Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Charlie Angus: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1903

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

In this 1903rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike catches up with Charlie Angus. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball,Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Hey there, everybody, it's Charlie Angus. Charlie Angus of Midas, Canada, Charlie Angus of the Resistance, Charlie Angus of the Grievous Angels, and we have just launched the Revolution album, album number 10, and I am absolutely thrilled to be back here on this spot with Toronto Maked. Welcome to episode 1,903 of Toronto Miked, an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by

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Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Catch a game at Christiastie. Pits this summer. No ticket required. Fusion Corpso, Nick Aeini's. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle My Electronics.C.A. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

1921 joining me today returning to Toronto Mike it is indeed Charlie Angus welcome back Chuck may I call you Chuck you can

normally only people from Cobalt or anyone who's from the Toronto music scene okay you know why I said that because I was going to call you Charlie but I was hanging out with Lawrence Nichols last night at the Elma combo I'm going to get to that in a minute

but Lawrence was calling you Chuck but he's a member of the Toronto music scene So he has a, he has license to call you Chuck. It is a funny thing, you know, in all my political career, when someone called the office and asked to speak to Chuck, people put, my assistant put them through right away. And one time, it was like some political staffer. And I said, whoa, just a question.

Have you ever played in any band that I've ever been in? And he goes, no. And I said, are you from Cobalt or Timmons? And he said, no. And I said, then you call me Charlie. And then he said, oh, I'm sorry, my parents knew you back in the music scene. And they call you Chuck. And I said, okay, man, you are grandfathered.

Tell the rest of the young staffers, it's Charlie, but you're grandfathered. Oh, I love that because I wasn't even going to consider calling you Chuck. But then when Lawrence, I almost called him Lawrence Gowan. That's another guy. Lawrence Nichols was calling you Chuck. I'm like, oh, maybe he likes Chuck. Let me find out. And I'm going to call you Charlie because I'm not from the Toronto music scene.

before we get into it, and I've got some great music, I got some catching up to do with you, Mr. Angus. Maybe I'll call you Mr. Angus. No, that was my dad. That's your dad's name. So I mentioned the Elmo. So I'm just going to do this briefly now, and then we'll go into more depth about this during our monthly toast on Monday

with Rob Pruse and Bob Willett. But I headlined at the Elma combo last night, and there was a surprise, special guests who showed up for the grand finale. So if you don't mind, I'm going to play a little audio of that. And then we're going to tie that to your new release, Revolution by Grievous Angels. How does that sound, Charlie? I'm right there with you. It makes perfect sense to me.

Okay, but it is a couple of minutes, but it's worth it. Let's listen. Okay, this is the grand finale, everybody. I'm unwrapping my cherry blossom. I've never had one. This is happening. Oh, my goodness. I hope I don't get like, I don't know what to expect.

But this is for Rob Pruse. thank you for the cherry blossom. Who's that? Who's here? I'm sticking the landing by eating my first and last cherry blossom. Who the hell are... What the hell? Ron Hawkins and Lawrence Nichols from lowest of the low? What the hell's happening?

That's not a big ending. If there's any definitive way to end a show, but I mean, soft chewing noises, it's probably not on the list. Yeah, that's certainly not the way to go out. But, you know, Mike and his show, I think, has given us a really decent template on how you do end his show.

Well, he gave us the first $15. We're going to give you the next 50. I'm just kidding, Mike. Please help. Eat a cherry blossom and wander around. So that was last night, Charlie. Wow. I wish I'd been there. Oh, my God.

Not for the cherry blossom. Not for the, well, the cherry blossom, which is now back on display. I ate a chunk of it. And then thankfully, I was interrupted by these two goons from lowest at the low and I didn't have to finish it. I mean, I don't know what would happen. But that was my first cherry blossom. My last cherry blossom is back on display here. But Ron Hawkins and Lawrence Nichols just showed up at the Elmo to crash the stage to end things properly during my Elma combo headlining debut.

And I feel like this is a great segue for me to share with the little. listenership that you're the new grievous angels album revolution we'll hear some from it soon the artwork is courtesy of ron hawkins yeah uh it was just we recorded the album we are trying to think about the cover and i just said i got to reach out to ron i hadn't talked to ron in ages uh we'd played a gig one time the last time i saw him was up in timmons i think. But he's just such an, like he's not just such a great songwriter, not just a stalwart of the scene, but his art is amazing. And you look at the revolution album and it captures everything. So it's the fist, the white rose, which was the white rose of resistance against the fascist. We have a

song called Song for Joan of Arc on there. And we talk about the white, came bringing white roses wrapped in red ribbons for Joan of Arc. And I said to him, I want Sophie Scholl's picture. So she was the young German student who stood up to the Nazis and was executed. And she was, well, as we were recording the record, I was saying to guys, think of Sophie Scholl, think of the times we're in.

And Ron just understood, like, I didn't even need to give him the direction. He just did it. And I think it's by far, I think, the album cover that really strikes us the most right now, and it really seems to touch the times. And if you need further evidence that Ron Hawkins is one of the good ones,

the guy was watching the Habs game, and he had to pause it, apparently, and make his way to the Elmo just to crash my phony grand finale to give us the proper grand finale. Like, that's a sweetheart right there. That's something special. Yeah, okay.

Are you rooting for the Habs in this series? Absolutely. You know, I was going to be willing to, if they weren't playing the Habs, I was going to support Buffalo just for the fact that they sang the anthem. But weren't those Canadians who were singing? You know, obviously there had to be a lot of Canadians there.

But I just thought it was such a good gesture that even though I'm not going back to Buffalo, I would have supported. But the HABs, you know, okay, I'm a recovering leaf fan. And I beg my daughter not to become a leaf fan. I said it'll ruin your life just like it ruined your dad's life. She became a leaf fan and it ruined her life. but whenever the habs are in the playoffs, hockey's exciting, right? So I'm in Montreal next week because my daughter is graduating from McGill University

and I'm going to her convocation. So next week I'll be in Montreal and I'm kind of jazzed to be in a city that's got playoff fever. You know, we don't get that a lot in this market. Well, you know, we had some young British interns one time and Ottawa was in the playoffs and they were like, oh, this is hockey in a playoffs. And I was like, you know, this is Ottawa. The most they're going to do is like break a pencil.

Right. I said, if Montreal's in the playoffs, they're going to be setting police cars on fire, right? Like, there's a difference when Montreal's in the playoffs that other towns. So I think you're going to have a great time. Well, a resounding win for Montreal yesterday. They're up one nothing against the hurricanes. Stay tuned here.

Now, I have a lot of ground. I want to cover with you. And you did just mention the Leaf. So I might just, like, segue off that. Now that I've headlined at the Elma combo, I feel. I'm now finally figuring out this. you know, production deal here. But I must ask you, what brings you to Toronto?

Like, why are you here? I'm here for two reasons. We are launching the Grievous Angels Revolution album at the Horseshoe Tavern on Sunday. And we're thrilled for that. But I was also asked to come down to do an interview about, it's a 75th anniversary of the most famous goal ever scored in Maple Leaf Gardens,

the Bill Barocco goal. And I've grown up with the Bill Barocco story. I've written a song about Bill Barocco. Every summer since I was six years old, I have visited Bill Barocco's grave, and I will go see his grave this summer. And my dad knew him, and my granny used to talk about the disappearance.

So Bill Barocco, yeah, I'm here for that. Well, if you don't mind, Charlie, I'm going to play a little bit of the Bill Barolco song. Just a little taste of this, and we'll talk a little more about Barilco's series clinching ball. Kids are at the rink. Yesterday ain't so far

as I used to spink. Bill sometimes I think of you whenever passion bill, won't you come on home? Chill-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Love it. I could just listen to the whole thing right now,

but this is the Bill Barocco song. Who did you speak to specifically? Because I'm wondering, because I've been hearing about this project, and the one I'm thinking of, Did you talk to Steve Paken? Steve Paken, yeah. Steve Paken and I are doing a show in about a week on my Midas, Canada.

I go back with Steve for ages. But, yeah, I was surprised that he was there. We were at Varsity Arena. Kevin Shea, Mr. Hockey. It has to be Kevin Shea. So they're doing this documentary on the 75th. And, you know, I've tracked that story. To me, the mystery, the tragedy, the life.

And also knowing a lot about that time. in the north when Timons was left. It was a hockey factory because an immigrant kid like Barocco, you either went underground or you learned to skate and fight. And that was why we got Pete Babando. That's why we had the Mohavage brothers,

Tim Horton, you know. I mean, all those, that crew, Ted Lindsay, they all came out of those tough northern mining camps. So your song is fantastic, but what role do you think the tragically hip play in bringing this story to sort of the great unwashed, the general Canadian public,

because 50 mission cap, that was a banger. I was gobsmacked. I got to see Andrew Cash, and I said, listen, I've written the hockey song. I've written about Bill Barocco. I mean, I know this story like the back of my hand, and Andrew said, have you heard the new tragically hip album? I was like, no, why he's, what's that?

I was like, damn, I mean, Gordon's a Bruins fan. What's he doing? Yeah. But the song, the song, really, it kickstarted so much. And I think the amazing thing about the Bill Barocco story is, you know, for me, it was, I grew up with it. I mean, we knew about my dad new Bill. We knew the whole story of the disappearance. But we just thought it was like something that you had to be from the north.

I never saw the national perspective of it. And 75 years, the story continues to grow. that hip played a huge role in that. But even now, that was like 20-some years ago. I think there's just such a sense of mystery and tragedy with Bill Barocco that the story only grows with time, the sense of whatever happened and what could have been. And, you know, it was, again, the most famous goal ever scored in Maple Leaf Gardens.

The scene, the photo of Barocco in midair as Rocket Richard's staring dumbfounded. It's up there with the famous Bobby Orr. photograph and he's like the most famous hockey player in the country and he goes missing and they can't find him for 11 years like what what a story and during that period of time when it's a six team league the Leafs don't win a cup it's like it's like what is that's the famous part of the song is that they didn't win another until 1962 the year he was discovered yeah the the Baroco jinx so I'm I'm praying bill I don't know what you've done to jinx them again.

But maybe if we do the 75th anniversary movie, maybe they'll win. But yeah, the Barocco jinx. And there was all kinds of crazy rumors about that he had defected, that he was in Florida, that he was tied with stealing gold. And it was just, they'd gone on a fishing trip. And it was the biggest air search and rescue in Canadian history. And, you know, I sing in the song, you know, the search planes never have much luck in North Ontario.

The forest took them. kept it hidden for so long. Wow, okay, so love that you're going to be a part of this thing. I knew Paken and Kevin Shea were behind this. Two good FOTMs like yourself, friends of Toronto, Mike. The first time you visited Charlie, it was June 2024, and I'm going to quickly read the description I wrote at the time, but in that 1,500 3rd episode, almost 500 episodes ago,

of Toronto Mike, Mike chats with punk rock MP, Charlie Angus, about why he's not running. in the next federal election, forming La Trojongue with Andrew Cash, who you mentioned moments ago, and his past and present with grievous angels. We talked for a great hour, but then you came back in January 2025, and I want to play something that came out of this,

but this was episode 1614, and I wrote, Mike Chats of Charlie Angus, MP for Timmons James Bay, about Canada's sovereignty in the face of Donald Trump's threats to annex our nation. I'll tell you right now, I actually referred to this on stage at the Elma Comba last night, but that period of time,

when I think I reached out to you, you happened to be coming in, I think it was another Paken thing. You were going to do TV on the agenda, I think, when he was there. But when you came over in that moment, I was ready to take up arms and defend this country.

I'm still ready. We're going to get into it in a minute. But that was a really important episode to me to talk to you and to galvanize the people. You know, I've been on this relentless road tour since I started speaking up. I started speaking up, well, the day after,

I didn't know what to say. My wife says, why aren't she speaking? Get up there and speak. And I said, I don't know what to say. She said, you start speaking, people are afraid. And I was tentative at first, and people started reaching out and contacting me. And I've been now a year and a half.

We've been in everywhere from North Rastico, Prince Edward Island, town halls, up to the sunshine coast of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, many times, all across Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. And the threat to us is still really serious, but we are a very different country than we were a year and a half ago. We are way tougher. We are way more sure of ourselves, and we are way more willing to stand up. And I think the world's watching us.

There is a moment that we're in. I always say not to be cocky, it's a fragile moment, but boy, I'm still touring relentlessly because Canadians want to talk about building a nation that is democratic in this age of the gangsters. And less reliant on our neighbors to the south. Yeah, we, I mean, the days when we would like, oh, tiptoe around and sorry, it's like, no, we're not sorry anymore. We're like, you know, and I find we're still polite to individual Americans, but we're

done. We're not going back. And so it's making us have to decide. And I think this is the one upside of this new dark age is that it's made us realize that, you know, democracy is not a consumer choice every four years. Democracy is a commitment. And we got to commit. And we got to commit. What is it we love and value about this country?

And we got to fight for it. And we're going to fight for it. And, you know, I was just out in Alberta where we see the Daniel Smith dumpster fire and the mega-tribute. traders. I'll tell you on the ground there, people are going door to door. People are like organizing. It's, it is an exciting moment because the stakes are super high. So when you were here, it felt, I was ready for War of 1812 Redux. Like, that's where I was at when you visited January 13th. That was a week before the inauguration for the, the second term there of Donald Trump there. But what came out of that, this, I wanted to play this because I thought this was interesting.

So we recorded a great, I don't know, we did 45 minutes or something. It was great, but during that conversation, I asked you about Wayne Gretzky. And you went off on Wayne Gretzky, and I put it on my YouTube channel because I got a camera in here. And CBC's This Hour has 22 minutes aired us talking about Wain Gretzger. Are you aware of this? I'm going to play it now. And then I'll tell you something that I find amusing about this. But let me, it's only 26 seconds.

Here we go. Wayne Gretzky is the great one. There's no argument with that, but is he a great Canadian? these days the most popular Gretzky Google search is Wayne Greske Trader. He didn't wear Team Canada jersey and he gave Team USA to thumbs up. He even pissed off politicians like NDP, MP Charlie Angus. Wayne Greske should be ashamed of himself. Absolutely ashamed of himself.

Don't bother coming back to Canada. Takes a lot to piss off the NDP. I'm not going to lot. So what struck me is, first of all, it was an honor to have because it was, you know, us in the split screen that I record here. But what I found interesting is, zero accreditation. They don't put in small print

from Toronto Mike. They don't say it. This is just me and you. You're going and it airs on CBC nationally on this hour's 22 minutes. You'd think they would put a little little tiny little tag on it that says from Toronto Mike. Toronto Mike, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I get it, man. I get it. But, you know, on the Gretzky thing. Yeah. Because I hear from people all over the world because I got this Midas Canada network that we run now and people reach out to me from everywhere.

And this guy wrote to me from England one day and he said, man, you Canadians are bad-assed. He said, our sports heroes let us down all the time and we forgive them. And your most famous sports hero betrayed you guys and you are not in a forgiving mood. And I was like, I was really struck by that because if someone told me that a year before that we would, if I would dare speak out against Wayne Gretzky, I would have thought, no way, man. That's the end of my political career. People would be, people are still mad, right?

It's like, like we thought, listen, guy, you were a hockey player, and we loved you as a hockey player, but don't ever cross us. Don't bother crossing the street to see us. I'm a little bit younger than you. And when I was a kid, I had Wayne Gretzky's sheets on my bed. Like, I'm looking to retroactively burn those sheets if I can find them. But yeah, I'm telling you, that was a moment. But you know what? I did change. After I saw our clip on CBC and no accreditation, I started putting like a watermark in my videos.

So if they grab this one, it's going to have the Toronto Mike logo in the... And I think that was Y Y, YZ Gord, who recommended that. Okay, so a lot of ground, cooking with gas, but on the live stream, live.tronomike.com, there's a comment from St. Catharines, Chris, who says, Charlie hit a home run with that intro. well done. It's a real-time reaction. You know, life is too short to do two takes. Oh, you're in the right place for that.

There's no two takes on trying to make. And then he writes, please get his thoughts on the job Mark Carney is doing. Aha. Well, you know, there's, I'll say two things. One is Mark Carney ran to be a wartime prime minister, and nobody else was doing that. My guy was not doing that.

Pierre Pollyev was still Canada's broken, Canada's broken. So he's had an enormous amount of goodwill. He's done an enormous amount on the international stage. Canada is now very much seen as a leader in the new free world, whereas I'll tell you a year and a half ago, man, nobody was going to come and help us. My concern is I don't think he quite gets it in Canada.

He's been a way a long time. He's got to really watch not ignoring indigenous issues. And this pipeline, like, come on. Like, we are still paying for TMX. We subsidize that pipeline, 50 cents on the dollar, because those companies don't want to pay. There is no economic argument. And to say we're going to build a pipeline

when Daniel Smith is burning our country to the ground, I think that is serious misjudgment. I think he needs to actually do more to say, like, the planet's on fire. Canada can be a leader in so many things, but to go down that pipeline road with Daniel Smith, I think is only going to create trouble. So I don't attack the prime minister as a whole. I'm not in Parliament.

I'm not opposition anymore, but I call out what I see. That's what I try and do now. I say, this is where we're at. We're in this together. I like this idea that we're all working for the same thing, but I'm not going to be a cheerleader for something that takes us down the wrong road and getting caught up with the oil giants. And I've dealt with them in Parliament.

My God, these guys are not nice human beings, I'll tell you. And, you know, I was in Calgary, and I've been in Edmonton. And they're not jumping over through the hoops for a pipeline. They know what's coming. They know about the abandoned wells, and they know about the droughts, and they know about the climate fires. I mean, nobody out in West is dumb about this, but Daniel Smith's beating the drum, and our prime minister is going along.

So, Mark, you know, pull back from that, and there's the rest of the country. What about BC? What about the Maritime? What about the rest of us all working together? Any, not regrets, of course, but have you considered maybe running the next federal election and returning to Parliament?

Absolutely not. I wake up in the morning and I, like, do the happy dance that I'm not in the monkey house. Listen, it was 21 years. I was honored to do it. They kept making my riding bigger and bigger and bigger. The last time when they added an extra 20,000 square kilometers in 12 towns they'd never been in,

I was like, okay, you guys are really sending me a message. But I feel, given actually the moment that we're in, I feel like it's way more important to be speaking truth to power in a way that I can and do it in the way I want to do it. And you know what? I left the grievous angels sit on the side of the road for way too long, and I feel it's time to go back and go back to the roots. Well, we're going to get back to Grievous Angels for sure.

A few more quick questions that came in when people were excited when I said, you know, Charlie Angus, returning to the TMDS basement studio. Canada Kev, who I saw last night at the Alma Combo, hello to Canada Kev. He says, Charlie is going to go off on hoax dry and gangster politics, and I'm ready. You got to check out my new YouTube where we look into Pete the King Rat and the stolen voter data in Alberta and this app that he's been running. Yeah, Pete, I mean, my thing with Pete, is like, Pete, you know how many thousands of Canadians were killed free in your family from the Nazis? Groningen, that town that you're from, that was full of refugees,

and we decided not to send an air cover, and our boys went in house to house so that we didn't cause civilian deaths. We freed your ass from fascism, and you come and you insult us and you green gaslight us and you say that we're the problem in the American relationship. Pete, we should send you, well, we'd send you back to the Netherlands, but they don't want you. They kicked you out too. So we've got your number, Pete.

We've got your number here. Now, Rob Pruse, and this, again, I'm not going to waste Charlie's time with this, but on Monday, we'll dive deep into this because Rob Proust was supposed to be at the Elmo, but was stuck in his, he lives in New York State. Okay, so Rob Pruss writes in and says,

I can't wait to see you on Monday morning. Will you ask Charlie Angus for me if there's anything I can do from which, within enemy territory, or do I just need to get the fuck out as soon as possible, asking for a friend, wink emoji? You got to hold your ground. Like, this is the thing that struck me. I thought initially when we got into the trenches and the people in the other side of the trenches

were the enemy and they're not. We talked to Americans all the time. We're all in this. But they have to get their democracy back. And they have to hold their useless Democrats to account. That's the only way we're going to pull back in this age of monster. So I do shoutouts all the time to people in Iowa, in Minneapolis that we talk to all the time. People in Arizona, people in red state country who are saying,

we're trying to maintain democracy, but they say we're watching Canada. So Canada has to do its part. And Rob, you're in New York State. Hold your ground. And let's get this thing settled. So we can travel back and forth again. I mean, I'm never going to be able to step foot in the United States without being sent to El Salvador. And there's a few places I wouldn't mind going to see before I die.

But you know what? If I'm not, I'm not going back. But if we had a democratic neighbor and a neighbor that believed in the rule of law, Canadians might reconsider. But, Charlie, moments ago you said you considered, you know, cheering for the sabres because of the O Canada. Because they sang O Canada. Sure. But the majority, I believe the majority of Buffalo is MAGA. like the majority of Buffalo voted for another term of Trump. Like they watched that first term and they said to themselves,

you know, it would be good to go back to that. Well, you know, and then they paid a massive price. I was just down at Niagara Falls, and man, the New York side is dying. So they're sorry about that. But I just thought that that scene in the, you know, we need little things to make our souls feel refreshed. And I thought that scene of them singing the anthem after just the abuse

that we suffered from Trump with the final game and you know I'm not supporting Ottawa as long as to catch a car chucks there man I will not support Ottawa under no circumstances that guy is a

rat and you know what if he wasn't the guy who swore at us and it was done by the White House at least he could do stand up and say I am really outraged and appalled that I was my celebration of my team was used in such a manner to insult and denigrate Canadians. I haven't heard that from him.

So, you know, the fact that Buffalo fans cheered for the anthem, I'm like, okay, I can go with that. Ottawa, I'm sorry, you throw that guy's arse out, and I'll be back to supporting the Sends in the playoffs. Jim Romanko, who I saw at the Elmocombo last night. There's a trend here in a low gym. Jim wrote a fun show last night at the Elmacombo. It was also great to have live music bookending your show

with Blair Packham and Ron Hawkins. And I'm going to interject here to say, thank you, Blair. Do you know Blair Packham at all from the jitters? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He opened the show. He did 45 minutes set.

He was fantastic. It was short notice because Rob Proust was going to open and he couldn't get here. But thank you, Blair. Of course, thank you Ron and Lawrence from lowest of the low. Back to Jim Romano's question. The new venue is very nice. I remember it being a dive back in the day. Does Charlie have any dangerous memories of gigs at the Elma combo?

Oh, my God. Billy Idol just after breaking with Gen X. De Elmo was a place that they saw punk kids like us, and their initial desire was to throw us down the stairs. That was the kind of place that I knew. So we played the Elmo, and the sound was always bad. It was like legendary, but it's like, yeah, you're the opening band. You don't get any monitors.

It's like, in what world is that a good thing? So we played a number of shows there. We finally had. as the grievous angels once. But, yeah, it was... But, you know, in terms of dives, it was just one of 10,000 dives. It was just more legendary.

So you have to play up that some dives are better than others, but yeah, it was... It's sure not a dive anymore. If anything, it's far too clean and polished. You know, it could use a little of that character. Well, you know, it's funny. In Montreal, they had some real dive bars. So when I was running for the leadership of the NDP,

we had a debate at Club's... soda and I was like, man, I played punk those days. I know the club soda like the back of my hands. I went in this really nice theater and I was like, uh, this does not like, was I living in a different world and I was trying to, where's the graffiti, where's the smell of urine and stale beer? Where's the bottles that were thrown at the stage?

And they were like, oh, that was a different club soda. It burnt down. And I was like, oh, so it's not even the real club soda. At least the Elmo was in the real place. Right, right. Uh, more Jim Romanco here. and then we're going to get to grievous angels. But he writes,

I enjoyed reading Charlie's two books, Coobalt and Dangerous Memory. It seems that lessons are never learned, and history always repeats itself. What are Charlie's thoughts about the current state of affairs and our mixed up world as they relate to some of the stories discussed

in these two books? Well, Dangerous Memory brings us, and that's how the 1980s led us to this moment. So Dangerous Memory sets this up, and it comes out on the eve of the Trump election, but it's like Trump is not an accident. Trump is a product of the destruction of the American and North American working class and then middle class.

And so where are we now? Well, I just called my publisher and said I have the new manuscript. The book is called American Weimar, and it is the history of these times. So I'm trying to write a history in real time as history is changing to sort of explain some of the stuff that's going down and to try and make sense of the chaos.

It all seems like chaos, but it's not. The grifters, the spirituality, you know, the sort of right-wing MAGA podcast culture that's running the world right now. They all fit to a playbook, and it's the fascist playbook. So hopefully the book will be out on House of a Nancy. The working title is American Weimar, and I go through it all. Amazing here. Now, we talked about the cover of Grievous Angels and Ron Hawkins' contribution there. and I was reading that it's

this is the first Grievous Angels album since you came back, right, after your 20 years stint as a member of parliament. Am I right? Well, we did three albums in the last six years. Right. So that was the beginning of the end of my political career. We did summer before the storm,

last call for Cinderella. And then this one came out free of, I was stepping out. So yeah. And this is very much, I think, probably, and this is ironically the most political of all the albums. Well,

to play a song in a moment here, but I'm going to remind everybody right now that there's a matinee at the Horseshoe Tavern. It still smells in there. I love it. That to me smells like the smell of still beer in the morning. It smells like musical victory. I love it too. Those checkerboard floors. Yeah, the famous checkerboard floors. May 24, that's May 24th. That is a Sunday here in Toronto at Horseshoe Tavern. You can check out Grievous Angels for a matinee. 2 p.m. door opening and Caleb Hickle is great local singer is opening. Amazing. So I'm going to ask you about Our Lady of the Crows,

and I'm going to play some of it. It features another FOTM, see little these great friends of Toronto Mike. But I think I should give you an FYI that since you were last year, that January 2025, I've made two appearances on CNN to basically fly the Canadian flag

and tell Trump to fuck the hell out of, get the fuck out of here, back off. I did that twice. Live on CNN this morning. I got one and that's when I said that it was like dealing with Al Capone and sypholitic phase. And that was it. And they never had me back. So you've got twice.

I got twice. So they had me back, but I'm still waiting for that third call. You know what it bothers me? And I'm going to just bent with you here. It feels like when CNN, I feel like they're so fucking lazy. Like when they need a Canadian perspective on thing, why do they call Kevin O'Leary? He's like a rat. Shouldn't he be the last?

Like, it pisses me off. There's Charlie Angus is available. Toronto Mike is available. Don't call Kevin O'Leary for any Canadian perspective on anything. No, the guy's a rat. Pissed off over here. Okay, before I press play on this, what can you tell us about Our Lady of the Crows?

Well, my wife says, you don't know anything, do you? They're not crows. They're ravens. And I said, I know, but Raven is harder to rhyme than crows. So, uh, uh, this is this. is the latest single and Andy Mays. We always ask Andy Mays to come in and he's so gracious. So Andy came in and he was out in BC.

He just, I said, what do you want? I said, I just want you to be Andy Mays. That was the only instruction. So you'll tell us folks. Well, we're going to listen to some of this and you'll hear Andy's great pipes. And I just want to say, another more proof that he's a sweetheart is he's being in the basement here. I feel like the sweethearts will visit some guy in South Atobico. basement for an independent podcast, right?

When they say no, that's when you got a red flag. What's going on here? So Andy's being here, and of course, I've seen Skydiggers so many times, truly underappreciated band. I think the Skydakers are fantastic. They're my favorite Canadian band. I mean, I've known them from West Montrose

from Directive 17. The first time Pete Cash gave me a cassette and I was like, this is brilliant stuff. And, yeah, and playing with them is always exciting. Okay, here's some Our Lady of the Crows from the latest release from Grievous Angels. It's called Revolution. She's out there in the fields where the wildflowers grow. The nighttime's falling does she go?

She's out there where they wait. They follow because they know. Charlie, I love and long and tender road You'll watch it all grow And she sees me But you see where the wildflowers grow On Leah Charlie, I love it

Wow Yeah, yeah Great, and you've been with your wife You know, she correctly told you the Ravens, not Crows I told a bit at the Elmo last night My wife calls all aquatic birds ducks, even when they're not ducks. Isn't that bizarre?

Like, she'll, if it's a goose, a Canada goose, she knows it's a Canada goose. But for whatever reason, she insists on calling them ducks. Well, my wife knows things that I just have no clue about. And you've been with her since you were a teenager, right? Yeah, yeah. Good for you, man. No, we've been there, yeah, we've been through it all.

So that song sort of is that, you know? It's like, it's hard, you know, But man, it's where you're at in life. And she's grown and she's an amazing writer, very different than me, and has no interest in, like, get involved in the stuff I do. She just says, yeah, you go and do it. And I think she likes me going on the road. She said I take up a lot of space,

and she doesn't always like the albums I choose to play. You know, I just realized at some point you got to come over here and kick out the jams. Like, we just play 10 of your. favorite songs of all time and talk about it. We have to do that. Okay, I'd love to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's going to happen, everybody. We got a commitment from Charlie Angus on that one. So this song is, is it, it's about your wife? Absolutely. She said if I ever called her my muse in public, she would hunt me down and kill me. But she said I could call her comrade. Okay. But it is.

I mean, we live in this wild, scrappy piece of bush country in northern Ontario. And I keep thinking I'm going to come home one day in the home. house is going to be gone. It's just going to have gone back to the wild, and the Ravens will be there watching me and say, what are you doing here, buddy? So that's how I see it going. Where did you, like, give me a little nuts and bolts on,

like, where did you record this new album from Grievous Angels? Well, we recorded at Canterbury Studios with the great Jeremy Darby ran, a real institution in Toronto. And then we gave it to Nick Tellios, who used to be in Jughead, to do the mixing. and the production. So it was live off the floor over three days.

If you listen to it, you really get a sense of the freshness of the album. I mean, almost no retakes. The other thing I really want to point out, you know, we've got the original band, Tim Hadley, and Peter Gillard that's been with me since the 80s. Ian McKendry on guitar, Nathan Mahaffey is a monster drummer. We call him the Quinty Groove.

But the real secret sauce is Alexander Bell, who plays piano and sings with me. And she has just such an incredible sense. So when we were mixing the album, I said to Nick, whenever you hear Alexandra's voice, just raise it. Just bring it up because she does no wrong. And it's just so great working with musicians who just come in. And they just, I don't have to tell them, do this, do that, do the other,

don't do this. They just do their thing. Okay, Charlie, if it's okay with you, I'd like to play another song from Revolution. but I'd like to give you a few gifts here quickly since you made the trek here. And tell me if you received this from me in the past. I'm curious, but I have fresh beer for you from Great Lakes Brewery.

I've never had a beer before, no. I'll take that. You are getting fresh crafty. I'm shocked. I know I've got it, but I will take it again. Great Lakes Brewery sent over some fresh craft beer for you, including a sunny size. I feel like the beer that pairs best with Charlie Angus

is the Canuck Pale Ale. I'm looking at it with the lumberjubljointed. Yeah. What's his name again? Mr. Levec. I'm trying to remember his first name, that character. Gordy Leveck,

of course. Gordy Levec is the character on the cover there. So that's for you. I also have a frozen lasagna that was sent over by Palma pasta. Delicious, authentic Italian food.

You're taking that. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So delicious Italian food, beer. I have a measuring tape for you, Charlie Angus. You gave me a measuring tape,

though. I've got it. I'll take it again. Take it again because you can never have enough measuring tapes in your life there. That's courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Their podcast is called Life's Undertaking. We drop a new episode every two weeks. We're now recording video too.

So find the Life's Undertaking podcast YouTube channel and subscribe. We just started that up too. Speaking of a podcast I produce, Building Toronto Skyline is a podcast from Nick Aienis. We recorded two new episodes. this morning. Nick stepped up to help fuel the real talk. He loves what's happening here and he said, let me open my wallet and keep this going. So we give our love to Nick Aienes. Charlie, I probably told you this last time, but if you have old electronics, old devices, old cables. Yes, I do. Don't throw it in

the garbage, Charlie, Angus. Go to recycle my electronics.ca. Put in your postal code and find out where you can drop that off to be properly recycled. Awesome. I got a big box of them. So I will do that. You know where to go. Good for the environment. And last but not least, this is a new sponsor, I believe, because you came off-season, if I see the dates, correct. But Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. It happens at Christie Pitts.

This is the most amazing community event, especially when Mother Nature cooperates like it did a couple of Sundays ago. But you just, you make your way to Christy Pitts for a Leafs game. You sit on the hill. You grab a, you have a beer. You can legally drink a beer. You don't have to hide it anymore. And grab a hot dog and just enjoy great baseball.

It's a great ball. the community comes out. I love it. I have a book for you, Charlie, on the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. I'm excited in Christy Pitts, so historic. Christy Pitts was the first place. We fought the fascists.

1933. I mean, baseball bats and everything. Like, it's a place of history because the fascist came out to ruin a ball game between the Italian kids and the Jewish kids, and the community came out and said, you shall not pass. So when I lived up on that section of Toronto, Christy Pits to me is like, it's amazing.

So I look forward to coming and watching a ballgame and having a hot dog. The Leafs Lager is on me, Charlie Angus, when you make your way out there. Okay, another jam. This is the first track. I like to hear the first tracks of albums. Love it, Charlie. So Revolution, you can actually go to the Grievous Angels Band Camp page, which is Grievous Angels Numeric 2.

Grievousangels 2.bantampt.com and you can order Revolution. It's coming out on vinyl? It's on vinyl, yes. I need something that plays vinyl. I have a lot of vinyl. Nothing plays it. I got to get myself something that plays it.

Everything is vinyl. That's... Shout out to Alan Zweig. Made the definitive vinyl documentary. Yeah, absolutely. Love that guy. So tell me a little bit. The monster.

Is one, does he have an orange complexion, one of these monsters? Well, it was the morning after the Trump election, and my wife called me and said, speak up. I said, I don't know what to say. She said, people are frightened, you speak up. And the only thing I could think of, and I'm not a Marxist scholar, but Antonio Gramsci's line came into my head. There's a new world struggling to be, the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born, but now we are in the age of the monsters. And I thought that morning after the Trump election, Netanyahu, Putin, Trump, this is what we're in, the age of monsters.

And that's what this song, it's the opening song on the album, it sets it up, it sets up. This is the darkness we're in, this is like the chaos, the sense of what the hell's happening and how do we get it back. So that's the origin of the monsters. Say a word or two, if you don't mind, about our mutual friend, Jason Schneider. Oh, Jason Schneider. You know, stalwart. Stallward. And I got a picture in one of the books he did,

so it have not been the same, the history of... Michael Barclay. Yeah, yeah, great book. Anyways, Jason, Jason... It's an imported book, too. Well, I mean, again, there's a real... The music history here is really vital because it still continues to bubble out and change and grow.

So Jason has been doing promotion for the Grievous Angels, and so we're super proud of working with him. And so shout out to Jason, who always does a great job connecting us. And also Michael Barclay, I feel, who's doing important work too. And he's got a great substand. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, the documenting of the culture here is, this is, for me, this is my roots. This is kind of like, they said, what are you going to do?

You're not in politics anymore. It's like, I'm going back to the roots. And the roots, that punk rock roots in Toronto defined who I am. And it's funny, I don't feel it's nostalgic anymore. It felt maybe for a bit it was. it feels like things are vital again, and we're having to, again, we're going back to the source.

My buddy Cam Gordon, who I saw last night at the Elmo, that's a recurring theme here. But we often discuss who is Canada. Does Canada have a Billy Bragg? Like, who's our Billy Bragg? Me. Well, that's the obvious.

I think it's you. Don't, don't. No, actually, no, I think we've got some great talents and stuff. But, you know, Canada's a big place, but it's a small population. It's amazing, you know, and it's what I've learned is there's storytellers everywhere. Storytellers everywhere.

Again, so you'll be at the Horseshoe Tavern 2 p.m. on May 24th. With the big band, we're a seven-piece band now. We are like, someone said we were a stripped-down version of the East Street band, but we're getting up there in numbers. I think that's like broken social scene territory that you're heading into with those kind of numbers here. So that's amazing. On our way out, though, you drop the turrets.

Midas Canada. Can you just elaborate on that? What are you up to there? Where can we consume more? We need more Charlie Angus in our veins. Every morning, Charlie Angus starts at 7 in the morning, the Midas Canada network, so YouTube Charlie Angus. And we've worked with the Midas crew out of the United States. And I just, I'm trying to make sense of the world, trying to make sense of the fascism, trying to make sense of the threats, and trying to make sense of resistance. So I do a lot of interviews with people who are on the ground, doing things, showing us that we can get out of the darkness. So it's a lot of fun. And I got a following now of people around the world who say, every morning we get up and have a cup of coffee and listen to Charlie. And it's like,

all right. That's amazing. So you don't have time for Parliament. Like, no, Parliament. It's like, and then Parliament, you had to debate stupid bills and argue with stupid MPs who are reading stupid things that were written for them. I'm blowing all that out. We're just going to talk and we're going to, and we're going to start a conversation about democracy. Love it so much. And I just remember now, another, you have many, many fans across this country, but Duncan Fremlin apparently your appearance on my show back in January,

2025, was like the spark that put Duncan Fremlin a blade... All right, so this is Duncan Fremlin. He's the guy, you know Dungken, you know Banjo Dunk, but he's the real deal because he was at the Elmo last night

and he wrote me a note to say there were two ladies in the back who were talking too much and he told them to shut the fuck up. and he's fighting the good fight out there. But I told Banjo Dunk, you were coming back to the basement and we're going to keep the faith. We're going to keep fighting.

So should Canadians, we should stay diligent, like, vigilant? This is not going away. This is not the time to be fatigued. No, I think we're more certain. We're more determined, but the threat, they will turn on us on a dime. I mean, you know, in the height of the Iran War, what do they do?

They take time out to show a map of Canada as being part, of the United States. This past week, they walked on the U.S.-Canada defense board, said we aren't spending any money on defense. Well, I think what's making them upset as we're spending more on defense than we ever have, and some of it's probably going to be some good drone technology to protect our borders.

But they will, that's the playbook you learn, is when things screw up in Iran, they don't backtrack, they change the subject. And right now they're targeting Cuba. It's outrageous. It's illegal. And Canada should be standing up for Cuba because they're coming for us next.

But as long as we do what we do, as long as everyone holds the line, as long as we don't start fighting amongst ourselves, we've got them, I think, a little spooked. So we just got to keep doing what we're doing. You know, I love it when you drop by, man. And I'm already thinking about that kicking out the jams. But then I'm also thinking about an episode with you

about, you know, Toronto's the Queen Street scene, the music scene in the 80s. Like, we've got to do a deep dive into that. There's just so many topics I want to cover with you. But you've got to come back. at least once a year for the rest of your life. How do you feel about that? I will do that. In September 13th, me and Kingie Carpenter,

punk rock gal from back in the day, we're going to do a history of punk rock thing at her peach berserk and talk about the late Trangier days. And maybe Andrew Cash will be there. I'll try to twist his rubber arm. So the conversations go on and on. Love it. You've got to get Cash over here.

I know, I know. We've got to get him in the basement. So keyboard, his, I believe, I hope I have this factor. I saw this musical enhancement. Hamilton called It's a Good Life if you don't weaken. I'm pretty sure his son is in that. Does this sound right to you? Probably, yeah, yeah.

It was good. You know, I feel like there's been too many tragically hip references. That's three, I think. I'm keeping score over here. But that's what happens when you write songs for Canadians about Canada. You're going to come up on an episode of Toronto Mike. Thank you very much. I won't call you Chuck here, but Charlie, this was great.

Thank you, man. Love being on the show. Love what you're doing. Remember, we've got to take a photo by that Toronto tree because it only has flowers for one week a year, and they're almost gone. This might be the last Toronto tree pick with flowers in it for another year,

so we'll be doing that. And that brings us to the end of our 1,9003 show, 1903. Go to tronomike.com for all your Toronto mic needs. I have an exciting announcement, TMLX22, that is the 22nd Toronto Mic, listener experience. It's a free event, no ticket required. In fact, we'll get you a Great Lakes beer

and we'll feed you Palma Pasta. It's happening Thursday, June 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Great Lakes Brewery in southern Etobico. Come on out and hang, eat, drink, be merry. It'll be great. Much love to all who made this pasta. Again, that is Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta,

Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Nick Aini's, Recycle My Electronics.C.A, and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all Monday. It's a double-header. I got to figure this out. Let me go to my calendar, Charlie, okay? I'm not as prepared as I should.

I had a late night last night. Spike tone from the Elmo late last night. Okay, toast with Rob Pruse and Bob Willett. They'll both be in the basement. We're going to find out what the hell happened to Rob Pruss. I can't wait. Then that afternoon at 3.30, Adam Bunch, Toronto Historian, is going to drop by.

We're going to talk about some wild Toronto history stories. That's happening Monday. Then I'm off to Montreal for a bit. But I'll see you then. Bye for now.