Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Brother Bill a.k.a Neil Morrison: Toronto Mike'd #1419

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

In this 1419th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike catches up with Brother Bill who is back on the air in Edmonton as Neil Morrison on MIX 1079. There's talk of CFNY, The Good in Everyone, sobriety, his mother's death and finding himself at 56. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Would you please welcome to the stage... ...Solomon! Welcome to episode 1419 of Toronto Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto Mike is a guy named Neil Morrison but he told me I can call him by the only name I know him by brother Bill. Welcome back, brother. Hello, Toronto Mike. Thanks for having me.

It's nice to be here. It's, it's been a while since we've chatted. Well, it's been since, well, you know, it depends how you, uh, just say chatted. Like you had your initial deep dive in May, 2020. Wow. During COVID. During COVID. Just the beginning of COVID.

And of course you are a natural guest because pre COVID I was like, nah, brother Bill's got to be in the basement here in Southern Etobicoke. I got to wait for him to make a trip to Toronto. But during COVID I did these Zooms and I'm like, oh, this is my, like my chance to get brother Bill to Toronto. But during COVID, I did these Zooms and I'm like, oh, this is my like my chance to get brother Bill on Toronto, Mike. Mike Alfredo Yeah, I have not stepped foot in the province of Ontario in 12 years. So

this is about the best we've been able to do so far. One day we will be in the same room, Mike. Wow. Right now we'll have to do it 5000 kilometers apart. Robert Leonard Is it that far? I feel like it's closer than that. 5,000, you think? You know, it's a five hour, five and a half hour flight out from Toronto and back from Vancouver because of the jet stream. It's probably five hours. So it's about as far as you can get from Toronto. If you're going west, that's for sure. Unless you're going to Hawaii, which is another five hours from where I am right now.

Let's go to fucking Hawaii and play in the sun. You know, funny you mentioned that I saw Art Bergman a couple of months ago here in white rock. And what a performance it was. It was one for the ages. He came out wearing a black dress and at the end of the show, he started throwing things at his band members and just walked off stage. It was just such a punk rock moment. Did you see him? Was that show before or after his horseshoe tavern show? Do you know? I do, do not know that. Okay. Okay. Only cause I, obviously I saw him at the horseshoe tavern pretty recently. I think he's only done like one Toronto gig and like many, many years. And it was like quite an experience first of all the the horseshoe was like I don't know a third full like it was just they didn't come out for art

and I'm there front row and I'm like I'm in the presence of art Bergman let's go to fucking Hawaii and I just loved I loved it I loved it yes so it's interesting art has always had a struggle in the East getting an audience. In the West, I mean, I live in White Rock. Art lived in White Rock for many years. Art is originally from about 15 minutes up the road in Cloverdale, which is part of Surrey. That's where he's from. So a lot of his original crew from Cloverdale came down to see him and this place was absolutely jam packed. And you could tell he was a little embarrassed and he was also pretty thrilled that all these

people had come out to see him. It was a pretty special night. I hadn't seen him in a very, very long time. I didn't get a chance to say hello because he was just surrounded by people who loved him very much. I mean, he's in his seventies now and you know, he's, he's got some health issues, but considering the lifestyle he's led, the fact that he's even still here is phenomenal, but it was great to see a room packed full of people. We've got this great little venue here in White Rock that this couple owns and it's a recording studio 5440 do a lot of their

pre-production in this studio. It's literally five minutes from my house and saw Stephen Stanley there last year. He had come out and we touched base again for the first time in years. So that was great to run into Stephen and yeah it's a neat little studio out here in White Rock, which of course for those who know, is about an hour south of the city of Vancouver on the US border. Wow, okay, so the day after I saw Art at the horseshoe, he came, visited the basement and what an episode.

There were tears, I thought he was gonna beat me up at some point, because I was, because of Buffy St. Marie, he was gonna go at me for suggesting, you know, she might enjoy the palma pasta more than anybody. So, so this is art, right? Uh, he's cantankerous and he is, uh, he's a guy where I don't know if you remember, but I, I asked a question of him when he first came on Toronto mic and he got really offended.

I, I think it had something to do with his stealing from his former manager, Frank Whitebird's record collection. I do remember this. Yeah. And I saw Frank in the, he's in the lowest of the low documentary subversives. Yeah. Yeah. He, well he should be because he was a big part of their management team during the heyday of Shakespeare my butt and and who's a genius so Frank's a great guy I haven't seen him in a long time very shy very quiet very unassuming, but he's got it. He's got an opinion

That's for sure and and so he worked with art. He worked with Billy Idol. He worked with kiss I don't be ever told you any of that stuff But he's quite a quite a legend in these parts too, Frank Wiper. See, we should talk more often brother, like, I feel like, you know, I was thinking, how much time can I get? Okay, so let's let me set the stage. Okay. So your initial Toronto mic'd appearance was May 20, 2020. Here's the description I wrote at the time that people want to go back and listen to that like A to Z of brother Bill's career, because that's not what this is. Although if you ever do come, you know, come to Toronto and you come to the basement, I might do it

again. Like I'll do the A to Z with you in person. But anyway, this is zoom. So you don't get to do that again. I want to kick out the jams though, Mike. Well, we're going to do everything. Look, you can have to move in. I got a bed around the corner. Okay. Oh, I'm sure you'll appreciate that. I'm sure your wife will love that. Listen, she's very understanding woman.

I'll explain. Look, it's brother fucking Bill and he's staying. Okay. So. Okay. It was episode 650 and I wrote, uh, in the 650th episode, Mike chats with Neil Morrison, better known, BKA to me anyways, Brother Bill, about everything

with a particular focus on his years at CFNY 102.1 the edge, working with Humble and Fred, May Potts, Alan Cross, Bookie, Martin Streak, Strombo and others. And we talked for almost two hours that day. So that was the deep dive. But then I was like, I love the cut of this guy's jib. And we found any excuse to get you on the program. You were a part of the PPMM crew with Cam Gordon. Yeah. Well, we know that, uh, your, your other friend there, Mr. Stone had better things to do, I guess, or was a busy man. He was coming to remember he was going to I don't know is he there now is he in LA? So okay so he went to LA yeah but I got a text from

him two days ago to say he's back in town and he wants to come back on Toronto mic so we're actually like he's gonna be back on the show in the next uh within the next month but so he's in Toronto right now but he's like a nomad Like he just goes where the work is. Yeah. Good for him though. He's doing very well, right? Obviously from his time as a child actor to his opportunity to be on the Toronto Mike show to really boost his, uh, his, uh, his name, but you know, he, he gave

me an opportunity, you gave me an opportunity to sort of come in with Cam and yourself and, uh, and do something called PPMM. And, uh, we had some fun. You got it wrong, brother. Not to, not to back check, not to Robert Lawson you here. Okay. But I just, I just saw Robert Lawson come out of the bushes. So you did fill in for Stu on pandemic Fridays. Okay. That's correct.

But Stu was actually never a member of the PPMM crew. Like the original. Yeah, we kind of created that afterwards, didn't we? So that's you, me and Cam are the OG members and PPMM stood for progressive past of modern melodies because I wanted to do a little spin on ongoing history of new music. Yeah, and I think we covered that.

I think we did a pretty good job with having the likes of, you know, Ivar Hamilton on and what was his name? That lovely gentleman from Montreal. We did the punk rock, 70s punk rock special with him. He was fantastic. And Ralph Alonso? Yeah, yeah, Ralph Alonso, who really was after we did that episode. I did some research on Ralph just to see just how entrenched he was in that scene. We couldn't have got a better guy to talk about for that era of the diodes and what was happening at OCA and things like that with Martha and the Muffins, how they

began and all those punk bands from that, the Vile Tones and all that kind of stuff. That was really cool for me as a punk rock fan. As you know, that's my first music. That's the music I love the most. And so I really didn't appreciate Ralph as much as I probably should have until after we had recorded that. But we had some fun. You know, we did the hip hop episode too. That was a lot of fun. And we had Martin pop off for a heavy metal episode. But anyways, that was great. And then Cam got weird professionally. I think Elon Musk, And then Cam got weird professionally, I think Elon Musk, Musked with him and things happen professionally and then PPMM sort of died. But regardless, I want to ask you, well, also I want to offer you my condolences now that

we're talking again, because since you were last on Toronto, Mike, your mother passed away. Yeah, my, my mom unfortunately passed away in May of last year. And thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. Um, and unfortunately she also passed away the week before I was due to come to Toronto or the day before I was supposed to come to Toronto. Yeah.

I was coming out for my high school's 50th anniversary and we were going to talk about that too. You had Ivor Hamilton on, you had Clayton Peters on, who's Russell's brother. Ivor and I got to talk to Russell, but Terry Hart, who I went to high school with as well. So I had come out for that reunion or I was coming out for that reunion and unfortunately my mother fell ill very, very suddenly and died two weeks later and just happened to pass away the day before I was supposed to fly out. It's like somebody doesn't want me to come back to Toronto sometimes, I think.

I remember, again, sincere condolences. That's awful. And that might also be the best excuse I ever heard for not actually showing up here. So good to hear that. Well, I think if I'm going to get away with any excuse, that's probably it, right? And unfortunately, that was the scenario. My mother had a really good life. She was 95 years old. We could get into this some other time if you ever want to do an episode on World War II, because as you may not know, Mike, but my father was a bomber pilot in World War

II. I do know. And literally when I biked the waterfront trail and I had, I saw the plaque commemorating, I photographed it and sent it to you. Correct. I remember that. Please. Do I not know that?

I know everything about you, brother. That's true. That's true. It's been a while, Mike. My memory is not what it was, but my mother was also what they call a child of the blitz. She was raised in London, England. So she had her stories too, but she lived to be 95. She had a very good life. Unfortunately, again, she got very sick at the end. Mother's day, she had a turn for the worst and went down from there. And, you know, 95 years,

my dad lived in 97. I don't expect that I'll be as lucky given my lifestyle choices in the past, but to be discussed, we'll see how it works out now. I'm almost, I don't care about my age, so I don't mind saying I'm three weeks away from 57. And I'm kind of freaking out about that to tell you the truth. It's amazing because a lot of the, you know, we did the CF and Y documentaries coming out obviously later this year. And a lot of my friends who are on the edge are putting up some pictures now of back in

the day and I'm thinking, boy, we're got to go back. We're going back 30 years for some of these pictures. And I'm like, wow, time does truly roll fast, pass quickly. And I was just going to say quickly, another thing I was going to bring up is February 1st is my 20th anniversary of living in British Columbia. So that really kind of got me as well. I was like, wow, I've been gone from Toronto for 20 years now and I've only been back twice. Well, I mean like, wow, I've been gone from Toronto for 30 or for 20 years now, and I've only been back twice. Well, I mean, literally, so I started Toronto Mike 12 years ago and that like once you saw

this podcast, Toronto Mike, that's when you made that decision. Like I ain't ever going back to that city. Like I'm just, yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yeah. No, yeah. And all honesty and not hopefully not pumping your tires too much here though, but your show and your whole brand has been a wonderful way for me to stay in touch with what's going on back in my hometown of Toronto. So, you know, it's a pleasure always to listen to you and I do on a regular basis just to hear what what's going on. Facebook is one good way, but nothing beats Toronto Mike just to kind of, you know, find out what's happening, what's happening, what's happened to some of the

personalities that, you know, I grew up listening to and watching on television. Well, bless your heart and never shy away from pumping my tires. I need, you know, I'm just, I'm a guy who needs his tires pumped. I bike every day and that's how you get your, uh, your flats. If your tires aren't pumped properly, please pump my tires. How many beers and how many lasagnas do you owe me, by the way?

Well, actually, uh, good point. I'm going to have to talk to the brewery to get a new vat going or something. Brother Bill. Okay. We're going to. So here, let me do this. So many places I want to go with you here. I got a straw string, this drink here. So where do I want to start? You told me in the past, and I feel like this was on the like on Toronto mic'd episodes, we had these convos. I don't think I'm sharing anything at a school here, but no, it's okay. You were done with radio, right? Like you had moved on from radio, you had accepted the fact that this industry doesn't

have work for you and you will go work outside the industry. And you would kind of come to come to this conclusion, I thought, right? Yeah, I don't know if conclusion would be the word or understanding would be the word. And the reason I say that is because I never wanted to quit radio, but I felt that radio had quit me. Oh, so you didn't you weren't done with radio. You decide you realize that radio might be done with you. Yeah, yeah. And that's 100% true. When I finished during COVID, I lost the job I was working at for a station in Surrey, which is a suburb of Vancouver, not too far from my house, and was let go to allegedly COVID issues. I won't get into that. I choose not to, if you don't mind. But anyway, that was

about two, three, four years ago. And before that, I had been unemployed for a number of years and I realized that I needed to find a new career. I needed to find something that I wanted to do that wasn't just some labor job somewhere. So I ended up getting into the alcohol business out here in British Columbia because, hey, I like alcohol. What can I tell you? And I'm really fascinated by branding and the different kinds of alcohol and how the whole game works. It's my new passion to tell you the truth.

It's one thing, like you have the sign behind you, Great Lakes Brewery. It's one thing to see it from the side that people see it just looking at the cans of beer and the neat colorings and stuff. But how they actually do everything is what I'm kind of fascinated by. So I started working for BCL, which is the British Columbia Liquor Board. I work out of retail stores. I do three in the area. I am a clerk right now. And I've worked my way up. It's not just one of these jobs where you go to work, sell alcohol and go home. There's opportunity to climb up within the company to become either a product specialist or any number of things. So anyway, my goal is to become a product specialist now.

So I've gone through courses. I've done a course called W set two, which I just got the results for, which I thankfully passed because it's the hardest course I've ever had in my life on wine. It's a course on wine. So that's what I what I did. I'm pretty good with beer. I've been drinking beer my whole life. And I've been fascinated by the difference between a pale ale and IPA, a lager, etc. Pilsner, that kind of thing. So that's kind of been my new game. And then all of a sudden, if I'll tell you this story, what happened was I received a phone call one day from my former coworker Neil Mann and another guy named Craig Fee. And Craig, I worked with out here in Vancouver briefly. Both of them were interested in buying a number of radio stations in the West, and they were asking me if I'd potentially be interested in getting back into the business.

And I said, well, why don't we see what happens first, and then we'll go from there. So, long story longer, essentially, Neil didn't end up being part of the team that was going to start this radio station that was eventually bought in Alberta, but Craig was, and Craig called me up about three months ago and he said, hey, I'd love for you to be a part of this radio station in Alberta, in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, which is just outside of Edmonton. And I said, well, I really don't want to, first of all, I don't want to move to Edmonton. I don't want to get up at five before four o'clock in the morning

to do a morning show because that was originally offered to me. I don't want to do remotes. I don't want to do social media because I always, it's never been one of my favorite things. And I think knowing me a little bit, Mike, you know that I'm just not very good at it to be honest with you and anybody listening right now who knows me knows that's true and so I didn't have to do and Craig said no you don't have to do any of that all I want you to do is host a radio show and so I said okay, I tell you what, because I'd never been to Edmonton in my life. I said, I'll come out to Edmonton and I will take a look around, see which way the wind blows, Jim Morrison said. And I went out there in November during the mildest November Edmonton has ever had, thank

goodness. Right. Well, like I, cause my wife was there too in late November was in Edmonton and it was the first November in like a hundred years that it didn't snow in Edmonton. It did. There was no snow. Yeah, like that's that's what you know in Toronto. That's normal in White Rock. That's expected But in Edmonton that is highly unusual Yeah, they just had uh the week last, they just had record low temperatures of minus 55 with the wind chill and tons of snow. So I'm like, yeah, I don't want to live

in that. Thank you. I've already done Toronto for 36 years. I'm not going back to that. So anyway, he said, you know, you don't have to do any of that. We just want you to represent the station. I just want you to be the guy who worked at the edge and the guy who worked at C Fox in Vancouver and and that's that's what I'm doing. So I Accepted the job when I was in Edmonton I I was pleasantly surprised by the city I mean, you've probably been there Mike been married to being married to someone from Edmonton. I've been there. Yeah. Yep Yeah, and and you know a lot of people make jokes about the likes of Winnipeg and Sask

Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Regina Calgary and Edmonton, but I will say that Edmonton pleasantly surprised me It sort of reminded me of Hamilton. Maybe what Hamilton was like 15 years ago now I don't want that to scare anybody but You know you look at a place like the ice district where the oilers play now and it's a beautiful area, very touristy and, and worth a visit if you've never been there. So that was, that was a deal. I went

out there and I accepted the job. And then we, we, we decided because there's a guy out there by the name of Rob Christie. And for those who maybe remember Toronto Radio from the 19, I believe late 1980s maybe or early 1990s. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's the Rob Christie era here. Yeah. Yeah. So Rob would have been on the mix for a little bit.

And I met Rob when I went out there and Rob wanted to be the morning guy. And I thought, well, you live in the market. So doesn't it make more sense for wanted to be the morning guy and I thought, well, you live in the market, so doesn't it make more sense for you to be the morning guy? And I took the afternoon job. So that's what's happening right now. So I started in January and so far not bad. I mean, I'm very rusty. It's amazing how you like anything. If you don't do it for a while, you sort of lose the fine touches, the finer touches, but you still remember how to ride the bike as it were. You just don't remember exactly how to shift the gears. And that's kind of what's going on. Even doing stuff like this will bring back that muscle memory, like doing podcast hits and things like that. podcast hits and things like that. Absolutely. So I feel way more comfortable today talking to you than I probably did when I wasn't working in the radio industry, just because I'm more used to having a microphone

in my face again. So it makes it a little easier. I just have to learn to shut up a little bit more. Okay. So radio nerd questions for you. I don't think anybody wants you to shut up a little more. Okay. So you're live on the air. And again, I took a note here because I don't, I feel like I was chatting with someone the other day who told me that they live in Toronto and I'm like, Oh yeah, what neighborhood? And they said Markham. And I'm like, okay, look, I understand. This is what you tell Americans. Okay. But you have to have a sense of who you talk to. I don't want to call this radio station Edmonton based if it's actually Fort Saskatchewan based just Fort Saskatchewan border Edmonton

like would that be like their Brampton? Yeah, that's that's the best way to describe it. So it's called the Heartland region. Okay. So it is I think the best way to describe it for he is about 20 minutes northeast of downtown Edmonton. So the Heartland region is a bunch of different areas. Fort Saskatchewan, these names probably mean nothing to people. But no, listen, you're on Toronto Mike now. I need the names I want you to get in

the weeds with me, brother. Keep going. I'll try. Sturgeon County, I don't these names ring out mean anything to you. St. Albert, Gibbons, Moranville, Lamont, Lamont County, Bruderheim, Sherwood Park would probably ring a bell. That's his proper suburb of Edmonton and a place called Strathcona County as well. Now, I still don't know those off by heart. I had to read those. I'm not going to lie to you, Mike. But we are based out of Fort Saskatchewan, and when I went up there, really it was like stepping back into the old studios at CF and Y at 83 Kennedy Road South in Brampton. Even that area, very similar. Not as run down or with the industrial kind of

town or with the industrial kind of backdrop that 83 Kennedy Road South had. No St. Hubert across the street, but you get five minutes out of Fort Saskatchewan and it's refinery after refinery after refinery all the way north of Fort Mack. So it's a very industrial area that way, but surprisingly, average household income is, you know, 150,000. So it isn't a poor neighborhood by any means, but it did remind me of, of, uh, of what say Hamilton and Brampton, uh, look like maybe 10, 15 years ago. It was kind of interesting, maybe more than that actually, maybe maybe 25, 30 years ago now that I think about it. Wait, what does the, remind me, what's the name of the station? It is MIX 1079, but the website is heartlandnews.ca. And that's where you can listen live to it.

And you're obviously you're not, you didn't move to Edmonton or for Saskatchewan So you're in your White Rocks home studio and you broadcast live to mix 97 night. Sorry mix 1079 yeah, I'll tell you how it works Essentially I go through my computer. I record to audacity, which I know you're familiar. Oh, yeah every day. Yeah, I'm doing it right now They go It's a program that you record on to and then what I do is I have the software from the radio station that Craig, my boss, helped me load onto this computer. And I do I upload the files onto their their page and it runs voice tracks. And, you know, not a huge fan of doing that, to tell you the truth. That was one of the things that made me go,

eh, I don't know if I want to do this because you're not entrenched in the city itself. And then I realized that, you know what, that's kind of where radio is nowadays, whether you like it or not. A majority of, probably with the exception of Toronto, a majority of shows are coming from elsewhere. I know in Vancouver, it's like that. And so I thought, well, this is why I went out to Edmonton because I wanted to just kind of get a feel of what it's like to be Edmontonian and from that part of the world. And I think I got a pretty good, albeit short, look at what it was like, sort of a photograph in my mind of what it's like to be out there. And I'll go back again.

But yeah, I was originally hesitant because I believe that I'm still the old school that way. I believe that every market should have local announcers. But we're living in a world now where radio doesn't have that kind of money to spend. So this is why it happens. And I won't lie to you either. They offered me money. I went, Oh, okay. I get to do it for money too. So I couldn't say no at the end of the day. No, I would have been upset if you said no, because this is a chance

to get brother bill back in the game. Okay. Your heart, your, your, your hearts and radio, it's, I love the fact that you have this, uh, other career that you're exploring in, uh love the fact that you have this other career that you're exploring in the liquor career in alcohol. And I take it, so your Edmonton, or your, sorry, your Fort Saskatchewan radio gig, I know I want to get- I prefer you saying Edmonton. Okay, I'm gonna stick to Edmonton here, okay. Because like, think about Brampton, okay? Well, CF and Y, right?

When CF and Y was in Brampton, did anybody say, did people keep saying CF and Y Brampton? No, they said CF and Y in Brampton. No, say, did people keep saying CF and Y Brampton? No, they said CF and Y. No, you're right. That's a good comparison there. Picture the exact same thing that's going on. We're 20,000 watts. We go right through the center of Edmonton. You can hear us everywhere. But it is technically the license is in Fort Sussex. I mean, AM640's license is in Orangeville or something like that.

Right. Exactly. We have a lot of examples like that. So I'm with you. So and you see if and why is a great example, it's Brampton. So, okay. So Edmonton's mix 1079, what is the what's the genre again? What what format are we playing? What music? Very, very, very similar to what mix 99.9 was doing back in the day. It's kind of a mishmash of three or four different formats. We'll play a little tiny bit of country music. I mean, very small. We play generally 90s based commercial rock and roll. So you're going to hear the third eye blinds.

You're going to hear the dish wallahs. You're going to hear the hip. You're going to hear some nickel back. You're going to hear a bunch of stuff that frankly, I don't particularly care for too much. This was another, I'm going to be straight up with you, Mike. This was another reason I was hesitant, because I wasn't particularly champion the format. I've had many conversations with Craig about a potential format change, which I, it could happen down the road.

I don't want to really get into it right now because it's kind of a private conversation, but you know, it's a commercial radio station playing commercial music. And it's another thing that I've come from and really, I understand we have to do it this way because we have to hang on to the money that is available to radio stations. But if I had my choice, I would love to throw a ministry song

or just something that's a little more- Jesus built my hot rod. Yeah, but let's be honest. I mean, we're talking about Fort Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Alberta. I don't know if they're ready for ministry on the radio, but we have some interesting ideas that we're thinking about that may come down the road, which I can't get into right now. But if things work out, we're going to make it kind of fun given whatever the format happens to be. Okay, more silly questions, but quick. Now, you talk about what music you have to play nickelback? That's a Alberta band. You gotta put it back Yeah, you got to support the Alberta band But can you slip in some the pursuit of happiness because Mo Berg is an Edmonton guy?

Yeah, well we would play something like that. We're primarily in 90s based. Whereas the pursuit of happiness, you know, obviously Well, they overlap like you got cigarette dangles and you got some stuff coming out. Yeah. You know, you hear that once in a while. I'll tell you the songs I don't want to hear anymore that we play every once in a while. Yeah. That friggin tall Bachman song. If I hear so high again.

Yeah. I mean, do you like that? No, no, no, I don't. To me, it's one of those songs that if radio didn't play it, no one would give a fuck. You know what I mean? Better when sound clash when the night feels my song. Right. would give a fuck. You know what I mean? Better when SoundClash, when the night feels my song, right? Anything by Bootsauce, you know, like, why do we do it? Right.

Fuck Bootsauce. It's another. That's another story. Well, can we stop? I'm going to come back to you getting back in the game. Can you can you can you please speak to those two words? I just uttered fuck Bootsauce. Please, brother. Well, there, you know, I mean, to those two words I just uttered. Fuck boot sauce.

Please brother. Well, they're, you know, I, I mean, I, I, I already got myself in trouble by saying that Alan cross-combo, I wasn't there. That's all of a sudden become this huge thing on this show. So I don't know if I want to go there. Although I've, you know, brother, I've stopped going there because I don't think it's fair to you. So I no longer go there on the.

I wasn't there. Anyway, that, that thing still bounces back on me, despite the fact that I've apologized to Alan millions of times, but you know, uh, for boot sauce, they did what they did. I I'll just say, I'll just say like two names, Drew Ling, Perfume. Like, what is that? You know, that's the, that kind of, that's the start. And it goes from there.

We started talking about Art Bergman off the top. And of course, you know, that song by Ron from lowest to the low life imitates art is because art's on the side of the road hitchhiking because the boot socks kicked them off the fucking bus. Just another reason. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I don't want to go there with. I know. And also, you don't want to hurt Ivers feelings because Iver Hamilton is a big reason Bootsauce broke on on radio and much music. Well, OK, so here's what we could talk about briefly as well.

Yes, that is correct about Iver. And Ivers a very humble guy. There is nobody in the music industry in Toronto that I know of that Ivor hasn't helped or touched in some way to make their careers better. And I am a project of one of those as well. Had it not been for that guy, had it not been for Ivor,

I would not have been in the music industry. I wouldn't have worked for CF and Y. And I'll sing his praises every opportunity I get. I also had an opportunity recently when I was in Alberta. I went down to Calgary and I ran into another guy named Stuart Myers, who was the program director at CF and Y at the Edge in the 1990s. A perfect guy, by the way, Mike, for your show. And I could probably get him.

You get him because I reached out. I've tried because I know from Humble and Fred, as you know, I produced their show today and I've heard the Stu Meyer stories and his role and I've heard Strombo tell me like about Stu Meyer's role. And when he came from the fan 590 to CFNY it was Stu and of course Stu's daughter briefly on the edge here in Toronto before she went to Vancouver. Yeah she's at Sonic here in Vancouver now. Stewart is one of those guys too that yeah I'll reach out to him because Stewart is a well depending on perspective, there are plenty of people that didn't like the spirit of radio when it became the edge. But I think that if you listen to the stories that Stu Myers would tell you, because he was the guy who had to make the hard decisions.

Right. And he's the guy who made the edge the edge. And it was great. It was a great visit with him. But always the guy who's got great advice gave me some great, just little personal pieces of advice going back into the radio game again. And yeah, he's Ivor himself, and I can name off a bunch of other people too. They know who they are. But Ivor especially, just the guy was just entrenched in the music business through radio and through the industry side of things, which sometimes could be two different entities and sometimes could butt heads a

little bit. Ivor was always the guy who was able to sort of be, well, I've done this and I've done this and he just made things easier for people than the difficult path that they went down. Ivor would make it easier. So I got nothing but great things to say about that guy. Obviously, we went to the same high school, we worked at the same record store. His mother was my teacher. I've known him since I was 16 years old and he's one of my best mates. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say a bad word about Iver. No, there's no bad

words to say about Ivor. Nicest guy in the industry, truly. He was here right after he retired. He came in so we could talk about his career on that side of the business. But question for you, brother Bill. And by the way, on this station, this Edmonton station, Mix 1079, are you Neil Morrison? Okay. So did you have, did you think about that for a minute? Like because I know in Vancouver, you're Neil Morrison in Toronto, your brother Bill. Did you just go up the West Coast name? Yeah, I did.

So the background story, for those who don't know, I was brother Bill in Toronto at the edge from 1990 till 2004. It was a name that I had come up with five minutes before my first shift on CF and Y. And don't ask me how, why or how, but anyway, I came up with that name. And then I came to Vancouver and there was a brother, Jake, Jake Edwards, who had worked at Q107 for many years too. And you've talked to him. I know he's an FOTM. Yeah, he's an FOTM. Yeah. And so, you know, brother Bill, brother Jake down in the hallway, obviously that's not

going to work. So when Jeff Woods, who was my boss at the time at CFOX said, Hey, what do you want to do? I didn't even hesitate. And I said, I'm going to go back to my real name. And so when I took this job at Mix 1079, Craig Fee said to me, what name do you want to go by? And to be completely honest with you, I had thought about going with a different name. I had thought of going with Neil Martin.

What? Yeah, I was thinking about using that name in tribute to my friend, Martin Streak. Yeah, so and then we decided, I'm not sure what my final decision was, but it wasn't to go with that. And I just used my own name. But yeah, there was a period of time when I was going to go with Neil Martin. Wow. Okay. Lots of options for lots of options for you there. Right. Is it fair to say that Iver Hamilton was there? Step back to that one again. I'm just trying to Josh you a little bit here. 100% without a question.

Absolutely. Yes. And so was, and so was Alan Cross. Of course. And they're great, great friends. As you know, Alan and Iver, I literally, I was at a concert and they, I saw them kind of, I think I want to say they were holding hands to get in line, but I'm not sure they were holding hands, but they're very good friends. And also much like you, brother, I just want to shout out the lovely Ivor Hamilton and Alan Cross, two tremendous

friends of this program. Like I feel like always there to take my call and to visit the basement. They're just great FOTMs like you. Well, they understand, like I understand Mike, that you have something very special here and you have for years now. No, no,, like I understand, Mike, that you have something very special here and you have for years now. No, no. And I know you're laughing. I'm laughing because not everybody understands that. That's all I'm going to say.

Well, those who do do and those who don't fuck them. You know what I mean? That's kind of the attitude that I'm sure you have. Yeah, well, fuck a lot of people. But anyway, that's just one man. You know, by the end of this chat, I'll have that list of people who were fucking and then you will get that call about brother we're going in a different direction at Edmonton's mix 107.9

we heard your Toronto Mike appearance yeah well here we go Mike you know the thing is this if I lose my job tomorrow it's okay oh I thought you were saying it's all on you okay no no I could do that too but you you know, I like you too much. So that's not going to happen. But, uh, um, yeah, I'm, I'm totally comfortable with things not working out. I'm okay with that. Um, this to me is a non pressure radio job,

unlike the last two major ones I had in Toronto and Vancouver, where you had to answer to, where you had to answer to ratings and you had to answer to shareholders and you had to answer to multiple bosses, one on the sales side, one on the programming side, you know, then promotions, that kind of thing. So you really weren't sort of a hundred percent in control of your brand or what you were talking about. Now I'm doing, because the station is owned by Kenner Media,

and Kenner Media is a small company that is owned by Craig, my boss, and a couple of silent partners, if you will. They only own the one radio station right now. They're hoping to buy more down the road. But, you know, it's a small group of people. It's a family run business. One of the reasons I liked it up there too is because it's a small family of people. They seemed like we're a little bit of a family. We're all radio people, you know, past, present, future. And that was a big decision for me as well. It's not Corus, it's not Bell, it's not Rogers, and that's totally fine with me.

And I don't, you know, this is a side hustle for me as far as I'm concerned. It's a few extra hours out of my day, but my main gig is what I do now and that's working for BCL. That's where I was going about 25 minutes ago when I went on one of my tangents here because I was going to congratulate you on getting back in the game. I got secondhand excitement here. Like you just described like WKRP with competency, right? Like this is anyway, so you're back in the game, you're back on the air, you know, you're thinking of it as like a passion project almost because you're back talking on a microphone

where you belong, but you still have this other vertical that you're focused on the alcohol business there and you're not giving up that, you know, and you got them both going and you like I'm hoping that you're a happy man right now. Yeah, you know, life's good. My health is great. I'm in my 28th day of sobriety, doing Dry January, which is, as a guy who works in the liquor business, very challenging. I'm back. Yeah, doing that, feeling great. I've got a wonderful lady.

We live together here on White Rock, staring at the ocean. Life couldn't be any better for me right now. I'm really, really enjoying it. And, you know, I finally got a chance to do a little bit of traveling. I mean, sadly, I lost my mother, but there was many, many years of people who know me know, as an only child, you're sort of burdened with the care of your parents as they get older. And as an only child, that burden can be great. And it was great, especially when my mom and my dad were alive towards

the end of my dad's life. He died in 2018, but you know, towards the end of my mom's life, I couldn't go anywhere. I wasn't. Yeah. That's why you never saw me in Toronto because I couldn't get away at all. I couldn't, I couldn't leave them because I was the primary caregiver. So when my mother passed away, my lovely lady Jude said,

why don't you choose somewhere, pick somewhere and go somewhere? And I thought, well, I don't really want to fly too far at this point. I mean, the original plan was to come out to Toronto, do the high school reunion. My friend Mark, who lives up in Caledonia, he's a guy I went to high school with, my best buddy. We were going to go out and around to a tour of Brampton, where we grew up, obviously, and then go to the reunion and stuff. And it all fell through. So I, you know, the girlfriend said to me, Jude said, Do you want to go somewhere else? And I said, You know what? Yeah, I do. And I said, I want to go to Los Angeles. I said, I want to go to Los Angeles because as a kid who grew up listening to punk rock music, a lot of the bands are from Los Angeles. So in September I flew to Los Angeles, which is only about two and a half hour flight from Vancouver and a dear friend of mine who worked at the Edge in Toronto for many years.

Well, maybe not many years, but a few years, Darren Pfeiffer, who was an on air announcer. Yeah. So Darren- And shattered his band, of course. I saw it many an Edge Fest. Right. He was in Goldfinger. Yeah, so Darren. He shattered his band, of course. I saw it many an Edge Fest. Right, he was in Goldfinger. He was the drummer. He's in a band now with a member of the Dickies,

a legendary punk rock band from LA, and also Greg Hedson, who was in Bad Religion briefly, and he's in the Circle Jerks, and they have another band, like a karaoke band, where they go around and you get up and sing with them and stuff. It's a really cool thing. But I went down and stayed with him for four days and he gave me the tour of Western Los Angeles, if you will, and the punk rock tour. So we got, I went to Venice and Santa Monica. We went to Hollywood Forever, which is the graveyard where, I know that sounds weird, but

Johnny Ramone is buried there. Dee Dee Ramone is buried there. I ran into Rob Morfit, who is the graveyard where I know that sounds weird, but Johnny Ramone is buried there, Dee Dee Ramone is buried there. It ran into Rob Morfit, who was the former guitarist with the Conaline Crush, who's an old friend of mine as well. Big friend of Marty Streaks as well. So we had a chance to catch up a little bit. So I did that and it was a great trip.

I had a wonderful time. And here we are going into 2024 And can't wait to see what's gonna happen. This sobriety, it's just the month or would you considering Excel? So is that just to give you like just to see what it's like? Or do you think do you think you have any problems of drinking? Well, this is the second year I've done this. It's dry

January, some people do it. I mean, most people choose dry February, but that's my birthday month. So I'm like, that ain't gonna happen. So I did it last year, primarily just to see how things were with me internally, if that makes sense, both mentally and physically. And I did it, no problem at all. And I felt a little better, not much to tell you the truth, Mike. But then I thought, okay, we want to do it again, because just before I went to LA, I had a blood test and my doctor said, Hey, your liver is kind of showing some things here. And I said, okay. And he said, so you might want to cut her back just a little bit. Because when you work in the alcohol industry, you want to drink alcohol because you want

to try everything. Right. So I would say my, my drinking probably ramped up a little bit. So when the doctor said you might want to take a look, he actually said to me, have you thought about non-alcoholic beers? And I hope that's not one of your sponsors, Mike, because I ain't drinking no about non-alcoholic beers? And I hope that's not one of your sponsors, Mike, because I ain't drinking no fucking non-alcoholic beers. Good news for you is that a Great Lakes brewery doesn't have, as far as I know, they don't have a non-alcoholic beer and they have delicious fresh craft beer.

And I don't know if you're supposed to do like on mix 9107.9, I don't think he would do like the beer ad right after the guy talks about his liver and his sobriety. But I will say, if your liver is in better shape than Brother Bill's, okay, I would just say I love myself a can of fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. And as long as it isn't January, I'll join you. So I mean, I just do it mainly because I just want a little bit of a reset. Or to see if you can do it, right?

I feel like that, like, let me see if I can not drink for a month, because then that tells you if you have a problem or not. Well, I, you know, sure, I guess it would. I mean, that's not the main reason, though. The main reason is just for health concerns. I just want to make sure that I'm rebooting a little bit. Okay. And we have a wonderful craft brewery area here in White Rock.

We now have three breweries, Galaxy Brewery, we have one called White Rock Beach Brewery, and we have three dogs brewery, which is fantastic. And they have an offshoot called the Beer Shack, which they bring in all these beers from the Pacific Northwest, and you can try all these different beers. So that one is the hardest to stay out of. That one is an interesting little setup that's always packed. And so, you know, I like to go there and try their different beers and things like that. I call it doing my homework, you know, but you do have to be careful when you're, when you're drinking alcohol. Moderation is always best.

I know that sounds very cliche, but it is indeed true. So I'm doing that and I feel a lot better this year than I did last year, albeit this month has seemed like six months to me. Well, you're almost done, man. This is the 29th of January. You got a couple more days to go after this. Correct, Friday is my day off and I've already told my friends here, be prepared.

I love it. Now listen, you don't take a break from eating authentic Italian food, do you? Like if you were here, I could give you OK, because Palma pasta, you know, if I ever get you here, you're getting some delicious lasagna from Palma pasta. You won't believe how good this tastes. Well, not blow and smoke up Anthony Pertullo or whatever. His name is Petrucci. Petrucci.

Sorry, Anthony. Uh, and all of his family there at a Palma pasta, but man, between you and humble and Fred, I heard more about, heard more about Palmer's kitchen. It's like, he's got to open a place out West now. I'll help them with some, some publicity. You know, I look forward to trying it when I'm out there. Yeah, they host, we have a Toronto Mike listener experiences at Palma's kitchen and we just

had one in December and Tom Wilson from Junk House showed up and it was a great time, man. The food's delicious. They're going to feed us at TMLX 15, which is June 27 from 6 to 9 PM at Great Lakes brewery. So you'll get your fresh beer on the house. You'll get your Palm a pasta on the house. You can hang with some good FOTMs. So brother, that's the, that's the time to target a Toronto visit is a June 27. Okay.

I will just take a note. Well, unfortunately, I'm going to a wedding in Europe this year. Hopefully. Um, what part of Europe are you going to Gibraltar? Okay. Okay. Okay. In England.

Okay. No. Oh no. Like Wales. Where is Gibraltar? Wales. No, it's in Scotland off the South of Spain. So isn't that terrible?

What am I thinking of? Hear me out. I, I, you know, my son, myyear-old is far better at geography than I am. He's unbelievable. I can help you. But where, where, is there a place in England with a name that sounds like Gibraltar or am I just completely out to lunch? You're probably thinking of Jersey or Guernsey maybe.

Those are two islands off France which are English colonies. Okay, not Geordie. Gibraltar, no, not really. Not that I could think of. Okay, so like I was saying, because I'm going to fix this of okay So like I was saying because I'm gonna fix this in post like I was saying this island off of Spain beautiful Yeah, I mean I've never been my family that have been there and it's my partner Jude's one of her co-workers and his partner are getting married there and we've been invited and Looking forward to to doing that and also

My mother being of English descent, we're going to take her ashes back to England and scatter them there. Oh, Gibraltar, England, like I was saying. No, no, no, we're gonna stop in England and go to Surrey, England and drop her ashes there because she's originally from Wimbledon. But anyway, that's in the plan.

So Toronto, you know, I wanna get out there. I really do. I wanna get it back out there, but it's not a place you can go for you know, I want to get out there. I really do. I want to get it back out there, but it's not a place you can go for a weekend because the flight is just too long. And now the whole, yeah. Well, you just, like I said, I have a couch here for you and Jude here. Oh, a couch. Wonderful.

I just downgraded you from the bed here, but consider it late June. You're always invited. But while I'm just shouting out some great sponsors, recyclemyelectronics.ca is where you go if you have old electronics, old cables that you need to get rid of. You don't throw that in the garbage. You go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and find out a depot near you

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Shout out to Bradley Funeral Home. Okay. Quick hits here. And then I have another little path Home. Okay, quick hits here. And then I have another little path we're going to walk down here. Sure. Cliff retired. So Cliff was a, he's a great listener of Toronto Mike. So he's likely listening to us right now because he doesn't miss an episode that includes anyone

who worked at CFNY. Cliff is like a sales person that you might have worked with at Edge 102, and he was working recently at the Chorus Toronto Chorus stations, and then he retired. What words would you like to say to the recently retired Cliff? Cliff Cohen, I presume we're talking about. Sorry, yes, I thought you just deduct Cliff Cohen. Oh yeah, no, I just wanted to make sure, but I'm pretty sure I knew what you're talking about Cliff Cohen.

Cliff is, was one of the greatest guys to work with in the sales department. Real big personality, real fun guy, tells a great story about meeting Roger Daltrey from the Who. I don't think, have you ever told you that story? Oh, you know, I've never met him. It's all email. It's 100% email communication of me and Cliff. Okay.

Well, I'm going to save that story and let Cliff tell it to you one day, but it's a fantastic story. Burn the story, man. I'll get it again. Let me hear the story. You can't do that to me. In a nutshell, from what I remember, he told me the story like 30 years ago, but in a nutshell, he went to London, England. And back in the 70s, rock stars weren't kind of hunkered down in their bunkers, you could actually walk up to their houses and knock on their doors. And so Cliff, being the ever so shy guy that he is, Cliff walked up to Roger Daltrey's house, knocked on the door, the maid or someone answered, he said, Hi, is Roger there? And then the maid said, Yes, he is. And he said, hi, is Roger there? And then the we made said, yes, he is. And he said, well, it's Cliff from Canada. Can I have a word? And Roger Daltrey came out and they talked. And from what I remember, and I'm not 100% sure this is the full story, but I think it is. Again, you'd have to ask Cliff, but

apparently Cliff got along so well with Roger, sat down at a cup of tea with him that he invited into some rehearsals for, I think Tommy or something like that in some studio somewhere, sat down and Pete Townsend was like, who the fuck is this guy? He's like, oh, that's my mate, Cliff from Canada. And he got to sit there and watch them rehearse and stuff. It's quite the story. That's wild. Yeah. But Cliff, Cliff, Chris Van Allen, Wolfgang Klein, these were three guys

that worked in our sales department. First of all, I'm surprised, I'm shocked that you said that Cliff has retired. I didn't think he'd ever quit. He's a hustler through and through. But these guys were three sales guys that were just an absolute pleasure to work with because when you're dealing with sales, you know, they don't always really, not all sales people really understand what you're trying to do with your show and stuff and they're just trying to make the money and I understand that but Cliff and Wolf and CVA always tried to kind of understand what our shows were about and they really understood the format we

had at the time at CF and Y. And I just remember Cliff as being a really happy, jolly, big guy who never had a bad day and was always inquisitive. I'm just actually remembering his story. So there used to be something on the edge called input 102. Do you remember this? Yeah. People would phone in and leave a voicemail, right? And then they'd play it. Yeah. Yeah. I remember. Sometimes they would play it. So we had access to the codes of input 102 so we could listen to them raw so we could hear all the ones that didn't make it to air. And there was some that were going on where there was this regular guy that would

call up and he's like, just not pointed at Cliff Cohen at all, but he'd make up the names. He'd be like, Hey, Cliff, it's Steve. And he'd read them all. So I would send these calls to Cliff's voicemail at the station. And finally, he got so disturbed by it. He went to Stuart Myers, the boss, and Stu had to put out a then memo to say, hey, whoever sent these messages to Cliff, stop it. They're disturbing him.

So I've just kind of outed myself to Cliff right there. But yeah, it was me that was pulling that prank on him. OK, you just jogged the memory I have. In fact, it's funny how talking things will spark, but again, we lost this gentleman since I last talked to you too, Hal Harbour.

We lost Doug Barron, of course. Now Doug was an FOTM and we had a great combo and then he would start sending me very interesting things. So I'm going to just play a little bit of this song that Doug Barron, because he was talented, you know what's coming. Yeah, I know. But let's play a little of this. Andy, pick up the phone. Andy, pick up the phone in the club. Andy. All right, I'll bring her down.

But of course that's the voice of Cliff Cohen saying, Andy, pick up the phone. It's Cliff. Sure. So Andy was another sales guy. I didn't know him very well. The late Andy, oh, last name is not ringing the bell with me, but very nice guy as well. I didn't work with him for that long, but that's just Cliff's personality. So here's Cliff Cohen leaving

a voicemail for somebody. How many voicemails did you know that you could actually interrupt halfway through and pick up the phone? You know what I mean? That's what I find very ironic and very funny about that. Cause he's leaving a message. How's he gonna pick up the phone and answer the phone, Cliff? Right, yes. Well, you know, the old style, they would play out loud, right?

Like the old style, that's what we did, right? And I feel like in the early to mid eighties, when we had those old style voice mails. Oh yeah, I get it. He's probably thinking about those. Yeah, I guess so, but not at work. Not at work, no. Yeah, but I guess I know what you mean.

Doug, Hal, was a wonderful human being, very kind. I stayed in touch with him via Facebook. Hated the fact that Halifax had gotten a CFL franchise. That's the one thing that I remember towards the end of Hal's life, what his big sticking point was. He, like a lot of people, didn't believe that we needed to spend or the city of Halifax needed, because that's where we live, he didn't need to spend or the city of Halifax didn't need to spend hundreds and millions of dollars on a stadium when, you know,

there's people down the road that probably could use some support in some way, shape or form. So I got what he was talking about there. So love the little chat here about Cliff Cohen. And then of course, we could remember, again, a guy like you who's got a real name, Doug Barron's his name, like Neil Morris is your name. I could only call him Hal Harbour and I can only call you brother Bill. It's like once you wire that, it's tough to unwire it. Okay. But here, we're going to make a little transition here to the station we're talking about. And I have a little bit of our mutual friend, humble Howard. The edge CF and why one Oh two point one. He's just showing off his pipes there on a little promo that I had on my new

music search CD there. That's a, yeah. What a voice, what a voice. No. And the day. Yeah. It's not fair, right? But he did smoke a lot of cigs to get that voice.

We all did back then. You know, you talked about Jeff woods earlier, cause he was your PD and, uh, at Seafox and, uh, I'm so jealous of that man's like voice. And he's like, he re you know, he reminds me how he got that voice, which is he started at like, I don't know, nine years old, smoking, smoking cigarettes and drinking scotch or something. So it's like, you really do have to wreck your body to get a voice like that. When you talk about the, probably the best voices that I've ever heard, Jeff Woods is

definitely top two. And who is the other person? He just, just, just escaped me. But Howard too, Howard had a fantastic voice and still does. I still listen to Humble and Fred on a regular basis. Them and you are my one and two podcasts that I listen to. Yeah, no problem. Humble and Fred are, I love that show because really that is my link to my edge days. Because I have a bunch of pictures behind me here, Mike, of my days at the edge, but I look at them now and every time I look at them,

they get a little further and further away, if that makes sense to you. And so when I listen to Humble and Fred, I can kind of realize that, oh yeah, I was a part of that. And listening to them, although they keep it pretty current, they step back once in a while and talk about the radio game and working at the edge and stuff. And it's such an honor that I got to share the microphone with those guys. And when Howard would go away, Freddie and I would kind of do the morning show for a little bit with Jason Barr. And it was a lot of fun in that area. I'm holding up a cassette right now. So what is that?

So, uh, I wish I could just play it, but this, uh, was courtesy of Fred Patterson. He had like a box of old cassettes in his attic or something, a basement or something, and he said, Hey, I think I got some old humble and Fred shows here. So I was going to digitize them. And then I realized very quickly that they were all Fred plus like Scott Turner or May Potts. And then there was one episode I found where Howard was on vacation and it was you, you had the Howard spot for the morning show and it was listening to you and Fred. It was quite something to hear brother Bill host in the morning show.

Yeah. Shoes that were impossible to fill. Howard, obviously, and Fred have a chemistry that you just don't find naturally in human beings. It just happened, you know, as we know, it just happens to be an unbelievable sense of being able to figure out where each other are timing wise. It's as a broadcaster, you know, and you listen to them and go, wow, and they still do it today. It's fantastic. But yeah, to fill in for Howard, I mean, I didn't want to do it, to be honest with you. And then I remember Alan had filled in a few times and, you know, not throwing Alan the

bus by any means, but Fred just felt, I think that he and I had a bit better chemistry. And so he reached out to me and said, look, man, I really want you to be the guy when Howard goes away because we have something there. And we still do to this day, I still speak to Freddie every month or two, and it's always quite a conversation between the two of us. And I was just more honored than anything else

that I was able to be able to fill in, for some great shoes and Howard, when Howard was away. And it happened more than perhaps I'd like it to have, because he used to get quite a bit of vacation time, that guy. But yeah, it was indeed an honor, especially working with Freddie in the 1990s when we had pretty big numbers then and and great listenership.

I was listening, you know that and a bunch of other people listening. So when I put on the app, formerly known as Twitter, that brother Bill was returning to the program. Buffalo Boy wrote me to say no questions. I just miss him on the edge and I wish him well. So that was from Buffalo Boy. Very kind. Thank you, Buffalo Boy. I don't know who that is, but I guess I owe them money too. Well, he actually, I will say he actually drove from Buffalo to attend the TML X14 event we had at Palma's kitchen back in December. So that's, that's how good a listener that Buffalo Boy is. And thank you. Amazing you amazing now Paul B He said you know when I said you were coming on he just wrote me back to say Reminds me of the CF and why days and I want to bring you back brother Just a little bit here because you mentioned to me in this chat that on February 1st

Which is in a couple of days. It'll be the 20th anniversary of you arriving in Vancouver. Is that right? That's correct. So is that 20 years since you left 102.1? I think my last day on the edge was something like January 16th. I still have the logs, the music logs somewhere, but I think it would have been about January 16th. And then they moved me out here. They gave me a couple of weeks to sort of look for a home and they treated me incredibly well. May I just say that Coris were incredibly kind to me when I moved out here. And then I went on air, I think February 1st or 2nd at Seafox here. So 20 years. Yeah, 20 years. I moved out here probably 20 years January somewhere, somewhere around now, but yeah, February

2nd, I started. Okay. And you were very open and honest about this when you made your Toronto mic debut. So I hope you're comfortable just speaking to it, but you were addicted, right? You had, you were addicted to drugs when you made this move. Am I right? Yeah, I became a drug addict in probably the last five years that I worked at the edge. My choice of drugs was cocaine. And although I wasn't doing it on a daily basis, I was doing it more than I probably should have. I was high on the air a couple of times, but mainly because I had been up all night, it was the only way to balance myself out, to be honest with you, because we had the outdoor studios. So I had drug dealers coming into the studios

and selling me product at that time. I remember Ben Kowalowicz, who's kind of a famous guy now. Billy Talent. Yeah, he was my producer in those days. And I remember him calling me out once on a guy that had come in to deal me drugs. And I blew it off somehow, I don't know. But yeah, I became addicted and I went through a pretty rocky start here in Vancouver. I want to say the first three years, I kept it very well hidden from everybody.

But as anybody who's an addict will tell you, eventually you're not going to be able to hide it anymore. And what came down to, and I think I've told you this before, but it just came down to I had had enough and I wanted help and I went to the company. And again, I can't thank Chorus Radio enough and Chris Duncombe, my boss at the time, Dunner and Jeff Woods for getting me the help that I needed. And I put it in my back pocket and happily it's never come back out. And it's a part of my life I'm not proud of, but it's over and we've moved on to bigger and better things. So I'm real happy where I'm at right now.

I don't touch that beer and wine is and the odd shot of tequila is my poison now. And that's about it. And I'm okay with that. Amazing, man. Congrats on that too. You know, cocaine is a hell of a drug, but it's tough to get off that. I mean, I talked to the Peter Grosses and John Gallagher, so I get a kind of a vibe on it,

but it's a tough habit to break and good on you for being able to do that. That's awesome. Yeah, thanks. So I'll just mention quickly, I'm reading a book right now by Geddy Lee called My F and Life. And boy, you don't realize how many people,

especially in the music industry, get kind of caught up in the music industry, get kind of caught up in the drug world. But it seems that everybody does at one point. Not everybody, but many people do. So you're not by yourself. When you're going through that kind of thing, Mike, you're sort of thinking you're all by yourself.

But I remember my going away party, we had something Mark Holmes put on this party at the club he was working for. The Mod Club? Mod Club. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Platinum Blonzo. Yeah. We had a big party there and then it went across the street to another place called Revival. And it seemed like when we got after hours at Revival, everybody wanted to do cocaine with me in the bathroom, because I guess my reputation preceded me at that time. So it was interesting. And I'm not mentioning any names, but I did with cocaine with people I didn't know did cocaine. I was like, what the hell are you doing here?

You know? And, but anyway, I'm reading Gty Lee's book and it talks a lot about their drug habits, you know, and it talks about their cruise drug habits. And as a guy who likes reading autobiographies, just going to say Getty Lee's biography is the best one I've ever read. Wow. Yeah. And it's, I guess it's partially because he's from Toronto and he mentions a lot of Toronto stories, but the truth that comes out from him, from his parents' experience in the Holocaust to the drug issues to Rush's slow but steady climb to fame, I can't recommend

this book enough. Even if you are a Rush fan or not, My F and Life by Geddy Lee, you should get it. Are you kidding me? I just hope the hackers leave our Toronto Public Library system alone so I can actually get a hold on this thing and pick it up here at my new Toronto branch. I'm in, man, I'm gonna read this, Geddy Lee.

Holy crow, okay. The closest I've come to Geddy Lee is, his lawyer is an FOTM, that's as close as I've got. So I still have to work on that. Okay, now let- You should. You kidding me, I'd love it. So it's funny to work on that. Okay. Now, let's show it. You kidding me? I'd love it. So it's funny. Not funny. Ha ha funny, but interesting that you're telling that story about the drug dealers coming to the to see if and why I guess this is in Brampton

coming at night to sell you drugs. No, this was in Toronto. This was the edge of 228 Yonge Street. Okay. At this time, I wasn't I wasn't doing drugs. Seriously. I was doing smoking some weed and dropping the odd hit of acid when I was younger. I started doing drugs when I was 16 years old. I can tell this story now because my parents are about dead. But I started doing drugs when I was 16, just like any other kid did, you know, weekends. So and then I, so when we moved to 228 Yonge Street, I don't know if I told you this story, but I'll tell you what now. I don't mind. But what happened was we had a program director who didn't really like me too much.

And he had just moved from Vancouver Island. I'm not going to say his name, but so he came out and he pulled me into the office when he first started as a program director and he said, well, you know, we were going to let you go, but we're going to give you another chance. And to say that to somebody whose self-esteem isn't very strong to begin with, especially at that time when I questioned a lot of what I did on the radio, I didn't think it was good enough. That was just my personality. To say that to someone whose self-esteem is not very good does not help them at all. As a matter of fact, that put me in a sort of tailspin of depression and just not feeling good about myself. And the only way to cover

that was to me was by taking drugs. And so I got into the world of hard drugs and cocaine. I was offered heroin many times and I said no because I knew I had a couple of friends that had died from heroin overdoses and I said no, not going there. But I was offered cocaine and I got into it and I let it overpower me, shall we say, which is easy for that to have happen. It could be happening to someone listening to my voice right now. I wish you well. So it did overpower me. But that program director never did anything to help me out even when he knew I had a problem. The only thing he ever did was call me into his office and say, do you have a substance abuse problem? And I said, no, I drank and that was it because when

you're an addict, you're always in denial. So, and, and I was, and, and so when that program director left, uh, it was too late, I had already become a full blown addict. But that's what I sort of, and I don't blame him. I just say that that was sort of the the beginning of that part of my life due to sort of being shoved off the hill in the sense that he was threatening to fire me. but he decided to quote unquote, give me another chance. What does that mean? You know what I mean? And I was less than impressed with that guy. And still to this day, I'm less than impressed with that guy. But that's the way it goes. And it's my own fault for not realizing that 12 years of my life was going to be thrown away due to a drug.

But that's what happens. Man. Wow. Yeah. There you go. So the reason I was bringing up that story about, you know, drug dealers at night there was because when I said you were coming- You wanted a number?

I got enough problems. Okay, brother? Okay. I got- You've got four children. You don't need four children. My blood clots and we don't know why I got adult problems over here, brother. But Danny Elwell wrote in when she heard you were coming on to say, ask him if he still let strangers into the studio at night. Oh, my Lord. Oh, my God. One of the most embarrassing moments of my career and my life.

Am I telling this story, Mike? Do you want me to tell it? You kidding me? You have to. Do you not know this story? I might. Did Danny never tell you this? Uh, I don't think I know this story.

Okay. Well, Danny, I'm going to tell this story because you set it up. So I will tell it even though I hadn't planned on it. So 83 Kennedy wrote South Danny had a show called The Alternative Bedtime Hour after her evening ship. And there was this guy that used to hang around outside and being the naive young kid that I was, I never thought anything of this guy. I just said, Oh, some dude waiting

outside. Okay. And, uh, Paul Dingra, DJ Dingra and Danny were in the studio and for some reason, and I don't know why I let the guy into the studio and, um, completely unaware for the record, completely unaware at this time that this guy was stalking Danny. Oh my goodness. Wow. And, uh, and so I let him into the studio and all I remember is Paul Dinger issue, ushering him out very, very quickly.

And then I was doing the overnight show after Danny at this time and so Danny came into the lunch room when I was just about to go in and she sat and I have never seen Danny more angry ever than she was with me because I had let this guy in again stupid kid yeah blaming ignorant you were just naive I know. You're not street tested yet. No, I wasn't. I was a kid from Brampton who worked in Brampton.

I didn't know about stalkers and stuff like that. And apparently, fortunately, everything worked out. The guy left no problems. But yeah, Danny was less than impressed with me that night. That's fine. Because I'm sorry to hear that for Danny, but she did literally prompt for that story because she knows I'm going to get that question for you. And I didn't know where the story was going.

But here now we find out. Okay. But was there a problem with you on air people at 102.1? And I know this would apply to other stations, but particularly in this like pre internet age, did a lot of you have stalkers? I never did. Okay, because I know Dan Duran had a stalker, right?

So it's like, okay, so Danny Elware and Danny Elwell had a stalker, Dan Duran had a stalker. And I just wondered, like, is this an epidemic? Because of radio and maybe lonely troubled people can tune in a radio station and kind of be deceived with that relationship and think it's like a two-way street. And of course it is a one-way street. That's the whole point. But pre-internet, I think this would be far more likely

to cause problems with stalkers for radio professionals. Yeah, I mean, without getting into it too much, I can only tell you what happened to me once and it wasn't a stalker but we were at 228 Yonge Street and I had played an Elastic song connection and it was live in Toronto and chicken shawarma Jeff Domet was producing the show and The studio at 228 Yonge Street Mike, I don't know if you, did you ever go there? Did you ever see those studios?

Okay. So this is the one at Young and Shooter? Yeah. Yes. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So had the outdoor windows and we had emergency locks on them in case we ever needed to lock them up. A car pulls up, this guy gets out, he goes to the window and I, I'm kind of faced sideways, right? I'm not looking at the window. And so I see Schwarma looking out the window because he's facing it. And I look over to my right and I see this guy and he's standing there and he just looks really angry and he's doing the neck slice kind of thing with his

hands. Yeah, he's doing that. And I'm like, as I'm talking on the radio, I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm watching this guy and I, we go to the song or whatever, a different song. And I go to shawarma. What did I say? Yeah. You're so exposed there. Now I think about you guys were so exposed and there are, you know, like we just

talked about stalkers that Danny had and you know, Dan Durant had, et cetera. Yeah. You're, you're very vulnerable. Yeah. The street. We were. Yeah. And so anyway, so to just quickly finish the story.

So the guy went to his car, grabbed a hockey stick, a wooden hockey stick and snapped it in half over his knee. And that's when I went, oh, this guy's kinda, this is serious. And he started trying to get in the door and he had the broken end of the stick. And he was, you know, he was like trying to get into the studio to obviously do some harm to me and potentially Jeff as well.

And, uh, and fortunately enough, he didn't get in and he left and we called the authorities. And anyway, I don't want to really get into what happened after that. There were no charges laid. Um, he was, he was suffering through some kind of mental breakdown at the time. So, you know, we just wanted to make sure he was okay. And apparently he got the help that he needed. So, but I mean, as far as the stalking thing goes, yes, I know stories of stalkers in the radio industry. I find that it happens the majority of the time to women. It's men stalking women.

I don't think it's, I'm comfortable with getting into specific incidents with certain announcers that I worked with because there are, you know, there was the Danny thing, but there was with a couple of other, our announcers too. I never really found it happening too much to men. I mean, Dan Durand is a great hunk of a good looking fella, so I can just see him getting into trouble wherever he goes. But no, in all seriousness though, I never had any issues other than the one I told you about, but it does definitely happen. Any job where you're in the public eye, Mike. I mean, one day you may get somebody you may get somebody who may, you know, quote, unquote, stalk you.

And stalking isn't just showing up. Stalking happens over the internet. It happens in various different ways. I'm not a professional on stalking and how to prevent it or anything like that, but I can just tell you what I know. And that is, you know, you first of all, you want to get in front of it as fast as you can. You want to cut it off and you want to make sure that that person never reaches out to you again and you do anything you can and chorus or sorry, then McLean Hunter also did a very good job at that. So kudos to them. So I, nothing got too carried away, but again, in the Getty Lee book,

he talks about stalkers as well. I got to see this. I got to too carried away. But again, in the Getty Lee book, he talks about stalkers as well. I got to see this. I got to read this book and shout out. Speaking of stalkers, I just want to shout out Edmonton Matt. So hello to Matt Layden and Edmonton. Okay. Hey, hey, Matt. Okay. Hey, Matt. And quickly again, a quick aside. You mentioned live in Toronto and just the other day I was at this book event because FOTM Pamela Wallen has a book on cats and I'm at this junction bookstore like literally hanging with Pamela. Like she gave me a big hug and we were chatting it up. And then I see in the corner of my eye FOTM Kim Hughes.

So Kim Hughes, who's a self-professed cat lady, correct, had to come to this event because it was about cats. So it just live in Toronto only has so many hosts and Kim is one of the greats and you're one of the greats and should Kim's the original. That's the way I look at it. I mean, I know Scott did it.

I know May did it. But Kim is the Kim is the the host of Live in Toronto that I guess I would have to say no disrespect. Anybody else was my favorite. I'm with you. I'm with you. the host of Live in Toronto that I guess I would have to say, no disrespect to anybody else was my favorite. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Next to Brother Bill. So present company accepted. Give me, yeah, give me Kim Hughes hosting Live in Toronto. Yeah. So I was the evening guy after Kim. We had a really good relationship, I think, Kim and I. I used to take care of her cats when her and her then husband, Renee would go away.

They'd let me stay in their house. I would house it for them and take care of their two cats. That's something I fondly remember. Fun fact. Um, but yeah, but Kim, um, Kim was just like, uh, how do I, how do I describe her? Um, she's a no shit lady. How do I describe her? She's a no shit lady. I remember she went to New York City and did an interview with Scott Weiland.

He was not having a good day. And I listened to the outtakes of the interview. She was doing a world album premiere for a Stone Temple Pilots record, or maybe it was Scott's debut solo album. Anyway, I remember Scott was late by, I don't know how long, and he came in and Kim just tore this guy, tore this guy a new asshole. And I was like, wow, there's a lady that you gotta have a lot of respect for.

She just didn't take crap from anybody. And well, and let's just be honest, she was a great interviewer. She, you know, working for Now magazine and then working for us. She did two jobs. She worked tirelessly. She was well-entwined and ingrained in the music industry. She knew everybody and you could hear it during the show. And that's why she was always my favorite host. Absolutely. Dave Badini from the Rio Statics heard you were coming back on Toronto Mic'd. And this is the note I got from Dave.

Neil left listeners with three parting points of radio wisdom. I remember two, this is, you're gonna have to fill this in. I remember two, but not the third. And now Dave's gonna remember the first two. He says, DJs don't necessarily choose the music they play. And no one looks the way they sound on the radio except Dave Bookman.

But what was the third? Did he get those two right? And then fill in the blank for Dave Badini. Oh, Dave, Dave, you've got me. So, uh, so this was my signing off from, from the edge. Um, I had said what he says. Yes. They don't get to pick their own tunes.

Oh my God. They, they don't look like they sound like, except for Dave Bookman. And that was just, um, that was my way of saying to Dave, thank you very much. They don't look like they sound like except for Dave Bookman. That was my way of saying to Dave, thank you very much, Dave Bookman, for putting up with me and all my inconsistencies at that time. That was said out of love more than anything else. God. And what was the third one?

Because I haven't heard that extra in 20 years. So Dave, I'm going to have to think about that. Do you have it? Do you have that recording? I do not. I don't have it. And it was recorded by Rob Johnston. Well, Robbie J is a listener. We can see if he's done it. Yeah, we could. But a lot of that stuff wasn't saved. A lot of my interviews that I did weren't saved. I never saved them. Boy, what was the third thing? He's really got me. See, this is where a stalker comes in handy because stalkers will record everything and archive it all. Like, and you know, that's why it's good to have a technically savvy stalker.

Oh, radio. I'm just, boy. Okay. If it comes to you. Dave, can I just tell you quick? David? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I love the great FOTM.

Dave Badini. Let's go. So if it wasn't for Dave Badini, I wouldn't have scored a hat trick on Gord Downey. Oh, yeah. So quick story. So Dave and I used to play hockey every Thursday at McCormick Arena in Parkdale. And we would, we would, there was a whole bunch of music guys and guys that weren't in the industry as well. We all got together and played hockey, 11 o'clock, I think it was on Thursday nights. And so then there became, there was other games kind of going

on too. And, and Dave was kind of entrenched with, oh, playing with a whole bunch of different guys. And one afternoon he called me out of the blue and said, Hey, we got the smaller rink at McCormick. By the way, I don't even know if McCormick is still there. Do you? I believe it's still there. I believe it's still there. So it had a main rink and then it had a small rink. And he called me one day and he said, Hey, do you want to come out and play an afternoon gig or afternoon game? And I said, yeah, sure. I got some time. I'm not working today, blah, blah, blah. And so I went and I got there late and everybody was

already on the ice. And so I just jumped on the ice, got my helmet on and I wore the full visor like most people did. And we played this game. And I remember this goalie had this really cool Japanese World Cup hockey jersey on. And I'm thinking, where the fuck did this guy get that? And anyway, I managed, I played pretty well that day and I got three goals on this guy. And okay, I've gotten a hat trick before, albeit not that often, but I didn't know who this guy was until we went into the dressing room and I was sitting beside him and we're talking. I'm pulling off my jersey and Dave's across me and we're talking and I noticed that Dave's

got a look in his face like, you have no idea who the fuck you're sitting beside right now, dude. And I'm like looking at him and go, why is he looking that way? And then I'm talking to this person beside me, sitting beside me. And I said, where did you get that jersey from? And he's like, oh, I got it from Japan. And I said, really, you've been to Japan. He goes, yeah, a couple of times.

And at this point, I'm still not cluing in as to who it is until I turn to my right and I go, can I take a look at it? And he looks up at me and I went, oh, hey, that's a, this story is amazing, brother. Yeah. It was, it was Gord and, uh, and he was very kind and I just kind of for a second went score downing and you got a hat trick against him and I got a hat trick against him. Yeah. The lonely end of the rink.

That's my claim to fame. That's my number one thing I tell people. If they ask me, tell me something about you that people don't know. I will tell them I got a hat trick on Gordon Downey. Oh, that's amazing. Did Jim Cuddy play in this game by any chance? So Jim didn't play in that game specifically, but Jim was a regular on the ice with us for a period of time there.

Let me, let me just say, first of all, Jim Cuddy is a good hockey player. He is a good hockey player. He looks a little like Wayne Gretzky, right? He's got a bit of a Gretzky look. He he can move. He can skate or he could. I mean, I don't know if he still plays. I think he's I know that Greg Keeler was, you know, Greg Keeler was a great goalie. He took some shots against Team Canada or something.

Merrick told me this story. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. That's right. I remember Summit Series. Summit Series. Yes, correct. They brought Greg Keeler up. So anyway, Jim was really good too, but him and Dave never got along on the ice. They never got along. Well, this is where I'm going with this. Well, I had Jim Cuddy on. I went to the woodshed, chatted up Jim and Jim went off on Badini for his elbows in the corners. And then I had Badini back as Badini came back and I played the clip of Cudi and we had a pretty good chat about yeah, the Dave Badini persona on the ice. So my best friend, Mark, that I mentioned earlier, he was the goalie for Dave's team, the Morning Stars. He was the goalie for that team.

So I got to know, I played for the Morning Stars briefly, but then I went to another team called Boom, which was kind of a put together team of a bunch of Maritimers and a guy named Pete Gaffney, who was the captain, who was an amazing hockey player. And we would play in this tournament called the Exclaim Cup every year. And we were fortunate enough to win it a couple of times, as was Badini's team, Mark's team, the Morning Stars. It was quite the culture back then. We had music and we had hockey as well. And I know Dave is probably the furthest guy from commercial radio, but the one thing I always liked about Dave Badini was he always respected the fact that we were radio guys first and corporate guys second, you know what I mean?

And so Dave and I were pretty good buddies on the ice, even though he did have big elbows and he liked to slash, like you wouldn't believe. He's an intense hockey player, but you know what? That's hockey. That's hockey. I mean, this is the band responsible for the Ballad of Wendell Clark, parts one and two.

So, you know, it comes by honestly here. OK, I forget how how important that guy's band is to the country, to the nucleus of this country. It's unbelievable. And it's an atopical band. Right. So even that video for the ballot of Wendell Clark, parts one and two, you can see the old old mill donuts, which is long gone. But I went to high school down see the old old mill donuts, which is long gone, but I went to high school down the street from old mill donuts. And it's just nice to know there's some film out there where I can still see it.

Just go to YouTube and find it. And now you've carried the torch for the city of Etobicoke because you know, look at you now, Mike. Look at me now, okay. And you've been amazing by the way. I'm gonna cook with gas now on these final items here. But recently we did a lexicon episode of Toronto Mike, the FOTM lexicon. And I think it was really early January and Tyler Campbell, the VP

of sales and Cam Gordon, they visited me and we played clips of the like the origin for these terms that made it into the TMU lexicon, the term, the glossary of terms and that come up over and over again, because you mentioned that he was there became something we would reference. He was there or he wasn't there. I should be more specific. And that came from you talking about in Alan Cross. And I try not to use that too much because I don't think it's fair to you. And I really have backed off of it, but okay, it made it to the lexicon episode of Toronto, Mike. He was there. And then I, the clip got played, this is early January, we're now late January, but in this clip of you talking,

you just dropped the name Shagasaurus, like you just drop it in the mix and you keep going. And then I thought, I guess I didn't ask you in real time when you did it the first time, but I wondered who Shagasaurus was. And I just don't know this name, Shagasaurus, but Brother Bill, not Brother Bill, you're Brother Bill, Bingo Bob, you guys and your nicknames, Bingo Bob was coming over for an episode of toast and I said, Hey, Bingo Bob, do you know who Shagasaurus is? And Bingo did a pretty

good job giving me the 411 on Shagasaurus. But now that I have you back on the program for the record, since you dropped the name first on Toronto mic, please tell us who is Shigasaurus? No idea. Kidding. Mike Rice. Because even I know it's Mike Rice at this point. So again, to most people, they're going to say, you know, who's brother Bill, who's Neil Morrison, who's Mike Rice. So Mike was a producer at the Edge, who was a dear friend of Marty's and a dear friend of mine. Saw both of us at our worst, saw both of us at our best and always, always, always had our backs. He would help Martin out for a lot of the club gigs. He would help me on Live in Toronto. He was a guy that was trying to get through the door of the industry to kind of get in there and show what the amount of talent that he had.

And I'm glad that I always told him to stick it out because there was a lot of people we worked with who didn't make it. They just kind of gave up and they really shouldn't have because they were super talented. Now the guy named Ivan Cabraja, or I remember a guy named Dave Magro, who again, names that don't mean anything, but they were people that deserved a chance and never got the opportunity. Mike got the opportunity. He ended up going to EMI, getting a pretty good job there, but unfortunately EMI was swallowed up and he lost his job again. Now he runs a company that loose what I hope I get this right. It promotes independent music. He's the guy responsible for

basically taking it to radio stations and saying, hey, try giving this a listen. And I'm really saying it vaguely. And I apologize, Mike. But Mike is a very dear friend of mine. He was the best man at my wedding. Wow. Shagasaurus was your best man. Amazing. That's right. Yeah. And that's his nickname Shagasaurus because he used to work clubs with me too. We, we worked the hard rock cafe together and a couple other gigs too, but he had really long, long, a really huge, long mane of hair, like great hair, like Martin did, but blonde. And so when I met him, he said, Oh, my name is Mike, but everybody calls me Shag. So Shag is what we call them. And then it just evolved into Shagasaurus. So Mike's doing real well. He lives in

Mexico most of the time now, or some of the time, and then he's in Toronto as well. I stay in touch with him. He is definitely one of my best friends as well and he's a wonderful human being. Shout out to Shagasaurus if he's listening in Mexico. I'm gonna play a clip. I think Captain Phil sent me this. We were talking about Doug McClement and we were talking about CFNY festivals and all this,

but I'm just gonna play this as a way to talk about somebody else. My name is Martin Streak. I'm from the FM 102 video road show. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing all right? Come on, you got to do a little bit better than that. Is everybody doing all right? What a hot day.

Happy birthday, Canada. Put your hand in the air for Canada. It's Canada's birthday. All right. Would you please welcome to the stage, national velvet? Yeah, all right. I go on. Now I want to play the national velvet bill bring her down now coming soon. You know, a sad

milestone. I don't even know what the term is a sad anniversary, a tragic anniversary, but it'll be fifteen years this summer since Martin Streak passed away. And you mentioned him a couple of times, but yeah, what are your, I don't know, I don't know what you can say further except it's 15 years. Yeah, I did not know that. Martin, yeah, I mean, I don't know what I can say anymore about Martin. I don't really have anything new to share or pontificate about him. He and I were, for those who haven't really been following along to last times I've been on, he and I basically came up through the CF and why and the edge together.

He ended up going to the club side of things and the Thursday 30. And I ended up going up from the overnights to split shifts, which was a couple of evenings and weekend shifts. And then to afternoon drive from there, whereas Martin went up through the clubs. And then in 2004, I left and Martin stayed and I had seen Martin a couple of times out here in Vancouver. And he was going through some pretty tough times as I was at the time, but the difference was as Martin always faced his demons, I never did.

I kind of suppressed them. And the last time I saw him, he had started going to counseling for his addiction issues and, uh, and I wasn't prepared to go. And uh, the last time I talked to him was the day of my wedding, which was, geez, my first wedding was in, uh, 2010 or something like that. I s I can't really remember anyway. Yeah, it's got to be earlier than that. I think Martin leaves us in 09. So, okay. So 2008 or seven, maybe. And I regret to this day that I did not invite him to my wedding.

That's my one major regret. But, you know, he is with us in British Columbia now. He is at the base of a waterfall in Squamish, BC, a place called The Chief. He is buried or not buried, but he's scattered at the foot of this waterfall. It couldn't have been a better place for him. And I get up there when I can, but now that you say it's been 15 years, I realize it's been a few years since I've been up there. So I'm about do again. And I usually bring a shot, little shot of Jaeger and I'll do it with him and to his memory. And I'll do that again this year. You know, just a sad story all around about a guy that

had so much to offer and never gave him the chance, never gave himself the chance to prove what he was really worth. You know, he was definitely more than a guy that just went on the radio and said, hold on, Nirvanskwe, Beastie Brothers, you know, all the names he made up, Christmas package. And what was Bingo Bob's name? Do you remember what they called him? It was almost like R2D2 was called the RQ. Yeah, it was really long. Anyway, you know, Martin was a real showman and a real host and wanted to be the life of the party. And unfortunately, when you're the life of the party,

you get away from the party and you don't know what to do with yourself. And he had a lot of downtime from working the clubs and we know what happened. But, you know, I fondly remember that guy and it's the first time I've heard his voice in years. And, you know, I'm torn a little bit because it's still in the back of my mind. It's like, you know, what a great guy and great memories. But at the other side of me, the other hand, I say, think to myself, you know, why the fuck did you need to do what you did? As Jeff Domette said on one of your episodes many, many moons ago, there was a place for Martin. And we just couldn't find it for him at the time. And he chose to do what he did. He ended his life where that has probably been an option for any number of people at one point

in their life, whether they do it or not, it's a different story. But for Martin, you know, he chose that way out. And I just think now 15 years of his life that he could have, I didn't get the chance to experience. And that's sad. Yeah. What I've learned is that like it's impossible to take your personal like

mindset as it is and your your logic flow and your perception of everything and then like Apply it to somebody in distress because quite simply they're not going to see the possibilities the the the future Etc the same way that you are able to visualize it. So it's almost like that exercise of like, why did he choose to exit stage left when there was a place for, you know, of course there was a place for Martin Streak in the world post 102.1. But yeah, great loss. And I'm sure the CFNY documentary will pay proper tribute to Martin Streak.

And I know you were interviewed for it. And I'm wondering, do you have any, and I know Allen and Ivor keep giving me updates, but as far as you know, this thing's on track to be available to see, I don't know if it'll be at TIFF or whatever it'll be at, like in the fall, right? Fall 2024. Preston Pysh.(001194205 you the truth. I've talked to Iver a few times. I talked to Alan briefly about it. They are on track as far as I know. They have managed to edit it down from, I think, about nine or 10 hours of raw footage to about an hour and a half. But there were some issues that Iver has mentioned that he didn't care for. So they've kind of redone it a little bit. That's all I know. I'll just say this.

I was just absolutely beyond honored to have been asked to be part of the interview process. Whether I make the final cut means nothing to me. Just the fact that they asked me, a guy that started at the Spirit of Radio in 1988 really wasn't part of the original spirit, the David Marsden era. That even to me, I mean, that's the era I grew up on. That's the CF and Y that introduced me to so many great bands, personalities. Live Role Jive was my hero when I was growing up. He's one of the reasons I got into the music business, into radio is because of Live Earl Jive,

who was the evening guy with Beverly Hills. Just that show was such personality driven radio. And that's what gets me, again, it kind of ties back to what I'm doing now. One of the reasons why they said, come work at Mix 1079 here in Fort Saskatchewan. One of the reasons Craig wanted me was because he wanted my personality.

And I would not have been able to do that had I not grown up listening to the likes of James Scott, Peyton Geets, Humble and Fred, Live Real Jive, Scott Turner, May Potts, Danny Elwell, Liz Janik, and the list goes on and on and on, Martin Streak, all of these people that I either worked with or listened to. And man, I'll tell you, it's just when they were interviewing me for it, there was kind of a point I'm sure they won't use, but I just kind of had this surreal, I felt really like this was surreal to me because the radio station that

I lived and died for as a kid, I actually had an opportunity to work for it, you know, and actually experienced the spirit of radio, albeit briefly before the trouble times happened. And I was just, again, I'm just flattered that they asked to interview me. If I get two seconds on it, just to see my face once, I'll be over the moon. But yeah, I can't wait to see it. I'm really excited to see the CF and Y documentary. And I don't know, will there be an edge documentary? I really doubt it, but never say never.

See what happens. Yeah. Well, my big question for Alan and Diver was like, what is your cutoff year for this documentary? Because the truth, you can argue the true spirit of radio leaves when, when David Marsden leaves and that's whatever that is 87 or whatever that is. I should quick aside David Marsden confirmed to return in person in early March. So David Marsden is going to be sitting right here for a rematch, so to speak. But there's not many people you can use the word legend and

all capital letters, but David Marsden is definitely that one person in this country. I would say him and Moses Neimer, probably the pioneers of radio and television in this country, taking it from one place to another place, but not doing it for any other reason than this is the kind of radio and the kind of television we should have people watching. Visionaries, right, brother? These are visionaries. Oh, capital V. Absolutely. Capital V. Absolutely.

DJ Dream Doctor heard you heard you were coming on and he wanted me to ask you, do you prefer the 80s CF and why or the 90s CFNY? That's a great question. Ha, wow. That's a very good question because I was listening. I was a listener in the 80s, but I was part of it in the 90s. Right. Wow.

See, DJ Dream Doctor brings the heat. He brings the heat. That's a fastball right down the plate. Yeah, but you can hit those out. This thing's got a little like slider dip on it, like Dave Steep's style. Yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, that's a great question. I'm gonna say, because of my age, when I was listening to CF& Y in the 80s, I would have been 15, 16, 17, 18 years old. And those are the prime real estate years for music and what you like, right? So I'm going to say the 80s because it shaped me as the human being I ended up becoming. Those radio announcers had a big deal, great to do with that.

But the 90s were very, very special. Here's something that Martin Streak said to me once when we first found out, when I first found out that I had gotten the overnight job on a regular basis because they'd been trying me out for a while. I was finally told this before the Christmas party one year that you're going to be our overnight announcer. Martin Streak is going to be the club guy. And Martin came over to me, put his arm around me once and he yelled in my face because there was music going on. He said, this is our time. This is our time. Right. And he was right. It was our time from 1991 till 2004 when I left. Maybe I had stayed out, out worn my welcome a little bit. But the 1990s

at CF and Y at the Edge were our time. it's ironic that on the first Billy Talent album there's a song where Ben Kowalowicz repeats over and over again this is our time. Now I'm sure that Ben doesn't know that story but whenever I hear it I think of Martin and I think of him saying that to me this is our time. So I hope I answered. Perfect answer. Dreamcatcher is DJ dream doctor, dream doctor. Sorry, Mr. Dream Doctor. I hope that answered your question, but I will go with the 1980s. Well, you know, I did have a little chat with Ben outside a we had a party for Marty you zoomed in or remotely connected

it was at the Opera House and I met Ben there and he does want to come on, like at some point Ben will be on Toronto Mic at some point and I will- Has he not been on yet? No, I know and I've tried, I've taken a few runs and he's like, I love the show but the timing just never worked. I will ask him about that line

and if it's about Martin Streak. Again, I doubt it is because he was not, I don't think he even worked in this station at the time. You never know. Ben was only there briefly. You know, he produced Live in Toronto. I think Bookman had something to do with bringing Ben in. I'm not 100% sure, but he was our producer very briefly.

And then at the end of Live in Toronto, he would just jump in a car, Ian DeSau's car, or John, his bass player, or Aaron's car, and they would go off to band practice. Right. And we'd be like, oh yeah, jam jamming with some band called Billy Talent. You're reminding me now like when I think Huxley Workman had a big single, I think it was Anger as Beauty. Okay, so Huxley Workman also a great FOTM friend of the show, but he says he remembers listening to CFNY and he heard Try Honesty by Billy Talent.

And he says he remembers thinking I'm fucked because this Try Honesty is coming out. And it's like, and then he's got his little, you know, anger as beauty, which is a nice little song and all, but he's like, I'm fucked. And I just think that's a funny story that the hearing Try Honesty, he realized he was in big trouble commercially.

Yeah, big fan of Huxley as well. I remember somebody asking if we were roommates. Oh, yeah, I do. I do remember that. Oh, my goodness. No, we were never roommates. But I asked him about it. I think, yeah. Yeah, Huxley was always a great guy and obviously not the same kind of music.

And it's funny because I remember we got a CD single of Tri honesty. And I put it on and I went wow I I I keep this like this is Ben Kowalewicz, Ian DeSalle, John Gallant is that his last name? Sorry John I'm having a mind blank and Aaron Seligwiniak and I'm, these are the guys that just used to go up in some shitty car and jam. And now I'm listening to this and I'm going, these guys are pros. They're blowing you away. And it's like, holy shit. Yeah. And they did so many times. We saw them out here in Vancouver at Rogers. Sorry, not at Rogers arena at the original stadium. GM place. What was that called? No, the original stadium Pacific Coliseum.

So that's kind of out in East Van. It's out in the suburbs, but there were 16,000 kids there. And I think Phil was with me, Phil Evans, who I actually was Phil that hired Ben Kowalowicz. And, and Phil and I just looked at each other and went, well, look what's happened here. Unbelievable. So happy for those guys. You know, when you see a friend do very well, you know, George is another guy. You see them do well and you just, you can look at it one of two ways. You can go the Canadian way and that is, oh, I don't like them anymore because they're successful. But never felt that way. Always, that was the thing about people at the edge. We were always very supportive of any decision

somebody made when I decided to go to Vancouver. You know, many people, you know, I know Martin was a little disappointed, but he understood. And I had nothing but support from my colleagues at the time. And that's how we felt about them, about Ben. We were like, wow, man, way to go. And George as well, when George told me he was going to Much Music, he was classy enough to call me the day before it was announced to say, hey, this is what's happening tomorrow. I wanted to call you and let you know, I just, it's just people are just world class individuals. And I'm thrilled that I got to not only work with them, but know them as, as

friends. Now, Martin streak, you know, it is our, this is our time. That's, uh, because he was basically getting the, it's funny because we talked about Mars. And so like Mars didn't passes the baton to Chris shepherd who passes the baton to Martin streak. I don't know if there's a little literal baton at play at all. But any idea where Chris Shepard's at? Yeah, he's my neighbor. No, I'm kidding. I'm like everybody else. I mean, I hear Costa Rica. I have a friend in Costa Rica who knows who Chris Shepherd is He has not seen him yet, but it's a big country. So yeah You know, I think Chris will eventually make an appearance when Chris Shepherd feels like he wants to make an appearance. He is a

He's a guy that has never played by the rules The more you look for him the the more he's going to hide. But then again, like I say, Toronto Mike will probably be walking or riding down Lakeshore Boulevard one day and some guy will come walking towards you wearing a big black hat, all black clothing. And I'll be sharp. I've been here all the time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? I've been hiding in claim site brother. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? But I hope he's claim site brother. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? But I hope he's doing well, right? Me too, you know, and I'm kind of I Kind of think it's fucking awesome that he just up and decided to go off the grid and disappear and he did it like he's It's been almost ten years since we've had us a public sighting of Chris Shepard

But I I told you the skinny puppy Chris Shepard story, right? We've heard this one. We'll do it again. You want me to do this one quickly? Yeah. Okay. So Shep invites me out one night and we're at least palisade and some band and some weird look or average looking guy in a, you know, the typical suburban hockey jacket you wore in the seventies and eighties. Right.

It's standing there with regular hockey hair and we're talking about bands, just, you know, where it was a whole conglomerate of people hanging around with Chris that night, whole posse, if you will. And, uh, and I'm talking at the bar with this guy and we get on the topic. He asked me what I think of Skinny Puppy. And I went on a diatribe about next to Bootsauce, how Skinny Puppy were the worst fucking band I've ever heard in my life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Go to another bar. I hadn't seen Chris in a while.

All of a sudden the bar parts and Chris comes sliding down the middle. I was talking to this guy again. His name's Kevin. So I'm like, oh, Kevin, you've seen Chris around? He goes, oh yeah, he's around there somewhere. And all of a sudden Chris comes running up. He goes, hey. He goes, hey, Billy.

Because he called me Billy back then. I don't know why, but I knew. Oh, because my hair looked like Billy Idol. So that's why. So he says, hey, Billy, have you called me Billy back then. I don't know why, but I knew, oh, because my hair looked like Billy Idol. So that's why. So he says, Hey, Billy, have you met Kevin Kee from Skitty Puppy? And I'm like, oh, shit. After I went on a 10 minute diatribe back at Lee's Palace about what a fucking shit band they were. That was a that was a foot in moment.

Foot in moment, foot mouth moment. I'll tell you. Amazing. Love this. Yeah. Great. It says, okay, so we're done essentially I'll tell you that. Amazing. Love this. Yeah, greatest. Okay. So we're done essentially, but you're still being recorded, so don't go off on anybody

right now. I'm going to play a little bit of it, but like it's the greatest hits time. So I'll just shout out somebody who heard you were coming on. His name is Paul Sagan. And he's like, you have to play this song. So I'm going to play like 20 seconds of this song just because I was told by Paul Sagan, I have to. So here we go. The brother man, Bill is the brother living at the top of the hill. The brother man, Bill

is the brother with the brother man, Bill's kill. The because that's pretty much the song over and over again, but it's weirdly catchy in that I found myself singing along to the Brother Man Bill song. So if you want to hear, I had to play that for you, brother. Going to say I've never heard that before. What is that? I don't even know what that is. Look, I know very little more than you do. I just know it's called Brother Man Bill.

Paul Sagan told me to play it, so I did it. But here's the song I really want to play. Again, we're going to do about 30 seconds of this and then I'll bring it down. Would you please welcome to the stage, I love it kicks in all. Yeah, who am I came? There's not a human being listening to this episode of Toronto Mike. He doesn't know exactly what we're playing right now, but brother bill that voice. I always thought that here I'm going to just get my tongues in my cheek, but that welcome to the stage Sloan sounds a lot like you. You might want to inquire like lawsuit. I don't know, but it sounds like someone's

doing a brother Bill impersonation. They do a pretty good one too, don't they? Yeah. That's, uh, that's edge fast. Uh, 1995, I guess maybe or four. No, I can't even remember 1994. I think that was Sloan's last gig. And then we never heard from them again. Right. Yes. You're 100% right. That was supposed to be their final gig. They've I've had a couple of the members on tell me about it. And you I guess because it's a sponsored by CFNY some on air persons can introduce Sloan and you got the call. Well, it was supposed to be Dave Bookman and those who know, know that. But Dave was nowhere to be found.

I think he had a hockey game to watch or something. The senators were playing or something like that. Or Young and the Restless, maybe. Oh, it could have been late Young and the Restless. Absolutely. So they couldn't find him. So Elliott Lefkoe, I believe, who was the promoter running, working for Universal Music Canada, which were our universal. So they couldn't find him. So Elliot Lefkoe, I believe, who was the promoter running, working for Universal Music Canada, which were,

or Universal, sorry, I'm having a mind blank, MC Concerts, something like that. Anyway, so Elliot Lefkoe, who's now in Los Angeles running Golden Voice, which is a huge deal. Just saw him at the premiere of the subversive Louis de Lowe documentary. He's in that and we had a good chat because the man loves his Toronto miked.

Oh, he's fantastic. And wonderful human being anyway. So Elliot came over to me and he says, we can't find Dave Sloan's going on in like two minutes. Can you introduce? And I, I got like, I'm at least 12 beers in at that point. I've got a whole idea.

I'm pretty drunk and I'm like, lie to you. I'm pretty drunk. And I'm like, yeah, sure. I'll do it. No problem. And I had no time to think about an intro for them. And so I just did that. But I was at Chris Murphy that came on and tells the great story on Toronto Mike where the tuning up is the length of the song or something.

And that's why it's that length. He told a great story of that, and I found that fascinating because I had no idea because I just remember introducing them. And I knew when we did that intro that the crowd reaction was different than usual. The decibel level was way, way higher. It was sort of like listening to Cheap Trick live at Budokan, you know, with the loudness screaming. That's at the amphitheater there. And I remember thinking they're not ready. They weren't even on the stage. And I was thinking, oh, and then, of course, Chris told that story about the amount of time it took them to get prepared to play is

the length of the song, The Good and Everyone. Which is like two minutes. Yeah, no, that's ringing a bell. And Chris Murphy tells a great story because he's also funny as heck. Great. He's a great, great guest. The Good and Everyone is two minutes and 17 seconds. So I think to me in my circle, my little circle, everyone knows that's brother Bill's voice at the beginning of The Good and Everyone, one of the great Sloan tracks, but there is going to be someone, maybe two someone maybe two people maybe you know 300 people who just learned this fun fact So I'm actually gonna play the beginning again. Okay this time. I'll play it a little longer before I fade down you right now We know this is brother bill

introducing Sloan Please welcome to the stage... ...Solo! Now I want to hear the whole two minutes here. I will say Brother Bill, hearing that song, which I still love from that band that I still love and thinking about listening to, you know, the Edge 102 when I was going off to university and maybe of course before that, but at this point when this song comes out and then listening to the radio and hearing brother bill on the radio playing the songs I love like I got a huge like wave of nostalgia overtaking me right now and I got to say you're a big part of these memories man so it's like a privilege I get to actually have a one-on-one honest chat with brother fucking bill well it ain't no big thing, Mike. Trust me.

You know what? Too humble. Thank you. Thank you, man. Yeah. Once in a while, I will get, even in Vancouver, I will get people finding out that I was brother Bill in Toronto and they will come up to me and they'll say, oh man, I grew up listening to you.

And frankly, I find it hard to respond because I'm not really somebody who takes any sort of adulation at any level very well because I was just a guy that talked on the radio. I never thought of myself as a quote unquote personality or recognized figure or anything like that because to me that was always people on TV and the big morning guys like Humble and Fred and Brother Jake and all those people. So I just was just a guy that just talked on the radio that people used to listen to once in a while. And I'll be forever grateful for that. And I'm grateful that you say yes when I pester you to come back on Toronto Mike, and this won't be your last appearance, but this is really your second true one on one Toronto Mike episode and you hit it out of the park again. You're two for two buddy.

Thanks for having me, Mike. It's always a pleasure. And if you don't mind me saying, just a little promote promote the radio station work for now if you don't mind. Okay. So you can listen to us. It's mix 1079 heartlandnews.ca. You can go there. It's, it's our news site because we're a big news station too. Uh, but you can go to heartlandnews.ca. There's a live link there and I'm on from six until 10 o'clock your time. So Eastern time. That's an Eastern time.

Eastern time. I'm on a local Edmonton time from three until seven, but that would be six until ten your time I believe. Congrats man. Great to have your voice back on the radio where it belongs and congrats on all these things coming up brother Bill here. Seriously, just really like rooting for your heart over here in Toronto and one day maybe I'll actually get to meet you.

One day that will happen, Mike. Thanks for having me. You're a fine Canadian. And that brings us to the end of our 1419th show. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky. I'm at Toronto Mike. And much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. That's Recycle My Electronics. That's Raymond James Canada and Ridley Funeral Home. Join me tomorrow when I have both Ray Don Chong and Mary Jo Eustace on the program. I think that'll be fun too. So see you all then.