Posted by The Pit was a cool little sticky-floor type of venue in downtown Ottawa. It wasn’t open for too long but while it was I took full advantage. I saw lots of great shows there – Gypsy Soul, Rob Frayne’s acid jazz stuff, plus they hosted monthly disco nights starring The Hammerheads that were just a ton of fun. My band Bob Loblaw even secured a monthly gig there too, unfortunately the place closed down not long after we started. I hope we didn’t have anything to do with it.
One of those wonderful nights at The Pit occurred on June 10th, 1995. This marked the first time I saw a full-on Bob Wiseman show. I had become a big fan of his in a relatively short time and aside from his set opening for The Barenaked Ladies and a couple of songs I saw him play with his old band Blue Rodeo I had never seen him.
I got there early. As I descended into the bar (The Pit was in the basement beneath On Tap, another downtown venue that is long gone) I noticed Bob sitting alone under the stairs. He was sitting there in the dim light trying to memorize lyrics. I was too star-struck to go over and introduce myself.
When the show started the small crowd hovered near the stage; two songs in and the thirty or so of us in attendance were all sitting on the beer-soaked floor in rapt attention. Bob sang one stunning gem after another and we all sat in stunned silence like kids being read a story on Romper Room.
Unfortunately there were two guys standing at the bar behind us and they were in the midst of a loud drunken conversation. It was my late friend Benoit and his best buddy Fernie-bern (or so we called him) yakking away completely oblivious to Bob’s very unsubtle chastising from the stage.
“If anyone knows a place I can play in Ottawa where everyone wants to listen to the music please let me know,” was just one of the several public service announcements Bob aimed at the back of the bar.
Now, anyone would tell you that these were two of the nicest guys you’d ever meet but get a few beers into them and…let’s just say I know they had no intention of stepping on anyone’s toes.
All of this notwithstanding I absolutely loved the show. It was up, it was down, it was heartfelt, it was funny, it was tragic, it was pure, it was simple, and it was oh, so musically stunning. I was now unequivocally locked into this Bob Wiseman fellah and would remain so for a long, long time to come.
Another really significant repercussion from this show: Based on Bob’s rhetorical stage questions I actually wrote him a letter explaining that if he was willing to play a gig in my living room I could guarantee him a small but very respectful audience. With virtually no hope of anything coming of it, I addressed the letter to a post office box listed on the back of Bob’s debut album and dropped it in the mailbox.
Then one day the phone rang. When the voice on the other end of the line nonchalantly introduced himself my heart started beating out of my chest. In that phone call I agreed to arrange to have Bob play in my university’s music department (he insisted on having a piano on hand, something my living room was completely devoid of). The show went well, I booked him again and then branched out a little. In the end I promoted maybe eight or ten shows, made money on every single one (pretty good money on a few of them) and started developing skills that came in very handy when I started managing a rock band professionally.
So in the end I guess I have to thank Benoit (may he Rest In Peace) and Fernie-bern for helping me get my start in the whole promotion thing. Lemons to lemonade my friends, lemons to lemonade.
Todd Man Out 