Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Amin Bhatia: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1639

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

In this 1639th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Amin Bhatia about his life in music, appearing on Michael Jackson's Thriller album, his relationships with David Foster and Steve Porcaro, his work on television and his time in radio, specifically at CFNY 102.1 the Edge. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1639 of Toronto Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past.

Building Toronto's Skyline. A podcast and book from Nick Aini's sponsored by fusion for construction management Inc and Ridley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921 joining me today making his Toronto mic'd debut is a min Batia Batia. You know what? You gave me a trick. Yeah, sure. A thin tortilla, a min Batia. And I think I got like a nervous like a man. I'm nervous in your presence.

Uh, what a pleasure just to meet you. It's an honor to meet you, sir. I've, I've heard about you from so many people. Let's name those people. I got time. Let's go. Oh, let's see. Chris Pack, Rob Johnson, Alan Cross, Kim Hughes. I mean, most of the CFNY guys, right?

And then, of course, on the musician side directly, Arlene Bishop, Kurt Swirhanger, Chris Tate, Laurie Cullen. You know there's two Chris Tates. Do you know this? OK, this is a fun fact. I did not know this. No, I'm talking the Chris Tate from Laurie Cullen. Which, you know, there's two Chris Tates. Do you know this? Okay, this is a fun fact. I did not know this. No, I'm talking the Chris Tate from Chalk Circle. Of course, of course you are.

But there's actually two Chris Tates who are musicians in Toronto and worked for like agencies, like admin agencies. Oh my goodness. And I literally thought I was booking Chris Tate from Chalk Circle. And at the door was the other, who's a lovely

Talented he works closely with lowest of the low one of my favorite bands in all time Okay, like they're both great Chris Tate's, but I got the one I got the other one and I was surprised an audio producer I worked with for decades. Who's my mentor David Green? There are three David Greens in Toronto and one of them is an editor. Yeah, you know, yeah, you need like unique identifiers There's only one Toronto Mike, right? And there's only one thin tortilla. I'm in Batia. Nicely done.

Okay, I'm going to work on this. I think by the end of the episode, I'll get it right. But you did drop the name when you ran down that list. You dropped the name Arlene Bishop. Yeah. Okay, I find this to be a fun fact. Okay, so I've had Blair Packham on the show many times. Blair raves about his

ex-wife Arlene Bishop. Right. It's a nice friendship. It's a nice thing to see, actually. That's the model, right? I mean, if you can't make the marriage work, then you want to be good friends like that. And I've met Arlene's son, also Blair's son. I've met him. So I've been hearing about Arlene Bishop and I know Arlene Bishop as a very talented musician. Right. Always on my list to come on. And then she finally makes her Toronto mic debut and you do not come up in this conversation.

That's fine. Did you listen Arlene? Yeah, no, it's fine. I did. And I loved it. And you were interviewing Arlene the artist, which is exactly what it should be. Also what is fun to me is I had no idea she worked with you. Like it's not that I didn't bring you up, it's that I didn't know you were to be

brought up. And that is the multiple worlds that Arlene has and that's the way it should be. I was looking for a really solid right-hand person as things were starting to take off in my career and I just needed someone to handle you know everything from social media to a client and we had a studio for several years that we ran. And I'd seen her and Blair performing. I just loved them both as artists individually and together. And then she just replied and she says, why don't I do it?

And I'm like, you're Arlene Bishop. Like what are you talking about? She says, I gotta do something during the day. And she's brilliant. She's one of those rare right brain, left brain people that can come up with all this creative stuff but also be incredibly organized. So absolutely a large part of my success and my career is wonderful people beside me like Arlene and there's others, my wife Danielle and my two daughters. Yeah we need that list now. Yeah we need that. Okay my wife Danielle,

my two daughters Angela and Kelsey, their mom Rach now. Yeah, we need that. Okay, my wife Danielle, my two daughters, Angela and Kelsey, their mom Rachelle, who is a great mom to them. So we have this similar thing to Blair and Arlene by which there are, you know, ex-wives, ex-spouses. Oh, I got the same thing too. I got the same thing. Exactly, and you know what?

As you know, for the kids, right? Just, you can put all that stuff aside because it's these beautiful kids that we created. My two youngest kids have a different mother than my two oldest kids. And they call the mother of my two oldest kids, they call her T-Dog. And she's essentially like a character. She's a member of the family. Like it's all this modern family. Everybody gets along. And it's kind of... I can't say we're quite Arlene Bishop, Blair Packham, but we're working on that.

That's the goal, right? That's a high standard. So yeah, so Arlene Bishop working with you for many years, and I didn't know this and I had to, you know, she came by for her Toronto Mic debut recently. But meanwhile, there's this parallel, which you may know I'm interested in all things CF and why both the spirit of radio era and the 90s when I listened for the entire decade and that's where you'll come in come in soon but do you know I'm wondering if you even know how you came on my radar? I'm guessing it's possibly through Arlene but I also know that

you're connected to CFNY and I came into it just after the spirit of radio days so just as they were revamping and rebranding and the whole edge format. Who was the PD when you got there? Stuart Myers. Stuart and Myers and I went to college together. Oh wow. We were both in the broadcasting program

at SAIT, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. And it's, you know, as you know yourself, right, you stay in touch with people from high school, from college and things show up from the wildest of places. Well, I learned about you specifically because I produced the Humble and Fred show. And I got an email from Dan Duran. Oh, wow. So, Dan Duran wrote me about you.

And so, prior to knowing who you were, I mean, I, back in 2006 or five, in Humble Howard's old Matrimonial home where he had a box in his garage which was full of number one in 97 CDs He threw me other CDs that he he took with him when he left 640 for mix 99.9. So we're in 2002 or so maybe no Yeah around there 2002 or three or whatever but on the CD were all these IDs and all these stingers. And I ripped the CD to MP3s and I kept them on my computer and even before I produced Humble and Fred, I kept these stingers and IDs and I'll play some soon.

But I love these things, these 90, and when I play them for the listenership, they'll go, oh yeah, if you listen to CFY, you remember them. And then when I got the email from Dan Duran, and we booked you on Humble and Fred, and I think I reached out. That was great.

I had a link to some files that you had created, and I realized, oh, I have most of these from that CD I ripped from Humble Howard's garage in Oakville, and I realized, oh, that's you. And so you're not here at all because of Arlene Bishop. Like I only found that out well after you were in the calendar. She reached out and said, you won't believe this, but.

That's wild. These are all parallel happenings that were parallel. So I know I'm not starting with you at CFNY because I got an email from Rob Pruce. Do you Do you know the name Rob Bruce? That's a familiar name. Give me more spoons romantic traffic keyboardist for spoons right in the glory days and I was saying you were coming on and I mentioned the CFY connection and this is what Rob wrote me Don't bury the lead on a thin tortilla, Amen Batia.

So you have to say them back to back. I'm gonna speak up. Okay. He played synth on Thriller. Please ask him all about working with Toto and Michael Jackson. Before you say a word. I was just telling my wife about Amen Batia. His name is one of those

magical names I will forever remember from faithfully reading album credits on the inside of a record, especially with Thriller. There were so many contributions to those songs. I always remembered Amin's name then, and I would see him mentioned in Keyboard Magazine, a technical music magazine which I read every single month, ever since I was 11 years old. He did so many interesting musical twists and turns, but always at the forefront of synthesis and electronic music. I mean, I don't even know exactly where to start, but maybe I'll just play a little bit

of this song right here just play a little bit of this song right here just a little bit. It's not Halloween but we can play it. I'm going to know everything, man. Like, what does Rob mean? You are on this song? Is that like talking? Well, you've obviously prepped a whole bunch of material. First of all, Rob, thank you. My goodness. I grew up reading liner notes for Wendy Carlos and Tamita and Steve Ficarro and David Page. So it's very nice to be, you know, liner note idol to someone.

Rob's talking about the album thriller, right? And you just played the title track. You played the title track. If you have the whole thing there, you could look up The Girl Is Mine, which is Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. Oh, we're going into Google and well, that's all right. I'm going to have some of this hop-hop, this wonderful...

From Great Lakes Brewery. From Great Lakes Brewery. Part of your good record. Yeah, I have that and then we're going to hear in a moment, The Girl Is Mine. I played the title track, but he means the album thriller. Okay, now it's all coming together here. So I did all my homework. It's a small contribution. I don't have an Arlene Bishop working with me, so I have to make my own

mistakes here. But that shows up about four or five times on the on the on the track. The vocalize it. Can you vocalize it? That little thing at the very top. It shows up a couple more times in the song. So do you appear in the credits for the album Thriller? Oh, I wish. No, I was an intern for David Foster.

So it's a mixed blessing of thank you, Foster for introducing me to LA and and David Foster Why didn't you put my credits on the album? I am credited on keyboard magazine Rob talked about that and I think I think at the time keyboard was talking about How they used eight keyboardists on Thriller which at the time was unbelievable That have that many keyboard people involved and I guess technically I'm the eighth one So this song if you look it up later on, there's a song by Lionel, is it on Lionel Richie's album? No, it was on someone else's, Al Jarreau's album. And it's a song called Mornin' and it's based on an instrumental track that David Foster was playing.

David had heard some of my earlier tapes from a Roland competition and he really liked the synths and the tape things that I was doing and so he flew me to LA I lived in his house for a week and he had a 24 track studio in his basement you lived in David Foster's home for a week I did in David Foster's home for a week thank you David I would have you on just for that okay we could just talk about tears are not enough that's some pretty amazing actually the thing I think is amazing is when he had Natalie Cole singing with Nat King Cole. What a brilliant idea and how beautiful that must have been for her, you know, for his daughter to be singing with her dad, you know, through the magic of tape.

I thought that was his, he's an amazing guy. He's absolutely amazing guy. But this little effect was actually meant for another song. And, you know, when you're in a studio and you gotta quickly come up with something to please, you know, Quincy, he just grabbed this from that. It's a sample, I guess, if you will. They tried to recreate it, but they didn't know what the synth was. So they just used that. I can tell you now officially it is a Jupiter-8 synth. And everybody wondered about the sequencer that was used because the Jupiter 8 doesn't have a sequencer and how did you get multiple voicings on the Jupiter 8? Quite simply, it's a pair of notes.

I just basically played a major triad chromatically coming down. So everybody was trying to duplicate it on sequencers and computers and stuff, but I basically just kind of played it in, this bell-like sound They should have credited you. I would have been yes. It would have been nice. It would have been nice Did you receive a? Did I what? Receive a penny? No. I heard that album sold a few units

I know I know but you know what Eddie Van Halen I think did a solo and I think he's still waiting to be paid so you know I joined the line of Amazing session players that yeah, there's a few times. We're, you know, I joined the line of amazing session players that, yeah, there's a few times where we're like, you know, why didn't we invoice for that thing? How is that hop pop from Great Lakes? Hop pop from Great Lakes is absolutely amazing. And even for someone who is not a beer drinker,

I'm looking at the camera now. Even for someone who's not a beer drinker, I find this light and refreshing. And this is the non-alcoholic version? Yeah, there's no alcohol in there. So it's not, technically that's not a beer. It's a hot pop. It's beer beer.

For the non people who don't want alcohol and want to have a tasty beverage at Great Lakes, that's a great option. I'm just gonna crack open burst. I broke the rule. You were gonna get me to do that and I didn't. You know what? I butchered your name in my passive aggressive response

to that. So, okay. So I'm gonna enjoy my burst here There we go. So now I need to know how the hell do you end up living with David Foster? like maybe bring me even further back and get us to there and Yeah, and then eventually we'll get you to radio. I got a lot of questions for you, man the music thing I'm so self-conscious when I say this because I know there are people out there who are studying valiantly to get into music and they have 12 years of piano and theory and you know and have studied all the masters and they're trying to find their break and For me, it was sound and tape and radio. And that was the day job.

That's where I studied the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and my plan was to go into radio. Where were you living? Edmonton? This is Calgary. Calgary, okay, my wife's from Edmonton, so I just assume all Albertans are from Edmonton. That's all right, it's a lovely city.

We both help each other now. We used to be rivals, but I think over the years, Calgary and Edmonton have realized, hey, we're better together. So Calgary was ahead of the curve in hating Gretzky. Like I remember, we all loved Gretzky cause I was a leaf fan. We had a terrible team and Gretzky was out winning all these cups for Edmonton champ, the city of champions. But the Calgarians, uh, rooting for the flames,

hated him then. And like, how do you hate Gretzky? Well, I caught up to them. I'm a bit mad at Wayne Gretzky. This is my way of saying, I now understand what the Calgary Flames fans were thinking back in the 80s here. It's wild. That's wild. So yeah, radio job, but I loved, I mean, gosh, it was, you know, as a kid,

Fred introduced me to synthesizer. I started hearing synthesizer music. Wendy Carlos did this album called Switched on Bach, which is all this classical Bach stuff, but it was done on a synthesizer. This weird, amazing sound. And then a Japanese artist, Issei Otomita, he started doing all these classical pieces

by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, and they're all done on synths. I thought, this is amazing. So playing those albums for my dad, and bless his heart, he was like, well, maybe we should try and get you one. So my mom and dad, we went to the music store. My dad had no idea the cost of the thing. A Minimoog is like $2, maybe we should try and get you one. So my mom and dad, we went to the music store. My dad had no idea the cost of the thing,

a mini mo is like $2,000. And my dad was like, what? And my mom was like, look, you know, we're not giving him a giant university degree. He's going to technical college. Let's figure something out. So God bless them. They went into their credit card.

And remember that's 2000. And what are we in early eighties? Where are we? We are early, yeah, we're 1978. Okay, that 2000 was a lot of bucks back then. Yeah, there was what, sorry? $2000 back then was a lot more than $2000 today. It was huge, it was a lot, it absolutely was a lot.

I'm now thinking, right now I'm thinking if my 10 year old came to me and said he wanted one and the price tag was whatever $2000 is today, that's quite a lot of money. It's a lot, bless his heart. So you have good parents in there. Wonderful parents, they were wonderful to me. So it was a combination of synths and tapes

and making strange sounds, and because I worked with tape and because I loved all this orchestral stuff, I started building these small pieces of music that got to the attention of a lot of people. I played it for my friends, I played it for my sister, Anissa. I played it for my friends, Dennis Quinn, Dave Kletke, Bruce Ellert. And they all started saying, we really like this. You should keep doing more of this.

And then Roland synthesizers, bless them, they have a synthesizer competition. So I was working on some music for a radio play of a college friend of mine, Linda Falcon, was working on this sci fi thing. So I'd started prepping some music for. So I put a five minute thing together and I submitted it to the Roland synth competition and it won. But just as importantly, the judges on the competition were Oscar Peterson. They were, Tamina was part of it.

Bob Moog was one of the judges. And then Ralph Dyke, who is a producer, programmer, who worked at Roland in Vancouver. He was the one that got my winning tape. And he was the one that introduced me to David Foster and he introduced me to Steve Baccaro. Wow, so total fame. Shout out to Stu Stone, who will be here Wednesday.

That's like his favorite. Oh, very cool, very cool. The David Foster, there's been several times I've had a chance to go to LA. And because a lot of people ask me, why aren't you in LA? You're doing all this shit. And you have all these accolades like, why are you not in LA? There were three times in my life that I could have gone to LA. And that first one was David Foster. David was like,

how are you doing what you're doing with a minimo? And, you know, let me fly you down here. OK. So he flew me down. I sat in a recording session. He picked me up and he said, you know, I just have to help a friend of mine. You don't mind, right? Just hang around in the studio while I'm helping this friend.

I said, sure, of course. It's your dime. You've picked me up, you do whatever you want. And his friend was Burt Bacharach. And his friend, Carol Baer-Sager. And their friend Neil was coming over to sing this song called Heartlight. And there I was in the recording session for, you know,

the Heartlight song by Neil Diamond. And it was very, very overwhelming. And David was like, just sit in that chair right there. That chair right there, just sit there and just watch. I said, no problem. I'm watching this and watching him try out things and stuff like that. And then this person comes up and screams at me.

He says, get the out of my chair. Well, you can swear on this show a minute. Can I? Get the fuck out of my chair. There you go. Da da da da. It was Neil Diamond. Of course.

I had, David had accidentally put me in Neil Diamond's chair. So that's a nice way to start. And then someone shows up. That's a story you can tell for the rest of your life. Well, someone shows up and says, hey, there's this car that's double parked, we gotta move it. Whose car is that? Oh, that Someone shows up and says, hey, there's this car that's double parked. We gotta move it.

Whose car is that? Oh, that's David Foster. Oh, you, you. So like 48 hours after winning the synth competition, I am moving David Foster's car from one parking lot to another. The whole thing was very, very intimidating. I did not at that time, did not have music theory.

I didn't learn. I had perfect pitch. I learned to read. To know, to this day, I'm still better music by ear than by sight reading. And in LA, it's all about, you know, session players and you gotta have this and you gotta have this and you gotta have this. And I just got grilled, like David was wonderful,

but all of David's people were like, okay, so where did you study? Oh, you didn't study. Well, then why are you here? You know, it was very, very overwhelming. And because I was in all this classical stuff, that's not really David's thing, right? He was doing, you know, Al Jarreau, and he was doing, you know, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and stuff. So we parted amicably and he thanked me, but we didn't really think much else

would come from it. But I have to thank Steve Picaro because it was Steve Picaro years later that had heard my stuff and he said, I want to bring you to LA. And at first I turned him down. I was like, yeah, thanks. Done it. stuff and he said, I wanna bring you to LA. And at first I turned him down. I was like, yeah, thanks, done it, no thank you. I found the whole thing intimidating. And Steve was like, if I leave you alone in a studio, can you create music? I said, yeah.

He said, that's stuff you play for me. That's not anyone else, that's you. I said, yeah. He says, then what's the damn problem? David Page's wife, Lorraine, wonderful lady. And she asked me, she says, where did you study? And I said, well, I didn't really study. And she just went, don't, just don't.

And over the years, I mean, now we have a lot of composers. We have Hans Zimmer, we have Danny Elfman, we have all these amazing musicians who don't read music, and that's fine. But when I was getting into the scene, if you didn't have that kind of stuff down, was gonna take you seriously so that first trip in LA was terrible the second trip to LA was with Steve Picaro which changed everything I got to work on the Fahrenheit album the Toto people they

are I think of them as gods that walk among us you know as you've heard from anybody that's talked to you about Toto, they are brilliant, like galactically amazing human beings. But they are also humble and they always want to learn and they are the nicest people ever. So the second time around, what an amazing launching pad that was. Okay, so which time around was the piece you composed that ended up on The Girl Is Mine?

That was the first time around. Okay, that's the first time around. That was me trying some things for David Foster that suddenly showed up on the Michael Jackson album. Okay. But first, did it show up on an Al Jarreau song? Is that what you said? Or was it intended to be? I went back to my humble little radio job working at CFCN Radio in Calgary, and you

would know this. The job was to take the 45s that come in every week from the record companies and take the thing and put it on and then record it over to CART, which is an endless loop, right? If your kids ever misbehave, you can get them the thread CART. But you know, I only know this from talking to people like you.

I bet you've never seen this in action. Yes, from old people, yeah. People my age. But that's when I heard it. That's when I heard that little thing on this Michael Jackson thing. And my first thought was, oh my God, they ripped us off. And it was David says, no, no, I just grabbed a sample

and I gave it to them. And I was like, oh, well. You know, it's not too late, the lawyer up here. I mean, like we could contact Lauren Honigman after this program. I don't know. I just know it sold a few units. You know what?

He's amazing. I don't want to make any trouble. I just, yeah, it'd be nice to get a portion of it, but you know, how much, you know, what's that, what's, what's that going to involve? So, and he did fly me down. I know I go through this. Yeah, I didn't realize you'd go into this today,

but yeah, I go through this all the time and I go back and forth on it. So maybe there's a way to figure it out. Maybe David is hearing this and you know, buddy, just send a little thing my way. Just, just, you know, it's just a little paperwork. You know, this is, I wasn't planning to do this, but it's sitting on my, no, it's nothing to do with you

actually, but it's David Foster, which is that somebody listens to Toronto Mike and knows I talk about Tears Are Not Enough all too often. And they were at the recording and this was handed out at the recording, like, I'll let you, so this is basically, because I know you'll, at some point we'll do a gift exchange like they do at these international tournaments or something like that.

But basically this was like everybody who was at the recording of Tears Are Not Enough and David Foster was tapped on the shoulder by Quincy Jones, I guess at a Grammys or something. Or I can't remember, I guess it was Grammys. But it's just, David Foster's a guy I would love to talk to. Have you had any contact of David Foster? You know what, every few years, you know,

I see him at something or whatever. It's really not kind of nice because I go visit him backstage and all these people say, no, no, no, you know, I see him at something or whatever. It's really not kind of nice because I go visit him backstage and all these people say, no, no, no, you can't. And then David goes, oh, I'm in, let him in, you know? So that's nice. It's been a while actually, to be honest. But yeah, every decade or so,

I get a chance to say hello to him. Look at all these contributors and gold patrons and stuff. Yeah, so why are you showing me this as if I don't feel bad enough already? It's tied to, yeah, you should have been invited to that recording is what I'm telling you and you and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Steve for Carl, listen to my stuff and said you are amazing. I said Steve, I would love to learn from you. He says,

Are you kidding? I'm learning from you. I re texted three days ago. Um, and and he just think I was thanking him for something else. And whenever I talked to Steve, I was like, thank you for my career. And he just said, thank you. I learned more from you than you've ever learned from me. God bless him. Last time I played audio, I pulled, I had the wrong song

because I knew you were on Thriller. And I just thought of the track. Yeah, no, it's something completely understood. Well, I'm glad we got the girl is mine. And from now on, whenever an FOTM and you're now an FOTM, I mean that's a friend of Toronto Mike, but whenever an FOTM hears the girl is mine and it's still heard all the time they'll hear that part and they'll say that's FOTM. That's a 19 year old geek on a Jupiter 8. That's a 19 year old geek on a Jupiter 8 and that's a thin tortilla,

I mean batilla. Okay I going to play another song for you here as we enjoy our GLB. So let's listen in the headphones. The I mean, what are we listening to? We are listening to the Interstellar Suite, which is an album that was done by Cinema Records, which Steve connected me to. That album is all analog synthesizers, so there's no samplers. There's no real instruments, but there's no fakery of real instruments, which is what I'm really proud of. It's very weird.

This doesn't happen often where someone plays me my music and I just sit there and smile. This is very weird, like an audition. Um, but yeah, this is, this was the next step of my evolution, getting into film music, getting into adventurous orchestral classical music, but using synthesizers. That was, that was my double life. So it was going back and forth between radio, which is very extroverted and silly and fun and theater and all that stuff. And then this film music world, which is very insular, which is very personal and very Star Trek-y, like I am the ultimate Trek-y.

And so these two worlds have just coexisted side by side and I've always wanted to get more and more into the sci-fi world and doing more and more things along that line. This record label folded very quickly unfortunately so the album wasn't out there very long. It did get the right attention from the right people and then thanks to the internet I started getting fan mail off the internet from people alike. So we then, you know, I brought in a few other people and years later I'm still fighting with Capitol to get the rights back. So they like sub-licensed it to me. And a few years ago, I got the great engineer Frank Maroney to remix the album in 5.1.

So if you like it like that, when you hear it with multiple channels and... So Amin's going into his gift bag. He's like Santa Claus here. And I'm giving you a Blu-ray DVD. Oh, the Interstellar Suite. And since you've been researching it, this is a nice little book that comes along with it. They'll tell you all about it. Steve Picaro's in there.

In fact, Steve wrote liner notes, bless his heart. Wow, okay. This is, thank you so much. Honored. You know what, I didn't know if I was, I wondered if I was to bring it or not, because I didn't know if you were going to get into the Interstellar Suite stuff.

I knew we were going to talk about the radio side. At some point, if I don't know if I was wondering if I should bring it or not because I didn't know if you were gonna get into the Interstellar Suite stuff. I knew we were gonna talk about the radio side. At some point, if I don't get to something you want me to get to, just interject, man. I'm like, I missed that. I missed, Arlene Bishop was in this basement recently and your name didn't come up, which is, you're right, we were focusing on other things. It's all about Arlene, that's fine.

She could've interjected that and I would've been like, oh my God, I just corresponded with him thanks to Dan Duran, he was on Humble and Fred, blah blah blah blah and then all good. But when she mentioned you later and she told me she says, Toronto Mike wants to interview you, so again, thank you Arlene yet again, which connects us through multiple things. But you know this right, there's so many connections that happen in so many different places. I'm gonna blow your mind with one in just a second, but I don't want to bury the lead that the Interstellar Suite, is that what it's

called? Okay, yep. You have a couple of solo, you have like how many solo albums do you have? Technically, Virtuality. Virtuality, yeah Virtuality was the second album which was this one was all about going to outer space so the virtuality one was all about going inside a computer and and you know doing music that way was kind of you know this one was like Star Wars so the other one was like Tron. Okay, it's funny. We just kicked out space jams on we do this monthly toast where we we kick out thematic jams and we just did space jams. We just have it in the wrong order. I would totally be playing the interstellar suite if we were doing it next next month.

But my goodness I feel like okay, so I just want to understand the radio because you mentioned the two streams but on the radio stream you're still on the radio in Alberta back and forth. Yeah, I have to ask question because we're in radio and I'm looking at the clock How much time do we have? How long are we doing this? I didn't even think I thought Arlene would hit you hit you up that I takes take as long as I freaking want You're not allowed to leave. Why do you have a dentist appointment? No, not at all. It's just again having grown up in radio I'm waiting for the next break I'm waiting for a clock to count down like so you're my second episode of the day

Did you and you you popped in just to see what was going on when I had Bruce Davis? Who's we talked about the shelter that's coming to 66 third Street a few weeks ago I was an hour of your okay So I always think when someone when a guest is coming on, I said, I already know before we sit down, this is 60 to 90 minutes, depending on how verbose you wanna be. Because I don't think we could do your career justice in, I don't know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

Okay. Do you think that the great thin tortilla, amen, but yeah, it's funny how I think I have like a, I'm not a learning, I think there's something where I can't, because I do butcher a lot of pronunciations. And I I think there's something where I can't because I do butcher a lot of pronunciations And I actually think there's something there I should maybe Arlene Bishop can help me out with that she's discovered more about about herself in her Absolutely in her later years, but there's something there. All good. I have bottom line is as you're doing this mnemonic you are pronouncing it

Perfectly correctly. So it's fine. As long as you're okay the fact I'm gonna say Holy fire before I'm in but Batia before every single time. I don't care what you call me, just call me. But when you're on a show, let's say Humble and Fred because you are Humble and Fred. So I think that was 15 minutes. Yeah, probably something like that. So in 15 minutes, do you feel like the listenership

will understand your complex career and the different streams and everything? You're very, no, I don't think so. I don't even understand. It's been so. And I'm not criticizing Hummel and Fred because the Hummel and Fred show, the way I look at it,

because I've been presenting that show for a long time, the Hummel and Fred show is, it's about Hummel and Fred. Like they're the stars of the Hummel and Fred show. Absolutely. I don't ever think that the, that I am the star of the Toronto Mike podcast. I think I'm here to shine a light on you and extract as much thin tortilla from you as I can.

That's very kind of you and it is a big part of your success because you have a genuine interest in people. So it's an honor to be here talking to you. It's just back and forth for me. It has been really schizophrenic. As I look back on things, I was in radio, then I got into this music thing and some of it worked out, some of it didn't. I'd go back to radio and then I'd come back again I was in Vancouver for a while with Z95 working with Brad Phillips that happened after my after my second daughter was born and we were trying to start to make a living in Vancouver but then David Green called from Toronto because he heard my tapes and I started

to get more and more work in Toronto so we ended up coming up to Toronto and my first wife did not like Toronto and I think it get more and more work in Toronto. So we ended up coming up to Toronto and my first wife did not like Toronto and I think it contributed to some of the divorce. Yeah, that's tough, yeah. But it's been all over the place and then every now and then things go dry. So when they go dry, I'm like, well, let me go back into radio.

So CFNY was that time where in 92, 93, I was in between a whole bunch of different TV shows and things were a little slow. And Stu Myers called and said, I was in between a whole bunch of different TV shows and things were a little slow and and Stu Myers called and said, you know, you've got some spare time. Why don't you help us with some radio stuff? And how did Stu know you again? We'd gone to college to yeah, I should remember that It's all good. It's all good. It's two miles I did once ask Stu Myers is a daughter to come on this program when she was on CF and why she was on the radio

Here. Oh very cool. Carly Meyers yeah and then uh... I'm terribly sorry what is it that Carly did how she connected other than his daughter? Carly was an on-air uh DJ voice of uh she was on air at uh 102.1 so uh I did want to I do like to speak to the radio people and uh she politely turned me down, but you didn't and you're here now. Carly don't, he's amazing. He's kind. He'll give you 90 minutes to talk about your life.

Well, now she's out of town. You could talk about your dad. You could do therapeutic stuff about your dad. I invited her dad on as well. And he also kind of didn't feel up to it. Stu is a visionary. He's very quiet. He's always been like that.

If he's like, I just saw the specialist, Saturday night special. He's like Lorne Michaels, you know, something goes really well. He's always been like that. If he's like, I just saw the specialist Saturday night special. He's like Lauren Michaels, you know, something goes really well. He's like, I praise. Yeah. Okay. Good. And he smokes out the room. That's like that since college. You know, who had very high praise for Stu Myers. Uh, when I had him over was George stromble. Opel is of course. Okay. Let me throw this in.

George got me coffee once cause he was one of the earliest technicians on humble and Fred and I was doing a lot of radio production and one particular time as he is known to be so kind he was doing a coffee run he said you need anything so George Strombopoulos got me coffee it's it's such a small world because he the he was on the fan 590 doing all nights there and he was on with like Jeff Merrick and they had a show but he was chatting up Stu Myers because he wanted to get you he wanted to get on 102.1 and Stu gave him an opportunity at 102.1 and the rest is

history. The rest is history. Okay and shout out to Bob Makkowitz Jr. who was also on that show on the fan 590 because Bob Makkowitz Jr.'s father was the program director and that's how the you know the world works right you get some time over nights it helps when your buddy's dad is the PD can't can't can't hurt you can't hurt I think you still got to have talent you know what all this nepotism different people find different ways to get you're not gonna last long like it's a combination of whatever your skills are and then how well you work with people oh without a doubt strong will very talented guy made a great career out of himself and Merrick as well

who's had a good career, but here's a Voicemail not really. It's a recording made by an FOTM When he heard you were dropping by you ready? Yeah, you're here here and it goes a couple honest you heard that show. This is your life That's what it is. You're doing like oh, we can't be this is your you remember that show, This Is Your Life? That's what it is you're doing. Like, oh, it can't be. This is your life, Toronto. Okay, okay. So you mentioned it was the early 90s

when you got a job at 102.1 The Edge. And here I'm gonna play it, but I will just let you know, we run a couple of minutes. This guy, if he's listening, maybe like 30 to 60 seconds on these, but I'm gonna play the whole thing because that's the kind of show this is. Here we go.

Okay. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man.

Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man.

Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Man. Amin Bhatia, it's your good friend, Robbie Jay.

When I saw Mike was having Amin on, I thought, thank God, because Amin is a bloody genius. I can't stress how incredible this guy is. I'll give you a little bit of a story here of why Amin is so incredible. So I'll take you back to 83 Kennedy Road South in Brampton. This was, oh, some 30 years now, 30 years ago now in early to mid 1995. So you want to add music to this now.

I was brought in as a part-time producer to take on the role that Craig Venn had vacated when he left to go to the fan. And I was given the opportunity and working with Jim McCordy and the incredible creative team of Rob Baird, Jamie Watson, Karen Fisher. And Amin was in from time to time to fill in for Jim

when Jim was on vacation. And this is when I got to know Amin. Keep in mind in these days we were editing on multitrack, a track multi master tape with quarter inch tape to record voice track and stuff onto. And I would watch Amin produce stuff there and I was just in awe. He would take the multitrack, he would overdub to you know quarter inch tracks onto it back and forth, cutting things, layering them in, using the outboard processors. It was freaking magical and for me, you know, a pretty

wet behind the ears producer, I just kind of watch in awe in the background and I don't think a man really understood everything I was absorbing from it, but I would say confidently. I owe a lot of my creativity and thinking to watching, observing, and listening to a men in those days. Because what I learned from a men and Jamie Watson and Jim and others is push the envelope, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just challenge yourself. Cause that's going to challenge the client and that's going to challenge the listener.

And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but you'll never know unless you just get out there and give her a go and give it a challenge and, uh, see what your skillset is and just keep building on it. So I'm in, I don't know if I've ever said it, but thank you, thank you, thank you for being a truly inspirational producer, mentor, and incredible guy. Rob Johnston. My wife and kids make bets as to what can make me cry. That just did it. God, Rob, thank you. I think Rob's amazing and we talk from time to time.

I had no idea I was that much of an influence. I am honored to be part of your success, Rob. Thank you for calling. I don't know what this means to anybody else, but that was a beautiful two minutes. Thank you for playing it, Mike. Oh, happy too. I wasn't going to edit that. And all the people he talked about, they're all friggin' amazing people. And you know this, you build a great team around you.

You build, you know, you have, you surround yourself with wonderful people and magic happens. He mentioned the name Jamie Watson. Oh, Jamie's amazing. What a riot, what a fun guy he is. I knew him back in the Calgary days as well. Yeah.

Another guy who won't come on, but he says he won't do any podcasts. So don't don't take it seriously, Mike. Why? I don't know. If you can talk him into it. Here's what I want to talk to him about. You ready? Yeah.

And I have to mimic it because I don't have it loaded up or anything. So you're ready? Don't want to be flabby anymore. Don't want to be a fat guy. Rubbery, blubbery, out of shape dude. Look at me, I'm a pear. It, you know. That's him, right?

It's him. Jamie could just rattle off anything and everything. He's wonderful. Maybe what you can do is, I mean, based on this lovely studio you have with a low ceiling, but maybe get a whole bunch of CF and white people together And I've you heard that one oh two one no I have not and I need to now know that I need to now Yeah, I think I ran down the list on that one and Robbie J's on that one no Jamie obviously, but okay

Humble and Fred are on that one. I mean me pots is on there pots great Alan cross On there we can bring Rob Baird and Karen Fisher back from Los Angeles. Maybe they can join us too. I'll zoom them in. But that would get Jamie on board. Okay. You know what? I'll do that. I'll get them all. And you'll be in studio for that? Not bad. I'll be wherever you want me to be, buddy. Because we'll get those remotes. We'll pipe them in through Zoom and maybe get you and Jamie in the basement. And let's do this. That'll be wonderful. Jamie's amazing. Here's some Jamie, I believe. Let let's do this. That would be wonderful. Jamie's amazing. He really is. Okay. Here's some Jamie, I believe.

Let's listen to this. So those are the kind of like IDs I was talking about earlier on this. It's such fun with those. So you're the sound designer for those? Yeah. In some cases, like some people wonder that I played guitar and did all that stuff. No, no. In many cases, a lot of bands, if you listen to the song, in a lot of songs there's an instrumental break, right?

And in other cases, when they're promoting a song, the radio station gets multiple mixes of a song. So they'll get the song that everybody knows, but sometimes they'll get an instrumental version. And they do that. So you have commercials. And so you can talk about this next album coming up, brought to you from whatever. They give you an instrumental track. So we used that sometimes and then found whatever talent we could find in the hallways of CFNY to kind of either voice something or Marla who did traffic Marla I terrible can't remember her last name.

I've had correspondence with Marla and now Marla. Yeah what's her terrible last name. I'll kind of Google it during in a moment here. So Marla would be one of the people who would you'd recruit to be. Yeah and she had this so for some of the female voice stuff. She would be the voice on that In a couple of rare cases. I think I did create some tracks We once did a Tori Amos ripoff thing and I think for that I played a whole bunch of piano I think the idea they got Tory to sing humble and Fred and

So I vamped the piano around all of that and and I got to play with Tori Amos. Of course, she doesn't know So love Tori Amos, but I she doesn't know. So love Tori Amos but she doesn't know. I'll tell her don't worry. But I just googled I can't remember I googled Marla traffic CFNY and my own site. Okay so she's Toronto Mike dot com is the source now for this. Oh I think is Marla MacGyver's which is a Star Trek character. So we're gonna get this right here. Hold on here. Marla West. Oh god I'm sorry Marla.Gyver's which is a Star Trek character so we're gonna get this right here hold on here Marla West oh god I'm sorry Marla I remember every wonderful thing about you I'm getting really bad at last names for some reason it's really weird I'm mildly amused by the fact that I hit up the

Google machine and I searched for something I'm looking for and I'm my own source like isn't that interesting phenomenon okay I'm not nearly, I got lots more CFNY stuff for you, but okay so Robbie J with that beautiful piece he recorded for you, he opened it with this. I'm gonna play not his version but another version I have. That last chord is me on synth. I think I brought some of my synth stuff up to CFNY and so I did some of that stuff. All the other stuff is just random production library that we found from all sorts of things. And it's funny what Rob was talking about as far as layering and things like that. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I would just fly onto reel to reel tape. And we had a two track tape machine,

and I still think I can play tape machine better than I can play keyboards. Like you just queue things up and know, you learn how to back time reels. That's one of the things I taught Toto. They'd never seen that before. The idea of back timing a reel and seeing how many revolutions it takes

to get to a downbeat. And, you know, I mean, DJs do this all the time, but there I was teaching Toto tape machine tricks, which is pretty wild. And actually, so I like this ongoing history of the ongoing history of new music theme song we're doing right here, this deep dive here. So I'm gonna play it again.

So it's just like stuff. It's stuff. The really fast rapid fire stuff, the CD players were just starting to get into that search function So we just grabbed you know a production library thing and put it in and just and then and hit the skip button Right then you because we were trying to do a history of music right so you know which piece of music do you pick? So I thought a whole bunch of them so Right and then you just have with your synth you hit a note

Yeah, yeah, big thing at the end. And we needed a vocal swoop. So we got that from some library somewhere. And then there was one more time. The radio swoop at the beginning, that's that's me on a mini-mode as well. We did that. Did you know they'd still be needing that theme in 2025? I did not. I did. They celebrated a thousand episodes. I know, I know. And bless Rob and Alan's heart. They invited me. I was part of the live audience. In fact, we chatted

for a while. Where was my invitation? I mean, come on. I guess you have to do more than just listen. Okay. So that makes sense. Okay. But yeah. Now that you've said yeah, I'm sure you invited. Well, I had, I had Robbie J and Alan Cross in the basement to talk about the, uh, like the anniversary. Oh, okay. Music, right? Still didn't get an invite. Come on. But it was, I don't know what to say. No, I'm just trying to cause some shit here because that's part of the fun here, but that, I will say that song for many, uh, I want to, I was going to say, a Gen X, but it's probably, I know it's gone beyond Gen X. I have been, I received a communique from Rob and Alan and they said, please give Mike some historical stuff. So this is a glossy brochure from 1994. Wow. In 94. It's in my little CFNY binder that I have, which I thought I'd bring to show you. This is for you. Wait, do I get to keep that or do I get to just read it?

You can read it and you can keep it. That is a rare, glossy brochure. I'm going to find space here beside the 1986 shoppers drug mart, Blue Jays calendar, I'm going to make some space for this. Well, there you go. Oh, yeah, I know. I dig it here. And here's like a concert presentations here. Oh, this is of the of the moment. And I was listening in 1994, of course. I needed to hear more Green Day.

So please take that as an apology from Al-Ali. It's funny when you say we have a communique, because you know what I think about? It's a wonderful life at the end. When we got a, what's it called, Western Union? What are they? Telegram. We have a telegram from whomever or whatever says to wire $20,000 immediately It'll stop. It's like you get the the instant communicate via Telegram to save George Bailey and the savings and loans. That's what I think about right there So change of heart so I see change of heart here and I have tickets to see change of heart They have their first new album in 27 years and I'll be seeing them in April

I'm gonna Gary Avenue here and I see killjoys. I have their first new album in 27 years and I'll be seeing them in April on Geary Avenue here. And I see Killjoys, I've had many Killjoys on here. This is my cup of tea I'm in. Oh good, I'm glad. Thank you. I wanted to bring something nice for you. No, you're kind, much kinder than that Robbie J. and Ellen Cross, my goodness gracious.

Let's, yeah, I'm outta there. I'm gonna play some stuff randomly and you can just, I don't even know, I just loaded up stuff. So I don't even know what I got here. Let's hear what I got here. Let's hear it. I got That is a very famous opera singer who was singing with the Toronto Symphony at the time She was an amazing guest. I don't remember her name and I feel terrible

I couldn't be she's the real deal because there's no one on staff who can hit that. No, no. Yeah. No. She came in and I just asked her what her repertoire was. And again, because I'm a classical geek, I said, do you know Carmen? She says, I know Carmen. So I just played some chords and then I fattened that up with some synths.

So, so yeah. I love hearing how this stuff came together. Okay. So I've got a few more here. Humberland, Humberland, Humberland, Humberland, Humberland friend. Corky and the Juice Pigs. Yeah. No, Moxie Froovis.

Do you know what? I don't know which one. Moxie Froovis. Yeah. And I was working with elementary sampling at that time. I had this keyboard that I think could save like six seconds of memory. So it jumps back and forth between Humberland, Humberland, and I'm just starting to do remixes on a friggin keyboard. Now that I know this is some members of Moxie Fruvis, let me

hear it again now then. Humberland, Humberland, Humberland, Humberland, Humberland friend. These are the kind of IDs I'm talking about. Okay, let's get in the holiday spirit. Who's voices are there? That is Robert, Karen Fisher, Jamie Watson, me, and I think on some of these we brought Jim McCordy in because Jim actually has a very good singing voice. And then we recorded it first and then I went back to my studio and I added all the church bells and sound effects and music and yeah. Love hearing how these cakes are baked here. That's a popular one right? They play that one quite a bit. That's disgusting

Hallelujah came from a production library back in the 70s you know they had a jingle singer and they had jingles just doing all kinds of silly things. Oh, so this is not you. That's not me, but me singing Humble and Fred, that's about four of me in there. Okay, let me try it again. So custom. That's disgusting. Humble and Fred.

Hallelujah. Gotcha, so it's yeah, it's a library thing. And added some bass synth, I think some orchestral synth stuff to it just to make it. Oh, geez, okay, no. And again, you know what, this is the beauty of radio, right? People talk about this when they're sampling or DJing, right? You just have all these elements just sitting around and you just

grab the fastest thing that will get you to finish that deadline so that you can move on to the next project right? Absolutely. What am I gonna Okay, so you mentioned the Carmen I have another version let's see if it's any different here. Same session, same vocalist. I don't know the vocalist, I'm so sorry. Did she send you an invoice? There are 15 talented vocalists, amazing, amazing world-class singers in Toronto that work with the TSO and the Toronto Opera Orchestra. I'm sorry I don't remember who you are, but you were amazing.

Well, it was a long time ago. You know what, it's just part of promo, right? I mean, the Tori Amis thing, I don't know if that's there, but somebody just asked Tori. Let's hear what I have here, you ready? Yep. Humble, humble, humble, humble, and Fred. It was on air when Howard just asked her, Humble, humble, humble, humble and Fred.

It was on air when Howard just asked her, he just, you know, well, would you sing Humble and Fred? She says, what? And he says, Humble and Fred. So she went, Humble and Fred. And he quickly gave it to me. He said, do something with this. So I'm vamping and timing out and it's me on piano after the fact.

After, yeah, both. And trying to make it sound as close as I could to, I don't know, leather from the first album or something like that. I'm today years old, as the kids would say. When I learned that's actually, I thought it was someone mimicking Tori Amos. No, that's Tori.

We grabbed the thing that she sang for Humble and Fred. Because it's very much kind of a cornflake girl. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I thought that was like, that's amazing. That's really nice. One more time. Humble, humble, humble, humble and Fred. Love Tori Amos.

Wow. That's amazing. Okay. And let me see what I have here. One more holiday one here. Humble's outside building a snowman. Fred comes along and knocks it down. They start fighting on the crowd, man. They're filled with Christmas love all year round. So funny, you can just see Hummel and Fred like out,

smiling and throwing snowballs and stuff. I think that's the same group that I was talking about earlier, so Rob Baird, Karen Fisher, me, Jamie, and I think Jim Corte. Oh, theyaird, Karen Fisher, me, Jamie, and I think Jim McCoury. They sounded good together. Yeah, we had fun. Did you consider taking it, I don't know, starting your own little jingle company out of this crew? There are so many jingle companies out there. I do a lot of work with Ari Posner who works with pirate radio. I mean, you know, they all do such amazing things. I will say when you're inside a radio station, it's it's its own form of

pirate radio. Like at CFRY we were encouraged to do anything and so Jamie, me, Rob, Karen, we would come up with the silliest stuff and within hours it was on the air. That is such a rush. You don't get that in other ways. Even people to do improv theater, like to be able to create something like that is such fun. I think I do wanna, thank you for this. I think I do wanna get back into radio again. I think I'd like to help another radio station

to do some things. You know what, I don't know budgets, but it's funny. I voted, was it yesterday? Yeah, yesterday I voted, no, two days ago. I voted, my kid had a hockey game and then I voted, then I went to hockey practice and I was hanging out with Mike Stafford for an hour. That's great.

Speaking of roadie radio veterans. Yeah. And I met, I won't name his name, but the guy who I know quite well because he comes to my events and he loves Toronto Mike, but the gentleman who's, he works at Indy 88 and then I was chatting with him about Bob Willett. Do you know Bob Willett?

Give me more. I don't think I've worked with Bob. When did you leave CFMY? When did you leave? Around 95. That's when all the music stuff started to take off and so you know we just I just couldn't jungle the two. Well you don't overlap with Bob. He comes a little bit a little bit late in that but he did produce the he didn't end up producing the Humble and Fred Show and worked with them. Bingo Bob. But we were chatting quite a bit about Indie88 and I'm feeling like this revitalized energy for Indy 88 they really should hire you. Let me know I'd love to do some silliness for them. Okay so Indy 88 I know you're listening look

I'll introduce you to a min and let's get stuff cooking here it's the dawn of a re We're gonna pump some of that energy you felt in the early the 90s when you're at 102.1 the edge we're gonna bring that back to life at 88.1 here today. I Don't think chorus could afford you From what you told me about Mike, let's hope chorus takes care of him properly I was listening I could take spoiler alert He had to file suit within two years of being fired to try to get money and it's been two years since then and we Still don't have a penny in my radio projects in my music projects in my television projects There are so many giant super corporations that swallow up another corporation and as soon as that happens all kinds of liability and responsibility

Falls apart. It's really sad. It is not an uncommon story I'm still like I said, I'm still dealing with my record company trying to get rights back for Interstellar Suite. On your behalf, I'm contacting Lorne Honigman after this recording, and we're gonna go after some of that Thriller money. Bless your heart. Let's do it. Can we do it nicely? Well, when you sell that many units, I'll take.001% and you won't have to work anymore. We're gonna work on this. Okay, I don't know what this is, but there's an original of this, and then there's a Carmen version of this.

So I thought, what the heck? You're a prisoner in my basement. I'm just gonna play it, because you can't stop me. So this is the original. You got a request from your dog? Yeah, OJ likes him on hay. What kind of dog is OJ? He's a Belgian sheepdog.

Let's hear him bark and see how big he is. Oh, he's a monster. Jim, can you, can you, you'll be our very first real live listener to request Hey Mon Hey. So can you do it like they do it on the nooner? Say hi, I'm Jim from wherever you're calling from and I want to hear Humble and Fred's Hey Mon Hey and it might, you know, then we can, you know, cut it up and use it as one of our stinky little promos. Okay. Hi, this is Jim from Toronto. Can I please hear that wonderful classic, Hey Mon, Hey. Okay. Close. Here we go. Not bad.

You know, for an amateur. Here we go. Sing with us, O.J. Hey Mon, Hey. Hey Mon, Hey. Hey Mon, hey. Hey mon, hey. Hey mon, hey. We always get screwed up with that. You know, it's a pretty simple song. I know. OJ's barking. You know, really, there's such a sense of community here on the program.

Thanks, Jim, Sean. Thanks, guys. Take it easy. Bye, OJ. So there's the original. I think I know the guys, take it easy. Take, bye OJ. So there's the original. I think I know the next one. Before we get to the next one. That is a track Humble Howard found somewhere. He just found some old song or something,

or maybe it's a production library. And I don't know whether he or Fred just came up with singing along with it in some happy Caribbean Jamaican way. And then the thing took off, right? This stuff, you know, this was the kind of things that go viral, like radio would go viral on things long before the internet.

And so that's just them having fun. And then the thing just started to take on a life of its own. So we tried different voices, and I think I know what's coming. Well, here's one. Things you wanna say. This is the Vaudeville guy. And when I'm in Toronto, I listen to Humble and Fred on CFNY.

Input 102. Humble and Fred, I cannot believe it. You had a world famous opera singer on your show talking, singing, having a happy time, and you didn't get her to sing Hey Mon Hey. I mean, think about the lost opportunity here. What's the matter for you guys? Input 102, 459 Edge. From CFNY 102.1. Right!

Yep, that's me. Well, I produced those, so yeah, that's me sticking that in the end as some sort of courtesy. Yeah, that track is all me, the Input 102, all the beds and the sounds and the stingers and stuff. That was before internet, right? That's, you know, I know Stewart was the one that directed all of us to start doing that. I don't know where the original concept came from, but this idea of you being able to phone the radio station

and asking for things or saying what you wanted. And then a few hours later- It could be like a speaker's corner type deal. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And hours later, you're part of some promo that's on the radio. It was the beginning of anybody can get out there and be famous kind of thing. Okay, so we're going to get you out of CF and why now. So it sounds like you had a good time.

It was a wonderful time. It really was. There's several times I've gone into radio in between all this music stuff. And it's been wonderful. I mean it started at FM FM 96 the Moffat communications people in Calgary then it was at 95 0.2 0.9. It's gotta be point like odd number. Yeah, isn't that? Said 95.3. I can hear the logo in my head And then it was CF and why yeah 102.1 the edge. Okay, and who are, so you, when you got there, Stu Myers was the PD. When you left, was he still the PD?

Yes, I think so, but I think he was being groomed for the next level of the empire kind of thing. Cool, man. So you're a part of this station and- It was an amazing time. They made, I mean, the doc doesn't go as far as, I think it ends in 92 or something, but they made a documentary about CF and Y. If it ends at 92 then

that's just before all of this happened so that's the spirit of radio which itself was amazing right? Yes of course you know some people say when David Marsden walked out the door in 1987 that was the end of the spirit of radio so this is where it gets in the weeds here and I was busy listening to 680 CFTR anyways at this time So you know what that's like arguments between Star Trek the original series and Star Trek the next generation, right? You get loyal people to both and and and you try and tell them about the other one. They're like no So it's it's everybody has the loyalties and that's absolutely great spirit of radio is amazing

But you made a lot of audio that I have been enjoying over the last several, last many years. I've had that CD since, well over 20 years now. I've been listening to these stingers, these IDs that I remember from the radio. I woke up to 102.1 throughout the 90s. I was in high school for part of that. I was in university for another chunk of that, but that was my morning station, 102.1 and that meant Humble and Fred. That's very cool. You know that meant Humble and Fred. It's very cool. You know you think it's cool I just realized I now produce that fucking show so I'm in I'm sorry pardon my French but I am now producing Humble and Fred I just had this realization like oh I now produce that show. There you are. Exciting times. I gave you the lasagna

did I give you lasagna? No is this what this is? Oh lovely. Well the box is empty but it's in my freezer. Okay thank you. But would you take a palma pasta lasagna with you a man love it my wife and I love Italian. Okay Thank you so much palma pastas in Mississauga and Oakville people can go to palma pasta.com Do you say I'm in do you say pasta or pasta? I think I say pasta, but I've been known to sometimes go pasta. See, it's funny. I think I naturally say pasta. Sorry or sorry, right? Depending on where you're going.

You were going to say what? No, I think I naturally say pasta. And many a Canadian has told me it's actually pasta and that Americans say pasta. And at this point, I mean, I don't want to do anything like the Americans. Okay. So if you tell me Americans say pasta, I'm gonna marry myself to pasta, okay? This is where we're at now, I mean. But I have the lasagna, you know,

we're enjoying our Great Lakes beer. Thank you. I want to shout out Nick Ienies. He is the CEO of Fusion Corp Developments Inc. And Nick was my guest a couple of weeks ago. He's the newest sponsor of Toronto Miked. His fine podcast is called Building Toronto's Skyline. And you can subscribe and listen to that.

He's also got a new book called Battle of the Skyscrapers. Interesting guy. Hear him on Toronto Miked. Go back into the archives for Nick Ienis, recyclemyelectronics.ca. Amen, do you have, I'm wondering, you must have like, how many many like what are they called? Synthesizers, you know you were talking about this earlier and it's not even so much synthesizers now. I have old hard drives

I even have a couple of old computers and I want to dispose of them responsibly So when you were calling out your sponsors like ah perfect. Thank you. This is for you man recycle my electronics dot see a fantastic and it's funny because I was looking at your like list of Thank you. This is for you, man. Recycle my electronics dot C-A. Fantastic. And it's funny because I was looking at your like list of awards you won and I see like, I'll see like you won the Roland International. So I guess the synthesizer competition, Roland Japan, you won that. Your grand prize winner, your first prize winner.

But you know, you've won a lot of great awards and we'll touch on them later. But I would think you might have like a museum or something where you have these great old synthesizers or keyboards, these Rollins or whatever on display. Well, for a while I had a wonderful studio on Adelaide Street and it was a lovely building, but it was getting hard to maintain. And then as things have evolved and boy was it helpful during COVID, I mean, a lot of us have our studios at home. I have a rig actually not that's, you know,

not that dissimilar to what you have. You have a higher ceiling, I bet. It is a little higher ceiling. Yes, it is. Stop showing off, okay? Ridley Funeral Home are at 14th and Lakeshore and the great podcast from Brad Jones there is called Life's Undertaking.

And that's another, so while you're subscribing to all these podcasts, throw that on the list, Life's Undertaking with Brad. It's a great name Jones. I Have some more audio, but I don't want to play it quite yet I guess I'm curious you mentioned you had to leave radio because you were too busy with other stuff. So What are you busy with that? You don't have time for CF and why in the mid 90s? I think in the mid 90s the music projects I was working on really started to take off. I got into a lot of animated stuff with Nelvana and chorus interestingly enough. Tales from the Crypt Keeper was a was a

big show there. I think we're gonna do a soundtrack of it on Terror Vision Records coming up and that just started getting me into this world of orchestral music with synthesizers. That's what I love to do. That's what when a show succeeds very well, then that's the kind of thing that starts bringing you residuals that you can make a living on. And then that led to some other big shows like John Who's Once a Thief, and then that led to Flashpoint. Flashpoint is a big one. Flashpoint is huge. Flashpoint was a moment's notice. The original person that did it didn't quite come through and so they had heard our demo

and suddenly Ari Posner and I are scoring Flashpoint. And Flashpoint is the third reason I didn't go to LA. The second reason I didn't go to LA, Steve Picaro was getting all set up to sponsor me and we were getting all kinds of things done. And then there was a family tragedy, which I don't talk about often, but I'm allowed to talk about now

because I checked with my daughter Angela and she said it was okay to talk about this. I have a sister, her name is Anissa, and she lives in Calgary and she's an amazing person and she has two kids. I had a sister named Nina, and we met actually. At my pivotal year, the contest had just happened, doors were happening, interstellar suite was happening,

and I was getting ready to move to LA, my sister was having a baby. And because of complications at the hospital, there was a problem. And the baby survived. And my sister did not. 1989. I want to be accurate about this. I also don't want to be sensationalistic about it because it's not something I don't think I've ever talked about on the air before so congratulations. Well I'm so sorry. And thank you. Sorry that well you know I'm sorry that your sister passed away. No I appreciate that very much. We took a bad thing we turned into a good thing. My first wife Rochelle and I were the only ones in the family that were of the right age to adopt. And we'd been thinking about kids, but suddenly this happened.

And Nina's boyfriend, it was too much for him. He was grief-stricken, understandably so. So he wasn't ready to take that kind of commitment. So we just did the right thing. But as a result of that wonderful thing that happened, my game plan for LA changed because we were being interviewed as parents. Social services had to come in to make sure that we were good people. And so they could

show up on a moment's notice. They could just drop by and say, how are you doing? And, and make sure that we were good parents. So neither of us could leave town. And so, you know, for a year, for nearly two years, that's the kind of life it was. But then things started to open up in different ways. Things started happening in Vancouver, and then David Green in Toronto, bless his heart, he started getting me sci-fi series, I was working on the Ray Bradbury series, I was working on John Who's Once a Thief,

and all these things started to happen. And so Toronto became it. And then the third time for Los Angeles, around 2008, I said, you know what, I wanna go bigger, let's go bigger, and Steve was helping me on the second album, Virtuality, we were in the middle of that, and they're to call on this demo. Please submit some music. And that became Flashpoint. Flashpoint became huge because Flashpoint succeeded here on

CTV. It also did unbelievably well in CBS. And so I didn't have to go to LA. I could do everything from here. Okay. Here's something else you could do. I'm gonna play it. It's not a flashpoint actually. I'm gonna play something from a different show. So That's from the Anne with an E soundtrack and it was my idea to begin the album and end the album with sound effects, which was an homage to my radio days. There's always a gig for you here, but I can only pay you in lasagna and beer. Bless your heart. Help out in any way you want.

We can up the imaging game on Toronto Mic. This is really unique and I'll tell you why. Because what, 10 minutes ago we were listening to tracks that was me and Rob and Karen and Jamie in a room just having fun and then this is another world for me. But it's the same sort of thing. It's Ari Posner on piano, it's Drew Giurecca on violin, it's Kirk Starkey on cello, it's Kirk's wife,

Sarah Traficante on flutes. And it's Jill Schwartz on guitar, all put together with the music contractor, Bev Spotten. And we did the soundtrack to Anne with an E and all combined that stuff. And that particular track was actually only like 40 seconds long. And when we were making it for the album,

we had to try kind of extend it. So then I took the multi-tracks and just like this Tory Amos thing we were just doing that opening is actually the same piece twice. But I just didn't have all the vile. I didn't have the flutes and the violin and and and and the other stuff. I just had Ari's piano and then repeated it using the rest of the band. And so that's my radio world and my music world at the same time. It's pretty cool. What a nice convergence. And because I knew it was popular and because I wondered where they bring it up, there is the soundtrack to Anne with a knee which we present to you with our gratitude. Wow. You're gonna be invited more often.

You bring me nice gifts here. Anne with a knee is a big deal too. Oh, and again, you know what, this is a strange thing. Anne with a knee was another case where we had submitted a demo, not much came from it, and then the person that did do it could not keep up with the deadline. So we get a call saying you're on. That's happened several times in my career now where suddenly you know you must see this yourself right there's people that go you're gonna be a star I'm gonna make you famous and all that shit and nothing happens and then somebody else comes up and says hey can you help me with this thing and And the next thing you know, it just takes off. You can never predict this stuff.

You really can't. And that cut I pulled is called good night, Anne. But also, and we'll let it, it takes a bit of time to open up here, but you have, if you have a good night, Anne, you need a good morning, Anne as well. Cause that's how the days work around here, man. So there's nights and there's mornings and then there's nights and there's mornings.

The great melody is by Ari Pozner, my co-writer, my wonderful find. Well you mentioned... So that's me on strings and then Ari comes in on piano. And he does the music for... I almost called it Age of Persuasion. Age of Persuasion, yep. But it's called under the influence now. Right I know that he gets a shout out at the end of that podcast. I'm sorry. Good morning. Good morning, amen. So what are you working on these days? What's keeping you busy?

I'm actually working with Ari on a series called Rosie's Rules. It's just animated fun stuff. It's actually very, very small preschool stuff, which is fun. I just finished doing a film called The Wall Street Boy Kip Ken Boy. That was fun because I got to use synths and real players all at the same time. That was the best to have to have the best of both both worlds. And it's a nice David and Goliath story. It's about a kid that figures out the stock market and is able to beat evil stock people at their own game.

Nice David and Goliath story that we can enjoy in this day and age. How many Canadian Screen Awards have you won? We are at seven. Do you have these on display somewhere? They are on display in our dining room. My wife actually put them there, bless her heart. I did not put them there, she put them there. Thank you Danielle.

What is it about your humility? Like you would be, you don't want to appear too arrogant, too proud? Because I've noticed a few times in this conversation, it's like you seem uncomfortable with pumping your own tires. You're very sweet. I think a couple of times in my life, I saw some people that were really full of themselves

and I never wanted to be like that. I've also had some- Name those people, that's why you're here. Yeah, sure. And I mean, it's nice. The way you've done this and your research is amazing, by the way, you've been able to cover all the ups and downs and the back and forths on things. And I have, like I said, I've had so many times where people are like, you're going

to be famous and nothing happens. And then other times you just experiment with something that takes off. So I, you know, I never ever want to go, yes, I orchestrated this all because I have no idea how any of this happened. But you did win these Canadian Screen Awards. The want to go, yes, I orchestrated this all because I have no idea how any of this happened. But you did win these Canadian Screen Awards. The Canadian Screen Awards, yes. But you know, I think there's one of them which is actually me solo.

The others are all with Ari Posner, they're with Sarah Slean, they're with Antonio Nouragno, oh terrible, I'm sorry, Chris Kuzdak. I've probably found something. I love Sarah Slean. I'm sorry, Myra Stam. She was once in the Toronto Mic calendar. And then she politely said she was too busy, removed herself from the calendar

and I noticed she's never re-entered the calendar. I can call her this afternoon and tell her what a mistake she's made. Tell her get it back in the calendar, Sarah, come on. Absolutely. So, yeah. You've worked with some very talented people but you're very humble.

Well, it's a team, you know? Anybody who gets fooled themselves and say they can do this by themselves at home. Well, it's a team, you know, anybody who gets full of themselves and say they can do this by themselves at home. No, it is a team of people around you and not even if it's just the engineers or the musicians or the players. It's it's the agents, it's the technical people, it's the lawyers, it's all those people that that help your career and help sustain your career. And I'm grateful to all of them as well.

So so yeah. And it's worth noting you have a credit on the Handmaid's Tale. Yes, that was fun. And again, a quick solution. Michael Perlmutter, they had a scene where there's this harpist who's playing during one of the birthing sequences

in one of the first episodes. And they were supposed to get a harp player who could play harp. And then as always happens, that actor wasn't available, they got somebody else and she just did some random shit and she couldn't play so then they have this scene with this person doing this and no idea what those notes are so Michael Perlmutter great music supervisor calls me and says I've got an interesting job for you so I created a piece of music a harp it was

like a two-minute piece of music but on certain shots on screen, it had to perfectly synchronize with what the harpist was doing. So, you know, and that was an overnight, please stop everything and need some help with it. Well you're the man to call it. One day they'll figure out you should be called first. I'm just happy to be part of the team. You called someone else, they're not doing the job. They're not doing it right. And then you end up calling them in. Well, what if you called them in first and you just saved yourself that hassle? Hey, I've made some mistakes and people have saved my ass too. So that's why it's all, it's all, it's all good in the end. Technical production by Rob Johnston. There you

go. All right. Thank you, Robbie J for that note, by the way, when you know you're listening in East York. I think he's an East York guy along with Troy Burch from Great Lakes Brewery and Bob Ouellette's really close by and who I'm going to name all in Chris Cooksey. I'm naming all the guys out there. But Amen, you were fantastic. I love this chat buddy. I hope it was help to somebody. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane.

Because you know I would mention something and you'd pull something out of the sack. Is there anything else in that Santa sack that never got pulled? I've worked on a lot of IMAX films, which has been really great. That's where I've been able to use a large orchestra. So this is a soundtrack from some of the IMAX films I've done with producer David Ligley.

We got to keep that IMAX screen at Ontario Place. Yes, no kidding. And then this is something you can thumb through later after we're done. Wait, so I get to, like, I get to hold on to that? You get to, well, you can leaf through it. And if you grab whatever you can thumb through later after we're done. Wait, so I get to hold onto that? Well, you can leaf through it and if you grab whatever you want and scan it, then get me the binder back. But it's just the production binder from those days.

Oh, yeah. Oh my God. There's the floppy disks are in here. See, this belongs in a museum. What are you doing here? You shouldn't be leaving the home. All right. So I will leaf through it here when we wrap up here. But thanks for being my guest here today. And it was an absolute pleasure.

I was one. Thank you for your research, man. Well, you know, I've got a reputation to uphold over here, but I did hear, I'm in, I was told I'm in is a good guy. And I said, I'll be the judge of that. And I'm here to say, I think you're a good guy. Thank you, sir.

Work hard and be nice. That's a listen statement. You know what, I think you're a good guy. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Work hard and be nice. That's a listen statement. You know what? I changed my hoodie. I had a hoodie earlier today that said, it's cool to be kind. Absolutely. That's what it said. It's huge.

It's huge. But it's in short supply these days. It's so simple. Have you noticed everyone's become a bit of an asshole? We have to learn how to talk to people that are different from us. And media gets a huge blame for polarizing so much. You know? It doesn't matter whatever your political affiliation is.

We're all supposed to be able to understand where the other one's coming from. And that has gone wrong on a galactic level. So even the person next door whom you may not like or that person whom you know is a different politic than you, get to know them, understand why they feel the way they do. Gosh, we started getting into all of this. We just have to be able to learn how to get along with each other

and just be nice, be humble. Remember that the other person is also important and go from there. And that. I was gonna say, and that's one to grow on. Didn't know we were going there. And that's one to grow on by a thin tortilla. And that brings us to the end of our 1639th show.

Go to torontomic.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. This cover of Rosie and Grey by Lois of the Low is by the aforementioned Rob Pruse. Like he made this closing theme cover and these are Easter eggs at the end. So he does Rosie and Grey and he knows things that were mentioned on Toronto mic'd episodes. This is the pizza Nova because Alfie's apocostics. You get these like Easter eggs at the end and he's going to give us an updated version soon. And this is his big hit because he's got a co-write credit on romantic traffic, which was like his big hit but oh, maybe he's got a Maybe he's got a honeymoon suite

Coke right credit on a hit too. He was there for a while beer. Oh my goodness. I'm running out of song Come on, Mike much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Building Toronto's Skyline, and Ridley Funeral Home. See you Wednesday when Stu Stone returns!