The Rheostatics' Dave Bidini is talking hockey and books.

Fall must be approaching.

"I'm currently working on a hockey book with Paul Quarrington and a few other people," says the Toronto guitarist and writer. "It's this book about the Original Six. There's six writers, each taking a team, and a day in the history of that team that has a certain charm or dramatic significance."

All this book talk comes in light of Bidini's slot at Books In The Bottleshop, a reading series taking place at 7 p.m. tonight and tomorrow at the Upper Canada Brewery. Proceeds from the readings go to International PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists), which protects the rights and freedom of expression of writers worldwide.

Bidini is joined by authors Barbara Gowdy and Russell Smith tonight. Tomorrow night's readers include Stuart McLean, Meryn Cadell, and Don McKellar.

Bidini will then hightail it over to the Horseshoe for The Rheostatics' three-night stint, tonight through Saturday.

So back to the hockey talk. Just what is it about the early years of the NHL that Bidini finds inspirational?

"Chicago Blackhawks, 1934," he says. "Charlie Gardiner, the goaltender who won the Cup for the Hawks that year - the first time they won the Stanley Cup. He died three weeks later of a terrible tonsil infection that spread to his kidneys and his brain.

"He was a really colorful, jocular fellow who used to talk to the crowd, sing songs on the radio. He was the one Hawk who used to take part in the Chicago nightlife and show up at the social events, even though he neither drank nor smoked.

"I'm writing (the story) from his perspective. Kind of recollections from heaven."

Bidini is not sure whether he'll be delivering a fact-based or fictional yarn tonight at the Brewery, but chances are it will involve skates.

"The only times I've ever really written fiction have been when people ask me to read," Bidini says.

"My friend puts on a night of erotic poetry and fiction once a year. For the last two years I've written specifically for that night: Erotic hockey stories."

What constitutes an erotic hockey story?

"The first one I wrote was about a teammate who falls in love with Wayne Gretzky and has to come to terms with his love for the Great One.

"The other is about a guy who plays rec hockey and falls in love with his woman goalie, who turns out to be a lesbian."

Love and hockey aside, Bidini comes by this literary bent honestly. The Rheostatics are practitioners of a branch of art-rock that could easily be construed as `lit-rock.'

"Well," he says with some reluctance, "our last record has an epic poem, beat poetry, a sample from Al Purdy. Then there's the whole Quarrington relationship (his novel Whale Music inspired the Rheos' album of the same name and the band scored the screen adaptation). His novels we as important to my coming of age as any Ramones record. It's all been embued in our art as a whole.

"In the Canadian folk tradition, music has always been very profound in terms of words and stories.

"So I guess some of our words do have something in common with literature proper."