Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Alan Cross: Toronto Mike'd #675

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Mike is joined by Alan Cross who has an exciting announcement to make before Mike peppers him with listener questions and gets his response to Brother Bill's comments.

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your IT and cyber security experts I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is a great friend of the show, a man who really needs no introduction, Mr. Alan Cross. We are not doing this on video, are we? You're not on video, but your voice is.

Good. Let me tell you why. I'll tell you why. I mean, this pandemic thing has been a little bit, oh, God. Oh, what's that? That's my front door. No, that's my ring doorbell. Don't worry about it.

I have a bird that built a nest above a coach lamp on my front porch. And every once in a while, the bird flies away to get some worms for the people in the nest. And they set off the ring doorbell. And every once in a while, the bird flies away to get some worms for the people in the nest. And they set off the ring doorbell. Anyway, the reason I was – let me get back to what I was saying. The pandemic has taken its toll on things like hair and our manner of dress and a variety of other things. So I'm perfectly fine not being on video. Only I see you, but your hair looks fine.

It looks great. And, you know, wearing a T-shirt, well, that's all I ever wear anyways. Yeah, me too, now that I work at home, yeah. By the way, let's tell the people now, because I can hear it in the headphones, so people listening will hear it. What is that low, almost like a little bass humming sound I'm hearing? That is Schmooze, the elder of the two bull terriers. She is 12 years old. It is much too hot for her to be upstairs,

so she has come down to the basement bunker, and she is lying there snoring. That's what you hear. Okay, so that's a snoring dog. So don't complain about Alan Cross's microphone. It's not. I know I'm no Alan Cross's microphone or, or my, I know I'm no Robbie J, but I do my best.

And that is not me. That is a, that is a dog here. So, and we're going to let sleeping dogs lie. Good idea. Alan, congratulations.

I wish I had a, I wish I had a jacket for you because you're making your fifth Toronto Mike appearance today. So congrats to you. That's right. If this were Saturday Night Live, I would get a Saturday Night Live jacket. Right. Right.

And that's an exclusive club. I don't remember the names off the top of my head, but there's only a handful of people who have had five appearances. So I'm going to let the people at home know, because we're going to dive in. I got questions for you, and we're going to rock and roll here. But I want to let people know, you were actually episode 66, which I think is pretty cool because that was only like,

I had just decided what Toronto Mike should be like shortly before your first visit, which was episode 66. In fact, that's the episode if long-time listeners might know, you took a phone call during that episode. I don't know if you remember that. That was rude of me, wasn't it? But, you know, and it was actually, I know that's a rare period where I recorded in upstairs

before the now six-year-old took over that room and I got bumped to the basement. That's right. Okay, I remember now. So that's episode 66. Fuck it! The bird. That's okay.

This is all like part of the pandemic charm. We'll call it the bird. That's okay. This is all part of the pandemic charm. We'll call it the authenticity. Okay, episode 249 is your return visit. Episode 307 was your most recent visit. One of those, at least one of those is with Michael Hainsworth. The most recent appearance is actually a little bit of a cheat.

It was the party for Marty at the Opera House. Right, yes. It was the Party for Marty at the Opera House. Right. Yes, that was last year. I have lost track of time. I asked my wife last week what day it was. I said, I know today begins with a T, but I'm not sure if it's a Tuesday or Thursday. It's a Monday. Well, today's Monday. Okay. So there you go. When was that Party for Marty?

Oh, here's how I remember it. Because it was a memorial for the 10th anniversary of Martin's passing, and Martin Streak passed away in 2009. And it was a little late. So this was like, I'm going to say, fall of 2019. Okay. That sounds right. That sounds sounds right and it was great i mean so many great uh so many great uh people who have been on the show some people for the first time

but i got to catch up with you again and we got to talk about martin streak on that episode so if anybody wants to hear a bunch of old like cfny people chatting about streak episode 506 it's like three hours live from the floor. And behind us, like, it's amazing how the, you know, we could be on these mics, these Rode Procaster mics, and you can hear everyone great, considering there was like a, you know, loud DJ right, like, in the room behind us.

So it was pretty cool. Right. Yeah, that was a good night, I would. Great night, great night. By the way, I need to know, what happened with the Toronto Mike sticker? Did it make it onto your garbage can? Let's have a look.

Let's have a look. So I will report to the people. I'm looking at Alan Cross's garbage can. There's a lot of stickers on there. I don't see it yet. No, I don't. Ken Rock made it. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I don't know where it is. It's Rock made it. Yeah. Sorry about that.

I don't know where it is. It's not there. It was here. But you can see that this garbage can has had better days because of the evil terriers. Right. So it's quite possible that one of them may have. May have. Okay.

Well, now I always wondered, and now the truth has been revealed, that did not make it onto the Alan Cross garbage can, but I'll get you, I'll get you another one at some point. StickerU.com made those stickers and they're great quality and I thank them and I'm going to get you one, Alan. Let me check here. I want to jump right into the questions. So, but before I ask the, because listeners submitted questions for you, Alan. So I got like, we're going to go rapid fire and you're just going to kick ass on these. But before we begin, there's an announcement. I understand there's a big announcement that anyone listening who fondly remembers

listening to CFNY in the 80s and early 90s would be very interested in this big announcement you'd like to make. Yes. After years and years and years of talking about it, we have convened a production team

who is willing to try to finally make a CFMY documentary based on the spirit of radio years. So this would be 1977 through to 91 or 92. One of the producers is somebody who has worked with Vice, with Netflix, and is behind a show that you may have seen on TV called Say Yes to the Dress. The other is a Canadian woman who is working in Nashville. She's got a production house there, and she's done a number of Emmy Award-winning TV shows,

music documentaries for PBS, which have won Emmys. And she and this other woman and I are now approaching various funding organizations to help us finance this whole thing. We do have tentative permission from Chorus. In fact, we have a meeting tomorrow, which is the 30th of June, to settle everything up. And then if we get the funding, we're going to go ahead and finally document all the things that happened between 77 and 91 or 92. So let's see, you know,

spirit of radio years. That's the, the weird management change years where we went to a semi top 40 thing, right? All the people and all the weirdos and all the things that happened during that amazing time in Canadian radio history. Okay. So that's great news.

I mean, I've been trying to do that because it doesn't really exist in this. And it sounds like you're going to get real dollars and do this right. But you mentioned Chorus being okay with it. So does Chorus have to bless this? Or are they financing this? No, they're not financing it.

But we want to make sure that if you know, if we do this program, we spend all this money creating this documentary that we have access to anybody who has the rights to see if I'm on a wide material back in the day, which would be chorus. So we want to have them in as a willing partner rather than something that they would, you know, we would do and maybe screw things up along the way from a legal point of view or relationship point of view. So we just want to make it,

we just want to make sure that every, we want this to be, you know, a loving look back and we want everybody on board. So you get the parent company on board. Right now I'm so, I'm so j because uh another fotm uh was working on a much music documentary and had like was working with bell media and then there was an issue with the content and bell media kind of pulled the plug on this and then the the documentary it died on the vine and i just hope we don't have anything like that happening i really hope this gets made because you guys are the right people to make this and I really want to see this,

quite frankly. Yeah, I think we all do. And again, I don't know what happened with the bell thing, but there are so many issues involved in terms of ownership, intellectual property. Give me an example. There's another documentary that's being made on Martin Streak and the guy who ran into, who's dealing with that, managed to acquire some Chris Shepherd TV shows that ran back in the late 80s, early 90s when they were recorded at CHCH TV in Hamilton. And he's got the videotapes. But no one, including CHCH and including Chorus, can figure out who has the legal rights to that. And the last thing you want is to have a finished documentary and have somebody come out of the woodwork and say,

hey, we never gave you permission to use that material. I'll give you the best example. Yes, please. Have you ever wondered why SCTV is not in syndication? Oh, I thought you were going to ask what happened to the Martin Scorsese SCTV doc, which I've been waiting two years to see. But yes, I guess I have also wondered why it's not a syndication. They screwed up with all their music rights.

They completely screwed up. So they didn't get the proper contracts and as a result, nobody is being paid and it's all tied up in litigation. The same thing happened with the original version of WKRP. One of the cool things about WKRP was it was, I guess, the first TV show

that I can think of that served up real music as part of the narrative. Yes. And they did not get the appropriate licensing for that. And as a result, there was one reissue of WKRP where they had to dub in all the music that was originally shown in the TV show. And then there's another version that was cleaned up, but it had the original music in it.

But the problem is that there's still so many outstanding issues that we will almost certainly never see WKRP in syndication. And a similar story with The Wonder Years, I understand. In fact, I've seen where they took the doors light my fire and there's a scene and they overdubbed it with a sound alike like a sound alike song and man it's different man yeah it is and then that's what they did with wkrp it's unfortunate but uh what you want to make sure especially now we're in intellectual property is such a valuable thing you want to make sure that you get the right permissions so you don't have somebody coming in later and then

sue you for a million dollars now alan i'm no i'm no uh rights lawyer i'm no lawyer i'm no caveman lawyer as phil hartman might say but uh i need to know i'm just a caveman but i isn't there like a fair use when it comes to documentaries and news and stuff like the you know the national if they're playing a clip from some show and there's a controversy they don't need to get permission to do that like isn't there anything like that or am i dreaming in technicolor here it gets a little weird uh we what you have to do is determine the ownership of the material that you want to use and because if if it's copyrighted well then you are required by law to get the get permission from those artists

not very punk of you alan i uh come on it's it's not not very punk but you would certainly uh as somebody who has been sued a number of times in their lives you don't want to in their life you don't want to go through this right so uh the other thing too is that when you are working with international distributors for example if we for example make this documentary we want to have it on netflix well netflix is going to ask do you own all the video or have you uh acquired permission to use all the video and images and everything else in this doc so we we don't get sued. Right. Right. It sounds like a chorus should just finance this thing. And then you don't,

you can kind of cover it all. What chorus ends up doing is they've got a bunch of specialty TV show channels. So it's very possible that we may end up running on one of those. Like this would be a history channel thing. It would work the way we envision it. So we'll see. Exciting. Okay okay so this is big news and uh yeah these the minutiae of these questions it's not meant to uh rain on the parade which is this is this is a wonderful initiative that

i know a lot of people listening to us right now like i get notes from people if i have an ivor hamilton on or uh you know david marsden or scott turner or something on this show, or an Alan Cross. Everybody gets excited. And imagine a whole doc on that scene. That would be fantastic. So good stuff. Yeah, it really would be. I've been sourcing out some material.

We found some home movies that go all the way back to 1977 or 1978. There's all kinds of pictures and photographs of memorabilia and people who want to tell their stories. And we want to be able to do this before too many more people die. I mean, we've lost Martin. We've lost Nick Charles. We've lost Pete Griffin. Don Burns. Don Burns.

And, of course, Bookie just passed away. Bookie way too early. Yeah. I don't know whether Bookie would passed away. Bookie way, way too early. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know whether Bookie would have actually made the spirit of year. No, I don't think he would have made the spirit of radio years because he came on after the station flipped its name to the edge.

Right. And we had this, the studio at Bloor and Bathurst. So Bookie would have come a little bit later. The last person hired by David Marsden was May Potts. I was the second last. Then Marsden leaves, and we go through the period of time when Don Burns was the program director.

A couple of management shifts, and then it gets all weird with the top 40 era. Right, and then the Reiner Schwartz comes in, and there's a bit, yeah, that whole, yeah. There's another big kerfuffle there before everything settles down when Shaw buys it. Right. Okay, fascinating. I look forward to that.

And when that is, obviously, as this progresses, we'll need to check in with you. And we need constant updates, Alan. This is an important... Yeah. And people can contact me, alan at edge.ca, if you have any memories or any paraphernalia or any photographs or, most importantly, video or film. We'd love to see it. We don't know whether we can make this yet because we have to get permission

and we have to get funding. Permission we're not too concerned with. We have a phone call tomorrow but it's the funding because we want to, you know, we're going to have to ask for a lot of money from various funding sources just to make this thing work because we don't want to do this on the cheap. We want to make this a really good looking documentary.

Do you have an update on the Martin Scorsese SCTV doc that should have been here long ago? No, but I have a feeling it's all wrapped up and who owns the rights to SCTV? We really don't know. You know what? These lawyers and these laws and these rules and copyright ruin everything. Let's go punk. They can.

Leak it on the Pirate Bay. Okay. Yeah, but if you wanted to go punk, you better have a punk lawyer on your side. That's all I can tell you. Hey, that email I just, you dropped. What was it? Alan at, what was it again?

Edge.ca. Okay. So forever, I've been blogging on TorontoMike.com since 2002. And it's funny because I opened this up. I'm going to start hitting you with all the listener questions now. But there's a gentleman named Brent Chittenden. Ah. So do you recognize this name?

Yes. I've worked with Brent before. Yes. Oh, okay, okay. Because his question is, what has given Alan the fortitude to put up with my emails for 20 years and he wrote that and i actually think i think maybe you've been putting up with my emails for 20 years so i'm here to let the people know you respond to emails from

regular people as often as i possibly can you know 97 at the time there are some that i won't respond to because they're abusive or whatever but 97 of the of the time I do, I believe it's only polite. If you take the time to write me, well, then I should be writing you back. And one of the things that I've been able to do is maintain a career. I mean, this is my 39th year in radio, 39 years. And one of the things that I have, I discovered early on is that you cannot take for granted that this is going to last forever. You have to constantly reinvent. You have to constantly take care of people who like you. You have to constantly turn people into evangelists and you have to be responsible to the people who listen to you.

And there are so many people that I've seen coast who think, oh, I'm bigger than the radio station or I'm bigger than the media or I'm bigger than anything and I'll be just fine because I'm so popular and cool. Well, that doesn't work. Every radio station or every radio personality has a best before date on their forehead that they cannot see and the whole goal has been for me anyway has been to push back that best before date as far as i possibly can and that means moving forward and not looking backward

and it also means never coasting always reinventing so uh thank you brent for opening it up and yeah and it's fantastic that you do that because when a young Mike is complaining about 102.1 playing Good Charlotte, you're going to reply to the email I send way back when, not that I'm anybody now, but I was much less of anybody back then. So there you go. Yeah, and the thing about music

is everybody has an opinion and that's totally cool. And there are some people who are very, very passionate about the radio station who believe that they are being betrayed or somehow hoodwinked when the station plays a song that they don't like and the point is that the radio station is its job is to reflect the wants and wishes and needs and fears and demands of its audience and if there are enough people who demand good charlotte well then you would be cutting off your nose to spike your face if you didn't play it. So, but music comes in cycles.

You know, you, there's always that sweet spot between the ages of 13 and 23 or 14 and 24, where you are so deeply into music, it means everything to you. And you use it to express your identity to the world. And you use this music to help figure out who you are as a person. And when you move out of that into the real life and the real world, and you've got a mortgage and family and kids and jobs and all that kind of stuff, all of a sudden you drift into this area where you think, you know what? Music wasn't as good as it was when I was a kid. And it's totally natural because you will always default to that 10-year period.

Don't I know it. I'm still listening to what I listened to in the early 90s. I totally get that. Stuart Rogers wants to know, what's been the toughest emotionally for you, Alan, of your tribute podcast that you've produced? And he says he's thinking about those one or two part episodes honoring someone who has passed away.

Yeah, Bowie was hard because I was such a huge Bowie fan for so many years. I met the man twice and I just adored him to death. Neil Peart was a very bad one because I got into drums when I was still in high school because of Rush. I got into thinking about working at CFNY after I heard the spirit of radio for the very first time. Rush was my favorite band for years and years. And when he died, suddenly it was like, oh God, this is just a terrible one. When Joey Ramone died, that was a tough one because I met Joey,

I don't know how many times. He was such a sweet, gentle soul. I still have his phone number for his apartment in my phone. I'm never erasing that. And then there were the shocking ones like the Chester Benningtons and the Chris Cornells. The Kurt Cobain death was a weird one because this was in April of 1994, long before anybody had the internet. And it might have been the last real time when people were glued to their radios to hear the latest news on something earth shattering. The thing that linked people together with the Kurt Cobain death was, was the radio, because that was the only, that, that was the source of the most up-to-date information that you could get. And, uh, I, I remember, you know, uh, that day, April 8th of 94, uh, you know,

making phone calls to Seattle and waiting for something to move across the teletype. Uh, that was all what all, you know, it was a very emotional day because I knew that this was a Generation's JFK moment or John Lennon moment or Elvis Presley moment. And then many years later, you'd consider Courtney a buddy. Yeah, I mean, I still go back and forth with Courtney. She, last I heard from her, I haven, I still go back and forth with Courtney. Last I heard from her,

I haven't talked to her in about six months, she was in London recording material for a new whole album. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, so we will get a whole album at some point, but COVID-19 and coronavirus has messed up so many things. We have no idea

when anybody can go on tour again, when some of the album releases have been pushed back because of all the marketing that has to go into a record that's been disrupted by the coronavirus. It's going to be this time next year before I think we get back to normal even in the slightest sense. It's as if you can see my notes

because my next question from Beck, not Beck Hanson, slightest sense it's as if you can see my notes because my next question from beck uh not beck hansen i think it's a different beck uh says what do you see alan as the future of concerts in light of covid well we're going to see a long period of recovery i think the live music industry will be the last part of the economy to recover because of all the moving parts that are involved. And you're going to have to wonder too, how many people are going to want to be in a room full of sweaty strangers, shoulder to shoulder, with people yelling loudly because of music and the chances of, you know, bodily fluids being shared. You have to worry about, are they going to sanitize the venue

adequately? How about places like bathrooms and smoking areas and service areas at the bar and entrance and egress and all the rest of it? People have a certain amount of PTSD or going to have a certain amount of PTSD when it comes to the coronavirus. It's going to be a while before we want to sit next to each other again or stand next to each other again. I mean, would you right now dive into a mosh pit? Absolutely not. It's just, it's just too scary. So I think that we will not see anything resembling normalcy for at least a year,

anything resembling normalcy for at least a year, although we will see attempts at holding events with responsible physical distancing and other measures taking place. For example, the Foo Fighters really want to get on the road for the 25th anniversary tour, and they've started selling tickets again for October. So will that happen, Or will we be forced to close down again? I mean, one of the really big problems, you know, American border is closed with us. I don't think we want anybody coming in from America right now because of the situation down there. Places like California and Arizona and Texas and Alabama and Georgia and the Carolinas and Florida, they're all exploding with virus cases. So right now, the entire United States,

a nation of 330 million people, is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. That has global implications. And it's going to be a while. I saw this concert over the weekend by a guy named Chase Rice, country star, played a show in Tennessee. And there were hundreds of people there, shoulder to shoulder, nobody wearing a mask, in a state that's experiencing a coronavirus spike.

Like, are you nuts? That must be cultural or something, right? Like, I don't even know what that is because, yeah, that'd be the last place I'd want to be right now. They've politicized it in the united states if you know the whole idea of the right is to own the libs and one way of owning the libs to prove to them that you are free enough independent enough that you will not wear a mask now to them wearing you know they would be muzzled they would be forced to do something that under the constitution they feel is illegal right uh but you know on the other side it's like no and frank

lived in a plate in an attic for a couple of years eating crumbs jesus man you can put on a mask for a few minutes just to save your fellow human being when go indoors, let's say you're going to pick up groceries there, when you go indoors to a public place, are you always wearing a mask? Okay, so if I am outdoors and it's well-ventilated and I'm far from everybody, well, there's no point wearing a mask.

Grocery stores, absolutely. When I go to Costco, absolutely. I never leave the house without a mask in my pocket. And if I find myself in a situation where social distancing is not practical or possible, out comes the mask. Why hasn't this been mandated? Why isn't it mandatory to wear a mask when you go to a public indoor place?

I know you don't have the answer. I don't know. I know you don't know. You know, governments have the ability to declare that. I don't know why they do. Like, we should have done that. I think I will get off my soapbox in a moment, but we should have done that three months ago.

And since we didn't do it three months ago, can we please do it today? Like, I don't know. It seems like a no brainer to me. But again, we seem to be on the downward slope of this whole virus thing, at least for this wave. So let's not screw it up. We made some serious sacrifices over 100 days, more than 100 days. We've made progress. You know, hospitalizations are going down. The number of people being diagnosed with COVID is going down.

The number of people on ventilators is going down. We have done a very good job through this sacrifice. Why would you want to reverse that? I like this question for you now, Alan. Joey wants to know, who would win a foot race between you and Ivor Hamilton? But 100 meters, because he says Ivor will probably kick your

butt at a distance, but who would win a 100 meter race between you and Ivor right now? That's a really good question. I think I might. However, Ivor has had some ankle and knee problems, so he would not necessarily be able to outrun me over a long distance either right okay yeah okay yeah so I would say but listen he uh he was an

avid runner and did a couple of marathons so never put anything past him right okay uh I'd put five bucks on Ivor for what it's worth okay okay if Okay. If he's healthy, though, I need to see... Well, we do. Yeah. We need to see the depth chart and have the team physician... If he's got a knee issue, I need to know about it before I put down that fiber. Okay. James wants to know, what would Alan like Jake Gold to do now that he's back at the

helm of the Tragically Hip? We've been talking about this. I would like to see finally a definitive Tragically Hip book. In fact, I'd like to see two books. I would like to see a proper biography, and I would like to see a coffee table book. When you say proper, though, you mean authorized. I mean authorized. The Tragically Hip has, from the very beginning, archived everything. And I've had a chance to see some of their archives. Everything could be documented right down to the days when they had a saxophone player in Kingston in 1985. All that stuff is in

bankers' boxes. So there is plenty of material to plumb through. And you've still got four members of the band. You've got members of Gord's family. You could get a really good, definitive, authorized biography of the band. And you want it to be authorized because they've got all the stuff. Right. And secondly, I think you could do a really good coffee table book with all kinds of photos because Gord especially was extremely photogenic on stage and he understood he was a very much a like an artist in every sense of the word and a lot of really good photographers went out and shot tragically hip shows so it would be

it would be cool to have I mean if Geddy Lee can do it with his big, beautiful book of bass, we could do it with tragically hip. So those are two things. The other thing, and I do know this to be true, there is unreleased tragically hip material in the vaults. There definitely is. How much? We don't know. In what form are these recordings? Are they on tape? Are they on CDRs? Are they on DATs? All this stuff would have to be done. I know that Jake is hiring an archivist, and this person is going to go through all this stuff, find out what's there, catalog it, digitizeize it and make it available for i guess research and writing purposes so that's that's another thing that's going to happen um and beyond that

the whole idea is to maintain lovingly maintain and properly exploit the band's legacy. I don't think there's any question that they are one of the most important Canadian artists of all time. And we need to make sure that they are not forgotten and that we can get as much enjoyment of the art that they left behind as possible. Oh, and I should mention that Gore Downie apparently left behind three albums worth of stuff. So there's, there's material there. And if we do this, if this is done right, we will be able to enjoy and discover and rediscover the Tragical Hip for years to come. unauthorized biography of the hip. That is very good. And Michael

will be in my backyard on Canada Day, actually more than six feet away, recording, because we're going to kick out, in his opinion, the 10 best Toronto jams. So Michael Barclay on Canada Day, which I think

is Wednesday. And again, you check out his unauthorized hip biography. It's very good. again, you check out his unauthorized hip biography. It's very good. So shout out. Okay. Paul Sagan wants to know, Alan Cross, did they ever play the replacements on CFNY?

Yes. As a matter of fact, they did. I remember when I first arrived, one of the records that was in the current rotation was the Pleased to meet me album and uh one of the when i was working overnight my first months there i do know that i played alex chilton quite a bit uh we never did play anything before or after that as far as i can remember like i don't think we played bastards of young or any of those other songs but there

was a brief time when the replacements did make it onto CFNY. And, you know, that brings up an interesting situation. One of the reasons a lot of bands, a lot of artists would have slipped through the cracks when it came to airplay was because of the 30% Canadian content rule. That meant that at that time, 30% of your playlist had to be devoted to Canadian stuff, which meant that you only had 70 for the rest of the world right and that meant that you know some stuff would have to be necessarily left out because of the quota requirements and i think you would probably say

that the replacements might have been one of those bands that uh you know you look back on them now it's like holy crap how could we have not you know played all kinds of replacements but at the time when they were recording for two-tone records i got two-tone uh twin-tone records um they seem like wow this is an interesting band we've got other bands that we think are more important it's only in retrospect that you realize that oh that was kind of a an error now i think maybe you played, and I can't remember if I heard it on CFY or it was just on the album, but you may have played the great cover of Androgynous

by Crash Test Dummies. That might have made it, I don't know, because I was canking on it. It probably did. It probably did. I mean, there's so much stuff. I'm actually rediscovering a lot of this stuff as I do my Instagram updates. I'm going through my vinyl library letter by letter.

And much of what I have on the shelf is stuff that I liberated from the CFNY library in 1995 when the station moved from Brampton to downtown Toronto. Can I pause you there? Because there's a question here related to that. And I'll just read it because Angelique, I hope I said that right. Angelique says, uh, he's talked about this before and I'll just point out,

you've talked about it on Toronto mic. I just want to let people know about that. But, uh, he and his friend inherit each other's record collection. If the other dies first, what's the plan of Alan inherits at all. So that kind of ties into the story you were about to tell about how you kind of came into it all.

But go ahead. Right. So I had a huge record collection of my own going into this. But then in 1995, the radio station was moving from Granville to downtown Toronto. And management was determined that we weren't going to take these old, dusty, dirty albums with us. So rather, they were going to throw them out. And members of the staff, again, this is long before vinyl had seen any kind of resurrection. It was still on a downward trajectory. And at 1995,

I mean, it was a digital world. Nobody wanted vinyl anymore because vinyl was considered to be completely inferior. It sounded bad. And we wanted nothing to do with it. The thinking was that, well, if we ever want it again, and if it's important enough, it will be digital somewhere. That was the prevailing thought. Now, this is 25 years ago. Some of the staff could not tolerate the idea of these records being thrown out, so we picked through the old CFMY library and

took his took records as you know people basically vandalized it one day I backed up a truck literally backed up a Ryder truck to the radio station took a bunch of shelving and all the records that I could so that if you listen to any of the old CFMY records back in the day on the air, I have them in my basement, safekeeping. And that's what we're going through with my Instagram updates. Now I have here somewhere around seven, 8,000 records from that library, plus my old library. At my parents' place of West of Manitoba, there's still a bunch of records that I haven't picked up yet.

But my little nephew has gone through them all, picked out all the good stuff. So I don't even know what's in those boxes. And when we get to the business of the will, it is with Ivor Hamilton. So Ivor has way more records than I do. But we have written into each other's wills that whoever goes first gets the other guy's records. My wife is desperately hoping that I go first because she does not want any of Ivor's records in this house. If that happens, God forbid, and I end up with his records, there is no other solution than to get a storage locker. There is no, because Ivor's basement is just loaded with stuff.

Vinyl, CDs, you know, memorabilia. Oh, God. Now, if anyone, just in case somebody's listening to Alan Cross on Toronto Mike for the very first time, let them know, who is your wife, Alan? Well, my wife is Mary Ellen Benninger. She used to work at CMNY back in the day. In fact, she was there until early 2000s, from 84 through to early 2000s. And then she went on to work for some other radio stations, including CHFI and 680 News.

She is now working for the Ontario Energy Board. So if you hear any press releases about, you know, your electricity rates going up or being adjusted, they're coming from her. Will she be in the documentary? She'll have to be because she was part of that whole thing. She was with James Scott in the afternoon doing his news. So she'll have to be because she was part of that whole thing. She was with James Scott in the afternoon doing his news. So she'll have to be there.

We want to get as many people as we possibly can. Honestly, I can't wait because I'm trying to do the same thing, get as many people as I possibly can. But I can't wait to see this, man. You should be hanging up this Zoom and jumping on this. We've got to get this going here. I'm very excited about it. Until we get permission, and that's coming tomorrow.

Tomorrow, okay. Invite me to that call. I'll broker this deal. Kara, would you ever take fan suggestions for upcoming episodes of the ongoing history of new music? All the time.

She has one, but go ahead. I'm working right now on episode number 896. I'm always looking for what people would like to see me tackle. I try to explain the feeling I have writing this show.

It's like Sunday night, you have just watched Family Guy, and you have a long essay due first thing Monday morning, and you haven't started yet. That's the feeling that I get in my stomach every single week. Right. Right. So you like these episodes that write themselves. Is that what you're saying?

No, I just need input from the audience. Okay. Right. So you like these episodes that write themselves. Is that what you're saying? No, I just need input from the audience. Okay, well, Kara, just to finish her thing, she wants a deep, and I'd be shocked if this hasn't happened yet, but you'll tell us in a moment, but a Depeche Mode deep dive. Oh, there's something somewhere. Let me see what I can find in the library. Okay, that's perfect. There's something in the archives. Oh, there's something somewhere. Let me see what I can find in the library. Okay.

There's something in the archives. You got to take it. And that's a good idea. And I do, I will let the people know that Ongoing History of New Music is now a podcast. So I've been listening, for example, the Manchester episodes I just listened to, and I'm pretty, pretty curious. Yes. So, yeah. Yeah, there's. Go ahead.

Go ahead. We're trying to find as many, we're trying to find as many, we've got 200 and something episodes up there. We have to re-edit a bunch of them. Some of them aren't necessarily worthy of putting up as a podcast because they're completely outdated or whatever. But we're,

we're working on, you know, for example, over the course of the summer, I'm not writing any new episodes. I'm doing other things, you know, gathering material,

researching that kind of stuff. And we're going back to the archives and pulling out old, old, old podcasts for our old shows for repurposing as podcasts. Now, FOTM, Robbie Jay, would that be assigned to him as sort of a task? Yes, that's his job. Yeah, he's the right man for that job there.

Technical production. He's been doing it since 1995 or something. Wow. He's a good one. We almost lost him to the postal service, but he's back. We almost did, but he's, uh, he's back. And even during that period,

he was still actually working on ongoing history of new music. Oh yes. Yeah, I was. Yes, that's true. That's true. All right. So, uh, this is funny. There's a line, there is a line and I'll, I'll tease this later. So later after I finish all these questions, which you're doing a great job, Alan, you're handling these questions. Uh, I'm going to play a clip from Brother Bill, also known as Neil Morrison,

who was on this show a couple of weeks ago. And that clip, there was a line in the Manchester episode that it almost sounded like you were responding to this clip I'm going to play where I will get your real response. But this is all an exciting teaser for what should come in shortly here. Okay, so John Harris Jr. says, get your real response but this is all an exciting teaser for what should come in uh shortly here okay so john harris jr uh says what's your favorite burton cummings album uh that you have on vinyl

well uh i'm gonna go with uh wheatfield soul from the guess who? Sorry. Burton got a little soft for me when he went solo. So I don't, I mean, I have the dream of a child album and a few others, but my, my favorite still is, is the guess who stuff. To remind everybody,

you're a Winnipeg guy. Yes. I feel like that's important here. I don't know, but yeah, it is very important. The, I funny,

I, uh, my, on the next pandemic Friday episode of Toronto mic, which happens every Friday during the pandemic, I feel like that's important here. I don't know. It is very important. It's funny. On the next Pandemic Friday episode of Toronto Mic, which happens every Friday during the pandemic, we're going to kick out, and I have guest Sammy Cohen from The Watchmen is coming on. Oh, okay.

And we're kicking out our favorite CanCon jams from west of Ontario. And he's a Winnipeg guy himself. And as The Watchmen are a Winnipeg band. So, yeah. So, if people can stay tuned for that Friday. But, Doc, sorry. This is an interesting three--parter i can't wait to hear your response this person's name is dj dream doctor okay so dj dream doctor says okay first of all i tweeted you were coming on if anyone has a question and dj dream doctor says damn that's awesome and it is awesome dj dream doctor what i really and really is in all caps what i really want to know is when Doctor says, damn, that's awesome. And it is awesome, DJ Dream Doctor. What I really,

and really is in all caps, what I really want to know is when was the top 1,002 on CFNY first broadcast? The tribute site, because there's a Spirit of New York tribute site, the tribute site states it was mid-1991, but I remember it was first

broadcast as we approached New Year's Eve in December of 1990. This is really important. Please. Okay, hang on. I have that information. I'm excited because I'm interested in this crap too.

Okay, so if we go here and we go here. Alan, I'll let the people know. I'll do play-by-play. Alan is on his computer. Okay. So at the end of 19, there was... Okay.

There was an end of the decade. Yeah, in 1989, there was an end of the decade one in 1990 we had an edge top 90 of 1990 and in 1991 we had top 91 of 91 and then we have the top 1021 of 1991. Now, I remember, I don't have the full list here. It only goes up to 202. I remember that we did that top 110, 1,021 songs, somewhere around the end of August, because I remember having people in, artists in to talk about this.

Well, I remember it as the Labor Day weekend. While I was working at the C&E. Yes, which would make sense, because I do remember it as that long weekend. I remember the top 1,002 on 102.1 and it was aired during the Labor Day long weekend. Yes, so it would have taken at least a week and we would have done that during the CNE

leading up to the Labor Day long weekend with the number one song, which... Can I guess? I haven't done any research, but it was How Soon Is Now? Yep. Followed by Tainted Love, followed by Bela Lugosi's Dead,

followed by Love Will Tear Us Apart, followed by Blue Monday. Wow. Wow. But there's an interesting second part to DJ Dream Doctor, who later then said, I also want to know the motive

behind the top 1,002. It's funny, you say it's the top 1,021, but I also remember it as the top 1,002. It's funny. You say it's the top 1,021, but I also remember it as the top 1,002. But, of course, you would know you were there. You were there. I have a spreadsheet featuring all these countdowns. That's what I'm looking at right now. And I do remember a top 1,002 as well.

Yeah. And that might have taken place. I think that one was in 1990. And I do not have a spreadsheet for that. Because he wants to know, DJ, I think it's a he, maybe it's a she, I don't know. DJ Dream Doctor says, did management know the format would change and they wanted to pay tribute to the sounds

that made the station? No. At that point, no, we were free from any sort of management interference with the music. So you didn't, you weren't threatening to somebody, nobody was threatening to make you go all country, which I've been hearing, I think I've been hearing it every year for a long time now. Well, that was a big rumor in 88, 89, and into 1990. I remember that at the time, those, and I bet you somewhere here, I wonder if I have it here or someplace else.

It must be someplace else. I have a folder with some actual photocopies of the, no, of those, oh, wait, hang on. This is exciting. Freaky news. No. Okay. It's in the archive someplace. But I have photocopies of

typed out of these lists that are actually typed out. You know, another guy I find is becoming very handy in terms of keeping stuff. A lot of people have actually helped me out when I'm looking at this old C4Y stuff, but Scott Turner is very good at terms of keeping stuff. A lot of people have actually helped me out when I'm looking at this old C4Y stuff, but Scott Turner is very good at keep holding on to things. Yes.

Yeah. There was me and Scott and Ivor and Fred Patterson and a few others. And of course, who's the promotions guy forever? Who's in BC now? Oh, he's got a bunch of stuff too. Cause he just sent me an iver

hamilton conversation well he said it to brother bill who said it to me but iver hamilton talking to john lyndon uh like like there's like it's just a very difficult interview that happened back in the day oh the johnny lyden sorry yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah that was uh that was one of iver's most difficult interviews. I don't know. Did you have the... What happened was he gave that interview to some people at Virgin Records USA, and they made a dance mix out of it.

Oh, really? Yeah. Because apparently Ivor's not very proud of this interview, but I like it. I may be because I... Oh, no, he's proud of it. Oh, is he? Okay. He thinks it was...

Well, it went bad. It was completely off the rails. It was a terrible interview. It was Johnny's fault for the whole thing. But I mean, you know, listen, anytime you can come away from an interview with a great story, there you go.

You're talking to the... I've been living off the Molly Johnson episode for years now. Okay. There you go. I've been living off the Molly Johnson episode for years now. There you go. All right. So, oh, DJ, what's this chap's name? Hold on. DJ Dream Doctor also wants to know, is it all listener votes that makes up that list?

Or do you, because there was, he says some songs got on there that CFY never played. Like there were some Q107 songs on there. Go ahead. At some point,107 songs on there. Go ahead. At some point, it depended on the year. At some years, we took votes. And some years, it was, I think, especially with the top 1,002 and the top 1,021, that was basically the music department

just putting something together. And if I'm not mistaken, it was Live Roll Drive from Beverly Hills 21. That was basically the music department just putting something together. And if I'm not mistaken, it was Live Roll Drive and Beverly Hills that put together those lists. Do you have, and what their motivations were? I remember there was one of these and I don't know which one it was, but Mozart and I'm kind of knock music was on.

It's like, what? Oh, that's funny. Of all time, maybe. Okay, in that spreadsheet you're looking at that you're keeping on the list, by any chance do you have the Q107 top 1,007 songs of all time that was broadcast in 1989? I do not.

Because, yeah, so DJ, that's the last thing from DJ Dream Doctor, is hoping that he or she can get a hand in it. Here's the problem. Back then nothing was computerized. Everything was on paper and radio stations move. Boxes get lost. People throw out junk. Radio doesn't

because it's on 24-7 you generate, you create a lot of content on a daily basis and it gets really physically back in the day you used to get really really crowded with all this stuff that would be a home to mice and rats and fire hazards and all that sort of stuff so um it was all tossed out i i could look but you know so little of this stuff was ever digitized. Right. What a shame. Now, Liam Savage, you know, speaking of digitized, you got the ongoing history of new music.

You're still, you know, you mentioned what's happening in the summer, but you're going to create new episodes in the fall, probably. Liam wants to know, do you ever fear, Alan, do you fear that you'll run out of music topics to cover? No, there is far too much out there. There's way too much music out there. And with the number of people that are constantly suggesting new topics, I'll be okay for a while. My whole thing right now is 1,000 shows. I want to be able to make 1,000 shows.

And so that's 104 more shows to go. The way we divide things up, that's another three years, three and a half years. Oh, we could race there. Yeah, so we'll see what happens. Okay, long may you run, as Neil would say.

Tom Hicks. I believe Tom Hicks is an American because I've mailed him a Toronto Mike sticker from StickerU. Tom Hicks wants to know your memories of the 1992 Barenaked Ladies show at the Icon in Buffalo that was simulcast on the radio. Stephen Page said that they lost power. Do you have any memories of this? I'm trying to remember.

I know that we did a Barenaked Ladies show around that time from Massey Hall. But I don't remember the one from buffalo i'm trying to remember if that was live or if we take that i can't remember that would be we were so we were so deep into the bare naked ladies then they were basically our house band i was about to say that would be a great documentary, like sort of how you guys and Barenaked Ladies in that early 90s kind of converged for that. Yeah, there's another Canadian band that's certainly worthy of the documentary. They've gone through so much and come out of it on the other side. I mean, even though Stephen's no longer with the band, I mean, there's the whole story about the Big Bang Theory

and how that all came to fruition, how they managed to reinvent themselves in the late 1990s after everybody had written them off. They have a number one U.S. Billboard hit. How many of our local bands have that? Yeah, exactly. So there's another band that deserves the treatment. And they have a lot of nice Toronto stuff

where you can talk about the Speaker's Corner appearance. Oh, yeah. And, you know, speaking yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. They used to show up at the radio station unannounced, and they would play in a lobby. I remember having to step over Tyler and Ed.

Guys, no. Really? I've got to go for lunch. Can you just get out of the way? Here's a fun fact you might already know, but I recently had Stephen Page on the show and he confirmed it to be true. The first time Stephen Page ever played Brian Wilson on the radio was he went into CIUT and went on to Bookie, Dave Bookman's show on CIUT and played it there.

That was the first time. I would not be surprised. I honestly would not be surprised i honestly would not be surprised because um peop so many people involved the toronto music scene went through bookie first it was just that was who he was right absolutely uh andrew where's the 2019 investigation Andrew, where's the 2019 investigation at? Okay, where is, this is from Andrew, where is the 2019 investigation at in regards to the Roxodus organizers?

Did the ticket buyers ever get refunds? Yeah, I think they did. Here's what happened is that they had, there were two people and they were lifelong friends. One was in the construction business. The other was in the oil and gas business out west. And what they ended up doing was very ambitiously planning this thing last May.

It was last May or last June or last July. Sorry, last July. Right. And they had spent about $18 million up front. And then the guy that was underwriting it got cold feet and the whole thing fell apart very quickly. As far as I know, I think all the bands were paid in advance. So that money was gone.

And Eventbrite, which was in charge of the ticket sales, made it clear that they were going to refund the money. I don't know. I honestly don't know what happened. I was removed from the whole thing. Did you get any of that $18 million? Did any find its way to you? No, they owed me money at the end.

That sucks. Yeah, it did. And I was really looking forward to it because they were doing everything right. The problem was that they were actually... The problem was, I don't think that they were prepared to lose money for the first couple of years.

When you put on a festival, you are going to lose money until you establish a reputation and gain traction. They weren't prepared to wait or at least the money guy weren't prepared to wait, or at least the money guy wasn't prepared to wait, and the whole thing just collapsed. See, this is our documentary right here.

I mean, that Fyre Festival doc was very popular. Yeah, but there was no criminal activity here. This was just an overamb plan that that never worked out which is really too bad okay alan and we're going to do a little real talk before i get back to some of this lighter stuff because aza i don't know if it's aza or aza once says that you're a great guest alan you're a great guest to have back on the show i agree i would have alan on every week if he was okay with it. Brother Bill didn't say anything too

inflammatory, but as I want to know, and I'm about to play the clip in question, because if I didn't play it, people would cancel me. I need to ask you, Alan, is there any bad blood, or not bad blood, is there any hostility between you and Brother Bill? No.

Okay. Normally when I pull a clip, it's like bad blood, or not bad blood, is there any hostility between you and Brother Bill? No. Okay, so this is, normally when I pull a clip, it's like 20 seconds, but in order to get the context right, I realized I couldn't take a 20 second clip here and do it justice. It needed proper context, because it's not inflammatory, but it can sound inflammatory if I just pull 20 seconds of this.

So, I hope you're comfortable here, because this clip is like two and a half minutes. So I'm going to play two and a half minutes of Brother Bill on Toronto Mike talking about you. Here it is. Okay, here we go. I won't hit you up with too many names more here, but what about

Alan Cross? Alan took offense to me going into the kitchen once years ago and stealing his roast beef sandwich oh it was a slice of pizza yeah i know it doesn't sound like anything now but let me tell you something to alan cross it was a big deal and it went on it went on his show for at least two months every day alan was trying to find out who the thief of his roast beef sandwich was um in all honesty though mike um oh that's a joke too he's uh but that's true that's true story okay yeah i don't know because you told me the miss estonia things and now i'm a little birded. If you hear a long pause, like a really long pause, you know

I'm lying. Alan and I, you always want the truth, Mike, and I believe in giving the truth. Alan and I didn't always see eye to eye. As a program director, he had to deal with me when I was going through

some pretty rough patches and I thank him for that because he could have easily just, and, and if you like, we can talk about these in detail. I'm glad to talk. Well, it's if you like,

I don't want to put you on the spot. Like if they're personal, I have no, I have no problems answering any question or talking about anything. But so anyway, let me just start by saying that when I was in college and I had a, a paper to write, my final paper, I interviewed Alan Cross. And he was the first guy to let me into the studios at Kennedy Road South in Brampton to watch him work.

I'd done a pizza drive into shift. And I called him and I said, would you mind if I came up? And he said, sure, come on up. And he was very kind to me. up and he said sure come on up and uh and i and he was very kind to me um i want to choose my words correctly because i love alan like a brother but some of it is bullshit um and and i don't want to get into detail really right now because i don't think this is the place, but Alan is a very, very, very well-researched individual. However, I want to say this, and that is, and I want Alan to be my friend after this, too. Yeah, Alan wasn't there.

That's about the, I'm going to be as honest as possible. Well, we were going to all the concerts, seeing all the bands, myself, my buddy Shagasaurus and other people. Alan Cross was rarely there. And I think sometimes that Alan takes a little too much credibility or credit for things that he has researched very well, but shouldn't be putting his name attached to it. credit for things that he has researched very well, but shouldn't be putting his name attached to it. It shouldn't be him talking about

certain things. Okay, Alan, the very lengthy clip has concluded. No, I will admit to not being able to go to a lot of shows, because I was living way out of town for a big part of that period because I was living way out of town for

a big part of that period I was living way past Orangeville and I was also living out in Waterdown and I was also doing two or three and at one point foreign clubs a week like DJ events so I didn't get to go to a lot of these shows and I just am NOT a late night person. So if there's a band in a club at, you know, 1030 on Tuesday night, I'm not there.

Absolutely not. So it's, it's, it's true that I didn't go to a lot of those shows, but I did talk to people who were there and I did talk to the artists who were there. So I tried to fill the gaps as much as I possibly could I mentioned earlier the Manchester episode which I enjoyed

I enjoyed thoroughly but at the beginning of that episode when you're speaking to the gentleman from the was it the happy mondays who's he from what band yes okay sorry yeah gas whaling drummer from the happy mondays right you actually make a statement early in that you say, I'm going to speak to somebody who was there. Like, this is like your intro that you wrote for this episode. And I had a couple of people send me notes that it's almost like that line, which, of course, was recorded well before anything of Brother Bill here. It was almost like a response to the Brother Bill. Because when Brother Bill, I didn't know, you know,

and again, that's not inflammatory. I think he was very fair. and like you just addressed it well he and he and he and other people on staff went to way more shows than i did no question right so uh you don't need to you know you you are well researched and you speak to the authorities and you speak to people as you said you speak to those who were there and you can become the the the voice of modern music uh without me even if you weren't necessarily there as brother bill says right yeah you know i was not in world war ii but uh i could probably write a pretty decent uh history of of you know dunkirk that's right yeah which was also a good movie too okay so we'll so we'll move on, but if I didn't do that Brother Bill,

because that just happened. No, fair enough. They'd all be like, what are you doing, Mike? Where's the real talk? Okay, Robin Reed Griffin says, I'd like to know who was your favorite person to interview and if you're willing to share the least favorite. The first, Bowie was always great,

and that's because he made you believe that you were the only person in the world that mattered for the time that you had his attention. It was incredible. Just a tremendous amount of charisma. And he was such a masterful person at being interviewed. He could direct the interview in any direction he wanted. And then at the end of it all, you would look, how did he do that? How did he make me follow his lead when I'm supposed to be doing the interview?

But he was just so charismatic and so masterful. The other interview that I always like doing is with Bono is because it's the easiest interview you can do. An interview with Bono goes like this. Hey, Bono, what's happening? And that's it for 45 minutes. He will just talk and talk and talk and tell you stories and go all over the place fabulous and then there has never been an instance where i've interviewed bono where somebody from his entourage hasn't come in grabbed him by the arm and physically pulled him away to the next place he

had to be and as he's being dragged out the door, he keeps talking. And it's just, you know, again, he has this thing where all that matters to him at that moment is you. He looks you in the eye. He interacts with anything that you say. It's just he listens to your responses. Fantastic. So those are my two favorite. Always just absolutely brilliant.

The worst, and I'll just make a generalization here, is, and it's not so much now, but in the past, the worst interviews were young British bands coming over to North America for the first time who had been told by the music press in the UK that they were the greatest thing since the Beatles. And they would show up with a tremendous chip on their shoulder when it came to the interviews. And it was almost always terribly, terribly awkward because they weren't very well spoken because they were so young and inexperienced, which is fine. But at the same time, the arrogance that they carried with them basically torpedoed any good will we might have had for them when they came through the door.

I remember interviewing, for example, the beautiful South, and they had come directly from the airport. I don't think they were very happy because they were missing some big football match. And I think they had a little bit too much to drink on the plane. And by the time they got to the studio, there were four or five of them, they sat around the perimeter of the studio. And this was live on the air. Perimeter of the studio, no closer than six feet to a microphone.

no closer than six feet to a a microphone and um just let that ring my wife will get it there we go uh and and all their answers were either one word answers or a shrug of the shoulders or a shake of the head that you know that's a live interview and that lasted 90 seconds so it's like thanks go away yeah that's, that's unfortunate. Okay, now here's another. Oh, let me ask you this question. I'm all choked up getting ready for this. Barrett says, hey, Mike, I'm an old Who fan and went to Pete Townshend's book signing at Indigo that Alan hosted.

I got signed books and Alan did a great job, but I came away thinking Pete's a bit of a dick. Am I right? You know, I, you know, the who is my, my favorite of all the classic rock bands.

Uh, I mean, uh, I could, there were some questions that Pete answered. I mean, he tried to be, he was very friendly and he was very open, but there were some ways in which he answered some of these questions that I could understand why somebody would walk away with that particular impression.

I met the man afterwards, hung out with him. He was very, very nice. No problems, but okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Michael Lang says, when I saw alan at the music expo in january 2019 he said he was exhausted having just spent 24 hours with metallica in nashville does he does he have any stories he's allowed to share uh yeah well i'll tell you that uh i mean me and kirk hammett uh have a really interesting relationship because he is also a fan of english bull terriers which are the kinds of dogs that i have so he had a couple of dogs i have my two um and uh last year him and um he was at um

he was at him and Robert in the band were at Cosmo music for Cosmo music fest and I had told when I was in Nashville I told him that the next time I saw him I was going to bring him a dog and so I went to a costume music fest, got backstage, found him and he dropped to the floor and spent 20 minutes just playing with my dog. Wow. Yeah. Is that the same dog that I can hear a snoring? Yes. Okay.

Wow. That's that's shmoos. Yeah. So, so we, we, we bond over a little bit. Very good.

Very good. Mass. Uh, and this is a great question. Can you share your best Dave Bookman memory? Oh, God, there's so many. Bookie could do an interview like nobody else. He was extremely well prepared for every interview that he did. else. He was extremely well prepared for every interview that he did. And I would often listen to his interviews and think, man, that's way better, way better than I could ever do. He just had a way with putting people at ease. And there was one day where all four members of U2 came into the studio and this was at 2.28 young

or whichever when it was 2.48 to whatever and Bookie had to interview all four members of U2 in front of a live audience of a couple hundred people plus an interview that was being broadcast live on the air. And he navigated it brilliantly. And it got to the point where Bono even came and gave him a shoulder massage.

Wow. I remember thinking, good for you, Boogie. That was a spectacular bit of lion taming. Wow, that's great. This question from Pat, I'm not even sure if this is on your watch, but you'll let us know in a moment here. Speaking of the aforementioned FOTM Scott Turner, why did Spirit of Radio Sundays of Scott Turner go away?

It was very popular! Why? We needed more Blink-182? Management at the time thought it was sending a mixed message to the audience so they cancelled it. And that's code for our target demo is younger than the people listening to this

spirit of Radio Sundays. Correct. I'm learning. It only took me, you know, how many, 675 episodes to figure out how this radio thing works. Old farts like me, we don't need you listening because we're targeting younger people. Okay.

Well, you know, radio stations have a promise that they make to their advertisers that they are going to be, they're going to focus on a demographic and deliver ears of that demographic to those advertisers and a radio station like you know cfmy or any other contemporary music station is always like 23 or 24 years old the station doesn't age and we do and as a result we feel as we grow out of whatever a typical 22 or 23 year old is into today. Uh, although I think the radio stations demos are, you know, their target demos

around 28 or 29. Now, um, we grow out of that age, the radio station doesn't. It stays locked in that post-adolescence phase. And we get upset. No, no. Yeah. It happens to every radio station. I mean, if you look at Q107, for example, people are wondering, why aren't they playing more Rolling Stones? Well, why aren't we playing any Beatles? Well, that demo is beyond age age 65 they're dying off so you have to fish where the fish are and that's where you know you have to end up already well you have to fish where the fish are alan uh and i know you're affiliated with chorus in a variety of interesting

ways i've never fully understood because you're a contract guy you're not actually like a chorus full-time employee or whatever but of course we'm not. Of course, we know you're affiliated, of course. But why not just make the whole Target demo that Spirit of Radio Sunday crowd? Guys like me, why not target us? Because we actually listen to the radio, unlike my teenagers who would never touch the radio. There has been a number of arguments for stations to adopt a classic alternative format.

And no one anywhere in North America has been able to make a go of it. It just doesn't work, which is shocking to me. I would think that if you programmed, especially in specific markets, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, perhaps, maybe Atlanta, maybe Washington. Boston would be another one. Markets with a history of a legacy heritage alternative. Like a K-Rock or something, yeah. Yeah, you would think that it would be able to survive. But no one has done it.

Now, a station in Peterborough has just signed on to be a classic alternative. And I wish him luck. I don't know why it doesn't seem to work. It should, but it tends to be a real high burn type of format. I think it's because too that I don't know if it's been programmed properly. I mean, you can only play Depeche Mode, The Cure, and The Order of Talking Heads so many times before you have to start to go deeper into the universe. But you could fold in that grunge stuff. You could bring in the Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. You could. I mean, you could probably

do very carefully. I would like to, I think it would be fun to try to program a radio station like that, focusing on the years 76 through to, let's, no, 75 to 95. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, some of that music would be a little difficult to mix in. For example, a lot of the early 80s techno pop stuff hasn't aged very well

and wouldn't necessarily mix well into a grunge song. But that's something that you could work out with music scheduling. Right. Yeah, I mean, you could hear some like that old Pretender stuff and you could hear some Blondie and I think of it of it anyway i think i'm preaching to the converted here but i do go ahead sorry i it's it's some of it though you'd have to be very careful because it doesn't

age well with those old dx7 synthesizers and electronic drums it's it just yeah but nostalgia doesn't care about how it sounds like you know that nostalgia is that potent drug it doesn't care because you're hearing it like with your age 13 ears you know what i mean like it sort of doesn't matter but you know i again i'd love to see it happen it's just that nowhere in north america has it proven to be a success right now it will be interesting we'll see what happens in peterborough because you mentioned it they they turn to uh alternative rewind it was sports i think before and I do want to shout out FOTM Pete Fowler, because there's a not-for-profit station in Kitchener-Waterloo,

CKWR, which has pretty much this kind of, I wear a lot of the Lost Indie City shirts, because it's sort of that format that we're discussing right now. So, shout out to Pete Fowler, who you worked with, and is now an OPP. Yes, he is.

Officer, yes. Okay, real quick. I know I've taken a lot of time. I'm going to try to do rapid fire. Danko Jones. We all know and love Danko Jones. He put out this, I guess he called out Indy 88 for a lack of diversity in its programming. And I'm dying to know your thoughts on this. I mean, and I'm dying to know your thoughts on this.

Like, is it important that a station like Indy 88 reflect the diversity of the city it broadcasts in? It's a very good question. And I think the answer is evolving. I think it is all about how attitudes have changed. I mean, let's look back to the early 1980s when MTV wouldn't play any Michael Jackson. And eventually MTV saw that it had to be better reflective of its viewing audience. And it changed away from what was basically a rock station with pictures to a rock and pop and hip hop and whatever,

you know, dance station with pictures. It's, let me, let me answer it this way. I think there is an opportunity somewhere very soon for a new type of format to radio format to evolve and it would reflect the varied musical tastes of generation y and generation z so millennials and the generation has fallen um radio stations have been organized by specific format for a very long time because that makes it easy for the consumer to make a decision. If I feel like I want to hear alternative rock, I have a couple of stations in Toronto where I know when I'm going to turn it on every single time I'm going to get alternative rock. Same thing with top 40, same thing with classic rock, or at least older

rock, same thing with adult hits. So you have a consumer experience that is expected and fulfilled by having stations with formats. That being said, the idea of is is breaking down thanks to streaming so if when i go to and i do some teaching at humber for example i will add one of the first things i'll do is i'll ask people to pull out their phones and recite to me the last 10 songs that they listen to and you know in the old days you know if there was a you know would be, if somebody would be like a total alternative playlist or a total rock playlist or a total pop playlist. Now you ask anybody in the room and they listen to Justin Bieber, then ACDC, then Depeche Mode, then they're listening to Greta Van Fleet. And then they're listening to Glorious Sons, then Tragically Hip. And then

they're listening to Rihanna. And then they're listening to Lady Gaga. They're listening to glorious sons then tragically hip and then they're listening to rihanna and then they're listening to lady gaga they're listening to nikki minaj they're listening to snoop dogg i mean there's no allegiance to a certain type of genre anymore right which means they are much more ecumenical much more open-minded in their musical tastes so the question if that's what millennials and people coming behind millennials, if that's how they consume music, regardless of format, regardless of genre, regardless of era, how could you design a radio station that would satisfy them and this idea of millennial radio where you would be super inclusive with all the music that you play but how do you sell that to an audience especially an audience that is sort of groomed now i can tell you because i've i produced a couple of teenagers and they're groomed for on-demand listening at this point like That's the issue too.

I think we're going to see and I would hope we do because I've been a big proponent of this millennial radio concept. If we can find a station that's desperate, one that's having financial problems, that really needs to try a Hail Mary pass to save its business. I would love to see somebody really give this concept of millennial radio a shot.

And when you want to distill it down, it would be boom for younger people. Right, right. Can that be done for younger people. Right, right. Can that be done? Fascinating. Very, very close to the finish line here, Alan. Very close. Pat, and you're going to have to set Pat straight on your roll at 102.1 with your answer here.

Pat says, he took over music director duties at the Edge, right? So why? I know, you're going to have the edge, right? So why? I know, you're going to have to correct him here. So why is the station's playlist so pedestrian? Go ahead. I don't know. I provide content and consulting services for the edge.

And that's it. That's all I do. I am not the program director. I am not the music director. I have no say and no input over any of those things. Uh, meanwhile, I am also doing stuff over at Q107 where I am the imaging voice and also provide, uh, some content and, uh, occasionally a little bit of consulting. So that's my current role, which may or may not be expanded or, or contracted depending on what happens with COVID. Right, right,

right. And of course there, yeah. And what happens with, I suppose, chorus, right? Like,

I mean, there's always rumblings that chorus is going to offload its radio properties. Well, they can't, yeah, they, you know,

a lot of course is for sale. That's not a secret. Right. And, of course, is for sale. That's not a secret. But the way things work under Canadian broadcast ownership, there's nobody to buy it. Right. Right. There's no one left to buy it

unless you go to the private equity route. And that's because CRTC says Bell can't own more than two FM stations or two N plus two AM maybe or something like that. And I think Rogers and Bell already kind of have their full. Everybody, almost everybody has their full complement of radio stations that they can own under the current rules. And I think the current rules right um and i think the current rules could be expanded just a little bit but at the same time you don't want to see what happened

in the united states where so many people well like for example in san diego at one point a radio company owned eight stations in san diego yeah and that's yeah i'll give you another example there was a station in Minot, North Dakota, or a company owned all the stations in Minot, North Dakota. And in order to figure out ways to maximize profit, what they ended up doing was they automated everything on the weekends. All four stations were automated. One afternoon, there was a tragic accident in a rail yard, a cloud of poison gas started drifting all over the city.

And there was nobody at the radio station to say, hey, there's a gas, there's a cloud of poison gas drifting over the city. So I don't think, I hope we don't go down the route of the United States because if you look now at stations like Clear Channel, or iHeartRadio, and Intercom all the other broadcasts we've turned down, they're dying during this COVID period. No commute, right? I mean, the radio lives and dies by traffic jams. Pretty much.

Yeah, so that's primarily what's going on there. Second last question. Which one do I pick? Let's go with Brian Smith. Brian Smith says, does he find new generation DJs boring with the short pre-approved thoughts? As short as a tweet is,

radio banter is missing and on the fly reactions. So that's Brian. I read it verbatim. He's suggesting that, and he might be right here, is that people are, are they talking less? Is it more scripted than it used to be, the banter? It's never been scripted, never been pre-approved. The only thing that is scripted and pre-approved would be, you know,

liners, which are as old as radio itself. Of course. I think we're actually seeing people talk more as radio programmers realize that the only thing that's separating radio stations from streams is the human element. And you have to have a human element if you're going to connect with your audience on that deep emotional level. I'll give you an example. Back in the day, there was no way that anybody would have ever allowed

for there to be a two-person afternoon drive show on a radio station. Now that's becoming the standard because it is better radio to have two people conversing rather than just have one person introducing and back-selling songs. This question, as you were speaking about Afternoon Drive and everything, and I was thinking, do we know,

like it's the legendary John Derringer. I know you're affiliated with Chorus here. Didn't he sign that big 10-year contract? Does that come up at the end of this year? Do you know? He's re-signed. Okay. Maybe I missed the press release there.

Okay. So he re-signed. I'm pretty sure he's re-signed. Yeah. Maybe you broke the story there. I don't know. Okay, maybe I missed the press release there. Okay, so he resigned. I'm pretty sure he's resigned, yeah. Maybe you broke the story there. I don't know. Okay, that's good news

for John Derringer fans. Okay, so the final question here. I don't even... Oh, I think it's also Brian Smith. Did the rock world miss out on the

potential modern-day Lennon-McCartney with Cobain-Groll? And I like this question because as you know, Dave, of course you know, but Dave Grohl didn't want to pollute the process in Nirvana and it turned out he was a tremendous

songwriter and rock and roll frontman. So... When Nirvana broke up, everybody just assumed that it was going to be Kristina Veselic that took over and became the guy to carry that whole thing forward. And then wait a second, it's the drummer? What? Right. The drummer. Right. Yeah, it could have been, I mean,

got to remember that Dave was what the sixth or something drummer that was in Nirvana. He was the new guy. He was the outsider. He was from DC as opposed to Aberdeen, Washington. So he didn't really have a lot of currency as, you know, when Nirvana was in its, you know, through the Nevermind and In Utero years. Right. And, you know, Kurt at that time, he was the songwriter. He was the guy doing everything. Dave had done some stuff, but he was not necessarily motivated.

He certainly hadn't developed as a songwriter. He did Marigold, right? I remember Marigold. That was a B-side, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that developed as a songwriter. He did Marigold, right? I remember Marigold. Yeah. And that was the only one song. And he plays all the instruments on that song. Right. Which is essentially, that's a Foo Fighters track, if you want to get technical, right? It is a Foo Fighters track. Yeah. And it took him, you know,

the first Foo Fighters album was pretty good, but you know, it took him about three albums to really get the confidence that he needed to become what he is today. And would Kurt have taken on him as an equal partner in terms of a songwriting? I don't think so. I don't think so either. Because there's a lot of politics, a lot of money involved in that sort of thing.

You've got to be younger. You've got to kind of be in high school buddies or something to make that magic happen. Yeah, and again, Nirvana was doing just fine without dave um and it didn't really matter who the drummer would have been i think for never mind uh because all the songs have been pretty much fully formed and he basically played what the demos told him to play and we done by Chan Channing. So, uh, yeah, it would have been interesting had they gotten together earlier.

What, what have they done? Who knows? Well, Alan, when your phone rang about a half an hour ago, I had that deja vu moment. Uh,

is this episode going to end with Alan taking a phone call, but you, you, you let your wife take the call and you finished up. And I got to say, you kicked ass. Like we should do this on a regular basis. The listeners have so many questions for you

and you were amazing. So thank you so much. You're very welcome. We'll do it again. And that brings us to the end of our 675th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Alan is at Alan Cross.

Alan, of course, people should subscribe to the Ongoing History of New Music. It's a podcast now and you're still recording Geeks and Beats with Michael Hainsworth? I'll do one tonight. Awesome. And you're going to have a martini when you do it?

I have scotch. Scotch. Okay, good for you. Our friends at... Alan's at Alan Cross on Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group, they're at the Keitner Group.

CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. And the best app for you, Alan, if you want to know what, uh, is it garbage day? Is it recycling day? Is it yard waste pickup?

Is you need to go to garbage day.com slash Toronto Mike and sign up for the garbage day service. It's fantastic. See you all. That's your homework. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business

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