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Dave Bidini (born September 11, 1963) is a Canadian musician and writer. Originally from Etobicoke, Ontario, he was a founding member of the rock music band Rheostatics, and currently performs with Bidiniband. In addition, he has published several books about music, travel and sports, and has written feature journalism pieces and columns for numerous Canadian magazines and newspapers. He is the only Canadian to have been nominated for all three of Canada's main entertainment awards, the Gemini Award for television work, the Genie Awards for film work and the Juno Awards for music, as well as being nominated on Canada's national book awards program, Canada Reads.
They released their first independent single, "Satellite Dancing/My Generation," and played their first few Toronto shows in 1980, notably opening for Popular Spies at Toronto's legendary Edge Club. When Crosby left the band after 1981, they enlisted a horn section ("Trans Canada Soul Patrol"), released a few independent cassettes, and in 1985, began playing with guitarist / singer / songwriter Martin Tielli.
Two of the band's eleven albums, 1990's Melville and 1992's Whale Music have been listed among top Canadian records of all time, both in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums and in three reader polls conducted by the music magazine Chart.
In 1995, they recorded Music Inspired by the Group of Seven, a commissioned work from the National Gallery of Canada, and later made The Story of Harmelodia, a concept album considered one of the finest children's recordings of its time. Their biggest chart hit was 1994's "Claire," which they recorded as part of the soundtrack to the film Whale Music, and two years later, the band opened a cross-Canada tour for The Tragically Hip, which became the basis for Bidini's book On a Cold Road.
After 27 years, the Rheostatics broke up in 2007, their alleged final show was in March 2007 at Toronto's Massey Hall. However, the band reunited in 2016 for a concert at Massey Hall, TO, and released a new album, Here Come the Wolves in 2019.
Bidini's wife, Janet Morassutti—guitar player in Toronto noir-folk quintet The Billie Hollies—has received songwriting credit on the band's songs "Dope Fiends and Boozehounds", "Delta 88" and "Northern Wish", and was the narrator on the band's 1999 children's album The Story of Harmelodia.
In between records, the band hosted the annual "Stolen From a Hockey Card" concert at CBC's Hockey Day in Canada. They backed up musicians ranging from Sarah Harmer to John K. Samson to Bryan Trottier to Carmen Townshend performing original songs about hockey players and the games cultures. They have also been part of Bidini's annual Torn From the Pages literary event, which gathers musicians and writers to create original works based on a single work of fiction, including Linden MacIntyre's Why Men Lie and Michael Crummey's Galore.
The band's second album, In the Rock Hall, was released on January 31, 2012, and recorded at Toronto's Revolution Recordings. The song "I Wanna Go to Yemen" was named one of the Top 100 songs of 2012 by CBC Radio 3. The album's title comes from a poem by Paul Quarrington.Kaplan, Ben. "Dave Bidini is living on the edge" . National Post. January 24, 2012.
The band's third album, The Motherland, was released on May 29, 2014. "Stream The Motherland, the third album from BidiniBand". CBC Music, May 12, 2014.
In 1986, he wrote a piece about Canadian musician Stompin' Tom Connors for Nerve magazine, which ended up encouraging the exiled musician to come out of retirement (the story also appeared in Bidini's first book, On a Cold Road). Bidini was a columnist for the Toronto Star between 1991 and 1993; his stories were written on a portable typewriter from the road and submitted via gas station faxes, and his 1996 tour diary for the same paper became the essence of his first book.
His second book, Tropic of Hockey, about playing hockey in China, Dubai and Transylvania, was named one of the Top 100 Canadian books of all time, and established what would become the writer's template: travel, sports and music written from an experiential perspective. He has been called everything from "the Ry Cooder of hockey" to "George Plimpton soaked in maple syrup."
His 2006 book The Five Hole Stories, a compilation of erotic short stories set in the world of professional ice hockey, was adapted by One Yellow Rabbit into the stage play Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica,Bob Clark, "Rabbits add Big Rock to menu: Calgary theatre companies reveal new fall productions". Calgary Herald, August 12, 2006. and by Cam Christiansen as the animated short film .Tom Babin, "Accolades for local short". Calgary Herald, December 18, 2009.
In 2010, broadcaster Ron MacLean told a Saturday night audience on Hockey Night in Canada that Bidini was "one of this country's most important voices in music and hockey" before premiering a track, "The Land is Wild," from his band's first album. In 2007's Around the World in 57½ Gigs, he documented being among the first ever Canadian rock bands to embark on a festival tour of China, performing in towns that had never seen western rock music before, and in Home and Away, he wrote about the experiences of Canada's homeless soccer team at the Homeless World Cup. After the book's success, Bidini later became a board member for Street Soccer Canada, a non-profit body that sends teams annually to the tournament.
Bidini wrote a weekly Saturday column for the National Post, but was dismissed in 2015.
His 2002 book Baseballissimo was optioned for the screen by co-producer Geddy Lee of Rush with a script written by actor Jay Baruchel ( Goon). In 2011, On a Cold Road was named a finalist for Canada Reads, CBC Radio's national books contest. In 2009, he successfully championed Paul Quarrington's novel King Leary on the same series.
In 2017, Bidini founded the community newspaper, the West End Phoenix, which focuses on life in Toronto's west end. He is the editor and publisher of the newspaper.Dianne Buckner, "Rheostatics guitarist debuts the West End Phoenix, an old-fashioned newspaper". CBC News, October 28, 2017. Contributors to the paper have included David Seymour, Heidi Sopinka, Katrina Onstad, Amanda Leduc, Waubgeshig Rice, Dani Couture, Michie Mee, Michael Winter, Claudia Dey, Michael Barclay, Phoebe Wang, Paul Vermeersch, Niko Stratis, Micah Toub, Glyn Bowerman, Shari Kasman, Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, John Lorinc, and Ken Babstock.
The CBC also commissioned Bidini for a one-hour documentary on soccer entitled Kick in the Head for the 2008 Soccer Day in Canada.
His tenth book, , was nominated for a Toronto Book Award in 2012.
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