Apr 22, 2009 - 11:20 AM

NUMBER 4

Buck65 - Devil's Eyes/Devil's Eyes (Piano Version)

With Buck 65 (Richard Terfry) it's not so much a question of where to begin as where to end. He is a JUNO-winning hip hop artist from Halifax who quotes liberally from country and folk. He has collaborated with Feist, Matt Mays, Tanya Tagaq and K-Os. He was first signed to Sloan's Murderrecords label. At present he is a host DJ on the CBC and his songs appear in the TV show Trailer Park Boys. He stands alone, truly unique, a niche unto himself. As a rap artist, words are his medium but it's what he chooses to wrap his raps in that sets him apart. Hick hop is a term coined around him.

Devil's Eyes appears on the disc Secret House Against The World released in 2005. This song could sit in the orchestral pop aisle with Arcade Fire and the Dears. Its long list of guests would not be out of place in the liner notes of a Broken Social Scene album. It features Tara White (the Love Tara of Eric's Trip fame) on guest vocals on The Suffering Machine. There are strings to compete with Final Fantasy and Claire Beret provides additional vocals. Buck 65 has many wordier songs but none that ties up so much of where Canadian music is and has been. The album closes with a French version of the song featuring piano by Gonzales. You may know him as the fingers behind Feist and her remarkable work. The two tracks together represent what Canadian music represents to many in this first decade of the new millennium. Modern Canadian music respects the rootsy storytelling of the past but it is now built upon a much broader base of sounds, the sounds of the vast multicultural world so present on the wicked and weird streets of the Great Rainbow coloured North.

NUMBER FIVE

The Tragically Hip - Wheat Kings

Canada's band. They have something for everyone. Haikus and hockey. Nose-bleed guitar and acoustic quiverings, straight-to-the-groin rock 'n roll and oblique poetry. The published poet and the inheritors of Bachman hoser rawk. An unlikely assortment of characters as ever stepped up before a microphone. They are an old-school rock band that challenges the audience. They are generous, regular folk. They are glittering giddy stars of unprecedented presence with grace, too.

"You can't be fond of living in the past/ If you are then there's no way you're going to last." This could be the motto of the band, who push themselves forward in their career, occasionally leaving fans behind. It is a sentiment that echoes Neil Young's own creed. "It's easy to get buried in the past/ when you try to make a good thing last."

I waver between Wheat Kings and Bobcaygeon for this. But Wheat Kings lifts the veil where Bobcaygeon kisses through it. In 2009, the veil has been blown off.

Over campfire strumming, the poet tells a tale of the wrongfully-convicted David Milgaard in a manner Lightfoot would understand. The insightful line "No one's interested in something you didn't do" captures so much. There is a novel in that one line, a film. It's the hook upon which the whole tale swings. The song's breezy way is at odds with the horror of the story. This is real-life Gothic.

"Late-breaking story on the CBC/ a nation whispered we always knew he'd go free." The happy ending restores the population's faith in their acronyms.

On a different song, Gord Downie served notice he was here to debunk an American myth. Canadian myths are also subject to his scrutiny. Downie has become the keeper of the public's trust, exposing the flaws and the failures. At this time in this world, Wheat Kings resonates among all those who have lost due to the ineptness of bankers, executives, politicians and community leaders. The poet got it right. The band got it right. They capture in sound the beauty of the wind racing in waves over a field of dreams. They capture the randomness of that wind and of one human life. The randomness of all life, "twenty years for nothing" indeed!

William McGuirk is a freelance writer and longtime Oshawa resident. He can be contacted at wmacg@yahoo.com.