You’ll Never Pee In This Town Again

by Stephan MACLEOD

This summer a group of city boys from Charlottetown’s bar scene joined forces to harvest a new wave of roots and folk music. Members of Eyes For Telescopes Pat Deighan, Mike MacDougall, Dan Currie, and Craig MacPherson teamed up with Dennis Ellsworth of the Rude Mechanicals, John Mullins, Lindsay Victor, and Steve Balderston (or Buzzy) in his apartment across from the Charlottetown Recreation Centre for a season’s worth of drinking and rustic jam sessions. These weekly col- laborations resulted in a new group emerging in town named after their favourite day to _ practice: The Tuesdays.

Since the band is comprised of so many musicians from other bands, comparisons to Sydney’s The Squatters (made up of Slowcoaster and Rock Ranger) are inevitable. “T didn’t even know that stuff (The Squatters) was going on, but Jay (Smith) from Rock Ranger made fun of me pretty bad one night for putting the country band together; I was like ‘At least we can actually play our instruments,’ says drummer Mike MacDougall.

What was intended to be a traditional country music. project playing vintage folk songs trans- formed into a less serious posse of partiers and musicians. The band’s collection of original songs reflects their light-hearted approach to the genre of country music. “It’s kind of hard to write about tumbleweeds and gunfights when we never actually

experienced those things,” says Mike. .

“We just sing about being drunk at Buzzy’s,” says Dan.

Pat thinks the foolish atmos- phere of the group is what drove away lap steel guitar player John Mullins earlier this summer. Mike explains John’s disappearance: “John had the idea for us to do a show opening for Eyes For Telescopes. Then the day of the show he _ took off to Newfoundland.”

“We didn’t see him for a

Mike MacDougall was alt-country way before anyone else. Way to go Mike!

month,” says Pat.

“He didn’t tell anyone he was going, either,” adds Steve. In John’s mysterious absence, Steve wrote the song “Where Oh Where is John?”

John eventually returned from Newfoundland and rejoined the group. Anyone who has seen multiple performances of the band can attest to the inconsistencies of the number of musicians on stage at different shows. Mike, Steve, Pat, Dennis, and Lindsay played the first show without John. Dan and Craig played their sec- ond’ show along with fiddle player Don Campbell. And by the end of the summer, John had returned, and Kristina Fourgeron added some back up vocals. Mike explains the varying line up: “Whoever’s not doing jail time plays with us.”

Now that Dennis Ellsworth has left to Toronto with The Rude Mechanicals, the band faces another change in line up. When asked what’s next for the band, Pat comments, “We should ask Dennis what our next plan IS.:

Mike says, “I think we’re going to have a meeting, get a speak- erphone and discuss everything with Dennis.”

“We can do live shows with Dennis via satelite,” adds Dan.

Pat seems to think that the relocation of The Rude Mechanicals to Toronto is part of some sort of con- spiracy. “Dennis took the Rudes to Toronto so he could get rid of them all by getting them hooked on drugs or shot.” Mike explains that this will fur- ther the career of The Tuesdays.

If Dennis isn’t successful in getting rid of the rest of The Rude Mechanicals, Dan is confident that Matt MacQuaid will probably end up replacing Master T and become the new host of Da Mix.

Pat then adds that he thinks “Dennis is trying to get Frozen Ghost back together again.”

Before Dennis left for Toronto to reunite bands from the eighties, he recorded an album with The Tuesdays. In between trips to the local bootlegger, the band managed to put their music to disc over three long nights of recording. Dan complains, “One night we were there until eight in the fucking morning.” The extend- ed recording sessions paid off, and now the band has a fine disc of moon-

_shine-soaked songs to show for their

Mechanical caught being rude.

summer of jamming and drinking.

For the release of their CD, Build a Horse, and final show with Dennis, The Tuesdays played com- pletly shit-faced at Brennan’s. “We started spitting beer over each other,” says Pat, “I couldn’t spray either, so I remember just hitting Steve off the back of the head.” At one point it was- n’t just beer that the band was spit- ting. Pat says, “John has a history of filling large draft glasses from Brennan’s with piss.”

“On stage,” Mike adds.

“Then Dennis drank it, think- ing it was whiskey and water,” says Pat.

“So any girls that smooched Dennis on that wednesday night...” Mike begins to say without any need to finish the thought.

When asked whether urinat- ing on stage will affect the band’s chances of ever playing at Brennan’s again, Mike says, “When you’re a band of our magnitude with that many megastars on stage, you can do what- ever the hell you want.”

Pat says, “You should put the title of this article, “You’ll Never Pee — In This Town Again.’”

Done.

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the cadre