Dummies jingling all the way back home Holiday tunes and hits on tap By: Alan Small Posted: 5:33 PM CST Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2023 (945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Crash Test Dummies are ready to encounter a friendly ghost of Christmas past Thursday.

The Winnipeg rock group, which emerged from the Blue Note Café scene to fame seemingly overnight in 1991, will take the stage at the Club Regent Event Centre to build some yuletide spirit by mixing Christmas carols — “A peppering, a sprinkling,” singer Ellen Reid says — with their own classics, some of which are as instantly recognizable as any holiday tune.

Releasing a Christmas album is almost as inevitable for performing artists as returning for an encore, and the Crash Test Dummies, which also includes Dan Roberts, Brad’s brother, on bass and Mitch Dorge on drums, is no exception.

Amid more than three decades of Dummies’ recordings and concerts was 2002’s Jingle All the Way, which includes jazzy arrangements of White Christmas and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen showcasing Brad Roberts’ famous baritone voice, and a traditional rendition of Silent Night with Reid front and centre.

The two also duet to great effect in Good King Wenceslas.

”If you have a Christmas record and you’re touring in December…,” Reid says of the album, which the Dummies re-released on vinyl in October. “We’ve never toured that record before, and so we thought it would be a nice way to introduce fans to it because it’s fairly old and it went kind of under the radar.”

Memories are as plentiful as side dishes at Christmas dinners during the holidays. Returning to Winnipeg has given Reid and Roberts a chance to look back at the band’s beginnings, especially after learning about the death in May of George West, who worked with Roberts at the Blue Note and was the Dummies’ original bassist.

“I remember sitting with him at the Blue Note until sunrise, him telling me why Yes was so good, why Genesis was so good,” Reid says.

“He was so passionate about music.”

Touring and performing in 2023 means renting vans and taking turns behind the wheel rather than riding a tour bus as the Dummies did when Superman Song and Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm became top-10 hits in 1991 and ‘93, respectively.

“I remember (record label) BMG telling us at the beginning, ‘You’re a brand-new band, you’re a little bit quirky. The most you can hope for is 30,000 records (sold) and we would consider that a win.’” Reid says.

“So when we sold that in the first two months we were all very shocked.”

Neither Reid nor Brad Roberts miss the never-ending public-relations duties their record company demanded, especially after Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm broke through in the United States and Europe, where they continue to perform.

“In those days it was a much harder job for me because I had to do enormous amounts of press,” Roberts remembers. “Waking up at eight in the morning and doing interviews every 20 minutes until noon, and then the day really started, we’d go out and visit radio stations and television stations.

“I remember (record label) BMG telling us at the beginning, ‘You’re a brand-new band, you’re a little bit quirky. The most you can hope for is 30,000 records (sold) and we would consider that a win.’”–Ellen Reid

“I’m very grateful for all that, don’t get me wrong. It propelled us into the spotlight, but at the time it was absolutely exhausting. But now I don’t have to do nearly so much of that. I’m able to enjoy touring more as a result.”

Another big difference in 2023 is a new Dummies’ song, Sacred Alphabet, which came out earlier this year. It’s the product of composing lessons Roberts has taken using counterpoint, a classical music method that dates back to J.S. Bach and the 1700s.

“In modern music, you have one melody and underneath you have the support of that melody. In counterpoint, you have nothing but melody, one melody on top of another melody on top of another melody, and they all add up harmonically,” he says.

Reid says the song fits in well with other Crash Test Dummies songs and looks forward to a companion song Roberts has written that will come out in 2024.

“It’s not a Gregorian chant. It’s not going to make people say, ‘Did Brad Roberts hit his head?’ They’ll know it’s Brad,” she says.

Reid will spend Christmas with family in Selkirk, where she grew up, while Roberts will visit his parents, which will rekindle memories of holidays growing up in St. James.

”Our family tradition growing up was having a big Boxing Day party when the whole family would come over and my dad would play Christmas carols on the piano and we would sing,” he says.

The band will also see many friends and relatives at tonight’s show, lest they end up on someone’s naughty list.

“They’re kind of obligated. They have no choice,” Reid says, laughing. “If they want their Christmas presents they’ll come to the show and clap loud.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall