Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dani Elwell: Toronto Mike'd #390

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

Mike chats with Dani Elwell about her years at CKLN and CKFM, her on-air resignation at CFNY, her time at JAZZ.FM91 and sad departure from the station and what's next.

Welcome to episode 390 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know, Dani, that 99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? I did not know that. GLB. Rude for you, Ontario. And propertyinthesix.com. Toronto real estate done right.

And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. And Census Design and Build build providing architectural design interior design and turnkey construction services across the gta i'm mike from toronto mike.com and joining me is broadcaster danny elwell hi how are you? Welcome, Danny. You gotta love a guy who, just before he puts the mic on, says,

Rock and roll. Did I say that? Yeah, you did. It was cool. I liked it. I mean it. This is going to be, to borrow a phrase from Stu Jeffries, good rockin' tonight.

See? It's a commitment. You're committed. I love it. And I stand by my record It's a commitment. You're committed. And I stand by my record. Very few people leave here with regrets. I'm confident you're going to have a good time. I heard you say that, too. Maybe I'm too confident.

This will be the one that goes south. I completely agree. And I brought you a gift, by the way. I love getting gifts. I hope your teeth are good. I still have my teeth, by the way. I love getting gifts. Yeah. I hope your teeth are good. Yeah. There you go. I still have my teeth, which is the most important thing. So, and see how far away I have to read it?

I'm going blind, I think, Dani. Is that bad? Like, I used to be able to read here. No one can see this but you. I don't think you have to read it. I think you just have to look at it. Canada's Caramel Apple. Yeah.

Fantastic. Yeah. No, thank you so much. Yeah. I just thought you could, you you know chow down on a autumn treat i just love that you brought me gifts because soon i'm going to give you some gifts but uh it's not very often that the guest brings me gifts so you're welcome back anytime you're on the uh i'm gonna put you on danny on the good list here it'll be another five years

or something before we get it together right i was gonna say okay do you know that we're meeting for the first time right now? I know, but I feel as if I know you. When you opened the door to your lovely home here, I thought, ah, it's Mike. I was this close to giving you a hug and then I remembered,

you can't hug someone you're meeting for the first time unless it's like, I don't know, she's dating your brother or something. You know what I mean? I'm cool with that. But I didn't. I tried to show some restraint

and I don't know if I shook your hand like we were closing some business deal or something. I reached out to shake your hand and you kind of

coiled a little bit but then you were fine. I shook your hand and then I said Danny's here and then I realized we're meeting for the first time

but yeah I have been corresponding with you for like I think it's close to five years I don't know. I'm sorry. Why are you sorry? Tell me. Are you sorry because it took so long to talk you into

this? Honestly, you didn't have to talk me into anything. I just, I apologize that it's been so long. That's all. And I appreciate your being kind and accommodating. Listen, you do not have to apologize for anything. I'm just grateful you're here. You'd be surprised at the people who don't even, they never come. So you're here. So I'm just like. So who hasn't come that you really, really want to come?

Here's the guy. And I asked him for the first time maybe five and a half years ago or something. Longer than me. Dave Bookman. Oh. I wanted Bookie on because I love listening to Bookie. Yeah, who doesn't? But Bookie said, no, thank you.

Well, you know, okay. I know. That's where that happened with Danny Elwell. I got, I don't know if I got a no, thank you or just, you just are a perpetual like delayer. Yeah. And then at some point I get the hint, but then I forget the hint and I ask again.

And then it's like another delay. And then I'm like, oh, Mike, take a hint. So Bookie just flat out said no. Right. He said he was nice about it, but he said no, thank you. Okay. Anybody else? I'm just trying to see if I can help you.

Okay. Well, how friendly are you with primetime sports is Bob McCowan? No, I've met him once, I think. Was he nice to you? Yeah, he was. Yeah. Because he's got a persona as a curmudgeonly kind of... Did he respond to you in that kind of manner?

He was nice in his response in the sense that he wasn't rude, but he just said that he doesn't do that kind of thing. He just talks to Rogers people. Well, that's fair. I mean, you know something. Well, it's all fair. Like, no one's, like, obligated to come into my basement. Regardless of how wonderful it is.

It's lovely. Even though I have good references. You have great references. Including Roger Ashby. Okay. So, because just this morning, Roger Ashby announced he's retiring from Chum after, like he's been there since 85, I think at Chum FM, but he was at Chum AM since like

69. What a good service, eh? Like truly. It's like 50 years. Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's an amazing thing. And in the old days, they used to give you a Porsche or something for that. Now they give you an old Mazda Protege. Hey, that's all right. I don't know.

Anyway, that's a wonderful lifetime of broadcasting there. No, and he's a nice guy. I mean, I've been only a couple of times, but he did come in. But just because it's timely before we dive into the world of Danny. Here's a minute of Ashby on Toronto Mic'd when I

asked him when would he retire? Has anyone at Bell Media... Well, anyways, let's listen to the minute and then we'll just briefly talk about it. So is there any pressure from Bell Media for you to gracefully exit? Do you have any pressure at all like that? What have you heard?

I've heard nothing. Not yet. And so how long, tell me, how long will, if it's up to you, how long will you run? I don't know. Everybody asks me that. That's the big question, right? I love my job. It's not physically exhausting. It's fun. Sometimes the best part of my day is when I'm at work because we laugh and laugh and laugh. So why would I give that up? I'm not the type who's looked forward to retirement because I hate my job and can't wait to get out of that place. I'm not that kind of person. So why would I retire? What would I do if I retired? I don't have a lot of hobbies. I've been playing radio since I was three years old. So what am I going to do if I

ever leave? Yeah, if you left, you'd just end up podcasting anyway. I'd end up dying. And you know, the pay here isn't nearly as good as the pay is there. No, surprisingly enough. Hopefully, he says, yes. Anyway, that was a few years ago. And today he announced that his last day is december 5th so roger's leaving by the way roger's replacement like i miss his old news

because john donabee came over and spilled the beans on this anyways because how long ago is that july july okay so he said uh ashby's gone by the end of the year and i said well how do you know that john roger told me so i figure if ashby told Donabee. So we've been talking about it here like it's fact because, I mean, Ashby told Donabee and Donabee said it here. But they hired the Roger Ashby replacement in July, who's a guy named Jamar McNeil, who came over last week. And he's a nice guy. He seems pretty cool. I heard him a couple of days ago, I think. Nice guy.

So congrats, Roger, because 50 years on Toronto Radio is nothing to sneeze at. That's a long time. So it's good for you, Roger. I'm going to start with some gifts for you now, Danny. So get these presented to you because you gave me this lovely caramel apple here. So it's only because I gave you the apple? See, that's normally a prop. Oh, okay.

But because you gave me something, now I'm going to just let you take it home. Okay. But that is a six pack of craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Yum. So enjoy that. You take that home with you.

And I have just, you can enjoy that six-pack from Great Lakes. They're good people. I think December 8th, I think, is the big Christmas market at Great Lakes. So there's more news on greatlakesbeer.com, but they have a whole bunch of stuff going on there, including they're going to have Christmas trees

and stuff like that at their Christmas market. So put that in the calendar. I don't actually drink, but I know many, many people who will be very, very grateful to have this. And if they sponsor you, then they're lovely folks. No, I need you to drink it, actually, Danny. No, I'm just kidding.

No, I made, you know what happened? Tell me what you would do in this situation. So Joe Tilly came on. Yeah. This is the last episode, I think. And no, second last episode, because Kevin McGrann was This is the last episode, I think. And, no, second last episode because Kevin McGrann was here for the Toronto Star. I apologize.

Okay, so he was here, Joe, and Joe was very open and honest about, he battled alcoholism. And he went into rehabilitation. He was very open about this. And he's been sober for many, many, many years now. And that's great. So at that point, like, am I a dick

that I gave him a six-pack of beer to take home with him? Or is it like... Was it disgust? I don't even know. Well, I mean, I did it before he told the story. Oh, I see.

And then he tells the story. And then I realized, and I told him, even though I said... But he says, oh, I'm going to pass it on to my daughter or whatever. Yeah, well, he didn't know.

No, I mean, and... And he was honest about his life, so that's fair. But you're going to pass that on to somebody you care about. Not because I, you know, I just, I haven't probably since I was about 16, but...

You never took to the taste. I never took to the taste of alcohol, really, and, you know, it's interesting because so many people will say, God, you seem like you've led like so many people will say, God, you seem like you've led like this crazy life and blah, blah, blah. And when I say that I don't drink or, you know, really do drugs or anything, they always sort of go, what? So I don't know.

Okay. So you're not partaking now, you know, everybody in Canada is smoking weed because it's mandatory. I think this is a good time. When Canada Post ever gets back to work, they'll deliver everybody's weed. I think that'll be the big pileup in the Canada Post offices of these big green piles of marijuana. That's what I think.

Sort of an interesting picture. But you don't enjoy the wacky tobacco either. Not for... God, I can't even remember the last time, honestly. Well, this is quite candid. I guess you could say that's none of your business. No, I don't care.

Jamar McNeil enjoys the marijuana. That's cool. Whatever. It doesn't matter to me. Oh, for sure. Here's a blast from the past, and then I got some questions. Let me play you something from... Oh, man. Let me play you something from... Oh, man. This is a jam that was played on Much Music quite a bit back in the day.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You ever heard of this artist? Nope. Doesn't ring a bell. Give it a little bit here. So Del Bello, Let's Tango. Yeah, she's pretty good.

You actually, okay, tell us, how do you know Del Bello besides the fact she's a great musician? She is not just a great musician. She's a killer musician. Lisa is my husband's sister and my daughter's aunt. So your sister-in-law? My sister-in-law. So you have some connection with those dots there.

Okay. That's very cool. So she's still active in performing? That's very cool. So she's still active in the, like, performing? Last I kind of tapped in there, she was writing some sounds for television shows. And, I mean, she has spent a large part of her life writing as well. So I think that is her main focus these days.

Speaking of writing music. Oh, God. Oh. Ha, of writing music. Oh, God. Oh. Oh, man. Sounds good in the headphones. Why, you've done your research. Just a little bit. Just a little bit.

I hear your voice. Obsessive. Still in my view. Obsessive. Oh, yeah, I remember it. Hold on, I want to let it breathe just a little bit here. Without you Possessing I gotta keep him out of my head

I gotta keep him out of my head I wanna be alone with you The sound of everything that's true I wanna be alone with you So this is Del Bello singing, not Danny. This is not you singing, but this song is called Oh Little Boy. Oh Little Boy.

And who wrote this song? Do you know? Yeah, sure. Well, let's say this. My husband Stefano and Lisa co-wrote this record musically together. Husband Stefano and Lisa co-wrote this record musically together. And I wrote the lyrics to this song with Lisa. And on background vocals there, too. Are you?

Yeah. Where does that come in? Is that coming in soon here? Hold on. See if I can hear you. You should sing that in the microphone, Danny. Come on. Okay, so that's freaking radical. That's cool because you're...

That's freaking radical. Radical. Did I just date myself with that one? Oh, it's totally radical, Danny. Danny, so you co-wrote a song and your sister-in-law recorded it and your husband did the music or helped co-wrote the right music

and you wrote the lyrics and oh, little boy. You know, I actually don't talk about my husband too, too much, but he is incredibly musical. He's really ridiculously talented. And for that matter, so is my daughter. They're both very musical.

One of the songs on that album is called All That I Want. And it's one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. remember, I can remember us being in our house and him banging away at keyboards at like three o'clock in the morning to that song. And it's quite a unique song. And I, to this day, it, it, when I look at my husband, I go, oh my God, I, you know, for a gazillion reasons, but I go, he, he actually wrote that song, which is, you know, remarkable to me. Well, I'm just happy that you clearly still dig the guy. I totally dig the guy. 32 years and I completely dig the guy. Well, that's like, that's amazing in itself. That's actually more impressive to me than

Roger doing 50 years on Toronto Radio. That's very cool. You mentioned your daughter. Yes. And because you mentioned your daughter, now I'm going to play for you a question from Brian Gerstein. Brian Gerstein is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage, and he recorded something for you. So let's hear from Brian. Oh, boy. Propertyinthe6.com

Hi, Danny. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. You can call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you are thinking of buying or selling in the next six months. No obligation, just happy to run the numbers for you so you can make an informed decision. Check out humbleandfredradio.com and click on Tuesday, October 23rd, headlined by John Tory, and catch me talking Toronto real estate at the 35-minute mark. Toronto condo prices are Halloween scary, by the way. Danny, word has it that your daughter has

gone away to the Big Apple for university. My oldest daughter will be at Ryerson next year, while my youngest is still to be determined. I guess there are worse things to do than to I don't. No. That's real time. Yeah, no. No. You know what? It's not even about just her becoming independent. It's about us becoming independent as parents, too. And she is right now, 18, and living in the Lower East Side, going to film school. I mean, on a scholarship.

Wow. You know, God, new friends, new inspirations, new teachers to engage with, all of that. So, you know, it's to her credit. She got herself there from her work. But you raised her to be independent like you raised you raised somebody who would who could leave not only leave like family home and leave the city leave the country i know you know she's in i mean that's you know we talk about toronto the center of the country well new york might be the center of the universe

who knows she's in the big apple and uh good on you and stefano i feel italian when i say this stefano sure stefano okay can i call him stefano can i call him stefano call him stef stef yeah so uh good on you guys for raising uh an independent woman who knows uh what she wants and seems to be doing it yeah and i wonder what brian's uh daughter's taking at ryerson i should know this i do know this because i did an episode. I don't know if you listened to this episode. I did an episode with Molly Johnson.

I did. Yeah. Brian asked the question of Molly about this. I'm trying to, is it designing clothes? Oh, fashion. Fashion, design.

She's taking fashion. Oh, that's good. She asked about designing stuff for the ballet. I do remember this vaguely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so you,

okay. Yeah. By the way, since I did mention the episode, first of all, did you ever work with Molly? I have actually known Molly since I was probably about 16, 17 years old. When I was, you know, having my first jobs, I worked at a retail store on Queen Street called Atomic Age. And Molly also worked there and came in quite frequently. And that's where we sort of got to

know each other in the beginning a little bit. But yeah, sure. I've, I've, I've known and, and spoken with and engaged with Molly pretty much all of my life. Okay, cool. I don't know if I'd call us friends, but yeah. You're probably closer to Molly than I am, though. Yes. You know what? I listen to that, and it is what it is, Mike.

I mean, I wouldn't worry or delve into it too much or any of those things. You did a job and you did it well. I did a job and I did it well. I actually haven't worried about it in a long time, actually. But I only brought it up, actually. That came up, not even in my notes, but I was trying to think of what Brian's daughter does. And I remember that episode is when it was revealed

right so it's like my mind went right to that end for brian's reason but then i realized that uh you probably have had interactions with molly through the years because there's a whole jazz component just being around the radio music and then i didn't even know that you worked at the same retail store which is just a small world story like That's amazing. Sure. And then Ultimoda and all of the other infidels. And the infidels and everything. Oh, yeah. For sure. All right. Cool.

Now, there's a message I have from a guy, Steve Fall. Oh, I know Steve. From Acid Test. Yes. Where, by the way, I'll ask his question and I'll tell you something. So, is this how it begins? You go to the questions that people have submitted? No, like every episode is different, but there's like a potpourri before we start like more

of a chronological discussion. So like we're still in that nice potpourri section. But Steve Fall from Acid Test asks, will you attend the next Acid Test gig at the Garrison and make it two in a row i did go to the last one and it was it was quite amazing absolutely sure number one uh steve is a great guy in the band school two there it's in my neighborhood the garrison which is which is even better for me these days i was at that first one too and i saw you there and i don't know why i didn't go up to say hi but i saw you at that acid test gig oh why didn't you go i was at that first one too and i saw you there and i don't know why i didn't go up to say hi but i saw you at that acid test gig i think you go i was completely alone and wandering around

and i know hoping for a friend i know you know i went because oh i i was i got to know acid test when they came on the show uh but uh pete fowler yeah is a buddy and he he hooked me up with the whole thing and he was djing before the event and. And he was DJing before the event, and of course, he's good buds with the... And that was the first time I had officially met Pete, too. I kind of just walked up to him at the side of the stage and said, Hey, hi, how are you? Did he give you a get-out-of-jail-free card? No, what's that?

He's an OPP. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he has a sergeant or something with the OPP. Yeah. That's his full-time gig. That's cool OPP. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he has a sergeant or something with the OPP. Yeah. That's his full-time gig. That's cool. Yeah. By the way, because I better mention this,

Saturday, November 10th at 9 p.m., if you would like to see Acid Test, they're part of Indie Week. November 10. November 10 at 9 p.m. Yes, I will go to there. You will be there. I will go to that. You were born in L.m. Yes, I will go to there. You will be there. I will go to that.

You were born in L.A. Yes, I was. So tell me about, like, when do you end up moving to Canada? Like, give me a little insight. My mother was from Oshawa. My father was from New Jersey. They met in Miami. My father was a jazz trumpet player.

And he was playing on stage. And my mom went goo-goo-ga-ga over him. And three weeks later, they were married and moved to Los Angeles. They had my sister, Christine, who's eight years older than I am, first. And a rather difficult marriage. first and a rather difficult marriage. They opened up a jazz club in the 60s called Storyville West, which was a nod to Storyville in New Orleans. And my father kind of retired as a player and invited a lot of musicians onto the stage. And they were primarily like the Tonight Show band and that kind of crew. My dad had played with Louis Prima and the Steve Allen band and a couple of other, you know,

folks along the way, big band style. But anyway, the club eventually went bankrupt and the marriage kind of fell apart. And I think I was maybe three or four years old when we came back to Canada and moved in with my grandparents back in Oshawa. And my father stayed there and my mother brought us here. And not to get too personal, but I'm your friend on Facebook. So I see a lot of the The posts? Very interesting. You write very interesting, what I would call real talk, but honest stuff you write that I find very compelling and interesting. Yeah. So you didn't have a relationship with your father for a long time,

and then you did. I didn't actually meet him until I was 21. I was 21 years old. I was at Ryerson. I knew I was graduating soon. And I thought, you know, I need to figure out this part of who I am as a person before I move on to the next stage of my life. So found out where he was, reached out to him. I think I called him. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure I called him because I wouldn't have emailed him.

No, not by then. him. I think I called him. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure I called him because I wouldn't have emailed him. And arranged to meet him. And I went down, like I said, when I was 21 and spent a little time with him. Drove around LA having him tell me stories. I kind of went in with the idea that, you know, he wasn't necessarily a good guy. And I went in with the idea of trying not to bring all of the baggage of what that could have been. And just had an open mind and asked him a lot of questions and didn't have any great expectations and just sort of went in trying to get to know him. Because that was what my purpose was. And my mom, to be very fair, um, she was lovely. My, I had a really wonderful mother and, and she would, would say things like, you know what, go and find out for yourself. She had lots of reasons to not be nice in regards to him and tell me horrible stories and all of that. But she really,

really was quite fair and saying, go, go find out for yourself. And when you do come back and then we'll talk. And, and that's what happened. And that's what I did. But, but how did that go in the sense that like, what was he, was it disappointing in any regard or like, how was the relationship afterwards? Like, did you have a, I didn't really have much of a relationship. I, I, I, you know, here's what I will tell you. I didn't really have much of a relationship. Here's what I will tell you. What I did discover was his family, who I really, really loved,

his sisters and his brother and my cousins and all of the New Jersey Italians that were connected to him were amazing. And whatever I was looking for in myself at the time, I found in them. Not necessarily in him, but I found the spirit and the joy of life. Which is invaluable. Honestly, it was one of the best things I've ever done. Oh, no, cool. But yeah, the joy of life that I was looking for was from him or from his side of the family in that respect.

So now that we've... No, that's great. That's fantastic. Now that we got you at Ryerson, though, I'm just going to pause for a moment because I need to talk about some great partners of this program. I want to talk about Paytm Canada because Paytm Canada, they have an app and

you pay all of your bills through every bill you have to pay, you can pay through this app. And what I like about it is it lets me pay all of my bills with my President's Choice MasterCard. So I get points, which I can use for free groceries. So a lot of times, like, I don't know, my property taxes and stuff, like they don't let you use credit card. But with Paytm, I can pay all my bills with my credit card. There's no fees or surcharges or anything. But what I like about this is that they pay you for paying your bills. So you get these points that you can redeem for rewards. But here's what I'm telling everyone listening to my voice right now. There's an easy

way to get $10 right now. I've done it and I'm being straight up with you. It's very simple and very easy. When you install the app at paytm.ca, you can make your first bill payment using a promo code Toronto Mike. So all one word, Toronto Mike. Makes sense. And then they put 10, yeah, don't put a space between Toronto and Mike, okay? It's all one word. And then they put $10, they call it Paytm Cash, but they put $10 in your Paytm Cash wallet like right away.

And you could take that $10 and you could use it right away on like a gift card or you can apply it to another bill. So it's $10. Like I have everyone in my family doing this because they're handing out $10 bills. like a gift card or you can apply it to another bill. So it's 10 bucks. Like I have everyone in my family doing this because they're handing out $10 bills. You'd be foolish

not to take one but it's a great app anyways. I like how there's no space between Toronto and Mike. They're intertwined and connected. Toronto Mike. You cannot separate the two.

And I'm not even going to judge you if you pronounce that second T in Toronto. Toronto. You don't? I, a lot of, no, I do. I do. Right, but that second T in Toronto. Toronto. You don't? No, I do. I do. Right, but I've been told.

Right, but I don't know anymore because sometimes I was told, this is a topic we bring up a lot on this show, is real Torontonians don't pronounce the second T. Right, it's Toronto. Right. Right. But as Jamar, who's from Chicago, he's from New York, and then he was working in Chicago, but he's American.

Jamar McNeil from 104.5, as he told me, he is of Jamaican descent. And he explained to me that when you're from the Caribbean or West Indies, as he said, you do hit the second T. So I don't think this is true. Do you say often or often? I think I say often. But maybe I'm thinking too this is true. Do you say often or often? I think I say often. So do I. But maybe I'm thinking too much about it. But I think I hit that.

I think I hit the T in often. Yeah. I'm sure I do. And also, I don't know about you, but I'm not a linguist, but I know I find it fun to hit the T's hard. Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Toronto. Toronto Mike. Right. Never separated. Not Toronto or Mike. Toronto Mike. And maybe that makes me less of a Torontonian, but I don't know. I. Toronto Mike. Right. Never separated. Not Toronto or Mike. Toronto Mike. And maybe that makes me less of a Torontonian, but I don't know. No.

I don't know. That's neither here nor there. But paytm.ca. And also, I want to say that if you have a home in the GTA and you're looking for architectural design, interior design, or turnkey construction services, you need to talk to Census Design and Build. If you go to censusdesignbuild.ca today, you can schedule your zoning and cost project feasibility study, or you can call them at 416- 931-1422 and tell them that Toronto Mike sent you. Look at this, Mike. Look at all these

sponsors you have. I know, and there's a new one coming in November I'm very excited about. Can you say who it is? Yes, I can, because it's a done deal. In fact, I'm kind of regretting now that you're here today and we didn't book you for November because starting in November, guests are going to not only get the six pack that you could pass on to your husband or friend or whatever, but they're going to get a lasagna from Palma Pasta, which they have locations in Mississauga and Oakville. So there's nothing near the Garrison. I know exactly where you live now

and there's nothing near there. But it's worth the drive. They're fantastic. And so I'm going to be giving away lasagnas to guests, like frozen lasagnas. And you'll have to come back just to get a lasagna

and kick out the jams with me to get the lasagna. Ah, yes. Which you should do that, by the way, because you would love that. Okay. Okay, so let's get in here. Let's dive in. You ready?

That was all just, I haven't even been recording that. That was just for me to get to know you. You liar. I lie, because you can see squiggly lines behind me. You liar. Okay, Ryerson. Yes. So you're at Ryerson.

Tell me, first of all, what made you fall in love with radio? And I guess your first radio exposure is probably CKLN? Tell me. It was CKLN. I was at Ryerson for radio and television arts. I don't know if you remember. I don't know how old you are, Mike. How old are you?

44. Okay. So, yeah, it might be a little soon. But, you know, at that time period, much music and MTV kind of ruled the roost. And everyone, or at least a good faction of, of media people probably thought in some respects that they wanted to be a music video director. Um, so I think that I kind of went into Ryerson thinking about that because I was such a huge music fan, but then I remember walking by CKLN studios often, often and going, wow, what's going on in there?

That's, that's really cool. Look at all that vinyl. What's that? There's some microphones in there. That's, and I grew up listening to a lot of radio. I had shortwave radio and I'd tune into the BBC and Radio Luxembourg and, you know, different radio stations all over the world. And I, you know, I was a big BLK fan too. And of course a huge CFNY fan. So I wandered in there and I don't know how it all kind of, I remember it all kind of coming together, but I started doing a show called the Pink Flamingo Room. And it was kind of this off, somewhat off-putting alternative-y news show that may have lasted all of two or three weeks.

I don't even remember. But during that time period, I met Dave Ahmad from Dave's Dance Music. And I don't know if you remember that show. No, I do not. Okay, so you had Ron Nelson in here, right? DJ Ron Nelson, absolutely. Ron did Saturdays. Fantastic voice. Right. And David, who is brilliant, did Dave's dance music

on Sundays. And so I quickly volunteered to work with Dave. And Dave is a lovely human being who's ridiculously talented in regards to mixing and scratching and and just was really tapped into a very very cool scene in those days this was kind of the early uh beginnings of a lot of hip-hop um kind of you know you run dmc and dougie fresh and uh early beastie boys and i'm watching this uh in fact, I'm caught up now. They just released the second season. I haven't seen it. I know what you're going to say.

And it's fantastic. But there's only four episodes in this second season and I was hungry for more. But it's really, really good. Yeah. And it's called something, The Evolution of Hip Hop or something like that. But yeah, Shad is the host.

But anyway. Yeah. So that's where I kind of got the inkling for radio. And I did anything I the inkling for radio. And I did anything I could. I took requests. I got on the air with him and just talked about music. And there was a lot going on at that particular time with a group of promoters called the Sunshine Crew.

And they had all kinds of events going on in the city. And so it was a really great introduction to radio for me. For sure, for sure. And then is your first commercial experience, I suppose, is that CKFM? Yes, yes. And that would have been, God, 1985, 86, somewhere around there. And I was hired by a fellow by the name of Les Atala, who was the producer of a show on Saturday nights. And do you remember that show? No. Only because I did research and I remember from my notes, I'm staring at it right now. All right. So it was a show on Saturday nights. I was a co-host and there were other, I'm trying to think of some of the,

Steve Jackson was one of the hosts. Terry Steele was another host. And that was my sort of introduction to CKFM and 99.9, which was an amazing experience. Right. For the kids out there, we should point out CKFM is 99.9. So we were, everyone referred to it as CKFM until I guess in like 1990 or something and rebrands as Mix 99.9. So we were, everyone referred to it as CKFM until I guess in like 1990 or something and rebrands as Mix 99.9. Sure. And then sticks with that until Virgin rebrands whenever that was like 10 years ago or something like that,

I guess. But, but CKFM. So, uh, Saturday Night Dance Show. Is that, that was your,

uh, that was the first step. First step. And I think I hadn't even graduated yet. I don't think I, so that was my kind of first major gig and hadn't even left school just yet, which was phenomenal. So we talked about Roger Ashby.

They're going to have a retirement party for him on December 5th at like the Sheridan Center or something. Nice. You know Mark Weisblot, right? Yeah. Okay, so I got a question. I haven't seen him in a long long long time get a hang out here he comes here for uh every quarter so i saw that four times a year

he's uh sitting right there uh uh so mark weisblatt pointed out to me we were chatting earlier today because this roger ashby news kind of broke and i'm like okay there it is and then uh he was saying that it's like 20 years ago at the same place they had the Don Daynard retirement party. So you have two stints of CKFM, right? Two stints? Two stints. What do you mean by a stint? Okay.

Well, okay. Things that I did there? Well, because are you, do you work at 99.9 after CFNY? Or is it all before? No, no. So only one stint. Only one stint. I see what you're saying.

I'm going to fire my research staff. They screwed up there. So tell me though, because you worked with Don Daynard. Yes. So while I was doing this Saturday night show, Pam Chiodi, who was the traffic reporter at the time, was going on

maternity leave, I believe. And I was hired full-time to, you know, work in the newsroom and do traffic. So the beginnings were Don Daynard. And then I think I used to split shift. So I'd do, you know, dawn in the morning, go home and sleep and come back and do the afternoon drive. Wow.

It was crazy. Yeah, I hear about, like, I talk to my buddy, Freddie P, all the time from Humble and Fred. Sure. And he'll be talking about how, yeah, he was doing split shifts too back then. Like, this was the move. Thank God I was young.

Like, it was pretty taxing. And you almost feel like a bit of a vampire in the world. Now, Don Daynard and Ted ted wallish in a couple of wallish and yes often i get that wrong so i uh what's it tell me what it was like working with a couple of toronto radio legends like that uh um don danard he was a lovely man i i really enjoyed working with him and craig rintoul who was his r2d2 who was his R2-D2, who was his producer. Terrific. I think for me, the greatest experience of that time was actually working in a newsroom. You know, coming in the morning at 5.30 and seeing, you know, these pretty hardcore, cool news guys, there were probably about three or four of them in my presence

and watching them. And, you know, it was a pretty stressful, stressful life. But I had complete admiration for them. And to this day, I'm somewhat communicating with Dave Agar because he was part of that bunch. But John McFadgen was the news director at the time, beautifully full of integrity. And it was also the beginnings of, I remember us getting into great discussions about sensationalism. We hadn't really hit the sensational news world just yet. So a story would come up, because not just traffic. I wasn't just doing traffic. I'd pull news stories off and dump stuff onto carts and all of that kind of thing.

You know, there would be these huge discussions about whether it was relevant to run. And then, you know, nowadays you'd run it anyway, right? I mean, if you're not running it, people are videotaping it themselves. But in those days it was actually up for discussion. And I remember McFadgen, you know, sticking to his guns and saying, it's not really relevant to us. And why are we playing it if it's not worthy, if it's not newsworthy? And that was an interesting time period to witness. For sure, for sure, for sure.

By the way, I have a clip I'm going to play in a moment. But first, I want a couple of former Toronto Mike guests who I enjoyed chatting with very much. I think they were at CKFM when you were there. But you were working with Mike Stafford? Yeah. It was Stafford and Wallachian on a morning show together. Ted's the guy whose last name I keep butchering.

I think he should change it. So that's Stafford. I'm trying to think. That's post-CFNY Stafford, right? Because he's on Pete and Gates and then with Freddie P actually because Freddie P's doing sports and Mike's doing news for Pete and Gates.

And then he's at CKFM. And also, was Maureen Holloway there? Yes. A couple times? Yeah, that's when I first met Maureen. She's done all right, eh? Well, she's funny because Maureen Holloway and Mike Stafford

are both morning show hosts in the city right now. Yeah. Maureen is ridiculously talented. She's a great writer. She's got a great presence, great sense of humor. It's no wonder that she's done as well as she has. I really have a lot of respect for Maureen. When she was here for her photo, the famous Toronto Mike photo, she was holding Morgan when Morgan was like, actually, maybe she was holding Jarvis. That's right.

Maybe this was like when Jarvis was a baby. I just know in her photo, she's holding one of my babies. I can't even, I can't tell you which one for sure, but I'm going to guess it was, I don't know if it's Morgan or Jarvis.

That's a good question. How long ago was that? It's either two years ago or four years ago. Nice. One of those two. Cool. It's all a blur.

I got to find out. But I mentioned I had a clip. So let's not the greatest quality, but let's listen to this potato quality clip. Here with 99.9 CKFM, Sheila E and the current single off of the Crush Groove soundtrack featuring Prince, of course. A love bizarre before that Prince and the Revolution and their current single America. America. Also tomorrow in the scene with everybody dance here on CKFM with your chance right now, the final time for tonight.

Now the final time for tonight. To get in on Hello Good Times, we'll take callers 2, 4, and 6 at 870-9127 with your chance to win either a 12-inch or the LP to Goodbye Bad Times from Giorgio Moroder and Philip Occhi. 870-9127. Here's UB40. On 99.9 CKFM. Geez. There you go.

I hardly recognize it. Geez. There you go. I hardly recognize it. So Javid Javid Jaffrey is the gentleman who shared that clip with me. Just to hear a little bit of how you sounded on CKFM. Yeah.

Learning, young. Yeah. Playing some UB40. It's interesting because when I listen you know, when I listen to that and I think back to who I was then, I'm clearly trying out a lot of different things. And I remember a fair amount of program directors in that time period, because it seemed to me that there were a lot coming and going. Because I also did overnights and I did some evening fill-ins and all of that. You know, it was, you know, you need to sound friendlier. You need to sound, uh, uh, women don't like

listening to women and all of the, you know, you need to approach a microphone like you're an athlete and all of the things that you're sort of being told and taught at an early age impressionable age so when i when i listen to that i i hear all of that not that they're bad memories but i know you're saying i think that there's a tendency and again i've never been in the business what do i know i maybe i would benefit from somebody telling me what i should be doing but uh this whole notion of like over-engineering the communication, like it does, it does, I would think it would strip away some of the authenticity,

like the organic nature of following your instincts. Sure. And finding your own voice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. To me, and,

and, you know, God bless him. I, I, I think that the person that allowed me to do that was Reiner Schwartz and who I met at C since we're talking about CKFM, who I met then and there, I would say Fred Napoli was also an influence, um, cause he was doing overnights at CFRB during that time

period. And he and I used to, you know, go meet in the coffee room at 3 o'clock in the morning and chat about life and music and the stories that he was telling and stuff. So yeah, I think that those were two very influential people. I want to talk more about Reiner Schwartz, if that's okay. Now, first, let's hear a bit of Reiner. This is actually Reiner doing an ad before CKFM, I guess he was at. They didn't call it CHFI yet, even though it was CHFI, but they were calling it FM98, I believe. But at. They didn't call it CHFI yet, even though it was CHFI, but they were calling it FM98, I believe. But here's a little bit of

Reiner. A demonstration of FM98's musical philosophy. We play timeless and contemporary sounds. We do not play elevator music, and we do not play hard rock. FM98! There's a stinger for you. Nice. Reiner Schwartz.

I hadn't heard that. Yeah, that's from Retro Ontario. Another guy who pops in here all the time. His name's Ed Conroy, but he's archiving a bunch of old like city TV stuff. Oh, like Mark Daly kind of? Yeah, sure. A lot of Mark Daly kind of stuff.

And I'm so fascinated by it. I just have him in and we just play old clips and he kind of gives the background story on it. talk about uncle bobby like uh yeah or i saw you posted something about if i'm a hilarious house of frightenstein like we do a lot of billy van chatter i love billy van yeah i love that well tis the season for billy van so we do a lot of that uh and yes uh miriam if you're listening i do know now that there is a museum, a Billy Van Museum in Hamilton, I think. Yes, I want to go to there. Let's go together.

We'll make it a road trip, Dan and I. It'll be fun. So Reiner Schwartz, I need to know, I need to soak in. Sadly, I'll never be able to have Reiner Schwartz on this program. I need to drink in. He's a fascinating character,

but he was a mentor of sorts to you like he yeah i would say so i mean he um i i think it's important to have people that you you look up to you know i i did this recent teaching stint at at humber in in radio and i i think it's important to find people in your life that influence you, that you, you know, shape a little bit of who you are from. And Reiner was a really important person for me in that regards. We met, as I said, at CKFM, I think at the time he was doing a show called Reiner's Diner. And I think he was doing evenings too. And he would have me come on and just do voices. Like I do like the, the waitress, like, you know, like all that sort of crazy stuff. And, and just talking to him again about music and playing, you know, he and I and my husband Stefano would

often just get together. And Reiner was a great guitar player and he played drums and, you know, he was a wonderful musician. He didn't have, you know, not just music within him, but he had such a great respect for musicians in general. And I really identified with that. So to cut a long story short, he went to CFNY to kind of turn it around at the time. I think they were entrenched in playing things like Madonna and you know, I guess it was kind of a more modern rock format.

I know it's hard to make this long story short actually because there's a little context here which is, and I'll get these names wrong and you'll correct me, but is it McLean Hunter? McLean Hunter, yeah. And they were trying to sell it, I guess, to sell the station. They needed to appeal to a more broad audience. I mean, I had Alan Cross and some people like that on to kind of help me with this context.

But definitely the cool David Marsden spirit of radio CFNY playlist was filled with, I think, Phil Collins and Madonna and this kind of top 40 stuff at the time. like Phil Collins and Madonna and this kind of top 40 stuff at the time. And Reiner Schwartz is brought on to try to clean up that mess. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Also at the time there was a group of activists who were trying, Larry, oh my goodness, that's terrible. I have all the newspaper clippings and I can't remember his last name either. But no, Larry. Oh,

I'm feeling really terrible. This is terrible. I'm so sorry. Um, but Larry, I remember, uh, was,

was such a strong supporter of, of bringing CFNY back to its more, let's call it eclectic roots and sort of expanding the, the musical universe. Like no repeat work day type. Yeah. And play with kind of DJs. I mean, David Marsden, when he was there,

this was a big thing. Like DJs had a lot of leeway in what they could play. Absolutely. Yes. Right. So Reiner was brought in to probably quash some of that activism that was going on there and bring it back to something

that was a little bit more free form, but without it being kind of the free form of early Chum FM days. Right, right, right, right. So did he bring you to CFNY? Yes, he hired me to do evenings. And I remember I, it's funny, I even kind of battled with it at the time, should I go or should I stay? And I, in retrospect, I don't even know why I battled. It was the,

it was the place that I grew up listening to. It was the Mecca for anything that was sort of cool and interesting. I loved Marsden. I loved Brad McNally. I loved, you know, the voices that were sharing Jim, you know, Jim Reed, all of these people that were sharing music with me, Liz Janik. So yeah, I ended up going there with Reiner. And so I did evenings and a part of that, that I guess it was seven to midnight, or maybe 8 to midnight, was a show called The Alternative Bedtime Hour from 11 to midnight. Which, even though I had a fair amount of freedom in the evenings, from 11 to midnight it was completely freeform and I could play pretty much whatever I wanted to play. Wow. Yeah, The Alternative Bedtime Hour.

You're the creator. And Reiner. And Reiner. Okay, you and Reiner, and then you're the host. And yeah, that's pretty cool that you could kind of play for an hour. You get to play what you wanted. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty cool. And, and, you know, to be truthful, there were times in the evening that I could play what I wanted to, You know, I did regular trips down to the record peddler on young street and would pick up whatever was kind of new and fresh. And the evenings in general were a place that you could play a little bit

more, but yeah, 11 to midnight was certainly much more conceptual and, and more eclectic. Very, very, it's a very cool time. Very cool time. Very cool time. Correct me if I'm wrong. So you're there,

it's 89, I guess, when Reiner brings you over? Yeah. 89? Yeah. And you're not there that long, right? When did I leave? 92?

Okay. So 92. Yeah. And I got a couple of notes from people you know and love, but Neil Morrison. Is this for real? Do people actually send these things out? Well, this one people you know and love but Neil Morrison is this for real? did people actually send these things? well this one was on Facebook

they either tweeted a lot of them on Twitter and some of them are on Facebook but yeah they're all real never made up a question yet so Neil Morrison who we all know better as Brother Bill he's in White Rock

which is a nice, I think, I was there in like 98, I think, and I thought it was like where people kind of like God's waiting room or whatever,

like just full of real old people kind of, but it was very nice. You're on the ocean for goodness sakes, but okay. Sounds beautiful. It's nice.

It's a calm, nice place. So, so he just wanted me to say, is it still Danny Elwell 11 McLean Hunter 0? So can you explain that to me? Yeah, that was on Facebook. So when I resigned,

there were a couple of people. I ended up meeting them afterwards, Shane and Derek, who created a banner, a large white banner that said McLean Hunter, no, Danny Elwell won McLean Hunter zero, and they had stapled it or pasted it on top of the CFNY sign out at the plaza out in Brampton. Now I get it. Yes. Okay, no, cool. And someone took a picture of it and i have it somewhere but i i yeah that's what that's in reference to that's no that's great he had

another note too i need to ask you about uh uh he talked about uh the stranger that let you into the studio at 11 uh to just wander around like what's that story here um well bill was doing What's that story here? Well, Bill was doing overnights, or Neil was doing overnights at the time, and kind of about quarter to 11 one night, I'm in the on-air studio, and this guy just kind of walks in, goes, hey, how you doing? I'm like, hey, who are you? And I basically find out that Bill just kind of let someone come into the station.

So it's brother Bill, myself, and some guy named Mike. I remember his name was Mike. That narrows it down. Yeah, it's true. And this is a strip mall in Brampton? This is a strip. And it's kind of isolated. Anyway, I essentially kind of just got very serious with him and said,

look, you know, you got to go. I'm just about to do this show. If you're into the show, you know, it's very taxing. I got it. I, he was, he was not, uh, um, I, I think he had some mental health issues. So I, I was just saying, you know, why don't I just walk you out? I can put on a long song here and, you know, I'll get you safely out to the parking lot. And thankfully, he was lovely. And he said, sure. And I kind of walked him out of the radio station and, you know, got to do my show. However, he was waiting for me when I got outside.

I think that's scary. It was a little scary. You think of, for example, you think of John Lennon or something like that. Like, I just think that is even in late 80s, that's a scary idea. Well, he had had a dream and his dead mother had come to him in a dream and told him that we were to be husband and wife. Yeah, that's scary. Yeah. And I, you know, I remember having my keys in my hand and, you know, walking towards my car door and him telling me this and I'm going like,

Mike, that's, you know, I don't even know you and I'm sure your mother was lovely. That's like Eminem's Stan, I think. It's stuff like that that makes us not want to be together. Like that's a scary, obsessive fan thing. stuff like that that makes us not want to be together. That's a scary, obsessive fan thing. I don't know if we're meant to be together.

I got this guy at home. I should confess, that was me. I was Mike. No, no, I remember him so well. But anyway, I remember just negotiating my way into the car and driving as quickly as possible. Damn right. So yeah, Neil, Brother Bill was, was,

you know. He would have been liable. No. No, no, no. But, you know. I'm so friendly with Brother Bill. He sent me a VHS recording and somewhere in that room,

actually, I can almost see it from here under that Maple Leaf banner I'm looking at there. But he sent me a VHS recording of the, speaking of City TV

back in the 80s, but the Speaker's Corner outtakes that never made it to air. The guys at the station, I guess, put it on a VHS cassette to enjoy privately or whatever, and he sent me a copy. So there you go.

What a brilliant idea that was, eh? Well, that's all. Now you're in the land of, we can talk forever about the stuff, the revolutionary, interesting stuff Moses was responsible for that a certain cable company conglomerate quickly stripped away piece by piece as they started to sanitize all the character out of 299 Queen. Well, that's what happens to really good ideas sometimes, sadly.

That's why we have podcasting. Yes. Because who's going to do that? Even that is interesting in itself. But even that is interesting in itself. I find that podcasting is slowly moving into the world of, you know, look, once you have sponsors, and I'm sure that you have sponsors that are wonderful and supportive and clearly there for you. But, you know, you could eventually have sponsors that start sort of saying, hey, you know, that one you did with Molly, I don't know if I, you know. I know, I hear exactly what you're saying. If sponsors interfere with content, suddenly you have bosses, like suddenly you're not

wholly responsible for the content of your show. I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, so I think that in some respects, podcasting could be or is facing some of the same issues that that any great uh art or radio or anything faces the key is to partner with brands that are investing in in you like so if you're investing in danny elwell then we want you to be your most danny sure then there should be a definite uh separate again clearly danny is not going to suddenly do an episode about, you know, something about, I don't know, superiority of a certain race or gender or whatever. So you've invested in Dani.

You're now aligned with Dani's brand. And now Dani has the freedom to be her most Dani. Sure. But as... There's always a but. Yeah. No. You know, things, stuff happens things change people who

are in a position of perhaps allowing you you're you're lucky you're in control of of your own destiny here but there are podcasts that are affiliated with companies that oh big time you know that that have to answer to people so yeah it's it's interesting how it all... Well, I've been around long enough that I've witnessed the, what I would say, the big conglomerates discovering podcasting. And I mean, you can watch a Maple Leaf hockey game on Hockey Night in Canada

and see ads on the bottom for podcasts owned by the same company. Like the whole like tough thing about podcasting is cutting through the noise and making people aware that your program exists because you know the hardest thing is getting to listen get them to listen to one show and uh you know if it's their cup of tea they're going to subscribe and want to hear more there's 290 of these things now sorry 390 no i almost lost 100 there oh darn my server crashed but 390 of these things now, but that's the hardest thing.

At least you're Danny Elwell, so at least you are what I would regard you as Toronto famous. I think of you as Toronto famous. Really? I do. You don't consider yourself Toronto famous? No, I think Roger Ashby is Toronto famous. He's more Toronto famous,

only because they aired so many Roger, Rick, and Marilyn television commercials back when television was the only game in town that guys my age still talk about Roger, Rick, and Marilyn even if we've never heard a minute and even though Rick Hodge hasn't actually been on that show

in probably 10 years now. Maybe more. Maybe 15 years. I don't know, but he got an offer from Standard. He couldn't refuse. And the rest is history. But I like that guy, though, Rick Hodge. He's been on this show. A very likable guy.

And he's on the air in Niagara Falls. Nice. Good place to be. They still have an Easy Rock over there. Is that right? Yeah. Their Easy Rock did not go boom. Okay.

So where was I? I like the podcast aside. I just read something about a jack station that's all women. I did too. Ottawa? Was it Ottawa? I thought it was the UK. No, UK.

You're right. It was UK. Wow. Okay. That's interesting. We had Chick FM in the late 70s. Chic. That's the third thing.

I butchered your husband's name. Yeah, that's okay. I butchered Ted's name. I'm going to... Wallishen. Wallishen. You got it. That's all right.

Clearly, I wasn't a listener. Chic. Chic. Yeah. Which was 790, right? I think it was 790 Chic. Where the girls are or something like that was the... Was that it?

I don't remember. I don't know. No. That's funny. But so we were ahead of the curve with the jack fm but uh they said it's the anti-mojo we're gonna get to 640 in a second actually we have a few more things to get to here so i have to ask you about a couple of people you probably worked with at cfmy before we discussed this resignation which uh to be honest five years

ago when i reached out to have you on it it was primarily because of this personal fascination I've had with your resignation from CFNY. So we have to get to that. But first, tell me about working with, you worked with Don Burns, right? Love, love, love. Miss him greatly. Oh my God.

Just a larger than life, wonderful human being. So funny. So big hearted. Yeah, I don't have enough words for Don. He was amazing. Much like Reiner Schwartz, I can never have Don Burns on this show. And I feel like it was close. He was in the wheelhouse of people I was trying to get on.

And he seemed, I believe it was a heart get on and he seemed i mean he i think it was i believe it was a heart attack but he seemed kind of healthy and active right before he passed away yeah and i you know you'll have to take this with as as good-hearted as it was it was the most wonderful funeral i've ever been to i I have never laughed so hard at a funeral. People genuinely just in love with the man, in love with his spirit, comedians getting up. Just if you were there, you know what I mean. And if you're listening,

you probably think it's a strange thing to say, but just... It was a celebration of life. It was a celebration of life and a celebration of his spirit. And to this day, I have never experienced anything like that before. There's a whole bunch of people

who, when Don Burns, like to me, Don Burns, I think CFNY, but there's a whole whack of people with Don Burns where they think Energy 108 because he was the, what was his name?

I should know this. Dr. Trance. Dr. Trance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There you go. Very, very interesting okay so Don Burns

who else who else I was gonna ask you because he's a very close friend of the show who comes on all the time Alan Cross

sure so I believe Alan Cross was doing the overnights when you came on board and then they moved him to but they moved him

to afternoon no this is like in 89 he was moved to afternoon when you came on board but maybe was he doing overnights I don't think so I when you came on board. Was he doing overnights? I don't think so. I thought it was Neil Mann. Neil Mann was doing overnights when I kind of came in.

And then Brother Bill. So he wasn't. I think Alan was doing afternoon drive. Anyway, yes. Okay, definitely in 89 does definitely moves to afternoon drive. That is for sure. But have anything nicer or not so nice or anything about Alan you can share with us?

Alan, full credit to Alan. He has created an amazing body of work in his shows. I think his heart is in it. I think he's ridiculously professional. I would call Alan a colleague. Yeah, I have nothing but respect for Alan. I'm trying to think of some of my greatest memories with him. One of my greatest memories of him is speaking with him after I left CFNY. Another was that we brought Alan into Jazz FM for a while to do a segment with Brad Barker, which was quite fun. I liked having him in the station. I don't think I knew this. Yeah, he did a once a week, five minute

piece. I brought him in to talk about, well, whatever he wanted to talk. If you can get Alan to talk about anything. Well, he's now, as I've been told, he is the definitive voice now of a certain musical. Q, no? Oh, Q and CFO. He's still doing 102. He did both. But he's not,

he's doing the imaging for Q. Imaging for Q, yeah. I think, I don't know if I read this online. I think I've, I don't want to take full credit for this, but someone put this

bug in my ear and now I kind of see it. They said they're going to, they're moving 102 to 107 essentially piece by piece. Okay, so. Yeah, you read that on Sony. Sony, yeah.

Sony, sorry. Right, right. Yes, right. The yellow board or whatever. That's exactly right. Yes, okay. So I was like, this is a thought you have,

but it wasn't yours. You stole it from somebody and I don't know who I stole it from. But then you can say Fearless Fred moves over and the playlist has changed. They're starting to move over some of the edge bands

and they put, Imogene is now, so the idea is you move all of 102 over to 107 and then the audience follows and then 102 becomes something else. So what will 102 become? What do you think?

I don't know. What do you hear? What do I hear? I don't hear will 102 become? I don't know. What do you hear? I don't hear anything. Honestly, I don't hear anything. I know they have a new brother-sister morning team starting in January, so I can't imagine. I don't know if they're going to... Brother-sister?

Yeah, they're a brother and sister out of Vancouver who are going to move here. That makes sense. And they're going to move here. Yeah, so the current morning people... I'm not saying that that's necessarily a good thing. I'm just saying that it seems logical in the plan that Chorus seems to be on.

Right, because the current afternoon show on 102, which apparently is temporary, but the current one actually is done out of Vancouver. She's not even here. She does it from Vancouver, which is strange. But these brother-sister will actually, I confirm, they will actually physically move here. Is that right? So they will actually do it from Queens Quay

or whatever there by the waterfront. And the morning show now, which is Kid Craig and a chap whose name I can't remember right now, they're going to move to afternoons when this temporary Meredith remote show goes away. So that's, this is all happening in January.

So I don't know if the, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it could be, it's definitely not something radical like a country music or anything like that. I don't think. So you think there's a music change in the forecast too?

Maybe. I don't know. I don't know what they're doing at that station. I stopped guessing a long time. I was so wrong about a couple of guesses I had about like when they got rid of Adam and Mel who were doing mornings. I just,

I don't, and then I didn't see this happening. I thought they'd bring in somebody more, more of a name brand but they're doing this brother sister

from Vancouver that we don't know in this market yet. So it's just, I don't know. Yeah, I gave up trying. I don't even know.

But I did wind up, so speaking of Humble and Fred, they came over for an episode recently and I kind of, I wound them up. Did you speak of Humble and Fred? I don up trying. I don't even know. But I did wind up, so speaking of Humble and Fred, they came over for an episode recently and I kind of wound them up. Did you speak of Humble and Fred? I don't remember. Yeah, they came up early because, oh, Brian did.

You know what? Brian did. Okay. Again, Brian's the one talking all this stuff. Brian mentioned it because he was doing something on their show or something

for propertyinthesix.com. So Fred will go on and on about how they're ruining the legacy of the station. Like there's a, I mean, he's been there for a long time. Sure. Fred was there a long time. And he'll talk about what that station was. Even, obviously, there's the Marsden era, Spear Radio, but then beyond.

And then even into the 90s. But that the station had like a great, it was a great music station that is slowly being destroyed by he says this is talking by people who don't appreciate the legacy of this toronto radio station well but isn't that true of of all radio at the moment though legacy really has no meaning like truthfully i mean even the the the change of q isn't about q's legacy but But is that because, and this is my issue of radio, is I have two teenagers who never touch the radio. Sure. But they're always listening to something.

They just don't listen to radio. So it seems to me like radio is always trying to attract these younger listeners who clearly are listening, doing other things like Spotify or whatever. They're doing podcast, whatever. They're doing lots of different things. but they're not listening to traditional radio. So why are radio stations so eager to appeal to the younger audience that doesn't seem to care for them? Why not cater to the audience that still loves radio, which is people maybe my age? I guess it's wrapped

up in advertising dollars, right? But it's also, I believe, you know, at a time when you cannot attract young people, I believe that that's the time to actually take risks. I don't think it's the time to sort of shut down and bring in outside, you know, programming and not spend any money anymore and, you know, create something that's rather mediocre. I think it's the time that you actually have to not fight it almost from the

podcast perspective, but to start, you know, having a perspective, having jocks that, or hosts, or music experts that actually care and talk about the music. Having a point of view that might be unique, that's a little different and a little edgier. I think this is the time to take risks as opposed to what I think is almost like, to me, it almost sounds unattended. When I listen to radio now, it sounds as if people don't care. It's a almost sounds unattended. Like when I listen to radio now, it sounds as if people don't care.

Like it's a little bit unattended. Part of that is because it probably is unattended because there's so much voice tracking going on now. So part of it is that. And I mean, you're almost talking, I talk a lot about radio because I loved radio. And today, if you go check the two radios in this house, there's one in the bathroom and there's one in the kitchen they're both set to CBC Radio 1

because in the mornings I listen to Metro Morning with Matt Galloway so I'm probably the wrong guy to ask when I mean radio I don't mean all of it there are shining moments and stations that are trying to do interesting things and you know you reference CBC

there are a couple of shows on the CBC that I love as well. I like The Move for a bunch of reasons as well. I think that they're at least paying attention to the local market. I think that they're serving their community. You know, there's a lot about what they're doing that I actually identify and, and, and enjoy. And as you know, they got new owners technically too now, right? Because the, what is the, remind me, Stingray.

Stingray now owns Boom and The Move, which were new cab stations. Like that apparently only became official. That's not here nor there. I don't know what they'll do with the move. They can't seem to decide. But speaking of the move,

you know Scott Turner, who's not at the move anymore, but he was there for a brief period. Yeah, he's, I think he's back in Kitchener or something like that. Oh, okay. But he's not there anymore.

That must be recent. Is that fairly recent? Like six months, maybe six months ago. Yeah. But Scott Turner, for a period of time when he was working for Chorus, would drive to Queens Quay on Sundays to do, this is not too long ago,

the Spirit of Radio Sundays, they called it. Okay. And he would basically bring his old records and play the stuff from the 80s that was playing in the state of Hawaii. But he would talk about it and give it perspective. It was very, very interesting. I suspect it was not, maybe it was not loved by young people maybe,

but it was well listened to by 30s and 40s and 50-year-old people. Yeah, that's what I had heard as well, that the ratings were quite large, but that it just wasn't the audience. It was the wrong people listening. That they were interested in. So there's an example.

So some would argue like Fred again again uh because he says you know that's they should be like um an adult alternative station and like that all the time now he's super biased because he envisions like a humble and fred morning show on the station so but uh there's some merit to that but okay now let's get you let's go okay sorry but let's some merit to that. But okay, now let's get you, let's go. Okay, sorry. But let's just, to that point, let's just, and then we can sort of relate this to what we were talking about earlier. That means that you need people in a position of power in media companies who understand that sometimes the numbers of a show or of a radio station aren't necessarily where the money is at. You can buy demographics. You can buy quality of an audience.

And I think that, you know, getting back to what we were talking about in risk-taking, I think that once you take a risk, you know, you inevitably have people that are just curious who want to tune in and find out what's going on anyway yeah and uh i mean yeah like i'm sure at some point the alternative bedtime hour was a like a different kind of a risk right at some point yeah i remember it had one sponsor and it was carlsberg i think um and it just you needed to find the right sponsor that just understood as we were talking earlier about buying into something that was different.

Right. They, they needed to market themselves as, as something that was different from the rest of the, the products that were out there. And, and that aligned itself nicely with what the show was. You resigned from CF and Y on the air. Yeah yeah i'm gonna play it no oh i'm gonna play it because

i've never played it ever obviously because i've been saving it for you and i've now been saving it five years so i'm i and if you don't like it and you start making noise i'm gonna mute you with the button over here because i'm gonna play the whole thing i'm gonna play yeah because i'm gonna play the whole thing okay uh i would not meet i'm not gonna mute 1992 you i'm gonna mute 2018 how long ago how long is it i don't know because i won't know until i start pressing play but it's a couple it's a few minutes but here we go okay thank you for your messages and your requests this evening a fair amount of messages we didn't get to get to all of them, unfortunately, and I apologize for that.

But an hour is an hour, and we deal with it as best we can. Here's the music list from the top. Nine Inch Nails, Something I Can Never Have, Peter Gabriel, Here Comes the Flood, David Bowie, my number one song of all time, and Shane and Derek's too, it's Heroes. Talk Talk, Such a Shame, Tones on Tail with Lions, Jane Sibre with Dancing Glass,

Peter Gabriel, Socrates the Python, XTC, Kate Bush, In Search of Peter Pan, and it is David Sylvian in the background right now. Kate Bush, David Sylvian, and the track that i will leave with three very important pieces to me a couple of quick thank yous before i say good night thank you to reiner schwartz for creating this space for protecting it and for helping me prove that something a little bit out of the ordinary can be a success. Thank you very much, Reiner. Thank you to Paul Dingra for his help and for being a good friend.

Thank you to John Jones for his respect. Thank you to Stefano. More importantly, thank you for your letters, your poetry, your short stories, your musical suggestions, your tapes and your phone calls. You were definitely my co-creator on this, and hey, well, maybe we'll work together again someday. Last thing that I have to contribute tonight is my resume.

Work experience, December of 89 until August the 20th, 1992. Host of the evening program at CFNY and host and creator of the alternative bedtime hour. June of 1990 until June of 1992, network announcer for CTV. June of 90 until December of 90, producer and host of 22 episodes or segments, I should say, for YTV's Street Noise program. I think they should still kind of show that stuff. I think they should still kind of show that stuff. 1985 until December of 89, CKFM, the all-night show, The Quiet Storm, morning show sidester for Don Bainard and Ted Wallachian, dance shows, interviews.

Ryerson's campus station before that, CKLN, graduate of the radio and television arts program. Just kind of crept through my last year, I have to admit. I'm an actor member. I do a fair amount of voice work, and I just did this principal role in an episode of Forever Night, a series that's shown on CBS in the States. Agent is the wonderful Sandy Sloan. Interests, music, and people. Living a fulfilled life.

There, there you go. I am officially out of work. I resign my position at CFNY. I wanted you to know first. Good night, good dreams, and if not now, more than ever, thank you very much for listening. Danny, nobody does that. Like, that's... Nobody.

Nobody does. Nobody's done that. I don't know if anyone else has done that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. So what made you do that? What made me do that? What compelled you to do that? Well, there was a lot going on at the radio station at the time.

A slew of people who worked really, really hard and developed the sound of the radio station had just been let go. A whole bunch of people had been fired. It's funny how I find myself in similar situations all the time. And, you know, it was now a question of controlling the playlist, which this show was an open playlist. I remember having a meeting with Stuart Myers. It's funny because Stuart Myers ended up becoming, you know, I don't want to say a friend, but a really great guy in the end and ended up hiring me for Mojo. But I remember being in his office and him explaining to me that I had to choose specific songs and I couldn't have the bedtime hour sound as it sounded. And, you know, me trying to explain that that was ridiculous and it wouldn't it wouldn't succeed and I wouldn't be happy and all of those things. So that was going on.

What else was happening? I had a, I don't want to talk about this too much, but I had another listener that was causing trouble in my life at the time too. I was 26 or so. I was also very sad about what had happened to Reiner in this circumstance as the person who had brought me on board, they let him go and mistreated him and I thought brought him under different circumstances than they may have told him. I'm not sure. sure. So there was a lot happening in that moment. And I, you know, decided that I wanted to be in control of saying goodbye. So often in radio, that's not the case. So I wanted to do it in a unique, creative, hopefully creative way. I opened it up. I opened up the hour to those who were unemployed and looking for work. Paul Dinger and myself, knowing what we were going to do, recorded a whole bunch of messages. People would call up and the reason why I give my resume at

the end is because people were doing that during the show. I don't know if you've ever heard the show and it's entirely- I've only heard that three and a half minutes. So that's the context of it all is that during this hour, there are in between this playlist, clips of people, you know, I'm a graphic artist, and I am unemployed. And this is my experience. And if you need to get ahold of me, here's my phone number. So that's the full context of this hour. And the funny thing is, well, maybe not so funny, but I would say about halfway during it, I got a call from our station manager, who was Vince DiMaggio.

And he was listening, and he said, oh, man, this is great radio. This is so cool. Look at this. It's like community building and blah, blah, blah. And I went, oh. Stay tuned, Vince. Hope he can listen till the end.

And I don't think he was, I can't remember. Was he in town? Yeah, he was in town. It was Stuart Myers who was out of town. And I kind of planned it that way because I had a feeling that it had to be done when a couple of people weren't in the city or weren't available. So John Jones, who was the music director at the time,

he had an inkling of what was going to happen. He was away. And I think Stuart was out of town too. So I planned it to be around a time period when management wasn't going to be around. So that's the full story about it. And you just walked away into the sunset on your terms. Yeah, I remember.

With a chance, like you said, very few people in radio get a chance to say goodbye. Say goodbye, yes. Not everyone's as lucky as Roger Ashby who's going to have a big farewell party and cake and all that stuff. And he's deserving of that, for sure. But I remember as soon as I pushed the button

on the microphone off, the phones started ringing off the hook. And I got a call from Don Burns, funnily enough, because they had been broadcasting it in a club somewhere downtown in Toronto. So during the whole hour, a bunch of people were sitting around in a club. I don't know which one it was. I'm sorry. And then I got outside and there were a whole bunch of people who had driven, who were close by into the parking lot just to sort of meet me afterwards and express how they felt. Again, very unique. I can't think of another example. And I said, one day I'm going to ask Danny about this. So this is that day. I will tell you one thing that's rather interesting is that the following day,

I had to go back. I had to go back to the station to clear out my locker. I had a ton of vinyl and CDs in my locker and I didn't want to take it with me because I didn't want them to think that I was stealing something. So I went back the following day with a big bag and loaded up my bag of my music. And then as I was trying to sneak out, Vince DiMaggio, the GM, pulled me into his office. And I literally was kind of yelled at for a half an hour about how, how unprofessional, how unprofessional I was, how I'd burned bridges. I couldn't believe you, you, you've done this.

Um, how could you do this to us? Who do you think you are? All of those, you know, who do you think you are? All of those, you know, I understood. I understood what he was saying. And then not less than a breath after that, he said, would you consider coming back? And I remember going, I just want to go. I just want to go. So much for burning the bridges right there. Yeah. And to be truthful, to be truthful, I, for a year, I just, my husband and I bought a crappy little house somewhere and we renovated it for a year and I didn't do anything.

I just, I kind of hid away for a while and started to build up a voice career and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, it was pretty monumental moment in my life. And it's kind of interesting that it was, you know, it's still out there. Like that I, that we just heard it. Like that's a whole bunch of people are going to hear it now for the first time.

And it kind of lives forever. Yeah, no regrets. No regrets. Yeah. Was there any concern though, to Vince's point, a little bit here about the next employer being concerned that you could do something like that again like because i think that's the only reason i think more people don't do what you did because they want to work for another radio company and then maybe that's a way to get like yeah i don't know but obviously not you you had uh confidence in yourself you

were sort of bank betting on Either that or blind determination. I'm not sure. I honestly don't know. I didn't really think about the repercussions of it. And I didn't really have trouble, to be truthful. I haven't had to... I think I've had a pretty good life so far, and I don't regret it by any stretch of the imagination.

And we didn't even... In that farewell speech there, you mentioned doing work at YTV and stuff, but we didn't even bring it up. But you've been doing a lot of things in this era that's beyond just CKLN and CKFM and now CFNY. But just to bring us up to speed. Yeah.

There's your resume. Imaging, voice, I forgot about some of this stuff too. Yeah, CTV and Street Noise was the show on YTV, which was a pretty crazy show. What was the premise of Street Noise? It was short stories, really in tune with what was going on with much music and music television at the time,

crazily edited. I think I did stories like, Are You Afraid of What's Under Your Bed? or Ghost Road in Port Perry, or I just kind of created stories about whatever I wanted to. And what was the show you were on there? Knight Rider? Not Knight Rider. What was it again? Some Canadian show. I remember that show but you just said it and I can't remember.

I honestly forget. I remember the episode was called Dying for Fame or something. I don't know. Pretty cool. So now that we're leaving CFY though, I do have to say hello to you from my good friend for fame or something. I don't know. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Sorry. So now that we're leaving CFY though, I do have to say hello to you

from my good friend Andrew Stokely. Hey, Andrew. I saw that too on Twitter. And then Brother Neil, who is, I've met Brother Neil at the second

Toronto Mike listener experience that we had at Great Lakes Brewery and Brother Neil wanted to say hi and then as you saw, I replied back that she's just going to

think that you're... Neil Morrison. Neil Morrison, who's Brother Bill. So this is not Neil Morrison or Brother Bill, but Brother Neil says hi. So Andrew Stokely, though, he helped. He's the reason I have these particular microphones and this particular mixer and all this stuff. Because Andrew said, this is the gear you should buy. And then I said, okay, I'm going to go buy that gear.

I like your mixer. That's how that went down. That's my Pro FX 8 Mackie mixer there. It does the job. Things are good here. Things are good here. And now that we're up to speed, so you've left. How are you doing so far?

Is everything okay? Are you kidding me? Are you feeling good? I'm feeling so good. I'm telling you. This is a great pleasure. You're okay to hang in for a little bit longer here. How long have we been talking?

I don't even know. 90 minutes. No, get out. An hour and 27 minutes and 33 seconds. And you don't edit this at all? I won't edit.

I won't even edit. Like if there was like a six second awkward pause, I won't even make it a two second pause. Who's going to last this long? This is, if you,

if you won't last this long, yeah, this might not be the podcast for you. So this is like, we reward those who enjoy the deep dives. This is the whole glory of the podcast. So please, I want to ask you about AM640. Mojo Radio.

Yeah, well, it was before Mojo. AM640. Yeah, I did a show called Music Talk. So tell me about this progressive talk show about music. I did it with Maureen Bulley and John Massicar. It was a talk show about music. I can't even remember when it was on, Sundays maybe? And it was, I think it was kind of the first of its kind.

We would basically invite musicians in to just talk about music. So I'd have the guys from I Mother Earth come in and sit down, or Tom Wilson. Amazing. And it'd be an hour. I'm trying to get Tom Wilson on here, by the way. I'm working on it. He's cool.

Yeah, just to talk about music and life and how life relates to music and storytelling from the road and all of that kind of stuff. It sounds like my kind of show. I don't know how I missed it. I think it was, you know, I don't know. It was kind of a little, I don't want to say ahead of its time, but it was, I think it struggled to find its audience.

And that could have been very much my fault. I don't know. I don't know what happened to it, but I liked it. It was kind of interesting. And you did some CBC radio shows, right? Like The Music Room and The Witching Hour? Yep.

Did those. That's true. And I worked on Air Farce for a while. I was the announcer for Air Farce, and I did a show called Comedy Matters with Anton Leo. And what else did I do there? Yeah, a bunch of stuff. Oh, by the way, I asked you about music talk,

but I have to give a shout out to Mike on Twitter who told me to ask you about music talk on AM640. So Mike, I was going to do it anyways, but I just see your note here. So here you go. Were you doing a lot of Mike's, by the way? Yeah. Every third guy born in the 70s is named Mike.

Is that right? I made that up. It could be true. It feels true. It feels true. Did you do, you did some voice, some stuff at Q107,

like some shifts here and there, like just a little. Yeah. Yeah. I did some of that too. Just kind of fill in work. Boy, what else did I do there?

Well, I did a lot of imaging for, for Q and, and some for NY and a lot for 640. You do imaging for, yeah. Like, I mean,

there's, you did stuff, stations in Vancouver, right? You did, well, You do imaging for, yeah, like, I mean, you did stations in Vancouver, right? You did, well, the David Marsden Iceberg Radio you were doing imaging there. Yeah, that was through Gary Slate and Dave Barker. Yeah, Iceberg, Iceberg Radio. Iceberg Radio. But you, yeah, I mean, right?

You did some CBS radio in New York. Yeah, that was through Chris Morides, who I love. Okay, quick side here. So I'm friendly with Chris too. You're friendly with him. We go meet for lunch and we phone and things like that. Cool. And not too long ago, I would say like maybe six weeks ago or something like that.

So after we scheduled this visit, maybe it was another visit that you pushed to this one because that's your move but whatever it was it was in my calendar your name was in my calendar and i'm talking to chris merides about something else um he loves toronto mike so he's definitely gonna hear this so i'm well aware of that when i say this which is that chris merides says something like have you ever considered having danny elwell on your show like he says this to me on the phone and i almost i almost threw the phone against the wall and said have i I ever considered having Danny Elwell on my show? And then I gave him the story of the five years of us going back and forth

and that you're finally in the calendar and that you're coming on the show. So I knew that you were friendly with Chris Marie, who's a fascinating guy. I'm trying to get him to... He's not just fascinating. He's brilliant. He's actually a brilliant writer. He's a great conceptualizer of programming great taste in podcasts yeah sure great taste in podcasts he's one of those you

know i don't know mike you sort of um have people in your life that you're really grateful for them being there and chris is is one of them um he's also helped me with a couple of interesting opportunities too along the way, which I'm pretty grateful for. Yeah, well, that's fantastic. He's at 640. Yeah, that's where I first met him. Right, right, right. Yeah, okay.

And eventually, for those listening, eventually Chris Maurice will come in and I will... He will. Well, he'll meet me nearby for lunch i don't know why he won't he's a little bit of an enigma too right like he's he's he he kind of likes to create a bit of mystery around him like he you know he won't he'll only reveal so much and he's a little frustrated in the sense that uh he's not a like if i say chris marides to let's say 20 people i know 20 of them will tell me i don't know that name like he's so but so but then you talk to somebody like yourself

or when i'm chatting with mark weisblatt or whatever and they'll speak of chris marides like he's this uh uh this god great genius uh. Best news person you never heard of or whatever. Like, you know, and I know he did a lot of work in the States and New York or whatever. But in this market,

it's not a name brand, Chris Mavridis. Although he was a reporter here for quite a while. Evelyn Mackle was on this show and she talked about working with Chris and yeah,

at 640, I believe it's on that. So anyway, I'm glad that Chris has helped you with some opportunities and stuff and all that. I can't I'm glad that Chris, Chris has helped you with some opportunities and stuff and all that. I can't remember

how we got to Chris. Do you remember? We just, just randomly, you said the word Chris Marides. I randomly said the words Chris Marides.

Just sometimes we do that. We blurt out the name Chris Marides. Okay, so you mentioned Air Farce and let's talk just briefly here before we talk about

the Jazz FM 91. Let's talk just briefly here before we talk about the jazz fm 91 let's talk about voiceover stuff like you've done some big time uh spots like as a voiceover actor is that what we call you a voiceover actor i have no idea what you call people i guess it is a voiceover actor yeah so how did you just stumble into this because you had a great voice? Is this the reason I don't have any voice work coming my way? I started doing it in

85 maybe. 1985 I started doing it. I think McDonald's it's interesting. I've come full circle. McDonald's was my very, very first commercial. It was with Rick Sherman, of all people. And then, yeah, it's always been it so you're doing mcdonald's work now yeah mccafe right so and these are is it just canada these spots yes although i think it's their web and uh youtube stuff too but i'm not sure okay but uh i would imagine that when you get uh consistently get some national spots that

this can be uh fairly lucrative i would think. What would I know? And what does lucrative mean when you live in Toronto? I don't know. But you've done very well for yourself just in the voiceover universe. Well, yeah. And I don't know why. I honestly don't know why. I think that radio gives you very, very good training in that regard. I remember being at CKFM and listening to people like Russ Thompson and Carl Bannis and, and, you know, those really high pro people. And they would go into a booth and they would look at what was maybe 45 seconds of copy and turn it into 30 seconds without sweating it. And I'd be like, Oh my God, that is amazing. I was blown away and still have

it make sense and still have it, uh, you know, have a sense of intimacy and conversational quality to it and all of that. And I, I listened and I watched and I, I, I think that, you know, if you do enough radio in your life, you can, you can get that, that skill that, um, I don't know what I, I, you know what I'm trying to find. Well, it's a combination. I'm sure that, yes, you probably have developed that skill by being in radio. And then, then you also have a tonal quality to your voice, which is attractive to advertisers. And that's a nice perfect storm for what you do.

I guess. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what... Truly, Mike, I don't know what the answer... I'm grateful. Well, it's a big name. I mean... But big names.

I mean, like, I don't know, Bank of America and Johnson & Johnson and Sprint. And, you know, these are some... These are not, you know, little ma and pop shops here. These are some big time. No, I've been very lucky. Very lucky. And a credit to Sandy Sloan, who's been my agent and guiding force for so long. Who you credited in your resignation. Yeah, there you go.

I've heard the name Sandy Sloan. It's got good alliteration to it. So, all right. Now, it's got good alliteration to it so all right now is now a good time for us to uh get you to jazz fm 91 so let's start is it did i did i miss anything that you i don't know i'm trying to think of what else have i done i'm sure there's other things that you know it's up to you what do you want what do you want to know okay so how did you end up at Jazz FM? Sure. I was working for a bunch of stations on a freelance basis. I think I was doing a bunch of chorus stations and maybe some other voice and imaging work.

And I was approached to do a morning show on the weekends for Jazz FM called The Morning. They wanted to develop something that was Saturday and Sunday mornings from 6 to 9. And I can't remember, I think it was Walter Vanafro, Ralph Ben-Murgy, and maybe even Brad. Brad Barker. Yeah, who brought me in to talk about what that could be. And soon thereafter, I started doing that.

So that was a part-time kind of freelance gig that I was doing for Jazz FM. And the precursor to all of that is that I had been, Reiner had actually worked at Jazz FM for a while. And I came in to do his show with All Night Andre, uh, one evening on a, I think it was Fridays from 10 to one in the morning. And we went there and I think that they had just started to develop their studios at Liberty Street. So we were actually in the boardroom at the time as opposed to, um, where their studios are now. Right. But, uh, yeah. So I, I kind of, you know, listened to Reiner doing his work there and I knew a little bit about, a little bit about jazz,

always interested in music. So I thought this could be a, you know, a new, um. And you have the genealogy for jazz. It's in your DNA, right? As much as I probably, as a young person tried to uh fight it i was more of a punk alternative girl growing up right um yeah it was it was in me and um around me kind of growing up too a couple of names you mentioned i gotta so uh ralph ben murgy's been on the show i quite like the dude uh and what was it like working with ralph i didn't really work with him by the time i got there i yeah like i what i was i would go in and do my show voice track it um and uh didn't really see him very often um i think i actually saw ralph more at ckln because ralph was

part of that that sort of right because he talked about talked about DJ Ron Nelson, too, of course. It all comes full circle here. Anton Leo, John Jones, Ralph Ben-Murray, they were all kind of a part of that. Even, oh my God, Adam Vaughn was all part of that. I know who else might be, and I hope I got, I think Paul Romanuk is, anyway, I think Ralph Ben-Murray told me a story

of Paul was doing some things there at the same time. He's a hockey guy, but. Right. Okay, amazing. And you keep mentioning this name cause you worked with him so closely, uh, Brad Barker. And I'm curious about what it was like working with Brad because Brad, of course, for those who don't know, he's in the pursuit of happiness now. And Moe Berg was just here. So did he talk about him? I didn't hear the episode. Yeah, I brought up Brad. And, you know, Brad's not a founding member of Pursuit of Happiness,

but Moe pointed out that he's been there so long. He's essentially a core member of the band. He's a member of Pursuit of Happiness. But Brad Barker, I believe, he's been at Jazz FM since the beginning. I would say 17 years, maybe. And we're going to get to this right now very soon, but he's still there. He's a survivor.

He's the music director and afternoon drive host there. And it's not easy to be a survivor in that organization at this time. So we'll get to that. So we were with Brad Barker on, was it First Listen? Is that what you called it? Yeah, we developed a new release of show. I think it was for Bay Blue Radio at the time called First Listen.

It started off as a feature that existed in his show and then it built towards a weekend show. You know, when you say Bay Blue Radio, my brain goes back to those 90, the spots, Mendelssohn, what was his name? Mark Mendelssohn.

Right. If you miss it, you miss it, or was that his catchphrase? He's a great guy. Really, really great guy. Because his son does it now, right?

No, I think Mark still does it. Okay, but the father, didn't he pass away? Mark? Maybe I'm wrong. I get my Mendelssohn's mixed up,

but the son took over? Okay, you would know better than I would. The son is involved in the business, I think. But not doing the review. I'm wrong. I get my Mendelssohn's mixed up, but the Sun took over? The Sun is involved in the business, I think. I'm not entirely clear of the hierarchy, but no, Mark is a wonderful, wonderful man. And Richard Bowden is the manager of, well, I guess, I don't know the exact title of Richard, but he's also a big part of Babe Blue Radio. For a period of time, I lived at 30 Charles Street West.

Is that right? Yeah. When was that? What time period? I was at U of T at the time. So I can tell you exactly. This was 1996, 7, kind of, yeah, 97, 98, that kind of time period. It was back when the Uptown Theater was still there because I could see the Uptown Theater

from my balcony. And the Brass Rail. Oh, yeah. Theater was still there because I could see the Uptown Theater from my balcony. And the Brass Rail. Oh, yeah. Which is still there, I think. I went there once with Chris Shepard. Where's Chris Shepard? Scott Turner has been trying to get him for me. I need to talk to this guy.

I sent out messages. I don't know where he is. Does he really have all these degrees he talks about? I can't believe he really has these degrees. I would believe he does, yeah. I need to talk to him, though, and see if you can find him. Well, I would like to talk to him too. When you're talking to him over coffee, like personally. I have not seen

him for decades. But he doesn't put on that affection or that affliction on his voice or whatever. Like, he's not talking. He's not really talking like this. Danny. I can't even do it. Just maybe a little bit. A little part of that is him.

Sure. Chris Shepard. It's been so long. I used to record to cassette tape Chris Shepard's overnight stuff on CFNY. Skinny puppy on whatever he got. It was before Martin Streak, right? So he was doing it.

So I think after Marsden and Shepard and then Shepard is replaced by Martin Streak, right? So he was doing it. So I think after Marsden is Shepard and then Shepard is replaced by Martin Streak when Shepard, I guess he goes to 108 or something with Burns or something. That's right. That's the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Marty Streak, speaking of people who left us too soon, he was, and you used to do the Thursday 32, right? Yeah, I did it for three years. Yeah. And Pete Fowler used to co-host the Thursday 30, speaking of Pete Fowler, with Martin Streep. Yeah, I guess he did.

He told me the story of when Marty dropped an F-bomb live on the air because he couldn't get to a nine-inch nail show or something. Was it nine-inch nails? Wouldn't surprise me. Might have been tool. I can't remember if it's nine-inch nails or Wouldn't surprise me. Might have been tool. I can't remember if it's nine inch nails or tool.

Anyway. And Stu Myers sent a memo to everybody about how you can never do that or whatever and somebody brought me in a copy. It might have been Pete Fowler showed me a copy of the memo that Stu Myers sent around. You know, what are you going to do? I don't know.

Are we really? You could drop an F-bomb in this show. That was such a long you going to do? I don't know. Are we really... You could drop an F-bomb in this show. That was such a long time ago, I guess, in context, that makes sense. Not that I would encourage

anybody to be dropping F-bombs, but, you know, stuff happens. Well, you still can't do it. I mean, people do it, but if people can complain about it and you can get in trouble,

I guess it all depends if anyone complains. You can do anything you want if no one complains, I suppose. Or if someone did complain, you could argue humanity. That people are human beings and that sometimes mistakes happen. Oh, that's exactly right.

He clearly wanted to see that Nine Inch Nails show. But okay. Now, you got a great title at Jazz FM because you were vice president creative, which sounds to me like a cool title. I don't know much about radio titles, but I would like to be vice president creative of Toronto Mic'd, the podcast. That's a great title. We will give you that title. Done. See, I tried to leave. I think I was on the verge of resigning. On the air? No, no, no, no. Darn it. And that's when the station offered vice president creative, which, yeah, I mean, it's a, I guess it's a fancy way of describing someone who oversees

anything that's creative that's coming out of the radio station. And speaking of that, because we're going to get into some of the stuff flying around at Jazz FM in the last year or so, but Night Lab, what can you tell me about Night Lab? I had been doing, as the director of content, I had been doing a show called Sunday Afternoon Jazz, which was Heather Bambrick's show, which she came back to after that. And I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to, I've always been a big fan of late night radio. I've always been a fan of being able to stretch as far as boundaries

musically are concerned. There's a healthy amount of material that exists in jazz that does that, that isn't just jazz, but stretches into hip hop or blues or, oh God, electronics, or any of those other genres of music. So I wanted Night Lab to be a place for ideas and concepts and different kinds of music and a fair amount of clips and audio and interviews. And for me to not really be a big part of it as far as a host was concerned, but more to let the music and the thoughts and the ideas behind that speak to it. And it was Sundays at 10 p.m.

Yep, Sundays 10 to midnight. And I loved it. It was a really terrific show. It's almost in the spirit of your alternative bedtime hour. Like it's, yeah, very cool. It was definitely a nod to that. By the way, Bill i forget while we're at jazz fm uh you know bill king i don't know him incredibly well i brought bill in um to do uh a live performance on the air with gavin hope at uh at jazz fm i think we were doing some Black History Month performances

and he came in with Gavin. And I think that's the first time that I met him physically. And then he and I have just sort of talked a little bit back and forth on Facebook. So I certainly know of Bill and I have respect for him,

but I don't know him incredibly well. By the way, you should listen to his appearance on Toronto Mic because it's fascinating. I've been told, yes. You should. I've been told I should listen. You should definitely listen to him.

I will. You know, he was like, come on, he was working with Janis Joplin, for God's sake. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, you gotta listen to this guy. But I went on,

I think it was Facebook, I can't, I think it was Facebook, maybe Twitter, I can't remember, but he said something. He said to give me a hug. Yeah, yeah,

he told me to give you a hug. So why do you need a hug? Let's talk about Jazz FM. Jazz FM. Are you sure it's about that? And I talked to Bill. By the way, Bill went off on Jazz FM. And then I asked Molly about Jazz FM.

And she didn't go off as like Bill, but she had some interesting things to say. But what can you tell me about what went down? Because you were doing Night Lab and you were vice president creative. And then suddenly you were doing Night Lab and you were Vice President Creative and then suddenly you were doing your last show on Jazz FM and then you

kind of disappeared and it was quiet. We never heard why did you leave Jazz FM? Why did I leave Jazz FM? I was uncomfortable with some of the decisions that were being made at the time and it's difficult because I can't uncomfortable with some of the decisions that were being made at the time. And

it's difficult because I can't really get into too, too much of it. Mike, there's a lot, there's a huge story here. And there are people whose lives at this moment, you know, depend on how that story is revealed and evolved. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, I don't know what the right word is. I don't want to step into that world too, too much. But I was unhappy with some of the decisions that were being made. Um, and I decided that, um, I would resign and I understood what was happening in Ross's life at the time because he had a wife that wasn't well. And so I decided, look, take as much time as you want to try and sort it out. We had come to some agreement that I would stay on the air so that night lab and first listen to the program would remain

and it would be my full-time duties as vice president that I would leave. And that's sort of what happened. That was in July of last year. So that was the beginning of the end. You were really the beginning. Yeah, you were kind of the first shoe that I noticed dropping, if you will. I mean, because suddenly

you were gone. A high-profile person like you is gone. Now, I understand and I respectfully your desire to, I can't remember how you worded it, but not to, you're being careful. You're being careful for some obvious reasons. I will just... I'll be a little less careful

because I'm not involved at all. But I will say that I read the news. Okay. So in the news, I read about Garvia Bailey. So Garvia Bailey filed a... I got to get these words right. But a statement...

Okay. She filed a lawsuit against... I don't know if it's against the station and Ross Porter, but she talks about something called the collective, and the collective is like a group of current and former employees. And because she is claiming that she was terminated from her job as morning show host at Jazz FM because she joined this group that is known as The Collective.

This all sounds very cloak and daggers here, but The Collective. And that outlined complaints against Ross Porter and other senior staffers. And there was a March letter, apparently. So could you comment, are you part of The Collective? You don't plead the fifth in Canada, right? That's a U.S. thing.

I watch too much Law and Order. Yeah, yeah, you do. Was I part of the collective? Yes, I was. And Garvia, so she was let go. There's a lot of other high-profile people that were let go at the same time. James B., is it B?

Or is it B's? I want to say B's, but it's James B. And others as well. Oh, the names are... B, is it B? Or is it B's? I want to say B's. It's James B and others as well. Oh, the names are, what's the gentleman's name? Walter Bonafro? And another one. Oh, man. But a whole bunch of

on-air people. Mark Wakemore? Yes, right. And there was a whole issue with the board support and Ross is still there, right? Is he still on the air, Ross Porter, through this whole thing? Is there anything you can say about... I know that this lawsuit from Garvia is, I guess,

that's before the courts or whatever you say. And is there anything further you could say about this? Can I call it a clusterfuck? Like any hopes or desires for this station to kind of reclaim the spirit of what it was meantfuck? Like any hopes or desires for this station to kind of reclaim the spirit of what it was meant to be? Because it's clearly in turmoil. Well, I haven't read Garvia's statement of claim, but I will say this. I believe and trust and support her wholeheartedly. Um, uh, she is, um, a respectful human being who, you know, deserves to have, uh, this reconciled and I believe in her favor.

Um, that's pretty, I mean, Mike, I don't really want to delve too, too much into it to be truthful. It's, it's rather sad when I, when I look back on, you know on a good, oh God, how many years? Three or four years of work in that particular role, we did a lot of really amazing programming and work. And I'm sad that this is happening to the radio station right now. I hope it survives. I really do. And that's pretty much all I can say. I'm curious, post-Jazz FM, for things like... I can tell by following you on Facebook

that you are filled with passion for this creative process of producing, programming, etc. And yes, maybe you're not currently on a terrestrial radio station, but in 2018, that's okay because you can continue. So what have you been up to lately and what are your plans for the future with regards to releasing this creativity? I got away with that. That's it. That's cool.

I was going to grab you by the scruff of your shirt and yeah um what am i doing i i i as you say i i do a lot of voice work um i was teaching for a while at humber i loved that that was cool uh i'm working on, currently on a project that I can't really talk about, but when it's fully realized, I hope you'll like it and support it. And when it's fully realized,

will you come back and kick out the jams with me and talk about this project? So we do kick out the jams, which is where I play a whole bunch of tunes. You tell me your 10 favorite songs of all time and we'll play them and you'll hear them in these nice Sennheiser headphones and then you'll tell us why you love this song or anything you want about it.

10 favorite songs of all time. That's always the hardest part. It's the kind of question that I ask of people all the time, but then when it comes down to actually doing it myself, that's hard. Well, I haven't done it yet either. So I know exactly what you mean because I ask people all the time.

There's been over 50 people have come back to kick out the jams and I haven't even done this yet because it's impossible. I know exactly what you mean because I ask people all the time. There's been over 50 people have come back to kick out the jams. And I haven't even done this yet because it's impossible. But Dave Hodge, who's a known television sports media personality, he actually came on and we only played his top 10, but he delivered his top 100 songs of all time. Wow.

He couldn't get it down to 10. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I can't imagine someone even like John Donabee coming up with 10. Yeah, and he hasn't yet because he's only had the one visit, but then he had to travel. He quit the CKLN gig so that he could... Was it CKLN or CIUT?

Oh, you're right. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, CKLN doesn't... Right, it was definitely CIUT. Yeah. There's no CKLN on the air anymore. No.

That's the IndySignal, right? 88.1. 88.1. But they do have... I know Ryerson has their own little radio station within the... Speaking of messed up radio stuff, they got stripped of their CRTC license or whatever the heck that is.

But this project you're working on, is it digital? Like, is this in the digital realm? Yes. You don't this project you're working on, is it digital? Is this in the digital realm? Yes, it is completely wholeheartedly in the digital realm. Exciting. It's jazz related. I'll put that out there.

And I think it's going to be really cool. What's really... What's that? This is the freedom. you now have your freedom i now can go away but i've recorded you telling me that you're going to come back and kick out the jams with me did i actually say yes is that legally binding yeah no it is and did you actually say yes yeah i can think of the the first three right away well that's that's 30. You're 30% of the way done. Exactly. It's not bad. But it has to be after you're allowed

to talk about this digital venture thing that you're working on so top secretly. So that would be in the new year. Perfect. Is that good?

So then five years later you're coming. Yeah, from the new year. That's right. I'm still going and that's exactly right. Well, Dani, I hope you enjoyed yourself

because I sure did. That was fantastic. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Danny, I hope you enjoyed yourself because I sure did. That was fantastic. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me. And thank you for being so persistent. And that brings us to the end of our 390th show. Wow, I'm exhausted. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Danny is at Danny LL00. Are those capital O's? They're zeros. Yeah. Is that on Twitter? Yeah.

On Twitter. Yes. This is all Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. Another big win yesterday. And PayTM is at PayTM Canada. See you all next

week. Rosie and Grace Yeah, the wind is cold But the snow won't stay today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is Rosie and Grace

You've been under my skin For more been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears.