Billboard annonced this 1/8/02 that Disc 1 has sold 500,000 copies and is now certified gold. To check out more information go to:
http://www.billboard.com/billboard/riaa/gold.jsp
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From VH1.com: The Wire:
http://www.vh1.com/thewire/content/news/1451815.jhtml
No Doubt, McCartney, BNL Make Super Bowl More Super
By Jon Wiederhorn
1/16/02
Paul McCartney, No Doubt and Barenaked Ladies have been added to the Super Bowl pre-game show at the Louisiana Superdome on February 3.
McCartney will headline the event and lead what is being called a "Tribute to Everyday Heroes" to honor the acts of kindness and heroism that people contributed in the wake of September 11. The Beatles bassist will perform his song "Freedom" with 500 young people who will symbolically represent the 180 countries broadcasting the football game across the globe.
The pre-show party will begin hours earlier with a performance by Barenaked Ladies at the Fox Tailgate Party in the parking lot of the stadium. They'll be followed by a set from No Doubt. Then Mary J. Blige and Marc Anthony will perform "America the Beautiful" along with the Boston Pops and America's Heroes Chorus. (see "Mary J. Blige, Marc Anthony Score Super Bowl Pre-Game Gig" ). The Pops will also back up Mariah Carey's singing of the national anthem right before kickoff, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. (see "Mariah To Sing National Anthem At Super Bowl XXXVI" ).
Additional pre-show performers may be announced at a later date.
Grammy nomination-gobblers U2 will provide halftime entertainment for the event (see "U2 To Elevate Super Bowl XXXVI Halftime Show" ). The band has yet to announce what its short set will consist of or who may join the group onstage.
Last year, Aerosmith and 'NSYNC performed the halftime show along with a host of guests including Britney Spears, Run-D.M.C., Nelly and Mary J. Blige (see "Britney, Nelly Joining Aerosmith At Super Bowl" ). Last year's pre-show entertainment included Bon Jovi, Sting, Styx and Backstreet Boys (see "Bon Jovi, Sting, Styx In Super Bowl Pregame Show" ).
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Globe and mail article
Making music on a wing and a prayer
Leukemia almost killed the Barenaked Ladies' Kevin Hearn. But it also gave birth to a poignant solo album
By ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
Tuesday, January 15, 2002 – Print Edition, Page R1
By his own account, Kevin Hearn was taking way too many bad drugs while writing the songs for his recent solo album, H-Wing. He was also spending most of his time in bed, wondering if he would die before he could finish the record.
Hearn, who plays keyboards and guitar with the Barenaked Ladies, was no self-destructive pop star. All his drugs were prescribed, by doctors trying to beat the leukemia that nearly killed him.
They succeeded, and so did he. H-Wing is a gently insightful collection of pop songs about a month in the purgatory of a cancer ward.
I didn't want it to be too heavy for people, said Hearn, whose low-keyed presence matches the soft, vulnerable sound of his singing voice. "I put a lot of my fears and anxieties into these songs, but I also wanted to reflect the fact that humour is so important."
Even with the worst of the chemical demons rampaging through his body, Hearn somehow found something cheering in the experience. The Good One, the album's deceptively peaceful opening song, describes how a few words and a moment of human contact lightened a particularly brutal episode of chemotherapy, "while I just lay there waiting to turn into Mr. Hyde."
Hearn's nightmare started in late 1998, just as the Barenakeds were hitting the top of the North American pop charts with their single, One Week. As tonight's CBC-TV Life & Times documentary about the Barenakeds points out, the sharp divergence in fortunes gave the relentlessly light-hearted band a lot less to joke about.
As we went off on the biggest tour ever, Kevin went into the hospital to die, drummer Tyler Stewart tells the camera, with a look on his face that still registers a shadow of disbelief. The band sent regular e-mails from the road which "really made me know I was missed and valued," Hearn said.
His illness is in remission now, thanks largely to a transplant of bone marrow from his brother. But his view of life and relationships has changed permanently.
Some people can stand the intensity of a health crisis, and some can't, he said. Like others who have endured such a crisis, he was sometimes surprised to discover who fell into which camp.
He also has a much keener sense of the passage of time, and the finite nature of opportunity. He's committed to the Barenakeds, and loved playing on Letterman and selling out the Madison Square Gardens and the Royal Albert Hall. But like any full-time job, touring and recording with the band eats up a lot of living.
I often wonder if I'm doing the right thing, if I'm making the best use of my time, he said. He flinches at the comparison, but admits that the dominance of Steven Page and Ed Robertson as creators of the Barenakeds' material sometimes leaves him playing George Harrison to their Lennon & McCartney.
I think they're great songwriters, and I like working on their songs with them, he said. "I wish I could express myself within the band more, but up to now that hasn't been a priority for anyone."
Hearn was recruited in 1995, after the departure of Andy Creeggan. The band was looking for someone who could fill in Page's and Robertson's songs with instrumental hooks, melodic solos and expressive colours.
Ed always jokes, 'Okay, Kevin, now it's time for you to go into the studio and give the song exactly what it needs,' Hearn said. He's very much a background figure in the CBC film, until the narrative turns to his illness.
H-Wing was recorded while he was still under heavy medical care. He said he was lucky that he and the members of Thin Buckle, his backing band, knew each other's style so well from years of previous experience.
I had a pretty complicated recovery, and almost died a couple of times after the transplant, he said. "I was by no means healthy when I made the record. I was in and out of the hospital, taking a lot of bad drugs, including steroids. I became very puffy, and I could barely play by the end."
You'd never know that, listening to the record. Hearn's meditations on pain and fate sound like those of someone who has drifted clear of being too much affected by either. The album has a feeling of timelessness, and not just because he's writing about universal themes. He deliberately tried to replicate the suspended world of the overmedicated.
Let's float here together, one last time. / In the sweet peroxide. . . he sings in Death Bed Love Letter. Swimming pools, fog and bits of driftwood carry Hearn through reflections on himself and his experience that often have the droll simplicity and solemnity of childlike visions.
His best review to date came in a short note from one of his pop idols, Lou Reed, who he got to know through common acquaintances. He recites it like a memory that won't ever fade.
He said 'You've made a beautiful record, Kevin, and you must have balls of steel.' Hearn can't help crumpling with laughter at that last part.
He recently took the songs of H-Wing on the road with the Rheostatics, whose lead singer Martin Tielli also performs in Thin Buckle. It felt good, and he wants to do more while the Barenakeds take a year off from touring.
Writing new songs is another matter. It's harder now than it was in the hospital, even though there was no telling then whether he'd live to perform any of the tunes he was picking out on his guitar.
Writing those songs was easy, because it was all there, and it was so extreme, he said. Returning to normal life, it turns out, can be almost as hard as leaving it.
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This comes from Barenaked.net’s bulletin board
Rolling Stone Raves: What Your Rock and Roll Favorites Favor. Is a book of famous quotes. Included are a few by BNL’s own Steven Page:
Under the Influence, (chapter one)
I was fifteen when Elvis Costello's Blood and Chocolate came out. I remember lying in bed late at night listening to I Want You." I was transfixed; I was paralyzed. It still sounds so great, so raw, so urgent. I've had the opportunity to meet him three times, but I've shied away. What's he gonna say to me: 'Good luck with your little band?'" (1998)
(ed. note: the above quote was accompanied by a self portrait he'd done in 1994)
What's Cookin'? (chapter 9)
If I can have an omelette with home fries and toast, I'm a happy guy at any meal. With grapefruit juice--that's a delicious juice. Sometimes I try to mislead myself into thinking I want oatmeal, but I know I never do. Coffee is such a varied drink. You can get dishwater, and you can get dark roast. But if I'm gonna go for the Starbucks experience, I'll have a grande skim cappuccino, 'cause I'm a grande guy, and I need less fat in my day. (1998)
Another Roadside Attraction (chapter 16)
I wouldn't pack up and move to Boise, Idaho but we had a good time there. We tubed down the Boise River and got ridiculously sunburned. There's a little bit of funkiness in the mountains and the dust. (1998)
Every Picture Tells a Story (chapter 21)
Wan Wenders's Wings of Desire is so rich and full of eye candy. There's a serenity and violence and sensuality and everything wrapped into one movie. The first time I saw it, I thought, 'I can watch eighteen hours of this and not be sick of it.' (1998)
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The "artist bio" in the back states: "Part Marx Brothers, part Weird Al Yankovic, Canada's Barenaked Ladies made a splash in the States with the catchy 1998 hit "One Week." Steven Page is their lead singer
