Full length Compact Disc
"Ouais": (say "Waaa", NOT "Wah" or, God
forbid, "Oasis")
Ouais Brrrwah
Records, 1996
*achieved triple teflon
sale status
Track List:
Wednesday, In Your Ear, Kurt, Footsteps, So
It Goes, 30, Confident One, Dreams, Heaven,
Billy Pilgrim, Apology
Comments: Recorded
at Reaction Studios, Toronto, September 1994.
Nick Blagona produced, engineered and shook,
among other things, his booty. Tom Heron
assisted Nick with tapes, wires and assorted
electro-hobgoblinry. Mary Jane Russell sang
backups on "In Your Ear" and fed the unwashed
masses. Mastered several times, ultimately at
Pizzazudio...tip to aspiring rockers: your
master CD should NOT be used as a coaster atop
the telly. Praise be to the grape wizards at
Dornfelder and their fine, fine elixir.
The record was not
released until August 1996, during a gala
performance at Stratenger's, Toronto. As Hero
Roland points out, this occasion marked the
first and only performance of a libretto penned
by the Heroes under their real names; of course,
the music performed by the Heroes on that
evening was strongly influenced (as indeed are
all Heroes compositions) by the work of
Trauserkov. Efforts are being made to locate a
copy of the libretto as we speak, but those
knuckleheads at the Smithsonian won't return our
calls.
NEW !! DOWNLOAD FREE
Ouais MP3s !!
On February 10, 2002
Heroes in Rehab approved the release of 1994'S "Ouais"
in MP3 format on an "if you wants it, like
that's a beauty, go ahead and download it eh?"
basis. It's kind of a bummer for the people who
actually bought the damn CD, but dude that was
like six years ago and you got the really cool
Peter Ferguson cover art and all. The record was
produced by Nick Blagona with the able
assistance of Tom Heron at Reaction Studios.
Below, download the tracks that we think are the
best ones on the record...
Download Smash Hit Single "Wednesday"
...okay, not sure if you
WANT to know this, but hey, humour us and
besides, you need SOMETHING to read while the
freakin' thing is downloading.
"Wednesday" is a song about philosophy.
Originally conceived as a suicide note, the
lyric considers the objective problem of
physical humans conceived as the mental
construct of an all-knowing supreme being, with
each individual inherently flawed and bent on
its own destruction. It attempts to describe the
subjective pain experienced by each "instance"
of that Thought at the moment that the
individual becomes fully conscious of its own
limitations. Beyond that, it also contains a WAY
righteous guitar solo.
The song is,
believe it or not, ultimately hopeful, which
explains why "Wednesday" or "Humpday" was chosen
as the title. It is the only Heroes song to ever
be performed in sign language, for the hearing
impaired. It is also the first Heroes song to be
played on Q-107 FM radio, Toronto.
The lyrics for
"Wednesday" are posted in the
Lyrics Department
Listen to Billy Pilgrim in Real Audio format
The lyric for "Billy
Pilgrim" was written with Michael Williams, over
more than a few beers at the "Grad House",
University of Windsor hangout frequented by
Heroes Ed, Dave, Darin and Roland in the early
'90s.
"Billy Pilgrim" attempts to
describe the mental adventure of the main
character in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse
Five" (a way excellent book that all Heroes fans
should read immediately, even before peeing
tomorrow morning). The main character in
Vonnegut's book, Billy Pilgrim, is a survivor of
the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II.
He is so horrified by the atrocities of war that
he time travels to Tralfamadore. Heroes
attempted to represent the time travel portions
of the book in two ways: first, with the refrain
"this time tomorrow," and second with the final
instrumental minutes of the song. This "Tralfamadore
Instrumental", is melodically, chromatically and
rhythmically unrelated to the initial
composition and is intended to express a hope
for transcendence. Vonnegut's book is a lot
funnier in places than our description seems to
permit. Oh well, so it goes. Our song has a way
better guitar solo than his book any day.
Rich Textures of Heaven in mp3 format
Hmmm, how to explain the
song "Heaven" without embarrassing folk who
might even now be browsing this site? I guess
the point is to imagine that you WERE one of the
two main characters in this "break-up"
song...ever notice how you break up with
someone, but remain "friends", then the next
thing you know (s)he is complaining to you about
the way your replacement is treating him/her ?
Anyway, if you really felt something for that
person, you're torn between the need to hate
their guts to make yourself feel better and
whatever that thing is that you felt for them
...and you can remember every goddam detailed
millisecond of the moment, right down to the red
she wore. Then you become the kind of "friends"
that don't speak to each other at all and your
mutual friends disavow knowledge of either of
your existences, depending upon who is present.
Or not. Ain't life grand?
As far as the
music, this song as originally conceived was
inspired by the sound and lyrical flow of the
Tragically Hip's "At the Hundredth Meridian"
from their most excellent album "Fully
Completely". Of course, it ended up sounding
really nothing like that or anything else that
the Hip ever recorded. This version of the song
appeared in part over the closing credits of the
film "Anchors".
Download Apology in mp3 format
Like "Heaven", "Apology"
deals with the duality and general insanity of
post-breakup emotions. The word "apology" is
used not only in the common, but also the
classic Socratic sense, signifying both remorse
and the concept of "explanation". Think "what if
Socrates, Burt Bacharach and Pearl Jam got
together to write a hurtin' song?" It was first
performed in a warehouse filled with aluminum
siding.
It's intended to be ultimately
positive, suggesting that through thought and
reason, one can arrive at a level of peace and
comfort with disappointments in affairs of the
heart, and indeed gain an appreciation of the
grandeur of life. It is rather obviously a work
of fiction.
There's also some stuff in
there that obliquely refers to the race of
giants in the "Thomas Covenant Unbeliever"
series of books...if you READ them and STILL
missed it, e-mail us 'cause we need to use more
words like "baby, baby baby" in our songs. If
you DID get it, don't e-mail us because no one
is going to believe you anyway.
Additional useless piece
of trivia: a muzak version of this song was
recorded by the Heroes for a supermarket
sequence in the film "Anchors". Rui played
keyboards, while everybody else laughed their
ass off.
Sweet Anticipation of "In Your Ear".mp3
There are SOME uplifting
songs in the catalogue! "In Your Ear" is the
first song Ed ever wrote, originally under the
title of "By the Way" and featuring a completely
unrelated lyric. On the very first occasion that
version of the song was performed by Heroes
(then Billy Pilgrim), the crowd at the Dominion
House sang along as they danced. The lyrics and
title were promptly changed. Maybe someday,
we'll post the early demo recordings of these
songs, and you can hear how they evolved. On the
other hand, maybe you don't really care.
It's another "moment" song, but a song
about the joy in that delicious moment that
exists only in between the start of the
relationship and the time that somebody takes
the risk and decides to say "I love you". Of
course, what happens after that moment varies
dramatically, and the idea of someone "laughing"
as they whisper the words is left purposely
unexplained....
What's the Deal With "So It Goes".mp3 ?
The refrain "So It Goes"
is drawn again from Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse
Five". The song was written in the early '90s
during a time when there was a pretty notorious
and very evil pair of sex-killers about to go on
trial here in Ontario. The song is supposed to
anticipate the moment of such a person's death,
and the lyric represents a conversation in the
last moments of life between such a killer and
the devil, who taunts his soon-to-be victim with
visions of ignominy and eternal nothingness. In
the middle eight, there's an aside by the devil,
who asks the author, the band, and the listener
whether they have prepared themselves in life
for the ultimate existential crisis..."have you
prepared for the long dark night of the soul"?
This portion of the lyric was partly inspired by
a dinnertime conversation with David's father,
Tom.
Observers of Vonnegut's writings
with anything more than a third-grade education
will likely inquire as to whether it is
appropriate to ask moral questions like these by
making reference to fatalistic characters like
Billy Pilgrim. Buy us a beer sometime and we'll
chat about it... |