Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Britpop: Toronto Mike'd #796

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

This 47th Pandemic Friday, Mike kicks out Britpop jams with Brother Bil, Cam Gordon and Stu Stone.

And after all, you're my Wonderwall. It's time now for Pandemic Fridays, starring Toronto Mike, Stu Stone, and Cam Gordon. Welcome to episode 796 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.

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I'm Mike from torMike.com and joining me for this 47th Pandemic Friday is Cam Gordon and Brother Bill. Wait, wait, what? What? How did I get here? Celebrity Stu. Can I call you Celebrity Stu? Celebrity Stu. Can I call you Celebrity Stu? Celebrity Stu. Although, in Stu's defense, he's kind of a celebrity. I think he's a celebrity. He has a lengthy IMDb page. As we've discussed, we've picked it apart over these 48 weeks.

So he's verified on Twitter, on the Twitter app. The man was in Donnie Darko. That's all you need to know. That alone, and the Twitter app. The man was in Donnie Darko. That's all you need to know. That alone and the Edison twins. Can I start the, not insults, but can I start the commentary now regarding Stu Stone? Please. As you know, I've been listening to Pandemic Fridays. I listen to it every week.

And when I first heard Stu Stone's voice, I thought he was someone else., I thought he was someone else. And I thought he was a famous actor. Is this going anywhere with you guys? If you don't mind, let me think of his voice for a moment and try to guess. Okay. Hold on here. Judi Dench.

Dustin Hoffman. No. And no. No. And I don't know why, but every time I'd hear his voice, before I saw what both Cam and Stu looked like, I always thought he was Jonah Hill.

Oh, okay. And I don't mean that as an insult. Jonah Hill's a very talented actor, as I'm sure Stu Stone is, although I've never seen any of his work Oh, really? And I just, I always thought it was him at first Until he kept calling himself Stu Stone And I think even then I didn't believe it

But, yeah, I always thought he sounded a little bit like Jonah Hill Mike, if you had got Jonah Hill even once Would that be the most famous FOTM, with the exception of James B., obviously? Well, okay. So Jonah Hill is an Oscar-nominated actor. I think twice, I think, for Moneyball and for sure for the Scorsese movie, Wolf of Wall Street, right? So he's an Oscar-nominated actor. I believe he'd be my first Oscar-nominated actor.

So it all depends on where you put Chuck D into the mix. Yeah, Chuck D is really sort of the bellwether of fame in the FOTM universe. And Brother Bill, to me, Brother Bill is a big fucking deal. So I'm just here... Oh, my God, yeah. This is... Honestly, I've been looking forward to this all week.

This is awesome. You guys have set the bar. Sorry, Cam. You've set the bar very low, may I say, by saying things like that. But I appreciate it. And I just want to say, before we get going here, that in no way, shape, or form am I trying to replace the mighty Stu Stone. No.

He just couldn't be here this weekend. You were so kind, Mike, to reach out and ask if I'd be willing to not replace but just be the other voice on this episode since Stu Stone couldn't be here. Right.

And that's important to clarify that Stu Stone is traveling in the U S and he's working and unable to record. So you're filling in. But again, I was very clear about this last week. I'm going to let Cam go before I let Stu go. So it would be Stu Stone and brother Bill.

Like to me, that's a no brainer. Let me be clear. Okay. Thank you. To me, that's a no brainer. Stu isn't going anywhere.

So thanks for filling in for Stu Stone, and we'll miss Stu, but we will hear, I should clarify this too, that there will be some Stu Stone content in this Pandemic Friday. He's going to contribute. It just won't be live. I'm honoured just to be part of the same program

with, of course, the two of you and the mighty Stu Stone. Well, I was going to say the only other replacement we've had for Stu last time he couldn't join us, I believe, was the great Sammy Cohn of CanCon Icons, The Watchman. Well, I'm honored. I guess the groundhog was unavailable doing media, separate media. So thank you again, guys. And that's an honor, too. I know Sammy probably refer to you as Brother Bill because I know you best from your many years on 102.1. The Edge, when you were billed as Brother Bill. Remind us who gave you that handle. Well, a combination of some people I went to high school with. And that's where the brother part came from. I use that term quite a bit. And the bill was from my bad haircut in college where everybody said I looked

like Billy Idol. Oh, I like that. Okay. And I will tell people there's a, there is a brother bill episode of Toronto Mike. Six 50. You sure? I didn't document it, but I want to, are you sure? Cause if it's six 50, I'm going to now... I'm not. Okay.

I'll Google it. Somebody Google it. My site, I think my site's back up. So just prior to like Showtime, torontomic.com was down and causing a bunch of issues because the traffic spike, you know, I'm just so popular, right? You have your finger on the pulse of journalists

losing their jobs, you know as i wrote no i just published this before i press record and i mean this i mean this like i get no joy in it there's zero joy in fact it's the opposite of joy like you have to i don't like this it's happened to me it's happened to many people i care about like there's nothing it's happened to brother bill which we can discuss but seven years ago right like that sucks right like you get told your services are no longer required it sucks it just disrupts a whole bunch of stuff that's important to your you know mental health etc sure it sucks so i get zero joy in it meanwhile not only do i get zero joy in it there's zero money in it like i don't there's no compensation anywhere for me breaking these

stories or whatever and because of this damn traffic spike bringing down the server it's actually now costing me money so i just guess I'm throwing it out there that I, why do I do it? I feel like somebody's should do it. And I have the contacts that make it, that I can do it. So I feel I should do it and I do it. So if you go,

I will say this, Mike, and I say this very genuinely, like it's, it's a pretty valuable public service yourself. And Jonah, the sports media guy and uh steve up in montreal the i don't know how to say his last name but the fag fegstein account right um and a few

other people who like really sort of keep tabs on this because yeah like when you see sort of the litany of names it's just like well you know who's who of like folks that we've like known and listened to and loved for like many, many, many years. Well, a lot of FOTMs in this big wave here, like a lot, many of them are FOTMs, which means I've, you know, Dan O'Toole, for example. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Great FOTM.

Barb DiGiulio. Great FOTM. Anwar Knight. He's an FOTM. You know, Ted Wallachian. Ted Wallachian. Ted Wallachian. Ted was at CFNY well before you right brother Bill there's a big gap there right

yeah he was there in the mid 80s I was there started in the late 80s so yeah okay some real talk off the top here before we talk Britpop with brother Bill and Cam Gordon here the real talk here Bill here as I look into my camera and zoom, look you in the eyes here.

I know that my camera's there and I'm looking here. So just trust me. I'm looking in your eyes, okay? I got you. All right, so I'm not going to lie. So I was disappointed to see all the Twitter love you had from your appearance on another podcast. I just want to put this out there.

And that's not me being jealous that you did more than just my podcast. It's that there was an abundance of love for this this guy his name rhymes with bean plundell and you were on his podcast i i was a few months ago but hey mike let's remember that i was on yours first and i all of a sudden i feel like you know we see eagles out the back here fighting over like you know what's left of a rabbit or something, pulling it back and forth till they both get a piece. So I'm starting to feel like that's me between you and our friend there. Like a custody.

A custody battle. That's right. I accept your apology. It is what it is. I'm Switzerland, man. I'm neutral. I accept your apology. It is what it is. I'm Switzerland, man. I'm neutral. I love everybody. It's all this hippy dippy shit out here in BC.

I live for that, man. I just thought I'd bust your chops so you feel like you're truly a member of the team here. Thank you. I definitely do. Yes. Cam, I thought you might be a... Since you're the smartest of the three of us for sure uh ian's still here oh yeah shout out so computer guy okay let's let's do that then before we get

into what the hell brit pop is open the kimono ian ian service has done some tremendous work if you uh are listening to us live at live.torontomic.com. I'm looking now, there's a chat. The chat's on the side of the live stream, which is awesome. You can have an image tied to your username when you chat. I can see that. I'm looking now. I'm going to name drop a few good FOTMs who are here. And I see Moose Grumpy. And of course Ian's there. Tyler Campbell's there. He's the VP of

sales. Beck. Beck is in there. So I'm now able to read the chat in real time, which is fantastic. By the way, you can upload images I'm told by Ian. So a lot of work. Like just what an effort. And all this so that we can skirt the music licensing component of live streaming.

And we can play a bunch of Britpop. And, you know, people who join us live will catch every second of it. You know, the man can't. This is pirate streaming. So thank you, Ian, for that effort. No, this looks great. And I'll try not to crash the comment section again by linking to photos of Madonna wearing headsets

to poke fun at myself. Now you can just upload the photo. It'll be fine. There you go. Oh, and Steph Wilkinson is here. I feel like I missed a bunch of people who came up. All the greats. Clearly Entranced.

Hello to Clearly Entranced. Gang's all here the gang is all well i'll just say the name mike sorry to interrupt i know the name leva fumka is that how you say it uh correct it means uh sweetie or uh it's it's a term of endearment uh in dutch and this is her real name no well, well, no. But it's her handle in the FOTM universe. Okay, because I was just going to say, it's actually from, I believe, last week, I was going to say, I'll take former Toronto Maple Leaf pronunciation for 200, Alex. Oh, yeah.

I've been hearing about this from several people. Borgie. What did you say? I called him Borg Salming is what I called him. Someone said Borgie. It might have been Stu Stone, but I'm not trying to spread any rumors here. As a guy who's a couple years older than you guys and remembers the glory years of the 1970s in the Toronto Maple Leafs, it's Borgia. Yeah.

Okay. So I think I might even know that because, I mean, I did catch a lot of his career at the Leafs. Phenomenal defenseman. Great underwear salesman. Yeah, and as Ann Romer, FOTM Ann Romer disclosed on Toronto Mike, like hung like a hog.

Oh. Did she really? How'd she know? She had access to the uh dressing rooms as a like a sports reporter for city tv yeah like this is her i mean i'm just quoting her i i you know you know matter of fact without this turning into a sports show wasn't there a bit of controversy with ann roemer going into the toronto maple leafs dressing room back in the day? I believe there was. And I think that's where it came up. So we talked about that. Because, yeah, Harold, for example,

Ballard didn't want a woman in the dressing room. He didn't think they belonged there. So Anne getting in there was a big deal, as I recall. Yeah, that was a good story. By the way, Borge Salming, I also remember one of the most gruesome Toronto Star photos of all time, which I think you can still find on the Toronto Library Archives. Did he get slashed or kicked in the face with a skate? A skate blade. He took a skate blade in the face in Detroit. Yeah, I remember seeing that as a kid. It was probably a Leafs coffee table book. I'm like, what the fuck happened to this? Like I was sort of aware of him,

but again, a bit before my time. Took over 200 stitches in the face from a skate blade that came up in front of the net. And they had the picture in the paper the next day with all of the stitches. And it was just, yeah, Boria rhymed with Goria that day. That's for sure.

It was just not a pretty thing to watch. I think the only more, without okay again turning this brother bill brother bill you're gonna say clint miller chuck yes i was absolutely because i think it's the only one of the only bigger gory scenes was that scene in buffalo and that was in the 70s as well no no no no no no because i didn't thought it was like late 80s it was definitely because i remember watching that on the highlights and uh i wasn't watching any sports highlights in the 70s so it was definitely like it probably late 80s i think yeah and it was sort of behind the play because i remember when you watch it the first time you'd be like what i didn't see anything and then you look around and he's like he's holding his throat together yeah

i know that's horrific horrific somebody holding his throat together yeah i know that that's horrific horrific somebody saved his life that day uh somebody on someone one of the trainers i think saved his life that day uh sadly he's no longer with us actually but a quick uh note uh vp of sales wants to let us know it was gerard galant who stepped on uh borj borj salmins boria boria salmins we remember his nickname, Gerard Gallant. The Turkey, I think. Oh, I don't remember that. Yeah.

That's a name. Yeah. He was a Red Wing, right? Am I the right guy? That's right. Yeah. He also coached the Florida Panthers, I believe. Yeah.

He was a pretty good coach of the Panthers, too. Might have got him past one round, unlike the Leafs. Oh! It's been a while, man. We've got to agree with you on that one. K-Mac says this is great. She's enjoying the hockey talk. Or maybe she means the live stream is great.

I don't know. Maybe it's more a technical question. I think it's an Ian compliment. Oh, K-Mac in the house. Shout out to K-Mac. We love K-Mac. Is that the new nickname we're going to go with? K-Mac? K-Mac. Okay, K-Mac in the house. Shout out to K-Mac. We love K-Mac. Is that the new nickname we're going to go with? K-Mac?

K-Mac. Okay, K-Mac says this is great. Now, what I'm going to do now, I have to find out who these people really are. Both. Okay. So let me, yeah. I'm going to open up a Great Lakes beer.

Okay, so they have, the big news out of Great Lakes, who have been fantastic sponsors, is they're going to open a second location. This is huge, because right now their location is in South Etobicoke. I can get there on bike in five minutes. They're going to open a second location. This is huge because right now their location is in South Etobicoke. I can get there on bike in five minutes. They're going to open one up.

Shout out to my youngest son. It's going to be at like Jarvis and Lakeshore, I believe. This is huge. I'm curious exactly where it is because doesn't Amsterdam Brewery have a place down there? I believe that's the Port Lands, right? You're kind of close, but that's more like sound Academy or what do they call it? No rebel. Like I feel like that's where Amsterdam is.

You got to go down to the port lands, but Jarvis, this is closer to like, I guess if, uh, Robbie J is listening, I was going to say in the chorus building, the chorus key,

uh, building is like a bar in the chorus building. That wouldn't be a smart move. Yeah. Maybe Mike, maybe you can go, uh, confront John Derringer

for not appearing on your podcast and then celebrate by enjoying a cold GLB next door. Okay, I'm going to crack one open for Johnny G right now. There you go. John Gallagher, you know, I talk to Peter Gross a lot and he's like desperately wanting to record more Gallagher and Gross saved the world and john gallagher is like really uh unresponsive during this pandemic so hopefully he's okay and then

when this pandemic ends we get more gallagher and gross save the world by the way i i have a i have a good segue to get into the today's topic that involves robbie j based on a tweet um go ahead he referenced this book it's a bit show and tell um the last party about brit pop neil have you have you read this this seems like you've read the definitive account it's quite quite a thick thick book here with a small font i have not no i have not really well done it's written by uh john harris so i think it was an enemy writer um yeah it's amazing like this should we get i don't know should we get into it i feel like i'm like forcing okay let's do it let's do it so the topic is we're gonna kick out our favorite brit pop and i'd love to hear a

conversation between you two as to what exactly is brit pop cam uh i'll let the professionals start there the radio veteran someone who i i heard play many uh blur and many uh elastica songs back in the day yeah uh it's it's a great question um essentially for me it's sort of like uh what was happening in britain between between say 1992 and probably 1997. For lack of a better word. I mean, you had grunge in North America and you had the British music scene. It sort of started with the man Manchester scene of the late eighties and sort of evolved into the, what was dubbed

and is dubbed still today as Britpop. So it's just a kind of a snapshot of what was happening musically in the rock scene in Britain between, like I said, 92 and 97. That's how I would define it. Cam? Yeah, I think that's a good way of um kind of encapsulating because yeah the eras are a bit blurry i i feel like i read and maybe it's even in uh pun intended maybe it's even in john harris's the last party where it references the term brit pop i feel like was

referenced as a vernacular with regards either suede or blur i forget which one i feel like it was maybe suede like the first suede album i think it was suede yeah yeah and kyle went from there because you're right i mean there's all sorts of bands kind of late 80s and perhaps we'll hear some of them today um into the early 90s that you know were they brit pop were they not i mean ultimately it doesn't really matter it's all all sort of British guitar based music. Of course it matters, Cam. Like, like Manchester, I thought Manchester was an earlier scene that was different.

Like, cause I mean, I struggled in the Yacht Rock episode. Like what is Yacht Rock? And we had this, these years and a sound and people involved. Like if you're a British rock band, what are the years again? 92 to 97, something like that? Somewhere in and around there. But, you know, Manchester or Madchester was 1988 to I want to say 1992. So that's kind of, it's different, right?

I mean, we'll discuss it as we play these jams. But then you'd have like the first Blur album, for example, was often categorized as like that song. There's no other way. Sounds very, it sounds like the charlatans UK sort of. But I mean, I don't think many people think Blur is a Manchester band, particularly because they're not from Manchester. As a lot of Manchester bands, I don't think were. It was really two or three bands, a lot of bands that got kind of lumped together well what it is is is very similar to uh seattle and grunge the original big four from seattle as we know pearl jam nirvana alice in chains and soundgarden uh with manchester the big four were

stone roses happy mondays and spiral carp. And who am I forgetting here? I think Charlotte's. Charlotte's weren't from Manchester, though. They were from the Midlands. So I don't know if I'd consider them. Again, we could discuss this forever, too. Maybe that's another episode. Well, there are other bands.

I feel like these are more the secondary, but like the Mock Turtles and the farm who's saying all together now. Yeah. And then you get like the really sort of second, third generation. I remember there was a band called flowered up. Yeah. Remember this? Your memory's great. North side. Like, Oh yeah. Like I was like real people. Yeah. Like a real sort of mishmash. Me too. And, and when Mike, when you asked what you thought a great conversation would be or subject,

I thought it just came off the top of my head to do Britpop. And then when I, because I sort of put Britpop to bed a long time ago, I hadn't listened to Blur and some of the bands we're going to get into in a long, long time. And I'm glad I brought up, but I found myself struggling to, I was having an argument with myself as to what was Britpop, what was not Britpop, and what qualifies as Britpop.

So it was a tough bunch of choices for music. I was going to say, I don't want to bury the lead, but yeah, I see you you guys a list of bands sort of are they are they not brit pop and and you know you think of bands like the manic street preachers who you know we're certainly written up in the enemy but we're we're actually a welsh band um and also sort of their first album was also almost more like uh like a glam rock band like hard rock exactly yeah exactly They have a band like Primal Scream that sort of went through a few

iterations and almost got into like a house thing. I feel like this is the episode. Okay, well let me play 25 seconds of Austin Powers and then ask you about geography since you mentioned Wales there. Howdy. That is one crazy getup you got there, fella.

Yeah, thank you. Are you in the show? No, actually, I'm English. I'm sorry. All right, shout out to Mike Myers here. Okay. From Liverpool. Right.

So Britpop, like Britain, correct me if I'm wrong. I sometimes get my UK and my Britain a little confused here. But Wales is part of Britain. Am I right? Correct. Okay. And Scotland, is Scotland part of Britain or no? Yes. Okay. And is Northern? Scotland part of Britain or no? Yes. Okay.

And is Northern? What's Britain and what's the United Kingdom? Same thing. But they can't be identical things. Like there is differences. How about Northern Ireland? Yeah. That's my next one I was going to ask about.

So Britain, from what I understand, having spent some time there when I was younger, Britain is England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. And that would be the same as the UK. I'm really not sure.

You're right, though. There is a difference. And I'm just not cluing in as to what it is to tell you the truth. Like Scottish bands, I definitely wouldn't consider, like the Teenage Fan Club, not a Britpop band.

No. But also like they would also play at, you know, Glastonbury Festival and would certainly compliment a lot of those sounds in some ways. It's interesting being the child of a mother who is born in Wales and raised in England, considers herself English. I use another sports analogy, and that is the tennis player, the Scottish tennis player.

What's his name? Who was quite well known for the last 10 years or so. I think he may have recently retired. You know, I'm talking about Wimbledon champion. Andy something. Andy Murray. Andy something. Andy Murray. Andy Murray. So my mother says Andy Murray is British when he wins and he's Scottish when he loses. Yeah, I got an answer. I have an answer for us.

Here's the answer. Northern Ireland seems to be the difference maker here. So Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but not part of Britain. But all the rest seems to be the same, to be quite honest, which is Wales, England, Scotland. So basically Wales, England, Scotland, that's your Britain. You can throw in Northern Ireland for the UK.

Okay, so what you're saying is you two, not a Brit population. But no, because that's a different thing completely. You choose from the Republic. They're from the Republic of Ireland, which is independent. So it's Belfast, that's a different thing completely yeah public they're from the republic of ireland which is independent so it's belfast that's the the northern ireland that's the part of the uk so can i just ask have either one of you been to anywhere in britain or northern ireland i've been to ireland go ahead cam yeah i've been to the uk um i actually i actually did a bit of uh when i was there i did a bit of a a manchester uh calm music tour i know i feel like alan cross this is one of the places he actually was he he's actually i know he's done like sort of that tour i feel like he's led tour groups but

i actually went to like the salford lads club where the sm the Smiths did The Queen is Dead and saw the Marcy thing. Nice. Yeah, I feel like there was, it's interesting, because there's a lot of just like bootleg Joy Division and bootleg Stone Roses stuff everywhere, like buttons and T-shirts, like they're just kind of on the street. Yeah, and you probably would have went to where the factory nightclub was. I think they're condos now in

manchester they would have said this is where factory uh or not factory i'm sorry what was the name of the nightclub the hacienda so yeah it was the record label yeah i feel like i did get there like i was staying i was actually staying in in uh south south for like by the stadium uh old trafford in the bbc tv city City. This was like maybe five years ago. So been to Manchester, never been to London. Yeah, I was in London too. I kind of did the whole trip up into Scotland and spent some time in Glasgow

and Edinburgh. And Mike's only been to Ireland? Yeah, I spent a week in Ireland with my wife Monica and I've been to the London Airport, but it does not count because I didn't get out of there. Which London Airport was that?

Yeah, the big one, yeah. Okay, because there's four, so I was wondering. Is that right? Okay. Yeah. But we're going to get into, like, this would be great, brother, as we start to kick out your jams, if you could tell us a little bit about your Britain adventures through the years. You mentioned you spent some time there.

I have a question for you two. Are you cool? Oh, and shout out quickly to Canada Kev and Cam Brio, who have joined us at live.torontomike.com. Are you guys cool? Can we start this up with Stu? Like let's do Stu. He sent in a recording from Florida and then we'll kick out his jam and then we'll do our regular rotation. Is that cool? Yeah. Cool. I think that's a great, great idea.

So Stu, we hope you're safe. We hope you're well. We can't wait to get you back on pandemic Fridays here. Here's you Stu. What's up? Mike, Cam, brother? I hope you guys are having a great show. I know you are.

I know you are because the topic is good. Brit pop. Brit pop. I'm not sure if you've already covered Britney Spears, but Brit pop is a great topic, and I want to give a shout-out to all of the FOSs out there. Cambrio,

you know, Leva Famke, you know, the whole gang. Sheila. Is she back? Is Sheila back? I don't think so. I'm going to keep this short and sweet, because I want you guys to be able to end the show. You know, you've probably been waiting a long time for this, but I'm doing okay.

So far, so good. I'm being safe and I'm definitely listening to this episode. So hopefully, brother, hopefully you brought it, man. And I know, you know, one day Cam is going to frolic in the woods with MF and we'll get a chance to play, my friend. So I look forward to that day and I'm going to leave you with this. My selection is by a band called Blur. I don't know if you've already played some Blur tonight,

but I picked a Blur song and it's called Beetle Bum. Beetle Bum. Fitting because, you know, the original Brit pop band, The Beatles. Anyone that came after them are bums. Enjoy the song and look forward to speaking to you guys next time. What you done?

She's a girl. Now what you done Beetle bum Can't nothing done So we got a taste of Stu's selection, Blur's Beetle Bum, and we won't talk too much about Blur because we might hear them again in this episode. But I guess guess stew he scripted that as if it was coming at the end and i played it at the beginning so my bad stew but uh it's good to hear stew's voice on a pandemic friday that's for sure see this this is an interesting choice to start off with because i i feel like a lot of people

thought blur was trying to extricate themselves from brit pop with with this album this is from their self-titled one that also had famously uh arena rock anthem song two on it um this is like sort of a departure of a lot of the sounds that blur was known for they were very brit poppy and uh brother bill that's a song like if you only had i don't know two minutes before the ad break or the news or whatever the hell was coming up, you could throw on song two, right? Song two was very popular for timing out to the news at the top of the hour. I won't lie to you. Of course, the song is about, without giving too much away in case we are playing it later. giving too much away in case we are playing it later uh it's sort of uh from what i understand it was damon's sort damon albarn the singer his his response to the grunge scene which was happening

and how really a lot of the music didn't make sense right like what they were singing about was just like uh he didn't understand he he never understood what was going on in america blur never did and good for them because had they been influenced by the American sound at the time, I guess it wouldn't be the Blur that we knew and loved. But song two was one minute and 59 seconds long and it was

perfect when you needed to time out to the top of the hour for sure. Humble and Fred, who I work with today, I work with them. That's for sure on the Humble and Fred show. If you had a little time to kill, you got some blur, too, heading into the break. Now, brother.

Danger Boy's favorite song, for sure. And congrats to Danger Boy, because he's still on the radio in Ottawa, but he's also a real estate agent now. I caught that news. So he's diversified his portfolio. Everyone's selling houses these days. It's a smart move when you look at the state of the industry right now. Right. For sure.

Right. You need multiple streams. Have it. Right. Okay. So I'm changing up the order. Normally it's Cam and then it's Stu and then it's me. We're going to have our guest, Brother Bill, lead us off,

and then we're going to do Cam and then myself. So I don't know how you want to work, Brother, but do you want to say something before, or do you want me to just play the song, bring it down, and then we can hear from you? Yeah, let's just do it the way you did with Stu. Let's just throw the song on, then we'll bring it down and talk a little bit about it,

because I know some of these songs that I chose, anyway, if you know the Brit pop scene, you're going to know them, but if you don't, maybe you won't, but maybe you will. Does that make sense?

Well, let's kick out this first jam. I can't wait. I love this song. I love this topic, actually a lot of great songs we're going to hear tonight, but here's brother Bill's first jam. Thank you. There she goes There she goes again

Bracing through the day And I just can't take This feeling that Me In the words of the great Jerry Howarth, there she goes. Yes, there you go. That's the log. Okay, sorry, go ahead.

Oops. I was looking at Cam's face as that song started. Did it take a few bars, Cam? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You knew what it was right away? Yeah. Oh, for sure. I have Cam knows what that is.

Oh, okay. it was right away yeah oh for sure yeah i have like a very monotone face so oh okay yeah so we're not going to get any sort of bobbing of the head in the video portion of the program today from uh we might we might we might let me get warmed up i have some coffee here okay so that that's that's a band called the laws uh out of liverpool england and a song that they originally released in 1988. And it's a song called There She Goes. They actually re-recorded it and re-released it in 1990. And it did fairly well for them. But the reason why I started with that band was they were,

Rolling Stone magazine actually in 2007 called The Laws, that song, there she goes, a founding piece of Britpop, of the Britpop foundation. So obviously released in 1988, then 1990, when it was still a lot of Manchester music going on. And then came this little band called The Laws out of Liverpoolpool and not just that song but the entire album just to me is an absolute gem and it's it's well worth the time to hear all the other songs it's led by a guy named lee mavers i don't know if that name rings a bell at all he really didn't do a lot of a lot of stuff uh their bass player probably the most famous his name was John Power.

He went on to form a band called Cast, but a song called All Right in 1992. But I wanted to start with that because I just wanted to start at the foundation of Britpop. And like most music scenes, where the music starts from tends to be the influence that sort of gets built the way say mother love bone was with with the pearl jams and the nirvanas and stuff that's sort of what the laws were before blur and oasis etc etc what say you cam gordon about brother bills for a selection yeah this this i think this is a great choice and a good place to start off because it's true i mean this this sort of predates a lot of stuff and yeah like this that this might be i don't know like we'd have to kind of check the record like one of the greatest like one and done albums and like this or music because yeah like the album's like fantastic i don't really know why the other singles weren't bigger hits because it's a pretty stacked

12 songs. It's pretty short. It's like 35 minutes. Sure, yeah. Yeah, but great album, great band, just great melody. I don't know, just kind of very simple songs, but I think that's what makes them so great. I remember these guys reunited. I was actually watching this as I was prepping for the show in like 2005 and they played the glastonbury festival and just saying like lee mavers on it was like seeing a ghost because he like he i think he's he disappeared for years yeah and i feel like there's like a lot of musicians who just leave the public eye there's

a lot of rumors about him just sort of bizarre behavior and i think he got a had a reputation of like you know kind of like perfectionist whatever which i think he got a had a reputation of like you know kind of like perfectionist whatever which i think is a bit of a trope but yeah it was really surreal like seeing them play i remember like at the time watching it maybe on like much more music when they used to do like the full day of the glastonbury festival right well you're absolutely right cam because they were going to record a second album. But the word is, is that Lee Mavers didn't like any of the production of the of anything they had done. And they had done a second album maybe two, three, four times. And he didn't like any of the production. He kept scrapping everything.

And finally, you know, time runs out and that's kind of what happened. But to a lot of North Americans, they also remember this song because not only was it covered by a band called the Boo Radleys, which was not popular or famous in Canada, but it was copied by the Christian rock band Sixpence None the Richer in 1998. That's right. Yes, absolutely. That's exactly right. And it was a big song for them. They were following up a song called, oh, what was it called? Sway? No. Kiss Me.

Kiss Me. That's right. That's right. And then they followed it up with There She Goes, and they were both hits for them in America. And so for most North Americans, when you talk about the song There She Goes, you're probably relating it more to Sixpence, None the Richer than you are The Laws. about the song there she goes you're probably relating it more to sixpence none the richer

than you are the laws but uh for you know people who who were really into brit pop and got really really into brit pop i think they'll know that album by the laws which was self-titled and again released in 1990 and you don't think that's a little ahead of the curve here because like if that's an 88 song and we kind of started off saying you know Britpop was I don't know 92 to 97 or whatever you don't think we're a little early there no I think that it's just the foundation of Britpop and just kind of showing painting a little picture of where the roots were and where it went to at after that I mean I can even tell you I mean if you want to say that that's the bud of the beginning of the root of Britpop, I can, you know, maybe later in the conversation,

we can go into, you know, the exact day that Britpop died, because I know what song it was. Something to think about for later on. I was gonna say, I also like this choice, because even though technically the song is was recorded originally in the 80s like this is very much a 90s song in terms of when most people heard it the fact it's a 1990 i think of like brit pop is like a very 90s thing too so the fact this was in the first year of the 90s i think is a great great starting point and yeah oat bran who the hell is oat bran in the chat room but said yeah i was gonna say this that song was in a lot of movies i feel like perhaps most famously uh so i married an axe murderer

with the aforementioned mike myers shout out to oat bran oat bran funny you mentioned that cam because it was in yes you're right it was in so i married an axe murderer it was in the parent trap it was in girl interrupted It was in a movie called Snow Day. I don't know that movie. That was Chevy Chase and Chris Elliott. For some reason, I saw that. I've seen no movies, but I've actually seen And you don't see any comedies, so it's amazing

you saw that. I know. I didn't laugh the whole time. It was in an episode of Gilmore Girls, believe it or not. I believe it. And also for big fans of one of my favorite shows in the 1990s, it was in the dream sequence at the Peach Pit in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210. I did not know.

Wow. Fun facts for you. No, I love it. Now, you see, you get it. So, Bill, we know you listen because you totally get it that was awesome what a start to the program cam gordon you ready for your first brit pop jam yeah i think we've already had a request in the chat room for this band so whoever that said that will probably be uh very pleased to hear this track here we go it's got a slow

build up here so it is playing you have to trust me on that one. It's the opposite of Blur Song 2. Right. This is where, you know, we'll be talking up, you know. I know what this is already. Do you want to talk it up? Do you want to hit the post with this brother? It's been so long.

This is probably the longest fade-in of any song ever. I was going to say this was a classic Club 102, like the start of the set where you could count down all the white zombie and the nine-inch nails that displayed. You could go to the bathroom and come back order a drink and come back and have a smoke start smoking it's still playing fading up in the background yeah it's it's a long one i know what it is though is it still there here it comes yeah because there was definitely a radio edit of this comes. There was definitely a radio edit of this song.

Dedicating this song to Midtown Gord, who has joined us in the chat. Marina. Squared bucket hat. Yeah. Player drums going. Diolch yn fawr am wylio'r fideo. He's already in me. I want to be adored. I want to be adored. Okay, so what we're listening to is the Stone roses i want to be adored uh this this is a song i have gone on record saying this might be my favorite song of all time wow yeah i i just love this song and i i don't know what it is because i mean it's a pretty sort of languid song and the lyrics are pretty simple and the it's a it's got a great groove but it's i don't know there's just

something about this song and this this whole album um similar similar to the brother uh i thought the stone roses would be a good place to start even though you know perhaps more technically a madchester band again like this is sort of the start of the 90s i mean that album i believe the self-taught stone rose i might believe came out 1989 but still yeah yeah still sort of seems like the start of the 90s when them and happy mondays and a few other bands like the laws and sort of ushered out you know kind of a new era um this is a pretty big hit in the uk went to number 20 sort of on the mainstream chart which is pretty in the UK went to number 20 sort of on the mainstream charts, which is pretty big. I mean, in

US, number 18 on the Billboard Modern Rock tracks, 1990. I mean, whatever. This was also the first track on the first Stone Roses album. So, I mean, what a kind of kick-ass song to start that album on. This song is, I feel

like the legend of the Stone Roses. I mean, it's interesting because I feel like they've kind of gone up and down in terms of their notoriety and they have gone back together a couple times. In more recent times, Ian Brown has been quite vocal as an anti-masker on the Twitter app recently. But I mean, he was always someone who i think spoke his mind and it had a i feel like he's had like a few issues of his own like i feel like there's some stuff

on an airplane kind of drunken disorderly behavior um but again like similar to laws i mean they're not quite a one and done band but they had the two uh albums the second one second coming that took six years to come out yeah then there's all sorts of like legal wranglings with their record label and it finally came out and it was just it was a lot of a lot of rips a real departure from kind of the jangly dancey sounds you heard on on this one but yeah i don't just classic british band again are they britpop are they not um they're certainly related to britpop i certainly think they they helped usher in britpop uh a question for the brother i'm curious

were you at the show when they played in toronto yes marine terminal 28 yeah which i i i wasn't there i mean i don't know if alan cross was there. Like we can talk about it later. I was wondering when this was going to come up. Yeah. I was going to say, was that show as bad as everyone said it was? Do you recall? So, Cam, to be straight up and completely honest with you, of all the shows I went to when I worked at The Edge,

which was literally in the thousands, the worst number one show hands down was stone roses at marine terminal 28 and i'll tell you why wow because first of all it was the first time an old warehouse down on the docks had been used for a concert therefore the sound proofing there was none it was an old bus terminal or no that was the cool house story it's an old grain terminal or something right and so the the sound was awful right off the bat i can't remember who the opening band was but i remember it was brutal so then after the opening band there was a two-hour delay because they couldn't find ian brown he had gone missing so and it turns out he had gone to a pub somewhere in Toronto on

the Esplanade or something like that. Like say what? Yeah. You know, somewhere and they lost him. They couldn't find him. They had people out looking for him. And by the time he showed up, which was well after 11 o'clock on a, where I was like a Wednesday night or something, I believe he was so drunk. He couldn't sing any of the songs I mean I'm going to be honest with you all the footage I watched of of Stone Roses even over the past couple of weeks and and period I don't think he's a particularly strong singer to begin with but you get him completely drunk and he was completely off key the whole show they only performed for about 40 minutes they didn't do any of the big songs like um fool's gold or what was the other big one with

the james brown dance beat in it uh i i am the resurrection no it wasn't i am the resurrection there's the other one thanks the drum no there's one more fool fool's gold and anyway they didn't do those songs and they were booed off the stage after 40 minutes it was it was incredible love spreads i think you're thinking of their love spreads is 94 um no what they did that i think that they they stumbled through that one too but it was atrocious it was it was the worst show i'd ever seen and i thought to myself if I paid for this concert, which I was very fortunate for many years not to have to do that, I would ask for my money back because it was just so bad.

Well, that was, I mean, their concert history is kind of fascinating because that was only one of 11 North American shows they ever played during their first incarnation. And again, they sort of have have i don't know if technically they're together i feel like they broke up again subsequent but they ended up headlining the kachella festival in 2013 with blur and i remember the online outrage when that lineup was announced a lot of people saying who who is this band i've never heard of this band right stone roses because the other headliners that year were the band phoenix and the red hot

chili peppers um quite quite a lineup the day they played though like in hindsight 2013 so you had stone roses blur the yeah yeah yeahs modest mouse uh lou reed rip um one of ben raynor's favorite bands how to destroy angels although what am i thinking of i think i'm thinking of place to bury strangers how to destroy angels was uh trent resner i feel like oh you've got me on that i don't know uh tegan and sarah metric purity ring and another uh definitely not brit pop but an important uk musician johnny marr um of the smiths and did you guys know the Stone Roses also headlined a show at Madison Square Garden? When? 2016. Interesting. I sort of remember this because I was working at Twitter at the time and I've always reported into U.S. offices, so I've been lucky that I've gotten

to spend a decent amount of time in San Francisco and New York. I remember trying to figure out a way could I get an excuse to have a work trip to New York um so I could be in town to see the stone roses at Madison Square Garden which is just like kind of bizarre in hindsight well what isn't bizarre now Cam because I mean you know Madison Square Garden quickly there was a band called the Misfits from New York City or from new jersey they played madison with sky they played msg recently in the last year and a half before covid and that blew my mind as a 70s and 80s punk rock kid the fact that the misfits played madison's career i watched some of the footage of that too it just brutal bit the big full stadium rock show with like dan like you know a 55 year old Danzig it was terrible still in great

shape though absolutely and Stone Roses so Stone Roses uh in 1995 I uh I was at Glastonbury uh the one and only time I went to Glastonbury which is a big music English music festival as you know uh always or sorry Stone Roses were supposed to be the headliners on the Saturday night because it runs from Thursday to Sunday. And that was the big night is the Saturday night performance. And Stone Roses were supposed to be the band, but their guitar player, John... Squire. Squire, yeah.

Broke his collarbone mountain biking in California and they had to cancel their their appearance there which I think really hurt them because they were sort of on a bit of a rejuvenation there because 94 they just released second coming and it was kind of their their moment again and they couldn't make it and ironically they were replaced by Oasis who were on their way up in a big way. And it's probably the main push that put Oasis over the top as far as musically on the rock and roll musical map, not just Britpop. Okay, hold that Oasis fire. Hold that because we might hear that band maybe later in the program.

Can I say one more fun fact? This is actually Stone Roses? Tangentially. There's one other band, according to setlist.fm, that played that same venue that the Stone Roses did, which they just call Marine Terminal 28, which the brother mentioned was just like sort of a storage place on the water. Yeah.

Okay. That band was none other than in excess. Wow. Played there in 1993 and open for an excess was Catherine wheel. Wow. Right. Again, British band, Britpop,

not a Britpop band, but a great, really was a great band. A band that comes up often on this program of course they did the cover of Spirit of Radio that I heard an awful lot on 102.1 and Catherine Wheel yeah excellent

now hold on I want to shout out Steve in the live chat who says that Stone Rose is his first album maybe the best album ever made that's a good record and Andrew Ward has joined us and uh he thought i looked like uh going up the bobcat look when i threw in my shades there so uh actually sorry one other now i'm just gonna ask go ahead and then i'll kick out my first

did you see when ian brown played at the mod club solo no i i i moved out of uh toronto in 2004 so that's pre that's after my time no i i know you know like i said i didn't think ian brown was a particularly strong singer but i will say this some of the footage i saw of stone roses like shot you know on youtube i'm watching youtube footage some of the stuff from manchester i think they played the big soccer stadium in manchester old trafford yeah yeah or or whatever i think it's the one that's in Manchester. Old Trafford. Yeah, or whatever. I think it's the one that's at TIAD where Manchester City plays. Anyway, but the footage of the crowd makes up for how bad a singer Ian Brown is.

Because what I noticed they did was they would lower the mix so you could hear the crowd singing more than you could hear Ian Brown. And it was wonderful to watch. It really was. But yeah, I didn't think he was a great singer. Legendary band. Absolutely. Let's stay in Manchester for my first jam. And I now realize, here we are after

you've each kicked out one jam, I realize I'm way in over my head here. Shout out, by the way, to Cloris Leachman. The name of the store that she worked in on Facts of Life was Over Our Heads. I don't know if you guys remember that. It was the It Store. Yes, yes.

It was essentially the It Store, but it was called Over Our Heads. So shout out to Cloris Leachman, the late great. Okay, so here's my first jam. And then I can't wait till we come out of this and you can tell me how it's not Britpop. So here we go. Oh. The neighbors complain about the noises above But she only comes when she's on top My therapist said not to see you no more

She said you're like a disease without any cure She said I'm so obsessed that I'm becoming a four-all. No. I think you're so pretty. Shout out to my oldest son, James. Is that who he's named after? Almost. Actually, he's named after sweet baby James,

but close enough. So James Laid. And basically, I'll admit, like I did in the Yacht Rock episode, that I struggle with what exactly is Britpop. And so all I can tell you is it falls in the right era. They're from Britain. And I fucking love this song. And they're from Britain. And I fucking love this song.

And they're from Manchester. And I love this song. So please tell me if this qualifies. No. Yeah. I knew that was coming. I probably couldn't explain it, but you're wrong, Mike. Yeah.

You know what, though? I appreciate the fact that, Mike, that I just threw this topic at you and really didn't give you any sort of clues or anything like that. Because I can understand why somebody who's a passive fan of what was coming out of the UK in the 1990s would assume that James was a band that was considered a Britpop band. Right. You know, it's sort of like the Radiohead argument. Do you call Radiohead a Britpop band. Right. You know, it's sort of like the Radiohead argument. Do you call Radiohead a Britpop band? And my answer to that one is no as well. Right.

Or Bush. Like, Bush is not Britpop. I know that. Bush is definitely not. Yeah, like, they're grungy. That's a different sound. But they're in the... Yeah, we can get into that, too.

Yeah, we can get into that. But please continue. Sorry, Bill. No, I was just going to say that James, first of all, that album is phenomenal as well. That's a really, really good album. Was it called Late? Was that the name of the album? I think it was called Late.

Yeah. I guess what I'm curious from you guys is specifically why that doesn't qualify. Because I appreciate the fact that I knew when I was picking it, I knew the guys are going to tell me this doesn't qualify. But I'm curious specifically, what is it about that song that mean that makes it not brit pop it was too successful but no that's fucking out the window because oasis and blur we have some big big jams gonna come up in this program like that can't be it i was gonna say and because james i believe this was this was a band that found success later. I feel like this was like their fifth album before they really hit it.

And before they had sort of... So they were discovered by Morrissey. Yeah. And their first album, I think, came out in 1984 or 1985. And like Cam mentioned, it was their fifth or sixth album. And before that, really really a couple of minor singles that did well in the uk but right nobody in north america knew who james was this was the first time i heard james was hearing this on 102.1 absolutely it was a song sit down like that's

sit down which is kind of a hit but yeah but that was the other one but i can't name a third to be quite honest because as you mentioned i'm a how was it for you but yeah but that was the other one but i can't name a third to be quite honest because as you mentioned i'm a how was it for you was a song that was a minor hit in the uk they're the song say something that's on the same album as laid something yeah right that's a good that's a great song from that album as well right um but yeah they really sit down was from the album before laid i want to say could be wrong off the top of my head and that there was a live version of that which was great but laid was such a massive song especially i mean i remember on the edge there was a period of time when like a lot of

songs that were popular we were playing it every hour you know and some would say that's a good thing and some would say that's not such a good thing but james were not a successful band until that song and then all of a sudden kind of exploded for them do you guys remember them i think it was it was it was it at uh woodstock the first woodstock reunion the 94 yeah the 94 yeah they were the nice one. They had quite the set. And things just kind of waned. But they did a tour with Psychedelic Furs two years ago. And from what I understand, they were getting a few thousand people a day, or a show rather. And so good on them.

And O'Brien points out in the chat that it's a Brian Eno production. Yes, that's absolutely correct. Oh, this album? And he's got it on vinyl because he posted in the chat a photo of the vinyl. I don't think I knew that. James, I've talked about because I think I was working at Wonderland at the time, but also attended the show, the last touring version of Lollapalooza in 1997, where James were the second band that played on the incongruous bill that also featured Tricky and Korn and I think

Orbital or The Orb I think it was The Orb The Fluffy Clouds is The Orb Yeah, them and Tool and Snoop Dogg and the Marley Brothers and The Eels and like a real sort of mixed bag but seeing James at Kansas Wonderland at Kingswood at like three in the afternoon was just kind of weird. That whole lineup was weird.

And also like it was a very undersold from what I recall. This is this has got nothing to do with the topic at hand, except to say there's a song by The Orb. And it's a long title and I can never remember what it's called, but it's samples. Little Fluffy Clouds? No, no, it's a long title and i can never remember what it's called but it's samples fluffy clouds no no it's before that uh it's samples loving you by minnie ripperton okay like that's interlaced in it and sometimes i literally like if i'm working on something i stick this jam by the way i will google it to bring up the name of the song in a minute but i'm looking it up right now okay so it samples loving you because that's kind of in it. It kind of comes in. Loving you. It's easy because you're beautiful.

And it's got a long title anyway. And it's just fucking magic, that song. I totally dig it. I feel like, Mike, I quizzed you before who the female voice on Little Fluffy Clouds is. Do you remember who it is? Okay. I'm going to see if I can remember this. It's an actress, right?

No. Is it Car, right? No. Is it Carly Simon? Close, close. I believe it's Ricky Lee Jones. Oh, yeah. It's Ricky Lee Jones. Okay. I love these callbacks.

Okay. So I'm going to kick out Brothers Second Jam because I realize this will be a six-hour episode. We've got lots to cover here. So let's start this and then we'll find out what the hell that Orb song was I'm thinking of. Here we go. Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as A morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight through what is known as John Scott Brewer's group, He gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons They love a bit of him

Who's that couple all marching? You should cut down on your pork life, mate Get some exercise All the people So many people They all go hand in hand Hand in hand for a day Our second Blur Jam of the night. Here we go. Parklife.

Yes, I chose Parklife from 1994 and Blur's Parklife album. That's the name of the album as well. Did you know that Blur were once known as Seymour? I did not know that. Okay, a little fun fact there for you. I love fun facts. Yeah, that was their third album, and to me, that was the big Britpop album

from south of Manchester. So you had your Oasis in the north, and you had Blur in the south, speaking from London. That was the third single from Parklife. I guess the big song a lot of people remember is Girls and Boys. For sure. Which was a huge song for them as well.

This really was Blur's big album, if you ask me. A lot of music is all about timing. And I think Blur's timing with this album was absolutely perfect. Bit of background, Damon Albarn of Chorus on vocals, Graham Coxon on guitars, Alex James on bass, and a man who married a Canadian. I'm not sure if he's married to her still, but David Roundtree on drums. They formed in 1988, and that's a song that actually doesn't even feature really Damon on vocals. That's a guy named Phil Daniels. And I'm not sure if you guys can go back far enough to remember the big movie that Phil Daniels was in in the 1970s. Want to give it a

shot? I think I know. Okay, go ahead, Cam. I feel like it was quadrophenia absolutely absolutely main character jimmy in the who's great outstanding movie called quadrophenia which was the story of the mods and the rockers and their conflicts in england in the late 1960s and so phil daniels was the the main vocalist on that song. He'd never heard of Blur. He just somehow ended up in the studio, and I guess Damon liked him and said, well, why don't you sing the song?

And he did. And the rest, as they say, it's history. But I would argue that if you're talking Britpop, it's history, but I would, I would argue that if you're talking Brit pop, that's probably top three album and probably top five song as far as the Brit pop movement went. I don't know, Cam, what do you think? Yeah. Like Blur's kind of funny. Cause I, I always liked their singles. I never really got into their albums with the exception of the second one, Modern Life is Rubbish, which didn't really have sort of a standout track, never really got into their albums with the exception of uh the second one modern life is

rubbish which didn't really have sort of a standout track but no felt like sort of the most cohesive to me but yeah i mean that this is almost almost like you know what is brit pop pick one song i feel like this might might uh might be the song without a, I was sensitive to the fact we couldn't Hanson Blur tonight. We can't do that. So, and just in case I forget to mention this later, the orb track I'm thinking of is called A Huge Ever

Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Center Of The Ultra World. You know who would have remembered that, Mike? 1236. Yes. It's funny because brother, you thought we were going to record this yesterday. I did. That's the real talk. So you were on the zoom at like 5 30 PM yesterday. I was literally recording with Mark Weisblatt when you were on that other zoom. And I was, and then I think there was some back and

forth, like you were ready to go, which is awesome. And then I was thinking, I'm actually physically incapable of doing a Wise Blot followed by one of these. Like I simply can't, I'm just too old for that. Like I can't do back to back. I was so drained after the Wise Blot January 2021 recap, I simply couldn't do like two hours

plus of kicking out the Britpop. Anyway, just a fun little how the sausage is made. You know that next to Pandemic Fridays, Mark's monthly visit to Toronto Mike is my favorite thing to listen to. Awesome. And I only say Pandemic Fridays first because I'm a guest.

A stupid phone could have me killed. No, seriously, though. Mark's show is obviously great. But if I can jump back to, of course, to Parklife. Yes, it's it. It was the first real album out of the UK in quite some time that did fairly well. It was a gold record in Canada. It sold more than 50000 copies. It never really showed on the charts here. It was a gold record in Canada. It sold more than 50,000 copies. It never really showed on the charts here. It was number 41. That's the best it did. And it was sort of like you mentioned 93's Modern Life is Rubbish, Cam,

which was quite frankly rubbish. It wasn't a very good record at all. But 1991's Leisure was a fantastic album. And a quick story for you. So the first time, do we have time for this, Mike? Are you kidding me? I'd make time for this. I'll just go to bed later.

Go ahead. So the first time Blur came to North America, their second show ever was in Toronto. It was at the Opera House. The first show was in Boston. This is about 1991, 1992. I got invited to go to the show by somebody from the record label i'll drop a name his name was rob chuby great guy uh and somehow he well he said you want to meet the

guys and i said sure so he took me onto the bus i didn't realize this do they still use the opera house for gigs by the way do you guys know this yeah i think there is gigs yeah i feel like once in a while but definitely not as many as they used to which is too bad because i always liked that place me too yeah there used to be a little parking area around the back that not a lot of people knew about so blur's bus was back there and i ended up on the bus having a few beers with them and i remember a couple of back and forth between i was talking to damon and i was talking to their bass player alex and I remember asking him how many dates on this tour and Alex said 14 hangovers that was the one answer and then the

other thing I remember is the guys got really drunk I mean really drunk and I had I had heard that the show in Boston had actually ended early because they had torn the PA down from jumping all over it. It was just bizarre. So anyway, I'm thinking this should be an interesting show. So we go into the venue because I'm emceeing. They're going to let me introduce them, come on, right before they go on. And we got to go through these big load-in doors. And the doors slam shut after we walk in.

And then we're kind of looking at each other, and then we realize, hey, where's Damon? Can't find Damon. And all of a sudden, like maybe 30 seconds to a minute later, there's some banging on these two big doors. And we open them up, and Damon comes in, runs in, and he's like, shut the door. And he shuts the door and he's, he's looking really like disheveled and frightened. And I, and I said, what happened? He goes, some guy out there tried to hit me with a baseball bat. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, the guy tried to thump me with a baseball bat. So I opened the door and there's some gentlemen, older gentlemen, probably I want to say Italian or Portuguese with a big baseball bat in his hand.

And he yells out, you tell that kid, if he pisses in my backyard again, I'm going to kill him. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, uh, and I'll always make time for these stories brother are you kidding me we'll go six hours if i get more i was gonna say like that part of the city at that time like in the early 90s was pretty dodgy yeah like i used to when i was still living in york region in high school we drive down for shows at opera house and no one ever wanted to drive because you don't want to won't want to leave your parents car or ever want to leave your car to leave your car there. So that happened, and then I introduced them. They did their first song, and all I remember is the crowd cheers, and then there was a little bit of silence there in between

as they get ready for the second song. And someone in the crowd just yells out, You're wasted! That's pretty much what I remember about Blur, the first appearance in Toronto. Okay, speaking of the Opera House, Bill, it's funny because last time I was there was for the Party for Marty,

the Martin Streak 10 years since his passing. And you were actually there via virtual... Yes, but you were there on the screen. Like, I know you sent in, I guess, was it pre-recorded or maybe it was just done through Zoom? Pre-recorded, yeah. So you were there virtually along with Captain Phil and some other virtual BC peeps.

Shout out to Captain Phil, by the way. He listens as well. He's a big, big fan as well. Yeah. You know, Captain Phil's a legend, man. I talked to a lot of UCFNY guys, so I've heard a lot about Captain Phil. Oh, sorry. He's a big fan of Stu's. Not yours, Mike. Stu's. Oh, so he's an FOSS. That'll make Stu happy. The more the merrier. Can I say one last thing about Damon Albarn? I'm sensing maybe his name will come up again.

And I feel like we mentioned this on a past Pandemic Friday where we're talking about gorillas. But I almost think Damon doesn't get enough credit for leading these two massive yet completely different bands. It's pretty staggering let's ask bill so we we because because of course we mentioned uh who's the obvious but the dave grohl who was only a drummer in nirvana didn't pollute the process to use his words only a drummer right so he's a guy who was in two yeah like so he's a guy who was in two big bands okay

massive monster bands. And there are other examples. You can go to The Birds or Clapton and all different things. But really, you're right. The fact that The Gorillas and Blur are both kind of Damon Albers. It is really a rarity. It's hard to come up with a lot of names

that have been in two bands that big. But I think Brother Bill might have a few on the top of his head. Well, not a big one, but I remember Mick Jones, who was in The Clash, was also in Big Audio Dynamite. And Foreigner, too. Different Mick Jones. The other Mick Jones. Well, Phil Collins was in, well, of course. Genesis.

Yeah, but then he was solo. That's not two different bands. Funny. Yeah, doing some research on this, as why presumably we'll be talking about Oasis. Noel Gallagher, not a massive fan of Phil Collins. Interesting. I love that shit.

So save that in case we hear some Oasis later. But there's, you know, some obvious old, you can do classic rock stories. You can go Stephen Stills. He was in Buffalo Springfield. Actually, or even Neil Young if you want to stick him in Crosby, Stills, and Ashton Young. I suppose you could say Paul McCartney. Wings. Yeah, you could do that.

What was the other band he was in? Oh, right. Mike would come to Bettles. The Bettles. Borge-Salming. Borge-Salming and the Bettles. What a hog on him. Okay, this is a song I can tell you from the chat.

There are people, including Cam Brio, who have been aching to hear this band on our Britpop episode, so let's not make them wait any longer. They're just on fire. Here's Cam Cam second jam. Yn ystod y dydd, roeddwn i'n meddwl bod yna'r ffordd i'w ddod o hyd i'r cyfnod. Yn ystod y dydd, roeddwn i'n meddwl bod yna'r ffordd i'w ddod o hyd i'r cyfnod. Yn ystod y dydd, roeddwn i'n meddwl bod yna'r ffordd i'w ddod o hyd i'r cyfnod. Yn ystod y dydd, roeddwn i'n meddwl bod yna'r ffordd i'w ddod o hyd i'r cyfnod.

Yn ystod y dydd, roeddwn i'n meddwl bod yna'r ffordd i'w ddod o hyd i'r cyfnod. Now you're taking your time off the clock I want to touch you Oh, oh From now he has gone I want to touch you Oh, oh Now you're on his call As the producer of this fine program, I can tell you guys now that you both chose this song.

We did. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say that's that surprising. Like Suede, the band is Suede. For those listeners who might not have heard this before. Yeah, like they, to me, are like one of the no-brainers for any list of brit pop and and we're saying off the top but you know i think we're the first band to ever be

called brit pop in print um i'm sure there's like an enemy or mojo or one of those sounds or something like that melody maker it was still around uh name of the song is animal nitrate from their self-titled debut this is actually the third single off that album uh after the drowners and a metal mickey um big hit in uk top 10 pretty big in ireland and new zealand uh went to number 21 in sweden uh fun back there for all our sw. Because there's Suede and Swede. There you go. They got confused. W as opposed to a U.

They got confused. I think Suede is a band that, I wouldn't say they came and went quickly because they didn't really, but I think in terms of their popularity in North America, it was really the first three albums and then sort of diminishing returns. But I mean, brother,

I mean, these guys were like huge. And I remember CFNY played the shit out of them, including this song. It was like a big, big fucking deal. So those three singles were released before the album came out. The album's called Nude, I think. And those came out simultaneously,

or not simultaneously, one after another, after another, like they were releasing, they were trying to figure out a marketing idea for Suede because there was a lot of, you know, the American grunge was going on yet. Suede sort of had a little bit of that kind of sound going where they could get away with probably fitting into the grunge sound a little bit. So they released those singles first, and then they put out the album. And I remember that album, not so much in the United States, but in Canada and in the UK, was an absolutely monster album. It was all about Suede for a good six to eight months in 1992 or 93.

And they were the shit in the UK for a good couple of years. And you're right. We talked about it a little earlier, but I think if you define the band that kind of earned that title Britpop first, it's Suede for sure. kind of earned that title Britpop first it swayed for sure yeah and definitely like a the classic UK tab music tabloidy hype machine and overdrive for these guys I mean some of the I go back like just google some of the photo shoots that like Brett Anderson uh not to be mistaken with the former Blue Jay pitcher Brett Anderson um did around that I mean, sort of like to play with sort of androgynous looks, but had kind of the swooping hair. But yeah, we're just, but these songs, yeah,

like it's going back and listening to a lot of the Suede songs, picking out tracks for this. So you sort of forget how guitar heavy they are. Like so many songs, yeah, like they don't really sound that out of place amongst kind of the grunge of the day, especially a song like The Dr which is uh has a really like crunchy opening and like metal mickey is just kind of all washed and guitars but yeah great band it holds up and they've released like a lot of music since then like still kind of going semi-strong and they're

uh yeah hey i feel like their albums don't even get released here and domestically anymore i sort of less a thing anymore. And this is also a good time to just briefly, briefly talk about the power of the British press in the 1990s. I mean, they were, the ability that the British press had to make or break a career all depended on if you were the record of the week in their weekly papers that came out. And I remember, I think it was Metal Mickey by Suede was absolutely like all, like Melody Maker and NME both lost their minds over it and gave it five out of five.

And that really made their career or started the hype in the UK. And again, the power of the UK and, and again, and again, issue the power of, of the British press. And they were, they were a very powerful entity in the 1990s. And a lot of these bands had to kiss their ass to get anywhere in their careers. And some bands made it. And some bands probably didn't get a fair shot. And I'll give you one bank. I don't know if we're going to play them today,

but one band that really got no shot in the UK at all, but fortunately had a Canadian manager who understood the North American market was the Catherine Wheel. So the Catherine Wheel were this band that would play Toronto to 2000 people. But I saw them in 1995 in a pub in London to 40 people you know it was just unbelievable and they could not get anything written about them in the NME or Melody Maker it's it's so because I I feel like swayed with especially with the the attention that NME and whatnot would pay to them once kind of the blur and oasis feud happened I feel like that almost put suede a bit in the shadow because so much so many covers were like dedicated to like blur versus oasis and all that sort of silly stuff because i remember even when the third suede album came out uh coming up that had the great single

trash that i was still like an awesome song um they just seemed like yesterday's news by about like 1997 suede which is too bad because i again i feel like their stuff holds up and even their more recent stuff i was listening to it like it's not it's not bad they put out like an album in 2018 um what's it called here i have it in my notes uh check the liner notes the blue hour yeah check spotify um yeah like the singles and the stuff's still good and they're still playing shows i i i'd be curious when the last time they played in north america was i feel like they have not played in toronto and i don't i don't even know like 20 years

again i i don't remember them playing in toronto to tell you the truth um i don't remember seeing them live i mean i saw a lot of shows but i don't remember them playing in toronto i actually remember one of the when i was just getting into sort of alternative music i i called i don't know if you remember this brother there was a contest on cfny where you could call to win a trip to i want to say it was like denmark or something to see suede around the time they put out dog man star okay i remember i don't know why i remember the promo very specifically it's come see suede with their new guitarist this was after like bernard butler had just left left and they had they had a teenager playing guitar yeah like he was sort of like you know yeah like a pro pro no prodigy i was just a prodigdigy. Yeah, Prodigy. Prodigy.

He was in the Prodigy. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I remember this concert very specifically because I remember like calling in to win because I wanted to go to Denmark to see Suede with their new guitars. But yeah, good memories. So many promotions.

I don't remember that one, but yeah, awesome. A few quick housekeeping notes. Two bands that jumped in my head that also had like a member in multiple successful bands of course is a velvet revolver yeah that's right yeah and uh of course uh audio slave okay because i would say that's that's fair but again i repeat that i think the amazing thing about damon albarn is like blur and gorillas are just so different. What they are.

No doubt. And you know, when we played gorillas, when we played gorillas last was, uh, MF doom died and we played that track from the gorillas for that. So that's where that comes in. And here,

uh, brother, I know you're stretching your legs. Do you need a bio break? Are you okay? You're okay. No, I I'm good.

Don't worry. We're good to go. I'm just, I I'm sitting in a chair that's making i'm losing the circulation oh yeah yeah no guys when you hit 50 this is what happens well circulation starts to go brother i'm not that far away so i'll be there soon i was gonna ask you brother since you still got the headphones on there i was gonna ask you uh earlier cam made the uh i was there joke and then i was purposely not doing it like i was

intentionally not doing it it's like low hanging fruit but this is the chance for us to like this is your moment again i totally get if you're kind of tired of hearing it when you listen to pandemic fights if you say the word right now i will retire the. Okay. I, I'm more honored that that saying that I, when I did my interview with you, when I was on your show last year, the fact that it's had legs that gone this far and this long, Cam uses it once in a while. Stu uses it every episode.

Does lean on it a little bit, like a little bit of a crush. You know what though? I think it's funny. I, I 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 other other 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 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 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 a legend 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 just want to make sure that we know. I mean, the fact that you, that Cam and yourself and Stu, you use that every once in a while, the he wasn't there thing,

you know, I think is great. But, you know, I just want to make it clear that I have nothing but the utmost respect for Alan. And, you know, 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 oh Scott's involved

I love Scott Turner's 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 your thought 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 like let's say you know this is by the lake so it's going to be june okay but please play this for him and make sure you let him know that that you know that i love him and and i'm 100 all my other brothers and sisters back east and and we'll see him again soon oh i will do that uh well absolutely yeah well said i'm gonna cut that out and play it for him and we'll have a

little love in a mutual love in for brother by the way just before we go the next track here's a bit of a palette yeah you do your palette cleanse and then i'm gonna go straight i'm gonna hold up a photo for anyone who's here's here's a photo and this is sort of here's a photo of like that's brett anderson and uh justine freshman having a little smooch on the lips because she, of course, was in one of the early iterations of Suede when they were dating before she famously formed Elastica and then got together with Damon Albarn. Right. Yeah, not the first time I've seen Justine Frischman snogging with somebody.

And the second time was in person. And it wasn't me. Oh, wow. Okay okay we'll let more on that more about that later i have a feeling she might come up yeah i need to play another jam of mine to hear how that doesn't qualify either so uh this one possibly too late in the game but you'll let me know here we go No! To be alone, the present to be afraid of cold So if I count you rabbits, then I count you fascists Bullets fly our brain today, but we'll forget it all again.

Monuments put from pen to paper turns me into a godless wonder. And if you tolerate this, then your children will be next. Manic Street Preachers, if you tolerate this. Does this one qualify, guys? It's my favorite song about the spanish civil war but no no i don't think it's but i don't know why i don't know why like it's everything about the sound right era right place this band huge in the uk moderately popular north like they they tick all those boxes i'm not sure why they're not Britpop.

I don't know why. So I'm 0 for 2 is what you're telling me. Well, I don't know. Stu will love this. I wouldn't say that either. Yeah, that's, but Mike, you know what? Again, this is an argument that could really go either way. Obviously, Manic's first album, we talked about it earlier, Cam,

and that is, it was a very sort of uh i want to say almost like t-rex bowie kind of a little louder like sweet sort of had that kind of heavy rock kind of vibe to it going on very but they were very i remember they would be very vocal about how much they loved like bon jovi and like guns and roses they but i think they were also trying to be contrary because they were because they were a very smart band in terms of how they played the press. Yeah, and then their guitarist disappeared. That's right.

Has never been found. Right. After that album. And they sort of changed their sound. They didn't replace them. I remember that. They became a three-piece. And yeah, that song is a great song.

I mean, that's all there is to it when it comes down to it but it's one of those is it brit pop isn't it brit pop and i think the argument could go back and forth yeah i i just read the album before this with the design for life and like it was almost like symphonic rock it was just it was just like massive but i was also like oh my god i can't believe this is the same band. Yeah, I think that there's another band that comes to mind that's a little bit further down the road. That's Muse. So Muse kind of had that queen radio head.

And I want to say Manic Street Preachers kind of sound to them. And Manic Street Preachers, although North America wasn't very kind to the Manic Street Preachers either, you go to Europe and Manic Street Preachers were a pretty big band for a lot of years. Stadium band. Yeah, absolutely. Stadium band. Yeah, for sure. So, Mike, I think it's a good call that you would say this is a Britpop band because it's definitely riding the line for sure.

Yeah, I would say, okay, let me re-send sort of why. I say they're neither Britpop nor not brit pop oh that's uh interesting yeah i actually got saw these guys probably like four or five maybe a bit longer now at danforth music hall um which again to me they seem sort of like a stadium band so seeing them in that sort of environment was very exciting obviously never quite hit the heights of popularity anywhere in north america that they did in the uk were like i feel like they you know i'm sure they headlined like glastonbury festival or like redding like that's kind of for sure this jam was big here this is a jam i love and uh let me just shout

out i'll take this opportunity before i kick out brothers third jam just to shout out the brit awards because i always felt like uh you had your your gram your yeah your grammys and your american music awards and this such and it was always kind of lame-o and then i i would always make sure uh i caught the brit awards because it always seemed really cool what they were doing over there completely agree the budget just seemed to be a lot bigger. I remember a performance on the Brit Music Awards, still my favorite of and it wasn't Britpop, but my favorite was just you watched in awe whereas the grammy awards tended to be big lights nice dresses and that was about it but the brit music awards had a little bit more to offer and it was always nice too when the bands would come up and you could tell they've been drinking since about noon right it was a licensed affair it was a licensed affair yeah i always like watching it too because it was certainly before

the proliferation of the internet. Way to get a pulse like, holy shit, here's Cliff Richard getting the Lifetime Achievement Award like Robbie Williams. People like that weren't really that popular. People would be losing, like, album of the year, Robbie Williams.

It gave you a heads up on what was coming. I remember one year, Brit Awards was all about the Spice Girls. Robbie Williams. But also, it gave you a heads up on what was coming. Like, you might, I remember one year Brit Awards was all about, like, oh, what do they call it? The Spice Girls. So, like, the Spice Girls were like,

it was like the second coming of the Beatles on the Brit Awards. But it was just slightly ahead of when we got the wave and it was like, sort of like, you could kind of

check your watch. Next thing you know, what's it called? Tell us what you like, what you really like. What's that song called? Is that called? Wannabe. Wannabe. Wannabe song called? Is that called? Wannabe.

Suddenly Wannabe is on super high rotation and much music and everyone's going nuts for the Spice Girls. So it was kind of neat to see what was coming. Like what wave is coming. And I do remember Manic Street Preachers and we already heard from a lot of these bands we're hearing tonight like the Blur versus Oasis thing

and everything was kind of highlighted in the Brit Awards. You know who's a band that you sort of think of when I think of the Manic Street Preachers? Because it's a similar sort of popularity graph. And Mike, we heard this band when we did... Wait, is it possible we'll hear them today? Well, they're also another Welsh band.

Oh, okay. Do I keep it down? Is it more of an acoustic Welsh sounding band? Okay, go ahead. No, okay. There's two bands that come to mind. One starts with an S and one starts with an A. Is it the S band, Mike?

Yeah, well, hold that, okay? Let's hold that fire. I'm going to hold my fire. But take a note. I know you got notes in front of you. That's your liner notes. Take a note in case we're not talking on the same page. But that might be my next jump. Let's circle back to it. We take a note. I know you got notes in front of you. That's your liner notes. Take a note in case we're not talking

on the same page, but that might be my next jump. Let's circle back to it. We'll circle back. Here's a band everybody's waiting to hear and here it is

courtesy of Brother Bill. guitar solo I've worked very hard, but I'm lazy I can't take the pressure and it's starting to show In my heart, I know how amazing The life of pleasure is, you know that I know Waking up again, I've just never been easier Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Waking up again, I've just never been easier yes shall i go go ahead brother first of all I'll just say that that's, if you're talking Britpop, that's my favorite Britpop album.

I think that album is just phenomenal. And Mike, what's interesting is there are 16 songs on that album and it clocks in at under 40 minutes. Wow. Another album that's my, one of my favorite albums, my favorite Canadian album, 17 songs. I'm pretty sure it clocks in in under 40 minutes as well. And that is, of course, Shakespeare, My Butt by the Lowest of the Low. And we're going to hear some of that later today.

We are. Is it that short? It's only 40 minutes? It's less than 40 minutes. The Elastica debut album released in 1993, and that was a song called Waking Up. Now, I could have went with connection that's the big song obviously right um but i just loved that song so much and that album so much i didn't want to

play just the the the big hit as it were i wanted to go a little deeper that was actually the fourth single to come off that album in in uh i said 1993 1995 is when it was released the debut album from elastica interesting story um again i mentioned glastonbury in 1995 i met a guy named steve lamac and steve lamac was uh a dj on one of the bbc two or three or something like that i didn't even know this at the time after I had sat there with him practically all day having conversation, just talking about bands. I knew he was a DJ. He knew I was a DJ from Toronto. He was pressing me on a lot of the British stuff.

He wanted to know what was big. And I couldn't really understand why other than he just, you know, he just wanted to see what picked my brain a little bit, how well British music could go over. So, you know, a long story longer, Steve Lemack discovered Elastica. He was the one that found them and turned them into, well, with the help of the NME and Melody Maker and the British Press, one of the biggest bands of the 1990s in britain and they did fairly well in america as well and i think that some of the questions he was asking me in 95 at glastonbury were kind of to see how he could get elastica how he could break them in north america because i remember talking to him a lot about Lollapalooza and its importance and how big it was in North America and how, you know,

if you wanted to get your band known, Lollapalooza was a pretty good venue to do so. And they ended up playing Lollapalooza after Sinead O'Connor bowed out in, I guess, 96 or 97. And just, it's a phenomenal album front to back. I was going to say, this feels like a bullseye like Britpop. Like, again, what is Britpop? Like, this album is Britpop. Yeah, and we talk about grunge and the big bands,

Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Well, I think when it comes to Britpop, Oasis, Blur, probably Pulp, and Elastica are the big four so i mean you could not play though like suede's got to be way too i would put suede on that list as well and justine frischman uh the lead vocalist uh her father was a holocaust survivor little fact i wouldn't call it fun but a fact there um justine frischman no donna matthews

who is now a a preacher is now signed to the cloth um much like shanae o'connor right very she's a priest i feel like because she's not shanae o'connor is a is a is a i want to say a wiccan but that wouldn't be be it. It's a little different. She's a high priestess. Donna Matthews is a pastor. That's what I'm trying to find. That's the word. Annie Holland on bass and the one and only guy in the band,

Justin Welsh on the drums. And, you know, it's just, it was a monster album. And I remember we only played about two or three singles off it because Connection was such a huge song but i mean that song waking up to me was was the best song on the album i feel like that other single stutter much like song two was a great end of the hour we we got like an hour or a minute and 40 seconds till the news that this song um waking up i feel like this is the one they got dinged because of its similarity to similarity to the stranglers song uh no more heroes is that this song or was

that a different song it's it's an up it's a lineup was the song so lineup was was uh the stranglers who were a great english rock band from the 1970s and 80s, they sued them for lined up because they said it sounded like a song that they had written called No More Heroes. Man, I've listened to them both. I listened to them both recently. I don't hear it myself in lineup. But that wasn't the only band that sued Elastica for this for songs and i can't remember who the other

band i think it was wire it was wire that's right in the song called i am the fly and yeah there you go those two songs overlapping it's like yeah it's it's pretty fair it's pretty fair that one maybe but i didn't hear it with lineup but to waking up again that was the the fourth single out of the on the uk single in the UK from them. And also, a lot of people don't realize that there's some keyboards in that, played by a guy named Dan Abnormal, who is, well, it's an anagram for the real man, who was Justine's boyfriend at the time, and that's Damon Albarn. There you go.

Wow. the time and that's damon albarn there you go wow who was also the guy that i saw snogging justin that's justine frischman uh in front of me at an edge fest at the molson amphitheater but that was the one like i feel like ned's atomic dustbin also they were on the bill too blur elastic ned's atomic dustbin and and i don't know what Canadian band was on that. I feel like it was Our Lady Peace was on there too, like opening. I have a question for you guys. This is a question not just about Britpop in general because Elastica did have a follow-up, the album The Menace, which is actually not a bad album.

I feel like it got kind of shat upon, but it's not bad. And then they kind of went away and haven't reformed. Whether it's Elastica or The Laws, do you guys like when these bands have like one or two albums and then sort of disappear because i kind of do like you don't really have a chance to hear like all the you know the the 20th neil young album or the 40th or 50th neil young album i don't know i kind of like when the band just have like a short kind of burn brightly and then burn out um which I think Elastica very much did. Cause there's a lot of a lot of drugs around this.

I think the impact, the impact tended to be a little more lasting. I remember speaking with Justine when that second album had come out, she wasn't in a good place at all. I could tell there was some, some impact from the years of quote unquote, hard living, probably there as well. And, and good on her for for walking away because I don't know if you knew this or not but it uh she basically left the UK and went to school went to university in Denver or Boulder Colorado uh in the early to mid 2000s I guess so at the end of Elastica's second sort of run at it um she ended up moving to San Francisco and now she's currently still living in

the U S and she's married to a climate, a climate scientist. Well, she important, important job. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought I'd throw those facts out. She was also integral in introducing us to M.I.A. Was she not? She was roommates with M.I.A. Is that what it was? Yeah, she was roommates with M.I.A., the rapper,

and helped her get discovered, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure who she introduced her to, but was M.I.A. popular in North America, though? Yes, with the one with the clash. Paper planes. Paper planes, yeah. Right, right. We have two thoughts from Cambrio in the chat room.

Justine and Damon dated, which I think we just talked about. Pay attention, Cambrio. She's married to a climate denier. Scientist, I thought it was. I don't know if he's a denier. Well, we'll have to do a little digging. Let's do a little digging. Shout out to Steve. Go ahead. Can I quickly say

that we vetoed a subject or a topic I had thought maybe we could go with and that was our crushes. May I just say that if we had a list, Justine Frischman would have been on that list. All of our lists i think i

feel like she she was very popular with both the boys and the girls yeah lovely how to look steve says that uh waking up is a better song than connection and he says you made a great call and going with waking up so thank you i appreciate that i agree i like i agree absolutely well connections just overplayed too right right Right. Right. All right, Cam. Cam Gordon. Cheryl's Cameron Gordon. Are you ready for your third jam? Yeah. I feel like I'm getting more and more, like we're going down the scale of

notoriety. It's funny, because this song has been mentioned in this episode already for anyone who's been paying attention, like us. But here we go. The Laws of Legend. I guess I'm all right. Yes, I'm all right. I guess I'm doing fine. Yes, I'm doing fine Guess I'm doing fine Do you think I miss you?

Do you think I care? Do you think I lay down and die? You never even tried You never even tried Now it's about time, it's the right time If you willed your mind, you willed your mind You willed your mind So fly on sweet now Okay, so Mike is back.

I was always here, Ken. Yeah, go ahead, man. I know the song, but I can't remember what band that is. Well, this is the band you mentioned earlier. This is Cast with the song. Oh, it's Cast. Right.

From, I guess, the Ashes of the Laws came Cast with the aforementioned John Power. This song is from 1995, the album All Change. And yeah, it was a decent-sized hit. I remember this song got a lot of radio airplay here on CFNY as well as the song, I think it was called Fine Time. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, cast much like the Laws out of Liverpool.

Liverpool's kind of underrated as a music city. I mean, most famously, obviously, the Beatles came from there. But other acts that came from Liverpool, aside from the beatles cast in the laws include frankie goes to hollywood a flock of seagulls echo and the bunny men and the best and somebody we just lost uh or the singer of this band we just lost uh jerry and the pacemakers uh jerry across the marzy yeah and also the great uh football anthem uh forget which team you'll never walk liverpool liverpool yeah which makes sense um obvious i don't have a lot of fun

facts for cast beyond i would say they're sort of in that second tier of bands might trump might yeah okay i'll chime in this song you know this song you've heard this right i i don't remember it wow i know in fact it wasn't it wasn't around for long it it cast were kind of in and out they were they were kind of here and then they they disappeared and and and i i'll i don't want to say things out of out of line here but i do remember a conversation i had with a then much music vj at glastonbury in 1995 about some inappropriate behavior uh on on behalf of one of the members of cast uh at a certain show that much music had sent listeners to in Los Angeles. And, you know, it's all a legend and nothing was ever brought up in court.

And we look at what's happening with Marilyn Manson right now. It was another conversation that I had with a Much Music VJ in 1995. But again, nothing was ever substantiated. the much music vj in 1995 but again nothing was ever substantiated but i'm wondering if behavior like that in 1995 if indeed was true or the rumors got around that was true may have had something to do with how fast cast disappeared from the the limelight if you were because i heard you cam you mentioned that uh this song was played on 102.1 and i i spent a lot of time listening to that station throughout the 90s as i've mentioned only a couple hundred times on this program me too and yes so brother you might have a better idea like

like how often was cast all right played on 102.1 and like when not so the average the average song would get six weeks if you got an ad on cf and y in the 90s you would get a six week spin rate rate so you would you would get the ad and you would be guaranteed to be played for six weeks then they would do a little bit of market research and if it wasn't showing up anywhere in other words if people weren't you know saying that's one of my favorites or whatever, it got dumped. Because in the 1990s, it was basically sign a band, throw them against the wall. If they stick, they stick. If they don't, they don't.

And so to answer your question with Cast, because they did have the two singles, I think that All Right was the first single, was it? Or was Fine Time? I feel like Fine Time may have come first, at least in North America. Like, I don't, they had other singles in the UK, but I mean, over here, they were sort of, yeah, they kind of came and went. Steve says, in the chat, Steve says it was played a lot

on CFNY. I just missed it. To put it in CFNY terms, I feel like this song would have like peaked at like 24 on the 24. It doesn't resonate with me very well. I mean, I just remember the band from unfortunately that story. And also I, I remember it just not being that wasn't around for that long. I, when I went to Glastonbury 95, I remember seeing a few bands that hadn't broken in North America yet.

Dodgy was one super grass Elastica had just come out. And I remember going to a record store, because that's what you did back then. And I bought a whole bunch of imports and I mailed them to myself. And I remember Cast, All Right, was one of those CD singles that I sent to myself. But I don't remember them being around for too long.

But for what they were, I thought they were a pretty good band. I mean, the songs were great. I think they had the good fortune of Noel Gallagher was quite fond of this band, but I think more importantly, he was actually a huge fan of that first Laws album. Right.

I feel like he said like that's his favorite album or just I remember reading quotes about how much he loved that album and just sort of the laws and i think he was sort of in love with the mystique of the laws too because he's so into sort of the kind of reverence of just kind of rock and roll mystique but i know they like toured with oasis so they probably got like a bit of oasis bump because i mean this is right around the time oasis was if not the biggest band in the world like in the yeah like top five. Like they were way up there.

Cam, previously you mentioned a band that started with S from Wales and I checked my band. So what band was it? What band was I talking about? No, I think Cam was talking about. Did I just say it? Yeah, go ahead.

Sure. Stereophonics. Stereophonics. Okay. And Stereophonics. Stereophonics. Okay. And Stereophonics, is this the band is that the band that loved the Tragically Hip? Yes, yeah. We heard them on the

episode where it was Fiddler's Green, right? Yeah, covers of Canadian songs by non-Canadian bands. Because they have a fantastic cover of Fiddler's Green. And also I do remember I did catch them at an Edge Fest at Molson Park in Barrie. And yeah, they seem to, I think they might have, maybe they named something Phantom Power after the Hip album. They were just huge fans of the Hip.

There was the other Welsh band. Is that who we're hearing also starts with S? No, go ahead. The other Welsh band that I remember is The Alarm. I mean, I don't remember. Stereophonics. And then there was a band called People in Planes or something like that. But the other Welsh band I was thinking of was Super Furry Animals that also had an album called Phantom Power. That's okay.

So I'm conflating my Welsh bands. I think you're thinking of Tom Jones. Not unusual for me to make that mistake. Born in Pontypridd, Wales, which is where my mother was born as well. By the way, Tom. Tom Jones. Yes, Tom Jones. I think I've told this story before, but

it's a good one. It's short, at least. My mom worked for many years as a nurse at North York General Hospital. One day, Tom Jones came in. Come on. I forget why. she had all sorts of interesting celebrity encounters but that's a big one tom jones well she had tom jones delivered babies for everyone from dan hill to some guy from platinum blonde also gave some care to colonel

sanders who lived in mississauga because when he did smith's villa uh scott sorry not smith scott's chicken villa that was uh yeah his thing she like changed changed colonel sanders diaper cam i know we just met but i was going to say i think maybe tom was returning her bra you know tom she was i believe tom she had children tom has the same reputation as uhoreal Salman, as I recall. You're getting close. Right. On that note, here's my third jam.

Can you hear us humping on your stereo? Can you hear us humping on your stereo? Can you hear us humping on your stereo? Can you hear us humping on your stereo? Can you hear us? I'm on the radio. Life is a cigarette. Smoke to the air.

If you're rocking the middle bed, all your friends are your friends. The whiter your eyes, the bigger the lies. Yes, it's true. Can you hear us? I'm on to find out if my choice of supergrass pumping on your stereos, will this make me go over three? Oh, this is a great, great. Oh, finally.

Thank you. Nails it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Stereo. Supergrass. I'm saying stereophonics again supergrass word yeah they were that's maybe not that album um for me it's i should coco in 1995 which gave us all right and caught by the fuzz and that's a great album and that's that's the

band that was that band that steve lemac said have you heard of this band supergrass at glastonbury i said no and took me over to see them and they they blew my mind. They were just so good young guys. Then they were only about 19 or 20. And, you know, had they, had they played the media game a little bit better? Cause they weren't really interested in talking to the media and they kind of took the piss a lot. And I think that really kind of hurt them in north america but should have been a should have been a could have been a you know bigger band i i feel like they got re oh there you go there's your son and your daughter hello hold on we had an announcement last week is there do you have anything to announce i don't know you just came down to say hi? Okay, come say hi then. Hello.

Hello. Any more teeth fall out? No, but Morgan's about to lose a second tooth. It's very, very loose. It's very wiggly, I bet. Hi. What's your favorite Supergrass song? What's your favorite Supergrass song? It's okay.

No idea. Okay, love you. Just kind of adorable. I want a balloon. It's okay, no idea Okay, love you, go back Okay Just kind of adorable I want a balloon Love you, bye Those are Mike's kids for those listening Those are the little ones

The 16-year-old is upstairs Where's the 35 and 38-year-old? That's what I want to know Not yet, come on, brother You have a couple of kids you take a 10 year break you have a couple of kids you take a 10 year break but i'm done because uh we did an episode on vasectomy jams i remember the bag of peas episode do you guys have any uh yeah i'm sorry to interrupt you there but this is another band i basically kind of discovered

through the brit awards and then uh dug a lot of their stuff i'll say this because i remember when this yeah because the first album i should coco was kind of pretty big but like they were still very young the second one i feel like they had a bit of a sophomore jinx i remember that album called i think it was called only in it for the money that had the single cheapskate that i thought i actually really liked that song but didn't really do much this one it seemed like okay this was the album was gonna push the the video for this song was very memorable because they were almost look like giant muppets right right it sounded like mick jagger it's like okay this is gonna break supergrass and they're gonna go the next level yeah very mick jagger yeah and credit credit where credits do that video and much music really pushed that song and i think that that's probably why

they were as well known as they were maybe for a short period of time but in north america and in canada specifically i mean cfny the edge was great local tor Toronto area for introducing bands and playing bands. But when it came down to it, if you got much music airplay with a great, clever video, like I think of the video of Push by Moist. You know, Biff Naked's in that video. If that's the one. Or am I thinking of this? I feel it's like a single shot.

Okay. Yes. So anyway, it was very clever. And I remember it got tons of airplay that way. And good for them. And obviously, Supergrass, they were really pushing. They really tried to push Supergrass in North America. And again, it comes back to what I said earlier.

They really didn't want to play the media game, which sort of hurt them in the end. But the video was outstanding, for sure. They sort of had all the parts where you know it should have happened but i feel like because this album was what 2000 2000 or 98 2000 2000 yeah like i feel like they really wanted to have okay oasis was sort of like i think people were a bit over oasis by this time but it was kind of like who's next it's like okay let's try supergrass Let's really give them the old college try. And I don't think they really built on this single.

This was like their high watermark, at least in North America. There was nothing going on at that time either, really. There was no, it was sort of the end of grunge completely. And it was, it was Britpop was obviously done too. So there was that sort of like that, that desert of music at that time. It was a new metal's time to shine.

Yeah, this was before Strokes and all that business. Yeah, just before the Strokes, who were another band that probably were influenced by a lot of the songs we're playing as well. They were an American band. You know what song this song reminded me of a lot? Which one? Rocks by Primal Scream. Oh, Primal Scream. In terms of just a song,

first single from a new album, let's try to sound as much like the Rolling Stones as possible. Right. Totally. Kind of similar approach, but six years after Rocks. That was coming out of Screamadelica, which again,

I don't know if we've mentioned Primal Scream I don't think they're a Britpop band No they were kind of the end of the Manchester thing as well kind of that little bit of leeway in between 91 they had Screamadelica and then they put out that album

that had Rocks on it which was like I think mid 90s to late 90s it's like they and you're exactly right they were just trying to be the black crows or the rolling stones yeah and it was great it's a great song but yeah i remember and then they did this album vanishing point that was almost like an electron like a pure electronica sort of menacing almost like they were trying to be like massive attack a bit but like a bit harder edge and more guitars but so speaking of a little bit of information fun fact perhaps maybe a little trivia for you so the lead singer of primal scream was bobby gillespie who was the original drummer

with the jesus and mary chain bingo. Cam, I cannot get one by you. No, Cam knows his shit. I'm deep in this stuff. He's the smart one in the trio here. He's the smart one. Yeah, by the way, Cam Brio, he dropped a photo of Mickey from Lush, the band Lush.

I think he's, you know, that- Oh, yeah, the crush, right. Which we vetoed that topic, but I was going to have Meetsu on my list. See, Lush lush i'm not sure is a brit pop band either i think lush catherine wheel this is like shoegaze territory we didn't talk about that movement so within just between manchester and brit pop was shoegazing which was uh i think lush you're right uh ride um there was a couple of other bands as well out of the uk

my bloody valentine my bloody valentine out of ireland yeah uh and a couple of other bands as well lush i loved lush as well and then they came out with that album lady killers uh with that song lady killers which was a brit pop song if you ask, from a band that had transferred over from the shoegazing movement to Britpop. And again, another band, boy, I'll tell you about frustration. Some of the interviews that we did in the 1990s with the British bands, especially, it was like trying to pull like, I don't know, trying to pull teeth. It was brutal. We just couldn't get them to talk at all. And I remember Mickey and Emma from Lush coming in. And as wonderful human beings as they are, the minute you turn on the microphones, they said nothing.

It's like NHL players. Oh, that's the worst. I feel like Mike's going to tell this story, but I'm going to tell it if he doesn't. No, I'm going to share the fun fact that Cambrio just dropped on us at live.torontomic.com, which is she is, when you listen to El Scorcho, of course, early in El Scorcho by Weezer, those half Japanese girls do it to me every time. Apparently, she is the half Japanese girl that Rivers Cuomo is referencing in that song. The big red hair? Yeah. Wow. She's a big red hair. Yeah. Wow.

She's very, very striking. She's very striking. But again, you turn on the microphone, man. Nothing to say. Okay, Cam, what were you going to say before I thank some partners here? I was going to say, just building on the brother's comment about how difficult the British band is. Is it Alan Cross or Scott Turner? Someone has the anecdote about talking to the beautiful south

in brampton it's alan cross yeah that's alan and how just i think they were just assholes yeah he said i wouldn't know i wasn't there oddly enough beautiful south i think of definitely not brit pop i don't know if they're from manchester i don't think they are so the beautiful south where the house martins and without norman cook who went on to become fat boy slim right they were from hull hull city hull that's right yeah yeah because we now call it brother it's now called gatno okay yeah gatno city oh my god in england that's right that's right no from the Midlands. Oh, my God.

Okay, yeah, there's so much here. Look, we're down. Can you believe it? We have one more jam each to kick out. This has been so educational and informative, and I could do this all night. I do want to thank- And the mic's bedtime.

I do want to, I got to read, they have this book that they're in love with. It's about the bad guys are trying to be good guys, and the bad guys are like a spider, a wolf, a shark, and a piranha. And they have these terrible reputations, and they're trying to improve their reputation by ganging up and being heroes so the world would see them as good guys, not bad guys. Anyway, this is a very exciting book we read.

A role reversal. Yeah, right. It's very funny, actually. Are you talking about a book you're reading your kids? Yeah, the four-year-old and six-year-old. I'm like, Cam, I didn't know you guys were into reading with each other. It's high concept. Yeah, so every night I read five chapters,

and then there's a bunch of books in this thing. Yeah, okay. Have a glass of milk. Cookie. So, brother, at some point in your life, you're going to return to the GTA and we can actually have a Great Lakes beer in person. I've been there nine years,

but I'm kind of jonesing to get back there. Because I've never had one of those beers and I've never had a Palma Pasta. Yeah, so that's where I'm going here. I got a Palma Pasta for you. I got the beer for you. I got some Sticker You Toronto Mike stickers. Thank you, Sticker You.

Great partners of the program. Now, this won't help you, brother Bill, but somebody listening is responsible for a network of computers, and maybe they're vulnerable to malware, phishing, ransomware attacks. Maybe it's slow. Stupid girlfriend.

Barb. Barb Paluskiewicz. It's spelled exactly like it sounds. Hit her up. Barb at cdntechnologies.com. It's all platonic. Is that Barb in the background there that I can see beside the palm of my hand? Oh, I didn't know what she looked like.

Is that Barb in the corner? You know, Barb did make an appearance on the, we had like a holiday episode of Toronto Mike where we had FOTMs jump in on the Zoom. This was on December 24th in 2020. And Barb was there, but we couldn't find Stu. And then I think Stu showed up late because he had a power outage

and he just missed Barb. And I was thinking of Polka Roo. Like it just seemed like they can't be seen in the same place here. But shout out to Barb. Much love to CDN Technologies. They're your outsourced IT department. Ridley Funeral Home.

They're here in New Toronto at 14th Street and Lakeshore, actually. And they're amazing. You can pay tribute without paying a fortune. Go to ridleyfuneralhome.com. Again, they're pillars of the community. And the new sponsor, I want to give much love to

on this first Pandemic Friday of February, Mike Majewski. He's in the know in Mimico and you can learn a whole lot about what they're up to there. That's with Remax, but it's realestatelove.ca. Contact, I'm calling him Mimico Mike and let Mimico Mike know that Toronto Mike sent you and thanks for your support. Mimico Mike. M and M. Question for you quickly before we move on. Is Mimico Arena still there?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Because when I was 10 years old, I played in a hockey tournament at that rink. It's right beside the parking lot for the no frills that I frequent. Good value. I know that it's called New Toronto now, I believe.

Well, that's actually in Mimico, and New Toronto starts at 1st Street. So, good. Frame of reference there is Ridley Funeral Home is at 14th and Lakeshore. The numbers go west. What are you saying? Actually, I sure wore the toque.

I've been wearing it a lot. You know, Mark Weisblatt wore it. Now, we did not live stream it, Mark's orders, but he was wearing his Ridley Fun wore the toque. I've been wearing it a lot. You know, Mark Weisblatt wore it. Now, we did not live stream it, Mark's orders, but he was wearing his Ridley Funeral Home toque. I will say MF, not a fan. Not a fan of the toque. She doesn't like how it looks or how it feels. I think the messaging on the front she finds a bit morbid.

Well, tell MF to get a clue. They're the fucking best, and we're all gonna die just tell mf we're all gonna die so do it right i'll do it right after any uh final jam here's a big fucking band we're gonna hear here uh anything you want to say or do you want me to just kick this out i'm just gonna go in this really quickly in the interest of time i tried to make a list of the best non-british britpop bands i didn't get very far but i did have one canadian band i have one it's not sloan no are they west coast yeah i bet this is the same person who pure oh fuck actually that's a better answer than mine i was gonna say the grapes of wrath

oh okay yeah pure though pure's good because pure was like this is gonna be canada's manchester band i think when they first came around from what i recall yeah uh that's what i remember oh my god they tried to sell them that way and and unfortunately um they uh they didn't um they didn't uh really fly, as it were. But yeah, I mean, Grapes of Wrath's a good one too. I would say that even though they kind of started in the mid-80s, but kind of evolved into that sound for sure. But they were sort of like jangly too.

They were. I don't think they're Britpop. Well, I Am Here. Was it I Am Here? Was that their big song? Yeah. That was a pretty close hybrid of Britpop edging up to the Britpop

yeah for sure Andrew Ward is on the live chat at live.torontomic.com and he says he'd pay for a Ridley Funeral Home toque and I'm here to tell Andrew Ward I have an unworn brand new Ridley Funeral Home toque for you'm here to tell angie ward uh i have an unworn brand new ridley funeral home toque for

you uh completely free of charge man so just we just have to arrange i'll drop it off on my bike i know you're a west end guy we're gonna make this happen so email me and i'm gonna drop off a uh ridley funeral home toque for you buddy oh wow yeah copyright yeah that's a good one too that's remember that being copyright sure uh okay feel like Michael Barclay. What's not Britpop? Now I feel like I'm obligated to just ask this question to Brother Bill before we kick out his last jam.

Did Apple Venus by XTC ever get airplay on CFNY? Do you have an answer? Wow. What's Apple Venus by... XTC? XTC? Well, XTC I remember. do you have an answer wow what's apple venus by ecstasy ecstasy well xtc xtc xtc borg tell me xtc i'm gonna say no but i mean we had you know we had the club 102 you know experience with martin and he would play different stuff than we would in regular rotation. We had a bunch of things like new music.

What was it called? Where we played a new song and reintroduced it, but it may not have got into rotation other than getting spun during this little segment. So it might have got played there, but it doesn't ring a bell. That doesn't ring a bell with me. So I'm going to say no to that. Well, here's a band that's going to ring a lot of bells for a lot of people here here's uh brother bill's final brit pop jam anita ward a special version of this song Is that good?

Let's go to the club and see what they have to say. Cynhyrchu'r ffordd y bynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi

Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi Mae'r pethau yn mynd yn ychydig yn gyflym i mi I live my life while the stars are shining People say it's just a waste of time My friend said I should be my man But what's happening is just a day or night I'm gonna take my car and drive it far You're not concerned about where we are In my mind you were there brother you were there yeah that's oasis from Glastonbury from 1995. I remember that very, very well, despite how many cocktails I had in me at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, Oasis, I mean, what do I say? I can just tell you a quick story about Glastonbury. We walked into the venue. Glastonbury, it's the motherlode of the venue. Glastonbury, it's the mother load of the festivals. Did I offend you? It's the mother load of the festivals.

He's like, fuck this, I'm out of here. He likes Reading better, yeah. It's the big one. It's been going since 1970, I think. It's this big festival in the middle of nowhere in Southwest England. It's in a valley and there's 80,000 people that gather for four days of debauchery, music, and you try and survive. Mostly mud, most years.

I was going to say mud. Yeah, I got lucky. The year I went, there was no mud. It was all sunshine uh and so we got there and my friend graham bell who was our uk reporter for the edge of the time i remember graham bell yeah graham's in california now yeah still managing bands and doing his thing uh graham took me we got media passes which means we didn't have to be out in the normal camping area because you're there for four days uh and uh it was the the most surreal event i've

ever been to because where we you go to the you know lollapalooza or edge fest back in the 90s and you'd see hey there's alan cross there's martin streak you'd go to glastonbury and you'd see, hey, there's Alan Cross, there's Martin Streak. You'd go to Glastonbury and you'd be like, hey, there's Joe Strummer and there's Robbie Williams and there's Billy Duffy and there's Sinead O'Connor and there's Courtney Love. And it was just bizarre, like in this media area. And we went to, when we first got there, we set up our crappy little tents

and went to the beer garden. This is what you do. And we got there and there's this guy standing in the corner and he's got a shirt on that across the front of the shirt. It's a soccer shirt across the front. It says brother. And I'm like, that's pretty interesting.

That's an interesting shirt. It was a light blue shirt. And anybody who knows premier league soccer knows that Manchester city wears light blue. And in 1995, their principal sponsor was Brother, I don't know, Electronics? Sewing machines. Wasn't it like typewriters? Wasn't it typewriters or printers or something?

I don't remember. So anyway, the guy who was wearing the shirt was this guy who had dark, dark hair and bright blue eyes. And I remember walking over to him and I said, excuse me, are you a Gallagher by chance? And he was like, yeah, I'm the other Gallagher. So he was Paul Gallagher, who's the oldest Gallagher brother. Long story short, I drank with that guy for four days straight. And it was insane. It was just nuts.

I mean, every once in a while, we'd be sitting there having a cocktail, and Liam would walk up and start talking to him, or Noel would walk up and start talking to him, or Bonehead would walk up and start talking to him. What a story. This is fucking amazing. These are better than Stu Stone's stories. This never in my back.

And that was just a phenomenal weekend for me. You know what? I will never forget. I'll never do it again. I would never do it again. But to do Glastonbury was like the greatest. Next to the Edge Fest that we did at Molson Park in Barrie, Glastonbury for me was just incredible.

That story even beats the scene Elvis Stoico stoico we you know returning returning a vcr that's still pretty good though yeah but uh yeah that weekend we we we were like having drinks with like everybody it was just fucking weird man it was like just it didn't really register until afterwards and then you kind of went wow i saw like all these great bands i hung out with all these cool people all these celebrities but just people in general when you go to another country and you get a chance to experience how they see the concept of festivals and concerts you know we we throw we threw some good parties in the 90s with the help of MCA Concerts Canada.

But man, when you're talking about Glastonbury and this concert, sorry, festivals on that size, the only thing I could even think could even come close to it would maybe be Coachella. I don't know if either one of you have ever been, but it's phenomenal and it's just incredible. But Oasis were the headliners on the Saturday night that obviously is the first song from definitely maybe from 1994 and I could

ramble all day about it when it comes down to it if you're going to talk Britpop although Noel probably wouldn't like it so much right you or you want to even talk about music in the 1990s i think the biggest band was oasis well i i think oasis because i i don't know if you know this but like i have a music blog and i know that but what i'm building to is i i feel like oasis is arguably the band from the night the rock band from the 90s maybe short of nirvana that gets the most spins globally because i'll like part of my blog is like it's a lot like stats and numbers based up when we look at their like play count on spotify compared to like pearl jam rem nine inch nails back uh right weezer pixies like all the bands like they seemed up way way more and it just

i just feel like there's still a lot of young people who like know all about oasis i maybe because like liam gallagher still seems very present in the culture maybe because he's he's like he's pretty good on social media and he's kind of around and say same with noel and the the family feud thing sort of never goes out of style back to the will they reunite and all that do you remember what year Noel left Oasis what year it was what did he leave before they he left or I thought they just broke

up or did he no he quit just before their final show with him in Paris he left he didn't do the show that's like 2005 or 2000 2009 2009, 2009. So I, when I was doing a little research, I thought that's a longer time ago than I thought it was.

But then you start to put into play the high flying birds, which I don't really care for. You know, it's quite a significant time. It's like 12 years ago. And I'm a little surprised that it hasn't sort of gotten itself back together. They've kind of worked out their, I mean, they're brothers,

right. But there's obviously a long stemming feud problem going on there between the two of them that, I mean, they haven't spoken to each other as far as I know. I feel like it'll happen. It's like, I remember sort of like Liam said,

why don't we'll play a massive uh fundraiser once all this pandemic shit's over and we'll raise money for the manchester bombing they were going to do some kind of a benefit for remember when at the end liam did liam did but one of them was willing to want to be involved right that's right so i just wanted to say if i may guys quickly 1995 so oasis were the band to see at Glastonbury, 80,000 people singing every song. They literally had them in the palm of their hands. After that, the next year they played at a festival in a place called Nebworth, which is just North of London. And they played to 125,000 people a night for two nights, but you had to apply for tickets to see them that year in 1996

to see Nebworth 2.5 million people applied. If you do the math, that would have been something like, I think 14 sold out nights to 125 people a night. So to say that Oasis weren't the biggest band on the planet, which is what they used to say, they're valid. I mean, they've got the numbers to back it up sales-wise. They did very well in America. And song-wise, obviously. And the numbers just don't lie. In my opinion, as a guy who's not as deep into the genre as you guys are,

but I do love the hits, as they say, to me there's no contest that the biggest band of the brit pop uh movement here is oasis like i feel like cfny was pretty early in like heavy rotate like one of the first stations they're known for that yeah like supersonic right away was like right right away like holy shit like this is awesome i'm trying to remember who our music director was at the time i think it might have been neil mann but I just remember him playing it for the first time and saying, this is a monster. And he was absolutely right. I mean, I mean, the biggest song before that was probably smells like teen spirit.

And you got to remember too, right? The bands out of America from that era never wanted to be famous. Whereas you look at Oasis and they said, man, we'll take it. And they took it and they ran with it and good on them for it and i'm a massive fan and always will be i just got a lot of respect for those i gotta say they're funny by the way that those um you mentioned grand bell those live in toronto collins he would do i i found them indispensable as like one of the few times on radio you could actually hear what's up with the Boo Radleys or even Primal Scream,

I don't think really got played too much. If they put a new 7-inch, you certainly wouldn't hear it on the radio. We didn't have internet, right? Yeah, exactly. Those were like a real lifeline. Speaking of internet, Cam, you better shout out the name of your blog. You mentioned you have a music blog. real lifeline speaking of internet cam this is you better shout out the name of your blog you mentioned you have a music blog and uh because i know uh brother bill is going to want to go there

right after this yeah completely ignored.com uh and in the chat window this was something i put in the blog about a year ago i actually made like a complete list of my estimation of like brit pop concerts in toronto from like 1990 to 1997 just all the bands who played where they played it was sort of interesting just to see because it's almost like the stock market you know you see sort of blur like Lee's Palace Opera House

Warehouse because I remember they end up playing Varsity Arena when the self-titled album I mean sort of as close as they came to being like a stadium band. And I'm going to piggyback on these words before we kick out your final jam cam to say that if anybody's interested in

kind of like a walking history of like a lot of these music venues that we're referencing and just the Toronto music venues then and now, if you will, the Johnny Dover Court episode of Toronto Mic, which is only, I think it's last episode. I've lost track. Is it last episode?

No, it was wise. Wise plot was yesterday. The day before was Johnny Dover court on the day before that was Al Strachan, which was actually pretty interesting. I thought that might go sideways and it hung in there and was pretty damn good actually. But to Johnny Dover court episode, check it out if you're at all interested in Toronto's music venues. Cam, any words to say before I kick out your final Britpop jam?

Not about this, but I just want to say Johnny Dovercourt is a legit legend. What sort of Alan Cross is to sort of his world, I feel like Johnny Dovercourt really is to independent music in Toronto. I have so much time for that guy and I'm a big fan.

And I've sort of know him, I've sort of known him a little bit over the years too, but just to see a guy like that really stick with it for so many years. How did he do in his Toronto mic debut in your humble opinion? He was great. And yeah, and I know you've listened to it too, his podcast version of his book.

Yeah, it's excellent. It's awesome. It's really well done. Absolutely. Just, I'm just checking here on the live chat before I kick out this final jam for your cam,

and I see that Andrew Ward wrote, Mike's had a busy week. True that. We're on Thursday, so Monday was Al Strachan, which I thought was really interesting. A lot of stuff in there you don't hear about on sports media these days.

And then the next day, we did the Johnny Dover court. Then we did our January 2020, sorry, January 2021 recap with Mark Weisblatt. We know brother Bill loves those episodes. That was yesterday. And now,

I mean, Stu Stone is irreplaceable. Can't wait to have him back, but fuck man, we did well with brother Bill here. He's been kicking ass, taking names. What a pandemic Friday debut

for Brother Bill. What a revelation. But I can't say I'm surprised. I knew this would be awesome. Can I give one random apropos of nothing fun fact? Yeah. Because I just want to make sure

you say it. And then after you finish this fun fact, I'm going to press play on your jam. Yes. What drummer of a tangential Britpop band that's more sort of pre tangential Britpop band

that's more sort of pre-Britpop but were like a big deal and continue to be a big deal currently lives in Burlington, Ontario? Whoa. Wow. I feel like someone would know this. Like quite a massive band. Their drummer lives in Burlington.

Oh, the cult. No, the very good guess. It's the Happy Mondays. No way. Yes. Gary Whelan. I don't know if he's their drummer anymore. I guess he married someone who's Canadian.

He lives in Burlington now. I did not know that. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Strangely, there's articles about this. Even Alan Cross has referenced this on his blog about five years ago. Oh, yeah.

Wasn't it Dolores O'Riordan? She had like a cottage or something. Who was she married to, though, that brought her here? Dolores O'Riordan was married to the manager of Duran Duran, who was from Hamilton. Okay. Because I know that there's children of Dolores that live in the GTA. Yeah, they had a cottage just outside of Peterborough for years.

Okay. That's another story. Also, someone from Teenage Fan Club lives in Kitchener. He had family in Mississauga. That was the singer of Teenage Fan Club. And Neville Staples, who was in

the specials, also had family in Mississauga, whether he still does or not. I love knowing who's got connections to the GTA. Okay, here we are. I'm pressing play. Small Planet. Cam Gordon's fourth Britpop Jam. And I'm going to skip ahead a bit here

because I think I got some white space. Here we go. It's the end of the year. I have just settled here. It may not be much, but it's enough. Yet trouble has sprung from the pubs and the clubs. We'll see blood soon when the night's through. Still you can't have it all.

There's a hole in the wall Get some money And we'll show them This is our territory This patch belongs to me Why don't they understand That I've got a plan So come take my hand

And sleep well tonight Tomorrow we fight Oh would you like it in town As the waves run through my So leave this life I hide I'll be serious for a town I'm out of that grave I hear you I think this is a big surprise. I think it's a big fucking surprise.

Well, I ended on this song because this sort of... I do this sort of almost to make a statement about you know the end of the brit pop era um the act we're hearing here is a band called gene yeah okay good i wasn't sure i was going yeah gene yeah so the song's called sleep well tonight it's from their debut album olympian which came out in 90 i feel like they're kind of like swayed like their singles preceded this album um i i chose this track i i think it's a pretty good song gene kind of came and went but i chose them to sort of end up my picks on because they seem like a band it's like okay what's next that again the

press and the industry really tried to build up in the UK. A slightly more, I'd say, like refined sound where certainly a lot of influence from like The Smiths and Johnny Marr and even Morrissey with their singer Martin Rositer, who is actually Welsh, which I just found out like yesterday. I was researching this. Gene, again, one of those really hyped fans for about six months there was this single there was something called for the dead that was their first single that uh was kind of a bop uh won the awards at the nme awards were like super hot and then you know kind of had a few other albums no one really cared that much and that that's kind of it um yeah this song got a bit of radio play i think kind of like cast you know i think we played them briefly

uh gene were one of those bands that i think they're from london yeah and they they had a huge following in the uk for a short period of time and then they just kind of they just kind of went up and then came straight back down yeah uh that's what i remember about them and i i don't think they did very well in north america at all as a matter of fact i don't remember them playing in north america well i was really surprised and i i'd like to know if this is actually accurate apparently they played in toronto four times did they really including according again to setlist.fm, they played the Opera House three consecutive years in 95, 96, 97. It didn't say whether Martin Roseter

pissed in someone's backyard and got chased in the face all bad. Also played Lee's Palace in 2002. Which again, I didn't... Yeah, that rings a bell actually. I didn't really keep up with gene but yeah i feel like again sort of okay so they had suede and then pulp broke and then elastica broke in oasis and blur it's like great now now it's like 95 96 who's the next one who's gonna be the next let's

try gene oh my god gene's awesome that kind of good but not that memorable and there was just there was a few bands like this i remember where they just for whatever reason did not have any lasting power but if you caught them at the right moment you would think this is gonna be like the heir apparent to like oasis or sway on these other acts definitely on the brick pop ladder for sure they were definitely one of those bands but like you say kind of like a lot of those bands. But like you say, kind of like a lot of those bands, many of those bands, they just kind of didn't get enough traction to really take off in North America. And not a surprise, given the 1990s were ruled by the grunge sound in one way, shape or form. So it was tough for a lot of these Brit bands to get noticed in North America. And

Gene, I think, is a fine example of that. Mike, do you remember this tune? No. Your last two jams are not familiar to me. Mike was having kids. He doesn't remember. He was like stocking shelves at Food City. I was busy.

I was busy. Doing the cranberries. I wasn't there. That's right. Aisle 4, as I recall. Okay. So in the interest of time, this is, of course,

there were so many great Brother Bill stories that I knew this was going to go long. Even though we went to four jams instead of five, we're still north of two and a half hours now. So one jam to go here. No, not your fault.

It was fucking great content, which is all I care about. But I'm going to kick out my final Britpop jam. Love this song. Dedicating this one to my youngest son, Jarvis. She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge She studied sculpture at St. Martin's College That's where I caught her eye She told me that her dad was loaded

I said, my case will not ruin Coca-Cola She said, fine And then in 30 seconds time She said I wanna live like common people I wanna do whatever common people do Wanna sleep with common people I wanna sleep with Common people like you. What else could I do?

I said, oh, I see what I can do. I took her to a supermarket. I don't know why, but I just started somewhere. So it started there And not too long ago, we did play the William Shatner cover of Common People. Oh. Maybe. What do you think, Cam?

That was in 2021, right? Recently. Yeah, I feel like that was like two episodes. Was it Celebrity Jams? Right. It was Celebrity Jams. And I had to decide whether I go with Rocketman or Common People for William Shatner. We were talking about Ben Folds, too, who we played last week.

Yeah, well, we did Brick for Sad Songs. I think that's where that comes in. That's a sad song. Now, I still, honestly, I'm listening to the cans right now and how many decades removed. I still love it. To me, this is, might in my opinion which means almost nothing oasis is the biggest band of this brit pop genre but in my opinion this might be the biggest jam yeah it's it's top three for sure um if not higher up than that when you want to talk about songs for sure common people by pulp uh was definitely

almost it was such a big song that you almost forgot it was from britain does that make sense sort of like radiohead i mean they were just so big that you and that song was so big that you just kind of forgot that they were part of that scene. They just had that monster hit on the radio that everybody seemed to like. Yeah. I was going to say when we were talking about James, I almost said, well, they're not a Brit pop band because their roots go back to like,

I think like the early eighties, but pulp is a band who also has roots that go back like way, way before this song. And they're totally a Brit pop band. So very flawed logic yeah yeah for sure probably bit my tongue and those the book and there by the way is james of course james laid james is the name of my first born son and my uh last born son is jarvis and there's a jarvis cocker at the helm here and late is how they got here.

Yes, and drink and dance and screw. Mike used some of his pulp. Let's keep it going. I got to move on from the pulp comment as quickly as I can. Before we wrap up the Brit Awards, one of the classic great moments in Brit Awards history is Michael Jackson on the stage doing one of his

like i am god i can't we he did one of his earth song or something and jarvis cocker i guess had a couple uh of pops and he felt like who's this fucker on stage acting like he's christ or whatever and jarvis storms the stage right This is like a great story. And there's like children. I feel like he bumped into like a little girl or something. I remember the hype. Cause I read about it before. I guess it wasn't live in Canada.

So I read about it and then they aired it on much music or whatever. And I remember they edited it carefully. Like you can kind of see something happening, but you don't really get to see the, you know, Jarvis. I picture him like George Costanza when there was the fire or whatever, and he's pushing kids out of the way or whatever.

Good analogy. By the way, sorry, I was going to say with the band Jean, every time I remember, there's like the bizarro Seinfeld and like George's equivalent was Jean. Yes. And that's when Elaine pushed him.

They're like, what are you doing? It was like they were offended that she would physically assault the guy in the bizarro love sign. Well, that thing with Jarvis from Pulp, he got the pulp smashed out of him, apparently, after doing that with Michael Jackson. You weren't allowed anywhere near that guy. And they took him off, and apparently he got a bit of a thumping

much along the same lines as that guy who shoved Noel Gallagher in Toronto at that one show. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Was that at the Rebel at the Sound Academy? Or no, where was that? It was on the island, I think. I was on the island, I believe. And I know a few people that were backstage

when they brought this guy back there and he was taken away with some bruised ribs, apparently. So that's all we'll say about that. Scary. That was actually very scary. Like the video, the video was so clear.

Right. Exactly. Before we wrap up, I just mentioned a couple of bands too, that we didn't get to that I think are worth some mentions? Oh, yeah, Honorable Mentions time. Let's go. Honorable Mentions,

and that would include Carter for the Unstoppable Sex Machine, if you remember them. Oh, sure. Might be a little pre. They were kind of dancey a bit, too. They were, and speaking of that, we're going to bring up the band Stereo MCs.

Oh, Connected. Yeah. Connected was their big song, but they had a couple more, Elevate My Mind and Step It Up were great songs too. Ride, who are more of a shoegazing band. Spiral Carpets, one of the leftovers

from the Manchester scene. Noel Gallagher was the drum tech for Spiral Carpets. We played Manic Street Preachers. Ned's Atomic Dustbin, who were never a huge band in the UK, but were for a little bit of time in Canada, did pretty well. That said, Catherine Wheel as well. But there was also bands like Echo Belly, Shed 7,

the band called The Dillons, The Real People, the Milltown Brothers, all part of the Brit music scene that maybe didn't get a lot of radio play but were some good bands that made up this this wonderful scene that was brit pop i'm gonna give a shout out to the band sleeper yeah sleeper i feel like their big moment in north america was not really a moment because they did a cover of uh blondie's atomic that was on the... Yeah, but their big song was called... Yeah, their big song was called Inbetweener.

Inbetweener, yeah. Sleeper and Echo Belly, I get a bit mixed up because I feel like they were the same vintage and had like a female... Female vocalist. Here's a final question. The Verve.

Is that a Britpop band? Oh, Bittersweet Symphony. So... I kind of don't think they are. It's funny you say that because to me, when you look at Britpop, I thought the beginning of Britpop was Supersonic and the end of Britpop was Bittersweet Symphony. Ah, that's the jam.

That's the way I look at it. That's how I bookend it. I like that. All right, guys. We have a gentleman, This Too Shall Pass, who's actually watching us live at live.tronomike.com from the UK. So we have at least one Brit who tuned in for the Britpop episode live. I hope we didn't let him down.

Andrew Ward knows his shit. Shout out to Andrew Ward. He's saying this is how it feels to be lonely by the Inspiral Carpets. Yeah, great, great. And that's why he's earned himself a Ridley Funeral Home, too. Brother Bill. Dragging me down. Was that them?

That was them, too. Yeah. Joe. Yeah. I got to read this beautiful story of these, you know, these bad guys who want to be good guys. But what do I want to say? Brother Bill.

Fucking amazing. We hope Stu can make every episode. But next time he's got to work, your phone's going to be ringing. We're going to have to bring you back. You were amazing. We hope Stu can make every episode, but next time he's got to work, your phone's going to be ringing. We're going to have to bring you back. You were amazing. I can't thank you guys enough. I was really looking forward

to this. Obviously, I was so excited that I thought Toronto was 27 hours ahead and not three hours ahead. I was ready yesterday. Daylight savings signs. This is just the pre-interview. I'm not recording this.

My girlfriend's going to be thrilled. She's been at work all day. She's a nurse for the CDC and been working on COVID. I think it's time that I shut this down and let her get her house back. Thank you, Cam. Of course.

As always, see you next week, Cam, for sure. And that brings us to the end of our 900, no, what is it? 796th show. Something like that. I've lost track. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Brother Bill, surprisingly, is at Neil Talks.

Because his real name is Neil Morrison. N-E-I-L. Cam's at Cam underscore Gordon. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta's at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral

Home is at Ridley FH. And Mimico Mike, he's Majeski Group Homes on Instagram. Sorry Cam, he's on Instagram. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced

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