From Our Editors
From sleazy motels rooms and four-star suites to 'giving' groupies
and drugs and booze, On a Cold Road is a
fascinating look into life on the road. It's an honest and humorous
look at Rheostatic Dave Bidini's and other
Canadian musicians' experiences on tour across the Great White
North. Bidini first got the idea for this book
during the winter of 1996 when the Rheostatics opened for the
Tragically Hip's cross-Canada tour and experienced a level of
touring that could only be called luxurious. The bands stayed in
deluxe hotels, drank expensive wine and even had a chiropractor on
call. This didn't seem to mesh with stories of road life that he'd
heard - and with his own early experiences playing in raunchy bars
and staying in squalid hotels - so he interviewed musicians such as
Rush, Triumph, Goddo, Kim Mitchell and Randy Bachman to get a full
history of Canadian rock tours.
From the Publisher
David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too
well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied
arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands
the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry
drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses
riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of
dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking
break-ups.
Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as
far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the
Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics
opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse
tour, Bidini kept a diary. In On a Cold Road he weaves his
colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious
anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock - including BTO,
Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who,
Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong -
whom Bidini later interviewed in an effort to compare their
experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and
unforgettable picture of what it has meant, for the last forty
years, to be a rock musician in Canada.
From the Jacket
David Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too
well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied
arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands
the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry
drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses
riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of
dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking
break-ups.
Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as
far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the
Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics
opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse
tour, Bidini kept a diary. In On a Cold Road he weaves his
colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious
anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock - including BTO,
Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who,
Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong -
whom Bidini later interviewed in an effort to compare their
experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and
unforgettable picture of what it has meant, for the last forty
years, to be a rock musician in Canada.
About the Author
Author and musician Dave Bidini is the only person to have been
nominated for a Gemini, Genie and Juno as well
CBC''s Canada Reads. A founding member of
Rheostatics, he has written 10
books, including On a Cold
Road, Tropic of
Hockey, Around the World in 57 1/2
Gigs, and Home and Away. He has
made two Gemini Award-nominated documentaries and his play, the
Five Hole Stories, was staged by One Yellow Rabbit Performance
Company, touring the country in 2008. His third
book, Baseballissimo, is being developed for
the screen by Jay Baruchel, and, in 2010, he won his third National
Magazine Award, for "Travels in Narnia." He writes a weekly column
for the Saturday Post and, in 2011, he published his latest book,
Writing Gordon Lightfoot.
