The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

April 19th, around four o'clock, outside Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. jD is about to sit with the whole creative team, with no idea what's coming.
The first preview is three days out. jD bought a ticket for April 22nd thinking it was the premiere. It wasn't (musicals have previews, it turns out - lesson one of about 400). That's the spirit of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series: one fan, uncool and underqualified, let into the rooms where "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" got made. It's the first musical built from the songs of The Tragically Hip, and it's moving to Kingston.
Setting the Scene starts at the start. Where the idea came from, who said yes, and how a story about a man who can't go home again ended up in Kingston, of all places. But first, the question nobody wants to ask out loud: what is a musical, anyway? Jen Towndrow, Armand, and Autumn McDonald love them, and they make the case. One fan who walked out of a jukebox show wondering what just happened makes the other one.
Then the people who built it. Michael Rubinoff, the producer, knew exactly where he wanted to be if Y2K took the world down at midnight, and he knew one thing about this show before he had the rights to a single song. Jake Gold, manager of The Hip, had two conditions. A month later came a phone call, a radio story out of Afghanistan, and the song that played once the plane was in the air.
Ahmed Moneka shouted his love for an Ontario town off a bridge, and somebody told him which song to go home and play. Jesse LaVercombe found The Hip somewhere "in the ether" and came aboard late, which meant sprinting. Mary Francis Moore offered up the room at Theatre Aquarius partly so she could watch. And Brett Christopher in Kingston had been dreaming about this for fifteen years before anyone else got the rights. That news landed hard, at first.
Somewhere in all of it the story leaves Toronto for a smaller city with prisons on one side and universities on the other. You'll hear why that move mattered. And on April 23rd, at a talk in the theatre, somebody asks for the whole show in one word.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
• What "the book" of a musical is, for anyone who assumed it was a book.
• The Zoom where Michael asked the band for three minutes before getting down to business. And what he told them first.
• Friends whose fathers came from Iran and Peru, and the band they learned Canada through.
• Lindsay Pereira's CBC story, and why Jake told Michael he had to read it.
• Kensington Market, Kingston, and why a small town makes you earn it.
"If I had one kick at the can with this music and there was one way I could use this music to tell the story, I did always believe that this was the story to tell." - Michael Rubinoff, producer
WHO YOU HEAR
• Michael Rubinoff. Producer of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," and the originating producer of "Come From Away." A fan first.
• Jake Gold. Manager of The Tragically Hip.
• Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe. Co-writers of the book, ten years making theatre together, "King Gilgamesh and the Man of the Wild" included. Jesse on moving north: "Sometimes I feel like as an American living up here, it's like living in a really low-stakes Twilight Zone."
• Mary Francis Moore. Director, and artistic director at Theatre Aquarius, the National Centre for the Development of New Musicals.
• Brett Christopher. Managing artistic director of the Thousand Islands Playhouse, the show's Kingston co-producer. He lives in Kingston.
• Jen, Armand, and Autumn. The crash course in musicals.
Big thanks to Michael, Jake, Ahmed, Jesse, Mary Francis, and Brett for letting a fan with a microphone into the room three days before the first preview, and to Jen, Armand, and Autumn for explaining it all first. A lot of new Canadians found their way in through The Tragically Hip. This is the story of how that ended up on a stage. Tomorrow on It's A Good Life: The Players.
"IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN" - KINGSTON
The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings the musical to the Kingston Grand Theatre, in association with Theatre Aquarius, October 22 to November 8. Opening night is Friday, October 23. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026
THE TIP JAR
Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
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MORE FROM THE TRAGICALLY HIP PODCAST SERIES
Yer Hipstories - Hamilton: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/fae76ee3-738f-4007-80c8-7140729bb295
Yer Hipstories - Kingston: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/c37eccb0-036d-45d0-827b-08582d3f8bba
Run dates via the Kingston Grand Theatre and the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Lindsay Pereira's story via CBC.
#ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #TTHPods #CanadianMusic #HipFans

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November 30th, 2012, Minneapolis, cold enough to hurt. Brian from Buffalo was there for 'Take Forever.' The stream tried to play it three times.
It's track nine of eleven on "Now for Plan A," the Gavin Brown record that came out October 2nd, 2012. By the count on the stream, The Tragically Hip played it live eight times, starting months before the record was out, and it didn't crack the 169 songs ranked for the TTHTop40 Countdown. The poll in the Facebook group was kinder: 76% love it or like it, and one brave soul has never heard it. Jeff from Belleville has a theory about why, and it starts with where the song sits on the record.
Then the tale of the tape turns up a chart fact about "Now for Plan A" in the United States that nobody on the panel believes. It checks out.
So Brian from Buffalo, Jeff from Belleville, and Greg from Tacoma (late, and sentenced to sing it) take apart three minutes about a man trying to be a machine, a plane hurtling through the dark, and a promise to be there for as long as it takes. And Calgary. A lot of Calgary.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
The icebreaker: a song by The Hip that sounds like fall. Brian bends the rules before he gives in, and Jeff lands on the same song jD played in the car on the way home.
Brian's personal ranking of every song by The Hip, and why loving 'The Lookahead' costs this one a few spots.
Calgary as the place to do it. Brian found the story behind the line, and Jeff found the newspaper by way of HipMuseum.
What Gord told the crowd before 'Take Forever' at Kensington Market and in Minneapolis, pulled from The Tragically Hip Archive, and the Ralph Nader primer that follows.
Jeff's reach of the night: Stampede Wrestling, the Saddledome, and the year 2001. He admits it's a reach. jD isn't so sure.
Greg from Tacoma, the land of Boeing, and a guess about where this song was written.
The news: a fan survey from the band, GEDfest crossing the border, and a musical opening in Kingston.
Next week the wheel lands on 'Sharks,' from "Music @ Work."
"I feel like it ends stronger than it begins." - Brian from Buffalo
THE PANEL
Brian from Buffalo. A teacher, which is why fall is not his favourite season. Saw the "World Container" tour at the Phoenix in Toronto in October 2006, then in Boston and Rochester in 2007, and keeps his own ranking of every song.
Jeff from Belleville. Back after a while away, and on a panel with Brian for the first time. Lives among rows of red pine, which explains his icebreaker, and does the homework every time. Nothing to plug, he says.
Greg from Tacoma. Showed up late, refused to sing, and still found the line nobody else had touched. Scored every record by The Hip for jD and docked the last two a point.
Big thanks to Brian, Jeff, and Greg, and to a chat that kept the room going while the audio didn't. 'Take Forever' is one of the quieter corners of "Now for Plan A," and an hour with three fans who did the reading is a good way to hear The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie fresh. You won't hear it here. Go put it on.
IT'S A GOOD LIFE - MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 TO FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
Five episodes, one a day. An oral history of the making of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," the musical built on the music of The Hip, told by the people who made it. Subscribe: home.tthpods.com
GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17
Saturday night at the Horseshoe Tavern, nine years since Gord passed away, Grace, 2 plays for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, so follow along on the night: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. GEDfest Buffalo, the first American chapter, is Wednesday, October 21, and more cities celebrate on Saturday, October 24. Every city and every cause: gedfest.ca
How it started: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9fc87037-23d5-4de2-8ed4-202f441bf759
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN
A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7
THE HIP HANDBOOK
The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com
YER LETTER
One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com
THE TIP JAR
All three panelists plugged this link instead of themselves, so here it is. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
Instagram: @tthpods
YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com
MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM
'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45
'Vaccination Scar': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/5fa3fc7c-f01b-4eae-a3de-5cadc658b9f9
'Tiger The Lion': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/718fe20e-83d6-4c69-86eb-cc2b4af02834
Live play count and dates from the stream. Gord's live intros via The Tragically Hip Archive, as cited on the stream. The Calgary article via HipMuseum, as cited on the stream. Release and chart details via Wikipedia and Universal Music Canada.
#TheTragicallyHip #NowForPlanA #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #ItsAGoodLife #GEDfest

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The new 5-part podcast begins this coming Monday, the 19th.

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11,300 pennies, a frame five feet by nine, about 250 pounds, and all of it Gord. Penny Gord has hung at the National Music Centre, it travels with Trickle Down now, and somewhere along the way it became the closest thing GEDfest has to a mascot.
The first three episodes covered where GEDfest came from, where it stands, and where it's headed. This one is about who. Keith's word for it is the secret sauce: the ambassadors, supporters, volunteers, and tribute players who turned one Calgary night in memory of Gord Downie into twelve chapters across Canada and into the United States. Every one of them got here a different way. A pile of pennies. A cold email. A song sung at a private party. A message from an old friend nobody had heard from in twenty years.
That last one belongs to Dan Murphy. Dan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2023. Three years on, he and his family have a fund at Princess Margaret, the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer, and GEDfest Toronto is raising money for it. When his oncologist told him they'd be talking about quality of life, Dan and his wife made a choice: "We decided to make quality of life about quality of life." A couple hundred people he knows, some of them friends from grade school, are making the drive to the Horseshoe in October.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
• The icebreaker. A song from The Tragically Hip that sounds like the end of summer. One answer arrives on a cassette carried back from Kingston to a university residence floor, and Keith is answering this question for the fourth time without repeating himself.
• Luke Carruthers on how a pile of pennies turned into posters for every city, then merch, then a backlit sign he's building to hang out front of the Calgary show.
• Robbie Milgaard named his band after a song by The Hip. Keith tells the story of the night Robbie first sang it with Trickle Down, and what Robbie said at the mic before he started.
• Alan Cross on why a fanbase ends up doing this kind of thing, and why the answer starts with the band.
• The night BCDC opened for Trickle Down at the Palace in Calgary, and what the five of them said to each other backstage before they had to follow it.
• Brennan Rafferty, on the road to the Kootenays, with a tip on a young Calgary band you'll want to say you saw in a bar once.
• The first email that got a reply, and why Keith credits one of the people on this panel with giving him the nerve to keep sending them.
• Keith's case for what GEDfest gives people who want to do some good and don't know where to start.
THE PANEL
• Dan Murphy, from Toronto. First heard 'Blow at High Dough' the fall he moved into residence. Reconnected with Buddy Harold this winter, and a few months later he's part of GEDfest Toronto.
• Keith Dick, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Now four for four on the icebreaker.
• Luke Carruthers, the artist behind Penny Gord. Went from lending it out to volunteering at the silent auction, then posters, merch, and the sign.
• Alan Cross, who co-hosts GEDfest Toronto at the Horseshoe with Fearless Fred from Q107. Called in from Victoria, a couple of hours before starting a national speaking tour.
• Robbie Milgaard, from Cochrane, Alberta. Sings in The Wheat Kings, who play GEDfest Cochrane on Saturday, October 24th, and gets called up to sing with Trickle Down often enough that Keith counts him as the sixth member.
• Brennan Rafferty, frontman of BCDC, 27 years in. Lives on the West Coast and already has his tickets for GEDfest Vancouver on October 24th.
GEDFEST 2026
GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest: twelve chapters, each one raising money for a cause in its own community. Most play Saturday, October 17th. Vancouver, Cochrane, and Regina play October 24th, and Buffalo moved up to October 21st. Find your city at gedfest.ca.
jD co-leads the Toronto chapter: the Horseshoe Tavern, Saturday, October 17th, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first. Drop him a line at jd@tthpods.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ.
THE HIP HANDBOOK
The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com
YER LETTER
One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com
THE TIP JAR
Editing is hard and the battery needs charging. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: jd@tthpods.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
Instagram: @tthpods
YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com
MORE GEDFEST PAST, PRESENT, & FUTURE
'Past': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9fc87037-23d5-4de2-8ed4-202f441bf759
#TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #Fundraising #TributeBands #HipFans #TTHPods

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August 20th, 2016, Kingston. 'Poets' is twentieth on the set list, right behind 'Something On,' the song Craig from Langley used to skip to.
It opens "Phantom Power," it was the lead single, and it sits at number 23 on the TTHTop40 Countdown. The count on the stream, pulled from Hipbase and setlist.fm, has The Tragically Hip playing it 611 times, from July 2nd, 1998, twelve days before the record came out, to that last night in Kingston. The poll in the Facebook group drew more votes than any the show has run. And the Discovering Downie panel came back together for it. They do not agree.
Justin from Bridport bought "Phantom Power" as a kid, and this was the first thing out of the speakers. Kirk from Chino calls it his Gus (an inside joke), and he spent a day with live versions until it turned. Craig from Langley plays it in a tribute band about half the time and still hits skip on the record, so he sat down with a guitar to find out why. He found out. You'll want to hear it before you sing along again.
Then the video. A house with a reputation (and a lot of cats), a bass nobody expected Gord to be holding, Johnny Fay playing it lighter than he does on stage, and a question from jD about why the band is lined up backwards.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
• The icebreaker: one song by The Hip that feels like fall, and one answer the panel would happily trade this whole episode for.
• October 7th in The Hip Handbook, from Austin to the Fillmore. Kirk was at the Fillmore, just not that night.
• A Troubadour recording from 2009 with a lot of swimming in it. Kirk was in the room.
• Super Farmer Nano Baby, the darker take on the 25th anniversary box set, and Justin's hunch about which came first.
• Woodstock, Live 8 with Dan Aykroyd on harmonica, and Gord's rants, different every night.
• The backing vocals from Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair. Nobody on the panel knows the words. Craig has Paul's own answer, more or less.
• At the last show in Kingston, the microphone becomes a flashlight. Kirk says that's when the song finally landed for him.
• Next week the wheel lands on 'Take Forever,' from "Now for Plan A."
"This is a hard question for me to answer because I'm so emotionally tied to this album." - Justin from Bridport

THE PANEL
• Justin from Bridport. A six-timer, by jD's count. "Phantom Power" was the first record by The Hip he ever bought. Announces for the Sprint Cars of New England, with the season finale October 24 in Claremont, New Hampshire, and helps run the Vermont Motorsports Hall of Fame, which just named its class of 2026.
• Craig from Langley. Plays in Gift Shop, a tribute to The Hip on the West Coast. They're at the first GEDfest Vancouver on October 24 and in White Rock on October 17, and the full August 20, 2026 show at the Hollywood Theatre, ten years to the day, is headed for YouTube. His own band, Windows 78, is on Spotify and Apple Music.
• Kirk from Chino. Finishing a solo album, with updates at Kirk Lane Music on Instagram and Facebook. Plays in The Daryls, a cover band around LA, Orange County, the Inland Empire, and San Diego, and hosts Steps To The Stage, a podcast for community theatre.

Big thanks to Justin, Craig, and Kirk, together again after Discovering Downie, and to a chat that was on fire all night. Twenty-eight years on, 'Poets' is still the door a lot of fans walked through to The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie, even the ones who spent it at the bar. The same three are back for the episode closest to Gord's birthday, with a solo song pulled at random.

DISCOVERING DOWNIE
Where this panel met, one Gord Downie solo record at a time. "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5

THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN
A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7

GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17
The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ.

THE HIP HANDBOOK
The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com

YER LETTER
One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com

THE TIP JAR
Justin's plug was this link, so here it is. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40

FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
Instagram: @tthpods
YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com

MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM
'Radio Show': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9cdeecdc-c69a-4e6a-b087-ce6effbb2fa2
'Emperor Penguin': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/a2f229b2-b5fc-41e4-8d78-632080d31a3b
'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787

Live play count via Hipbase and setlist.fm, as counted on the stream. Kingston set list via setlist.fm. Countdown rank from the show. Release details via Wikipedia.

#TheTragicallyHip #PhantomPower #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #DiscoveringDownie #HipHeads

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