Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #741

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Mike chats with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of media in Canada and what you oughta know.

Welcome to episode 741 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Pumpkins After Dark, save 10% with the promo code miked. M-I-K-E-D. That's pumpkinsafterdark.com. Do it quickly, my friends. CDN Technologies. Your outsourced IT department.

Write Barb at barb at cdntechnologies.com. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. And Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me

for his monthly recap is Mark Weisblot from 1236. Mike, I remember making it down here for a Halloween episode last year, 2019. It was a rainy day, like the

guy used to say in the Pizzaville commercial. Right. But as usual, we climbed down to your basement lair and we recorded our usual monthly recap. It was raining outside. I remembered to bring my umbrella. You had to take the kids out trick-or-treating. Right. Yes, I remember.

No one was worried about what might happen if the candy was handled by an old lady. And here we are just about one year later. We're stuck outside recording the show. You've got a bright orange heat lamp over your head. orange heat lamp over your head and the rain is pouring down, but you've established a protection in the form of what? A few tarps. I got,

I put up my, my, uh, my camping tarp is up and that makes, you know, it takes away that anxiety. I get that my gear is going to get wet and fry and I'm going to be out thousands and thousands of dollars. So that anxiety is gone. Like I'm going to be out thousands and thousands of dollars. So that anxiety is gone.

Like I'm dry. The heater takes away the anxiety that my gear will like get too cold and will be damaged due to the temps dropping. And you're under a big giant umbrella. Are you dry, Mark? A little more worried about my computer. But is there any drops hitting the computer? It's going to make it.

I mean, I might survive, but the laptop won't. I have a Ridley Funeral Home umbrella, which would be ideal for your monthly appearances here. Have you had a chance to wear your Ridley Funeral Home t-shirt? Well, I figured it would be a ceremonial thing when I finally came over that it was so cold outside that you had to break out the winter gear. We're not, we're not, we're not quite there yet. You're really going for it, right? You're going to do the backyard recording until you can stand it no more. I'm going to try to get through November. Like some people think I'm crazy, but that's,

that's nothing new. I'm going to try to get through November. You know, tomorrow, the esteemed Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter are dropping by. No disrespect to you, but I've got to roll out a red carpet, I think, for this power couple. And I've got stuff booked. Now, there are some stuff in the calendar where they're not coming over. For example, I finally have Joey Jeremiah in the calendar. That's nine years in the making. He actually name-dropped Cam Gordon, F-O-T-M Cam Gordon, and said, I don't, this is according, this is Pat,

Pat, who is Joey Jeremiah, but I'm going to call him Joey. Pat says, I don't do, I'm not doing any podcasts, but I owe Cam Gordon a favor and I hear you're good friends with him. So I'll do your show for Cam. So I owe Cam like for the fact that Joey Jeremiah is going to zoom into Toronto Mike next month let's see how that goes you don't have the best track record when it comes to a guest who says they're doing it as a favor to somebody else well remind me when has that gone south before? I can't actually remember. We've now done what? What number episode are we up to? It's a 741. 741.

I would say we're well past 90% of the guests on Toronto Mic working out all right. Even when they have to sit outside on your underback porch. When they listen and they like the show because they're a listener, the episodes turn out much better. When the people are coming in cold, like I think maybe Joey Jeremiah is, that's when there's a potential for it to go south.

And somewhere in November, I'm going to come to your backyard and we're going to do our second annual chat about podcasts. Yes. Lots to discuss. And reviewing what it's like to subscribe to I don't know. What's your number now? 2,500 of these things.

That's a, but okay, well we'll talk about it when you return in mid-November. Bring a winter jacket. Because the math doesn't work to me. We have to talk about this quantity of podcasts. I'll explain how it's done. Combined with that, we'll talk about

TMDS. Oh, I love it. Love it. And recap how it's gone. And combined with that, we'll talk about TMDS. Oh, I love it. And recap how it's gone in the past year and what we're looking forward to together and what we can achieve. What might be able to happen out of all these 1236

recap episodes that we've done. And to be clear to a listening audience, this is a podcast-only episode of Toronto Mic'd. If you do hear the pitter-patter, like literally it's actively raining as we speak. I put up the tarp so, you know, the rain's hitting the tarp. Like, we'll give you updates. Yeah, no sound effects here,

even though I always wanted to do an episode with the teletype in the background. Because, you know, we're covering the news and we need the sound of news breaking behind us. And that is a cool sound. It gives everything a sense of urgency. I always like that sound.

Okay, so let me just give a couple of updates here, personal updates before we dive in. Lots to cover. October 2020, like all months, was another eventful month. First update is the city run flu vaccination clinics. I signed up, you know, this wasn't some Toronto Mike media thing or whatever. Like as a regular citizen of the city, I signed up for a 1 p.m. flu shot at the Metro Toronto Convention Center today. So I biked over.

They let me bring my bike into the convention center. It was so slick and fast. Like I felt very safe. You know, you mask up, you're socially distanced and you're, I was in and out. They ask you to wait 15 minutes after your shot to make sure you don't have any adverse reactions. But if you took away that 15 minutes, they ask you to wait. I was in there probably three minutes total. It was just so easy. And I highly recommend people make an appointment and just do it. Do you look forward to going back to get your COVID-19 vaccine? Oh, I hope that's just a slick. I'll be first in line for that thing.

Absolutely. Here, stick it into my veins. So that's the flu shot update. It was just a positive experience. Like I didn't know what to expect because usually it's either my doctor or I walk into a shopper's. But this year I walked into the shopper's and they said we're out. And I said, oh

and then I found this clinic was going on at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Think of all the Halloween candy you missed on picking up now that there are slashing prices with no hope of people buying it to trick or treat. Okay, I will say this home you're at right now

has all the treats ready to be shelled out on Halloween night. Now, we know it'll be a smaller crowd than normal. Like, we're not delusional. But, like, even if just the kids on this little part of the street come by, we're ready. Like, we're going around, and we're ready to shell out safely from a distance. It's all, like, there's a plan in action here.

We're going to keep it going. Okay, you're not going to let Jarvis and Morgan be disappointed about the year of the Halloween that never was. I'm happy to disappoint them if I feel it's unsafe, but we're outdoors. We're going to keep six feet from everybody else who we don't live with. And in that instance, I don't see any risk of COVID transmission.

I'll be honest. I don't see any risk of COVID transmission. I'll be honest. I don't see the risk. You've done dozens of podcasts with the person sitting 10 feet away from you. Right, right, right, right. We have sketchy people like yourself. So I feel very safe here. We're outdoors, great ventilation out here, and you're like 10 feet away. I feel very good.

So I wanted to, that's my first little update. My second one is I did something I've never done before. This happened Sunday. Oh, I know. What? You went to Scarborough. Right. You know what?

It might, I think I've been in the southern part of Scarborough before on a bike, but it absolutely is my first time. I'm a lifelong resident of Toronto, and that was the first time I have been in, ready for this, Rouge Park, which is by far our largest park. It's the first time I have been in, ready for this, Rouge Park, which is by far our largest park. It's the first time. So what I did was, for those who don't follow along at torontomic.com,

my friend Mark Carey had previously been on this show to talk about his, he was gonna run around the city to raise money for, what was he raising money for? Red Cross, COVID relief. And he reached out a couple of weeks ago and said, hey, I know you won't run because I won't run around the city. But he says, Do you want to bike the same route? And I'm like,

how far is that? And he goes, it's 140k approximately. And same route, you know, all around the city, 40 kilometers on steels. And I said, I guess at a moment of weakness, I couldn't think of a reason not to. So I said, Okay. And we set out, you know, early Sunday morning, it was very cold but you know we did it that's seven hours of pedaling and uh i feel pretty good okay so what happened here you touched each corner yeah of metropolitan toronto that's right i mean you go into pickering for a bit so you have a bit of time in pickering but then you get up to steals when you come out of rouge park you get up to steals and then you take Steeles. I took it all the way to Albion,

and then at Albion, you sort of touch Brampton for a bit, and then you kind of weave in and out of Mississauga and Etobicoke, and you head back down south. So yeah, you can find the map on torontomic.com, but it's the perimeter of the city of Toronto, the mega city of Toronto, and we biked it. It was great. Once I was taken on an adventure to, I think this is like 30 years ago,

the northernmost point on the map of Metro Toronto. Where's that? Pinpointing, I can't remember. Is that up in Rouge Park? Wherever it was. No, somewhere, I can't remember. But it was some acquaintance's idea of an excursion that I went along with. You know what it might have been?

Because I was there on Sunday. I think it's where Pickering Township, there's a Pickering Township, the country road that goes up to Steeles. And I think that corner where I was Sunday, I think that's the northernmost, that's in the northeast corner of this city. I think that's where you're talking. Okay. Well, coming down to New Toronto,

like so many guests of Toronto mic'd, this neighborhood was completely unfamiliar to me despite spending my whole life in the city. There was never a reason to come out to the world of the Rogue Byway. Which is making a lot of noise lately because the Rogue Byway made BlogTO yesterday, and I had a lot of DMs like, oh, look, it's your Rogue Byway. Which is making a lot of noise lately because the Rogue Byway made blog TO yesterday and I had a lot of DMs like,

oh, look, it's your Rogue Byway. It's like, you know, prime time. Ridley Funeral Home. What else is there to see here in South Etobicoke? San Remo Bakery is really close to us. That's a big thing. What else is down here? I don't know.

The original Woody's is not too far from here for a good burger. You know, some of the, you know, lakeshore village institutions, we'll call them. And look forward to more guests joining you in the backyard who can all ask you the question like Jay Ferguson of Sloan did, where am I exactly? Well, before I moved here, I didn't know where the hell this was either,

but it's like Mimico West is what I'd call this. Okay, what cover am I hearing? This is somebody that I used to know, but who's singing this? So when we found that we could not make sense Well, you said that we could still be friends But I admit that I was glad it was over. Well, I can answer my own question. This is Three Days Grace.

But you didn't have to cut me off. Make it like it never happened and that we were not there. I don't even need your love. So if I haven't said so already, I want to say welcome back, Mark. It's always good to see you. Like you took that one month off, but here you are back on your regular schedule. And it's just like reassuring to know at the end of every month, you're going to visit and we're going to have a good chat.

Working on some clarity here. My goal was 2020 vision in 2020. Something had to be postponed to 2021. You mean literally, I got you now. So is everything else. I figure with all these rock and roll shows being rearranged

and promises of people getting together in big arenas by May or June that there can be a little bit of hope out there, right? I think back to March and April when we did these long distance episodes and we were trying to gauge how long is this going to go on for. Right. People have settled into accepting the reality that you're going to have to burrow down for

winter, especially in this country of Canada. There's going to be a lot of quarantine going on, but I'm looking forward to getting to the other side. Mayor John Tory promised a St. Patrick's Day 2 later in the spring

that passed us by. I wonder then if we'll get to spring of next year and we'll be able to celebrate that sequel. Well, back to back. March 17 and 18 I think that'll be the plan. Now, what are you opening there? Burst. I love the Burst. I've really come to

enjoy the Burst. Because the Hayes Mama, which I see is in front of you as well, this is the Great Lakes Brewery fresh craft beer that Mark's opened. Although that wasn't really on the mic, just to chastise you a little bit. I think you were off mic for that open there. But I really, the alcohol content of the Haze Mama is such that I'm pretty tipsy after two of them.

So I switched to the Burst. Yeah, I don't know if you can read the number. I know we have some, that's a small font, but seven something maybe? I need to get my vision fixed. Ever since we moved to the backyard i have not been drinking as much as i i used to in the basement i would think you drink more in a backyard like it would be more like conducive to fresh craft beer enjoyment but you have opened

up a burst thank you great lakes brewery i've got four different uh beers from great lakes in front of you mark uh so by the end of this show, the content should be particularly interesting. You even have a pumpkin ale and that's like a seasonal pumpkin brew for you. Hey, yeah, thanks GLB for powering The Real Talk after all these years.

Why you always in the mood? Fuck around like I'm brand new I ain't tryna tell you what to do But try to play it cool Baby, I ain't playin' by your rules Everything look better with a view Why you always in the mood? Fuck around like I'm brand new I ain't tryna tell you what to do

But try to play it cool Baby, I ain't playin' by your rules Everything look better with a view I can never get attached When I start to feel unattached Somewhere I was in a feelin' bad Baby, I am not your dad It's not all you want from me I just want your company Girl, it's obvious Elephant in the room We're part of it Don't act so confused And you upstartin' it Now, elephant in the room We're part of it, don't act so confused And you love starting it, now I'm in the mood

Now we arguing in my bedroom We play games of love to avoid Okay, Mark, I'm a little older, a little old to know how to say the name of this artist. I'm embarrassed to say it. Now, the song's called Mood, but what's the name of this artist? 24K Golden, along with Ian Dior. A song called Mood. I don't know if you've heard this out in the wild,

or if you've been peeking at your daughter's TikTok account. I've never peeked at my daughter's TikTok, that is for sure. This sounds familiar, but I don't know. Maybe I've heard it out there somewhere, but I'm not 100% sure. What we've got happening here, I think, is the first genuine rock and rap crossover of the 2020s.

Which is to say, it's making it in both those radio formats, those different universes coming together here with a sort of song, I think, that could only come from kids who were born somewhere around that turn of the millennium. I mean, you know, these guys are, I don't know, 19, 20, 21,

young enough to be the kids of Chris Cross, you know, jump, even though one of them died. Yes. You know, it's that kind of vibe in their video. And here we have, you can read on slate.com, a column, why is this song number one? The writer there, Chris Malamfy, also does it. I listen to his Hip Parade podcast. It's fantastic.

And there's a lot to be said about the success of this song, that it has genuinely ridden up the rock charts. Last year, when Lil Nas X, Old Town Road broke big, it was number one all summer long. And here we were looking at a new approach to music that broke down those barriers of genre, right, where it really didn't matter anymore. What was going to happen with these rappers

who were discovered on SoundCloud? What could they deliver? We had a similar sound from XXXTentacion. Well, you know who it sounds like? And I wonder, I'm not going to question your observations here, but I feel like Post Malone was played on some rock radio. I mean, look, Post Malone is still alive. Juice World was another

one who died young, along with XXXTentacion and Lil Peep. I mean, these were the forebears of this genre here that's become genuinely a big deal. So what stations in Toronto might be plain mood

i would think like all the youth skewing pop stations the kiss 92.5 virgin radio 99.9 and indie 88 and you know there was an issue uh earlier in the year when there was the racial reckoning going on. And I think, as usual, looking to bring some attention to himself, Danko Jones. FOTM Danko Jones. Calling out this Toronto radio station for, you know, being divided down racial lines and, you know,

not being as diverse as they professed to be. And I guess they responded saying they're working on it. I don't know what he expected to happen. Suddenly they were going to break out the Sam Cooke and Otis Redding records and sort of get all mournful about a change is going to come. Right. This thing had to happen a little more naturally. And it's taken the form of these rock influenced hip hop acts.

And TikTok has, I think, played a big role in their success in getting out there. And, you know, as a result, I think, you know, we finally have a situation where people are looking at there not being the same dividing lines for format anymore at the same time that the influence of these radio playlists on what young people are listening to has also sort of disappeared. So I think a song like Mood caters to an aging Gen Xer like me who likes to keep up on what the kids are listening to, bring them to Toronto Mic'd every month.

That song has hit the spot. Alright, speaking of hip-hop on Toronto Radio, big news coming out of Flow 93.5. We've talked at great length about they were syndicating a New York-based

morning show called The Breakfast Club. Yeah, was that big news? On this show it was. I don't think they could find anybody to listen to it at all. That was part of the problem. I did not listen. My buddy Bingo Bob tells me it's pretty good, but I just don't listen to morning radio. It's gone

now. Bad timing, bad luck, bad strategy. And you would also hear that mood song on The flow, perhaps a little too repetitious, because in trying to get listeners, they changed up the playlist to not a lot of songs.

Like they narrowed it? Very tight, tight, tight rotation, right? You've got some Drake. You'd hope they'd go the other way. There's always another drake track to play every every hour they're even going to be doing a top 100 drake song countdown you can't go wrong to coincide with his new album which is happening in january the breakfast club were announced then as a remedy a quick fix for this radio station to try to save this concept of hip-hop commercial radio in Toronto

and brought on this show from New York. Initially, after they made the announcement, it got delayed because of the pandemic. They thought, okay, you know, we have to have some local voices here in the morning, keep this morning show alive for a little while. Blake Carter and Peter Cash. Bring in this Breakfast Club eventually. Right. voices here in the morning keep this morning show alive for a little while but blake carter and peter cash bring in this breakfast club eventually right and it happened sometime in may and then uh quickly uh they found out well all this stuff was happening in the united states right the killing

of george floyd right and uh there was some reference to the fact that they spent like half one morning show talking about uh whether or not you can vote in Florida as a convicted felon. This was not the kind of content that was going to bring any listeners to the Canadian Airwaves. A very unique situation where Charlemagne and the co-hosts on the show, they agreed with this all along. They even played a caller on the air who was wondering about the fact that he had heard that they were going to be taken off in Toronto. And the response was, well, if you want to listen, you can hear us online.

Toronto, it's a different country. Canada, you deserve your own morning hip-hop radio show. And so that was the end of the Breakfast Club after late spring, summer into fall. It didn't last very long. And think if we went back to the tape, it's not really tape, but if we went back to the recording at the time, I'm pretty sure we predicted

that this would not work. I thought it was like a last-ditch chance for them to try and bring some listeners to the station, because I imagine people tuning in who were inclined to listen to the music, who would want to hear something that was a little more talk-oriented.

Okay, well, it's not Howard Stern, right? Bring a celebrity cachet. Well, for a certain audience today, it's what they've got. But that was the end of an experiment. So we're down one syndicated American morning radio show in toronto right and we'll see what happens with this flow but uh okay but just uh it was a talk of twitter

like people got very emotional about this i don't know how many if as many people were listening to the station per capita as we're expressing their opinion about the programming move that they were making, the ratings would be above the basement. But I do think a lot of people are pleased that FOTM, Blake Carter, and Peter Cash are back on mornings. But it seems like the big, I don't want to say the word loser, but the person who loses the most in this whole experiment is Mastermind, right? Because DJ Mastermind was let go from the afternoon drive,

so Carter and Cash could go to the afternoon drive, and the Breakfast Club could assume mornings on Flow, but now that Carter and Cash are back doing mornings on Flow, Mastermind is not back. He's not with the company anymore. I still love the fact that somewhere back in the spring, you mentioned on one episode that you were trying to explain this to your wife, Monica. Yes, this is true.

And she's like rolling her eyes. She says, no one cares about this. So why do we care about this? It's a good thing you have this podcast, Mike. I mean, who knows where you would be today? Riddle me this, wise blot. Like, why do you and I, like, why do we give a shit? Well, we're staying on brand, right?

We started talking about it. I'm just being authentic. Look, it gets also these radio industry people listening to Toronto Mic'd because they see this as somewhere, but then they're interested in coming on as guests, telling their side of the story, and that's why we've prioritized all this radio talk, even as the influence of this medium, this AM, FM stuff,

it's been waning ever since we were born. It ain't what it used to be. I want to reboot my endorsement of Strongball. Okay. Because I don't think I was as enthusiastic last time as I should have been. Okay, do tell. This is your opportunity. I've been listening to what he's been doing Okay, do tell. This is your opportunity. Because I've been listening to what he's been doing there

in this afternoon drive. And Apple Music. Time slot. Apple Music. Apple Music Hits is the channel that's on the Apple Music app or the Apple...

And remind me, this is free for anybody who can listen or do you have to be like an Apple Music subscriber? It's free, but it's also to draw people into Apple Music. But if I don't have Apple Music, I can listen to Strom you have to be like an Apple Music subscriber? It's free but it's also to draw people into Apple Music.

If I don't have Apple Music, I can listen to Strombo in the afternoon. You can still listen live for free. If you want archives, you have to be an Apple Music subscriber. They're trying to lock people in, get them to pay a monthly fee. Here we're up against Spotify.

We'll talk in the podcast review in November about Joe Rogan and his deal with Spotify. Right. How they're trying to lock people in to habitually tune over there, even in the United States. Now, they're a Spotify morning show where they're doing, like, talk bits. And it gets mixed in with your own algorithmic songs. So it knows what you might want to listen to.

You're working with the artificial intelligence prefabricating that into a different form of morning radio. Strombo is more of a hands-on experience. He's curating the music. That's his curation. He's curating the music. That's his curation.

He's curating it. He has different interview guests on every day. Oh, yeah, and he's good at that. I'm a big Strombo guy. He might have said no to his return, but I don't hold that against him. I'm trying to say something nice enough about him that he will then want to come back on Toronto Might.

And I think it's a great opportunity. I think what I'm hearing him do there every day is a realization of the kind of radio that I know him and his people, Bob Makowitz Jr., who I only know is behind the scenes because he mentioned it on his own podcast, is behind the scenes because he mentioned it on his own podcast. Right. That, you know, we remember listening to this foreground FM radio in Toronto. These shows like the Q107 Rock Report, coincidentally,

with Bob Mackiewicz Sr. Right. Who initiated that show. And you wonder, where did that style of radio go? Like, who's going to carry the torch for approaching the medium that way and i'm saying our man strombo is doing it there every day it's not to be taken for granted that it's happening on this apple music hits radio station, which is also, I think, pretty good in general. Like a lot of retro, flashback, throwback songs, different R&B thing that they've got in the morning.

And he's managing, I think, to be pretty subversive in the context of what he's up to over there at Apple Radio. I look forward to listening a lot more. So even though I was initially skeptical, I was wondering what's up with this thromboshock where they're censoring all the rap songs. Oh, are they? Yeah, well, it's Apple.

Steve Jobs was very much against explicit lyrics or any form of pornography working its way onto his devices. And I mean, look, this is a $2 trillion company. They're not going to do or say anything that's going to sink the stock price. I mentioned that before, but I think, you know, within whatever strictures they've got going on there, I would say listen to Strombo, figure out how to get it. He's there 5 to 8 p.m. Toronto time. And there he is, you know, repping the six on the digital airwaves.

And they repeat it overnight. And if you pay them, you get the archives. And I think he's got this job for the rest of his life. They've now got like an Apple TV music channel too. So good for Strombo. I think, you know, I think I'm confident enough in how far I have come that unlike so many embittered members of Generation X who think this guy George Strombolopoulos is a sellout.

No, come on. You know, I knew him a little bit way back when, and I am proud of what he has achieved there on Apple Music. Ditto. Ditto. Okay, Mike, do you know who this is? Only because I saw your notes. You hear this on the radio all the time because it's Canadian content.

Felix Cartel, who had one of those CanCon hits with his New Radicals cover song, You Get What You Give. Didn't we have that way back when in one of these monthly recap episodes? Well, Felix Cartel has made it into having two hits of his own. Singing on this track is the daughter of Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed, who I think has a Canadian passport.

She's Canadian. Come on. Canadian enough. I think she's Canadian Canadian. And I think it goes to show where the Canadian celebrity media is at this point because if somebody with that background managed to have a popular song on the radio,

I think you would hear a lot about it. Like, you would see articles in the newspaper. There would be features on TV. She would show up on award shows. And her name, by the way, is Sophie Simmons. Sophie Simmons, daughter of Gene Simmons from Kiss. And, of course course Shannon Tweed and so if you hear this voice

I don't know playing in the supermarket now you know you'll know where it came from now you know the rest is there I gotta say it's pouring rain if you had told me a year ago

when you were at my house for Halloween and we were in the basement recording and you said next year let's do it outside in the rain. I would have been like, what are you talking about? We have this very useful basement studio. But you know what? I'm feeling dry. I'm feeling good. I don't know how you're feeling, but your laptop there looks pretty dry. I think we're okay. We're doing all right. Tell me before I leave radio, because I want to get to the other media, because lots went on, including something with Quibi, which we've got to talk about. But G98.7 was sold.

Oh, what was going on there? The Toronto radio station that started out as Caribbean, African, black music radio format, which was a lifelong dream of a guy named Fitzroy Gordon, who was once on Chin Radio doing a talk show as Dr. Love. And he had this vision of

doing, not a rap radio station, but a black music station that would be aimed at an older demographic. A Caribbean audience, right? The music was typical Caribbean music. Yeah, which it had a home in Toronto on college radio stations.

As I mentioned, he was on Chin, the multicultural station, but it was always like a patchwork of opportunities for this format. I mean, at one point, Energy 108 from Burlington would have these reggae shows going on. And Fitzroy Gordon, he passed away a couple of years ago, and it turned out the finances of G98.7 were in terrible shape. And as a result, they had to figure out how to sell the station to the right kind of buyer. Well, it turns out to be a guy who is an ethnic broadcaster in Toronto.

He's been behind a thing called Radio India, which has been on different AM radio stations around Ontario named Niti P. Ray. So he has a background in this style of radio with a lot of leased time, you know, programming that is in languages beyond English, and he's promised to restore and revive the station with the money he's got, which has raised some skepticism, because this was before a black-owned radio station, but they put the station up for sale,

and despite a lot of hype about the need to keep it in that community, there were no bidders. There were no willing buyers who had that background. And so there's some concern about what's going to happen there with the frequency and the format. But it is something novel in Toronto that you've got this

G98.7 and maybe they can make a run at it with a different owner, a little more solvency than they had before. Oh, the music. Oh, it's intense there. Let's leave radio.

Vice. Vice is running out of time. Oh, this is music from the show Dark Side of the Ring. We usually wait till Pandemic Friday on Toronto Mike to hear some talk about wrestling. But did you know that for all the money that was poured into a Vice television channel on cable television, you remember when Rogers ruled that out, they said they were going to commit $100 million to this new millennial media aimed at tough, woke hipsters like Shane Smith, the head of Vice, who's come out of the deal with tens of millions of dollars, a mansion with a garage full of fancy cars of his own. Well, he's sort of faded into the background there, and there's a lot of concern and curiosity about whether the deals that Vice made to get all the backing, the

venture capital, all the money that poured into their vision for this thing, a reckoning is apparently right around the corner. The value of Vice has plummeted at its peak. There was a valuation like three and a half years ago that vice this punk rock magazine from montreal mostly written by the infamous gavin mckinnis who was uh i guess written out of the company they don't want to talk about him anymore because of what he's done since stuff like the Proud Boys. And Vice, which got to the point of saying it was worth $5.1 billion today,

would be worth considerably less than that. And with their line of credit running out, there is a situation where a particular private equity firm is likely to get custody of them. And a recent story that deconstructed the situation where sooner than later they'll be selling vice for parts that the vision of what this thing was supposed to be really hasn't turned out. People speculating like, what does this outlet stand for? The first term of Donald Trump should have been the moment in what they were trying to sell, and they couldn't see it through. This combination of clickbait and cable TV and selling to advertisers the idea of creating branded content. At one point, they were wheeling and dealing with these big companies like Unilever and Intel,

writing them checks for tens of millions of dollars because they wanted a piece of this hipster marketing scene, and that there is enough speculation. It's only a matter of time before Vice will end up having to merge. Or be intertwined with some other distressed media property out there. And that the pieces that they've built here on this empire will eventually fall apart. And it'll just be like a memory. What were the 2010s all about? that they've built here on this empire will eventually fall apart, and it'll just be like a memory.

You know, what were the 2010s all about? It was, you know, the idea that here was this underground Montreal magazine that they managed to get funding for because they, you know, said it was for people who were recovering from drug addiction on a treatment program, and they wheedled and deedled their way to Brooklyn with some money from Montreal.com. Millionaire inflated the value of this thing into multiple billions. Did Vice ever mean anything to you, Mike? Nothing. Nothing at all?

Nothing. But you saw the rise of the the vice franchise yeah it was a newspaper a magazine that you would have found for free i don't know if you were ever inclined to pick it up in the 90s or you know around toronto they're bringing these magazines from montreal now they would be peddling a certain sort of irreverence some of which in retrospect was a little bit racist, certainly known for its misogynistic approach to writing about women. That was what Gavin McInnes became infamous for, and them trying to wipe him out of the history of the firm.

I mean, everything that's gone down with Vice is going to make a great book. Just standing by, seeing who gets to write it. And at the same time, they're still doing clickbait. In Canada, they're still doing good news coverage because they got rid of the arts and entertainment side, no longer writing those pop culture articles, no longer covering music or movies or entertainment like they used to. There might be some viability there in building up this alternative news outlet.

Something that some big American network like CBS might want to buy into. That they've got a show on the Showtime cable network. That there's still some hope for what can become with Vice, but isn't it ironic in the end, but everything they said they were going to do with Viceland Television, it all comes down to a documentary series about the dark side of the ring. All these wrestlers who met with these unhappy endings, that's the kind of programming America wants to watch.

And that show, which is made in Toronto, was the best advice could do to bring some eyeballs to its television channel. Speaking of wrestling, have you seen Stu Stone's new movie, Faking a Murderer? I have not gotten around to it, but I've listened to Pandemic Friday enough to know that if you have Amazon Prime, you can sign up for Hollywood Suite.

Look at you. You're taking good notes. That doesn't mean I've actually followed through on it. Now, this is not a paid endorsement, I need to point out. This is just a good guy, a good FOTM who's on this show. Well, like I said, I don't know what your number is at. Look, you seem starstruck enough. I think this is my 34th's on this show. Well, like I said, I don't know what your number is at. Look, you seem starstruck enough.

I think this is my 34th appearance on Toronto Mike. Okay, well, then you're still ahead of Stu. Well, Stu might be tied with you. I don't know if we count his earlier appearances. It might all add up to about 34. They've done what?

Pandemic Friday goes on here. 31 or 32 weeks of Pandemic Fridays. You and Cam Gordon and Stu Stone. Would you call it a countdown? No. Where you each bring in five songs? We kick out thematic jams, without a doubt. We're kicking out spooky jams for Halloween.

And we're recording, I think we're recording on Thursday night. But a lot of digressions. Unless it's a pandemic Friday, then I think that as you were watching Faking a Murderer, Yes. Friday, then I think that as you were watching Faking a Murderer, you could not believe that the guy who made this movie was willing to be on your podcast 31 or 32 weeks in a row. Like you were genuinely starstruck, right? By your friend and his ability to pull this off. Well, I'd known him a couple of years. And I would say this.

It all made sense last week when Stu couldn't make it because he's in the States filming some wrestling thing. I'll find out more on Thursday. He's got to quarantine for 14 days, so he's going to be on Zoom. But Cam pointed out that it was really a big campaign to sell the movie Faking a Murderer because we went hard on it. He got all the FOTMs excited about it,

tweeting about it to Hollywood Suite. And then the week after, he was gone. Like, Stu was gone. And we had Sammy Cohen, me, and Cam Gordon. Okay, but what will live forever is Toronto Mike being thanked in the credits at the end of the movie. I got the screen cap.

It happened. And a lot of Great Lakes beer cans in that movie as well. So cameo appearances by them as well. Jack of All Trades was the previous documentary made by Stu Stone about his father who died a short time after. He made this movie about reuniting with his estranged dad after so many years. Right. his estranged dad after so many years. Right.

And if you're in Toronto and you have a library card, you can get that one easily on the Toronto Public Library website. Stars the great Mike Willner in that one, too. He's in that one, too. Oh, but speaking of K, so I'm off. I'm a little bit on a little tangent here. You mentioned wrestling, and I thought of Stu. But we had many, much like we spoke about how the breakfast club on flow i was skeptical that would work i don't i didn't feel right this one never felt right uh quibi it's gone they shut

that thing down it's gone as we were discussing a launch of quibi on here i think you threw out the number uh 42 uh that stuck in my mind uh that would have been the number of Canadians who were checking out Kayla Gray doing a TSN sports update. You know, I was looking at some of the early hype that came from Bell Media. They made a deal to be the Canadian distributor of this short video, quick bite platform. Here were Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman. Huge entertainment technology executives that they wanted to see this thing through. They were looking at Netflix and wondering,

could you do some sort of version of that, but it was based on your phone, that that would be the primary screen for the content they were creating. They could invent a marketplace that didn't happen before. What maybe they weren't accounting for was the fact that TikTok would take off in the interim, and TikTok, where the default are these 15-second videos, even though you can also do longer ones, has essentially proven their point, that people will watch this content, fast stuff on their phone.

Vine was the big thing for a long time, these short videos. Which was acquired by Twitter, but then they didn't see a business there, whereas TikTok, I mean, multiple billions, and now they opened a Canadian office. They got one CBC executive to jump ship and the editor of El Canada magazine. You know, they've got a lobbyist in the Canadian government because, you know, there's some concern over the Chinese ownership and whether or not it's one big spying scheme. So they got to play nice with the regulators. But yeah, TikTok has proven the theory that Quibi was trying to peddle, selling subscriptions along with advertising. subscriptions along with advertising. They had

it all worked out doing these deals with these Hollywood stars who wanted to create their own show. There's an amusing article by a long time columnist Joel Stein about how he figured he was the only person to go in and pitch shows to Quibi

and get turned down. His ideas were one of his ideas was a wanted to do, like, one of his ideas was a show called Drunk vs. Stoned, where, you know, people would put themselves in that inebriated, intoxicated, altered state, and they would compete to see, you know, which one could come up with the more ingenious idea.

I don't know. I don't know why they turned that down. It wasn't any worse of an idea than anything else they came up with. They had Chrissy Teigen doing some show where she was playing like a Judge Judy kind of character. Will Arnett had one called Memory Hole. Mark, you realize I got some attention because it was Canadian in its focus. You know, we talk about the gobs of

money that was thrown at Vice and they're hanging on for dear life right now. The amount of dollars spent on this Quibi... Well, two billion dollars. But they'll be giving, I think, $350 million back to the investors. Okay, but think,

man, think of what you're doing at 1236.ca, your daily newsletter, but think, man, think of what you're doing at 1236.ca, your daily newsletter, what's happening here, right here, right now, TMDS, this episode of Toronto Mic'd, we're 1236 in Toronto Mic'd, like peanut butter and chocolate, we collide and make this delicious Reese's Pieces.

Think of our budget for this enterprise. I know, but we're not Kiefer Sutherland or Kevin Hart or Nicole Richie. These are just the names I can remember who did these deals with Quibi. Okay, so in the initial hype for Quibi with Bell Media, Randy Lennox, who's now on his way out as the president of the company, he said, I think Quibi will change the way news is consumed, which is the sort of thing you say when you've got stars in your eyes,

imagining your ship coming in, that you made the right friends in Hollywood in order to bring a new revenue stream to a company like Bell. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that he's not working there anymore. Why is he not working there anymore? Do we know? That I got to figure out. In the meantime,

so they announced they would do like CTV news updates on Quibi. And one of the novelties was this turnstile technology so you could watch it vertically and horizontally on your phone, whichever way you wanted. And they would do these brief news shows, like 10 minutes or less.

Initially, I know they started focusing on Canadian news. I caught wind. I don't know how. Somewhere in the middle, they realized no one was really watching it in Canada. And maybe they should aim at more of an international audience doing this style of information. But think of the timing as well, right? Jeffrey Katzenberg said the reason this thing failed was entirely due to COVID-19. Like if there wasn't a pandemic, this was his argument,

this thing would have taken off like a rocket because there would have been all these people, you know, riding the train, waiting for the doctor's office. I don't know know nursing their baby they would have had nothing better to do than watch quibi on their phone you still have my 16 year old swears by her youtubers like this is her television the youtubers so you got the youtubers you still got tick that was part of it too right that they reached for the stars like they didn't go low they didn't go after the grassroots they didn't try to find

the content creators you know who had already established a following as you're saying with no overhead at all and here would have been a chance for them to hit the big time you know and bring their followers along with them that was that was not part of the strategy because they had high hopes of making it in Hollywood. Anyway, that's the end of Quibi. And as far as I know, they are still producing these TSN and CTV updates. Really? At least until the end of October.

So that's like Kayla Gray, Lindsay Hamilton. Who's the news person they had? I can't even remember. Reshmi Nair, who had worked at the CBC before. I don't know. They had sponsorship deals. I mean, keep in mind, again, this thing had a subscription charge, but it was two-tiered. So you could pay and watch ads, and then you could pay more, and it would be ad-free. They were all over the place in what they were trying to do.

But yeah, it flamed out on record time. All over the place in what they were trying to do. But yeah, it flamed out in record time. The people who did a podcast about Quibi, originally called QuibiVerse, a few days in they got a cease and desist. They were doing a podcast about their love of this new service. They were going to review the show.

So short-sighted. Next thing you know, a lawyer is knocking at their door saying they've got to change the name. Stupid. I'm glad they failed. So a lot of schadenfreude there because they were very happy to report. In fact, they said that they will do at least one more episode after Quibi shuts down so that they can say

their podcast about Quibi lasted longer than Quibi itself. Here's the story of a lovely lady Who was bringing up three very lovely girls All of them had hair of gold Like their mother, the youngest one in curls It's the story of a man named Brady What's this I hear about TV trigger warnings? What's going on here, Wise Blot?

It was Jim Slotak, FOTM Jim Slotak, on social media who first alerted me to the fact that he was sitting back for a Canadian Thanksgiving afternoon viewing of a classic episode of The Brady Bunch. viewing of a classic episode of The Brady Bunch. Right. And it happened upon a viewer advisory from CHCH-TV in Hamilton. The following presentation is a product of its time.

It depicts prejudices that were wrong then and remain unacceptable today. Right. that were wrong then and remain unacceptable today. CHCH does not condone discrimination of any kind. Rather than ignoring past discriminatory practices, exhibiting work like this allows viewers to engage in thought or discussion that educates and promotes the importance of social justice and inclusivity, viewer discretion is advised. Now, I'm no Mark Daly, but I think I gave that reading a little bit of justice there. I don't know how long it's up on the screen.

I can't say I've seen this myself. But, okay, so this was Canadian Thanksgiving, even though it has nothing to do with American Thanksgiving. They were showing the Thanksgiving sitcom episodes of all these shows. They run a CHX. So it is possible, right, that this was a justified warning. I don't know. Like, you know, maybe there was something to be said here. You wanted to alert people

to the sensitivities. Of course, the option here is not to run the show at all. They didn't have to run this episode. They don't have to air anything. Mark Hebbshire had his fun working at CHCH where they laid him off,

herded him into a room and told him his services were no longer required. After a decade there, you've been replaced by reruns of sitcoms from the 60s. But from what I can tell, it's a new development

that they've added these disclaimers. And since then, I noticed mentions that they put the disclaimer before Gilligan's Island, before an episode of Green Acres. Oh, you know what? There's probably, it's probably mainly,

I'm sure there was something to do with natives on the island or something that was insensitive to Aboriginal peoples. Here's what I don't know. And I have not- Misogyny also,

a lot of misogyny. I guess once upon a time, I'd have done the research rather than waiting for it to come to me. But at the same time, I think, like joking about all this wokeness stuff, it's a little played out. Does it really matter?

But here we've got, yes, CHCH doing the disclaimers before their episodes. And, you know, they're very, very firm about it. I mean, they're very descriptive here. And do they put them on before just any episode of any show? Just as a way of defending themselves against any criticism, any letters to the CRTC about discriminatory programming? Yeah, I Dream of Jeannie.

She's been enslaved, right? Like, there's a lot of this. You're right. And CTV also has its own disclaimer. It's a lot more succinct. And it was spotted before episodes of Seinfeld. And I guess in the rear view mirror, there are enough problematic Seinfeld episodes.

Yeah, this is like, we could do a whole parlor game here, right? Try to remember the most offensive episode of any given sitcom... I like that game. ...that we grew up with. I saw CHCH promoting the fact that for Halloween, Saturday

night, they'll be airing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Janet, Janet. I'd imagine that will get a disclaimer of its own. Even in the old days of City TV, I think they'd imagine that will get a disclaimer of its own. Oh, the green leaf is in that. Even in the old days of city TV, I think they'd have run a Mark Daly viewer discretion advised. Trans insensitivity.

Prior to Rocky Horror. I like this game. Name another show. Let's talk about what's insensitive about it. And so there we are with CHCH. Somebody said they watched The Jeffersons, and they did not run a disclaimer. And, you know, the shows that Norman Lear did, they were deliberately provocative.

I think you're making Norman Lear roll in his grave and he's not even dead by not running a disclaimer before episodes of his shows. Knock on wood, because I don't want to find out Norman's on the next Mark Weisblatt recap, because he's got to be in his 90s now. That guy, he's great. What am I listening to? Some David Foster. Speaking of Stu Stone, he's a big David Foster fanatic.

This is called Listen to Daddy. David Foster. Now, just before you give us the update on David Foster and why we're listening to Listen to Daddy, I was on a recording with Ralph Ben-Murray today, and Ralph and I did something similar in that we got married, we had two kids, and then we got married again and had two kids.

But where I've got, like, 10 years difference between the couplets of children, Ben-Murray's got, like, another decade he sandwiched in there. So Ben-Murray's got, like got a nine-year-old or something, and meanwhile he's in his 60s here. But tell me about David Foster. Oh, well, David Foster, I guess. You'll have to give him some kind of golden medal, a trophy.

Is there a certificate that you get when you can say that you were the father of children born more than 50 years apart? Wow. Wow. Anthony Quinn had a kid in his 80s, I think, but I don't know if he had one 50 years earlier. That's pretty cool. So David Foster, the pianist, very active pianist from Victoria, British Columbia. His first child was born when he was 20 years old,

even though she ended up being put up for adoption. But they reconnected when she was 30 years old. A very prolific guy when it came to being married to women associated with reality shows. Oh, yeah. He married Linda Thompson, and through that he became the stepfather to some kids with the last name Jenner.

Right. The brothers there from the Jenner family, and, you know, as they grew up through the world of the hills on MTV, and they had their own reality show, Princes of Malibu, and there was David Foster annoyed by the whole spectacle. Like, that was part of how they edited the show.

But I think he liked that limelight because after he divorced Linda Thompson, he married another woman, Yolanda Hadid. Right, this is a friend of Kardashian or something. Whose daughter is Gigi and Bella, and then he's in a whole other reality show of his own. And then, after that marriage tanked, he marries a woman from American Idol,

Catherine McPhee. So you would say that David Foster, and this is covered a little bit in that documentary that came out about him earlier this year, which I watched. I mean, he seems to like being married, and he likes being married in a particular kind of context, right, where he can be part of this Hollywood reality experience,

because there's Catherine McPhee on Instagram all the time with this guy who's her husband, not her grandfather, accompanying her on the piano. He seems to love the limelight and her being a woman of a certain age, wanted to have a baby. And David Foster, her husband, is the father. And in 2021, David Foster will have had kids more than 50 years apart. Wow. Down deep inside my soul Somehow this world keeps turning I think everyone should know We stand alone

Wow. It's like a time machine. Do you know this song? Yeah. Does it bring back memories? Yeah, there was, what was it? What was the heavy metal show on Much Music called? The Power Hour.

Right. Pepsi Power Hour. The Pepsi Power Hour, right. They had like Laurie Brown or something. But yeah, this is the Killer Dwarves. My buddy, Chris, at the time, was a big Killer Dwarves fan. I really love this story of the former Killer Dwarves guitarist, Michael Hall, who recently retired from the Canadian Armed Forces.

This came up on the Facebook page of Meat Magazine. Remember Meat Magazine? It was a Toronto hair metal publication run by a guy named Drew Masters, who was something of a local legend. So in that kind of passive social media way, he keeps people updated on what's been happening with his tribe back from Toronto of the late 80s, early 90s.

Sebastian Bach being the biggest name of all that came out of the gas works. Right. And enough of those people are still alive that there's always a lot to talk about, including the killer dwarfs. And Michael Hall talks in an interview with a website called sleazerocks.com. I mean, this is where you've got to get

your killer dwarfs coverage. Right. It's either here or the 1236 newsletter at this point in time. Or the 1236 episodes of Toronto Mic'd. It's one of those three options. And a terrific story then

of Mike Hall who was not the original guitarist for the Killer Dwarfs but he was, he joined the band when they were reaching their peak. So they put out albums on the Attic Records label

out of Toronto and, you Toronto and some amusing videos that they made at the time. They were like the comedic side of the heavy metal scene. I remember a song, Keep the Spirits Alive, I think it was. And this one too, of course, but they were the big ones. So Mike joins the band when they signed to Epic Records. They were handing out these deals to pretty much anyone who had the promise of being able to get on MTV and the inklings of following that they had built around Canada. Here they were going for it. They were going to be big American heavy metal stars with this song, We Stand Alone.

I learned from this interview with Mike Hall that, in fact, the entire band disavows this record. Like, this tune that they wrote specifically to sell out. Too soft, right? Yeah, too soft. Yeah, it was just like their way of coming up with the most contrived commercial song that would get them on the radio, even if it worked. So a few years in the Killer Dwarfs,

and, you know, that started going south. I mean, the grunge tidal wave arrived. Nobody wanted to listen to this music anymore. And of course, like so many people from that era- Grunge wiped this out, man. Yeah, well, it's just completely wiped this out. A real struggle to try and rekindle, recapture any kind of opportunity to get paid to do music. And it just became more and more elusive for this guy. And at 47 years of age, you know, he needed something to do. He thought, I could join the Canadian Armed Forces.

Because did you know that they recruit musicians in the Canadian Army to play around the different bases? I did not know this. And he saw an opportunity there to bring like a more contemporary approach to the kind of music that they were playing. Sure. So, you know, there he was, like, you know, flying off to all these destinations, all these Canadian army bases with his band, the Spitfire Kings.

You know, at the same time, he had to be in good enough shape to do that basic training. You know, he talks about the interview. There he is in his late 40s running on the field with all these guys straight out of high school, but he pulled it off and he managed to perform

there in this army band for the better part of 10 years. And what has he got now in his late 50s to show for it? A dignified retirement, which you can't get as a member of the Killer Dwarfs. Ready to move on to the next stage of his life. Wright talks about getting into new music projects, not interested in reuniting with the old band, who are still performing.

They're still going, yeah. You can still see the Killer Dwarfs at these clubs like the Rock Pile, but he wants to do his own thing. Which was a mother's pizza. And I think if you want a terrific story just about having to reinvent yourself at a certain age when things aren't going well and having to find a different route to take, this story about Mike Hall, S-L-E-A-Z-E-R-O-X-X dot com,

1236 newsletter approved. I mean, it's Q&A. It's not the slickest website, but I think a terrific story here. Like the kind of thing that you used to read in a national newspaper or magazine. Maybe somebody will pick it up now that I've drawn a little bit more attention to it.

I think the last Much Music exposure for that band that I recall was Dirty Weapon. That was like the last big hit on the video on our Nation's Music Station here. But speaking of videos and, you know,

stuff we talk about on Toronto Mic'd. These guys play Lollapalooza. So we're playing Look People. The song is called Five. And if you don't know Look People... If you don't know Look People, you're thinking, who is making this god-awful Frank Zappa rip-off music from, what, 32 years ago?

Like if, what was it? I was going to say if Rainbow Buttmonkeys and Frank Zappa had a baby or something like that. But this is, yeah, this is James B. Here's James B. till Rocky sucks. Interesting times. Okay.

So, the question I've been posing to many guests of Toronto Mic'd over the last few weeks, I've asked Ben Rayner, I've asked a bunch of people, is James B. famous? Because the aforementioned Ralph Ben-Murgy and I had a brief private conversation

in which I, silly me, thought he was famous, and Ralph is less sure he's famous. Now, let's make that clear. Ralph Ben-Murgy, who doesn't have a nasty word to say about anyone. He loves James B., and, of course, James B. was the music guy for the Ralph Ben-Murray Friday Night show on CBC. Ben-Murray did not say anything negative about James B.

Loves the man. But he was just debating about what does it mean to be famous? I consider it a philosophical question. It all depends on how you interpret fame and what it all means and to whom. Because to me, James B. is famous.

But again, I said this on a few recent episodes. And listening to the episodes where you've posed a question, I do hope you continue to ask, is James B. famous? Cameron Carpenter, there's so many people that I need to ask. People get stumped. Lisa Lattesur. They don't understand why

you're asking them. And they have to think about formulating an answer. No one can confidently respond whether or not James B. is famous. But am I correct in saying that there's a consensus that leans toward Ralph Ben-Murgy in answering the question? Yeah, right. Because you take the random hundred people on the streetcar, how many know James B.? One or two.

Right? And I don't know. I feel like you might be able to find a hundred people on the streetcar and say, how many know Toronto Mike? You might get one or two. You know what I mean? And I'm not famous. But I just want to say, coincidentally, I had this text from a number that wasn't on my phone. I didn't know what it was. It was just a picture of a puppet. A James B. puppet was tweeted to me, SMS messaging to me. And I actually wrote back like, who is this? And they go, oh, I thought you'd know James B. That was a reply back. And I said, no, no, no, I know that's James B. But who is texting me? And it was Nina Keough, the voice of Muffy Mouse, who was, and then she sent me a picture of the puppet with James B. And all that was happening.

Like she did not hear me talk. I don't think she heard me talk about it on Toronto Mike. I think it was just a coincidence that she was showing off the new James B. puppet. So I would say if you have a puppet made for you, custom made for you by Nina Keough, you're famous. In regard to Ralph Ben-Murgy's opinion

about whether his former TV band leader, a guy who was associated with the whole world of Mark Breslin, another FOTM, right? Goes back to that Friday night show, too, because Breslin was working on that show. James B. subsequently got into the cocktail culture back when that was seen as something marketable, I guess, in the aftermath. Yeah, the alternative rock thing had run its course.

Right. There was some idea that that same generation would get into swing dancing. Jump, jive, and wail. I had a former colleague, a guy named Chris O'connor cj o'connor people might know that name he was a writer for i weekly didn't do much beyond that he he fashioned himself a swinger after he was before like a like a goth guy like he he got into swinging and he would go take lessons i don't know if it was just to meet women or whatever, but he seemed really into it.

Here was a guy that fashioned himself like an anti-corporate crusader, that he would only do things that he felt would live up to this integrity he established for himself. And he got really into swing dancing. And I'm not sure whether or not he fell into the marketing trap or whether he independently on his own thought this was

something I always wanted to do and there was James B who elected himself and he got backing money behind him, right? He would be like Canada's king of swing. Cocktail culture. Yeah, somebody was financing something there. Absolutely.

And this was at a time when you had like big band covers of alt rock songs the Mike Flowers band had a cover of Wonderwall and then you had Richard Cheese coming out with like Lounge Against the Machine do you remember all this and it was just yeah it had a moment

and there was a whole bunch of bands that came out Brian Seltzer. Brian Setzer. Setzer, yeah. Not Setzer. Not Setzer. Not Setzer.

Not Setzer. Not Setzer. Not Setzer. Yeah. And Combustible Edison. Voodoo Daddy. Voodoo. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

Right. That's a big one. That's a big one. And there was this big band sound that was intertwined with that, and it led James B. to become a regular on the Toronto radio station Jazz FM. Yes. When that got going in 2001. Right.

And he was kind of perfectly aligned to be a personality on the air of that station. He did it for how many years? Oh, forever. And he was very popular because James B., who has been over and I've met, is a sweetheart. Not to do like a whole Wikipedia biography here of the history of James B.,

but all this began when he was in this band called The Look People. Didn't he move to Toronto from a small town? Was he North Bay, Ontario? Something like that. Something like that, yeah. And this was at a time when, if you would say that you were a big fan of Al Waxman and the King of Kensington, that that would make you sound like a wacky kind of hipster back in the mid-'80s. All you had to do was say, I'm starting an Al Waxman fan club. Subsequently, James B. had his own Queen Street night spot called the Beehive.

Does this ring a bell for when you did the deep dive with him? It does. The Look People became big where? In Scandinavia, back to Toronto again, and eventually the house band on the Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murgy show. Now here is where FOTM Ralph Ben-Murgy is flying too close to the sun in saying that James B. is not famous. I'm going to go on the record as saying the opposite of Ralph Ben-Murgy, that James B. actually is a celebrity to this day by the standards of Toronto. Now, everybody knows the name Ralph Ben-Murgy because he did this weekly CBC late night

talk show. And let's face it, you've talked to Ralph enough. You do the Not That Kind of Rabbi podcast producing for him every single week. I think to this day, our friend Ralph is still living in the shadow of the fact that he was positioned as Canada's great entertainer of late night television. It didn't matter what you thought of Ralph Ben-Murgy in reality. There was nothing that he could do about it. He made this deal, this Faustian bargain that Ralph Ben-Murgy's name became a punchline associated with a certain kind of,

shall we say, try-hard Canadiana, right? That's fair. Did you see this show in its prime? I mean, did you tune in? No, I think I was... 1992, 1993, right? They cancelled him after New Year's Eve. That was one of the legendary things that happened. They gave him this big blowout show,

and then they told him on the morning of January 1st, don't bother coming into work next week. So, look, he went for it. I mean, how many people get an opportunity like Ralph did to be this kind of late-night TV show host? Fulfilling a dream. A guy that grew up watching Johnny Carson and Ed Sullivan on the show. But in fact, you know, through that, it helped to build up James

B's equity. And here you had, let's say, the 1980s, 90s version of a modern day viral media star. And by just being around all this time, hearing that name over and over again, James B., right? Wearing those loud jackets with the flowing gray hair and the weird goatee. And people recognize James B. Very unique look. No one else looks like him. Wherever he goes.

He's plugging his jazz safari on Jazz FM. Right. And, you know, in the end, I don't think you can look at it through the lens

of what it takes to be famous today and not say that James B. was famous all along. I was pretty confident that I could delete this song from the soundboard

I thought we were done with your infamous cheer girl updates but here I am playing some Beach Boys again Marcella tell me Mark, why am I playing Marcella once again? well I wasn't going to do a Marcella update until I happened upon the website Narcity.com,

which got some funding from Google. You've heard of Google, right? I have heard of Google, yes. I use their email. Big internet company. You know, Google is under some pressure here. The lobbyists are lurking. They want Google to pay

Canadian journalism for linking to news. This is all very complicated. Interesting. They should pay their share after cannibalizing the advertising business. We'll talk about that a little more

in time on future episodes, see how that turns out. But Narcity.com, now that they've got a whole army of writers, thanks to the largesse of this company that doesn't want the government clamping down on them too much, requiring them to pay more, they posted an article just the other day explaining what chair girl Marcella Zoya will need to do when she returns to quarantine in Canada. had some Instagram stories that were taken in Tahiti and Bora Bora. And they sure looked to me like they were taken in real time. You know, she was off escaping the pandemic on an exotic vacation

that she came back to Toronto afterwards. And based on her Instagram, she just went back to her normal life, right? She didn't take the 14 days to hide out at home. And as this story bubbled up, in fact, Chairgirl's lawyer intervened. to her normal life, right? She didn't take the 14 days to hide out at home. And as this story bubbled up, in fact, Chairgirl's lawyer intervened, Greg Leslie, and he said, no, these were old photos taken by Marcella. They were on her phone.

It was a little bit suspicious, but what can you do but take the lawyer's word for it? I mean, he's a lawyer. We've got to listen to him. Even if the arguments he made in defense of Marcella throwing the chair off the balcony and who posted that video online were up for some suspicion, whatever, take the lawyer's word for it. Well, guess what? Marcella is now definitely out of Canada because she's on Instagram in Atlanta, Georgia. In Miami, Florida. I think recently posting from California.

And that we're all standing by to see, will chair girl abide by the quarantine act? I will say. The federal law upon her return. We both care about the radio thing, despite what Monica thinks. I really don't care about, I don't care if Marcella, I don't care if Marcella...

I don't care about Marcella. Am I the only one? I don't care about Marcella. Listen, I consider these monthly episodes, these are the Mark Weisblatt shows, and if you want Marcella updates, you get Marcella updates, but, man, I don't care. I mean, I hope she quarantines like I hope

anyone else quarantines, because you know, for the safety of the citizens. Mike, here's the point where I might walk off the show. I wish I had the cameras on. The fact is, it's raining outside and I'm not in the mood. Okay, thank you, thank you. Okay, so before we get to the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial section, though, I want to thank a couple of sponsors of this program who helped to fuel the real talk. StickerU.com

Thank you, StickerU. At StickerU.com, you upload your image, you can get decals, you can get badges we had at a TMLX event, stickers of course, the Toronto Mike stickers. I still have some if you want me to bike them to your mailbox or meet you from six feet

away at an intersection in the city, let me know. I'll drop off a sticker you, Toronto Mike sticker, Palma Pasta. Palma Pasta, that's authentic Italian food that'll leave you wondering why you waited so long to give it a try. You go to palmapasta.com, Support them. It's tough times for the restaurants and the eateries in the city. Support the local family run Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Pumpkins After Dark. Here we are. It's October 27th.

This seasonal sponsorship is coming to an end in a few days. Hit me up if you want to replace Pumpkins After Dark on the docket here. Man, it's been great talking about what's happening in Milton, Ontario. If you haven't yet, I did see one sad thing.

I think there was a rainy day. I don't know if it was Friday, but Michael Monez, who's an FOTM, had the tickets to take his kids to Pumpkins After Dark and it was rained out. So hopefully they got a rain check, a rain date.

But you got to get in there on the calendar and schedule your visit. Go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code miked, M-I-K-E-D, that'll save you 10%. And last but certainly not least, I don't know if you tuned into the webinar that I co-hosted with Elvira last week

for CDN Technologies. Now, of course, it wasn't the Elvira last week for CDN Technologies. Now, of course, it wasn't the Elvira. We couldn't afford her. Come on. But Barb Paluskiewicz, honestly, she had her makeup done. She had the hair done. She had the dress. I thought I was talking to Elvira, and it was pretty awesome.

So she actually wants to do another Elvira webinar, and I'll let everybody know when that's happening. But if you want to talk to Barb, if you have any questions about your computer or network issues, Barb is at 905 542 9759. Oh, and once again, you're

cancelling our cancel culture recap, right? But you've got... I don't have the energy to do the Gian Gomeschi stuff right now. Okay But you've got, so you've got... I don't have the energy, like, to do the Gian Gomeshi stuff right now. Okay, you've got Toronto star veteran sports writers, Paul Hunter and Mary Ormsby coming over, right? A married couple. Yeah, tomorrow, yeah.

You can ask them, then, how they feel about having their space replaced by Rosie DeManno. And there was a staff revolt of people who thought that Rosie's demeanor required her to be disciplined somehow or take some white fragility courses, racial sensitivity, edition of the Toronto Star, more than ever. Because she's not only doing a news thing, but she was also doing sports. And I think it was to replace the fact that they retired a couple of the veteran sports columnists there. After a long time. I'm looking forward to hearing about life at one Yonge Street. What it was like to work in the Toronto Star during the era of Star Touch and all the upheavals that happened.

Well, who was on this show? Was it Kevin McGrann who was telling me about the 25 people they sent to Atlanta for the 1992 World Series? Now they probably send one person to... Well, there was a Globe and Mail article about the status of the hockey news that they've done a deal with Sports Illustrated to team up as publications, right, share resources so the hockey news would essentially be like the Sports Illustrated satellite covering the NHL. And the owner of the hockey news mentioned he was working on a deal to actually take over sports coverage for a major newspaper.

This was in the Globe. Simon helped of the Globe, and his speculation was, in fact, that company is Torstar. So as you've talked here over the years, well, what's going to happen to Toronto Star sports coverage? Might be something that comes up on Hebsey on sports. You know, if they make this deal, shut down the section. FOTM Bruce Arthur will get to fulfill his, what I think is his dream, of not writing about sports anymore. But then they can reassign him. He can write a column every day about how Doug Ford is wrong about everything.

Like Keith Olbermann, who, you know, pivoted to politics and, you know, once again, again left doing sports because he's into this whole resign-sir thing. There's a certain sort of perch for the seasoned sports writer. They want to show their sophistication by telling politicians what to think and do, and that might be in the future for Bruce Arthur. Last but not least, I realize, since this is a Mark Weisblatt episode of, sorry, I called them a 1236.

1236, but that's you, right? 1236 episode of Toronto Mic'd. I want to say Ridley Funeral Home. Again, they gave you the toque last week. They gave me a wonderful umbrella for days just like this. But Ridley Funeral Home is at 3080, that's 3080 Lakeshore. That's at 14th Street. And Brad Jones has been a tremendous FOTM.

You can pay tribute without paying a fortune. Learn more at RidleyFuneralHome.com. I got Elvis on my elbow When I say Elvis Chalks I got hula girls on the back of my leg Ain't she h was When I walked Sleeping cherry red Screaming electric green Of all mountains majesty

Billy talk to me Talk to me Swap meet Sally Trim snapchat Now swipe to mom's show In the time it took to get that new tattoo Tattoo, tattoo Tattoo, tattoo

Show me your dragon magic Tattoo, tattoo So autobiographic Best believe that needle aren't you You know, if you were putting out a record in 2012 and wanted to show that you were back in action, you needed some kind of groove, right? It's a hip-hop-driven marketplace,

and I think if a classic rock band wanted to get some notice, you had to show that you were capable of playing on that field. And that's how we got Van Halen to dust off an old song that they wrote from 1977 called Down in Flames. It was the Van Halen comeback album with David Lee Roth with Wolfgang Van Halen taking over on bass from Michael Anthony. And they turned it into this track called Tattoo, which, according to Chuck Plosterman, in one of those listicles at Vulture.com, this is the second worst Van Halen song of all time. And I don't know. worst Van Halen song of all time.

And I don't know. I think that was some resentment over the fact that he had higher hopes for their comeback than this. That's an expectation. Like, reconstruct this old tune. But they went by 2012. I mean, Van Halen had kind of earned the right to just coast and cruise, right, playing their old songs. And I think this tune did the trick as one of the last releases in the life of Edward Van Halen. Hercules, hero of song and story

Hercules, winner of ancient glory Fighting for the right, fighting with his might With the strength of ten ordinary men Hercules, people are safe when near him Hercules, only the evil fear him. Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs. Virtue in his heart, fire in every part of the mighty Hercules. Victory is here, raise a mighty cheer at the sound of the wind.

Oh, there's a little bit at the end there. Oh, there's a little bit at the end there. I don't think there is a song that's ever been written from one man about another sung with more love in his heart than the late Johnny Nash, who died at age 80 on October 6th. The theme song from the Canadian animated series The Mighty Hercules. In looking up any background about this song, I happened upon a website called torontomike.com. Tell me more because that was right.

I don't know if I loved it, but I saw it all the time and I watched it. Yeah, Daedalus. Did you identify with the main character, the mighty Hercules? I mean, was it someone? We had so much in common. You imagine being that powerful when you grew up. I identified with Newton, the centaur.

Herc, herc, herc, herc, herc. I still sound like that. Johnny Nash, I can see clearly now is a song that he made a lot of money from. Right. Showing up in all sorts of commercials and then covered by Jimmy Cliff for a second round with the movie Cool Runnings in the 1990s. But it was 1972 that I Can See Clearly Now was a big deal. Number one song in America. Sure.

And, you know, it's Johnny Nash who's credited with bringing that reggae sound from Jamaica to America, even though this is one of those stories where his career wasn't quite working out and, you know, wasn't able to get that follow-up hit that he was searching for. And by the time he got to the 1980s, he figured, you know, I did what I could. I'm into middle age here.

It's time to step aside. And people did not hear a lot from Johnny Nash, similar to Bill Withers in that way, right? Who died earlier this year. Like, you know, he would be in that, like, where are they now file? What happened to Johnny Nash? Not to put you on the spot, but where in his career, and I actually don't even have a sense of what year this would be, so you're going to have to tell me,

because, of course, I was a young boy watching Mighty Hercules on, I guess it was Global or something. When in his career does that recording happen, that he records the theme song to the Mighty Hercules? Well, at the time, he was trying to make it as an American R&B singer, When in his career does that recording happen, that he records the theme song to the mighty Hercules? Well, at the time, he was trying to make it as an American R&B singer. And he had some R&B hits, but nothing that crossed over to the pop charts. And there he was, working as a singer for hire. Here was an assignment to do the theme song for the mighty Hercules.

And that passion that he brought to that ode singing to this cartoon series. Iron in his thighs. Whenever I hear that, I think, yeah, that's what I'm working on with these 140K rides. Iron in my thighs. Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, then he got into the reggae thing, exploring around Jamaica, and it was, I can see,

clearly now there was a realization there of that sound that he was searching for and that song that everybody got to know. One quick note that's useless to anyone but myself, I guess, is that as a kid I always found it funny that this guy's name rhymed with Johnny Cash. That's what I remember as a kid. Oh, Johnny Nash, as I can see clearly now,

and it rhymes with Johnny Cash. So I had a lot of free time to think of such nonsense. But here's another blast from the past. You know what can make the difference between this and this? This. Oh, it needed some visual representation. What was that an ad for? That was a Byway commercial from the time in history

when there were commercials for Byway. And the point that they were trying to make was that if you shopped at Byway stores, you would save enough money to enjoy the finer things in life with all that was left over in your bank account. Because you'd be wearing the orange tab Levi's and you'd be the champion's choice sneakers, but you'd be just flush with cash. Mike, it all adds up.

And this was a principle behind the co-founder of Byway, who died at age 91 on October 6th, a guy named Mal Coven. I'd never heard of Mal Coven until I happened upon a business card in my local Starbucks promoting the fact that he was self-publishing his memoir. It's called How I Succeeded in Retirement and the Byway Story. And in the tradition of all the great self-published books, this thing is pretty much an incoherent mess. But somewhere in there you can find out exactly what was behind the making of the Byway Story. We remember as so ubiquitous around Toronto in the 1980s and 90s,

still represented by the last byway standing, the Rogue Byway, Lakeshore and Islington in Toronto, which all Toronto-miked listeners know is something that you have to walk past when you get off the TTC to come to your house. It's in the heart of New Toronto, and it's in an endangered species because the city bought that building, and that was, again,

I think I mentioned it off the top, but the big news on BlogTO that many FOTMs were alerting me to that the Rogue Byway is being talked about as a future home for a homeless shelter. Okay, and on BlogTO is where there was a story

that the Rogue Byway was going to close back in March, like right before the pandemic. Because it was for sale, and the city bought it. It's still standing. So this was, if I've got my torontomike.com memory working for me, the Rogue Byway had a sign from the original byway well past the end of the national chain called byway yes and uh perhaps the black and white logo that we all know because of mal coven who in this book he wrote a decade ago was talking about bringing back the brand uh maybe force them to get rid of the sign and change their name.

Now, so he talked for years that he was going to bring back Byway. Right. And they rented a location which had the Byway logo somewhere in the Bathurst and Finch area of Toronto. Coming soon in this strip mall, there was going to be a new Byway $10 store. Never opened in that location because they said they got an even bigger store on Orifice Road, around the corner from the Yorkdale Shopping Center. And a few months ago, we heard it's going to happen.

The nanogenarian man who made Byway what it was. He was going to be coming back with this Byway $10 store. We speculated enough here on the podcasts whether or not you thought this was going to happen. And what did I say? I said no, right? You could never imagine it. No, it's not going to happen.

I'm the one that found his death announcement, put it on Twitter, got picked up from BlogTO, and there was a story on the Canadian press wire. And I don't know where they came to this conclusion because it's CP. They have to do some reporting, a bit of due diligence. They're more responsible than 1236 has to be a lot of the time. They said that the future of the Byway $10 store was now in doubt, which suggested to me they got in touch with somebody who maybe said, we don't know if this is going to happen anymore.

It's not happening. Did the legend of Byway go down with the death of Mal Coven? For sure. So he came up with his discount store idea in 1962. He had a brother-in-law, a guy named Abe Fish, who also died earlier this year in 2020, took over the store, developed this concept called Byway, which predated the modern dollar store, ended up striking it rich. So even if nobody shopping at Byway saved enough money to buy the finer things in life,

it sounds like it worked out for him with this byway chain which eventually landed in the hands of dialects this big uh retail operator in across canada and the byway brand it became ubiquitous familiar what everybody so everybody everybody knew the cheap sneakers right yeah that it maybe became became a source of shame that if you were stuck. Sparks? Does that sound familiar? Sparks? You were stuck wearing this stuff from my way.

Heavy duty. It was a signal that your family couldn't afford to shop at some upscale store like Wolko. Or the Bay or something. But heavy duty classism at play. When I look back at going to primary school in the 80s honest to goodness honest to goodness i mean i want to go back and just talk to these poor kids who had the orange tab levi's that were clearly bought at byway that like i think it's fucking punk of you to be buying the byway brand instead of giving your 40 bucks to the the red red tags but yeah we were super classist and it was pretty ugly, man. But I think there was also a certain theory of retailing, which was perfected by Honest Ed,

which was if you make your store a mess, right? If it's all like cramped and nothing's really in any kind of order, right? Like, you know, you have to squeeze through the aisles. Everything's all over the place that you can give the illusion that the stuff you're selling is at rock bottom discount prices. Like we can't even when it's not right. There's something to that.

Another quick thing you said before I play the next sound element is that you mentioned Abe Fish was like a co-founder of Byway. Abe Fish. Yeah, he was the brother-in-law that that that teamed up with the late Mal Coven. We lost them both in 2020. Abe Fish and Abe Vigoda played Fish on Barney Miller. Hey, not bad. And Abe Vigoda's dead too.

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The Great Canadian Coat Sale at the Old Hyde House. It's worth the drive to Acton. Steve Dawkins got an obituary at cbc.ca and his claim to fame was right there. The tagline he concocted for his family business. His father and uncle were behind the old hide house. Acton, Ontario. Put on the map by those commercials about how if you wanted a leather jacket, it's worth the drive to act and died at age 61 of cancer. Ended up going from being the guy behind the marketing for the company to the CEO and then the president.

I don't know if we'd give Acton any thought if it wasn't for those commercials for so many years. I mean, they said like 300,000 people a year went to the old Hyde House. Wow. Who would not have otherwise made that drive to Acton if they weren't convinced in commercial after commercial that it was a place to be to buy a leather coat. Two quick Acton notes beyond the old Hyde House. I believe it is, which FOTM? Who's got the, Roz Weston, that's who it was. I believe Roz Weston has a street named after him

in Acton, Ontario. I believe that's a fact. Okay, so there's two reasons that it's worth the drive to Acton. And shout out to my late great aunt. She was literally my, yeah, she's my mom's aunt. Aunt Bernie, who lived in Acton, and that was the reason we often went to Acton.

And I remember as a young child being traumatized by the giant, what are those giant dogs called? The humongous dogs. What are the St. Bernards? The giant St. Bernards that would freak the hell out of me. Then, of course, the ads made it where everybody knew about Acton.

There's my Acton stories for you. You jump from out of my car When you know what I'm trying 90 miles per hour, girl Is the speed I drive You tell me it's all right You don't find a little pain Then you say you just want me To take you for a ride

No, this is a cross-town traffic I'm trying to get through to you Cross-town traffic All I do is run over you Cross-town traffic All you do is slow me down I'm trying to get to the other side of town. I'm not the only soul accused of getting run.

Tire tracks all across your back. Baby, I can see you've had your fun. But darling, can't you see my fingers have turned from green to red? But with you, I can see a track that can. Hey, Jay Jackson is the singer there who died at age 78. is the singer there who died at age 78. He was the frontman for a Toronto R&B band called the Majestics. They were a big

part of the Toronto Sound. When people talk about legendary R&B places like the Club Blue Note in Toronto in the 1960s. And there was Jay Jackson and the Majestics at the forefront of that scene playing the clubs.

Not as much a recording artist, and when he got the opportunity to make a record, it was already into the late 60s, and like this Jimi Hendrix cover version here, you have a situation where somebody who was maybe not that old themselves, but part of an old school style, they were trying to fit in with the psychedelic drug culture, doing these kinds of cover versions that you can find in the name of Jay Jackson. Well, here's how it tends to go. I mean after he got a whole bunch of exposure.

On the CBC. Went to LA. To try and make it in television over there. It was the producers. Of the Johnny Cash Variety Show. Who were thinking. That he could be one of these. Front men on American television.

Instead. What Jay did was the responsible thing, and he got some jobs in different levels of the Canadian government. Smart. And he spent the entire 70s, 80s, and 90s just being your basic kind of civil servant who had this legendary music career behind him and politely going about his business. And maybe once in a while people would recognize him and say, were you Jay Jackson?

But I think he was happier by that point to get a steady paycheck. He got a full-length obituary in the Globe and Mail, one of these by Nicholas Jennings. No, Brad Wheeler wrote this one. Oh, yeah. Okay, Brad Wheeler wrote this one. Oh, yeah. Okay. Brad Wheeler of the Globe. And he pointed out that in his

retirement, you would have seen Jay Jackson doing something he loved, working as a crowd control officer in the bullpen of the Blue Jays games at Skydome. Wow. So, again, here was a final

act for this legendary Toronto musician Blue Jays games at Sky Dome. Wow. So again, like here was a final act for this legendary Toronto musician that he just wanted to hang around baseball players, you know, and that's what he did for the tail end of his life. And there was a Blue Jay pre-Sky Dome. So we're going back to Exhibition Stadium here, but Roy Lee Jackson,

as I recall, who I remember watching him sing the National Anthem before a game, and my mind exploding that this relief pitcher was actually singing the National Anthem before a Jays game. Okay, so a salute to Jay Jackson, a stealth legend

of Toronto music. You know, you come for the, you know, we've done a couple hours of interesting content, but like finding out about Jay Jackson now, like I just learned he existed. And that's a fascinating story. Like from you had me, you know, the local kind of blues artist, you know, doesn't quite work out. He ends up a civil servant. And next thing you know, he's some security guy at the Dome where the pitchers warm up in the outfield. They're

fantastic. Good shit. Good stuff. Alright, let's kick out another one. Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� If you're waiting for the vocal to come in, I hate to break it to you, Mike, but there are no words at all in this song by Herb Alpert called Rise, which was a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. You know how it got that way? Tell me. I did not know this song. It was the show General Hospital as it played as the soundtrack to Sexual Assault on the show. And introduced America to the renaissance of the trumpeter known as Herb Albert from the Tijuana Brass. from the Tijuana Brass.

In October, October 10th, 2020, was the death of Don Hahn, who was born in Toronto, raised in Montreal, went back to Toronto to learn his trade as a recording engineer, and then moved to New York City, where he hooked up with a producer at the A&R Recording Studios, a guy named Phil Ramone,

who was later best known as a producer for Billy Joel. And among the credits that Don Hahn did the engineering for was music from Big Pink, the album by the band. Worked his way to L.A. in the mid-1970s. Connected with Herb Alpert and his A&M Records in its recording studio became the place to be. He was Herb Alpert's go-to engineer for all the big records that were recorded there. Oh, did I just hear the Biggie sample?

Was that what I just heard there? The Biggie Smalls sample? Sorry to interrupt you, but... Does it come back? Hold on here. Okay, if it comes back, I'll chime in again here. But so it's not... Yeah, I feel like I'm going to be the victim of a rap attack.

I'll bring over my buddy Kareem. He rapped back in the 90s. I saw him putting out the recycling a moment ago. Rise by Herb Alpert. Reading up on the history of this song, Don Hahn played a big part in the sound that you heard. And then if you watch the movie, up on the history of this song, Don Hahn played a big part in the sound that you heard, and then if you watch the movie,

the documentary of the making of We Are the World, there's Don Hahn sitting behind the console with all the American prima donnas recording USA for Africa. I just want to use your love tonight. I don't want to lose your love tonight. It's a banger, Mark. Undercover, I just want to use your love tonight. I don't want to lose your love tonight.

Tony Lewis, who was the singer frontman for the band The Outfield, died age 62. A tragic, sudden death. Suddenly and unexpectedly. Too young. Too young. And brought back some nostalgia for that first hit by his band called The Outfield. The guitarist who he was playing with

in that song, a guy named John Spinks, he pre-deceased him a few years earlier. Oh. 2014. Did they have a second hit on this side of the pond anyway? I think a second, third, fourth hit. They never matched what they were doing with Your Love, which was what? A perfectly constructed ripoff of The Police.

I mean, you know, Sting and his band, they abdicated their throne. You know, Sting had moved on to these more exotic forms of music, playing with these jazz players. And who was there to pick up the torch with the police sound? It was a British band called the Baseball Boys. What a terrible name.

And with their record deal that they got, CBS Records thought, you know, you've got to call yourselves The Outfield if you want that all-American kind of radio success. Yeah, this was a big hit, but I've got to plead ignorance trying to think of another hit by the outfield. But I was pretty young. I was listening to too much, like, Phil Collins.

I think they had an influence of their own. I mean, there was a Saturday Night Live sketch in, like, 2013 that was based on this song. I had to look that up, refresh my memory how long ago it was. But, you know, recently enough that it could become an SNL punchline. And in a weird way, an influence, I think, on the promise of the power pop sound, you know, making its way onto top 40 radio. I mean, this wasn't like Elvis Costello or Graham Parker, you know, these other people. The cars kind of. Yeah, it was like a diluted version of it. And I think this song, most of all, is what everybody remembers. your love by the outfield. Thank you. Speaking of the baseball boys,

I'm pretty sure those chords match up with the Take Me Out to the Ball Game. The first few chords, this is the Spencer Davis group, right? Yeah, don't wait for the singing to come in, because by the time Spencer Davis did this album called Gluggo in the early 70s, he lost his singer, his protege, Steve Winwood. Right. Who he discovered as a teenager.

Anyone have to do faces? Faces? No, Traffic. Traffic. And Blind Faith with Eric Clapton. Right. And later, Steve Winwood, the solo act. Of course, Higher Love. And this guy was like, I don't know, his late 20s, early 30s,

and he was already a seasoned veteran because there he was a teenager who became the front man brought to prominence by Spencer Davis. I think this is a future Pandemic Friday jam-kicking theme. Bands named after somebody who's not the lead singer. What do you think? had British hits most of all, which had a parallel kind of success in Canada, maybe a little less so in the United States, but still pretty popular, right? Give Me Some Lovin'. Oh, that was the big one, yeah.

And I'm a Man, those are the two that kind of jump out. For sure. And Spencer Davis would have reaped the rewards of that level of success with the Spencer Davis. Keep on running. That was another one. Okay, so Spencer Davis as a solo artist, represented by songs like Gluggo, which we're hearing here.

Funny title. Amusing instrumental song. It led him to a different kind of career behind the scenes, where he became an executive at his buddy's record label, Island Records. Oh, yeah! Of course.

And he worked with Bob Marley and Robert Palmer, and he signed a group called Eddie and the Hot Rods, and then behind the scenes, reunited with the solo career of Steve Winwood. Now, there's a Toronto connection for Spencer Davis. He ended up spending a lot of time in this city in the early 1980s. So what happened?

The Blues Brothers came along. The movie and the soundtrack and the briefcase full of blues album. And thanks mainly to Dan Aykroyd. It was a shot in the arm for the career of the Downchild Blues Band from Toronto. As well as Gimme Some Lovin',

which was also part of the Blues Brothers act. So Spencer Davis and Downchild teamed up to kind of try and ride that success. So for a while there was Spencer in Spencer Davis and Downchild teamed up to kind of try and ride that success. So for a while there was Spencer in Toronto collaborating with Downchild and he was here intermittently and ended up

living on Catalina Island where FOTM Doug Thompson wrote a tribute on the website of FOTM Bob Segherini and they became pals. FOTM, don't forget, the Zoom episodes count. Bob's also an FOTM Bob Segarini, and they became pals. FOTM, don't forget, the Zoom episodes count. Bob's also an FOTM.

And Doug wrote a very nice tribute to his buddy Spencer Davis, who was very generous over the years and had him over to his house, that they became pals, and you would see Spencer intermittently in Toronto. I think he might have been a resident here at one point in time. Kind of spot him around different neighborhoods where tourists don't tend to go. I want some at Yonge and Eglinton.

I think if you make your way up to Yonge and Eglinton, it means you're a little more embedded in the city than somebody who's just passing through. You're a little more embedded in the city than somebody who's just passing through. But Spencer Davis died October 19th at age 81. The eyes of age As he spoke right out He talked of life He talked of life And a laugh slapped his leg astern The top of life, the top of life.

Laugh slapped his leg astound. He said the name Bojangles and he danced a lick. Across the sound, he grabbed his pants and felt his stance. Oh, he jumped up high. He grabbed his pants and felt his stance Whoa, he jumped up high He clicked his heels He let go and laughed He let go and laughed Shook back his clothes all around

Mr. Bojangles Mr. Bojangles Mr. Bojangles Jerry Jeff Walker died on, what day, October 23rd at age 78. Best known for writing the song Mr. Bojangles. How this song came about? Jerry Jeff Walker was in jail, 1965, New Orleans, for public intoxication. While he was in the clink,

there was a homeless man who called himself Mr. Bojangles. Kind of swept off the street. I mean, this was New Orleans, Louisiana, always shady stuff going on there. Got into conversation in the prison cell

about what was going on with their lives. And Mr. Bojangles told a story about his dog and depressing everyone sitting in the jail. Somebody else asked if anybody could do something to lighten the mood. And here they were, stuck inside these four walls. And Mr. Bojangles, he obliged by starting to tap dance. When Jerry Jeff Walker got out of jail on the straight and narrow, 1968, recorded this tribute to Mr. Bojangles.

Mr. Bojangles. And the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were the ones who brought this song to greater prominence. I mean, to this day, everybody knows Mr. Bojangles. Maybe they don't even know why. Agreed. No, agreed. That's not the version you probably know, but that song is, yeah, it's in the Omniverse.

Absolutely. This is my good pal, Joey Moss. Every day, Joey works hard in the oiler dressing room preparing things for our team Joey's not like other guys his age and you know with a little understanding and guidance I found that people who are mentally handicapped, like Joey, can really surprise you with all the things they can do by simply being part of our lives.

Thanks, Joey. Open up your life. Let people who are mentally handicapped be part of your community. KT! KT! Well, there you go. National Canadian celebrity Joey, died at age 57 on October 26,

2020. And we all remember Joey from that commercial with Wayne Gretzky. I don't think that upload was mixed for the optimum stereo surround effect that you usually go for here on Toronto Mind.

And I noticed that was a retro Ontario upload, so shout out to Ed. All right, blame him. Is he coming back for Christmas crackers? It's almost that time of year. It's probably going to be a Zoom, unfortunately. Back to Joey Moss. He was a locker room attendant, primarily for the Edmonton Oilers, but also the Edmonton football team.

Right, their new name, right. As the obituary makes a point of calling them. The team formerly known as the Eskimos, which was one of the teams that gave employment to Joey, and he was born with Down syndrome and got on the radar for the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky because he was the brother of Wayne Gretzky's girlfriend. Right, yes.

A singer named Vicki Moss, who at one point worked with the aforementioned David Foster. I guess this was this world of contacts where she was trying to get some recognition because I think in the limelight of Edmonton in the early 1980s with the Oilers winning Stanley Cup after Stanley Cup, you would think that somebody would bank on the prospect

that Wayne Gretzky's girlfriend could become a big music star. Sure. Right. Absolutely. And it turns out that her brother Joey was the one that ended up being enough of a celebrity that everybody remembered him on the day that he died. You know, I had a lot, you know, my wife's from Edmonton. I don't know if I've mentioned that. And we were talking last night about Joey Moss and I was sharing with her, like, look, like I mentioned, looking back the classism in the schoolyard over byway clothes and how gross it feels today. But I mean, you want to talk about stuff that didn't age well. I mean that commercial, which was just

everywhere. And we all knew, you know, at the end he says taxi, like he says taxi and we all heard it as Gretzky, but there I'll be honest, everybody did an impersonation of the Gretzky, and it was not kind to Down syndrome, and terrible when I look back, but it was everywhere. Now, of course, a different woman grew up to become Mrs. Wayne Gretzky. That was Janet Jones from Hollywood, California. We all know how that turned out. From Police Academy 6.

Happily ever after. And again, I think being Wayne Gretzky's significant other was enough of a job that she left that other stardom seeking behind or passed it on to their daughter, Paulina, I think to fulfill the promise of the parents. And speaking of Wayne Gretzky, October also saw another death of Wayne Gretzky's restaurant in Toronto. Right.

And I wonder how lucrative that restaurant was for all the years beforehand. You know, the fact that it's now closed and they didn't announce another location. Did Wayne Gretzky, like, keep it running as a loss leader? You know, while he made money selling wine or suits or, you know, whatever other deals that he was doing out there. Like the pride of having this restaurant in Toronto was a big deal. Famously, until his health started to decline, famously, you know, Walter was there quite a bit helping out.

Like this was sort of like for Walter Gretzky, I think he had a hand in the day-to-day operation on some level that would be reason enough to keep her around. But I'm thinking back at Gretzky's. I mean, I attended a Humble and Fred event in the early days of their podcast at Wayne Gretzky's, but John Gallagher, of course, used to record his TSN show from Gretzky's. Oh, that's right.

Before they handed it over. No, Mike Bullard, right, had a show, and then they gave the space for Gallagher to replace him for a matter of months. Gallagher. Bullard moved uptown to the Masonic Temple, the concert hall. I was at Wayne Gretzky's in the first year it existed with Weird Al Yankovic. Wow. And, you know, FOTM Kevin Shea would have been the one that brought us there,

I guess. You know, one of these events where I was shadowing Weird Al around the city, who would turn down an opportunity like that? You know, all very surreal. I mean, this is Weird Al when he looked like Weird Al, right? I mean, you see him today. Right. He looks like some vegan yogi. You know, he's got a look that you still recognize him as Weird Al, but without the glasses and the mustache, you know, and that that that big heap of curls. Yeah. The Hawaiian shirt. Right. That he always used to wear. I mean, you know, that was the real Weird Al recognition. It's funny. Now, I remember, you know, that was the real Weird Al recognition. It's funny. Now I remember James B. was somewhere in the mix. Of course.

When Weird Al was in town at that time. He's famous. And I think that might have been the only time I was ever sitting in Wayne Gretzky's. It closed down right before they reenacted the laws where you couldn't sit in a restaurant anymore, right, due to the pandemic. And there was kind of the implication, like, it was closing down

because of Ontario and Doug Ford and, you know, he was putting restaurants in a business. Condors are going there, right? Some complex, yeah. Yeah, that was planned for a year. So not only is Wayne Gretzky's out of there, it was also known in advance of Second City. Right. Second City Theater, which ended up taking that space where Gallagher did his show and Mike Bullard as well.

Right. And the Second City is up for sale. They're looking for a buyer. And we're in a strange situation now. Second City will have a new location in Toronto, further south, some new condo development. They've got space and the future is

unwritten for what becomes of the legendary Second City. What about the documentary? What's going on with the Scorsese documentary? We had here an exclusive scoop, which I gleaned off Facebook, that in fact, Martin Scorsese is not working on the project anymore. He's found other things to do with his time and handed it over.

He can't do that. Like, I feel like he can't do that. Well, he was a director of the interview that they did in Toronto. Okay, but there was a... But I guess piecing it all together, going through all the old archives, this has been handed over to Andrew Alexander, who's divesting himself of the company that he built and he ran and also in Chicago. And I guess someday maybe we'll see this documentary, An Afternoon with SCTV, that they taped.

I mean, poor Rick Moranis, who was sucker punched on the streets of New York and joked about by Bill Burr on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, New York's back. I saw that. You know, in the heat of the Schitt's Creek sweep, you'd think there'd be some, you know, impetus to get this doc put out there. We'll see what happens. All that digression just from remembering Joey Moss. But I think it was also a reflection, I think,

of the power of Wayne Gretzky, right? That like Wayne Gretzky was on the team with Joey. Right. You know, they had the message in the commercial, you know, somebody has Down syndrome. That was a great story. You should, you know, treat them as normally as you can. Of course.

Give them a job, welcome them into your life. And I think at the time had a big impact. Absolutely. And it was sad to see that news come across Twitter. I think my heart just sank. Like Joey Moss. Like I just felt everybody loved Joey. Let the man go through. Let the man go through. Move aside and let the man go through.

Let the man go through. Move aside and let the man go through. Let the man go through. Move aside and let the man go through. Let the man go through. Move aside and let the man go through. Let the man go through, through. Soul coughing. You know this song. I do.

I do. Super Bon Bon. Referenced a lot on the Howard Stern radio show over the years. Bob Biggs is who we lost October 17th. 74 years of age. And he was a founder of a record company called Slash Records, which grew out of a tabloid publication they created, one of the earliest zines that he made by himself,

this irreverence about the state of rock and roll, which quickly turned into a chance for him to discover and sign his own artists. discover and sign his own artists. And that's a legacy of Slash Records as a label that brought us the bands like X. One letter, X. You know X? I'm not sure I know X. I know Bush X.

Lost Lobos, you know, because they do the theme of the Hebzion Sports Podcast. Do the Murray. I hear it every Friday morning. Violent Femmes. You know the Violent Femmes. Add it up and Blister in the Sun and American music. A lot of big hits out of Violent Femmes. Later on, Faith No More was a band discovered by Bob Biggs. Really?

What was that big mic pad in Faith No More? Oh, it'll come to me. It's like three-word short statement. Years before Epic, but anyway. Don't let me just derail you here. We're winding down here. Only a couple more deaths to go, but I'll Google it. You keep talking here. Only a couple more deaths to go, but I'll Google it. You keep talking here.

Bob Biggs of Slash Records, a behind the scenes kind of character, but given how his tentacles extended to a lot of this alternative rock, not the

corporate sellout kind, but the sort of stuff that was critically acclaimed at the same time that it actually sold. He had the vision there on Slash Records. And let's not forget, Los Lobos had a number one hit song. Oh, yeah, the cover. Yeah, covering La Bamba. Right. Of all things.

I mean, you know, here they were trying to get recognition for this, like, Tex-Mex sound of their own. And, you know, they do this, like, most cliched cover version possible. And that becomes their number one single. But, obviously, it subsidized everything that followed for them. But I'm sure they haven't had any other top 100 song. I'm willing to bet they went to number one with their cover of Richie Valen's La Bamba and that they never hit the number one

top 100. Really quickly because it'll kill me if I don't say it. The song I'm thinking of by Faith No More is called We Care A Lot.

We care a lot. Anyway, you may return to your regularly scheduled program. Our regularly scheduled obituaries. What's left?

All right, let's see what we got in the chamber here. Here we go. Oh doctor, I'm in trouble. Well, goodness gracious me. For every time a certain man is standing

next to me, a flash comes to my face and my pulse begins to race. It goes boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boody, boom,

boody, boom, boody, boom. Well, goodness gracious me. Herbert Kretzmer died at age 95 on October 14th. He was best known as the lyricist for the English language musical known as Les Miserables. Oh.

95, you said. Good for him. Yeah, 95 years old. Is that your goal? What age would you like to get to 95? Let me know when you get there. It depends, right? Goodness Gracious Me,

which was Peter Sellers doing his, what, what, South Asian accent along with Sophia Loren on this song from 1960. You can't cancel it in retrospect now. It's 60 years ago. We need the disclaimer, I think, for this one. You know, quick aside, real quick aside, is that Humble and Fred were wondering how many of the Goo Heads would work today

because Mr. Goo Head often made fun of new Canadians and their English as a second language. And I'm thinking I might do a special Toronto Mic'd episode where I basically play the Goo Head archives and discuss whether they're insensitive or not in the lens of a 2020. Yeah, yeah, just read that disclaimer from CHCHTV that they

do before the Brady Bunch and it'll be okay. I might take out your reading of that disclaimer and you'll be my Mark Daly. Just don't play it for Humble and Fred. It might trigger them in a different way. I'll put it somewhere where they'll never ever hear it. I'll put it on Toronto Mic'd.

If you don't want to be heard by them, the best way to do it is go on Toronto Mic'd. You know, though, if you're rolling your eyes at this, just remember, you know, the character of Apu only stopped being voiced by Hank Azaria now. Okay, so, I mean, I've seen how many times have I watched The Simpsons and laughed at Apu,

and I won't even get this right. And he's a pet. He's a petalon. I'm going to butcher that. But anyway, that's, you know, just as agrarious as this. Goodness gracious. How audacious. Goodness gracious.

How flirtatious. Goodness gracious. It is me. It is you. I'm sorry, it is us. Hello! Hooray! Let the show begin I've been ready

Hello! Hooray! Let the lights grow dim I've been ready Ready as this audience That's coming in a dream Loving every second Every moment

Every scream I've been waiting so long To sing my song And I've been waiting so long to sing my song. And I've been waiting so long for this day to come. And I've been thinking so long I was on the wrong. Roll out. James Randi, born in Toronto in 1928, died at age 92 at his home in Florida.

October 20th was the last day on Earth for the amazing Randy, who became a well-known magician and later in life became a full-time skeptic with his own foundation, which he dedicated to debunking all of the people who claimed that they could do magic without really doing anything at all. Televangelists were a big target for Randy.

And a documentary about him, An Honest Liar, which came out in the 2010s, brought him back to his hometown of Toronto as he was winding down his career before his retirement. Now, the first I heard of James Randi was an episode of Happy Days. Really? In which he appeared as the amazing Randy. And this would have been somewhere around the time that Happy Days surrendered the conceit, I think, of being set in the 1950s. There was a certain point in the evolution of Happy Days where it was like, you know, happening.

It became the 70s? It became just like the present tense, right? Like there was no timeline. That's funny. Hank Aaron made a cameo in Happy Days as himself, but he wasn't pretending to be Hank Aaron of 20 years earlier, which is like Hank Aaron as the old guy, the retired baseball player from now.

And now that you mention it, I don't know why I never thought of this before, but the Mork stuff, that Mork stuff was clearly late 70s stuff or whatever, the Mork and Mindy kind of spinoff stuff. But yeah, you're right. The show at the beginning tried really hard to remind you that this is sort of like an American graffiti 50s scene.

Sock hops and all that jazz. Amazing Randy came from a different era by the time he got a call from Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper at the time was still the rock band called Alice Cooper, the original iteration of Alice Cooper, who wanted James Randy to bring his magic show and integrate it into their concerts.

And so not only did he work on all the props on stage, including putting Alice in a guillotine and making that part of the spectacle on the stage, also making his own cameo appearances on the stage himself. And James Randi talks about the point where he quit Canada, renounced his citizenship, and pledged allegiance to the United States of America. Now, he says it was in Niagara Falls, Ontario, although I'm not sure that's actually where it happened, but when he was on tour with Alice, Billion Dollar Babies, 1973,

he said the RCMP showed up at the concert. They ransacked the backstage area looking for drugs, trying to find something on Alice on the band, you know, big bust, the Mounties getting their man, and they didn't find anything at all. He was so outraged by this experience that he said he's done. He's not coming back to Canada anymore. And from there, we had the amazing Randy again evolve into his skeptic stage,

no longer doing the magic show, but instead, you know, calling out all the people who promised that they could do magic, different forms of faith healing, illusions that weren't real. And again, in 2014, he came back to his hometown, kind of, you know, victory lap. And the fact that he was this kind of legend, you know, not only having worked in magic himself, but then, you know, victory lap. And the fact that he was this kind of legend, not only having worked in magic himself, but then, you know, also being a character that the cynics out there could cling to, you know, as a guy who told the truth that none of this was real,

that it was all an illusion. And for that, we remember the great James Randi. Mark, another fine, fine episode. We recapped October 2020. I'm looking forward to seeing you two more times over the next five weeks because you're going to come back in mid-November to do another, like, how would you describe it? Like a podcast roundup?

Like, how do you describe it? A podcast about podcasts. Very meta. I like it. Right? A Toronto-miked roundtable tradition, at which I am the only invited guest. Right.

And then you'll be back at the end of November. You know, I don't want to... I'm thinking maybe your late November appearance is the final Backyard episode until things heat up in March or April or whenever. That's what I'm thinking. But we'll see. I don't have a blueprint here.

I'm guessing that late November will be when we have to break out the Ridley Funeral Home toque. Woo! But we made it through the rain, Mike. Yeah, and the rain has really slowed down so we can take our photo before it gets dark. It gets dark so early now. What is it? We're rolling back the clocks this coming weekend here. I feel like

I'm giving everybody the advice. This would be like 510, even though it's really 610. I've got to race home against the setting sun, get down to business and more to talk about, more podcasts to do. And I think when I'm back here

for this podcast about podcasts, we'll talk a little bit about me on another podcast. Oh, yes. Okay. Let's not give that away. Exciting. And that brings us to the end of our 741st show you can follow me on Twitter

I'm at Toronto Mike Mark Weisblot he's at 1236 that's 1236 but also at 1236.ca you can sign up for his excellent weekday email that drops at shockingly enough 1236pm

Monday through Friday our friends at Great Lakes Brewery or at Great Lakes Beer Drops at, shockingly enough, 12.36 p.m. Monday through Friday. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies, they're at CDN Technologies. And Pumpkins After Dark are at Pumpkins Dark. See you all tomorrow.

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