Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Alan Cross: Toronto Mike'd #815

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Mike catches up with Alan Cross before they listen to some vintage CFNY audio and a special message from Brother Bill. Then, Mike buries Alan in questions submitted by FOTMs.

Welcome to episode 815 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. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Contact Barb, she's Barb at CDNTechnologies.com. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921.

And Mike Majewski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike. He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is musicologist Alan Cross. I remember working at a radio station in Kenora, Ontario that signed off overnight and the ensuing six hours of silence was brought to you by the local funeral home. They sponsored dead air. They sponsored.

That is so smart. It is. You know, at sign off, that's what they got. The next six hours is brought to you by, I can't remember, something, something funeral home. For all your funeral needs, see us. You're the only place in town, so it didn't really matter. You should let Terry O'Reilly know.

I feel like that could be something on Under the Influence or something like that. It could be. I mean, and then during the day, there were at least two times when we were supposed to read the obituaries. And what happened was we would play this somber organ music and then read the obituary over top of it. And for a while, we had to do this live, but then it became this thing to try and make the announcer laugh

while they were reading the obituary. So we ended up having to pre-tape them so there would be none of that chicanery. And the carts, the tape that would come into the studio was everything at that time was sponsored by a beer company right so it would come in and it was it was always labeled the ov stiff report we were we were not very respectful back in those days. The good old days. I actually have some audio. I'm going to do it off the top, actually, because I crowdsourced this episode of Toronto Mike.

So all the questions I ask after I do my audio here are coming from FOTMs and fans of Alan Cross. So yeah, that's the first time I've actually done that, except I am going to ruin it off the top because I got some cool audio. Our mutual friend brother bill sent me some audio okay so firstly how is how are you doing firstly and and how's your wife and your dogs how's everybody doing everything is fine uh i work in the basement in

my office i work out of the house anyway so I really haven't been all that inconvenienced by COVID. Although I do miss meeting people face-to-face, I'm getting more work than ever simply because I'm equipped to handle the work. My wife is working for the Ontario Energy Board. She has her office upstairs and the main floor basically functions as the lunchroom. So I see her at lunch and then I see her again at the end of the day, and occasionally we cross paths as we go for coffee. So it's a self-contained little thing. The dogs sleep all day, and then at around 4.30,

they'll remind us that it's time to stop work and that they need to be fed and watered and need some attention. So this clip here will feature – I have two clips for you off the top. One features Mary Ellen Benninger, your wife, and one features yourself. And this is from 1990. So this was recorded from 102.1. I guess at that time you were just New Rock.

Do you remember what the... I think we were transitioning. So 1990, that still would have been either the uh the end of the mclean hunt no well you know i think that we might get some stingers in this audio like we might hear some imaging stuff so let's listen first so i thought this was a great find and i'm gonna put this entire 90 minutes on the toronto mic at some point, but I have some clips I pulled for Humble and Fred on Thursday. So I'm going to do it kind of after that. But first, let's listen. This is going to be about 90 seconds, but this is quite the flashback for you here and

your wife. This is from 1990, 102.1. Humble and Fred's breakfast show runs from 530 to 930 each weekday morning. It is followed by 102 Magazine, a current affairs magazine program produced by CFNY's news department. 102 Magazine is followed by Alan Cross, who offers a music-intensive midday show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Within Alan's program is one of the station's most popular features, the all-request nooner. is one of the station's most popular features, the all-request nooner. Here's an edited version of CFNY's 102 Magazine, followed by a sampling of Alan Cross's midday program. 102 Magazine.

Good morning and welcome. I'm Mary Ellen Benninger. Coming up on 102 Magazine today, we update the situation in the Persian Gulf, talking about dreams and negotiations and hostages we compare crimes past to those president metro with a man who's seen it all and our weekly medical checkup that's all coming up today on 102 magazine and there's a story going around in bahrain that Iraqi intelligence is spreading a tale about a dream that Saddam Hussein had. That the Prophet Muhammad told him in his dream that his guns were pointing in the wrong direction. There is some suggestion the story is to prepare Iraqis for a pullout from Kuwait. There are also some hints some of the Western hostages will soon be released.

And the oil industry apparently believes something good's about to happen since the cost of crude has dropped. I have so many things I want to say. Firstly, Alan, do you think we've dumbed down society in 2021? Like, do you listen to what we used to hear on 102.1? Like, that's smart stuff. It is. Now, you have to understand that back then there were different FM regulations.

Now, you have to understand that back then there were different FM regulations. We were under all kinds of rules that made FM distinct and different from AM radio. Now, towards the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, AM radio was still very, very profitable. And there were so many music-based AM radio stations, like CFTR, for example, who had a weekly listenership of a million people around that time. And the idea behind these FM regulations was to actually protect AM radio. So for example, we had to have something called a hit non-hit ratio, which meant that only 49% of the music that any FM station played could be a top 40 song. So that meant top 40 radio was illegal on FM in Canada for the longest time. We also had something called, we had various requirements for talk. We had things like surveillance and mosaic and foreground programming. And 102 Magazine was an example

of foreground programming where we were required to spend x number of minutes per week in non-musical pursuits and all fm radio stations had to follow these rules they eventually disappeared by the middle to late 90s and radio became much more streamlined on the fm side and am continued to decline in popularity until talk radio and sports radio really took over. Now, I do know, yes, because, you know, Scott Turner comes on regularly and we talk a lot about the foreground programming that was a requirement.

But that content there that your now wife, Mary Ellen Benninger, which I think that's wild that we're going to hear 102 Magazine or whatever it was called with Mary Ellen. And then that's going to kind of lead right into your show back in the day. 1990 was the year we got married. Okay. You should have done it live on the radio, I think. That would have been a point.

We did it in Winnipeg. It was my turn to have a wedding and we did it in Winnipeg. Okay. Now the I just think that's a really intelligent conversation because I listened to a lot more than what i played and you know she has very you know it's like marianne was i think she was way too smart for that station is what i'm saying because can you imagine playing that for a 102.1 listener today and saying this is what we used to hear after you know humble and fred's

fart jokes this is what we used to air on the station that's i think it's wild it's it is interesting uh again radio was back in 1990 that was all there's pre-internet right right of course yeah we we had magazines we had newspapers we had the weekly or the the nightly news cap on or the nightly uh newscast on television and that was about it uh but as we got deeper into the 90s and as we got more sources of information, it became obvious to us as radio people that listeners would rather we focus on music and entertainment rather than harder news like that because they were getting their news, their hard news from other sources. Right. Sources that were much more well-equipped, had deeper pockets and could do it better. So when the rules changed, all the FM stations that were doing these things, and, you know, Chum FM had one, CHFI had one, Q107 had one, we phased them out.

And the only real survivor of that entire era is the ongoing history of new music and what episode are you on at this point with your own 922 do you have any big plans for number 1000 uh 1000 will probably happen sometime in 2023 because i do 33 or 34 a year. So by the time I finish 2021, we'll be at about 940-ish. So that'll bring us to, say, 975-ish for the end of 2021 and then towards the end of 2022. And so the end of 2023 will be 1000.

I don't know. It's still a couple of years away. As a listener, so I subscribe to the podcast, Ongoing History of New Music. Shout out to FOTM Robbie J. Now, Alan, when you have an episode, let's say there's an episode sitting in the feed right now and let's say it's talking about,

I'm going to just say Chris Cornell or something. And it's like, oh, Chris Cornell is now doing this and I'm the other. Does anyone have like a flag to say if something terrible happens, such as Chris taking his own life, to say, hey, let's edit that in the feed? Or do you just leave it be? Like, what's the rule for podcasting in that regard? It depends. If something happens, everything gets interrupted and we cover that thing.

everything gets interrupted and we cover that thing. So the case with Chris Cornell, for example, there was a ongoing history program in the library, which we brought out, re-edited, and turned that into an updated podcast. There have been situations where we've gone in and tweaked podcasts to make them more relevant in the case of like a death, for example. That's the biggest one.

So it does happen. Yeah, because unlike radio, and I actually heard you say this this morning, actually, on Humble and Fred, more relevant in the case of like a death, for example, that's the biggest one. Sure. So it does happen. Yeah. Cause, cause unlike radio, and I actually heard you say this this morning, actually on Humble and Fred, but radio is of the moment, you know, it airs and then it's gone into the, uh, the abyss and then, but a podcast, I mean, I will cherry pick an episode that you probably published to that feed, you know, four years ago and, and I'll listen to it now as if it dropped this morning. So it's a different animal.

Yeah, it is and since the podcast came online we're uh doing really well with these podcasts around the world we have made a concerted effort to make the topics as evergreen as possible because once you upload them they're out there and right you want to make sure that they don't aren't out of date you know 20 minutes after you upload them right now i want to get sure that they aren't out of date, you know, 20 minutes after you upload them. Right. Now, I want to get to these questions. So let me play.

This is only a minute, but this is in that same 90-minute scope from 102.1 in 1990. This is your show. Let's listen. It's the All Request Nooner live from the CNE. CFNY FM 102, Grapes of Wrath. That's a band that you're going to see at the Caspian Awards. Their name's going to be on a whole bunch of ballots this year. Guarantee that.

Do You Want to Tell Me? And also Japan. Real classic there with television. I'm Ali Cross. It's about ten minutes before two. And I want to congratulate Brent Kapustik of Oakville. He and a friend are going to suit up and join us at Wild Water Kingdom on Saturday for CFNY Day. Brent has himself a pair of VIP all-access passes, courtesy of the free ticket wicket.

These are good for unlimited use of the water slides, the wave pool, all the other water facilities. Plus, we'll have access to the miniature golf courses and the batting cages, all the other stuff that they've got there. Plus, live music will come poolside from the satellites. Now you can join us. Tickets are available at the gate for $13.95, $11.95 for kids, and the park opens at 10 o'clock Saturday morning, and it's going to be a hot, sultry kind of day, and I actually can't think of a better place to be than a water park,

and all the people from the station will be there. We're looking forward to a real good day. CFNY Day at Wild Water Kingdoms, 7855 Finch Avenue West, just on the southeast tip of Brampton. And it's another event in the 102 days of summer. So there you go. Gee, what happened to my voice?

You know, that's 31 years ago, so my voice has gone down a little bit. Yeah, but yeah, it's still got your timber there, but you're right. That's 31 years ago. So my voice has gone down a little bit. Yeah. But yeah, it's still got your timbre there, but you're right. It's not everybody's voice, I guess. I think now you're compressing it in the microphone there. That's what you're doing there. No, I'm not.

This microphone actually has no compression whatsoever because I do so much studio work. I give them a complete natural feed so they can put their own compression on it. What you're hearing is absolutely natural. I kid, I kid. Were you at the C&E in 1989 as well? Yeah, there were many years in a row where we were at the C&E, usually in the CFMY boombox,

that giant portable studio that we had to tow everywhere. And we did go every single year. And there were, the midday and the evening shows, I think, were primarily at the C&E. I only ask because, and I think I mentioned this during your first visit, which I learned was over seven years ago because it wasn't even in the basement yet. But my soon-to-be seven-year-old booted me from my original studio space in this home. And I ended up in the basement where I'm happy here today.

But Alan, that's when I first met you. So I was working at the C&E the summers of 89, 90, and 91. I worked at the X. And I went to the boom box to get some stickers. I think they might have been Modern Rock stickers. I think so, yes. It would have been at that time. Yep, and I met you.

So this is a true story, And I've now done this 800. I think this is episode 815. But you're actually the first radio professional I met in my lifetime is you, Alan Crossback. And I think it was the summer of 1990, but it might have been the summer of 1989. Yeah, we did this. Every radio station without fail broadcast live from the C&E back then because it was such a big draw. And we were expected to be on site because it was one of the city's biggest events of the year. And it gave us an opportunity to increase the visibility of the radio station and to meet fans face-to-face.

Now, remember that radio up until, you know, unless we did remotes, you never saw, you never got a chance to interact with the announcers. Nor did the announcers ever get to interact in person with listeners so it was a really important thing it could be very very difficult i remember one year it was so stinking hot and the air conditioner and the boom box had broken down it was about 100 degrees in there it's like it was incredibly bad but uh and we had to pay for our own parking, which really bugged me. Anyway, it was something that we could do. We were always close to the place

that sold the little donuts. That's right. Tiny Tom's. Shout out to FOTM Andrew Stokely because I think he was helping out around CFOI at this time with the boombox. Shout out to Andrew. Yes. Andrew now works in television and does an awful lot of time with the Boombox. Shout out to Andrew. Yes, and Andrew now works in television and does an awful lot

of work with audio and TV. Yeah, and when the Blue Jays do return from, they won't be from the Dome, but they'll be on Sportsnet with a Sportsnet feed. I believe Andrew's going to have some role there for sure. He's going to be a busy man this summer. Now, Peter Howell has the first question

for you, Alan. Which Peter Howell? The Peter howell the oh great uh i don't know is he i know he took a package but sometimes he still shows up in the toronto star as like a freelance uh journalist so yeah i like peter stuff oh peter's great and peter says ask alan which rock star death hit him the hardest. Joey Ramone. Simply because I had met Joey a number of times and he seemed like a very quiet, gentle, lost soul. And I remember taking my wife to meet him once backstage at a show with White Zombie at the Hamilton, at Cops Coliseum in Hamilton. And she never forgot that encounter because she says,

oh, the poor guy, I just wanted to take him home and feed him some soup. He looked like he needed some tender loving care. And I don't know why, but Joey's death really, really bothered me. I was also talking to him about writing the forward to a book that I had written. I had spent some time on the phone with him, so I got a chance to to kind of get to know him a little bit. And he was very gentle. He was a very nice man. And given what the Ramones did for music history, it was really cool to be able to talk to him on that level. So when he disappeared, when he died, it was it was really sad. You know, it's funny. I truncated the question from Peter because in his original

question, he gave you three options. And I realized this would be a better question if you could answer Joey Ramone, which wasn't one of the options, but Peter wrote Elvis, John Lennon, or Kurt Cobain. That was the original trifecta. And somebody did chime in with Gord Downie. And I think Peter added that to the list. But of those four, Elvis, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Gord Downie. driving westbound on Portage Avenue just before Aaron Street when CGOB broke into programming at 3.40 in the afternoon Central Daylight Time to explain that Elvis Presley had died. I remember that so bloody vividly that I can still close my eyes and see the buildings go by as the announcer talked about his death. So that's how that affected me. I wasn't an Elvis fan.

I was much too young for that sort of thing. But I understood his importance in the rock and roll pantheon. John Lennon died on a Monday. I was teaching drums at the time. And I came home to Monday Night Football. And it was Howard Cosell who announced that John Lennon had been assassinated. And the reason Monday Night Football got to break the news was because a producer from ABC had been in a motorcycle accident and just happened to be in the emergency room when John Lennon was brought in. to be in the emergency room when John Lennon was brought in. So he heard a couple of cops talking about it in the hallway and immediately phoned producers at ABC saying, oh my God, I have the

scoop of the century. John Lennon has been shot. And that's how that got out. Kurt Cobain, famously, I was on the air when that all went down. And people still say that I remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard you make the announcement. And that one was really important because I remember thinking, don't screw this up. This is a JFK moment. This is a John Lennon moment. This is an Elvis Presley moment. You get to do it. And this may be the last time anybody gets to do something this big.

Because, again, remember, this is 1994. It's pre-internet people got all their information from the radio from television uh newspaper was always 24 hours late and i had the opportunity to break some really really big news and then that's what i remember most about that day and then gourd was very recent. So, well. Gord, we knew it was inevitable. Right. So it was interesting because that entire summer, Gord was fairly visible.

He had been working a lot with indigenous communities. So we would see him in Ottawa, or we'd see him on a reserve someplace doing something. And I was sitting in this studio right now and a phone call comes in and it's like Gord's died. And I was like, wow, okay, here's another big, big deal. And I remember the entire apparatus of Chorus and Global came to my assistance there to help me with all the interviews and all the comments that I had to make on television and radio over the course of the day. I think I did somewhere around 20 or 25

interviews just in that day. And there really wasn't much time to think about how it felt other than we got to get through today. We got to get this done. It was the next day. And the thing that set me off was a tweet. And the tweet read, Canada closed, death in the family. And that still sort of makes me well up a little bit. passed my daughter saw gourd at a wee day event in ottawa and uh so yeah that summer he was i mean that by the way that might have been his last public appearance actually uh that i think it might have been canada day i think so yeah he received the ceremonial feather yeah and uh because she was very excited to oh i'm gonna cry now too but she was very excited to tell me that uh she saw my uh my favorite musician but yeah he passed away and gordon was another very nice man um he i guess it was the coke machine glow album one of his solo records he came into the studio for an interview and he showed up early which rock stars never do it's

just gordon i got another interview i gotta get done do you mind waiting a little bit no problem i'm going to starbucks would you like to would you like anything yeah i wouldn't mind a cappuccino extra high it was okay and he leaves and then i just said wait did i just send gordon down to starbucks to get me a coffee yeah and he sounds canadian yeah you know very canadian very very canadian leifer 1984 says how many minions does he have working for him to unearth all those damn facts? So tell us how many. Yeah. So are you doing all your own research and then you just get production, technical production help from Robbie J? Is that how it works?

Yeah. The way it works is I do everything. I do all the research and writing myself. I record my voice track for the radio show. I upload it on Dropbox. Robbie, he produces it and distributes it. That's it. There's the two of us.

And it's been that way since 1995. Well, it's still twice the size of the team I have here. Yeah, that's true. Awesome. By the way, great show. I mean, you're going to get, I can't inflate your tires too much at this point because there will be another piece of audio I'm playing later that will do that sufficiently. So dark, dark, dark duck 64 duck 64 i gotta get these handles right dark duck 64 wants to know if you're a big iron maiden fan i was back in the day um i i kind of

got away from them but now i've over the last couple of years i've rediscovered them and i really i like bruce dickinson as a guy because here is somebody who not only leads one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time but he decided that he was going to become a commercial airline pilot right and he can he's rated on 747s when the last time iron maiden i think went on a world tour they chartered a 747 loaded up all their gear into the belly flew around the world and the captain of that flight was bruce dickinson amazing i mean come on that's so cool and he's related to the belly, flew around the world, and the captain of that flight was Bruce Dickinson. Amazing. I mean, come on.

That's so cool. He's related to the Catherine Wheel guy, right? Do I have my lineage correct? Yeah, cousins. That's Rob Dickinson. Rob Dickinson is now working in California, and he is a customizer of Porsches. He's got a company called Singer Porsche, and what he'll do is take your vintage Porsche and bring it up to standard today's specs and technology.

So if you give him like a 1972 RS, he will take that, put all new gear, new suspension, new tires, new everything, and give it back to you and then charge you $500,000. Yeah, I did say this was a crowdsourced, but this is actually off the top my head is uh in my my my experience that katherine wheel was far bigger on cf and y than anywhere else like it just is it because of the cover of the spirit of radio or is it just i know that that

came later okay wheel from the very beginning was a big favorite in places like Toronto and oddly enough, San Francisco. Those are the two main Catherine Wheel hotspots. We were all over Catherine Wheel for the first couple of albums. And it wasn't until later on when somebody went, I guess it was Ivor over at Universal Music who was handling them at the time, said, you know, would you guys consider doing Spirit of Radio as a hidden track on any of your albums? And they said, sure, because we like the radio station.

You've been supporting us for a very long time. I love it. That came later. That came later. Okay, because for sure, pound for pound, they were a bigger deal in this market, thanks to your station, than almost anywhere else. It sounds like San Francisco had something similar there.

You mentioned Ivor. So this is, I got a note from Scott Turner. And after we do this, then maybe you can update us all on what's happening with the Spirit of Radio documentary. Because all the listeners want to hear about that. But Scott Turner sent me audio of himself. He's still working on taking his cassettes and making them MP3s. Because this audio is terrible. I told Scott we got to fix this.

But he basically, he writes, with help from Ivor Hamilton, who was in the studio with me, recording reaction calls off the air when we first played George Michael on the air at the beginning of the infamous format change. He believes this is the Thursday 30. You can barely hear him introduce the song. That's an audio recording issue there. But he thinks it was late 1988.

So let's just get a taste of this and just quickly chat a little bit about top 40, see if and why. Here we go. Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woo time I've ever heard George Michael. Are you guys serious? We're serious. What's next, Madonna and Michael Jackson? Probably.

Are you guys still listening? Huh? Are you still going to listen? Yeah, but I was wondering how come. They're changing the format. They want to track more of it. Would you rather hear like The Smiths or House of Love or something like that? Yeah, that's what I want to hear.

Cure, defense mode, you order? All right, I'll break it down because it sounds like we're listening to the Zapruder film there. But this is like when you first played george michael and i mean i guess madonna and phil collins and whatever else is in that mix what like were people just throwing eggs at you on the streets like what was the reaction like then well it was it was really tough and it was hard for us as announcers to defend this decision what had happened was the radio station was sold it was sold to rogers and and Rogers already had too many FM radio stations. So they put us in escrow until they could spin us off to somebody else. And during that time,

the management decided that they were going to boost ratings as much as they possibly could. So maybe they could keep their jobs when the station was finally sold to its final owner. And it was in the summer of 1988 when they started discussing adding in some top 40 flavor to the alternative mix. And I remember we came back from Labor Day weekend. So this would be September 1988. And over that weekend,

they had changed so much of the music that we really didn't know what to do. I remember having to play Taylor Dane, Martika and Toy Soldier, Hangin' Tough by Kids on the Block and George Michael Monkey. And George Michael Monkey. I remember that very clearly. And being desperately afraid to answer the request lines. Because we knew that this was the wrong move to make. Right.

And we knew that the people on the front line, the announcers, were going to take most of the grief. And we did our best to subtly sabotage some of these uh some of what was going on and this lasted for about it was uh nine nine or twelve months because then roger sped us off to mclean hunter right and mclean hunter was really quite upset because they had bought a red car an alternative radio station and what they received was a blue car which was a station that played a lot of top 40 music so we swung immediately a hard left back to alternative stuff and some of the music that we were playing like ministry at

nine o'clock in the morning as a as a as a snapback is this the is this the reiner schwartz era or okay yeah and and it was it was a pretty pretty avant-garde pretty intense radio station and ratings dropped like a stone oh my goodness they. They really did. It was, it was, it went, we went too far in the other direction. Eventually we found our way, especially after 1992, when we had some new management in there and they kind of cleaned up the playlist and started things like ongoing history and did proper advertising and so on. Right. You were, I think you might've been bailed out by grunge actually.

I feel. We were frankly, no there's no question about it because by you know we snapped back in 1990 or 91 and late 90 i guess we snapped back to this really hard sound and um it wasn't working ratings wise and there was a we we you, Reiner and Jamie, who was the general manager, he'd been hit by a car and he was off work for a very, very long time. So Reiner was in charge of everything and he had a way of doing things. And then the new people came in led by Hal Blockadar, who was the general manager. No, yes. Who? No. Hal Blackadar was running

radio for McLean Hunter. He brought in a guy named Vince DiMaggio to be the general manager, and he brought in Stuart Myers to be the program director. And there was thoughts around that time that, well, this hard alternative just isn't going to work. There's too much baggage surrounding the history of CFNY. So we may flip everything to country. And for months and months and months, all of us on staff were thinking, the station is going to flip to country. We're all going to get fired and they're going to hire new announcers and that'll be it for CFNY. But then along comes Grunge in the late 91 and early 1993. Sorry, early 1992. And they did some audience research and they realized that, oh, okay, there's this band called Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

This seems to be doing well. And there's this Lollapalooza thing that's attracting tens of thousands of people. Nobody else seems to be doing anything around this. So I tell you what, we're going to stick with the alternative format, except we're going to clean it up a little bit, be a little bit more traditional radio about how we present these things. And we're going to find somebody on staff with a history degree to do a

radio program, a documentary that will explain where all this music came from. So they looked around, found me, said I was going to do this program called the ongoing history of new music, which was not my choice of a title because it's a terrible title.

That was it. The rest is history. Here we are today in 2021 talking on a podcast. I love it. Diamond Dog wants to know, just a very quick question, bangles or go-go's? Oh, that's tough.

I feel like that's go-go's. Am I wrong? No feel it's go-go's am i wrong uh no musically go-go's for sure but i keep whenever i close my eyes i can see suzanna hoffs do that i thing and walk like an egyptian right right well yeah that's uh you're true that that's that's that's a good point there and the other thing about the bangles the bangles were almost as punky as the go-go's were in the early days uh if you listen to their first album they they have a song on there called Hero Takes a Fall, which sounds very, very Go-Go-ish. It's when they got to the second album and onwards that they went really, really top 40. And the only reason they could have done that was because of the Go-Go's. Because the Go-Go's were

a really heavy duty, you know, LA punk rock band. And when they finally broke through, it was like, oh, wait a second, girl groups groups all girl groups that sang their own songs and wrote their own songs okay it is a thing and so the bangles would not have existed had it not been for the gogos well Belinda Carlyle was playing drums for is it the germs?

yeah the germs I think she hung out with the germs and they were even when they got famous the gogos could drink any band under the table they were as heavy metal as any metal band out there they were decadent and i've talked to karen valentine about that she goes yeah we were a little nuts i like this question glenn wants to know uh have you ever edited a wikipedia article about a band or an artist no i i i haven't um i i'm a little frustrated with wikipedia because i i made

the cardinal sin one time of looking at my own entry and uh okay there there was a piece of blatant misinformation i can't remember what it was. Blatant misinformation. So I thought, okay, well, I better fix this. So I did. I edited it. And I went back a day later, and my edit was replaced with a citation needed. I am he.

Yeah. So I thought, okay okay all right fine um no one would know better about this fact but i can't cite myself right so no i haven't uh it's funny on just sunday so on sun i think the previous episode i did a 2.5 hour episode with cam gordon on the history of uh tears are not enough so 2.5 hours on that one four and a half minute song i felt like i was channeling my inner uh alan cross so i hope i did you proud but afterwards uh several changes were made to the wikipedia article not by me i'll point out uh based on new information we uncovered because the Wikipedia didn't have the complete list of participants in that charity single from 1985.

And then the day after the episode, they were there. So it's interesting how, and we'll see if they stick because like you pointed out, sometimes people come in and say, you know, we need whatever. Maybe this guy, Toronto Mike's podcast is not a good enough source for this. I don't know how they work, but yeah, it's an interesting world, the Wikipedia world.

I'm shocked by it because if somebody dies, the moment you hear it, you go to Wikipedia and somebody's already changed it. Yeah, and it's in past tense. Everything's in past tense, right? Yeah. That's wild. Neil Morrison, and this is going to segue nicely to one more clip I'm going to play, and then we're going to get that update on

the CFNY documentary because it's a good segue off the Neil Morrison bit. But Neil Morrison, that's Brother Bill for those who don't know. And if you listen to Toronto Mike, do you know that? Because he recently, we did three and a half hours on the American hardcore, speaking of the germs, Neil Morrison joined us for a three and a half hour episode, me and Cam, on the, I think we, again, we channeled our inner ongoing history in new music, but we did three and a half hours on the American hardcore punk scene. And Brother Bill really brought it.

So Brother Bill wants to go ask Alan about the time he went to interview Julian Cope in his trailer backstage at Kingswood. Yeah. So back in the day, the Kingswood Music Theater was booked by a company out of New York called Nederlander.

And they used to bring some fantastic acts into that venue. I saw so many good shows there. And the Kingswood Music Theater was very alternative friendly. And we would often get to go and see a lot of the English bands. I mean, the Smiths played there, and the English beat played there. And I saw the Ramones and Blondie and Talking Heads and Julian Cope was there. I don't think he was the headliner. I think he was the opening act for somebody. I don't know who. And Julian Cope's a weird, interesting, eccentric dude. And backstage at the Kingswood is a cottage that served as the dressing room for everybody. So we had backstage passes and we knocked on the door of the cottage and Julian Cope answers the door and he's naked.

And I said, hi, we're here to interview you. And he goes, I'm sorry, mate, can't do it right now. As you can see, I'm nude. And that was it. When Homer says you'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel. I think that's something like that. Yeah. Oh, by the way, on, uh, Craig, uh, DJ Craig G just chimed in on Facebook here to say he loved Kingswood and he says, when's your next book coming out? When is your next book coming out, Alan? September the 7th. It's children's book. Oh, a children's book. I have children.

It's called The Science of Music, or The Science of Song. And it's aimed at kids between the ages of 8 and 14. I think you'll really like it. Oh, yeah. And my boy turns my third born turns 7 in a month. So he'll be, and he's

a bright chap. He'd be ready for that book, I think. He will like this stuff. Trust me. Okay. So brother bill. Now, last time you were on Toronto Mike, which was during the pandemic,

I played a clip of brother bill and he made some comments and then you responded. And then he came on Toronto Mike to do the American hardcore episode, the pandemic Friday. And he started talking about you and I'm going to play this for you right now. Cause I think you, you need to hear this.

So here's some Brother Bill. Do I regret saying it? Probably, yeah. Do you know I played it for Alan? Did you hear me play it for Alan? Yes, I did. And are you okay with the... Yeah.

Alan's retort was very valid. And that is he wasn't at World War... He wasn't in World War II either, but he could probably talk about it. And that's right. And, and, you know, I, I, can I take this moment just to make sure that the next time Alan comes in, that you play this for him and say that, you know, I apologize for the way that sounded and the way it came out, because I have nothing but the utmost respect for Alan Cross. Alan was the guy when I

first wanted to work at CFNY, I used to call him when he did the overnight show and he would be gracious enough to allow me to come up into the studio and watch him for an hour or so do what he did. And, you know, so he is to me, not only a brother, because we come from the same radio station and this, you know, we have a history. He was my boss when I left, he was very kind to me then, but also just, you know, Alan is what Stu Stone said. Alan is, is a legend in, in music, not only in Toronto, but I mean, people talk about Alan Cross. I went and spoke to a class out here at BCIT, which is the British Columbia Institute of Technology. And there were a couple of kids in that class a few years ago, but they, they were so fascinated with Alan Cross that I

had to stay or stick around and tell Alan's stories to these people. And I just want to make sure that we know. I mean, the fact that Cam and yourself and Stu, you use that every once in a while, the he wasn't there thing, I think is great. But I just want to make it clear that I have nothing but the utmost respect for Alan. And there is a spirit of radio documentary coming i don't know if you guys know this or not which one though there's a uh there seems to be

some sanctioned one like a chorus sanctioned one that alan's working on and then there's this william yes and and oh scott's involved i love scott turners that's great but there's also a william dunlop like unauthorized thing happening also i don't know which or maybe that's a martin street documentary you're right you're right okay okay so you're talking about the authorized one okay continue yeah and i want to be in it so that's why i'm kissing alan's ass right now well i'll tell you what alan's a great fotm alan cross a great fotm he's been nothing but amazing to this show for almost a decade now. And he will be in my backyard when the weather turns. So let's say, this is by the lake,

so it's going to be June, okay? Please play this for him and make sure you let him know that I love him and I'm just like all my other brothers and sisters back East and we'll see him again soon. So there you go. He made a very valid point back in the original thing. I didn't go to a lot of those shows. And I did not because my schedule and where I was living didn't allow me to go to a lot of live gigs.

I just couldn't do it. Because I'd have to be at work at 7.15 in the morning and I was living way outside the city up near Orangeville. So it didn't make a lot of sense for me. So it wouldn't be a valid point. But at the same time, even though I didn't make a lot of sense for me. So it wouldn't be a valid point. But at the same time, even though I didn't see a lot of the stuff live,

I was able to piece together enough information to write and talk about it. He mentioned the documentary. Is there an update for us fans of The Spirit of Radio? We are still working on it. Right now it is this.

OK, we'll talk about the documentary is going to focus on The Spirit of Radio years from 1977 to 1991. We are currently in the process of trying to acquire some money to make this. We need about $400,000 or $500,000 to do this right. We need that much money because you can't do a CFNY Spirit of Radio documentary without music. And it takes a lot of money to license the right songs.

So most of what we will raise will go to music licensing. We have a team of five people who are working on it right now. We're getting together our grants applications. There are several deadlines that we have to hit over the next six months. Hopefully we'll be able to get some money from those institutions. Hopefully, we'll be able to find a little bit of private money to stir the pot a little bit. Then we have to start creating documents. We have to go out to people,

find video and audio and still photos that people may have in their collection and get them to sign release forms, proving that they actually own this material so we can use it so nobody gets sued. Then we have to figure out how we're going to collect this, where the repository is going to be, the nomenclature for the file names.

It's really, really complicated. It's also very frustrating too, because remember radio is something that is evanescent. It doesn't exist. You broadcast it, you're live, and it goes away. And you're always creating content 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you never really think to store or to document anything that you're doing unless it's really, really, really, really important. And back in those days, we would use physical media. So we would need huge boxes of videotapes

and audiotapes and these things that would get dusty and old and degrade. So we never bothered. We just didn't have the resources, the money, the time, the space to save all this stuff. So, you know, people think that we have these vast archives of things from that era. And the answer is we don't. I mean, we moved from Brampton to Toronto to the new building. So there were culls in each of those moves. And again, this was physical media that just degraded and wore out. So we're hoping that somewhere someone has added film and video. That's the thing we need the most.

Film and video to YouTube or have it in their archives or able to convert it that we can use because we don't have any. Wow. And obviously, you probably don't know

the exact figure, but how much cabbage are we talking about if you wanted How Soon Is Now in your documentary? Don't know. This fluctuates.

We're going to have to try and get that song. I mean, we have to. I'm thinking that was the first song that came into my head is for that era, you got to have How Soon Is Now. You got to have to try and get that song. I mean, we have to. I'm thinking that was the first song that came into my head is, for that era, you got to have House of Cards. You got to have it.

So, you know, we're going to have to go to Rough Trade and Sire and Warner and see exactly, you know, what they're going to charge. And it depends. You know, we can't, we won't use the whole song. So they're going to say,

well, you know, how many seconds of the song are you going to want to use? In what context is the song going to be used? How many times are you going to use the approved clip? All those things figure into the licensing of the song are you going to want to use? In what context is the song going to be used? How many times are you going to use the approved clip? All those things figure into the licensing of the song. And we have Barb Hall, who is one of our executive producers on this. She's a Canadian working out of Nashville, and she has a company that clears music for things like movies and television.

She's an Emmy award-winning person. She really knows what she's doing. So it'll be up to her to try and clear as many of these songs that we possibly can for a decent price. And she'll negotiate. And can't, I hope I'm not getting you in trouble with this question, but 400,000, if this is content, you know, that Chorus can use left, right, and center,

why can't they pony up the cash? Well, it's a little bit different because, you know, Chorus is a broadcaster and they don't finance a lot of their own broadcast. What they do is they contract out or purchase programs made by other people. It's just much more efficient to do that. Now they'll help us distribute it. There's no question about it. And by the way, Chorus has signed off on this project. They love it. It's sanctioned. It's great. They just don't have access to cash, to capital, to produce something in-house. I mean, they do radio,

they do their news and information programming, they do YTV and a few others, but there's no real spot for a production like this. So, and, and, you know, we have to go to telefilm. We have to go to all the other organizations that help finance such things and do it on our own. And then they'll run it. Very interesting. This way too, is that we own it, right? Yeah.

I was going to say, oh, you and Mary Ellen should finance this thing, own it, and then maybe make some money off it if you have the right people. Making money is really difficult because we've been looking at distribution channels. So if we look at Netflix, we would love to get it on Netflix, but Netflix takes all the rights

and they don't pay anything. They just show it. So, and then there were other channels like Epix and Reels in the United States. We might want to look at Crave. We might want to look at the History Channel. We might want to look at Hollywood Suites. Then it gets even messier, really,

because it's a chorus thing. Is Bell Media going to want to have this on Crave? You know what I mean? Now you get messy with the you know cross-contamination uh and and it is is the canadian market big enough to help us make that this is what killed there's okay my buddy ed conroy who people know better as retro ontario he was working hard with uh my other buddy who helped uh found electric circus joel goldberg uh they were working on a they had a Much Music documentary they wanted to do, and they basically had to kill the project because of

Bell Media, basically. Basically, all that is... That's why... I mean, I can't wait to see this, and I hope it all works out, but it's when things are kept completely independent sometimes. You've got to be kind of like a pirate and go rogue sometimes, I think, to get this content

out there. But what do I know? You do. You know, sometimes you do. Then you leave yourself open to illegal exposure. And you work for, at least you work for many people. And you also continue to work for chorus stations because you probably don't want to bite the hand that feeds. There's nothing to bite. I mean, it's all working out really great.

I'm extremely happy. And I have no stories to tell that's out of school. Okay, good. Uh, we just got to get you 400,000 bucks. We're working on Stu stone, by the way.

Uh, he came up, I think brother Bill dropped his name and Stu stone is on these pandemic Fridays of, uh, episodes of Toronto Mike and Stu's only question for you, Alan, cause he also makes films and he gets these,

he's on Hollywood suites. His most recent film was on Hollywood suites and he's always looking at distribution deals. You guys should connect actually. But his only question for you is, have you ever heard of him? So be very honest. You're always honest. But Alan, have you ever heard of Stu Stone? I'm not deep into television production. I only know a few people. And I'll tell you the people I know, Bob McCown and Fadu Productions. Right. He did the Go-Go's Doc. He did the Go-Go's doc. And he works sometimes with Geddy Lee's brother.

Wow. And I know the people that I'm working with on the CFNY documentary. I know the Banger Films guys. And that's about it. Okay. I think 5'7 productions is Stu's outfit there. It's movies mainly. It's not so much TV, but movies. So you never heard of Stu? That's okay.

A lot of people haven't heard of Stu. And I'll edit this in post so that you said yes i've heard of stew nice kid all right quick okay stew i'd like to get to know you because you never know this is a small country we need to network that's right jerry the garbage man wants to know have you ever made up the names of those musical subgenres you talk about no i don I don't have to. Go to a site called Every Noise at Once. Just log in. Just search for Every Noise at Once. There is somebody who is creating a, it's almost like a word cloud of all the different genres that are out there right now. And there are over 2000 of them at the moment. It's nuts. It's nuts. Pat wants to know, and this is another loaded question, but I'm curious to know how you answer it. Why didn't Alan revamp 102.1's playlist when he went back to the edge to

better reflect the station's roots? I think they're all looking for, you know what they're looking for? Scott Turner's spirit of radio Sundays. I noticed a lot of guys, my age, my age of white hair and older are looking for that. And then that went away and now that's all gone. That's what people are looking for. So what can you say about that? The radio station is always perpetually 23 years old. And as much as we would like to believe that a 23-year-old is just as crazy about the music

that we were crazy about when we were 23, it just isn't the case. I mean, we did so much audience research and it hurt me terribly to see that you would, you know, have a focus group with a bunch of 23 year olds and you'd say hey smith's how soon is now and they'd go who what right here's no i know i see i came to this realization around 2009 i'd say around then where i had the old epiphany like oh it's not for me anymore oh it's not every generation has the biological uh right to

believe that the music of their youth is the greatest music of all time. Right? So we grow older. We hang on really, really tightly to that music that we got into between the ages of say 13 and 23. Right. And we will never let it go. We can't believe that nobody else likes it as much as we do. How can you not? It's the greatest ever. So true. Meanwhile, there's a 17 year old right now. There's listening to today's music and going, you know what?

I really like day glow. I really like Dayglo. I really like Black Pumas. I really like USS. And for them, they will be, you know, our Smiths or their Smiths, their cure, their new order. Oh, so true. So true.

Stephanie Wilkinson says, tell him I hope to see him and Mary Ellen back enjoying Sunday breakfast in downtown Oakville. Oh, yes. There's a place in downtown Oakville called Moe's diner that I just adore. Uh, there's another place called croissant, which again,

I just adore. Um, if Mary Ellen's not with me, I'm with one of the dogs or maybe both of the dogs. Let's get those vaccinations. Let's get back to, uh, let's get back to the always,

uh, Tio resident. This is, this is, this question will be a short answer i think but did rock music die in the 1990s that's to residents question for you no it was its last great moment rock music uh kurt cobain was the last great rock star the last great new rock star uh there is an

argument to be made that grunge really twisted the evolution of alternative music into something that it didn't want to be, because we went from this wide variety of music in the 1980s to heavy guitar-based stuff in the 1990s. Now, that did bring a lot of people into the tent. So grunge was like alternative music with training wells. And once you got in, well, then that allowed you to try, you know, Dinosaur Jr. and Ministry and maybe, you know, Nine Inch Nails and maybe Red Hot Chili Peppers and so on and so on. But it really made things fairly homogeneous for a very long time. And alternative radio, and this is a problem overall, alternative radio is largely stuck

in the 1990s, and somebody has to tell a lot of programmers that you realize that grunge was 30 years ago, right? It's time to update things, but it was so pervasive, so strong, so powerful, so good that its legacy continues even to today. I mean, you listen to a song like Evenflow from Pearl Jam. I still turn it on because it's a great song. Absolutely. You know, you listen to, I don't know, Here Comes Your Man by the Pixies. You listen to, you know, Give It Away from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I mean, those are still really solid songs. And the other issue, too, is that the music industry since 2000 has done a very terrible job of creating new superstar acts. I mean, we've got Arcade Fire, we've got Gorillaz, we've got Muse, and then you start to run out of names. These are acts that are capable of filling stadiums.

There are lots of acts that can fill stadiums, but they're all from the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, even the 60s, exactly. So now with streaming, it's become the song economy. People are only interested in the song, not the album and not the group. Is it a good song? Yes. Then I'll listen to it. If it's not, I hit the skip button within five seconds. So it's been very difficult for artists to build up a deep catalog that can fill a set. I mean, let's talk about Hosier.

I, you know, take me to church. Great song. Name another Hosier song. Come on, do it. I do remember a second one getting airplay, but I can't remember it right now. Right. That's the problem is that there is a great lack of development

of new acts. And this has been exacerbated by the problem that it is so easy to get into the music business these days. At least, you know, you can record at home, you can put it up on Bandcamp, you can talk to any number of companies that'll get your song up on the streaming music services. And you've got worldwide distribution. The problem is, according to Spotify's most recent financial statement, 60,000 a day. So the competition amongst you, if you're a new musician, the competition amongst your peers is insane, but you're not competing just against your peers. You're competing to the entire library of human music, which right now is somewhere online between 70 and 75 million songs.

Now compare that to the way things used to be back in the day. We had the HMV superstore at three 33 young street on a good day. That entire store would stock a hundred thousand titles. So you had to go through theoretically a hundred thousand records to find what you wanted today with, without having to leave your house or put on pants, you can access 75 million songs. So there's too much music out there. And I'll give you another example. During the pandemic, artists were locked down. They stayed inside. They had nothing better to

do than to create art. So they wrote lots and lots of songs. And those songs built up and built up and built up. And now here we are approaching the spring of 2021. This music's got to come out sometime. So last week alone, last two weeks, as a matter of fact, I received more than 800 pitches for new songs from publicists and labels and artists in my inbox. And that's just me, 800 per week. Who can go through all that stuff?

It's physically impossible. This is why we're mainly listening to what we love between the ages of 13 and 23. Because cutting through that, this is a lot of work to cut through the noise and find out what you like. Right. And this is why I always liked

your show and The Late Great Bookie. Strombo does a good job of this, but those who don't just play a song, but kind of give you the context and kind of curate it and kind of educate you as like, Oh, you know, this Iggy pop song that you might not know this influence,

that band that you grew up loving. Like it's that whole, and I know ongoing history of music does a very good job of this, which is why I listen. But, uh, that's, that's what i'm craving is somebody to give me that context and which is what radio used to do which was what fm radio used to do back in the day and this is the thing that i'm really really a big advocate of we need more radio announcers who can tell people why they need to give up the next four minutes of their life to this song right Because streaming is nothing but organized noise. It comes in one ear, goes out the other. There's no liner notes. There's no artwork. There's no one to tell you why the song or the sound or

the artist or the album is important. You either listen to it or you don't. If you are really interested in what I'm talking about, I did a TEDx speech in Winnipeg a couple of years ago. If you look up Alan Cross TEDx Winnipeg, it's called How Streaming is Killing Music. Right. We can't put the genie back in the bottle here. And I'm going to let James Patterson ask this question because James Patterson says,

please ask Alan how he thinks musicians will make up for the lost revenue once things open up again. He says, will they double up the prices of tickets, more NFTs, which at some point I have to learn what the hell that is about. I know enough just to be dangerous. But if you can't make the money on streaming, which is true for 99.9999% of artists,

then you got paid because I went to, I don't know, I went to Danforth Music Hall and I watched The Watchmen or something like that. And that can't happen. What the hell are they going to do? That's a really good question. They're going to tour. They're going to have to tour because that's where all the money is being made.

There's going to be more money with licensing for TV commercials and movie soundtracks and so on. There's going to be new variations of merch. There'll be new packages that you can purchase for VIP access. We hinted about NFTs, which is a really long story, and that could be a piece of artist revenue. But here's the issue that is not talked about enough. If you've been following what's been happening in the music industry,

you'll know that there are a number of companies that are buying up the publishing catalogs of some heritage artists. So Bob Dylan, for example, sold his stuff for like $400 million. The Imagine Dragons made $100 million. Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Brian Wilson, and the Beach Boys, David Crosby. You go on and on. So they're selling these songs to these big companies for millions of dollars. And these companies are then going to try to unlock the value of those songs so they

can make their money back and a profit. Meanwhile, the artists get to enjoy the fruits of future royalties now. And a lot of them are in their 60s and 70s. They've passed the best years of their lives. So they're just going to live out their lives in financial comfort. They can go on tour if they want to. They can just sit at home and do nothing, but they will be taken care of financially. So how are these big companies, and they have names like Hypnosis and Concord and Primary Waves, how are they going to make their money back when they've been spending all these dollars on buying these catalogs? And the fear is that we will be

on buying these catalogs. And the fear is that we will be absolutely awash in older music, be it for TV commercials or something, in order to make this money back. So one of the things that they may do is talk to younger artists and convince them to do covers of a classic song in which they would make the publishing on it. They would make the publishing on putting a song in a movie, in a TV show, and in a number of other places. So the fear is that with all these songs out there that need to be turned extremely profitable very quickly, that they will flood the marketplace,

basically smothering new musicians in the crib. Because these are the greatest songs of all time, the most popular, the most time-tested, the most favorite songs for generations. And again, remember that today's generation doesn't really discriminate based on era they will listen to it as long as it's a good song it could be the beatles from 1967 it can be justin bieber from last week right so they're they're they're primary uh targets of this heritage music now andrew ward actually he wanted me to ask you about this but you brought it up thank Thank you. But then he had a follow-up, which is,

is there a downside to artists who do this? Like Fleetwood Mac. I think my daughter fell in love with Dreams because of TikTok. Like, you know, it's kind of funny how young people are being exposed to the old music. But Andrew Ward, is there a downside for artists who sell off their catalogs and cash out? Not for them.

Because again, they're at the end of their careers. This is great for retirement. This is great for estate planning. And it's great because then they can focus on music without having to worry about it being commercially successful. They're getting all their money right up front, which takes care of them for the rest of their lives. The problem is, of course, is that we'll be flooded with their music

that is beyond their control so that companies like Hypnosis can make their money back. Wow. Okay. Now, Sean Hammond wants to know, kind of related, will live music thrive like never before post-COVID? Eventually, yes. I think we'll be a little bit hesitant to go back because I forget what it's like to go out for a restaurant meal. I can't remember.

I can't remember the last time I wore a shirt with buttons. I got basically five t-shirts in my rotation. And dress shoes? What's that? It's going to take us a while because we're going to be pretty skittish i think initially but eventually the enthusiasm is just going to overtake us and we're going to go back to normal i think the outdoor concerts will happen pretty quickly i think those indoor club shows will take

a little while till we're comfortable i think cramming into these palaces you know there's going to be you know government regulation and civic regulation on these sorts of things. You're going to have to have, you know, what are you going to do about masks? What are you going to do about sanitizing stations? What are you going to do about the staff? How are you going to protect them? What's capacity going to be? Are we going to go back to a hundred percent the way it used to be, or are we going to start at 25% and go to 50%?

And does that really matter in a place like these palaces where it was going to be jammed down front anyway? So there's a lot to think about. And really the best thing that we can hope for is large-scale immunity because of vaccines. Right, right. MySchoolRocks says, excellent, Mike. Alan Cross is a first

class guy, an institution, and fellow Rush fan. So MySchoolRocks is a big Rush fan. Could you please ask him if it would be possible to recreate slash reboot the 1980s CFNY vibe music, DJs, the work for satellite radio format? I would pay for that. His real name is Anthony K, by the way, My School Rocks.

Go ahead. One of the things that I would like to do, and there are a variety of reasons why it can't be done, is I would like to have a classic alternative HD channel for CFMY. So call it CFMY Spirit of the Radio and run an HD radio. That's a little bit difficult around here for a couple of reasons. First of all, nobody really knows about HD radio. Secondly, there is limited ability to use the HD broadcasting off the CN Tower. And we would need somebody

to program this full time. But that's a dream of mine, is yes, we would have it, but not necessarily on satellite radio, but on HD, which you can listen to. If you haven't bought a car in the last five years, you've got an HD radio in it. You just don't know it.

Interesting. I know David Marsden has his project, which kind of has part of the pun here, but the spirit of what we're talking about here, nythespirit.com. I know Ivor's involved there and some other... Danny Elwell, I think, is there now as well. Some former CFNYers.

Dan, I'm good. I know... Didn't I tell you, Alan, this wouldwell, I think is there now as well. So some former CFN wires, but, uh, Dan. Okay. And I'm good. I know. I know. I didn't, I tell you, Alan,

this would be a six hour podcast. No, I'm going to, I'm going to wrap up after a few more questions. I just want to just very, very quickly shout out some partners who helped make all this happen. So you're looking for that $400,000. I,

uh, I'm a, I work a little cheaper than that because I don't have to license the music. Didn't play any today. You noticed. And I want to thank some partners who helped make this happen. Great Lakes Brewery. That's fresh craft beer here in Southern, uh, Ontario, uh, Southern Etobicoke, I should say to be more specific.

Alan, next time I do see you in person, hopefully in the backyard in the summer, I will get you some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes. Palma Pasta. I know you're an Oakville guy. There's a location in Oakville. There's also locations in Mississauga. Really great family-run business. Shout out to the Petrucci family.

Palma is actually the matriarch of the family, Palma Petrucci. Authentic Italian food right down the street from you, Alan. Enjoy Palma Pasta. Sticker you.com. The Purple Onion. I know you know this musicologist alan cross but the purple onion was a coffee house in the early 60s in the yorkville area where you know you know uh joni mitchell before she was joni mitchell and uh i got basically a whole bunch of those folk

singers david crosby strolled by neil young i don't think played there but uh buffy saint marie did in fact she wrote Universal Soldier there. I just want to let people know I did an episode on Friday with Barry Witkin, who is one of the founders of the Purple Onion, and his son is Andrew Witkin,

who founded StickerU.com. So it's a crazy small world story, so you need to listen to the Purple Onion story. Thank you, Stick stickeru.com. If anyone's looking to outsource their IT department, you need to speak to CDN Technologies. You can contact Barb Paluskiewicz.

She's barb at cdntechnologies.com. Alan, I know you're happy in Oakville, but if anyone's looking at Mimico, which is not too far from where I live, it's a great neighborhood here. Speaking of Southern Etobicoke, Mike Majewski or Mimico, which is not too far from where I live, it's a great neighborhood here. Speaking of Southern Etobicoke, Mike Majeski or Mimico Mike, as I call him, he's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene in the know. And Mimico is his motto. And he certainly is. You can go to realestatelove.ca to learn more.

And Ridley Funeral Home, Brad Jones is the FOTM there. Just pillars of the community there They're at 14th Street and Lakeshore. That's actually the new Toronto area where I live. And you can pay tribute without paying a fortune and learn more at RidleyFuneralHome.com. I'm going to cherry pick some good ones here very, very quickly. Dan Spearan, who is an FOTM himself, he wants to know, what is your favorite Canadian woman rock star or band? Canadian woman rock star or band. I like Cara Fowler.

Who? I don't even think I know that act i remember the name of her her band damn it they don't exist anymore um i know that she's working with some other people that i know of that are going to be releasing albums on this note while you think i always think uh an underappreciated new rock artist who i always loved was holly mcnarland i felt like she yeah holly holly kind of disappeared. She went to be a mother and she doesn't do too much work on her own. There was a band called J.A.L.E.

Yeah, Out East, right? Out East from Halifax. They were a really good sort of grungy pop band. So I like them a lot. Oh, Pac-A.D. There we go. The Pac-A.D. Two women sort of in a white stripe sort of

situation uh the west coast some really fierce really good music uh so we'll go with that pack ad good and uh shout out to mimico uh resident uh biff naked who oh biff absolutely she live in mimico now yeah yeah she's been there for like five years now, I think. Oh, I love Biff. I know. She spent 35 years in Vancouver and then she, her and her husband, Snake, because when you're a cool rock star, guitar guy, your name's Snake,

they just up and moved to Mimico and that's where they are now. She was in Vancouver for the longest time. Yeah. 35 years she spent in Vancouver. So this one's a, okay. This is kind of interesting because in the Toronto Mike universe, we had a lot

of fun of this on twitter but if you were putting together your dream 1990s can rock festival today do you want to run off some names that you'd have on in the lineup for 90s can rock if you were putting together a festival this summer now if we go back to that time you have to remember that at any given moment there were about a dozen canadian bands that could uh man a festival and there there was a period and we have to remember this there was a period where we got really tired of them because there was the same bands over and over again but that being said it is 1996 i'm going to say okay so i would get uh i mother earth i just love that band i would get tragically hit you got to have them i would get sloan but insist that sloan stick to

the hits and not play all the b-sides and obscure album tracks uh i would probably bring in i would bring in the tea party simply because big bombastic um and i'm a fan of uh a fan of them sure and i wouldn't as an trying to think who else i would have let me ask you would you would you have for example uh would you have sort of like a head reunion with Hayden, maybe? Both head and Hayden would be good. How about real statics? Would you let real statics on the bill?

I think if we booked the Tragically Hip, they would insist that the real statics join them. I think they would come as a package. I guess the early stuff was CFNY stuff, actually, because I heard a lot of the early stuff. I don't mean real statics. I mean, I guess the early stuff was CFNY stuff, actually, because I heard a lot of the early stuff. Oh, yeah. No, I don't mean real stacks.

I mean, actually, the band, I haven't said the word yet, but Skydiggers is where my brain was going there. Like, yeah, we Skydiggers play a lot of shows for us, including some Christmas shows from what I remember.

And Caspies, too. Oh, yeah. I know the Pennymore. And of course, I will give you everything. That was the biggest one. I will give you everything. Just a couple more names, maybe. I have you everything where that was the biggest one i will give you everything uh just a couple more names maybe uh i have i have a bias here uh lowest

of the low oh undeniably yes there's a band that that you know had so much potential but then they basically if you talk to to anybody in the band they'll say that yeah you know we kind of we kind of self-destructed on this one see i think that think that's because Ron Hawkins is so cut from that punk cloth of self-sabotage your commercial success. You're absolutely right, of course. Yeah, he admits it now. After the Hallucigenia album, it just...

They had... That first record, Shakespeare, such a good record. Unbelievable. Hallucigenia was okay, but then they kind of lost the plot. I'm with you 100%. And I close every episode of this podcast with a cut from Shakespeare, My Butt.

That's how much I love that album. Real quick, rapid fire. Kara wants to know when you're done going through your CDs or cassettes. Oh, no, sorry. Can you go through your CDs or cassettes once you've done showing off your box set collection on Instagram? Oh, no, sorry. Can you go through your CDs or cassettes once you've done showing off your box set collection on Instagram?

Oh, God. I have a room downstairs I call the CD vault. And there's about 10,000 CDs in there. And there's just so jammed in. I could do it, but boy, we would be in there for a while. Malfurious has great memories

of the Dean Blundell show that kind of took over for Humble and Fred when they went to Mojo there in the, I guess, early 2000s. He wants to know how insane was the Steve-O incident? That was weird. That was really weird. We had basically lost control of these guests, the jackass guys and Steve.

And that was, Oh my God. And again, it's live radio. Yeah. You know, you couldn't stop it. And,

and, you know, I tried because they were getting way out of hand. And I was just thinking, Oh God, I'm going to get fired because I, I'm not controlling my radio station so that was a weird

weird episode Seismo just wants me to say he still vividly recalls walking across Young through College Park when CFNY debuted U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For he says CFNY playing in his FM

with cassette, obviously. Walkman at about 8.30am. So he's still got this vivid memory. And I think a lot of people, especially pre-internet, I know I still have a lot of memories of hearing a song for the first time on CFNY. Let me give you an example from the Joshua Tree.

This was March 1987. And the record label decided that they were going to hold an album listening event at the McLaughlin Planetarium. And so we trooped in there, and the lights went down, and Boy, the Streets Have No Name started to come on. And they projected a sunset over in the dome. And for that opening cinematic drone and they got darker and darker and darker and the stars came out and the stars came out and the stars came out and you're in the desert and then when the edge's guitar started to chime the dome begins to turn

the sky begins to turn and then when the drums come in the stars start flying over your head and it was like oh my god this is the greatest century experience i've ever had in my life and that record would go on to sell 30 million copies oh it's just a monster monster 51 51 photography says it was april 1st 1992 he's listening to 102.1. He's painting his first apartment, listening to the radio, and he hears from you, Alan Cross, that the Smiths, he writes, the friggin' Smiths are reuniting. So he loses

his shit, I guess, and then he notes at some point, he notes the month and day. It was April 1st. And he says he'll forgive you, but he'll never forget. Yeah, there was a time. I don't like April Fool's Day. I was told that I had to do that, I think.

Anyway, yeah, the Smiths, like The Clash, are two bands that have never got back together and never should get back together because that will destroy the mystique and the legend. Of course, the Smiths could reunite. The Clash will never do. We'll never get back together because you can't have the clash without Joe.

Right, right, right. Michael McAuliffe, I hope I said his name right, ask him when he's getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He thinks he should be in there. Based on some of the things I've said about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they haven't been all positive. The answer is never. Brian K

says, if you, Alan Cross, could permanently display a Musical Acts logo on your body, which logo would it be? Ooh, a logo. I would. Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, Martin Street could be proud to hear that answer right there.

Marcasaur wants to know how many pairs of headphones you own and do you have a favorite brand or model? Well, I'm looking around the studio here. There are one, two, three, four, five here in the studio. There's two more downstairs. There's one upstairs in the bedroom. Probably a dozen.

And it depends what I'm doing. If I'm listening to serious music, I have this really weird piece of gear that I bought at a hi-fi show. I can't't remember the name but if I'm working in the studio like I am right now Sony MD MDRs yes Sony MDRs I've used them for since the god the 80s they are tough they are accurate they are comfortable Alan here we are I promised a song from Shakespeare, My Butt. I close every episode of Rosie and Gray. But honestly, you kicked ass, you took names,

and I just want to thank you for, like I said, it's now been a decade of you being a really good sport. You always answer the email, you make time for us here on Toronto Mic'd, and I just want you to know I appreciate it, buddy. Oh, you're very welcome. You call me anytime, I'll be back. All right, I'll see you tomorrow.

to know I appreciate it, buddy. Oh, you're very welcome. You call me anytime. I'll be back. Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. And that brings us to the end of our 815th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Alan is at Alan Cross.

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 are at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Mimico Mike is on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes. See you all next week.

and wander around 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 and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.