"You just never know what fate will deal you."
September 8, 2014 6:33 AM Subscribe
John Mann, lead vocalist and principal songwriter of Canadian band Spirit of the West (known by two generations of university froshes for "Home For A Rest") has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.
Fuck Alzheimers.
Related:
Fuck Cancer.
Fuck Parkinsons's.
Fuck suffering.
Give.
Help.
posted by Fizz at 6:53 AM on September 8, 2014
Related:
Fuck Cancer.
Fuck Parkinsons's.
Fuck suffering.
Give.
Help.
posted by Fizz at 6:53 AM on September 8, 2014
Ah this is such a bummer. I feel for John and his family. These guys put on such a good live show. Their albums are a big part of our family gatherings - this is sad.
posted by glaucon at 7:06 AM on September 8, 2014
posted by glaucon at 7:06 AM on September 8, 2014
Oh no, oh no. My heart goes out to him and his family. Alzheimer's is so awful especially at the stage where you know there's something wrong and you can foresee the painful decline.
Truly, there is no other band like SOTW that can so quickly evoke for me that feeling of being at UBC in the 1990s, dancing at the Pit or at Arts County Fair or just listening to music in res with my friends. Their music was a big part of my undergrad experience.
I'm so sorry to hear this.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:17 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Truly, there is no other band like SOTW that can so quickly evoke for me that feeling of being at UBC in the 1990s, dancing at the Pit or at Arts County Fair or just listening to music in res with my friends. Their music was a big part of my undergrad experience.
I'm so sorry to hear this.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:17 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
I was never really a fan (although I did wind up seeing them live twice), but "Home For A Rest" will always be a big part of the mental soundtrack of my university years. This is really sad.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2014
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2014
In another thread about Alzheimer's I posted the following comment:
"My grandmother had early onset Alzheimers. There was a middle period where she became childlike though oddly she still knew she was to be respected. The middle part was the good part. Metaphorically she had lost her glasses but forgotten that she needed them to see - if that makes any sense. If you've known a person who has Alzheimers you recognize it immediately. Sometimes I'll see a family on vacation, before in SF and now in NOLA with the mom or dad being, well, not authoritative and mildly absent, and the rest of the family being very attentive. The family is taking them on a vacation because that's all they can do.
Grandma wrapped all the wastebaskets in the house in tin-foil one time she visited. When we visited one time she, quite joyfully, told me how the pillow on the couch smiled at her, and mimiced the smile for me.
Occasionally people who suffer from Alzheimers, even though they are mostly lost to themselves, have moments of lucidity. My mom told me of one time when my grandma wandered outside in the just starting rain and said, "Why does this have to happen to me?"
I hate Alzheimers.
posted by vapidave at 8:39 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
"My grandmother had early onset Alzheimers. There was a middle period where she became childlike though oddly she still knew she was to be respected. The middle part was the good part. Metaphorically she had lost her glasses but forgotten that she needed them to see - if that makes any sense. If you've known a person who has Alzheimers you recognize it immediately. Sometimes I'll see a family on vacation, before in SF and now in NOLA with the mom or dad being, well, not authoritative and mildly absent, and the rest of the family being very attentive. The family is taking them on a vacation because that's all they can do.
Grandma wrapped all the wastebaskets in the house in tin-foil one time she visited. When we visited one time she, quite joyfully, told me how the pillow on the couch smiled at her, and mimiced the smile for me.
Occasionally people who suffer from Alzheimers, even though they are mostly lost to themselves, have moments of lucidity. My mom told me of one time when my grandma wandered outside in the just starting rain and said, "Why does this have to happen to me?"
I hate Alzheimers.
posted by vapidave at 8:39 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Back in my day - and I say this with no hyperbole or exaggeration whatsoever - in universities across Western Canada (at least), "Home For A Rest" was the single best song for completely filling the dance floor with riotous dancing. But let's not overlook the rest of their oeuvre - for some reason this morning, I wanted to hear their early, firey "Profiteers" about landlords leading up to Expo 86 in Vancouver.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:59 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:59 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
A few years ago we were at a 30th b-day party and my wife and I sat with her childhood friend and his wife - everyone said she was the nicest person around, and she was quite charming when I met her.
A few years later we were at a 40th wedding anniversary. there was this karaoke machine and a few people came forward to sing, including her. I hadn't spoken to her in a while and I went up to her after and said "nice singing!", and she looked at me with a half-amused smile, the kind you give to someone when you don't really know who they are or what they're talking about. That's when we heard she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.
A couple of years later at a family member's funeral, she and her husband were in the greeting/condolences line; she came up to me and said "i'm not sure why we're here; we just stand in line and shake everyone's hand". Something a seven-year-old would say.
From what I hear now, she doesn't go out. She doesn't recognize her husband, who has sold everything he owns so that he can keep and care for her, the love of his life, at home, full with all required nurses and medical equipment. She just sits all day and watches TV. She's no older than 55.
As much as I feel bad for her, she's probably not suffering anymore. I can't say that about her husband and family. Thank God (I guess) the kids are older and married.
Losing your love, losing them too soon, watching them change over a torturous 5 years?
I'm a spiritual guy, believe in God in some form.
But crikes, at times like these, I can't help but think of Depeche Mode's "Blasphemous Rumours"
I don't want to start
Any blasphemous rumors
But I think that God's
Got a sick sense of humor
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing
posted by bitteroldman at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
A few years later we were at a 40th wedding anniversary. there was this karaoke machine and a few people came forward to sing, including her. I hadn't spoken to her in a while and I went up to her after and said "nice singing!", and she looked at me with a half-amused smile, the kind you give to someone when you don't really know who they are or what they're talking about. That's when we heard she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.
A couple of years later at a family member's funeral, she and her husband were in the greeting/condolences line; she came up to me and said "i'm not sure why we're here; we just stand in line and shake everyone's hand". Something a seven-year-old would say.
From what I hear now, she doesn't go out. She doesn't recognize her husband, who has sold everything he owns so that he can keep and care for her, the love of his life, at home, full with all required nurses and medical equipment. She just sits all day and watches TV. She's no older than 55.
As much as I feel bad for her, she's probably not suffering anymore. I can't say that about her husband and family. Thank God (I guess) the kids are older and married.
Losing your love, losing them too soon, watching them change over a torturous 5 years?
I'm a spiritual guy, believe in God in some form.
But crikes, at times like these, I can't help but think of Depeche Mode's "Blasphemous Rumours"
I don't want to start
Any blasphemous rumors
But I think that God's
Got a sick sense of humor
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing
posted by bitteroldman at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I picked up John hitchhiking once a few years back on Vancouver Island. One of those people who you're just instantly friends with. As we both did some growing up on Vancouver's North Shore, talk inevitably got around to The Crawl, which is the first Spirit of The West song I was ever aware of ... from back in the day when drinking and driving was just something that young men/boys did.
This is, of course, very sad news. All the more reason to remember, I guess, and share those memories. Because we'll all be gone soon enough, but hopefully not the stuff of what we did, the energy thus dispersed.
posted by philip-random at 10:38 AM on September 8, 2014
This is, of course, very sad news. All the more reason to remember, I guess, and share those memories. Because we'll all be gone soon enough, but hopefully not the stuff of what we did, the energy thus dispersed.
posted by philip-random at 10:38 AM on September 8, 2014
I took some great photos of SOTW when they played the Island Club in Toronto in 1990. For those who have never been, it was a small stage at Ontario Place, separated from the audience by a concrete moat maybe three metres wide. The band played every night for five nights solid, I think, and I lived in Parkdale, a few minutes' bike ride away. As well, this was when their latest release was Save This House, which I thought fantastic. You remember back in the Walkman days when you would pop a tape in, find yourself in mid-song, think, "Ooooh, I love this one," rewind but then you go too far back and find yourself in the previous song, think "Ooooh, I love this one too," and eventually wind up at the beginning of the side? That was me with Save This House.
Anyway, I saw them at least three times that week and took some great shots. One night -- I want to say it was the final night of their stint, but after a quarter century, I cannot be sure -- the packed crowd was dancing at the edge of the moat when someone slipped and fell in. There was instant concern from those near enough to see her go in, but the dancer leaped to her feet in the moat (which turned out to be knee-deep) and started dancing again. Before the song was done, the crowd had surged into the water and were madly dancing jigs and pogos in the water, which was very quickly airborne. Somewhere I have a picture of John grinning madly through the spray at the enthusiastic, drenched audience.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:14 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Anyway, I saw them at least three times that week and took some great shots. One night -- I want to say it was the final night of their stint, but after a quarter century, I cannot be sure -- the packed crowd was dancing at the edge of the moat when someone slipped and fell in. There was instant concern from those near enough to see her go in, but the dancer leaped to her feet in the moat (which turned out to be knee-deep) and started dancing again. Before the song was done, the crowd had surged into the water and were madly dancing jigs and pogos in the water, which was very quickly airborne. Somewhere I have a picture of John grinning madly through the spray at the enthusiastic, drenched audience.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:14 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Nothing encapsulated the floods in Calgary last year as well as When Rivers Rise. Venice is Sinking is also a huge favourite in our household.
I hope he continues the good fight and there's a miracle.
posted by arcticseal at 11:15 AM on September 8, 2014
I hope he continues the good fight and there's a miracle.
posted by arcticseal at 11:15 AM on September 8, 2014
from back in the day when drinking and driving was just something that young men/boys did
If you were drinking and driving, I wouldn't use "that's what people did back then" or this song as an excuse. The song includes the following lyrics:
"We planned to have a gay old time, the cash we did not spare,
We left all the cars at home and paid the taxi fare;"
and then:
"We dug deep into our pockets there was no money to be found,
Nine miles home and for walking we are bound."
So it's back in the days when cabs didn't take interac, but that doesn't mean they guys in the song were cool with drinking and driving.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:33 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you were drinking and driving, I wouldn't use "that's what people did back then" or this song as an excuse. The song includes the following lyrics:
"We planned to have a gay old time, the cash we did not spare,
We left all the cars at home and paid the taxi fare;"
and then:
"We dug deep into our pockets there was no money to be found,
Nine miles home and for walking we are bound."
So it's back in the days when cabs didn't take interac, but that doesn't mean they guys in the song were cool with drinking and driving.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:33 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I will add that Mann has the honour of being one of the first military casualties in the pilot for Battlestar Galactica. I was jazzed when I spotted him and totally bummed when he was shot down like a red shirt.
posted by simra at 1:43 PM on September 8, 2014
posted by simra at 1:43 PM on September 8, 2014
True: I didn't even touch on his acting career in the FPP. I remember being surprised when I learned that he started off as a theatre guy in school and only branched into music as a sideline.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:41 PM on September 8, 2014
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:41 PM on September 8, 2014
Back in my day - and I say this with no hyperbole or exaggeration whatsoever - in universities across Western Canada (at least), "Home For A Rest" was the single best song for completely filling the dance floor with riotous dancing
Definitely not just in Western Canada. My days at Ottawa U, especially Frosh week, were simply filled with this song. And it's been a guaranteed hit at every wedding reception ever.
I got to see SOTW live for the first time only a few years back when they played a show hear in Ottawa with Great Big Sea. They paired up for an epic finale of Home For A Rest. I thought the place would collapse with all the dancing.
Oddly, and perhaps sadly, this just makes me think of Putting Up with the Jones. It's a great song.
posted by aclevername at 7:04 PM on September 8, 2014
Definitely not just in Western Canada. My days at Ottawa U, especially Frosh week, were simply filled with this song. And it's been a guaranteed hit at every wedding reception ever.
I got to see SOTW live for the first time only a few years back when they played a show hear in Ottawa with Great Big Sea. They paired up for an epic finale of Home For A Rest. I thought the place would collapse with all the dancing.
Oddly, and perhaps sadly, this just makes me think of Putting Up with the Jones. It's a great song.
posted by aclevername at 7:04 PM on September 8, 2014
I didn't cry over any of the other unspeakably shitty news from the last month or so. But this is the absolute last straw. This is so very, freaking wrong. I think I'm going to have to go and hug my Chihuahua until the waterworks stop.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 8:34 PM on September 8, 2014
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 8:34 PM on September 8, 2014
Fuck Alzheimer's. Fuck it sideways with a broken broom-handle...
for some reason this morning, I wanted to hear their early, firey "Profiteers" about landlords leading up to Expo 86 in Vancouver.
That, and "An Honest Gamble" are the two songs that best capture the essence of Vancouver, both good and ill, in the mid-80s.
Good luck, John.
posted by e-man at 11:05 PM on September 8, 2014
for some reason this morning, I wanted to hear their early, firey "Profiteers" about landlords leading up to Expo 86 in Vancouver.
That, and "An Honest Gamble" are the two songs that best capture the essence of Vancouver, both good and ill, in the mid-80s.
Good luck, John.
posted by e-man at 11:05 PM on September 8, 2014
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posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:35 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]