A.D. – Life After Downie
[An appreciation of Gord Downie by Geeks&Beats writer Amber Healy–and an American, by the way. – AC]
It’s only been a few days since Gord Downie took his place among the stars, but the wheels of change are slowly starting to move.
In an interview published Saturday in the Toronto Sun, Hip guitarist Rob Baker lists a few projects he’s got in the works.
“Gord Sinclair and I just finished a record (called In Between) with a Kingston artist, Miss Emily. And I produced my son’s band Kasador. I’ve talked to Hugh Dillon about doing something, perhaps a radio show. I’m writing some memoirs. There seems to be no shortage of things to do if you want to do them. I don’t want my future to be my past. I need to kind of keep rolling forward.”
Baker also drops this fun little bit of knowledge: When asked whether a radio show with Hugh Dillon might actually happen, Baker says it’s possible and Dillon always has new projects on the horizon. He also highlights the ties that go back to their adolescence in Kingston —“He was our pot dealer in high school,” Baker says. “Well, he was one of them!”
On Wednesday, just a short time before news of Downie’s death started to spread across a now broken-hearted country, the Hip announced that Up Cannabis would be the “official brand of our new medical marijuana partnership with Newstrike,” a partnership that was announced earlier this year.
Baker was asked about Downie’s decision to focus on First Nations after the Man Machine Poem tour ended and, ostensibly, so did The Hip.
