Hey, it's jD here.
October 2nd, 2012. "Now for Plan A" hit the shelves. Fourteen years later, to the day, Yer Letter hits yer inbox. A day late. I'd love to tell you I planned that (I did not plan that). The first of the month came and went and I was a step behind it, and instead of pretending otherwise I'm just going to say it and get on with the good stuff.
And there's a lot of good stuff. A world premiere in Kingston. A new podcast. A ballot. A tribute band out west. And this month, where my essay usually goes, a poem.
Late, but here. Let's go.
TL;DR
- "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken", the new musical built on songs by The Tragically Hip, has its world premiere at the Kingston Grand Theatre. Preview Thursday, October 22nd. Opening night Friday, October 23rd.
- It's A Good Life, my podcast about how that musical got made, drops one episode a day, Monday, October 19th to Friday, October 23rd.
- The original cast recording lands October 23rd. Montreal gets the show next May.
- GEDfest runs in twelve cities this October. Secret Path Week runs October 17th to 22nd.
- Voting is open for The Tragically Hip Album Countdown. Rate all fifteen records.
- 'Just As Well' recapped from The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream, Gift Shop out on the West Coast, and a poem.
THE FIRST VERSE
October 17th, 2017.
Nine years ago this month we lost Gord. I'm not going to pretend I've found the words for it since. I don't think any of us have. Nine years and it still lands the same way every October, a little quieter maybe, but the same.
What I do know is what this community does with the day. It shows up. In 2017 it showed up. And this October it shows up again in a dozen cities, in rooms full of tribute bands and people singing every word back at them, with the money going to cancer care. Here in Toronto, that's the 17th itself, at the Horseshoe. That same day, Secret Path Week begins, and Gord's last big project, the one he gave to Chanie Wenjack, turns ten.
So this month's letter carries a lot. A premiere, a vote, a cause, and a poem where the essay usually sits. It ends on the line "I woke up just in time." I'll let you sit with that one on yer own.
You showed up for him. You still do. That matters.
IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN
Thursday, October 22nd. The Kingston Grand Theatre. 7:30pm. The first time anybody outside of Hamilton gets to see "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken".
It's a brand new musical built on the songs of The Tragically Hip, presented by Thousand Islands Playhouse in association with Theatre Aquarius. The book is by Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe. Mary Francis Moore directs. Bob Foster handles music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations. It's set in 2002 and follows an exiled Iraqi journalist and a record store owner, and that's all I'm telling you, because I want you to walk in fresh.
The preview is Thursday, October 22nd. Opening night is Friday, October 23rd. It runs through Sunday, November 8th. Tickets are through the Kingston Grand Theatre box office.
Now. Two things share a name here, and I'm pulling them apart on purpose so nobody gets mixed up.
"It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" is the musical. The thing on the stage.
It's A Good Life is my podcast about how it got made. The thing in yer ears.
Some of you remember me talking about a theatre series last month. This is that series, with its proper name and its proper launch date. I sat down with the people who built this show, from the playwrights to the director to the people behind the music, and recorded the conversations before, during, and after the work. It's the room where it happened, in their words, at their pace. What it isn't: a review, or a spoiler. It's how the show was made, not what happens in it. You'll still walk into the Grand knowing nothing you shouldn't.
Five episodes, one a day, the week the show opens:
- Monday, October 19th - It's A Good Life - Setting the Scene
- Tuesday, October 20th - It's A Good Life - The Players
- Wednesday, October 21st - It's A Good Life - The Craft
- Thursday, October 22nd - It's A Good Life - The Music
- Friday, October 23rd - It's A Good Life - Curtain Up
Curtain Up drops on opening night. That's not an accident.
HIP NEWS
THE CAST RECORDING The original cast recording of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" is out Friday, October 23rd on Universal Music Canada, the same day as opening night in Kingston. Sixteen songs of The Tragically Hip, sung by the original cast with guests including Allison Russell (on 'Wheat Kings'), Owen Riegling, Elysia Biro, and Braden Lam. Steve Berlin produced it, yes, that Steve Berlin, the man who produced "Phantom Power". Bob Foster did the arrangements and orchestrations. Robert Orton mixed it.
And it's not stopping in Kingston. The show goes to Montreal next spring, May 9th to 30th, 2027, at the Segal Centre, with more cities to be announced.
GEDFEST, TWELVE CITIES Eight years ago, GEDfest was one night in Calgary. This October it's twelve cities: Buffalo, Calgary, Cochrane, Edmonton, Kelowna, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, St. John's, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. Buffalo is the first chapter outside Canada. The goal this year is $425,000 on top of the $732,000 already raised for cancer care since 2018. Dates vary by city, so check yer local chapter.
Here at home, GEDfest Toronto 2026 is Saturday, October 17th at the Horseshoe Tavern with Grace, 2 and 40 Hours Over. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Toronto's full. Eleven other cities might not be.
SECRET PATH WEEK, OCTOBER 17 TO 22 The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund marks Secret Path Week from October 17th, the day we lost Gord, to October 22nd, the day we lost Chanie.
Chanie Wenjack was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 trying to get home after running from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School. Sixty years ago this month. "Secret Path", the album, graphic novel, and film Gord made to tell Chanie's story, turns ten this year.
The Fund asks for what Gord asked for. Do something. Log a ReconciliACTION. Join or organize a Walk for Wenjack. Host a screening of the film. And on Friday, October 23rd, the Secret Path 10th Anniversary Concert brings DWF Artist Ambassadors including Amanda Rheaume, Julian Taylor, and Aysanabee to the Concert Hall in Toronto, playing songs from "Secret Path", their own songs, and covers of The Hip. Proceeds support the Fund's programs. Everything is on The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund's site.
WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN Here's the new one. Show number nine.
The Tragically Hip Album Countdown starts with you. Every release, all fifteen: the thirteen studio records, the 1987 self-titled EP, and "Saskadelphia". You rate each one out of 10. Then you tick which ones you've actually heard front to back, and here's the thing. If you haven't sat with a record, yer score for it doesn't count toward its average. When we reveal a placement, you'll get the average , every time. So the first time somebody in the chat says half of you have never heard "In Violet Light", there's an answer, and it's a good one.
Why isn't "Live Between Us" on there? Studio albums and EPs only. No live records, no compilations (sorry, "Yer Favourites"), and no solo work.
Then the show. Fifteen episodes, live on YouTube on Monday nights at 8pm ET, starting Monday, January 4th, 2027, and on the feed every Wednesday. We count down from Number Fifteen, one record a week, with a rotating panel of three to five arguing with what you decided. You're the authority on this one. I'm just holding the abacus. Number Two and Number One get revealed together on Monday, April 5th, and the recap closes it out on April 12th. Two weeks shift to Tuesday for Family Day and Easter Monday, and I'll flag those well ahead.
Voting is open now through Monday, November 30th. Rate all fifteen records. Bring the goods.
THE GEDFEST SERIES The four-part GEDfest series started in mid-September and wraps up on October 12th, five days before the Horseshoe. Past, Present, Future, and Secret Sauce. Four round tables on what GEDfest is, what it will be, and what it can do in yer community. If you've been waiting to binge it, the 12th is yer day.
EPISODE RECAPS
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE - LIVE STREAM: JUST AS WELL 1990.
The Misty Moon Cabaret in Halifax, MuchMusic cameras rolling, and Gord doesn't dress it up. It's a rock song. Two and a half minutes, and gone. 'Just As Well' is track five on "Saskadelphia", the six-song surprise that landed on May 21st, 2021, cut in New Orleans during the "Road Apples" sessions with Don Smith producing and Bruce Barris engineering, then left in the vault for more than thirty years. setlist.fm has ten documented live plays, every one of them in 1990.
The panel wasn't buying the ten. Patrick from Newmarket has the 1990 tour itinerary from This Is Our Life in his head, and Glenn from Melbourne can't see a song they were workshopping on stage stopping at ten nights. I hear it as a Baby Blue EP song that missed its bus. Glenn has a timeline that says I'm wrong, and a theory about whose pen the opening lines came off. Ian from Maple Ridge, who sings in Gift Shop (more on them below), turned up halfway through, blamed the West Coast clock, and still landed the line of the night: "If the Ramones did a Lynyrd Skynyrd song."
The Facebook group poll came back 46 percent love, 44 percent like, and 3 percent asking what in the hell 'Just As Well' even is. That 3 percent might be one guy. So there's that. Hat tip to setlist.fm.
TRIBUTES TO THE TRAGICALLY HIP - GIFT SHOP
Gift Shop needed a Paul. Craig Rogers answered a Facebook ad with three words: "I'm your man."
If that name rings a bell, it should. Craig is one of my co-hosts on Discovering Downie (2024), the ten-part run through Gord's solo records. So when his band's name came out of the hat this month, I may have yelled a little.
Spring of 2022. The rest of the band was already jamming, and they still hadn't found the right Paul. Then Craig turned up. In his words: "About halfway into the first song, I think we all knew it was a fit." Their first show together came about ten days later. By November of 2022 they were playing regularly.
This month's Tributes to The Tragically Hip went to Gift Shop. Fourteen names went into the hat on September 22nd, random.org did the drawing, and the West Coast got the mic.
Here's how they put it themselves: "Their attention to detail and ability to pack dance floors have made them a favourite for fans who treasure The Tragically Hip's iconic music."
The lineup: Ian McDonnell on vocals (yes, Ian from Maple Ridge, from the 'Just As Well' stream), Alan Cragg on lead guitar, Craig Rogers on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Craig A. Brown on bass, and Cory Davis on drums.
There's no set kick-off song, but Craig would reach for 'When the Weight Comes Down'. "It warms up the voice and is fairly straight forward instrumentally. It's a good way to get the confidence up, because we nail it."
The favourite to play live is 'The Depression Suite', and Craig would "hazard a guess the other guys would say the same. It's a monster and very rewarding to pull off." When did they pull it off? August 20th. Of course it was August 20th.
"We obsess over the smallest details when we learn these songs. The amount of time we spend debating the fine details would surprise people."
If yer out west, you've got four chances:
- Oct 17, 2026 - Club 240, 2643 128th St., White Rock
- Oct 24, 2026 - Biltmore Cabaret (GEDfest), 2755 Prince Edward St., Vancouver
- Oct 31, 2026 - 14th Avenue Pub, 32516 14th Ave., Mission
- Nov 7, 2026 - Corky's Irish Pub, 45844 Yale Rd., Chilliwack
That's right. This month's band is playing GEDfest Vancouver. You've got to love it.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
No essay this month. A poem instead.
July 24th, 1993. The Markham Fairgrounds. Another Roadside Attraction. My first time seeing The Hip, and my nineteenth birthday. I spent the day with dear friends, a cooler, and more beer and weed than a nineteen-year-old should be trusted with, and somewhere in the afternoon the grass won (it was always going to win). I went down. Then the lights came up, the band walked on, and I opened my eyes.
That's this one.
'JUST IN TIME'
Blue sky burning, a car full of friends Another year starts where the old one ends Cans in the cooler and a joint going round The grass got soft and I went down
Everything's muffled, everything's slow Crowd like a tide coming in below
Lights coming up, the band walks on
Opened my eyes, and the dark was gone
Somebody handed me the rest of my life I woke up just in time
Gord at the mic like a wire pulled live Talking laminar flow while the crowd came alive Shaking like a preacher with a fire in his bones I'd never felt less like I was on my own
Everyone was dancing, everything was a blur Words in my mouth coming out a slur
Lights coming up, the band walks on
Opened my eyes, and the dark was gone
Somebody handed me the rest of my life I woke up just in time
Down in the jam where the song ran deep They pulled us under like a dream in sleep Came up gasping, came up changed Came up singing something with no name
Every time I'm thinking, every time I dream Thoughts in my brain, hazy at the best (of times)
Lights coming up, the band walks on
Opened my eyes, and the dark was gone
Somebody handed me the rest of my life I woke up just in time
Long walk back and the lot won't clear Brake lights crawling from there to here Hungover and happy I woke up just in time
ANNIVERSARIES & NODS
- October 2nd, 2012 - "Now for Plan A" is released. Fourteen years today. Which makes this the one month a late Yer Letter landed right on time.
- October 6th, 1992 - "Fully Completely" is released. Thirty-four years. Certified Diamond in Canada in January 2007, a million copies.
- October 17th, 2006 - "World Container" is released. Twenty years on the 17th, the same day as GEDfest Toronto, and the same date we'd lose Gord eleven years later.
- October 2016 - Gord releases "Secret Path". Ten years. (See Hip News for Secret Path Week and the 10th anniversary concert.)
- October 17th, 2017 - We lose Gord. Nine years.
THAT'S ALL FOLKS
That's the lot. A day late and a little long, which is about the most jD sentence I could write about myself.
Big thanks to Glenn, Patrick, and Ian for bringing the goods on the stream, to Gift Shop (and Craig) for taking the mic, and to every one of you who read this far.
Two things before you go. If you haven't yet, rate all fifteen records for The Tragically Hip Album Countdown before November 30th. And if the shows are worth something to you, buy jD a coffee. Tips go straight into production (editing is hard, and the battery doesn't charge itself).
In a tribute band? Drop me a line at tthpodcastseries@gmail.com and yer name goes in the hat.
Be good. Be well. See you in Kingston.
Until next month, yer pal. -jD.
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