Jail-house rock at corrections centre
Former Rheostatics band member returns to the North and plays at jail
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Friday, October 30, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Around 20 inmates at the North Slave Correctional Centre attended a rare jailhouse jam featuring musician and author Dave Bidini earlier this week.
Dave Bidini - Ontario-based musician, author and founding member of the indie-rock group Rheostatics - gave a performance to inmates at the North Slave Correctional Centre on Wednesday. - photo courtesy of Sue Glowach |
The Etobicoke, Ont., recording artist - a founding member of the Genie Award-winning rock group Rheostatics - is in the city doing research for a book. Bidini said he enjoyed playing a 40-minute set in a common space at the jail on Wednesday. The audience seemed to enjoy the time in the common area as well, he added.
"It's like a games room, they've got an air hockey table there, they've got the jam room. They're all wearing their green shirts and their sweatpants," said Bidini. "I sang a lot about dope and booze in my songs and they were loving that. The sun was shining through the windows. They've got a big bison head in there and a caribou bust on the wall and some art up there. It was pretty pleasant actually."
Bidini said he borrowed an acoustic guitar and began by playing all of his "heaviest" tunes.
"There's a cop killer in one of my songs, and (the audience) said aren't you going to play some happy songs?" he said.
"There was a couple of guys who were locked right in with me. There was a bunch of jokers there too, like any crowd really. There was a guy with an oxygen tank. And a lot of guys from Tuk up there."
Bidini - who visited Yellowknife, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk during a trip to the territory this past summer - said he was surprised at how talkative the incarcerated contingent from the Western Arctic was.
"They were voluble," he said. "They engaged way more than I thought they would. A couple of the guys told me they were going to go to this thing just to meet people in other pods. They don't get to interact very much. So there were a couple guys there having conversations. That was nice. There was this one guy who said, 'Oh so you were in Tuk eh? '"
Department of Justice spokesperson Sue Glowach said the corrections centre seldom holds concerts for inmates.
"It's not a common event," she said. "It's been a very long time. We have a lot of elders that do come in, that type of work is being done."
She said the department is looking at bringing musicians in to host workshops in the future, since they've noticed inmates using music to vent their anguish.
"Different people find different sources to deal with their pain," she said.
"For the future, we're going to be looking at perhaps bringing in (artists) through songwriter workshops and help people heal through music."
She said the inmates have access to instruments in the common area and they like to rock out.
"They like to really thrash and scream on it. Which I think I might want to, too," she said. "It's seen as a constructive positive outlet."
Bidini said the audience was curious as to why he returned to the North.
"Some of the guys in the room, they asked me, 'Why are you here?' I said 'My friend's court case is tomorrow. They asked 'What'd he do?' So I told them. And they said, 'Well, we'll set it up nice for him when he gets here.'"
