Paul Quarrington rolls up his sleeves and wades in on Bob Mersereau's new book The Top 100 Canadian Albums; in The Globe and Mail HERE. Nineteenth on the list is The Rheostatics' Whale Music, named after Paul's novel of that title. The band subsequently recorded the soundtrack (including Paul's Genie Award-winning song Claire) for the Whale Music movie.

The producer of our recordings is Toronto’s own David Gray, so we like to drag him into the limelight now and then. First off, Dave’s a killer guitar player - so good that Butterfield tried to pry him out of Parachute Club to join a band he wanted to put together in California with the great Ben Keith. So that’s nice. Mostly, though, he’s our wonderful producer, a master of diverse musical genres who takes infinite pains with our material and, well, us. It was Dave (we often call him DG) who suggested Rebecca would be perfect for the band, and we all know how great that’s been. He also got folks like Colin Linden, Richard Bell, Roxanne Potvin and Teddy Leonard onside. He loans us gear too (DG has tons of gear) and encouraged Stuey to learn the pedal steel guitar, which adds a great new sound to our music.
Like us, DG has a keen interest in the original Blues/Roots/Country musician Porkbelly Futures from whom we get our name and inspiration. He even has a couple of original (and, unfortunately unlistenable) Porkbelly recordings.

(Paul) We have completed work on our new album, which, after endless bickering, we’ve decided to call “Porkbelly Futures.” After ourselves, you see, it’s no mere coincidence. We are now in the final stages, pressing copies and printing covers, and everything should be ready to go in a couple of months.
In the meantime, we are playing a couple of very interesting gigs. One is at the Black Swan (154 Danforth, just east of Broadview) on Friday, August 17th. Loyal Porkbelly fans know that the band started there, lo those many years ago, playing the blues and knocking our instruments off the stage. Well, much has changed. Our music is no longer as bluesy, though I expect we will still knock much equipment off the stage. We intend to play two sets of our own music, north country blues, and then perhaps we’ll reprise some of that muddy Mississippi and shuffling Chicago stuff. It should be grand fun.
The following week, on Saturday the 25th, we will be playing in the woods. It’s true. Our management seems to be upset about a small bit of pilfering, anyway, they have booked us into the Haliburton Forest. They say we will be playing upon a floating stage. (We say, let’s see the stage first.) Anyway, for more information, check out this link.

A Porkbelly song that’s been getting a great response lately is Sweet Daddy, written by Paul Quarrington and Dave Gray. It’s about Sweet Daddy Siki (a.k.a. “Mr. Irresistible”) a flamboyant black Texan with flaxen, silvery white hair who became a wrestling legend in Canada in the 50’s and 60’s. Our song tells the story of Sweet Daddy's rise from "bad guy" to the super star that all the bad guys had to fear. Sweet Daddy also has some music in him, penning a honky-tonk number to accompany his famous Siki Strut. He said “the tune drives the women nuts when I enter the ring." Paul and David wanted to create a song that paid homage to a man who was a part of their childhood.
Reginald (for that is his real name) still lives in Toronto and can be found overseeing karaoke events on Saturday afternoons at The Duke of York tavern at Queen and Leslie. We leave you with the words of a champ:
"A lot of people try to copy me, but there's only one Niagara Falls and only one Mona Lisa. And there's only one Mr. Irresistible -- Sweet Daddy Siki."

August is a month that produces good memories. We did our first show for the Edmonton Folk Festival in August last year, and CBC’s Saturday Night Blues was there to record our main set. Teddy Leonard celebrated his birthday by performing with us on guitar. Paul was a popular media interview subject and the band was photographed with The Canadian Guitar (made from pieces of historic wood from across the country). Porkbelly also performed workshop sets, with both Amos Garrett and Susan Tedeschi accepting invitations to sit in. A mammoth party was planned for the last night of the festival, with the great African band Salif Keita and Amos Garrett's group providing the music. Stuart sat in on harmonica with Amos when Rusty Reed was indisposed. The party went on a long, long time.

A recent addition to the Futures' performances is March Storm, about a horrendous maritime disaster off Canada's Atlantic coast. A group of fisherman participating in the 1914 spring seal hunt was stranded on the ice floes when a vicious storm struck without warning. After 3 days of hurricane winds and freezing rain, 78 men were found encased in ice. Paul, Marty and Rebecca portray different characters in Stuart's song, with Paul on board ship, Marty on the ice and Rebecca on shore.
The definitive account of this disaster is Cassie Brown's Death on the Ice. Another treatment can be found in a marvelous chapter of Wayne Johnston's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.

Porkbelly Futures opens (on August 25) the inaugural season of The Forest Festival, a celebration of the arts in Ontario's Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve. The band will be performing at sunset on a floating stage on a totally secluded lake, with the audience seated in an amphitheatre on shore. Noted blues/jazz vocalist Zoe Chilco will be our guest.
Porkbelly Stu is festival director, as it happens, as well as board president of Patria Music/Theatre Projects, which presents the environmental music dramas of renowned Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. The Forest Festival is an outgrowth of Patria, which boasts honourary patrons such as Adrienne Clarkson and Paul Quarrington. But we digress. You can learn more about the festival and book your tickets HERE.