Albums can’t really change your life, but they certainly can provide a soundtrack to key periods of change. Such is the case for me with the sophomore release by Toronto’s Dinner Is Ruined.
Love Songs From The Lubritorium is named for main Dinner man Dale Morningstar’s Gas Station recording studio. Lubritorium = Gas Station. A great many prominent records were made or partially made there, and the later location on Toronto Island. Among those are Ongiara by Great Lake Swimmers, Furnace Room Lullaby by Neko Case, Born On A Pirate Ship by Barenaked Ladies, Coke Machine Glow by Gord Downie, both the Whale Music Soundtrack and Introducing Happiness by The Rheostatics, Lay It Down by Cowboy Junkies, Kings Of Love by Blackie And The Rodeo Kings, and a pair of Julie Doiron albums.
I remember seeing Dale in Montreal while the Barenakeds were recording at Gas Station back in Toronto. He wasn’t needed so much and the band got along so well that he felt out of place. He got in his van and headed east. By the time he got past Belleville he decided he must be headed to Montreal and dropped in to catch a show by Tinker — the band which featured Blinker The Star’s Jordon Zadorozny and Hole’s Melissa Auf Der Maur. Tinker also recorded with Morningstar at Gas Station.
I had known Dale casually for a few years, having booked the Dinners to play a few shows in the Ottawa Valley — one as an opening act for Bob Wiseman after the release of their Burn Yer Dashiki indie cassette, and again the next year after their major label debut, Love Songs From The Lubritorium. If memory serves, there was a third annual appearance around the time of the release of Worm Picker’s Brawl.
Lubritorium is their most approachable album (I think there are eight). It serves as a soundtrack for so many high school memories. I did six years of high school and surprisingly, remember all of it. Lubritorium only exists on cassette and CD, the latter of which is the one I have. It is lovingly battered from use and transport. Every song on the album has graced a mix tape or CD. It’s been fished out of dodgy CD players all over Ontario. Its sleeve notes are swollen from being read and reread and are worn at the edges from being tucked and re-tucked under the little plastic tabs.
This alt-rock masterpiece begins with the album’s banger, Carnival Of Sole — likely a homonym salute to the cult-classic 1962 film Carnival Of Souls. I’m not sure about fish, but I do know Dale was a vegetarian when I met him. Carnival Of Sole is built around a simple but edgy and aggressive bassline which kicks everything off. Morningstar’s Telecaster sings and squeals throughout, often played with a slide — but likely not of the traditional variety. It is a cacophony at times, held together by the incomparable drumming of Don Kerr, prior to his departure to The Rheostatics. Actually, I believe the bands traded drummers — Dave Clark for Kerr. No doubt future considerations were involved in the trade (see Gas Station studio credits above).
The startling juxtaposition of Head Squash is next, an eccentric echoplex banjo song of sorts — minimalistic and sung with a comedic drawl and mostly indecipherable lyrics. It’s frigging cool, though. My favourite song on the album changes all the time, but certainly Too Much Fun has had this honour a number of times over the years. This is a deluxe, perfect example of Morningstar’s ability to combine discordant guitar and unpretentious, thoughtful lyrics with incredibly appealing melody. The song has great structure and is both romantic and cold, brazen and comforting. Graffiti.
Another often-favourite is next. Snow White is beautiful. Fragile and tender but also powerful — a non-rocking guitar song, set on top of squelchy tape effects which provide an end-of-the-spinning reel filmstrip percussive effect. It’s indie endearing in the same way Freak Scene is. Afro-Am Pile comes next, a song which could have easily fit into the previous debut album. It is the song you would show someone if they asked you what this era of Dinner Is Ruined sounds like. It is melodic, with cool hooks and repeated descents into treble-crash savagery.
This is followed up by a mix-tape mainstay of mine, the cool-as-hell Basic Training. This song is based around a vintage public-domain U.S. Army recruitment record from, I’m guessing, the late ’50s or early 1960s. It has a cheesy horn-section jingle and a classic Baby Boom / American dream voiceover. Kerr’s drums get faded in over top of the recruitment stuff, followed by single, held guitar chords and eventually Morninstar’s vocal: “I’m a marine! I’m a marine.”
Big Belly Man chills things out. The moody feel here is achieved by Morningstar taping down one of the chord buttons on a vintage chord organ and just letting it play throughout. This frees up Morningstar’s hands to play arpeggios on a mandolin along to a subtle and clever Kerr drum beat. It makes a stunning, cinematic and unique analogue arrangement for the spoken but melodic vocals. “Too late for the collection plate.”
Bee Farts is next. This is an instrumental jazz/feedback filler. Just a hair over a minute long, it is the third-shortest song on the album. You’re rewarded with the excellent Harry The Burger Man — an atmospheric, vegetarian ballad of a man who works in an abattoir. It has charming call-and-repeat lyrics, sound-ups from a farm-themed See & Say toy and is one of the most accessible songs on Lubritorium:
“Maybe for Christmas, I’ll get an umbrella.
Maybe for Christmas I will get an umbrella.
To keep me dry
Dry from this blood —
that pours overtop and falls down from above.”
Cootoo Bird is more filler — just 49 seconds long. It’s a sparse, weird segue featuring trumpet or trombone and bird sounds. This sets up the epic Call Me A Taxi with its leering strings and staggering horns. This is much more endearing than I make it out to be. It’s as close to a crooner as Dinner gets, and then the band comes in halfway through and suddenly you want to get to your feet. This is Morningstar showing that Dinner is Ruined‘s sound and style won’t be confined to any kind of formula or arrangement.
The album concludes with Swallows, another less-than-50-seconds track. This guitar-led, pretty album closer is the most accessible of Lubritorium’s three instrumentals. It also features some great brush work by Kerr.
For me this album has always been a 5/5, but if I detach myself from it emotionally, it’s still a solid 4/5. But good luck finding it.
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
