Movies of War

ArtsNews FacebookXLinkedinCopy URL Submitted photo. Two Pianos and No Rodeo featuring Mike Bogsuki and Bob Wiseman is at the Heritage Seniors Centre on March 12. Prince Albert will host a unique tour on Thursday when Threadbare Productions’ Two Pianos No Rodeo Tour arrives at the Heritage Seniors Centre. The event stars former and current Blue Rodeo members Bob Wiseman and Mike Boguski, who have both played piano and keyboard for the group. The act will include sets from both musicians. “We’re both related to Blue Rodeo…. I’m the original guy and Mike’s the current guy the last 20 years,” Wiseman said. “From my point of view, it’s just a set of music by Mike and a set of music by myself. It’s a spectrum of music that encompasses classical improvisation, singer-songwriter, and political sounding songwriting too.” The tour started when Boguski called Wiseman last spring and asked if he had any shows coming up. “A little light bulb went off my head,” Wiseman explained. “He said, ‘Hey, do you want to do a show together?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure’ and then I suggested the title. We just put it out as a press release and seemed to kind of make everyone laugh and be amused. We’ve just been touring it. It’s quite a lot of fun.” He said that connecting with Threadbare Productions promoter Clay Cottingham was great. “Hooking up with him was really unexpected,” Wiseman said. “If you can find creative promoters in other communities, I mean, that’s the name of the game. People like Clay really are so significant trying to make this work.” It’s been many years since Wiseman performed with Blue Rodeo, but he said his time with the group was very exciting. “I had never been in a band before, and it just kind of outgrew its clothes, show after show after show. It just became a real big deal,” Wiseman said. “It’s the kind of fantasy that a lot of people have of having a career in music, of having a success, being a part of a band that’s successful and flying around suddenly becoming really like royalty in terms of how people perceive the work you’re doing and the treatment you get.” He said touring and traveling let him experience Canada in ways that few people can. “To suddenly be able to go, from Victoria to Halifax regularly, maybe three times a year, every year and Frobisher Bay and Iqaluit and like every direction, it’s really spectacular. I don’t know how to convey what that does to you. I guess maybe it makes you more of a global citizen touring America and Europe too.” Wiseman said he had so many great experiences like being on the Juno Awards, on the Late Show with David Letterman and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The band also got to back up Meryl Streep in the movie Postcards from the Edge, which was based on a book by Carrie Fisher and directed by Mike Nichols. “The film that we were involved in was based on a book she wrote, and there she was playing my keyboard with Meryl Streep. It’s quite surreal,” Wiseman said. He said that during the making of the film there was a discussion by Nichols if they should even let Streep sing. He said to work with Nichols, who also directed The Graduate, was also special. “That was wild,” Wiseman said. “I was too young to appreciate who these people (were). Later in life, I realized, oh, that’s part of who he was. How awesome. He was cool. He was nice to me.” Wiseman, who has produced albums for Lowest of the Low, Bruce McCullough and former Member of Parliament Andrew Cash, said he learned about producing through the experience with Nichols. “If I’m upset about the pitch of something or the tone of something and the other people creating it sometimes don’t realize it, I have to make sure they trust me to change it,” he explained. Wiseman said it was hard to explain what being a producer is like because it is divided into parts. “It’s about having some musical skills and it’s about having listening skills. It’s about utilizing your taste, and sometimes it’s about having to be kind of like a psychiatrist and explain why you think your taste is fair,” Wiseman said. He said that sometimes all band members do not agree and the producer can either find consensus or face a mutiny. He said for his own work he tries to finesse it and also be objective. He said that he was a Beatles fan and they never failed him as a producer influence. “I mean, not just them, Stevie Wonder and all sorts of people have been really remarkable teachers to me in the world of production, but the Beatles really hit the mark in ways that are super stimulating to me throughout my life, and throughout my life as a producer.” This will be Wiseman’s first performance in Prince Albert in roughly 20 years. He has fond memories of that trip. Wiseman said the Trans Canada and Yellowhead can be so boring and people always talk about Saskatchewan being flat, but the drive to Prince Albert was different. “It was a real life changing experience,” he said. “Most of the time a lot of artists in Canada, when they do date in Saskatchewan, it generally consists of Regina or Saskatoon and it’s those two highways. “When I went to Prince Albert, suddenly, getting off the Trans Canada and whatever the other one is called, the Yellowhead, it just was a completely different experience of Saskatchewan. Suddenly it was valleys and hills and different kinds of pockets of forestry. It was just exhilarating and gorgeous. “It was like, whoa. In my travels as a musician, I don’t encounter this kind of Saskatchewan, and it just is very meaningful.” The drive and the scenery aren’t the only parts of Saskatchewan Wiseman enjoyed. He also enjoys the people. Wiseman gave the example of playing in Bruno in the 1990s and getting the key to the town as a wonderful memory. “It’s just really exciting in Canada, I guess because we don’t have a lot of cities, to add more places to the map you can go to as a musician, so I was excited when I reached out to try and find if there were any other kind of promoters to liaise with and found Clay,” he said. Two Pianos No Rodeo is on Thursday, March 12 at the Heritage Seniors Centre. Doors are at 6 p.m. and the show is at 7 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance or $35 at the door. The show is all ages. michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca -Advertisement-