![]() ![]() Tielli's perspective on "Claire", however, was very different:ĭave Clark hated it, but we were totally successful at what the assignment was. Clark has stated in interviews that he left because he was uncomfortable with the chart success of "Claire" and feared that the rest of the band would be persuaded to evolve in a mainstream direction. The resignation came very shortly before a cross-Canada tour. It was also Clark's last album with the band, as he left to concentrate on his own band, The Dinner Is Ruined. That album proved to be the end of the Rheostatics' association with Sire, however, as the label found the band difficult to market. "Claire" was also featured on the band's album Introducing Happiness, released the same year. The centrepiece of the soundtrack was "Claire", a love song from the main character in the movie to a woman who'd moved into his house, which became Rheostatics' first and only Top 40 hit and earned the band a Genie Award for Best Original Song in 1994. Music from the Motion Picture Whale Music was released in 1994, putting the band in the odd position of having two almost identically-titled albums in its catalogue. Quarrington himself was so impressed by Whale Music's quirky pop-which was perfectly suited to a novel about a quirky, reclusive pop genius liberally based on Brian Wilson-that he chose the band to compose the soundtrack to the film version of his novel. The following year, the band signed to Sire Records and released Whale Music, which was inspired by Paul Quarrington's award-winning novel Whale Music. The album also featured an enigmatic cover of Gordon Lightfoot's " The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The single "Record Body Count" garnered them significant airplay on radio and MuchMusic. In 1991, the band signed to the independent label Intrepid Records, and released Melville that year. However, by 1990 the band reunited with exactly the same line-up they had in mid-1988: Bidini, Clark, Tielli and Vesely. During the hiatus, Bidini and Clark played a number of shows as supporting musicians for the recently reunited Three O'Clock Train. Martin Tielli left the band at the end of 1988, and shortly thereafter the Rheostatics broke up. The band also played a role in drawing Canadian country music icon Stompin' Tom Connors out of retirement, after Bidini and Vesely crashed Connors' birthday party in 1986 and wrote an article about it for a Toronto newspaper. The album was eventually re-released in 1996. Only 1,000 copies of this album were pressed and released originally, and quickly sold out. In 1987, these songs were collected as the band's debut album, Greatest Hits. The best-known of these early singles was "The Ballad of Wendel Clark, Parts 1 & 2", an ode to the Toronto Maple Leafs player Wendel Clark, which became the band's first hit on college radio and CFNY. In the early 1980s the Rheostatics released a number of independent singles, and the three song demo Canadian Dream. Tielli and Clark had previously been bandmates in the group Water Tower. After the departure of the horn section, Martin Tielli was brought in. A large horn section, known as The Trans-Canada Soul Patrol, accompanied the group from 1983 to 1985 Clark had met the horn players while taking a jazz class at a summer music school. The band's early sound was more R&B and funk-oriented than their later, more famous, music. In their earliest years, the band members were all still teenagers, and required special permits to play in most music venues. Westlake left the band almost immediately, however, and was replaced by Dave Clark. The band originally consisted of guitarist Dave Bidini, bassist Tim Vesely, drummer Rod Westlake and keyboard player Dave Crosby. In particular, two of the band's albums, Whale Music and Melville, have been cited in numerous critical and listener polls as among the best Canadian albums ever recorded.įormed in Etobicoke, Ontario in 1978, the band played their first gig at a club called The Edge in February 1980. After a number of reunion performances at special events, Rheostatics reformed in late 2016, introducing new songs and performing semi-regularly.Īlthough they had only one Top 40 hit, "Claire" in 1995, they were simultaneously one of Canada's most influential and unconventional rock bands, a band whose eclectic take on pop and rock music has been described both as iconic and iconoclastic. They were formed in 1978, and actively performed from 1980 until disbanding in 2007. ![]() Rheostatics are a Canadian indie rock band. Intrepid, Sire, DROG, Perimeter, True North, Zunior, Six Shooter ![]() Rheostatics (2007) L–R: Tim Vesely, Michael Phillip Wojewoda, Dave Bidini, Martin Tielli ![]()
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