lie. Seeing him standing there, all earnest in his small hat and tiny tie, just made the situation twice as funny to me. I couldn’t help it. I answered yes.
Canadianity Page 7
