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Lee Harvey Osmond at the WECC, Winnipeg

Tom Wilson with Lee Harvey Osmond concert photo

Tom Wilson with Lee Harvey Osmond at the West End Cultural Centre, Winnipeg, Oct 21 2009. Ailsa Dyson photo.

Review and photos – Lee Harvey Osmond at the WECC, Winnipeg, Oct 21 2009

– text by eugene osudar/photo by Ailsa Dyson

i’m not gonna
mess with caPs
and stYLingS

it’s

lee harvey osmond

for the purposes of this little
poem

and that’s
that

so, you’re Tom Wilson
and you have some
mighty big
black leather
boots
(i’m thinking about
an SCTV skit
with John Candy,
it’s about guessing
his shoe size,
oh my, those boots!
are big)
and you’re a stomper
a banger
a boomer
and a communicator

and your hair is
long
and your hair is
wild
and is curly

there’s hair
everywhere
on your face
no worries about
going bald
getting
thin

receding

you’ve just turned 50
you’ve done
all the therapy
and all the meds
and you’re sharing
with us

just how it is

to be you

on stage
at this beautiful
newly
restored venue

this old church
this old holy place
the
West End Cultural Center

this temple
to music
and
performance,
movement
and
dance

so you gather
your favorite
musicians,

Ray Farrugia on drums
(the dearest old friend)

Brent Titcomb on percussion
on harmonica
on Jew’s Harp
(he’s 69 years young,
a respected Elder
on the Canadian music scene)

Aaron Goldstein
on guitar and lap steel

Cam Malcolm on the bass

your daughter is the tour manager
(Madeline)
she’s taking care of the guys in the band
and her father
with his back troubles
(not that i could tell
from Tom’s raging
and stomping and playing)

and these guys range
in ages
from 23 to 69 (a fellow Leo!)
a beautiful blend
of youth and wisdom
and being young at heart
and being into the music
(a la Van Morrison)

and you decide
to create
a new music genre
and you’ve named it

acid folk

and that’s fine

cuz what it is
is just plain
hot
and cool
simultaneously

and if my back
wasn’t bent
outta shape
all pinched up
adhesion city
just around
now

i would have danced
and celebrated that
entire set

90 minutes

that was a dancing set
to be certain

that was also
a complete surprise,
checking my watch
after the last song

90!
minutes
and
no one believed
me

Stu Reid from CKUW
says, “it felt like thirty.”

it felt way too short.

everyone wanted more.

better to leave ’em wanting more
and more and more

next time.

deliver us into heaven
with another 90.

next time
i’ll be dancing
all 90.

i like

you don’t believe in the fakery
of encores

just like another band
i love
The Long Winters
(introduced to me
by Shawn Conner)

the BS of standing in the wings

you tell us straight

these are the last few songs.
and you tell us
Out Of My Head is the very last song.

Thank you.
for being honest and passionate
and playful
and respectful
of us
your (adoring)
audience

we loved every minute…

14 songs

Love Of One
Queen Bee
Cuckoo’s Nest
Freedom
Blades of Grass
You Drove Me Crazy
Oh Great Provider
Can’t Be Satisfied
Boots of Leather
Satellite
Lucifer’s Blues
I Can’t Stand It
Are You Ready For The Country
Out of My Head

on the Love Of One
lap steel guitar
and all side-
winding
big black leather
boot stomps
into your spine
digging heels in,
to your soul
we’re ready
for songs about
dead presidents
and Native land
rights, we get a little
taste
of Native song
chanting

Oh Great Provider

we’re just ready to rock
and roll

feeling the effects
of the acid
folk

no more white
lights
no more yellow
lights
just give us
the reds
the blues
the hammer
and the rights

land water
air
Freedom!

little acid
folk boogie
Queen Bee
buzzing
in y(our) synapses
tingling bees
bouncing knees
“nerves
more
muscles better”
ee cummings
i like this acid folk
the buzz is on.

now
we’re flying
in the whispers
of the cool breeze
it’s So Hot
we’re in the Cuckoo’s Nest
“one flew east
one flew west”
the therapy
of the coming down
it’s all crazy,
Elvis
Sonny Liston
Madonna
Robert Mitchum.
the religious icons
and
the false prophets
where is The True
who is The False
man,
i’
m flying
over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

You Drove Me Crazy,
the first harmonica song
shiver me timbers
feels like a Tom Russell
classic
and here
i notice
Tom Wilson
chews gum
while
he sings!

a song co-written
with Colin James
Freedom
feels like some
good (country)
Stones
(you know, anything
pre-
Tattoo You).

Brent delivers a hot percussion solo
with hands, with palms
with finger
tips
with smile
lips
with elbow
with style
with Love
and they come to us
on the edge
of the stage
leading us in hand,claps
(finger,snaps)
and sing/along
song
it’s all about Freedom
cuz “nothing is better than
Freedom”
and we’re feeling
it
the acid folk’s
kicking in
we’re so high…

we’re flying.

and we’re free
to feel
the love feeling
from
lee harvey osmond.

Tom says
he loves Winnipeg
he spent two weeks here
last winter
doing the home concert
series, through
hard cold
blizzards
minus 50 nights
(wind,chills)
(it was
Bitter
Crazy
Cold)
minus 35
days…
says, he’s beginning
the Winnipeg Acid Folk Festival
here
now
if lee harvey osmond
doesn’t get the invite
to the other Winnipeg
Folk Festival.
and Blades of Grass
whirls
and swirls
twirls
the boys and the girls
some kinda Spanish wonder
acid folk
groove.

Oh Great Provider
the ancestors are invited
to attend
the session
Brent leads the chanting
and the playing
Jew’s harp
and Tom’s big audio
Dy-na-mite
stomps
like Native drums
boom
booming
spine chilling.

a little pre-
rock n roll
The Great
Muddy Waters
so Hot
and
so Cold,
I Can’t Be Satisfied,

“well i feel like snappin’
pistol in your face
i’m gonna let some graveyard
lord
be your resting place
woman i’m troubled
i be all worried
in mind
well baby
i can never be satisfied”
Tom and Brent
in duet
acoustic guitar
and harmonica
that tune
those nasty
feelings.

the acid folk blues!

a song written for and recorded
by Randy Travis
but never made it to the record
a song about those
long
black
leather boots,

Boots of Leather.

write about what you know.
what you walk in.
perform in.
stomp in.

Satellite
gritty acid folk blues
and the very
hottest of the hot
“look at me
i’m a satellite”
again, that’s the truth,
we can’t help but look
at you,

Tom Wilson is
a Satellite.

acid folk boogie blues,
Lucifer’s Blues
all goose,bumps
on my bare
flesh,

“he touched a gun
down on his hip,
and his eyes went
kind of wild.”

goose,bumps
once again
hearing it
on the myspace

that’s the delivery man
singing it
believing it
being it

the minstrel
of acid folk
the players
lee harvey osmond
wandering
the cities
and towns
driving in a van
across this immense
country.

and it just keeps
spinning and grooving

and we’re feeling it

we’re yelling and whooping
and we’re swimming
in the deepest river
of the trip
the hard flow
the sugar
and the bitterness
of the acid folk blues

Lou Reed’s I Can’t Stand It
cowbell!
we’re clapping it.
on the beats.

!
Are You Ready For The Country
!

(Neilfest, Neil Young
songs, entire albums performed
by Winnipeg’s finest
Neil Young
loving musicians,
at The Times Changed
over the weekend of his birthday,
Thursday, Friday and Saturday
in November)

the end is
where
we began

foot stomping
hard rocking
acoustic
acid folk

dedicated
to the people who saw Tom play
at Le Rendezvous
in 1995,

cowbell
tambourine,

and here it is
already posted
on YouTube,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov5KbeWkbes

there’s big (tall)
Stu Reid
dancing it
feeling it
full-on
(head-swaying)
throttle
up front.

you can hear
my
whooping,
my
hollering!

oh
youngsters

lee harvey osmond

i’m all tingles

Next Time.

I’m

D
a
n
C
i
n
G

!

lee harvey osmond
October 21
WECC.

More photos:

About Eugene Osudar

“born, august 16, 1963. i’m 45, and yes, i’m getting too old for this. bring out the rocking chair. my first concert, november 1978, elvis costello and the attractions. i was 15. their blisteringly brilliant 65 minute set only served somebody to affirm my new direction in the musical parallel universes, new wave punk alternative, oh sanctity oh celebration (!Freedom!) college radio! i’m old, i’m used up and i’m free. i see 50something Full sets of music every month and dance most of them. and when i dance, i mean to say, I Dance and Celebrate, 2/3/4 hours a night. The Gaslight Anthem. The Boss. The Weber Brothers. The Wind Ups. i’ll dance with Los Campesinos. i’ll move to The Long Winters. The Replacements. Husker Du. The Pogues. oh elvis costello, oh Clash! i could go/go/go Gogol Bordello forever. L(eonard) Cohen. come, Dance With Me (Old 97s) wherever you may be, sincerely, eugene
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