In the 1980s Wiseman played at open stages in Toronto where he started producing friends Bob Snider, Kyp Harness, Ron Sexsmith, Sahara Spracklin and Sam Larkin. He joined Blue Rodeo in 1984 and quit in 1992 to follow a solo career.[4]
In 2009 a 20th anniversary edition of In Her Dream was released by the Blocks Recording Club and the songs were performed live by various friends including Ron Sexsmith, Geoff Berner, Owen Pallett, Kyp Harness, The Phonemes, Picastro, Michael Holt, Maggie MacDonald, UIC, Henri Faberge, and Don Christensen. In 2006 Wiseman and his partner, Magali Meagher, were accompaniment for Daniel Johnston. Wiseman was also a member of Slutarded, Black Eyes, The Hidden Cameras and Dick Duck & the Dorks.
Some of his better known songs include "White Dress" – a song about sexual assault, recorded by Serena Ryder, "What the Astronaut Noticed and Then Suggested" which was the theme song for the CBC Television series Material World, and the theme song to CBC radio's Someone Knows Something.
Touring and theatre
In 2009 Wiseman created Actionable,[5][6] a PowerPoint presentation utilizing Super 8, video and live accompaniment on accordion and guitar which he presented in 2010 at the Uno Festival in Victoria as well as Fringe Festival circuits.
Wiseman collaborated theatrically with Scott Thompson of The Kids in the Hall, creating and touring Scottastrophe also with Anand Rajaram on award-winning Cowboys and Indians and with Sean Dixon for Barbara Gowdy's story The White Bone adaptation, with The Madawaska String Quartet and with Maggie MacDonald and Stephanie Markowitz writing the music for their play The Rat King.
Artists who covered Wiseman's songs include The Madawaska String Quartet, UIC, Leah Abramson, The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Michael Holt, Change of Heart, Magali Meagher, Tom St. Louis, Ben Bootsma and The Blind Venetians.
Wiseman makes super 8 films and videos that he accompanies live on accordion, guitar or piano. He tours/ performs with these films in Europe, United States, New Zealand and Canada subtitling them when necessary. Wiseman is the only live musician on John Oswald's 1988 release Plunderphonics. He was on the board of directors for LIFT, TAIS, The Tranzac & the Blocks Recording Club label in Toronto. In 2019 he obtained his master's degree in Environmental Studies from York University and currently is in the PhD program at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
Production
Wiseman started producing records in the 1980s, his debut "Wet Water" charted No.4 on CKLN-FM at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. Soon he was arranging and recording many friends like Ron Sexsmith, Sam Larkin, Kyp Harness, Sahara Spracklin and UIC. The record he produced for Ron Sexsmith "Grand Opera Lane" was rejected by Canadian A&R representatives. Through persistence he managed to get it to Todd Sullivan at Geffen Records in Los Angeles, who eventually gave it to Ronnie Vance in the publishing department which led to a deal for Ron Sexsmith with Interscope. Other notable clients were Kid in the Hall Bruce McCulloch, with whom Wiseman produced and co-wrote much of his Atlantic Records release Shame Based Man (listed as No. 24 on Spin Magazine's top comedy albums of all time).[7] Other artists Wiseman has produced include Edie Brickell, Canadian Member of Parliament Andrew Cash, Knitting Factory Recording Artist Carmaig de Forest, Robert Priest, Anhai, Friendly Rich, Jess Reimer, Katie Crown, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Eugene Chadbourne, and Bob Snider.
Author
July 2023, Improv notes Issue on Andy Newmark Counting to Seventeen.
June 2022, Improv notes Issue on Coleman Hughes goes to Washington.
Charming Monsters (2013) directed by Aaron Rothermund
Smother (2012) directed by Omar Joseph Hady
Actionable (2011) directed by Sean Dixon
Cowboys and Indians (2008) directed by Anand Rajaram
The White Bone (2007) directed by Sean Dixon
The Rat King (2006) directed by Maggie MacDonald and Steph Markowitz
Hys Unauthorized Lyfe and Tymes (2002) directed by Anand Rajaram
The 3 Penny Epic Cabaret (1994) directed by Adam Nashman
Peter Cottontail (1969) directed by Mrs. Smith
Production discography
Selected releases
Bob Wiseman Sings Wrench Tuttle: In Her Dream (1989, Atlantic Records).[9] The album created some notoriety when the first thousand copies were destroyed by Warner Music due to the song "Rock and Tree" which was feared libelous.[10] It was about the murder of Salvador Allende and mentioned Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Donald M. Kendall, the president of Pepsi Cola. "Wrench Tuttle", the credited lyricist, was a Wiseman pseudonym. (Wiseman claimed that he set music to words by Tuttle, a poet who would send him lyrics in the mail.) The album was included in the Canadian music critics top 100 albums of all time [11] The album yielded the video "We Got Time", with cameos by Mendelson Joe and friends, Tracy Wright (for whom Wiseman wrote the 2013 song mothface@yahoo.ca), Don McKellar, Leslie Spit Treeo and Mary Margaret O'Hara. The album also featured "Airplane on the Highway" which had an accompanying video by Caroline Azar and animator Lisa Bujoin.
Hits of the 60s and the 70s (1990, self released) recording of piano improvisations that contained no hits from the 60s or70s.
Presented by Lake Michigan Soda (1991, Warner Music Canada). Guests included Edie Brickell, Jane Siberry and Eugene Chadbourne with whom he recorded Chopin's etude Opus 10 No. 6 retitling it opus 10 No. 666 with Chadbourne on distorted electric rake introducing himself as "Oighan Chadbornitsky of the Budapest Philharmonic". The song "What the Astronaught Noticed and Then Suggested" became the theme song for the CBC Television sitcom Material World produced by The Kids in the Hall's Susan Cavan. Three videos were filmed for PBLMS. "The Man From Glad" was directed by Yvonne Ng (artistic director of Princess Productions) shot by Nicholas de Pencier with costars including Keith Cole. "Frost in Florida", about global warming, was directed by Andrea Nann and shot by de Pencier. "Taylor Field",about adolescent suicide, was directed by Howard Wiseman.
More Work Songs from the Planet of the Apes (1997, God Finds Cats). Jean Smith praised it for the song Libelous[13] about activists David Morris and Helen Steel (see McLibel case).
Response of a Lakota Woman to FBI Intimidation (2009)
Disappearing Trick (2009)
Hand Language (2010)
You Don't Love Me (2010)
Three Men (2011)
Two (2011)
Neil Young at the Junos (2013)
Misery (2016)
Mothface@Yahoo.ca (2017)
The Reform Part at Burning Man (2019)
Personal life
Wiseman attended Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, École River Heights, Grant Park, Argyle Alternative High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba and holds a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University. Currently a 2025 PhD candidate at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
