Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Colin Brunton: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1579

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

In this 1578th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with producer / director Colin Brunton about working for The Garys, The Last Pogo, Nash the Slash, Bruce McDonald, Schitt's Creek and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1579 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Advantage'd Investor podcast from

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making his highly anticipated Toronto Mike debut, is Colin Brunton. Welcome, Colin. Hi, Mike. How are you? Not as good as I'd like to be, but... How good would you like to be? How high are those standards for you, Mr. Brunton?

Always reaching. always reaching. You look good. Thank you. And I will hold on. I like the shirt you're wearing, but I've got him on the agenda. Don't you worry. We're going to talk some Nash the Slash today. But can I tell the listenership kind of a happenstance of like concurrent circumstances

that brought us together today. Sure. Okay. First of all, I record monthly, we call these episodes toast. So I do a monthly toast and one of the members of the toast crew is Rob Prus. Do you know who Rob Prus is? Of course. He was the, he was in the spoons.

I met Rob back in 84. So he's the, he was the keyboardist. I like to call it the, you know, shadow to Bruce Springsteen, the glory days of spoons and Rob Pruess was the keyboardist. And he was like telling me, Mike, you should talk to Colin Brunton. And he was talking about Schitt's Creek,

which we'll get to. And he said, you'd be a great guest. And I said, Rob, you had me at hello. So I reached out to you. I sent you a note. I think Rob introduced us by email. And I wrote back and told you like, I'm way in the, you know, I'm in the West end, the the Southwest corner of the city, but I'm doing this thing.

You'd be a great guest. And you were, be honest with me. How into it were you based on just the intro from Rob Bruce? The intro from Rob Bruce? The intro from Rob Bruce candid a lot. Rob reached out to us and offered to do some extra music for the Nash documentary. But my only hesitation about the show was that I would have to go west of the DVP and I just way west of the I just don't like to do that. It's frightening.

No, I hear you. I don't blame you, by the way. But that's why you got a bike. I know it's going to take a couple hours, but that's the, uh, that's the life hack is just bike. But so you, you, you were kind of like, Oh, I gotta go way west of the DVP. But then out of nowhere, I find out that, uh, I'm, well, I was asked if I would moderate this panel cause Gary top has a new book coming out and on, I think it's December 1st, I would moderate this panel, because Gary Taub has a new book coming out. And I think it's December 1st, I should confirm this. It's like, hey Mike, would you be willing to moderate this panel?

Gary Taub, and I've had the Garys on, I love the Garys. We're gonna talk a lot of Garys off the top. And I look at the list, who's on? Ivor Hamilton is gonna be there. I'm like, oh, Ivor's a good buddy here. Gary Cormier, I'm kinda going down the list. And then I see the name Colin Brunton. You're part of this panel. I am. Yeah. It was a little, uh, I was a little surprised, but I go way back with Gary's and

you know, yeah, all the, all the synchronicity of this podcast and Gary top and Nash and the spoons and it's all, it's all tied into one neat little ball someplace in the universe. And we're going to kind of unravel that ball of yarn right now. But when you saw that, hey, there's this Toronto Mike guy that I was just told about by Proust and then now you're we're going to be talking on the first at 888 Young at the old Masonic Temple there. You're like, I got to make the trek west of the DVP

Absolutely, I mean You know my father was a Mason and And so that intrigued me and there's this amazing Masonic temple in Hamilton called the Scottish Rite. I don't know if you've been there. It's fantastic Building I went in there and spoke with one of the guys at the desk and about my dad. And, and, um, I didn't know if he knew my name, but I'd probably signed in for the crew is there with a crew. And he said, um, you know, if you're ever in London, England, you should go to the,

uh, the main main temple and ask them about your father. I think you might find something very interesting. And I thought, Oh, okay. What was he Batman what's this about what a lead right yeah so so it's pretty cool to go to the the famous red room in the Masonic temple right and I gotta ask you this question I don't even know the answer but are there still tickets available or is this thing sold out I it's sold out very quickly there's a now a second show in the evening quickly. Um, there's a, now a second show in the evening.

I don't think there's a panel in the second show, but I didn't get invited. So maybe they replaced me with a strong bow or something. They said, Hey, let's aim higher. Let's get strong bow. No. So they had it. They, they sold it really quick and they've got a second show, I think at seven o'clock on the first, and they're going to show, um, one of the, one of the different and they're going to show one of the one of the different things are going to do that show is show the last pogo which was the film I did at the horseshoe in 78 oh my god so when I saw

you directed the last pogo I'm like I that alone I would absolutely want you in the basement to talk about that so this is an opportunity for me to kind of do like a bit of a pre-interview so when I'm and by the way, I looked at the panel I got to check out there's other interesting people on the panel as well and They said okay, you got up you got 60 minutes and I said, okay, I got top there, you know, it's his life Yeah, so and I had top over and it took, you know two hours to kind of scratch the surface back a top there And Cormier there I got Brunton there. I got Hamilton there. The gentleman from Yuck Yuck's, Jeff Silverman, who I've subsequently booked on Toronto Mike so

I could do the same thing I'm doing with you do my pre-interview on my podcast. But I'm like, like 60 minutes, like, okay, you know, like, that's the hardest part is keep this thing to 60 minutes. But I am looking forward to, you know, picking at the highlights again, on the first of December for the new top book. Great. Okay, so that's where I want to start. Let's start with Gary Topp.

I'm told that you're one of Gary's first employees. Can you please just tell me about your relationship with Gary Topp, how you met him, and then we'll build our way to the last POGO. Sure. So around, I guess it was 1973. I was like 17 years old. My friend Randy Terrell told me, hey, there's this really cool movie theater that just opened. That was the original 99 cent Roxy. So we started hanging out there and I don't know, Gary,

Gary Top took a liking to us and we would help out of the door. And then, um, uh, when they booked reefer madness, which was when it started getting super popular. And so he hired me and Randy to be, you know, quote unquote ushers. We would take tickets and just be there to, you know, make sure it was somewhat under control. And, and I worked for him from then to the New Yorker, to the horseshoe. And, you know, we still talk, you know, at least once a week about, about stuff.

That's amazing. So I'm told that you, uh, created flyers. Yeah. So, um, after the New Yorker, um, the Gary's, the Gary's, you know, had bonded during the New Yorker, Brother Ramones and, you know, Carla Blay and Sun Ra and all these great, great shows and they wanted to get a new club. They found this old dumpy place down at Spadina and Queen called the Horseshoe. We went down there.

I went down with them to check it out. And, uh, you know, it was there. They're such great guys. And I remember just looking at, you know, they had business to do, right? Um, I was just kind of hanging out. Um, and, and, you know, all what I remember the most is seeing a long line of these, uh, kind of sad faces at the bar of these old timers who drank there for probably years and one guy kind of looked up all forlorn and said

you know are we still gonna be able to come here right and Gary Cormier was one it says don't you worry you know you're on it so at that point I'd worked for Gary since 73 and I guess this was 78 and he offered me a job at the horseshoe. And I said, you know, what do you, do you want me to take tickets? He goes, no, no, no, we'll have someone to do that. Do you want me to bust tables?

He says, no, no, they have people for that. Um, you know, just come. So, so I just would go there and it's quite the job description. Yeah. And I did, I did end up taking tickets and stuff, but then I started doing, um, doing handbills for all the shows during their, their tenure there in 78,

which was so much fun. I would do the handbills and then I would get on my bicycle and my, my stapler, staple gun and go around to the city and stick them up all over the city. Back then there was an etiquette that you know you didn't put handbills up over other current things that were happening. You gotta have a code. There was a total code. Reg Hart was you know famous for his handbills and you know we were very respectful of each other and and you know, we were very, um, respectful of each other and, and you know, it's, it was fun. It was great fun. Where did the idea for the horseshoe man come from?

Well, that was that of course is Gary's high school photograph or, or so the myth goes. I don't know. I was just given a blank. I've actually got the template at home, the blank template. And then, you know, my thing was, and then you know my thing was you know altering the guy's face whenever I did a hand bill to sort of you know reflect you know one of the bands that was on the bill that that week or month or whatever. So your your flyers had a distinct character? They did they were really sloppy and messy and And, um, you know, every swath and I would make like, uh, you know, it was complicated, right?

Because you use, you use letter set. And so, you know, I'd get focused on the letters and write out the name. Then you'd have to like, you know, you had to ride your, I had to ride my bike to this place. If I wanted to get it reversed, like, I would do it white on or black on white to get it reversed. He had to go to this place called Midtown reproductions. You would wait a day for them to reverse it and make it white on black. It will cost 10 bucks.

So I'd already start, you know, you know, I had overhead and, um, and then I get it back and it's like, Oh, wow. I spelt the word dead and dead boys wrong. Oh, okay. I got to do this again. You know, kids today, they won't understand, right? Like we have to educate the children, like how it used to be. Yes, exactly.

We're recording these for archival purposes. It's sort of like caveman drawings on the side of the cave. We got to educate the people. So I got a question. So again, for the listenership, because this scene, if you want to go back, so Gary Cormie, I think he dropped by first and we did like a deep dive into everything. And then Gary Top dropped by and we captured all the great Gary Top stories. God, he's got a new book coming out. That's why we're having this panel on the, the first at 888 Young. But I have to ask you, Colin, were you at the police show at the horseshoe where

I'm told depending who I talked to there were somewhere between five and ten people in attendance? Okay I want I don't even want to know what Gary or Gary thought but I remember distinctly I believe I even counted and I thought there were maybe 15 paying customers because a lot of the people in the room at that time were working there they were busing tables working apart so I think there was 15 people okay this is really firsthand I like you counted heads 15 so let's to give a little context this is before rocks and breaks obviously so and the Gary's who again we can't make this a Gary's episode because there's so much meat on that bone

But they would basically book the guests if they like the music they booked the guests like this is like they had to had to pass Their test sort of and the police before Roxanne breaks 15 people Bought a ticket to see them at the horseshoe Tavern 15 people bought a ticket to see them at the horseshoe tavern. Yep. I think that's a wild story here. So, but you were at this show. And again, I've seen photos of, um, sting in his underwear. So is this the photo where he kind of gets down to his, uh, to his, uh,

his underwear in, in his on stage at the horseshoe? Oh God, how, how, how, do you have any memories of this? Well, someone else brought that up. I think it had to do with, I think it might've been, um, Derek Emerson putting the book together. I don't actually recall that. Um, all I remember was that- But there might've been two shows. There may have been two shows. Um, all I remember was that I wasn't a big fan of the police.

To me, they came off as sort of wannabe, like they, you know, that I, I didn't, we were, I was pretty snotty about what punk and new wave was. And I thought they were sort of manufactured from a commercial, but I think the reason they booked them was because of Kevin, um, uh, the guitar player who I named, I can't remember, played with Kevin Coyne. The Gary's were so excited about that and they put on a great show. It was like they were, they were playing, I think 15 people, maybe. Andy Summers is that Andy Summers. That was their hook in in 77 or

and, and they played, you know, they did a probably a hour and a half, two hour show and they played you know they did a probably a hour and a half two hour show and they played their brains out like they played like they were in a stadium and it was a huge audience it was that was really that was what really impressed me and you know and as is the Gary's want you know they kept booking them and supporting them and and I think it paid off for them yeah it all comes back to the spoons in the police picnic okay. Yeah. Which is actually let me so again I I even pulled a little clip of the last pogo and we're gonna talk the last pogo

obviously but I am curious about at this point in Toronto so you're talking like what are we at 78 or so you said? Yeah 78. So CFNY like like I'm trying to think of what is your radio station of choice for a guy with your musical taste Like where are you tuned into in this city? CFNY Absolutely, and was that so do they long when does that like when does Marsden show up? I should know this because I talked to him just we was 77 or 78 like we're in this is the time when Marsden Sort of takes over. Yeah, I believe it was it was when they were in the little so-called little yellow house out in Brampton

Yeah, it was hard to get a it was hard to even listen to them, you know, to hear them because it was, you know, they had very few watts going out. But yeah, I think that was when it was like still the truly independent cool cool station. So a fellow member of this panel that I'll be moderating, this will be easy, I'll just have to say go and then you guys can do it yourselves, but Iver Hamilton's on this panel. So Iver Hamilton was there for the spirit of radio days with David Marston. He still stream shows on NYTHESPIRIT.COM, which is where Marston is focused these days. Mars bar. You actually told me you were listening to the Marsden episode of Toronto Mike the most recent one on your drive here is that right I was yeah and you were I mean he should be at this event on the 1st of December this guy this guy should be there we got to make sure Marsden's on the guest list he goes right back to the Roxy days I mean the thing about the Roxy was it was such a, it became sort of like this meeting place for the counter culture.

And I think like around 73, 74, that was when Toronto really started to change and get more interesting. It was really exciting time. And there were so many, so many interesting people that hung out there and were regulars like Mars and Nash the slash, the guy who co-founded in Elvanna, uh, the Gary's, of course, which guys is that Clive Smith? Well, I think Clive used to go there as well as Patrick Lou bear and Patrick Lou bear, uh, premiered his first feature called Voolie,

Voo, Couch, a vet, God, which starred Tully Kufrberg of The Fugs. And we premiered it on a midnight show. Um, and it, it did not go over very well. And I remember people were walking out within 15 minutes and I, I would look over and I saw Patrick sitting there in a couch, not completely thrilled. And when it was over, I think I overheard him say to Gary, um, I think I'm going to travel across Canada and figure stuff out. And he came back in years later, formed gigantic company. Yeah. They did all right on that deal. Yeah.

So Marsden CFNY, this is, this is all part of this, this great scene here so now I need to ask like who are you to direct the last pogo like bury me in some information about the last pogo which I believe was December 1st 1978 and you directing the last pogo yeah it was so had taken, I had taken a weekend filmmaking course over the course of a month with this great English guy, Patrick Lee. And I'd made it, you know, as a student film, we went out and did this film called Bollocks, which was shot at David's club in Toronto, which was a gay bar,

and then at night it turned into a punk bar, and we shot this crazy one and a half minute thing. I was driving cab at that point. I was, it was 11 o'clock one night. I wasn't actually working in the New York, in the horse unit, I was just doing handbills, driving cab, trying to get in the film business, doing anything. And I had just smoked a joint in my cab and I needed to air it out. So

I thought, okay, I'll park my cab in front of the horseshoe. It's like 11 o'clock. You know, some people get upset if they smell pot. And I went in and Andy Patterson of this great band called the government was talking to Gary and they were talking about this thing called the last POGO. And I was high enough that I thought I just kind of blurted out. It's like, I'm going to make a movie about that. And the next day I got up and I was kind of clear headed and I thought, you know, that's actually, that's still holds, man. I think that's a good idea. And I, I phoned up Patrick Lee and said, you know, are you into helping?

He goes, absolutely. Let's do it. And then I just jumped into this, you know, what would become like a financial nightmare for me, but it was the best thing I could have done. It was just, it was so much fun. And it was, you know, like the spontaneity of doing it. Like a lot of that came from this new punk vibe that the Ramones started,

which was, Hey, you don't have to go to film school. You know, just do it. Right. Just DIY. Exactly. So we just did it. And then, uh, you know, my big shock after we pulled it off and shut it was finding out how much it was gonna cost me to finish it. And that was like, oh my goodness, what did I get myself into? So, you know, it's great. I'm glad I made it.

It's, you know, one of the reasons it's one of the few punk films out there of that era is like people couldn't afford to do that. And I just, I was just naive. You know, Patrick Lee claims he told me how much it was gonna cost. And he said- Well, can you give me some numbers, can you? Well, I don't know how to translate 78 to 24 numbers,

but so we had to get film stock. And it was just like, okay, what does this stuff cost? Well, it's 100 bucks a roll. We need like 30 rolls. I was like, oh man, it's like three grand. I was making 30 bucks night driving cab. Three grand and 78. Okay. So I have a little, little frame of reference here that that's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money. I was making 30 bucks night driving cab and it's like, Oh, so I found this guy on church street who sold what they call short ends. So people would shoot commercials and if they had like a hundred feet leftover in the roll, it's not long enough for a big take. They would then, uh, you know, just seal it up and put it away. So I went to this guy's place, driving cab. I had a couple hundred bucks in my pocket somehow. And, um, yeah, the thing I remember was that, um, he was like, um, you know, sort of like a failed producer.

He tried to produce films and it didn't work out like are the odds, right? And I just remember thinking he had, he actually had a sunken living room, which I thought that's so tacky and awesome. I love this. And he showed me all these crappy Thing you know some of the cans were rusted and it's like I don't know Yep, I'm going for it. I got it then Patrick Lee did something very tricky so Patrick Lee was teaching at I believe Humber teaching film there and

He quote-unquote exchanged all the short ends for brand new film, Kodak film in the student in the student friend, student fridge and rounded up the crew for me and got a couple of people that wanted to shoot it. And we just went out and did it. And yeah. So you're there you're so maybe it just even a little more context for those who are like, okay, we know this documentary, The Last Pogo, but what exactly was The Last Pogo in terms of, you know, an event at the Horseshoe Tavern? So, so what it was, it was, it was built as the, you know, people say it was built as the last punk show in Toronto. And it kind of was the last And it kind of was the last punk show of like the original,

the original wave of punk, which, you know, 76 to 78 kind of thing. Right. Right. It was the last show the Gary's did there. It was that. And the next night was called the last bound up. So it was the, you know, the kind of like the last punk show at the horseshoe. And when I I got when I realized how much money I needed to finish this I discovered the Ontario Arts Council okay someone told me about that was like okay what I write him a letter and they give you money so I very carefully wrote a letter it took me forever and I kind of said to them I think this film will be really interesting in 25 years. Can you give us money to do it? And one day, you know, the, the post guy comes to the door and I'm,

you know, you know, I'm sweating rent at a place on Richmond street with my buddy, Larry Hudson, and the mail comes and there's check there for 8,000 bucks. And it's like, wow, this is fun. And then, uh, you know, then I got money from the Toronto council and the Canada council. And I still didn't have enough. I still had to like, you know, borrow money. I borrowed.

I somehow like back then the, the film industry was just sort of starting in, in Toronto. And I remember going to, um, uh, I don't know if, I don't know which bank it was. I went to a bank on, on a young college and somehow convinced the, the loan officer to lend me $10,000, which is just insane amount of money. And, uh, but I think he thought, Ooh, you know, Ooh, this guy's getting into business.

And I think it was after three months, he phoned and said, uh, he'd like to have a meeting, quick meeting with me it's like okay what's this about and I go down there and he was so blunt I don't think you're I don't think you're even allowed to be this rude anymore to people but he basically said hey just to let you know once you pay this loan off we're closing your account and I don't want to see you again because I could I was always late with the payments and it was like, and then it still took, you know, eight more years to pay this thing off. Oh man. But that, that, you know, that, that bluntness is almost refreshing.

You know, just tell me to my face, the deal here, instead of the way they do it now, which is they just bullshit you. And yeah, it's like, you know, these days he'd say, you know, I think we're going to go in a different direction or, you know, we're not, we're not clear on this journey you're on anymore. Good luck with your future endeavors. It's like, no, go fuck yourself. Yeah, exactly. All right. So that, that last POGO, I mean, a riot almost breaks out, right?

Just, I mean, people can find this pretty easily. It's only 26 minutes, right? Yeah. Okay. So people, you know, it's not like you have a two hour thing. So 26 minutes, you made it in a 1978, 16 millimeter color film here that you've somehow cobbled together and did it. And do you remember the lineup for this, uh, for the last POGO? I do. It was the scenics, the secrets, the mods, cardboard secrets, the mods, cardboard brains, the vile tones and teenage

head Nash, the slash was supposed to be there, but he broke his hand. The vile tones weren't originally built, but I think they got excited when they found out there was going to be a live album recording and a film being made and they showed up at the last minute. It's funny how that happens. Okay. And over 800 people are there in this, of course at the last minute. It's funny how that happens. Okay.

And over 800 people are there in this, of course, the last POGO, a lot of a frenetic energy, if you will, a lot of thrashing and a near riot ensued. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was, I mean, I miss this completely. I was busy listening to my Saturday night, not what is it called? Sesame street fever. It was the parody of Saturday night fever,ver on the cover in his his disco outfit

But I was busy listening to that but yeah, thank God you were there to capture some of this It was you know, honestly the whole night was a blur to me you know, we we knew where the camera people were gonna be and then and And you look at the footage now and it's first of all It's just so smoky like everyone's smoked and people are smoking. It still smells smoky in there. Probably. People are smoking dope and cigarettes and, uh, they ran out of beer early. There were so many people there.

So people started drinking hard liquor. And I think some people might've been maybe acting up a little bit for the camera. When things started happening, like when the, I think the detective who shut it down, he was sitting at the bar on that. I think he was popping back a few drinks and I think he got fed up or frightened and pulled the plug. And so people didn't, people didn't know why teenage had did one song and left. And you know, it was, it was awesome.

It's like people were throwing chairs and tables and we got booted out. Somehow my sound recordist managed to hide away and stay in there. So I don't want to let people down if they buy this, but, um, you don't actually see riot footage. You hear it. You hear crunching and, and I like how you're apologizing for something you made in 1978. Well, you know, I'm Canadian, right?

So my apologies for not fighting my way back in there. Um, my favorite moment was, um, uh, I still know him to this day, a guy called Evan Siegel. So Evan Siegel used to be in a band called the swollen members who were so good and so talented. And one of the few bands in that era that really had a good sense of humor. Um, anyways, every so often, Evan Siegel would appear in public, uh, as Dr. Strangelove, he would be in a wheelchair and his, you know, right arm would go up in a salute once in a while. And, uh, the thing about Evan was that he would stay in character no matter what.

And so while this thing is happening and people are getting punched out by the Blake street boys table, he was mosing, mosing. He was trying to, I guess the word skedaddle is the opposite of mosey. He was trying to skedaddle. Yeah. He was trying to get out of the, the main floor and he wouldn't get up out of his wheelchair. He just kept manually wheeling himself across the, across the floor to get to their front doors. Oh my goodness. So, so amazing. So many places I want to go, but because of the shirt and

because you dropped his name, I think I'm just going to play a song for a moment. This is a song, uh, the CF and Y heads out there would have heard this jam on CFNY just to kind of segue us over. So I'm going to go into a bit of a little bit of music, which sounds great in the headphones all these years later. Hold on, hold on, nothing is a dream that can change you faster It never seems to be wrong Move out of the tunnel Just can't seem to find it Try and reach out and hold out

I cannot touch you with you, I touch you. Ooh, yeah. Alright, please Colin, tell me when you first met Nash the Slash, talk to me about Nash the Slash. So he was another one of the regulars at the Roxy. Probably in 73-74 he was in a great trona band called Breathless. He didn't wear the bandages then. But he looked great, he had a top hat and tails and he played the electric violin. Great, great blue fire, you know, great theatrical band. And then he became a regular at the Roxy. And I remember when he started to think he wanted to go solo and he was trying to think of a name and him and Gary chatted a lot. He was

a good friend of Gary's and he came up with the name Nash the Slash. So I knew him from, you know, just before he turned into Nash and then up until, you know, until he passed. And what's his real name? Real name's Jeff Pluman. So before he adopted the moniker, then you knew him before. Before he was Nash the Slash. Yep. A lot of people for a while thought Nash was actually Ann Murray. It was one of it was one of the many rumors that went around but no no he was he was Jeffrey Jeff Plooman That's funny. Okay, you can hear in the schoolyards of Toronto. It's like, you know, an ashless lashes and Murray She had a big shout out to Anne Murray though, because when I was listening to Sesame Street fever

I also had there's a hippo in my bathtub by Anne Murray loved that album me street fever. I also had there's a hippo in my bathtub. I am a rate. Love that album. Love that album. Shout out to the late 70s there. OK, so Nash the Slash. And when you say Gary, just to confirm

your top, you can't say Gary on it because it's two Gary's, you know, multiple. That's right. They're not making Gary's anymore, by the way. Gary is a name. There's no kids named Gary. No, no, it's the new year. You're right.

They don't make them anymore. So read that. I read that some place. I think it's like there's none. And then I want to shut up to Gary Joyce who's listening. Hopefully a good guy. And I know a lot of Gary's I'm related to Gary's, but there's no young Gary's. Nope. Nope. That died off. The name has died off. So yeah, Nash the slash and this song, which by the way, CF and Y heads from the Spirit of Radio era, like when they hear this song, they're right back. It's amazing. And I pulled a few songs because one's going to segue over to the next segment.

But you're wearing this shirt for Nash the Slash. And tell me about this project that you're passionate about, the Nash the Slash doc. So for about five years now, I guess I've been involved in a documentary called Nash the Slash Rises again. I hooked up with this company called Side 3, which is really two people, Tim Kowalski and Kevin Byrne. They had started a documentary, they'd shot interviews, They needed an executive producer kind of did a shout out on Facebook. That actually interviewed me for the documentary. And I met with them and said, you know, maybe I can help you get it done.

And, and it's still taken five years. So I think, I think they might've thought an executive producer wrote a check or something. Well, you're not, you're calling Brunton. They're like, oh, this is the answer to all our problems. Yeah. Well, this will be a TIF next fall. It'll be, that's the beginning of all their problems. It was like, you know, I did a bit of fact checking and stuff, but, um, you know, so,

so anyways, as I joined them, they had just started a crowd funder. They, you know, raised, you know, 52 grand. We got some money from the slate foundation years agoer they you know raised you know 52 grand we got some money from the slate foundation years ago but you know there's been no interest from broadcasters or TIF and so why is that though I'm just concurrently I'm always interested in these docs especially the national slash doc and then there's a CF and white doc that's in the can okay yeah were you interviewed for that? Was I? I don't think so.

I think I licensed them some footage from the last Pogo though. Okay, okay, good. Remind me to play my like, just a little taste of the last Pogo. It's very short. Maybe I'll play it right after this little spiel here. But I mean, Iver Hamilton is involved in this documentary

who's gonna be on the panel with us. Imagine I just said, screw the Gary Topp book. I just wanna talk CFMI doc and I want to talk national slash doc You think I'd get in trouble with Derek Emerson if I did that? Don't give me an idea. Well, maybe that's me You know, maybe he knew this was gonna happen and that's why you're not doing the second part Well, you can withhold my check then Okay, so

this CFY doc is done and they kept, Alan Cross would write on his blog and then I would talk to people like Scott Turner and Iver Hamilton and this thing was supposed to be done and available to see if not at TIFF, then like concurrent like a side TIFF or a line at the same time, fall 2024. Okay. Checking my watch now. Okay. It's November.

This is, this is past tense. So where is it? I don't know. There's no date anymore. It's like these things. I don't know how this world works. So I'm so ignorant. The world doesn't work in a great way all the time as we found out last Wednesday. But right here's one thing. I don't know if this is a case with the CFNY doc. But you know, it's great to be a filmmaker these days. You can shoot stuff on your phone. You can edit at home. You know, you can do all this stuff.

It's unbelievable. However, what people, and I don't know this is a case with the CFNY doc, but with so many docs out there, they get all this stuff shot and then they find out about copyright and paying for rights. Oh yeah, clearing the music. Exactly. So one of the problems that, not even our problem, you know, we've had great, great support from like, first of all, the estate who gave us all his, all of Nash's music for

free, right? BMG Canada gave us all the publishing for one of the albums for free great great support however there's TV footage and TV licensing is hardcore man it's like between 60 and 120 bucks a second and you know you start adding that up if you want 10 minutes, that's 600 seconds. Like that's a lot. And we need way more than 10 minutes. You know, we, so our, the thing that's taken us so long is basically two things. One, and again, this can be the case with so many documentaries that don't quite hit the market

anymore is that you've got to find the money for it. You've also got to find the stuff and figure out if it's clearable. And, and, and in the case of Nash, it was like, you know, we're, we're, we're looking at footage that was shot sometimes 40, 50 years ago. So it's like, Hey, can we even find the owner? Um, you know, and then, you know, who owns the Texas chainsaw mass, you know, we, we have footage from the Texas chainsaw massacre because there's a big big big tie in between Nash and horror films and The Texas chainsaw massacre was like, you know, you find out Oh Universal owns it you write it

You go to the clearance people the woman very Promptly abruptly says an email. We own the rights. We're not interested in licensing you anything. All of these American companies do not give a shit. They don't care. We just fluked out. And a few weeks later, another one of our producers, Leanne Davies, I says, why don't you give her a buzz? Maybe, maybe woman to woman, maybe it'll make a difference. And sure enough, the woman goes, you know what we realize we don't own the rights. You've got to contact this lawyer in Austin, Texas. So, you know, go to this website. It looks like it was a go daddy website,

but then the meat of the website was this lawyer battling for the original originators of the Texas chainsaw massacres that this is the guy. So you think of the number of weeks that took to find and clear 30 seconds of footage and you multiply that, you know, if you compress, if we had a hundred people on our crew and we had 300,000 bucks, we could have, we could have, you know, shot edited completely the film in a year, but when there's no money, and we had 300,000 bucks, we could have shot, edited, completed the film in a year.

But when there's no money, you don't have time because you've got jobs and family. So with CFNY, I don't know what it was, but I got a suspicion it has to do with some sort of rights situation. And some of these companies, they just won they just won't bend, you know, so I find this very enlightening because, uh, you know, I don't know if there's a podcast in the world that's following these Canadian podcast, uh, documentaries

as closely as I am, but there was a documentary about much music called 299 queen street west. Yeah, man. I'll let me, okay. So as soon like, okay. So ever since I did even roadkill back in 89, I done I PMed a lot of a lot of feature films, you know, B movies, forgettable films, I was very, very, for some reason, keen on making sure we've got eyes

dotted, t's crossed, you got to clear this, you got to get permission here, etc. None of this thing, I'm going to beg forgiveness instead of asking for permission. I can't stand that. So when the CFNYDOT got announced and I knew it was with Bell Media, I thought, oh, that's interesting. So I guess- Oh, you mean the 299 Queen? Sorry, the 299 Queen. Yeah. When I heard about that and I thought, oh, I get it. So the guy's going to get all this footage from bell media as part of a licensing fee.

How is he going to clear all that music? Right. And sure enough, that's his problem. Well, I see, I saw this film at Roy Thompson hall cause he rented the place on a Friday night and had his premiere there. And then I saw, and this is a little fast forward, but I saw promotions for this documentary where it's going to be available on Crave, which is a Bell Media property. And it was promoted, like you could see it Friday or something.

And of course, because I'm pretty close to some people involved, like Retro Ontario and stuff. Sean Menard, the director's been over here talking about it. You know, I'm a much music guy. There's so much music in the wall. Shout out to David Kines, but this thing never made it to Crave. And here we are like over a year later,

and I don't know what's going on. If we'll ever see this 299 Queen's She With, cause like you said, there's a lot of footage. I don't know, Backstreet Boys are singing and Britney Spears and yeah, you got to clear these things. Yeah, it's tough. I'm in the same thing like, so I thought,

oh, wait a minute. It sounds like they're going to get this tough. I'm in the same thing like so I thought, Oh, wait a minute. It sounds like they're going to get this together. I want to watch this. I went to watch it that night on Crave. And just before it was like, okay, something else came on. And I thought they didn't clear it. And I know what they're going through. And it's a it's a bugger, man. It's a bugger. But I did. So again, I had like Scott Turner, Iver Hamilton, Alan Cross have all been in this basement. And they they took notes, like learned from the 299 Queen street West. And I mean, I had these conversations like, are you like, you saw what's happened there. Now your next sort of deal, if you're looking for this gen X, you know, GTA thing

or what Canadian thing. And I was basically told they were adamant that no, everything's on the up and up there are properly clearing properly clearing everything because if they're gonna play how soon is now They're gonna make sure that it's all up and up. But still some there's a snag somewhere I guess we'll have to find out what you know what they're saying about the snag But maybe I asked maybe that's my first question to Iver Hamilton on December 1st. Where the hell is the CFM? I dog I talked to Iver. Iver gave me a shout out for our crowd funder from national slash on NY the spirit of radio and he kind of hinted that yeah, they've run into some problems. I said I got to like he wouldn't tell me but I said give me give me a buzz if you want like I'd be glad to talk to them and sure and not that I could sort it out but I can at least explain why I think they're having a problem it and then now this is gonna

tie in and again I just there's certain again I hope you don't have a dentist appointment at 11 o'clock or anything because and I'm gonna it's worth the ride because you know you mentioned roadkill so I got I want to go there I also you just we're talking about these documentaries and they filmed Martin Scorsese. Ever heard of this guy? Some indie filmmaker. I've heard of that guy from New York or something, right? But he, you know, you were, were you at the SCTV documentary filming?

The thing? No, no, it was happening. I believe it was happening while we were shooting one of the seasons of Schitt's Creek. Okay. Well, Eugene got there. Yes. Catherine O'Hara got there. Yes. Catherine O'Hara got there. Yes. And even Joe Flaherty made it. Yes, he did. And well, the big get, the

big get at the time was that Rick Moranis was there. Yeah. He's the guy who seems to be withholding and he doesn't do much. He did a benefit for Ian Thomas's son. And I think that was it. Bob and Doug, although they do these beer ads or something. They do. Yeah. But I don't know what happened with that. So yeah, you have. So what's so the SCTV doc I was excited about.

They, everyone I talked to who was there said it went off great at the winter garden theater there. And this thing doesn't seem to be coming out. I think it's going to rot on some shelf in the Scorsese warehouse or whatever. Meanwhile, then the 299 Queen Street one, which I got to see, but it never saw the light of day for the public yet. Here we are waiting in the CF and why dog I was very excited about. So basically, this is a long way to say when can I see

the national slash dog, you know, really comes down to when we find another $37,000. We're so close. We're we're at the point now37,000, we're so close. We're at the point now where we've got a second crowd funder and it's remarkable. We've raised 38,000 bucks. There's no perks. It's like, you know, you get your name in the credits,

we'll give you a shout out on social media. You might get a dopamine rush from donating some money. But it's really inspiring because these are fans and supporters and people that want to help an indie film. So we're really, really close. We're applying to the arts councils. We've got, I've got an email someplace from the CBC where I was trying to dig up money from them years ago and I've got an email from the CBC and they pretty much in,

in the email, they pretty much list every single possible CBC outlet that might show a film like that and said, none of us are interested. Why is that though? Because he's not Nickelback. Oh, he's not Nick. He's not Nickelback. He's not the tragically hip.

He's the, he's us, you know, in the grand scheme of things, he's undeservedly obscure, you know, but I think the most, I think it's much more interesting than tragically here per whoever I'm with. And I love the tragically hip doc, but I'm with you. This whole idea that if it isn't a big time, no one mainstream thing, then we're not going to invest in it. It's like TIF, like TIF, you know, TIF used to be a thing called the festival of festivals. It was,

it was called the festival for the people and they had a thing called, you know, Canadian perspective and they would, you know, show Canadian films. I didn't even know they have so many different programs, but I just find that they want to do, you know show Canadian films. I don't even know they have so many different programs But I just find that they want to do you know people plead crowd-pleasing shows like Great you showed the Bruce doc and Bruce springsteen documentary. I'm sure it's great Pharrell I love the guy great. It is like you know I Don't know if they need the exposure as much as a gem like, like Nash. So one of the things that I mean, you know,

where we're trying to look at the silver lining, right? But like, like once we get the film done, we will, we're going to have it done. We're confident we'll have it done next year is, you know, maybe this will be discovered. Like maybe it'll be a searching for sugar men or, or, um, you you know the anvil like the anvil is a great example uh very good example of anvil's not a big known band the guys like us know anvil but the great unwashed that you encounter on your commute to work or whatever on the subway most of them won't know who the hell anvil is but what a great doc that was they got that finished

totally yeah okay geez cullen we to get this money to finish this. Now you know who you got to talk to Clive Smith. Well, he's got the cash. Let me tell you, man, I have written, I haven't written to Clive. I, I'd run into Clive once in a while, but it's like, you know, the emails I've written and the texts I've sent to people that I know have a bit of so-called some coins, just so humbling. It's just, it's embarrassing. Like Gary Slates, you can't get this guy to, you know. They came through once already.

Yeah, so they gave us, they gave us the max. They go back to that well. Yeah, no, we can't go. I tried to go back to the well and I says, no, Colin, you can't come back to the well quite yet. So, but we got 25 grand from them, which was, you know, my partner's- Which is amazing.

Yeah, it was great. And it was like, okay, now we're getting there. Like we got some momentum. I don't think we're gonna, I don't mean, I don't think the crowdfunding thing is gonna be that hot until January because of Christmas and stuff. But you know, we're pounding the streets, putting up handbills. Okay, so is there like a website or something? People listening who maybe, maybe Rob Proust right now on the live stream says I've got some money I want to help fund this

thing like is there a place where you're accepting money for this yeah all Rob Pruse has to do is go to gofundme.com Nash the slash rises again and get your Visa card and you write in yeah $2,000 or even 200 or $20. You'll take 20. And you press click and you're done. And then we get, because some days, honestly we're sitting there and I'm refreshing my phone so often. It's like, Oh my God.

You know, and then it's like, like, you know, like the social media stuff, man. And just like, just last night, this guy, Glenn Garin, this local artist, he had some problems donating and it found out it was all you needed to be on the Chrome server. Anyways, he made a really nice donation of a hundred bucks. This morning, I thanked him because I had his email and I said, you know, and that this is when you've got to be so careful. It's like, you know, Hey Glen, and I wanted to say,

thanks very much. Somehow predictive text, predictive text, translated that to, thanks douche. So like, okay, I caught that. I'm not sending that to Glenn. That's like the message you got from that bank back in the day. It's like, don't come back.

Oh no, that guy was, that guy was straight ahead. So, okay, Colin, I realized Mike, reign yourself in. Are you gonna lose the gig that that lucrative gig as moderator of the panel on December 1st? You know, you're gonna get, Derek's gonna fire you. So here, I'm gonna play a little bit of the last Pogo clip I pulled and then I'm gonna roll into a song and then I know exactly what I want to ask you about next so let's listen. Hey Ted, scene one take three. Oh! Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey.

You guys think we'll be doing the same thing in five years? Filming? I hope it doesn't take longer than ten minutes. My car's double parked. I'm gonna blow your mind The No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! I wanna roll kill I want a role kill I want a big dick coke and we do it five Better than catch a hundred foot in a fire It's either we eat it or we survive The cat on the tire, it's either the nightlife

It's either role kill A little more Nash the slash. Get people inspired to, you know, open up their wallets and whip out that credit card and find the GoFundMe and get this thing made here, okay. But specifically, Roadkill. Love it, okay. Please tell me about working with Bruce McDonald. Oh, we had a great time. So I met Bruce at a co-op in Toronto called Lyft.

Lot of kindred spirits there, we all kind of helped each other. I made this goofy short film called The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada. Bruce was a producer on it. And I won a Genie. It won what was called, yeah, it was called a Genie Award. And so, he had gotten an Arts Council grant for about 70 grand to make a film called All the Children Are In, which is about a band called Neon Rome, who were awesome. So he wanted me to help him.

Was John Bora in Neon Rome? Yeah, John Bora was in Neon Rome. I talked to him, yeah. Yeah, John's awesome. And then not long before we were going to shoot, you know, Bruce phoned Neil Arbuck, the lead singer of Neon Rome, to talk about the show and all we heard was tapping on the phone. And anyways, Neil had decided to take a vow of silence. And we thought, oh, I don't know if, you know, this, what do we do now? And anyways, it just kind of evolved

with Don McKellar got involved and it evolved into an actual story and called Roadkill. Which I loved, I loved Roadkill. Just throwing it out there. It's got some legs, man. It was like, it was a lot of fun. It was like Total Gonzo. You know, we didn't have all the funding.

It was much like me during the last Pogo. It's like, you know what? We got enough money to shoot it. Let's just see what happens. We applied for money from a thing called the Ontario Media. No, it was called the Ontario Film Development Corporation we timed it so that we would know know if we got the grant the money or not on the first day of filming when we were so cocky like the the thing with me and Bruce was like you know we had no fucks left to give like we were just how we were as any

still does I think we're just trying to have fun every step of the way. And so when we applied for the money, we, I remember dropping off the application and it was the day, it was like the day you could drop off applications and you did it physically. And, and there was this older woman at the desk and i said you know his replication uh... for the future film prod uh... fund uh... you know can you do you think you can put it at the top of the pile so they see it right away and she's like well no i can't do that you've got to go in order and i says well

you know i think if you open up the application and look in the last page there might be a little treat for you there and we'd stuffed it with um 10 000 american dollars of uh set dressing money like counterfeit money right right right i thought she was gonna have a heart attack she freaked out and she says i can't take that i said oh come on pretend you're in new york city like just go for it and then i said no we're just joking. Anyways, we ended up getting that money. And then, you know, the film, it was great

because we had, I've still got it at home. We had, I think the script was maybe 45 pages long. And the whole film was sort of reverse engineered. Like we just figured out like, what can we do for 70 grand? Let's do this instead of that. Let's do this instead of that and, and do this instead of that and and make it happen. So you produce Roadkill, but you also produce Highway 61, which I also loved. I love these films. These were like formidable. These are important films to teenaged Mike here. Roadkill

and Highway 61. I love the music. Bruce McDonald. You mentioned Don McKellar. Like you were producing these films. Yeah, I know I got gotta let the listenership know, okay? This is the mind blow. So essentially from last Pogo, and now you're doing Roadkill in Highway 61, and you mentioned your mysterious moon men of Canada, which won you the genie for best live action short. But now you're a going concern here in the big smoke.

Oh gee, I wish. Well, I'll give it names to my credit. So again, I won't take the six hours I. Oh gee I wish. Well I'll give it namesake so so again I I won't take the six hours I threatened to take from you I'll try to keep this reasonable under 90 minutes but this is a good moment I think for me to give you some gifts and I know you have gifts for me so the new rule is everybody listen all future guests this is a quid pro quo thing I will give you gifts but you got to bring me something okay that's what Colin what Colin did. So I, are you, I don't even know. Are you still drinking alcohol? I never know anymore. Who's not me. No more. Okay. No one in your

house. Okay. You know, you can donate these cans to me. I'm just letting you know. Okay. That funnily enough, that was my gift to you, was these four cans of beer. I think that qualifies, you know. So I would love to thank Great Lakes Brewery because of the good intentions they sent over fresh craft beer for Colin Brunton, who is politely declining, but I will consume these delicious cans of GLB, and I will thank them for sending over some beer for TMLX17. What is that? Colin is wondering to himself. Well, the day before our panel discussion at 888 Yonge Street, I am hosting the 17th Toronto Mic'd listener experience at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga and everybody who comes out for the live recording there, Colin, it'd be amazing if you showed

up there the day before because I will, everyone gets a free meal from Palma pasta a delicious Italian meal please tell me you're still eating Italian food absolutely thank goodness man thank goodness all right I do have a large lasagna in my freezer for you courtesy of Palma pasta and everybody who's listening is invited on the 30th of November 2024 noon to 3 p.m. at Palmer's kitchen which is in Mississauga Google it like Mavis Burnham Thorpe area and we're gonna have a great time again you're gonna get your meal you're gonna get a beer from Great Lakes I have for you a measuring tape Colin this is courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home you can measure what you wish I know you're on set you need to measure

something I won't ask any more questions about that, but I also have a Wireless speaker for you calling its courtesy of mineras because with that wireless Bluetooth speaker High quality speaker by the way you will subscribe and listen to yes We are open which is an award-winning podcast from Al Grego He's nominated again for a Canadian podcast award. This guy's always winning the awards. He traveled to Winnipeg and he collected stories from small businesses, their origins, their struggles, their future outlook, and he shares these in season seven of Yes We Are Open. So thank you, Maneras, for the speaker that's going to call in.

You got your speaker measuring tape. You're giving me the beer, you're taking the lasagna, one piece of advice because I'm sure as a film, as a producer, director, you've got, I don't know, a room full of old cables or old devices. Yeah, I did this on the weekend. So true story, I have laptops that haven't worked in ten years, okay? I got the cabling for, I went through all my old electronics and cables and put together a couple of boxes and then I went to recycle my electronics dot CA and I put in my postal code and I found out that I could drop these off at a Staples near Sherway Gardens not too far from here and they'll be properly recycled so the chemicals do not end up in our landfill.

Thank you recycle my electronics dot. Colin, you can do that too, buddy. I've done it. I go down. I love going to the dumps in the city for some reason, and I've dropped off my stuff there. So I've got stuff for you. Okay, what do you got for me? I have a DVD of The Last Pogo. Amazing. And I've also got a DVD of The Last Pogo

Jumps Again. I'm not very imaginative on titles, as you can see. This was the three and a half hour film I did with Kirei Papouts about the original 76 to 78 Toronto punk scene. And I've got a Nash the Slash postcard. I love all of this. And the fact I'm gonna get that Nash the Slash postcard on the studio wall, I like it so much.

And thank you very much. Nash the Slash arises again. Thank you, man. You're welcome. And I love it. I was gonna mention the last Pogo jumps again and yeah you beat me to it and it's a lot longer than the last Pogo. It's great. It's like our original cut. I think the cut that me and Kire were really happy with was five and a half hours long and then the Canada Council says you know we'd like your project. We can't support something that's that long. It's too long they say. We cut it down. Yeah thank God you had the measuring tape around the funeral. It's funny I

mentioned Scorsese sitting on that SCTV footage because he didn't sit on the last waltz footage and no last waltz no last pogo. That's right. Lest we forget here. Okay now where I want to, unless I'm missing some stuff you want to talk about, which can go over the place, but I do want to, so I played that song Roadkill, cause they let us talk about the Bruce McDonald stuff, which I absolutely loved, but you've produced a shit ton of television. Like we've talked a bit about Schitt's Creek, but I mean, I was trying to say, what else has he done?

Okay. Little mosque on the Prairie, the newsroom, but not, not the American, not the Sorkin done? Okay little mosque on the prairie the newsroom But not not the American not the sorkin one the one I like I love the newsroom. Yeah, it was fun I mean so the producers like okay, you know not lots of money involved listeners It's I'm basically what they call a line producer which means you know my hired gun so I got hired You don't want your friends asking you for money. Well, I don't want, you know, especially people that have like go fund me campaigns and crap like that. I don't want to deal with it. They don't want a rich guy asking to fund the.

I've been lucky. I've gotten to work on some interesting stuff. Yeah. And I'm going to go into it. I could go, um, let me just start with this one just because I think this is like the highest. So we mentioned that you couldn't attend the SCTV reunion, but somehow Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara made their way over there. So how did you end up producing Schitt's Creek? Give me the Schitt's Creek story. I got lucky.

Eugene Levy and Dan Levy pitched the, um, pitched the project to CBC. I think everyone knows the famous story and that, you know, the CBC didn't jump at the opportunity at first, which was crazy. They wanted Eugene and Dan to change the title. They didn't want to show it after nine o'clock and Eugene, uh, said, no, no, it's called Schitt's Creek. Here's a Dick. Here's a Toronto Telephone book that shows people with that last name.

And it was given to Eugene in an approach to Toronto financier film guy who was actually so deep pocketed, he just thought, I don't have the time to do this. And he talked to a friend of mine, Andrew Barnsley, and said, do you wanna exec produce this show? And Andrew's like, yeah. mine, Andrew Barnsley, and said, do you want to exec produce this show? And Andrew's like, yeah. And then Andrew says, hey, Colin,

do you want to work on a show with Eugene Levy and Chris Elliott and maybe Katherine O'Hara? He says, yeah. So it was a lucky thing. So that does beg the question, what the hell does a producer do? Is a producer different for every project? Is that just a catch-all term?

It's a it's a it's a crazy term It's like there's executive producers co-executive producers associate producers producers line producers So I'm in the sweet spot of just producer which means you know essentially Someone raises a bunch of money. They hire me. It's like, okay, we have $22 million to do 13 episodes. This is what we're paying our stars. This is what we're paying that. How do we do the rest? And so then you go from there and you figure out,

how do we, so how do we make this film? How do we make this TV show? But Schitt's Creek, very, very successful by any measurement, right? I mean, it has some record with Emmy awards for, I don't know, sweeping. No one's ever swept those awards. Yeah, the only comedy I think to get that many awards. What a monster success story Schitt's Creek is. Yeah.

And you're sure you're not swimming in a, like on your bed, you got just $100 bills, ceiling, like Scrooge McDuck or something. No, you'd think that right. But no, not at all. No, I didn't, I didn't own any piece. You don't have Clive Smith money. I don't have Clive Smith money. I don't have Barry Smith money. Frank Smith down the street money. Okay. Well then what's wrong with this country? Come on, okay. So, that's great. So congrats on the success of Schitt's Creek.

But I also, at least the sixth season of The Kids in the Hall, and I loved The Kids in the Hall. And just to know that you had anything to do with the sixth season. So what did you do for the sixth season of The Kids in the Hall? Same kind of thing. And it's actually, it was the same producer, Andrew Barnsley got the show to exec producer, hired, or to exec producer, it hired me to produce it for them

and jumped into it, found a studio. It was awesome because I actually found, this is when I actually started, hey, I think I can work east of the DVP the rest of my life. Cause we found this studio that was up in Scarborough, 10 minutes from my house I love this and we shot

Eight episodes. It was great Amazon finance it we had a shit ton of money to spend so You know that the DOP you know I would tell him just really get anything you want And the directors and you know it's so everyone got what they wanted on that show. I think it was, it was very, uh, very liberating creatively for the people on the show in that kind of position. Cause they could, we could pretty much do anything we wanted. Amazing. And I know we did mention the newsroom moments ago, but is Ken Finkelman a bit of a dink or is he okay? I get a dink vibe. I like Ken. I got along with Ken somehow.

Ken got along with me, but, um, like, like your, your question about what does a producer do is like, he didn't know what I did. Like I was his fucking line producer for a couple of seasons. And I remember him and, um, the guy who hired me, Peter Mayboom, who's another producer slash line producer, be him and Ken were partners in the newsroom. And so we finished the first season, I guess, and him and, uh, Peter and Ken were on a plane, uh, and I think they were going off to con maybe,

or some big TV festival and they've been delayed for hours and so you know they they sat in the plane and drank and Ken Finkelman called me while they're waiting and said Colin I still don't know what you do but you do a great job man great job oh thanks Ken you know he directed airplane too he did he did airplane shout out to Andrew Stokely who these days is spent uh he's in the truck making sure that the uh the curling or the Blue Jays game audio gets to the television properly that's what he's up to but he worked on I think there's an early super early episode of Toronto Mike I just want to Stokely to tell me Finkelman

stories from uh Airplane 2 but uh. Do you want to hear to hear a Simpson story? I love the Simpsons. So, so Ken Finkelman is the, I think it was the first or second season of the Simpsons and he, his agent said, Hey, they want to talk to you. They want you to be a writer on the show. Wow. So he flew down to New York for the first read through or the first meeting. And, uh, he was fretting about leaving his family up here. He went to the meeting. He's sitting there with 12 other writers.

They start talking about the show and Ken goes, uh, excuse me, one minute. And he stands up and he leaves, just went right to the airport and took off to say goodbye. And he just left and came back to Canada and then had a very nice relationship with CBC where they kind of let him do whatever he wanted. That's a good, I did not know that story. It's wild, getting in the ground floor almost of the Simpsons thing. You know, maybe he could have been the next Conan O'Brien.

Who knows? Maybe Conan got that gig. Very smart guy, you know, he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way But I I really liked work with him. He was fun. What's he up to? I mean, I feel like he's gone underground I don't know what happened to can't get him dig this guy up and put him on Toronto Mike He did he did enough movie a few years ago that I don't think went over well and that's the last I've heard of him Okay, okay Wow and that's the last I've heard of him. Okay, okay. Wow. You know, I feel like the SEO for the newsroom

got stolen by Sorkin, because he had the big Jeff Daniels newsroom. And he's like, now you have to say, I'm talking about the Finkelman newsroom. And then, and you know, we can joke about Finkelman and airplane too, but Jeremy Hots was on the newsroom and that man was in speed two.

Okay. So these are all the lesser lesser. But can you tell me Jeremy Hots? I, uh, he's been on the program. I, uh, I got time for Jeremy Hots. I think he's a funny guy. It's great guys. So we were on the same season together and I can't think of what it was, but me and Jeremy, there was a, there was a new guy, new person on the crew who was like a PA or something. And it was one of the very, if might've been their very first film job and mean Jeremy

played some kind of practical joke on him. And it backfired so badly that once we told the kid that we were joking he he was relieved and left the business Wow and I feel so bad and I have often wanted to talk to Jeremy like can you remember what we did because I can't at all oh I was gonna ask and we did I don't I mean I'm not a cruel person Jeremy's not but was some kind of joke that it just, it didn't work out. Well, we know you got that practical joke mindset from the, the fake money in the but these are all pretty harmless things.

You weren't doing anything to, uh, I would love to know what that practical, I would love to talk to this guy and find out what exactly happened. I don't know what we did. That was maybe that was Stokely. That's, we find out that it was Stokely. He went into like behind the scenes audio stuff or whatever for sports or whatever like this. Okay.

A quick shout out here as we wind down. So, uh, spun out another show that you, uh, produce, but I can't say I watched spun out. So that's why I'm brushing unless you got a great story there. Puppets Who Kill is another one I missed. So a lot of your stuff, of course, how could you miss it? This is big stuff, but Puppets Who Kill, I think I missed that one. I gotta go back and watch that one.

Puppets Who Kill, it was like the funniest show ever to work on, but somehow it didn't always translate to the final product. Like we would, I probably never laughed so hard on a set in my life, but then somehow when it got edited, we'd watch it on TV. It's like, Oh, I don't know. It wasn't, it wasn't as funny as it was four weeks ago. Interesting how that works. All right. So on our way out, though,

I would like to ask you a little bit about being the first executive director of the feature film project, which this was a Norman Jewison initiative. He's a, he's a Canadian film center tell me about this so yeah I got approached to to run this program called the feature film project the idea was that it was open for first-time directors writers and producers who'd you know been to the film center two to three had to have been to the film center. And I was offered this gig. I had a baby on the way. I needed this elusive thing called a full-time job, which I hadn't had in years.

I accepted the job. And I thought it would be like awesome because it's like, oh made things hey you have soul green you can solely green light like if you say you want to do a project we're doing it and I thought that's crazy that's amazing that's artistic freedom it was fantastic the the drag was I did turn so many people down so I was naive I thought oh this would be great I'll get to produce you know a bunch of feature films for first timers it'll be fun we can do some crazy stuff what I hadn't thought through was like well I've got a I've got to turn down and I literally I probably turned down 400 people or groups of people and projects because you know sorry we're we can't do this one right but yeah it was a good it

was great experience and I mean a couple of the films that we should shout out that people might have heard of I sure saw a rude and cube yeah yeah so both films were very clever filmmakers they did a great little trick in that Vincenzo Natale who did cube did a really good little movie called Elevator, Elevated. Funnily enough, Gary Taupe was a music supervisor on it. And so that proved to, he did it as proof that he, his whole film takes place in an elevator and his thing was like, hey, I'm gonna prove

that I can make a compelling drama in one, one location. Clement Virgo, who did rude, did a similar thing. He did a short film, uh, the film center called, uh, save my loss, and word soul that was very, very psychedelic, much to the, uh, uh, much like rude ended up being. So those guys, when they came with their projects, they were the, uh, uh, much like rude ended up being. So those guys, when they came with their projects, they were like, Hey, you know, this is what we've done.

Like we can actually do this. And we got them going and got them approved. And, and there you go. Awesome. On our way out, I thought I'd better, I've been talking about this Gary top book and I've never named the book. Okay. So the book is called, He Hijacked My Brain

and the launch party that you'll be at is Sunday, December 1st, that's the day after, that's how they should promote it, the day after TMLX 17 at Palma's Kitchen. But doors, I don't know if there's any tickets available, there weren't a lot to start with and they went pretty quick. I do know Rob Pruse grabbed a ticket, so he'll be there. But it's at the concert hall,

but it's not just the concert hall. I'm kind of excited about the fact it's the red room and this was the Mason's inner sanctum, a chamber for all meetings and ceremonies. I've never been in the red room. Have you been in this room? Nope. Nope. Even though you're related to a Mason.

Nope, nope. Never been in there. Okay. So I'm looking forward to chatting with you. It's sold out seven o'clock show that night. There's a second in there. Okay. So I'm looking forward to chatting with you. It's sold out seven o'clock show that night. There's a second show now. Okay. So he hijacked the second show now, but, uh, this will be, uh, the Gary

top, uh, I, I should have the whole list of people on the panel, but all that matters is that Colin Brunton will be there and dude, I'm so glad we got to do this like lengthy pre-interview. Should I have recorded this Colin? Um, I did record it. That's a practical joke right there. Thanks for the gifts. Anything you wanted to share that I think how come Mike didn't mention all this, the, you know, head wig and the angry inch and all this other stuff. Is there anything?

Oh, you know, no, no, it was great. It was really, it was a pleasure. If you had just done the last POGO, I feel like I would have had you over for 90 minutes. So I can't believe you did more. And if people want to hear, see the last Pogo jumps again, for example, you know, the both the punks last Waltz. Where do they go? They just only the only place is available for me is Vimeo. So if you go to Vimeo and search the title, you'll find downloads there. And Circus Books on Danforth has a pile of DVDs if you're into the something you can hold in your hand.

Oh, quick shout out to Empire of Dirt and a quick question on the way out. So Empire of Dirt, which you were a line producer on, it was nominated for Best Picture at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards. Quick question for you because you got the Genie Award and then you got nominated for the Canadian Screen Awards. Quick question for you because you got the Genie Award and then you got nominated for the Canadian Screen Award. What did you like better? You know, Genies or Canadian Screen Awards? Did you have a preference? Well, let me hear your thoughts on that. Well, I don't know. I don't think they're that important. As a matter of fact, I sent

my Genie back to the Academy about a couple of years after. Really? Yeah, I just, when Highway 61 came out, we got no nominations at all, and I just thought, you know what, this is bullshit. Like I won an award for short film that I'm positive the jurors didn't really watch. It's a good title though. But they thought it had a really good title.

And then we make this movie that critics like, Siskel and Ebert liked. Toronto Mike liked. Toronto Mike liked. And it's like, we didn't get one nomination. So I sent it back to them. And apparently it is in a, it is in a room at the Academy of Canadian Institute with many other genies and CSAs that people have sent back.

I think Bruce wrote, I think someone told me they found this garbage bag on the street and it was all these awards to Bruce McDonald. I think he's thrown out all of his awards. You saved the best for last here because I normally ask, like, where is your genie award today? Like, is it on display?

You sent that thing back. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, well. That's good. Highway 61 was amazing. Come on. Should have won best pick. Who do you have any memory of who won best picture that year? No clue. No idea. Well, that's the thing. That's the thing with the awards. I'll give you a thousand bucks.

If you can tell me who won the CSA last year for best feature film, you're not going to get it. No no I thank God you weren't gonna kill me I'd be at Ridley funeral home right now yeah and that brings us to the end of our 1579th show go to Toronto Mike calm to find out I've been kind of digging blue sky lately kind of ticked off at this whole Twitter thing anyway you can find me at Toronto Mike calm if.com. If I'll go to Blue Sky, I'm Toronto Mike there. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, recyclemyelectronics.ca, Raymond James Canada,

Minaris, and Ridley Funeral Home. Give some money you cheap sons of guns out there. Go to GoFundMe.com slash F, I guess there's an F in there, slash Nash the slash rises again. Nash the slash rises again. Cough up some money. Let's get this thing financed. Nash the slash rises again. See you all later this week. down on Shak'likur But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

but the smell of snow warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy, yeah Everything is rosy and great Yeah