Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Brother Jake Edwards: Toronto Mike'd #646

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Mike chats with Brother Jake Edwards (or is it Bro Jake?) about his start on radio in the Maritimes, his multiple tours of duty at Q107, being responsible for bringing John "Spike" Gallagher to the big smoke, his move to Vancouver and everything you ever wanted to know about The Champ (but were afraid to ask).

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The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text TORONTOMIKE to 59559. And our newest sponsor, CDN Technologies. Your IT and cybersecurity experts. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me this week is brother Jake Edwards. Brother Jake, how you doing, buddy?

Mike, what a pleasure. I know I'm one of a million guests you've already had on. I was told by Gene Bolitas that you have more guests than anybody else, like the third most listened to podcast in Canada. I love it! I love those great lies that Gene was telling you, but I'll tell you the reason it took me 640-something episodes to get you on. You live in Vancouver. That's correct.

A little bit of a time zone there. Well, it's not the time zone. Prior to COVID-19, I was adamant that the guest had to sit right here. I would have flown down. I would have been there. Absolutely. I'd rather do this is actually this is my very first internet interview you are my first wow yep now i'm nervous why this is a big deal to

me now as we converse uh i will reveal why i was so excited to have brother jake on the program it has to do with my age at a certain time, what I was listening to on the radio, and we're going to get there. But first and foremost, is everybody healthy and safe in the Brother Jake Edwards bunker there? Is everybody okay? Everybody's good. Alex, my daughter, who you just saw prior to coming on here, is a New Yorker. She lives in New York.

She was married last year. And she came to visit. She had some work to do in Vancouver. She's a global ambassador for Lululemon. And she owns a company called Girlvana Yoga. So she's been teaching online here. Some of her videos have over 2 million views. She's really doing well.

And, of course course we couldn't send her back to new york so but it's been a it's been an absolute blessing to have her here so we can keep an eye on her but uh she you know she's knocking out of the park she's crushing it as a matter of fact i had to ask her for my allowance for this weekend this long weekend so i get an allowance here's what we're gonna do we going to get those 2 million viewers your daughter has, and we're going to get them to listen to Brother Jake on Toronto Mic'd. I'll have to talk to her about that later. Now, maybe Gene didn't mention this, but one of my clients is John Gallagher.

Yeah, the Spike-a-Tola. Right. And he's been on the show several times, and we've talked quite a bit. I don't know if you know this, but he likes to tell the odd story or two. He does. And I was part of a lot of those stories. You could, I mean, I started just writing a few things down, because I don't normally do this. I mean, I, you know, just, I'm, I'm writing a book,

trying to finish a book and, uh, you know, you just kind of stall out, you know what it's like. Um, and there's so many things that happened along the way. And, uh, John was, was one of them. We met in Halifax when I started a station there called Q104, the rock of the Atlantic. Um, he still boasts today that they had way more talent at C100 than we had a Q104, the Rock of the Atlantic. He still boasts today that they had way more talent at C100 than we had at Q104, but the numbers don't lie, Johnny. The numbers don't lie. Is it true that you're the reason we have John Gallagher in the big smoke here today in Toronto?

Yes, 100%. 100%. He impressed the hell out of me when I was down there and I remember we were looking for a sports guy and Gary Slate, of course you know. And I sold him on John and John came up and he was just a little pistol.

You know, he's just a firecracker. And I had this dream. I was dreaming that I was going to call him Spike. His name was going to be Spike Gallagher. And I thought, yeah, yeah, Spike Gallagher. And then I don't know if he grew to hate the name later on. You'd have to ask him.

But I just thought it fit perfectly, I thought. Yeah, you know what? I remember that time. I guess we're in the mid-'80s here. if if my timelines are right you had cory hart who was rocking that spiky hairdo type deal and you had wendell clark for example i think he was doing the similar style he had like a mullet thing but it was spiky on the top and i just assumed it was i didn't know it was you that uh gave him the nickname but i just assumed it had to do with his hairdo. No, no, it just didn't.

It was just a name that came to me. I swear to God, it was in a dream. I told him, I'm going to call you Spike Gallagher. First of all, it just sounded great. So I'm all about how things sound, not how it looks. And as obviously, I didn't have the spiky hair so well hey at least you've got hair that's half the battle yeah that's exciting isn't it and you do too that's quite i you you could be called a spike look at that yeah i'm doing this uh well you know what i was starting

this before the pandemic i like to say i just haven't you know but i just thought i'd see what happens if i grow it a bit on top. Well, I can. Like, who knows what tomorrow brings? Maybe I'll be bald tomorrow. But the... I just get a sensation I want to drop a business card in that here. You know, just, hey, here's my card. Drop it right in there.

That's not a bad idea. So you're in, I mean, you mentioned Halifax. So for those, those like i'm speaking to a uh toronto-centric audience but that doesn't mean they're they're not allowed to listen in halifax or vancouver but it means we are going to probably focus a little more on your your your brief toronto career than the whole kid in caboodle but i do want to understand the origin story of brother jake like for example is this is this uh you're a maritimer i don't know if people know that but you're from the maritimes

that's correct that's correct monkton new brunswick headed off to uh um a school of radio called leyland power school of radio in boston uh 19 years old packed up the mg headed across the border my parents my ex-girlfriend followed me down to make sure I got across the border and never really hadn't been anywhere. You know, Moncton was probably the biggest thing I've ever seen in my life. And then Boston, you can imagine this kid coming in there and and wanting to be a radio guy. You know, something that started very early in age with me i you know had my dad bought my sister and i my sister nancy and i uh these um eight transistor radios they were red they had a leather case they had gold trim and an ear plug in a little

earpiece right so there was no video games back then so all i did was put the radio on at 13 years old and uh and listened to christ larry king was on at that time in in florida i mean that's that's how that's how far back that goes but i was i was just a kid and you know larry lujak in chicago uh boston new york all these stations and i went you know what this isujak in Chicago, Boston, New York, all these stations. And I went, you know what? This is becoming a very cool idea. So it was always in the back of my mind that that's exactly what I wanted to do. I'm going to play a little song. I'm going to play it and then I'll bring it down and we'll talk about it. And then you'll know pretty early why I'm playing this song, but... So this is

My Brother Jake by Free. And I was just wondering, and my big question is, what's the origin of the name Brother Jake? Well, the origin is, is that bro Jake, E-R-E-A-U was my mother's maiden name. So I kind of stem from there. And Jake is Jake. And threw an Edwards in there for fun. And that's how that whole thing started.

I mean, I'll let you in on a little secret. Maybe I won't. Maybe I won't. You'll have to ask me later on in the program if I'm up to it. I don't know if that's allowed, Jake. I feel like you're obligated now. Oh, I see. Yeah, right. Well, as you know, I mean, that's my stage name. Being an Acadian, a Cajun guy, French,

you know, went to French school for 11 years and decided when I was going to become an English announcer that I thought I might want to maybe tap the cheat tanks up in English, just make sure that, you know, that I'm able to do this. So my last year was at Moncton High and that's what I did. And I just, you know, I started absorbing the language and just loved it i mean i was you know probably the most enthusiastic kid in grade 12 in english because i just wanted to you know i just wanted to know i wanted to you know gene volaitis is uh who's got his english is he's taught me a lot too i mean along the way but that's, there's a story for you. Is it true that You're still not getting my name. You're not getting my real

name, so don't start. I wasn't even going to ask. I was going to let you keep that privacy there, but I do like the bro origin story, that it was your mother's maiden name? Is that what you said? Bro? Maiden name, yeah. They came from a little village called Bro Village. Wow. Yeah.

They had this little village named after them see i had concocted you know so my family yeah my family uh basically from france uh 1650 1660 1660 uh to the expulsion 1775 where the french met the loyalists who came on over and basically put them on boats and brought them down to New Orleans, Lafayette in Louisiana. And, you know, with the black culture there and the French culture, they mixed. And the New Orleans people and Lafayette, here come them crazy Cajuns. It was Acadians. That's where Cajun comes from. Right, right. Yeah, because I did do a road trip recently down east, and

you don't realize, living here in Toronto, just how French parts of New Brunswick are. Oh, come on. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, Moncton was a 50-50 town, and everybody got along. There was no controversy there. Nobody was getting

into fights because they were English or French. Right. And it was, you know, it was a good childhood. Great place to grow up. I remember walking on the ocean floor, Bay of Fundy there. That's the big, that's the big Moncton tourist trap, or I don't know if it's a trap or not. It was a lot of fun.

My kids liked it anyway. But so you're a maritimer. Did you go to the total board? Did you go to the total board, the title board, they call the title board they call it i think so like yes title board yes yes the answer is yes yes uh and i do remember that they're just recently like what are they called they're like uh plant they look like a potted plant almost the rocks at hopewell cave right one of them had just like collapsed or something. And the tide goes out 100 feet. Right. And they

have little things on the beach. Please evacuate the beach. Please evacuate the beach. And the water just fills right up. Yeah, we had to come twice. Like you have to go once when you're walking on it and then you needed to come back and kind of see how it was full of water. Very interesting. Yeah.

So in the Maritimes, getting you to Q104 and then I guess then we'll get you to Toronto here, but maybe give us a little taste of some of the radio work you got out east on your way to Q104. Well,

as soon as I got back from Boston, you start sending air checks out. Those are little checks people that we used to put on cassette tape. You'd send it out as a program director would hear it and go, you're too young. You're not ready. And I told my next door neighbor, Ed Powers, who had a Dodge van all done up with a Union Jack. He came across and he said, you know what?

Why don't we go on a road trip and i said you know what let's go on a road trip and we won't stop until i get a gig and that place was bathurst new brunswick yeah we were in uh you know broadcasting in a house that was upstairs the wind blew through it i mean you could you had to shut it down i was doing a bit of french stuff there say call me say la musique est vous, on entend de super radio. And then you do a country show, and then I started rocking until midnight,

or, yeah, midnight, I think, and then shut the station down and went home. But you're on the air. That's freaking cool. How old are you about that time? Just turning probably just 19 and a half, 20 that's the dream though uh i'm a i produce a show for humble and fred uh you might remember those guys uh although you were anyway you were trying to think now i'm trying to think my timelines what were the years you were at q107

uh 85 to 86 and a half three quarters you From there I went back to Winnipeg. Winnipeg came back in 89. Stayed there till 99, 90, 91, 92. Went back to Winnipeg for months. And then they hauled me back to come back till 96. And then I headed out here to Vancouver. Okay. So you remember Humble and Fred then?

Yeah, of course. I know them very well. Yeah. And Humble talks uh, Humble and Fred then, uh, during that. Yeah, of course. I know them very well. Yeah. And Humble talks about, uh, I think he was about 17 or something getting on the air and I think in Moose Jaw or something. And it's like,

uh, that's, that's the dream you might, you know, you're not making any money and nobody can actually, not many people can hear you, but you're on the air and that thus begins, uh,

for you anyways, thus begins the Bro Jake radio career in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Very cool. Yeah. And getting back to when you hit the mic switch for the first time, you hear this ambient noise in your head and the headphones. And back then, we all liked to have them up loud. And you knew it was just totally different from being on college radio. It was cool, you know, being in Boston and doing that, but, you know, being there and, you know, this is, this is for real. And honestly,

I was dragged off from a party because I was going on on Thursday night. This is Tuesday night. uh his name was i think his last name was white white house whitehead white he decided he was going to quit he was the evening rock jock and i get a call from the boss he said you're on in an hour and i let you know i'm like six beers deep like uh you know amongst other things right and oh, yeah, I'm not going on. He said, well, you'll be here. You're not. That's it. So, you know, I flip on over there and I hit the mic and I heard the noise and I went and it was just like I froze. I hit the mic back and hit it, you know, just flipped it off and played a song. And I went, took me a couple of songs to just, you know, start going at it.

Hauled into the office the next day. He said, what happened? I said, you hauled me out of a party. I said, give me another chance. Went on the next night. The rest is history. I was ready. So this is in Bathurst. I have it here.

This is CKBC AM. Yes. Yeah. Wow. And then is the next stop at CKCW? This is a longer stop for you. No. No. Oh, talk to me. Talk to me. I'm firing my researchers. Yeah, I went to CKC New Glasgow as the afternoon guy.

And I was doing quite well. And something happened there. The owner of the station, let's just say, made some inappropriate thing. And I said no. And I was fired the next day. Am I reading between the lines? Somebody put a... You can read whatever you want into it. You can read whatever you want into it.

But let's just say if that was to happen today, it would be the He Too movement. Wow. Wow. Oh, yeah. I do hear the odd story from the... Mike Stafford tells a story, and I can say this because he put it in public, about somebody at 102.1 making advances on him and then there being an issue with that. It sounds like this is the way radio was in the 70s and early 80s, maybe.

Well, God, I remember when the program director, actually, it's the general manager, the guy just said, sorry, bro. And I left there. I was crying, tears rolling down my face. And the next day they had either his nephew or whatever came on who just sucked. Where is he now? I don't know.

But and then from there, I just jumped in my MG and I headed down to Cape Breton, Sydney, and spent two really great years there. I mean, really fantastic years there. I grew a lot. Ian Hennemansing actually used to listen to me all the time. And when I went to Moncton from Sydney, he was just the biggest fan. And I was doing an auto show, car lot, selling cars just on a remote. And his whole gang came down to meet me. And then years later, I found out he came to visit me at the radio station,

had the TV cameras. He said, I have to tell you something. The reason I'm into this is because you created this fire in me. And I just look at him now. I mean, he's a good-looking guy. He's a handsome man thing. Right. No, he's a big deal.

In fact, I'm of the opinion he should be the lead anchor on the National. Yeah. Well, you know, he was for a while. I mean, he was there. Now they split it up. Well, there's two. It's confusing now, but he's like the weekend lead guy. He should be the weekend.

He's fantastic. He is. He's really good and i was honored to know that maybe i had a little bit of some doing in his career maybe one day i'll have young podcasters coming up to me and saying you inspired me mike you're the reason i picked up the microphone but they won't be absolutely absolutely you know you do leave an impression on people i mean if you look at how many podcasts started up last year in North America, in the hundreds of thousands. Right. And a lot of people are podcasting and, hey, listen, I think it's a creative outlet and, you know, get what you need to do and go to your Facebook friends or however you do it. And it's a start. But, you know, the big boys who get sponsors and clients is the only way you can survive.

I mean, you can do it as a hobby for a while. But these guys have got to, you know, and women have got to be good. It's not good enough for you just to get on there totally unprepared, totally. Maybe, you know, your your audio sound isn't good. Your mic technique sucks. You're, you know, it's good. There's going to be some clarity there. And there's, there's a, when you step behind a microphone, you know, it's a, it's a responsibility. You take it serious. And, you know, I've I'm mentoring a bunch of kids that are, that are all over the place. They get my name, they call me and I spend time with them. And I listened to what they're doing and try to, you know, the big thing is one of my biggest, biggest things is and Chris Como does it all the time.

I mean, you know, he's on the air. I am Chris. We know that. How about I'm Chris Como? No, I am Chris Como. I am. Stop doing that. Nobody gives a shit. I wonder if I'm guilty of that one. I'm going to check it out, man. You better not be. I do this. Conversational. In the intro, I do it like this. I go, I'm Toronto Mike.

Like, I do definitely, I put something on there. Like, I'm a WWF. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. but you don't say i am jesus christ you know what i mean like give it give me a break right anyway it's a pet peeve doesn't mean anything no and by the way uh you mentioned the plethora plethora i always say plethora and my wife always goes you know it's plethora but okay either or uh there's many new podcasts coming out and it's getting tougher for

us independent podcasters because so many radio veterans like yourself are suddenly podcasting like like how are we supposed to compete when you professional radio guys start to infiltrate the market well you've got the guest right you you get you do the intel you get the guest and you let the guests be the star of the show not that i am but you have these people you get you do the intel you get the guest and you let the guests be the star of the show not that i am but you have these people you know you are following you i know who you are and uh you have that ability to make people feel that they're important and they should be here and you get some great guests so without the guests i mean just hammering along unless you know you're mark maron and you're a comedian and can do it out of a garage and end up 12 million listeners.

You know, that's that's an anomaly. You know, he worked at it. He's funny. There are things that you need in your bag of tricks or your, you know, whatever it is that you have, a storyteller, something that you were born with that you can bring and naturally let it go out, and people pick up on that. Oh, man, I should be recording this. This is some good stuff. And also, how many podcasts out there have Gene Valaitis on as a guest? And I mean, I would have him on as many times as he wants to come on, and yourself too, Jake. So far, so good. So let's get you, I want to get you to Q107, but I know you

leave, you'll correct me if I'm wrong here, but is it, uh, you leave, uh, I got to learn these East coast Q104 is where you leave Q104 for Q107. Is that right? That's, that's correct but first what happened was in Moncton I in 77 I was the top AM rock jock uh my my PD Doug Pond said put a tape in you know we're going to Toronto to do this big show I said sure I put something together and he came back with the ring and the thing the diploma or the certificate. And I went, wow, I won? Are you kidding me? He said, no, man, it's unbelievable.

We played it and that was it. It was unanimous. With the ring and the certificate were stolen out of my house back in Winnipeg. That's another story. Somebody ripped me off. But then Gary Obie, Magic Christian, who was starting up a brand new station in Winnipeg, 92 City FM, 360,000 watts of pure power. It was the largest FM in North America next to what was happening on the Mexican border with 500,000 watts. But three stations there, 325,000, 340,000, and 360,000. And you're on a flat terrain. So the sound was

incredible. Anyway, he happened to be running, just driving down through New Brunswick, heard me on the station doing the rock show. And he called me on the request line. He said, hi, hey, man, man, it's Magic Christian, Gary Obie. And I said, yeah, yeah, hi. He said, you're either a burnt out jock from Chicago or you really don't know what you got there. And I went, well, I've never been to Chicago. So he flew me up to Winnipeg and I met with him. Unfortunately, the day I arrived, it was minus 45.

It was cold. No, seriously. And back then you walked onto the tarmac there was no nice heated corridor so i walked down the stairs and i i can remember i had a bit of a cold and both my nostrils slammed shut oh my god carrie what is this is this where are the four horsemen we're gonna die uh so you know walked out and i and right then and there i thought there's no way i can work in this climate you know like walking by and you know the safe ways had plugs there was all these plugs in each parking space what are those for well those are for block heaters man can't leave

your car for more than an hour the the crank will freeze up what and that was the worst winter, 1979, 78, 79 they've ever had on record. So the average temperature was minus 38, minus 40, and it would warm up to minus 23. I get out in front of the airport. There's the 92 City FM trick truck, all tricked up because Gary was a motorhead. He's got the fancy paint job, big ar9s in the back and jimmy hendrix playing and then when i heard it i just went oh this is what i want you know coming off am radio and i thought i was going to be an am jock to the rest of my for the rest of my life because i was a real screamer and yeller and hitting intros left right and center and um once i got there i i just went what is this and we were

downstairs in a dungeon that they called bonzolia it was just this place where everybody was smoking and i'm not talking cigarettes but management at ky 58 the tv station nobody came down to the basement nobody but the ratings just shot right up. And it was just, we completely took that town over. And it was sad for me to leave. I, and it was over, you know, I was, I was making, I think, what was I making then? It was like 55 grand, which was, you know, it was good money. And I wanted an extra, I wanted an extra 10. I mean, I, you know, I was, I was doing well. It was, you know, just number one, Alana, they wouldn't pay it. And I said, okay, see you later. And that was it. And they let me walk.

Now this station city, is this the same station that currently has Scruff Connor's son working mornings? Possibly. I think so. I think so too. I think that's where he is. So shout out to TJ if he's listening. TJ Connors.

Hey, buddy. Good FO team. Yeah, he's a great talent. And of course, his dad and I interchanged back and forth. Scruff would go to Winnipeg. I would go to Toronto. Scruff would come back to Winnipeg. Scruff actually bought my house in Charleswood.

Yeah, yeah. And while I was there, he was in Winnipeg with living. My wife was in the house. He was living at my house in the backyard at the pool every day having a cocktail. I actually felt bad because I had T had tj connors on this program and i think i spent far too much time just asking for stories about his dad like i felt like i'm like the poor guy here i invite him over he did get some beer and some lasagna out of it but i invite him over and meanwhile all i want to do is talk about scruff i wanted the Scruff stories. Yeah. Oh, he was amazing.

He was, you know, from Winnipeg. Jeff Neufeld. He was, you know, back then he was a radio rep and would come around. He would be in the office. And I kept, I always said to him, why aren't you on the air? What the hell is, why aren't you on the air?

And lo and behold, they, you know know it happened and but he used to come in and we used to sit there and shoot the shit all the time incredible guy but one of those guys that automatically pure from the soul just absolutely every fiber in his body was geared to communicate and to make you laugh and to come up with the weirdest crap. And, you know, so we were two peas in a pod, I can tell you that. When we do get you to Q107 and we can dwell on it a bit, I always think about, like, it's you, Jesse and Gene,

speaking of Gene Velitas, and Scruff Connors kind of playing musical chairs over there for a while. It just feels like there's a bit of a, it's your turn now, like a, like a tag team wrestling match or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was. And, and Scruff, when he got married, of course the wedding pictures were of a tank. He had the whole tank, the tank. So I had the Supreme, I had this rock and roll army, the City FM rock and roll army.

And I was the Supreme Commander. So the military who was in town, they were there. I tried to get a hold of a tank. So I got one. And we were in a parade and it went back. Of course, none of the army officials there knew that I was going to be in the tank. And there was a lady driving it, a woman driving. And then we're going past the parade area.

And there's this, I'm not going to say a four-star general, but he was high, right? Whatever, however they rank him. And he stands up and he's saluting the tank. And I popped up and I went, hey! And he went, what the hell was that? They caught a lot of crap for that. A lot of crap for that.

Now that I just, this whole military theme, right? Because you were the, it was the Edwards Air Force Base, right? Yeah, we had the, well, there's a lot of names. There's a lot, that's right. There's that one. I remember that one because I remember, well, we'll get to it, but I used to wake up to your program on my way to high school there and we'll get to that.

That's what's happened to you. It's obvious now. Brains are blown. The champ shaped my sense of humor, for better or worse. We can discuss that in a moment. I guess you're in Winnipeg. It's cold, but you're having a blast and then you wanted more money and you end up going back to halifax right yeah um and we wrote

the license we hired all the talent uh i had air checks coming from everywhere i was so excited i didn't know if i wanted to be a program director slash morning guy. I thought I'd give it a whirl. But I hired Doug Barron, whose name I changed was Hal Harbour, as in Hal Arbour. I know Hal Harbour. Yeah. He's a CFNY. Hal Harbour. Yeah.

So we had misinformation as our traffic lady who would just say, you know, geez, I'm down here. It's the baker's parade i've never seen so many bundles of bread coming down they're waving at me with the french but you know the and it's just and it was it wasn't happening it was none of it was real and people would go what is wrong with you but everybody listens it was fun les ismore was the news director uh rock and ray was rock and ray doug colwell was uh was the music director bob powers uh he was the apd and man we just had we had such a good time there i think creatively i was uh i had more fun there with doug baron hell harbor we would come in and and work Saturdays and Sundays. I worked seven days a week.

It just came up with the craziest tunes. We did the Pope John Paul was coming to Halifax. So we decided we were going to do a video and we're going to dress everybody up. We had a guy that worked for us who was Jewish. Well, he was the Pope, of course. We put him in. Everything was just wrong.

And the star of David had the dirty nuns with the black stockings. And I remember the song. It was, he's coming to our town with a long flowing gown. But a light show, they say, will blow you away. And I had this instrumental track that we did it. And so we were doing the video. Then the cops arrived. So, you know, the Catholics, which, you know, I was raised Catholic. I went to church and did that whole thing. I said to them, I said, we're promoting the Pope coming here. We're really happy that he's coming here. This is a new look at it. Well, the cop cars got there, confiscated the tape, took it,

and it's never been seen. Wow. That's it. Yeah, and I just love to see it. I don't know who has a copy of it, but we had so much fun. You know, that was one of my first arrests. Is that right? So they do take their Catholicism awfully serious in that. Yeah uh they take their they do take their catholicism awfully

serious in uh in that yeah they do they do but you know uh there's always time for a change you know that mike i'm with you so is there a law in canada like if there's a q in the call letters you got to be a q something like i'm just curious is there a queue zoo that kind of thing yeah well it was only it uh you know when i remember when i went to winnipeg and you know we were going to call it some stupid name i i forget what it was and and uh the gm there said why don't you call the show the brother jake show and i went yeah right why don't i do that? I don't know. I was, you know, kind of a team player. I wanted everybody to, you know, and, you know, you can ask John or Gene and anybody if somebody was hot at that moment, you throw it over and that's the way things work. And I thought, okay, that's, and that's where it really, really kicked in for me. Okay. So were you recruited to Q107 here in Toronto? in for me. Okay, so were you recruited to Q107 here in Toronto?

Yes. Well, when I was working in Halifax, Gary Slate was friends with Arnie Patterson, who used to be Pierre Trudeau's press secretary, and we were applying for another license. Gary, my friend, Gary Obey, Magic, we applied for the license. Of course, we were beat out because Arnie had some connections. Let's just say that. And both the presentations were awesome. I narrated the, I was the voice for the presentation. Gary had all the speakers lined up. And I mean, they were blown away. And we didn't get it.

And I mean, they were blown away and we didn't get it. And we were denied. And that was sad. So Arnie called me and worked. And John will tell you that he listened to Q. He listened to Q-104. That was his favorite station. We get into this gripe all the time. He just thinks that, oh, yeah, we blew you away. You never had a chance. We had the best talent. I'm going, John, come on, man.

Are you kidding? Let's go over the lineup again. And you get back to Cindy Lauper. It's funny, when I hear old clips, like there's a pretty famous clip of Wayne Gretzky on John Gallagher's show down east there. And it's

just funny to see a young Wayne Gretzky fumbling through these lines or whatever. And you listen to John, he doesn't sound like he does now. John seems to have changed his delivery style and lines or whatever. And you listen to John, he doesn't sound like he does now. Like John seems to have changed his delivery style and persona or whatever. And I haven't heard any of Brother Jake from his days before he gets to Q107. But did you always have those pipes?

Like, you have a great voice for radio. Was it always there? Well, yeah, I was, you know, I mean, I was always a singer. I've, you know, been in bands. I, you know, my voice, you know, I still do that one exercise that, you know, I was taught to me by my voice teacher. And Boston is, you know, you get up every day, you take as much air as you can into your lungs and you exhale sharply three times with that air. And the last one is right to the end, right to the end of your breath. And that develops your diaphragm down here.

So it makes it stronger. And just little tricks, you know. But does it make it deeper or is it just stronger? Like I'm trying to, I need some tips to make my voice deeper. You try that one. Try that. The breath thing is a big deal. I will.

As far as getting the big ballsy voice, take a hammer, put your testicles on a vice and just give them a pound every now and then. And I'm telling you, it'll work. Well, Jeff Woods told me to just smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey. Yeah, drink whiskey. He says that's his trick anyway. Yeah. Well, over the years, you know, everybody over the years was affected. You know, you get affectation.

It's all part of the voyage. Right. And as you get older, your voice matures and you learn to not get as quite as affected. And I remember Gary Obie again. He was my greatest mentor. I've had some mentors, but he was the guy that, you know, I thought I was just killing it. You know, you get so you start believing your own hype, right?

You know that you're in a place where people are coming up to you. They love the show. And you have to take it, you start getting up on your own pedestal. And he said to me one day, I'll never forget it. And I, we were listening to an air check, you know, listening to the show. And I said, geez, that sounds pretty good. He said, no, your voice is not right. It's not right. You're too affected. Can you, let's try to be real here. And I, I was again, crushed. I, I got in the car. I, I remember going home and talking to Lori and tears in my eyes. I just like, I looked up to him, but that was the boot in the

ass I needed. You know, the reality of things, you know, when you have somebody that puts it there in front of you and you're willing to accept it, not, not at first. It will take some time to heal, but, uh, and then, and then you start taking the advice until you develop and turn into who you are going to be on the air. I'm going to play a little promo, but 30 seconds and we're going to talk about Q107. It's to give away. We've got more Rolling Stones here than anybody else. The Rolling Stones pack goes to Lucy DiPuccio.

Meliori musica, my darling. And we've got news and sports coming right up for Super Dave. Super? What is it? I'm sorry, but you're still bleeding, by the way. Sorry doesn't do it. Yeah, I'm sorry. Can you read the sports?

Oh, she likes that one. You got the sports coming up. Will you read them for us in a bit? Yeah, if I could see. Okay. My eyes are swelling. I know you are. I'm sorry.

We'll be great. Firstly, that's not the promo I meant to play, but it's hard to find. It is very difficult to find sound checks and different clips of you know yourself for example uh on q107 i never you know what i'd never saved anything i honest to god i i i don't know what it was somebody asked me that question the other day where's all the where's all the gold and i went well i first of all i didn't think it was gold i you know i just of, I'd look at things and I just put, that was that, that's that show.

I'm going to move on to the next one. And I did that forever. And I mean, geez, we've in Toronto, we had, you know, from Robert plant to, you know, name a rock star, name Motley Crue, name guns and roses coming into the station every second word. Are you allowed to say F the F word here? Yep. Well, every second word was fuck. And I i just you know i went and at the end i went what and i just let it go i wouldn't nothing you can do right this band was just coming on strong i mean oh god and they were wired when they came in i have i don't have any of that nothing when. When I look back at that, I'm going, well, what were you thinking?

But I guess I just didn't rest on my laurels. I didn't rest on that air check. I just moved on. Now, I would listen to air checks in the car with Gene. I remember driving in my Camaro and we were just listening to ourselves. And I went, man, this sounds pretty good. And of course, when you had the champ, when that hit, I mean, that was, to me, that was a TSN turning point right there. All right, pause right there.

Let's listen to a bit of the champ and then we got to talk about this. Man, did I love the champ. But more on that soon. I don't want to spoil things, but we're about to hear some champ and dive deep into the champ. This is a long weekend,

and I want to let people know you can order a case of Great Lakes beer and have it delivered the next day. This will happen if you live within certain boundaries of this city. But you can always go to the store and pick it up. Very safe curbside pickup. Great Lakes Brewery, fantastic sponsors of Toronto Mike. sponsors of Toronto Mike. Enjoy some this long weekend. Speaking of this weekend,

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GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike. Honestly, I love getting the, I get a text reminder as to what are they picking up? Is it is it recycling is this yard waste day it's all right there it's very simple why waste your energies remembering that stuff when there's so many other things you could be you know working on we have we have real problems we need to solve. So let garbage day take care of that. Again, go to garbage day.com slash Toronto Mike, completely free and completely awesome. And you can thank me later. The Kytner group have virtual open houses via zoom every Saturday at noon. And believe it or not, I host these things. I think Brother Jake should be hosting these,

but I'm hosting these and it's always great fun and very informative. And we talk about some properties that are available. We share the highlights. We talk about the market. It's just very interesting

if you're looking to buy and or sell so if you want the link to the zoom url just text toronto mike to 59559 i wish i could give brother jake a toronto mike sticker i wish he were here right now but not only do we have this covid19 nonsense to worry about he's in vancouver so it looks like i'm gonna have to drop a sticker you dot com toronto mike sticker in the mail for him if you need any stickers or decals or temporary tattoos go to sticker you dot com it's very easy to order a variety of quantities safely delivered to your home. Stickeru.com, fantastic partners Barb spells no, K-N-O-W. So if you're interested in tech tips from the people who know, listen to No Tech Talk. Again, no is K-N-O-W, hosted by my friend Barb Paluskiewicz. CDN Technologies, available to answer your phone call at 905-542-9759.

CDN Technologies, your IT and cybersecurity experts. Okay, I don't know about you, but I'm ready to hear some champ. Hit me, Jake! Hey everybody, it's me, the champ. Ever since I've been the champ, been losing it, been out of my mind, been crazy, been really, really, really, really in pain with my teeth. I've had a lot of problems with my teeth lately. And you know, you probably heard every one of them, me going to the dentist. And

you know, I never believed in the tooth fairy until I've seen my dentist walk, right? Anyway, he comes over to me and he says, Jack, would you like some nitrous oxide? I said, well, I'm not into drugs, and he says, Champ, would you like some nitrous oxide? I said, well, I'm not into drugs, right? I don't like the drugs. I don't like the gas thing, right?

He said, I got to give you the needle, Champ. You're a big, tough boy. I remember when you fought Liston, right? You fought Liston. He went down. He snapped. You get back up, and he hit you so many times, I couldn't believe the pain you could take.

I said, Doc, tell me how much pain I'm going to feel He said, well, you might feel a small prick in your mouth I said, pardon? He said, you might feel a small prick in your mouth Well, I lose it I snap, I grab the nitrous oxide, right? I put it right on his face. He's laughing. He's just laughing. He's floating around the room. Here comes the double hammerhead scissor kick to the groin. Right. I hit him so many times on the right, he was begging for a lift.

Put him down in the dentist chair spun him around he was still laughing i stopped him with my big number 12 boom right there on the ground i said how's that pal does that look like i'll feel a small prick in my mouth enough for you ever since i've been the jab dude i can't i looked i think was it40? Was that the time when it would originally air? I don't know. In my mind, I have it stuck that. It was quarter after seven, 715. Okay.

So whatever time it was, like literally I planned my morning around this. Like I had to have the shower done because I had to be listening to Q107 for the fucking champ. Like I couldn't miss it. This is. And then I'd make my way to Michael Power High School. And I still remember. I don't know if it was teachers or students. Somebody sent in an idea for a story and you shouted them out and they played it over the way to Michael Power High School. And I still remember, I don't know if it was teachers or students, somebody sent in an idea for a story, and you shouted them out.

And they played it over the PA at Michael Power because it was somebody who went to school there. Me and my friends, we loved the champ. Yeah. Today, it's still all I ever hear. I've never seen anything. Didn't know how big this was going to be. All I knew was it was going to be big.

I knew deep down inside people were going to lose their shit. And I remember the McLean brothers, McLean and McLean, they had a character on one of their albums, which was a punch drunk fighter, but there was no double entendre. You know, the toast came out, it was burnt. He popped his wife in the head, which was wrong. And so I thought, you know, and I was friends with Blair and Gary. They're dead now, but two of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life.

We had them up to Toronto. We did a lot of guest appearances. And it saddens me to know that they're gone. But the double entendre thing came to me, and I thought, there it is right there. And I was in Halifax. I actually wrote the first one in Halifax because I was coming up to Toronto and I was just experimenting around with driving my wife crazy. And the first one was, this is how far back this goes, was the computer. So Champ was looking for a computer that he wanted to, and I go back, right? I'm over there, right right i'm in the computer room the guy says to me hey champ never

mind ibm never mind a micro whatever that is come on out back and i'll show you my wang this is a wang computer right so that was the first one i went oh my god this is going to be good and uh from there it was just uh you know writing them uh tony daniels was a guy that uh the i used to dress up as a champ because i didn't want anybody to know that it was me i had this big thing when i did my voices i would put them on a recorder and play them over the over the mic so i talked back to the recorder i you know whether it was grandpa or whatever voice I had, and it fooled the program directors. And they don't, when they see me, I'd have this recorder up there. He said, I thought you had somebody on the phone. No.

So I would play back and forth to myself. So I thought Tony dressed up. He was a big burly guy and I would send him into the clubs as you know, as the character. And then I thought, you know what, this is going to get too big i'm taking over i'm going you know i made this happen i'm going to make this happen and that's how that's how that happened so wow okay so that voice effect though you're are you slowing down your voice like are you speaking fast well you know at first we we just you know and it has had its different incarnations over the years for sure and then once it went to syndication you know um to do 30 episodes um and you go into a studio uh you wouldn't do 30

in one day but you'd probably do 15 uh you know and write them and get them ready but to not take away from the live stage show you couldn't make it go too deep you know you had write them and get them ready. But to not take away from the live stage show, you couldn't make it go too deep. You know, you had to, like, I can get my voice, I can bring it way down there. If I'm doing a stage show, it's got to be, there's no, you know, there's no magic mic that's going to make that sound deep.

So I just grabbed the house mic, go up and do my show. So that's why I didn't, when it started off right at the first, it was like, it was dragged down. And then I, you know, and then I started to go do the syndication and I would do that. And that's live to tape. And if you want it, if I got really tired, then we'd have to slow it down because my voice would start to get,

you know, start to get beat up. Were you, okay. I have memories of it. The voice at some point later, maybe you had left Q and I feel like I feel, tell me if I'm misremembering things, but I thought I heard Andy Frost do a champ.

Oh, he might've. I have no idea. He didn't do it as the, as a, what do you mean? As a, as a real character.

I feel like I, were you always the voice or at some point? Always. Yeah. He didn't do it as a, what do you mean? As a real character? I feel like, were you always the voice or at some point? Always. Yeah. Always. Okay. Always the voice. Always the voice. Okay. And people, I mean, there was a guy called The Bird that was on the air and he was from Toronto. I hired him in Winnipeg. So he got hired in, I forget, it was a station in the States. And I picked up Billboard magazine one day. And it had best original character on whatever, The Bird.

And he called himself The Champ. So if you're listening, you scrawny little bastard. I've never talked to, you know, I had to put a cease and desist order on him. But he went and took it verbatim. Took all my stories, took everything and let her roll. I mean, come on. That's bullshit. Now, not to cause

more trouble, I almost caused some trouble with you and Andy Frost there, but an FOTM, by the way, means Friend of Toronto Mike. So if I drop FOTM, that's all I'm just indicating. These are Friends of Toronto Mike. Just in case you were wondering there, but FOTM Steve Anthony. Jake, what's your relationship like with Steve Anthony?

Well, I mean, you know, we hung around a lot. I mean, you know, he's a big guy on Much Music. And, you know, Gene and I and, you know, you know, he's a big guy on much music and, and you know, Gene and I, and you know, everybody would end up at a house somewhere, partied up and tell stories and yeah, great guy. Good friend. And I love it. I'm laughing because I should have pulled the clip and I was, did Steve a favor, but it's out there. His first appearance on Toronto Mike,

I think you came up in conversation talking about Q107 and then I went into my oh I love the champ and he stopped down he was very serious and he wanted to make sure everybody was well aware that you stole the champ from McLean and McLean and then uh and I just it was a very interesting moment like it seemed like he was personally uh somehow offended by the praise I was giving you for the champ. He said that? I got to pull... That's crazy. I should have pulled the clip.

I told you exactly how that happened. I mean, McClane and McClane were the inspiration. I created the radio character with the double entendre. That's as simple as I can put it and uh and you licensed it right like you licensed the character from mclean and mclean right that's correct yes we were partners we were partners we we i took i took them into everything todd mcfarland this is is just a piece here but todd mcfarland who you know yeah uh you know creates these 3d characters for baseball and of course uh did the oilers emblem many years back logo many years back uh he called

me up uh laurie my wife said there's a todd mcfarland on the phone he wants to take the champ to the fox network down in culver city the the cartoon. And when I came here from Toronto, we were working on the character, the cartoon character with Steve Evangelatos, who was a Walt Disney animator, really good, super solid guy, still working today. And by the way, that character the champ is going to be a cartoon one day. It's just a matter of time because the shelf life on this thing is incredible. So Todd says, there's only one way we're going to get this into the Fox people is if I take it down, you know, Brother Jake ain't taking it down.

I'm taking it down. I said, okay, great. So he's there. And at the 11th hour, they said no we had no neck mcgurk we had manny the mechanic we had you know all characters that i wrote uh and put in and uh and uh it just didn't happen and and and this is the irony mike is or call it what you want a bunch of months later, Family Guy came on. And I thought he was telling us that hold this, hold my pole while I relieve my, hold my rod while I relieve myself. You know, and then all of a sudden, you know, the content that's in Family Guy. Isn't that ironic? And if you look at Family Guy and the animated champ, there's a really close wow really close looking uh character there so you know who ripped who off right right now the champ uh you mentioned how it's evergreen i don't know if you use those words that's my fancy talk they're evergreen but i i it is interesting though

because when i think about the ones that are stuck in my memory bank so many that you couldn't do today right like different time. Like I still remember the champ got really upset when someone called his wife a thespian. Yeah. And it's funny as hell, but it's like, oh, you can't do that today because you can't present that as, I mean, again, I guess it is a negative if they choose a different gender than you are.

Well, because he defends, you know, he defends, you know, you know, every race, every gender. That's he didn't like that kind of talk, you know. Right. And he was just defending him. So I got off on a, you know, the CRTC was one of my biggest fans, I can tell you. Not because there were so many complaints coming in. And the thing, the trick was, Mike, back then, is that when you read a complaint, if you're looking at the complaint and you read the words, so that's, you can't tell me what I'm thinking as I write something. I'm writing it as just as it looks.

write something right i'm writing it as just as it looks and that's basically how we weren't thrown off the air and find um you know an absurd amount of money do you want to hear my favorite just before we move on because i okay so yes uh i i won't do it justice but basically the premise was uh the the champ was spending a lot of money on makeup for Mrs. Champ. Like, you know, I'll cut to the payoff line,

which was, uh, Hey champ, champ. I heard you blew your wad on your wife's face. Your whole wife. Yeah. See,

I should have let you do it. On your wife's face. Yeah. I should have let you do it. And I've only heard it's in my memory. Like I heard it once and I've never, never heard it again and it's it's kind of been bouncing around my brain for like i don't know how many decades that is now i was in high school so a long time ago uh and i think it still makes me laugh when i think about it and it just seemed like so

shocking that you could say that on terrestrial oh it's all we had but the only radio we had at the time that it could be over the airwaves during the day you said uh blew your whole wad on your wife's face or whatever amazing yeah we got away with a lot uh the other one was don cherry and blew the dog right yeah i mean there's so many of them. And I, to this day, every, every manager would come through the door and went and would go, what are you doing? I went, Don Cherry, the dog's name is Blue. Don Cherry and Blue the dog, you know, come on. So I got a lot of that. And those are the ones that, you know, and then I did the Christmas album was, you know, Champ had all the liquor, you know, all the alcohol ones that you know and then i did the christmas album was uh you know champ had all the liquor uh you know all the alcohol was you know behind the and locked because knuckles

would come in and drink everything right so uh and mrs champ had the christmas stockings all hung up right there was all the stockings the chimp you know the uh you know the mrs champ the champ and uh i said then i heard a crash. I was upstairs. I come running down. I said, what happened? See if I can get this right now. Yeah, I just pulled Mrs. Champ's stockings down to get the liquor from behind.

See, someone like that. I'm trying to, you know, like, okay, what are we going to do for Christmas? Threw the wrong bag. Your sack has a lot of presents. See, somewhere like that, the liquor one and the blowing the wad on her face and all that, like really like risque or whatever. And then you had these like kind of innocent, almost sweet ones.

You could kind of tell, maybe even tell grandma or something. Like I always remember, pass the tea the tea bag right or there's another vegetable on the pound is excuse me you've got the beans and your wife you've got her peas man i could just do this for an hour man i know you at some point uh i gotta set you free here but okay so the champ you said it was syndicated like so was that lucrative uh no it was a lot of work i mean no and what was going to be big for us um was the cds you know um i did across canada champ uh i started from toronto was at q107. And we would take off on the, I would take off after the morning show on Friday and fly to Vancouver, the Prince George, and then work my way across, fly back, do the week show, go back on the road. And I had an agent, I won't mention his name,

but every agent I had, including all the record guys, I was ripped off. It's like, I feel so bad for some artists that are out there that I was just on the on the scale I'm on the bottom rung I mean not one foot on the rung but um I was it was just the the record company had burnt down and destroyed all the files and you know we we have no idea how many albums were sold. We have no idea. We have no idea.

It was never really paid. Not really. I remember certain people running around with new boats and stuff like that. So there was a lot of that going on. And, you know, when you're the talent is always the one that's going to get it in the end. The people that have no talent, but are great managers, great, you know, they're, they can sell anything. That's, that's great. You know, because you just didn't have time to do that. You do a full-time show.

And I think that if I had to do it all over again, I would have done, I would have done things differently. And, um, and I still get asked to do syndications, you know, like people will ask me, uh, are you still interested in doing it? Well, you know, I've got stuff on, on file, but I, I just, I just can't be bothered anymore. You know, I, I like breaking out at a party, you know, and I go out and grab the mic after a couple of cocktails. And, uh,

you know, for me, that's, you know, that's great. And I'm glad that they played when I went into the Hall of Fame last year. And during my speech, I just threw a little bit of champ in there. And you could just see the crowd go. You know, they started to react a little bit. And I didn't know whether I was going to be super funny or, you know, do champ, but I decided along with the help of Gene Volitis, I mean, I wrote down, you know, my thoughts and how the speech was going to go.

And he touched it up for me. What a great job. And then, you know, being up there because it was pretty serious. My dad had just died and I was on stage and, you know, three weeks there. Cause it was pretty serious. My dad had just died and, and, uh, I was on stage and, and, you know, three weeks before he died, I, I, uh, I said, I called him up. I said, I'm going into hall of fame, dad. And he goes, and he's a maritime or, you know, maritime accent. He'd go, I always knew you could do a boy. I knew it. I knew it. And then, you know, and then he died. And then from that night, I, you know, I did the thing.

And then the next morning we flew to Moncton. And I read the eulogy and got up. So it was a very, very cool weekend. I mean, it wasn't sad. It was something that felt warm. And I could feel it in my soul. It was really cool. Really cool.

And it must have been emotional for you, though. It must have been very emotional. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. It was emotional. But, you know, that's what life's all about. And he was almost 95. I mean, you know, he just refused to go.

He wasn't going anywhere until he got in the hole. That's what I say. Well, you know what I always say, Jake? Only the good die young. Yeah. Wait a minute. I'm getting older. Jeez. What? So I'm not good. Don't think too hard on that one.

So I'm sorry about your dad and congratulations on that Hall of Fame. I tweeted you were coming on today or whenever this drops. It might drop tomorrow because I just did. Do you know Bob Segarini? Yo, I know. tomorrow because I just did, uh, do you know, uh, Bob Segherini? Yo,

I know the Schnegerini man. Yeah. The ice man. Okay. So yeah, yeah. He'll probably, he'll probably drop today and you'll drop tomorrow.

There was a anyways, cause we did move this up a day, but, but all this is to say when I tweeted you were coming on, uh, Gene was quick to remind me that you are hall of famer, bro, Jake,

not just bro, Jake. So congrats on that. Right now, let me just get a little that you are Hall of Famer Bro Jake, not just Bro Jake. Congrats on that. Let me just get a little nuts and bolts out of the way here. Was it Scruff Connors? Was he the guy you replaced on Q107? Yes. Okay. The story, I'm trying to remember the Gallagher story,

Spike says he was playing softball with you in Halifax or something. Yeah, and then we played a little shuffleboard and we had a bunch of drinks. And how does he tell the story? I'd be very interested in hearing this. Something about basically, and it's nothing too elaborate, except that in between telling me that he lit David Bowie's cigarette, because he tells me that story every time I talk to him.

He tells me that story every single time. But he let me know. You just let him know that you were going to go to Q107 and you needed a sports guy. I think you suggested he apply for it or something like that. Yeah. We had lots of sports guys, and I just had my eye on them, and I wanted him to get out of Halifax and come to Toronto because he's, you know, he's mega talent.

I mean, he's he has got stories everywhere we went. But he probably told you the Jamaica story, right? Did he tell you that one? If you tell me, give me a bit of it. Probably. He's told me so much. So, you know, he he always had his camera everywhere he went he had this stupid little camera yeah and i get off please not another photo but who who's laughing now it's true i've got no tape no pictures the only pictures i have are from him uh you'll see

pictures around uh you know i mean i it was uh so we were going to jamaica we got in this uh this uh jeep and i started driving through the jungles, a very dangerous place, you're supposed to go there with a guide. But oh no, we decided, you know, let's have a little herb and we'll, you know, stomp into all these great little rum areas on the way down. We'd go down this trail and was in St. Anne's Bay. And we'd stop and ask. And I remember stopping. One guy had a freaking cleaver. And I went, holy God. I said, don't chop anything off there, whatever you do. No, man. No, man.

He puts up. He's only got one leg. So we're laughing. We were just out of our minds. And he said, nine miles, Matt. He puts up. He's only got one leg. So we're laughing. We're just out of our minds. And he said, nine miles, man. Nine miles. So I'd set the odometer, hit nine miles, and we still were deep in the jungle. And everybody kept saying nine mile.

And then we finally arrive, and we see the Rastafarian flag. It's Bob Marley's home. And the guy comes out. His brother comes out and goes, welcome to Bob Marley's resting place here in Nine Mile, Jamaica. That's the name of the place. Okay, that definitely made an episode of Gallagher and Gross save the world for sure. Absolutely, it's a great story. So is there any moment in time when you, Scruff Connors, and Jesse Dillon are all in the same place at the same time?

Scruff and I, for sure. I mean, I stayed at Scruff's place in Toronto. And just as I was doing the Halifax thing, came up to visit. And we hung out. Scruff and I, yeah, we had a lot of respect for each other. As Jesse goes, I can't remember if that happened. I really can't. I don't think so.

I just wondered because we talked about the musical chairs and everything, but you leaving Q the first time, so you go back to Winnipeg. Is that right? That's right. So is it? Why did you leave Q the first time, so you go back to Winnipeg. Is that right? That's right. So is it... Back and coming. Why did you leave Q that first time? Well, I was fired.

I remember being really pissed about this, by the way. Like, I didn't have any Twitter to go to. I was fired. I heard a bunch of famous rock band people called and asked what the hell was going on. A bunch of famous rock band people called and asked what the hell was going on. I mean, again, I can't, you know, I don't want to point the finger at people who don't take any shit from people. And that definitely was my biggest curse because I always spoke my mind. If somebody was getting beat up at the radio station mentally for something that they did, I would stand up to that person and say, look, that's just wrong. And certain people didn't like that. for something that they did, I would stand up to that person and say, look, that's just wrong.

And certain people didn't like that. So, and I was a team player. I, you know, I wanted equality for everybody around there. I mean, you don't get on the radio by winning a lottery. You know, it's not like, oh, I got the lottery number. I'm going to be on the air. No, you're hired because you're a hired gun. You're, you know, they want they want you there yeah they want the ratings and you know the minute the champ stepped on i remember gene coming in

and he was always kidding you know you come in i was doing something in the studio and the ratings book came in he goes oh my god what did i tell you we were going to be and i i don't know an eight share ten whoa no we're a 15 or whatever we just killed everybody and i went don't you ever do that again to me i i was just i just shit my pants i thought we were so bad right and then uh when i left it was you know uh and then of course when i came back again it was it was great but but i need to know, how does that, like, obviously you didn't burn a bridge on your way out because you're back? Well, because it, you know, it changed ownership managers, PDs, they all, you know, they were fans and they rehire you. And, you know, under the, I'm trying to think exactly, I'm going to get everybody's name mixed up here.

But I, you know, again, I had lasted for three and a half years and went back to Winnipeg. You know, it was back and forth. And then it was only, like I said, I was in Winnipeg there for like 14 months or whatever. Furniture was still back. And I remember, I remember jumping in my car and driving across on a Friday to get there and ended up at Gallagher's house. And we had a meeting. And I remember this.

He was rebuilding his place. And he loves his wine, as you know. He loves the Chardonnay. Oh, don't I know it. Have you had some Chardonnay with John yet? I think there's some. I'll be careful except to say I don't think I've seen him without it. Ah, well, that's obvious.

He's Irish. He loves the wine. And then anyway, we were drinking a bunch of wine, and he opens his window and chucks the thing out the window into a work bin where they were tearing stuff out of of the house and i looked at it and it was topped off with chardonnay bottles wow there wasn't one stick of wood in there it was just full to the brim one of these big huge steel things wow and i went okay but at least at least he at least he quit the cocaine habit.

I never known him to do cocaine. He talks about it often. He talks about it. He talks about him doing cocaine. Well, because his co-host on the podcast I produce is Peter Gross. And Peter Gross talks. So, yeah, Gallagher talks about his coke days and Gross talks about his coke days often. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm. Well, I won't be talking about them. No worries there. See, John doesn't have children. Well, we can skip over any discussion about that. But Steve Anthony's quite open on this stuff. Oh, my God. I mean, you know, that was the drug of choice back then.

Everybody knew it. The people who weren't very good handling it, the careers didn't last too long. A lot of people just, their careers died. That was it. You know, they didn't, they didn't last. And it's sad too. I mean, it was a, it was a sad time. I, you know, but that was, I mean, look at any documentary on any rock band or they were all doing it. You know, you either did it or you didn't. It was your choice. And you just had to be on the air.

If you were on the air and you performed and you were good, then there was no, you know, there was no digging into that any deeper. Why do you leave Q for Rock 101? Fired. I want the names of the— Danny Kingsbury was the program director, and this is a great story, because I was still under contract, and they were going to make a switch, and he said, I've got a great idea. I've got a great idea. We'll put you on afternoons. I've got a great idea.

And my wife of course is my agent and, and you deal business with her because I still to this day, don't know if we've saved any money or spent it all because I, you know, I really, I never really cared about it. I knew that I could I could get, you know, a good contract. So so she called him up and said, he said, what do you think? And he said, no, he's walking. So they had to pay the rest of my contract off, which was kind of nice. And the way she said it, I forget exactly how she said it.

No, he's walking. And it was just dead air on the phone. And he went, oh, no. And what led to that was they wanted to put the Toronto Maple Leafs on Q107 at night. I remember this. And people are just going, are you are you insane? So people who didn't listen to hockey broadcasts on the evening would have their FM dial switched over to another station. And when they got up, the morning show was on the other station. So that hurt us. That was just the worst,

one of the worst programming moves of all time. I would still be there. Interesting move. Like I distinctly, because I'm still a big Leafs fan. You can say my condolences if you like. And I still remember that one season when the radio games were on Q107 before I guess it moves to 640, I think, after that. Yeah, where it should be. Right, right. So what was the reasoning behind moving it to Q? Money, money, money. I mean, money is always the issue.

They thought, and I believe it was Molson. I think it was Molson. I've worked for both companies. Love them both. But they offered a big advertising deal, and they went for it. Management said, oh, yeah, well, in the end, Ron, you're not looking at the long game here.

You just looked at short-term fix. It was a stupid move. Yeah, I never thought of that, of course. If you want to hear rock, which is what most people are probably looking for from their QN07, then you probably turn the station to another station. Maybe you're going to Hitz 97.7 or something like that. And next thing you know, you're waking up to Iron Mike. There you go. I HITS 97.7 or something like that. The next thing you know, you're waking up to Iron Mike. There you go.

I figured it all out. There it is. All the people who thought they had all these great ratings because their channels were flipped were just people experimenting at the time. That's all it was. You'll have every duo saying that everybody beat everybody in the

ratings you know that's always the thing i mean oh the demographic we beat you in this demographic right um and uh you know and i think people believe what they want to believe and that's good i mean we have the numbers we've seen the numbers and they're broken down um and um i mean my first year there, was the most exciting year of all time. At Q? At Q. Okay. And is that because you, uh, you, you struck upon this, uh, champ, uh, concept? Yeah. I love Gene. I love Gene. Um, you know, we, we hit it off. He, uh, I was the best man at his wedding. One of them.

You tell me which one, because there's fun facts about both. I'm a big fan of the fun facts. And there's, you can do a Gene Valaitis fun fact on both of these weddings, but go ahead. Well, I mean, well, the one I, you know, I was the best man at, we flew in. I wasn't here in town, but I flew in. And I had like an H1N1 flu virus. And I was sick. So I couldn't show. And then the whole wedding group came into my room as I was laying

in bed. Gene, you're absolutely the best. I'm sorry. But I think that was a premonition. You know, there was something he should have said. You know what? He's not here. I'm sorry. But I think that was a premonition. You know, there was something he should have said. You know what? He's not here. I'm not getting married. That should have happened. Right, right. The fun fact I dropped at the end of Gene's episode last week

was that he was married to the very first woman VJ in Much Music history. Because I think if you went to, quick aside, but if you went to like a hundred random people and said who's the first woman to be a VJ on MuchMusic I think a hundred of them say Erica M and no Gene was not married to Erica M so it's kind of a double strike fun fact if you will

there but I did do a carnival thing with Roger what was the name of that show Roger Dick and Maureen I think he called it rogers maryland rogers dicks in maryland yeah no whatever uh but i remember we had this big circus thing and uh and roger of course was the guy with the whip beating the whip around i remember erica m and i getting changed in the back room together i remember that yeah i had a big crush on er remember that. Yeah, I had a big crush on Erica M.

Yeah, yeah. No, you had a what? Had a big crush. I'm sorry, what? A reflection? I didn't catch that. It kind of broke up. Now you move... Clang! Clang! That's the word. It's a clang. He's talking along.

Do the clang! Use it today clang the Vancouver so you get fired you end up here so let me play again I never heard you on rock 101 I've heard nothing but good things

you can fill me in but let me play a little promo I dug up on YouTube here. Mike Eckford joins the Broject Morning Show. Now I want to watch Reservoir Dogs. You're still there, so I guess you fell in love with Vancouver. Yeah, I was on the air for 17 years. And, um, I was, that was going to be the last station.

And, uh, you know, I was going to renegotiate the contract, a beauty contract. Jim Johnson, JJ put a, just a, it was fantastic. I mean, it was, you know, set for life. He did this thing last year i think it was last year where every day he gave a shout out to somebody he worked with okay so i mentioned i work with uh humble and fred on their program i think in late december they uh came to the realization that they weren't getting one of the 365 spots and they they had a... They didn't? No. So they were not... Well, that went over well. But I take it you did get one of his 365 shout-outs.

I did. I was the very first one. I was the... It was National Broadcaster Day. Okay. Well, congrats on that as well. But it was funny that... Because Humble and Fred were telling

me about how they knew him and worked with him and didn't make the top 365. So that's... But anyway, you did. Well, that must have been an oversight somehow. Maybe the relationship between JJ and them wasn't... I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, they should be

for sure. Should be there. But you were number one. That's amazing. But okay. So continue your little story about 101 and then about working with Gene Valaitis on TSN radio. And then I'm going to play a little clip of your, you on television. And I want to hear that story to close this out, but take the floor. I think I know where that's going to go. I can almost see it now. Well, we

arrived, you know, when Steve Evangelitis drew up a black and white animation cartoon of the champ and what he thought the champ looked like. I remember wondering what I was going to do and where I was going to go. So I'm just planning out stuff. Obviously, I'd just been handed a

nice check. And we were, you know, we were living in Collingwood and I looked at it and both Lori and I just went, Holy fuck, this is unbelievable. This is it. So we packed everything we owned to stay in four by fours and headed out with the U-Hauls, the kids, the dog. Two stayed in four-by-fours and headed out with the U-Hauls, the kids, the dog. And we headed to the West Coast and settled in. When the animation deal fell through, I started thinking, okay, well, I've got to figure out how to crack the airwaves here. Because at that time, there was really nobody.

It's Lotus Land, right? There's nobody going to the edge the way i used to or do um so i just listened to radio and i said you know what if i'm given a chance this could be really good so i went over to the fox here and uh mills and and uh gordon forbes and a bunch of other guys panned off these are are all, you know, names have been in the business for a long time. And I said, you know, I'm ready to go. Nobody knew me in Vancouver. Nobody knew who I was. And then it was only years later till they found out that I actually was the champ, which helped. And I said, I want to do a weekend show. I've got a sponsor. I mean, show. I've got a sponsor. I mean, uh, Molson stepped up and dropped a hundred grand in my pocket as a sponsor and said, just promote our beer. We love you, the champ, all that stuff.

So that's how that happened. And, uh, so I had the money, like I was just going in and look, I've got the money. I want to go on the air as a weekend guy. Who's bringing the money in? And then you're just going to pay me back. So they didn't do it. I went to Ross Winters, and Ross was always a big fan. I've competed against him, with him for many years. And he said, let's do the weekend. So we called it Raw Radio, Radio Aggressive Weekends. And the stuff we did there spun some heads.

Man, it spun some heads. It was just, the ratings were so high, it just beat out every day part during the week. So eventually they wanted to get me on afternoons, which I did. And just, you know, just went out and the numbers were really good. And it was just, do you want to do mornings and I kept saying you know I'm having a good time in afternoons and you know so they offered me a deal and I went all right here we go and then I just started for 17 years got to the end of the contract and the crazy things that happened I mean we could we could spend hours and hours and hours

and hours on stories but uh I I walked out of there i was i can still remember walking down the street i couldn't believe this just happened i was ready to take a pay cut i didn't care i just loved it i mean i was i was i was part of the fabric of vancouver for 17 years right and then uh they just said uh yeah we're planning on going in a new direction. I said, what is that, fucking down? I walked out. I just walked out. You know, they were all shaking my hands at first. You know, they're really clammy.

I knew something was going on. Right. And I remember just walking down the street and everything was in slow-mo. You know, it's like Tom Petty, you know, face in the crowd. Right. It was just all these. I was just moving so slow. My kids were crying. My wife was crying.

We were just shocked. And, um, um, and then I had to reboot and see what I could do. And, uh, and I got an offer and people kept asking me, when are you going to do sports talk? When are you going to do sports talk? Well, you know, I thought there's a challenge cause I, you know, that's what I loved. I love challenges. I like, you know, just tell me I can't do it. And believe me, I took a lot of heat when I crossed over, you know, the sports purist. They didn't know what to think.

And my son said, turn off the Internet for six months, dad. Don't read anything. And I went, OK, so that's what I did. And then all of a sudden the knowledge started to come and i really worked at it and stayed there for six years and uh on the when i went to i retired on the fifth year at the end of my contract and i said that's it so i had a big party and gene was at another station uh and I said, I'm going to do this weekend thing. He goes, absolutely.

And we got together, and I'm telling you, it was just a ball being back. I mean, he's my best friend. Is this the show where you would have Mark Hebbshire sometimes on this program? Yeah, Hebbsy. Hebbsy would come on. Hebbsy's got a podcast called Hebbsy on Sports.

I produced that as well. He's a good friend. Oh, yeah. Yeah, great guy. He was one's got a podcast called Hebsie on sports. I produced that as well. He's a good friend. Oh yeah. Yeah. Great guy. He was one of my, one of the sports guys at Q. We had him on there for a while.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. So funny. We have a few things in common there and I'm going to close.

Well, let me play it and then we'll talk about it. One moment. Let's find it. Here it is. Well, it looks like old Oscar Leroy's bitten off a little more than he can chew. Didn't I tell you, Jake? No playing guitar on the street. Well, it looks like old Jake's got himself into a bit of a pickle with Officer Go! Just a little clip. Okay, so,

firstly, before people think you were on Dukes of Hazzard, that was not Dukes of Hazzard. No, no. That was Corner Gas. That's right. I was on Corner Gas and it looked like

it was going to be an ongoing character um and uh that was that was so much fun you know going into regina and and uh basically uh going out to the you know the little town that was all set up and they'd stop traffic because the light had to be perfect and there's you know transport trucks that were going across giving us the finger because they were late and then some people would be you know would be you know thumbs up and other people have their ass bare ass hanging out the window i remember you know at the end of it uh and they put sideburns because i can't grow sideburns like i i just can't but uh um are you still there oh yeah i see i got a low battery that's how long long we've been on. And they all came out.

And so you got to do one more scene. I came on and they all applauded. That was just such a great time. They glued the sideburns on and I had the whole outfit. And I remember going into town to the local bar. She said, you want me to take your makeup off? And I said, no, I'm leaving this whole thing on. I walked into town, ordered a, you know, give me a whiskey. It was just so great.

Why not? Listen, just last week I had Craig Northey on from The Odds. And Craig recorded it. Well, he's been on the show, but he's been on Corner Gas, but he recorded that theme song. He sure did. That was a great job. They used to be on the show live at Rock 101.

I can't 101 15 times. I mean, they always came down and played. Fantastic people. Love them. Well, you're a fantastic person. I thoroughly enjoyed this, Jake. And I owe Gene another six-pack of Great Lakes beer for making this happen. But thanks for doing this, man.

Well, my pleasure. My pleasure. It was really great. I like going back and thinking about those days and and uh as i sit here you know quarantined and basically getting out i actually played golf yesterday how about that oh okay because i think we're opening our courses uh like this coming weekend uh is it today or saturday it's coming oh maybe it's saturday yeah good but yeah but i mean our weather hasn't been anything to write home about. Yeah, no. It's been shitty.

Feel for you. It's been shitty. Man, amazing to talk to you and fantastic memories. And again, just to repeat something you said off the top before your battery dies there. This is the first ever Brother Jake appearance on a non-radio show. Am I wording that properly? You're absolutely 100% correct. Wow.

Okay. I'm super honored. So thanks again for making me number one. I just broke my cherry. And that brings us to the end of our 646th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

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some Guinness from a tin, because my UI check has just come in. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.