Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Bidini: Toronto Mike'd #1110

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

In this 1110th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Dave Bidini as they talk about Bookie, the Rheostatics, the West End Phoenix, and the new CBC documentary series Summit '72. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1110 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.

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The lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Today, making his highly anticipated return to Toronto Mic'd is Dave Bedini. Hello, beautiful people. Welcome back to Etobicoke. Yeah, man, back to the homeland. This is the motherland.

So remind me what neighborhood in Etobicoke? Kipling-Dixon area. Okay, awesome. So when you get to this side of the Humber River, do you get the warm fuzzies? How do you feel? Misty? No, not really.

Honestly, this part of the neighborhood, I never would have gone to. It was too dangerous, man. Yeah. You know, Lakeshore is still a little sketchy, but I think it gives the neighborhood some character hey listen i'm all for it as an adult but as a 15 year old kid like punk kid forget it oh i hear you man yeah like my daughter doesn't like walking lakeshore at night

and uh i forget it's different for women than it is for us dudes and it is a little scary because there's catcalling and there's uh people spilling out into the streets that maybe have had one too many pops and uh yeah you gotta you gotta be aware of your surroundings but uh well in our day too like you know if uh you had a colored colored hair or look at i've got all these band pins right you had one band pin or an earring or or you know uh your dad's blazer and a skinny tie you wouldn't have made it all the way down the Kipling 45 because you would have had the shit beaten out of you by the time you got set, you know, the Queensway. So, yeah.

Well, we've come a long way. We haven't finished our journey, but we've made a little progress here. Totally. So, my friend, I saw a tweet from you this morning. I'm going to read it. It said, awake to do the CBC carousel of morning shows and then Toronto Mike.

Long day that gets us to network premiere of Summit 72 tonight at 8 p.m. So a few questions, but one is, did any of those CBC shows give you a Palma Pasta lasagna or any fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery? No, they did not, cheap bastards. But look at, oh, this is so great. Well, it's in the freezers.

Okay, it's great. But I got a lovely empty box from Toronto Mike. And it's going to be full when you leave here today, buddy. Seriously. Wicked, wicked, great. That's dinner. No, no, listen. But it was nice to talk to Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

It was nice to talk to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. It was nice to talk to Sydney, Cape Breton. You know, that's good to talk to. And do you do it all from your home? Your home home uh studio like like my home i could do it i just did it from my phone from your phone okay did you do uh metro morning yes we did okay yeah it was great first time talking to a smiley which was great and uh yeah i guess i think it was pretty early for most people i was around 6 15 there on Metro Morning, but shift workers and, you know. You know, yeah.

People doing their thing. Professors wake up early. They want to find out what's going on. They've got to finish their novel, right? Right? That is, that's prime writing time, I would say. It's got to be if you've got a gig, right? You've got to get up early and write.

So I know you're used to all these hits being all about the Summit 72 doc, which premieres tonight on CBC. And I am a gem guy, so I will be streaming this on CBC. Are you like executive gem? Do you have that high level gem? No, no, no. I have the one that comes with like your passport or whatever. Like I'm Canadian, I have this gem. But I do watch quite a bit on gem, like I'm a fan of gem. And I will tell you, we're going to dive in deeper like later because i have some other ground to cover but i am personally excited

about this documentary like i have nostalgia for this series even though i was not alive when this series took place um yeah well that was part you know for us we it can't be too nostalgic right it can't be too much of a time trip um it has to this film has to live in 2022 right um and i felt that was kind of largely my my role there was to sort of make it make it um relevant in a cinematic sense i think um uh you know as a as a as a cinematic entity if you're just if it's just a time trip it's just about nostalgia then you know i as a cinematic entity. If you're just, if it's just a time, if it's just about nostalgia, then, you know, I think you're defeated before you start, honestly. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, specifically,

what was your role with this doc? Like, are you the cameraman? What were you doing, Dave? Yeah, I was the best boy. I was the co-director and co-writer and music supervisor. Wow. Oh, man.

So did you pick the jams that you hear in this documentary? It's all, yeah, the music that I program is all stuff that I love, yeah. So I will just shout out. You know what? He's a listener, so I guess that makes him an FOTM, but he's never been on the show, but he came on Hebsey on Sports with Hebsey and I. But Brad Wheeler, who's,

I get a lot of DMs from Brad about episodes of Toronto Mike, so I know he's listening right now. But there is a great Brad Wheeler interview who's, I get a lot of DMs from Brad about episodes of Toronto Mike. So I know he's listening right now. But there is a great Brad Wheeler interview with you, Dave, talking about the music on this documentary. It was nice for Brad to extract that angle because we're pretty proud of it. You know, he mentions that, and it was nice to get feedback. Listen, he was one of the first persons to see this thing. It was great to get feedback then. Listen, he was one of the first persons to see this thing.

It was great to get feedback then. But, you know, we made those choices to, you know, to run a Tanya Tagak track under Henderson's goal, right? Just to make the different choice. And right out of the box is Plastic Bertrand, C'est un plan pour moi, that establishes the pace and energy of the show, I think. Right. So, listen, it was about diving into my record collection

and searching for all the right fits that weren't the obvious ones. I don't want to use the word elevates, just to separate this project from all the others that had come before it and actually exist concurrently with this one. I was talking with a fellow Michael Power graduate and FOTM, Bill Brio,

who I know spoke to you recently. And Bill, like he had like advanced copies. Like he said, I've seen the first three episodes. So what does it take to get on these lists? Like, what do I need to do to be on that list? No, I can get you that. We can backdoor that. I thought you might be a watch it live on TV kind of guy.

So I don't know. But I think he got the press kit. But that went through formal channels. We don't do it like that. No, man. I don't. Tobacco homies. That's not how we roll.

That's right. That's right. And again, Michael Power, great Tobacco high school. Kipling Collegiate. Yeah. Pretty good high school, I guess. You know what? My older two kids went to Humberside,

so they were on the other side of it. And then my younger two are in French immersion, so there's a whole discussion. There is currently no French immersion at LCI, so it looks like it's going to be a Tobacco Collegiate. Humberside, that's Rick Emmett and John K. Steppenwolf, I think, right? They both went to the high school.

All I know is, and we'll get to this guy later. They did, I noticed. Because the Great Lakes, Peter Bullitt and Mike Lackey I think right though they both went to the all I know is and we'll get to this guy later they did I know this because the Great Lakes Peter Bullitt and Mike Lackey from Great Lakes went to Humberside

you gotta watch that Mike Lackey like I got around he was in every high school parking lot he's you know if you want to find Mike Lackey

go to George Bell Arena because he's probably playing hockey at George Bell Arena Friday's at 4 I think hey I know well we got hockey

to cover it later because i've got a clip for you and i think i was gonna say i was gonna surprise you with it but i think brad wheeler might have let the cat out of the bag on twitter but uh i recently sat down at the woodshed with jim cuddy oh you went up there it was a remote yeah you know what he's too precious to come to mimicoi that's a great discussion like who will i do that for so far i've only done it for two musicians uh chuck d asked me to come to the cne grandstand and i was happy to because he's chuck chuck fucking d and then yeah jim cuddy asked if i could come to the woodshed and i thought it might be neat to see the woodshed like i thought that might be like i so i packed up my gear and i biked over to

whatever that is leslieville and i thought that might be part of the like experience for me and i dug it so yeah yeah cool no it listens to great studio and stuff. But you should have just mailed Jim a subway token and told him to get on the fucking Kipling 45 like the rest of us. We'll get to Jim shortly. But I want to tell people, if they're looking for that initial deep dive

with Dave Bedini here, you want episode 526. That's amazing. So you were 526. That was October 2019. Yeah. And now we're at, what, 1110 which is wild like that i did that many episodes in just like three years i'm just patting myself on the back here but i'll read the description mike chats with dave badini about real statics etobicoke

dave bookman gore downey the west end ph radio, and more. And we talked for like 40, an hour and 40 minutes. So a lot of those topics we might revisit here today, but that's where you only an hour and 40 minutes. This might be a little shorter actually, but I have a note for you, man. So earlier this week I spoke with Dan Hill. So Dan is important to me. Well, Dan says hi. Firstly, that was my back. you is it a bernie finkelstein connection where does your where are you and dan where do you guys intersect in uh in things no paul corrington uh dan and paul were in a band together in don mills so i think that's my really the most important and dearest connection with dan is through Paul. Dan helped me a lot with my Lightfoot book, though,

because I was worried about getting sued by Gord. Oh, really? Dan told me a story about that sort of supported the notion that he wouldn't sue me, and he didn't. So God bless you, Gord. God bless you, Dan. We've also shared stages together, me and Dan. We backed him up playing Sometimes When We Touch,

which was a great thrill. I mean, Dan's a beautiful guy, and I love everything he does, and all hail, Dan Hill. Hail, Dan Hill. You were talking Paul Quarantin here for a moment, so I thought if you wouldn't mind sharing some thoughts about Paul. I was asking Dan about Paul, of course, because they were so,

they were so tight, but the fun fact, if you will, is that Paul's got a writing credit on what, I mean, I think you'd admit is your biggest hit single. Totally. Claire.

Number 34 with a bullet nationally. Great song. I'm going to let it breathe for a moment. and then we're going to talk about Paul here. Man, it's great. And this is from the Whale Music soundtrack. It is, yeah. So if you don't mind, a few words about Paul who left us far too soon. Yeah, Whale Music, the movie,

we were commissioned to write the music, and they needed all the music, all the songs done before they could shoot, before they could roll tape. So we were not writing to screen, we were writing to novel. so we took all of the

we took all of it was all inspired by paul's words um in it you know the desmond howell the protagonist writes a pop song comes out of this kind of abstract haze he's only doing commercial he only writes wants to write music for whales? And suddenly he has this moment of light and he writes this song called Claire and there was, and Paul describes it a little bit in the book and he has a couplet of lines and we use that as the seed for this song

and we all went home. Actually, that was the assignment to all go home and to write Claire and then Tim wrote it first and so this is the version of Claire that you hear. Wow. Yeah. Now you know the rest of Claire that you hear. Wow. Yeah. Now you know the rest of the story. It was kind of

like an assignment. We never would have written it, I don't think, purposefully and it's ironic that it kind of became our most well-known song from that because we weren't intending to do it. So yeah, thanks to Paul for all that and it was a thrill. 1994,

that film opened the Toronto International Film Festival. And here we are, TIFF week. Yeah. Yeah, at the Uptown Theatre. And we had stood up in the audience. Robert Lantos recognized us. And we got to hear our music as part of that film directed by Richard J. Lewis in the most beautiful Dolby stereo.

Loud, bright, beautiful. It was a great, great experience. I love that theater. I'm thinking of all the, I mean, Saving Private Ryan. I lived, for a couple of years, I lived at 35 Charles Street West. So our balcony was like over top the Uptown Theater, which is long gone now, I guess, but across from the Brass Rail, essentially,

which seems to still be there. Well there well tragically the wall caved in and that poor student from costa rica was was killed and right yeah so unfortunately yeah i mean that it had a terrible ending but but it it harbored a lot of lost souls that place and a lot of great art lived there for sure without a doubt here now i almost feel like this is a shout out to 1236. It feels a bit like the Ridley Funeral Home segment of his visits here. But, you know, we talked about Paul and then you reminded me of that tragic death at the Uptown Theatre. And I'm hoping you could talk to me a little bit about your dear friend, the late, great Dave Bookman, Bookie, because I I mean, since we last talked...

Here, I have a little clip I'll play that'll help set things up here. This is FOTM Josie Dye here. Stand by. Thank you to everyone and anyone who spoke and performed. If you could come up, and maybe Elliot and Julie, if you're around as well. You know, when you look at Toronto,

the monuments and landmarks contribute to the feel and the nostalgia of the city. And we know how talented Dave Bookman was. But now this plaque will help solidify Bookie's contributions to Canadian music, the Canadian music industry, with a placemark of pride. I'm so happy to have known this wonderful human being. Vookie didn't just, he didn't go out much, if you knew Vookie. He'd always say, you know, I'm monitoring from home. But I think today he would have been here and he would have been beyond grateful for this recognition.

So thank you everyone for coming out. Please take a moment. We are going to unveil the plaque. And so take a moment, if you want to get pictures, to tell your friends that we'll be here for a while, anyone who was not able to make it. But now we're here, Spadina and Queen. Bookie's going to be here forever.

So thank you so much. So, Dave, tell me a little bit about, I actually couldn't make it because I had a scheduling conflict, but I wanted to be there, but the unveiling of the heritage plaque for Bookie at the Horseshoe Tavern. It was beautiful. It was 11 a.m. on a weekday and a lot of people came out, crowded that corner and the curtain was pulled off the plaque, which looks beautiful. and the curtain was pulled off the plaque, which looks beautiful. And then we had a show a couple of weeks ago where we recreated Delicatessen. A bunch of people did all of,

we did that whole album, a new singer for every song, and that was really great too because I think it sort of showed what, you know, just the real craft in the songwriting, which holds up. It's great to see dave um celebrated this way his his memory his um you know just his deep deep deep quiet um impact on a scene and i think dave's voice kind of really dovetailed with an emerging scene canadian

independent music went to the next level because of Dave's Tuesdays. And by the way, he supported bands on the radio. But Jody mentions there about Dave not going out. And he was very hermetic in the last, you know, 10, 15 years of his life. But before then, he was everywhere. Like, Bookie was, like, we did everything.

We went to every show. And so people knew him from that as well well i'm glad you're pointing that out because uh josie josie was with uh jody sorry yes okay josie good blink 182 something but josie worked with bookie at 102.1 and then of course also at indie 88 but you go further back with bookie right like i put dave on the radio so we became became friends with our bands. And Dave told me that he did a broadcast journalism degree in Ottawa. And I was like, done any radio lately? He said, I did some stuff, CFUO, Carlton, but not anymore. And I was like, well, I have an opportunity to do a show on CIUT.

Let's do it together. So we did a show called High and Outside on CIUT. We did that for a couple of years um i want to say thursday mornings could be wrong but um and then i got busy i had to go on tour and so dave said i keep doing it's like do it and so dave created don't look back and dave was the first person and this is we're doing it today yeah but dave was the first person to play music under his under his voice and um dave was the first person to put together guests from music and sports um and he was able to uh parlay that into his legendary status

and that's hard to do to take you to go from college radio to commercial radio and not lose any of your essence and dave was able to preserve that no matter what he did. Amazing. I mean, if we did get the time and date, you know, I mean, sorry, the day of the week and time of, you know, Bookie's show on CIUT wrong, I'd get a note right now from Mark Wiseblood. So I'm just joking. So apparently we got it right there. But he's always monitoring these details.

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, so, what was Live in Toronto? That was the, Kim Hughes, right? Is this the first time Bookie would, I guess, at a mainstream media radio station?

I know he would kind of call in to Live in Toronto on CFNY and that's sort of his debut there, I think. I don't know. I don't really, I've kind of blotted out the kim hughes now magazine world because they weren't very kind to us honestly um so i'm i'm not sure i'm not sure

how much they work together but um i knew that dave's voice was you know uh radiant uh from the moment it was given that platform and he was a friendly guy too like a friendly media you know, radiant from the moment it was given that platform. And he was a friendly guy, too, like a friendly media. You know, in Toronto, media can be really insular and competitive. But Dave stood apart from most of that. Yeah, we miss Boki. I'm glad there's now the plaque at Horseshoe Tavern to remember Boki for all eternity. Yeah, it is amazing.

It is amazing. Now, okay, not even just mildly awkward is that I was going to ask you about the demise of Now Magazine. That's okay. We can talk about that. So my understanding is, again, I'll speak for myself, is I understand there was some strange competition

like when people would write for iWeekly, for example, versus like a Now Magazine. But our thing with Now goes even further back than that. We predate Now magazine by a couple of years. Our first show was in 1980. We were really the only creative entity in Toronto to never be on the cover. We were never asked to be on the cover.

Our records were always poorly reviewed, slagged by their writers. And I don't know where the antipathy comes from. I don't know if it was, you know, if there was something personal. Mike, honestly, like, I could never really figure it out. I just know that they never gave us the time of day.

No, that is not a very good information. I know that we predated them and we're fucking outlasting them too. That's true. So at the end of the day, we'll bury them and we'll last beyond whatever they were. Okay.

And this is not to say that now magazine wasn't generally important it was right and and they were so important to so many bands uh and they supported a lot of bands but just for some reason they hid our fucking guts and i don't know why because we're a friendly band we're approachable we're great you know we we make a lot of time for everybody but um for some reason they just uh weren't uh they weren't interested i thought maybe you and uh holland had some uh issue on the ice or something well there's always issues on the ice but no i will get to that yeah yeah you know good interesting interesting you're right you did outlast them because for all intents and purposes uh you can put a fork in it it's done

i mean a lot of good people there were working for uh for free for all intents and purposes uh you can put a fork in it it's done i mean a lot of good people there were working for uh for free for many many weeks and are trying to you know get that money back it sounds sad how it all ended but this will duct tail nicely into a chat about the west end phoenix but just before we get there because you mentioned 1980 i'm like really into like like recognizing and i've done this many times but it's a good another chance to do it but recognizing like those toronto institutions that maybe don't get a lot of the big big time press like dan hill gets a lot of big press because he wrote you know and performed sometimes when we touch but like i want to talk for a moment about the gary's like um because i i'm pretty sure

your first gig was at the edge right so um i sent a demo tape in 1980 to gary top to just like the i think i probably just sent it to the edge and um waited to see what was half gonna happen and this is oh boy where are we we're 2020 1980 how many years is that that's 40 years 42 years okay 42 years ago right 42 years ago this month yeah i went to see um the great rock and roll swindle in Union City at the New Yorker Theater, okay? And I was sitting in the lobby of the New Yorker Theater, the cinema, having a Coke, and I was, how old was I? I was 17.

And Gary Top walked through the door, and he came up to me, and he sat across from me, and he asked me if I was Dave Bedini. And I said, yes. And I said, how do you know who I am and how do you know I'm here? And he said, I just talked to your mom. So he'd called my mom at home after getting our demo tape to tell her to tell me that he liked the tape and he wanted to book us at the Edge, which was our dream. And he told me that in person in the New Yorker Theater 42 years ago this month.

And that was our first show. February 1980, we ended up getting booked. And yeah, it was a dream come true and they were great to us right through the early years. And really all across you know throughout you know over four decades um uh what they do what they did and how they shaped uh uh modern music in north america um it can't be overstated no well said uh cheers to cheers to the gary's and uh cheers to now magazine how's that but i do want to shout out jim sheddon who uh invited me recently

to his art gallery of ontario uh what's it called like an installation what do you call when you have like a floor of the art gallery and you're you you curated everything sure sure okay whatever i'm not an artsy guy but uh it was amazing and one of the uh items on display is gary tops uh like address book like it's there under glass because it's this is like the mona lisa okay but so your your name and number maybe when he spoke to your mother is probably in this thing like i took a photo of it but it's like this just fat old uh day timer address book thing with every number he needed to know like which is amazing and in cooperstown in the baseball hall of fame there is lou garrig's address book and i think number he needed to know like which is amazing and in cooperstown in

the baseball hall of fame there is lou garrig's address book and i think it's open to the page where babe ruth's number is in there so yeah very jim was i don't know if jim was inspired by that but it's a neat kind of parallel because gary's a big baseball guy too i mean okay all of this is amazing they should open that i gotta make sure they open the gary top page to the baby dini page where he's got your number. Right next to Babe Ruth. I think it's actually next to Stephen Page, I think. But speaking of which, I know that Stephen Page would go on with Bookie at CIUT and play,

like before CFNY got a taste of it or whatever. What would he play? Brian Wilson would be like a song he would play. I think he might have been the first time it was on any radio as a bookie show on CIUT.

Very possible, yeah. So it's all coming full circle here. All right, my friend. West End Phoenix. A lot of questions about this. I know we covered

a lot of this ground last time, but there's things going on. One question before you're preparing yourself for it. Whatever. Just whatever.

Ask me anything. Anything. Nothing bad. Ask me anything. Anything. Nothing bad. That's okay. VP of Sales just wants you to know if you could rank the West End Phoenix delivery volunteers. VP of Sales has another name, apparently, Tyler Campbell. Who's the greatest West End Phoenix delivery volunteer? Betty McKenzie, I think, is 81.

Wow. 82. Betty, sorry if I'm getting your age. Sorry if I'm adding a 81. Wow. 82, Betty. Sorry if I'm getting your age. Sorry if I'm adding a few. Yeah, Betty's in her 80s, and she has been a delivery person from day one, six years ago. So can't touch Betty. She wears the sash. She's the leader of the pack.

I got an email from Betty about six months ago that said, I am on holiday. I need you to purchase two Google gift cards for my nephew. It's his birthday. Can you do it for me? I was like, Betty, you are a gold star. Yes, I will. So I got them. Can you take a picture of you are a gold star. Yes, I will. So I got them.

Can you take a picture of them and send me the thing? So I did. I took a picture of the good. And then they wrote back and said, Oh, Betty said, Oh, sorry.

I need $300 more in Google play cards. Right. And I was like, okay, Betty. Sure. So I went anyways, $700 later.

Oh my God. Yeah. I got pinched. I know. I god yeah i got pinched i know i think terry hart got pinched too and i'm always like a little surprised but then again uh the first time this happened to me was peter gross of all people yeah legends speaking of legends there's a honestly they should put a plaque up maybe at woodbine or something put a plaque of peter gross peter was in like a soft porno that used to play on city TV, blue movies. Does that,

it's not a, okay. Okay. No, no, no, but it's a, it's a Shabib.

Don Shabib. Sorry. You know what? His son goes by Shabib. Right. And he goes by Shabib. Well, it's funny.

I remember mentioning Don Shabib to Dave Bookman and Bookman laughed because I thought he thought I was inventing the last name. And then, so after a while, Dave started saying, you know that guy over there? He's a real Shabib. It was a thing. But yeah, no.

So we know, yeah, Peter's really young in that film, right? Okay, so it's 1971. It's called Ripoff. There's boobies in there. Yes, I think you're right because it's meant to be,

it's like a coming of age film. And it's Peter Gross's like biggest movie or whatever.'s the thing so it's it's the follow-up to going down the road so going down the road as you know massive hit like still one of the biggest greatest canadian movies of all time we're going to young street oh man uh i actually i love that movie i do too i can't it's martin. Lee's favorite film. Okay. Yep. All right. Fun facts.

Now, Ripoff is the follow-up, which was a complete disaster. I had no idea it was supposed to be a follow-up to that. Well, I don't think it's, it's only a follow-up in that it's his movie he did next. I don't think it's meant to be a sequel or anything. But yeah, so Shabib, I know I'm saying Shabib. So Noah Shabib is like in our hood here.

He's a Southern Etobicoke guy now. And his dad, Donald, apparently, who's just made a movie that took him 10 years i think it's at tiff like donald still working in his 80s amazing he's amazing and peter is threatened to bring him over for an episode and i'm trying to make that happen i think we will make it happen because when i did the uh i did really for this i did like a two-hour deep dive into ripoff which is the peter movie we're referring to. Nice. And we had phoned,

so Donald phoned in his thoughts and he's pretty embarrassed by that film and he's kind of wishing. So much of Canadian popular culture history is viewed perhaps by its creators as an embarrassment, but that shit is so, that was so, honestly, that was important to me as a kid.

Like, you know, seeing Cannibal Girls, seeing Rip Off. That was like, they might have been shitty films, which they weren't, but they were important because they were being made by people who lived on the same street as me, right? Well, exactly, exactly. And the same is true of music right you know um uh uh the oeuvre of like 70s canadian rock um you know maybe that stuff isn't on the pantheon but but it was important because it was

created at a time when we were pressed upon by colonial forces from the united states and britain and it was so hard to be heard above all of that. And those people that decided to put their, you know, put their necks out, you know, and take a path that was the one less traveled. Right.

Those are the ones that, that make the bare naked ladies and Drake and Sarah Pauly, all of this work, Clement Virgo, make it, make it possible because, because they dug those, they dug those trenches.

Man, I have so many thoughts. One is that Dan Hill, since he's my most recent conversation, he's all I can remember now of the 1,110 episodes is Dan Hill right now. But like he was talking, and you know, I'm a bit young for this, but I know it from the history book so to speak. But like he said, unless

you were, he named the three artists, you know, Lightfoot, Guess Who, and Anne Murray. I think that was it. Oh, and yeah, I think that's it.

Obviously, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were a whole different thing. But like, like, yeah, like there weren't any Canadians with big US hits in the 70s

when he was releasing. Sometimes when we touch. Well, and Dan kind of jumped over all of them in a way because Dan's song is a global hit. Right. Right.

You could be standing on a street corner in anywhere in the world and there's no possibility you're going to hear that song about passing taxicab, right? Right. Right. Right, right, right.

Shout out to Jane Eastwood, by the way, who's a sweetheart and an fotm and she's in going down the road yeah man and in sctv and a million things she's brilliant she was married to uh joe flaherty's brother that's uh mike no i can't remember there's a few of them they're from pittsburgh i think the flaredys but uh nice but yeah he was i think he was a writer on sctv as well but okay peter gross so uh absolutely remember the day i got the email uh from peter gross saying hey i'm out of town but i gotta get can you get me some itunes gift cards or whatever for my nephew and i still the initial gut guttural response was i would do anything for you peter gross but something

smelled off where i wrote back and said call me that. That's why I said, call me. Right. And then he wrote back and said, I can't call, but I need you to do me this favor. And it was only the fact that, cause Peter fucking calls me all the time. Like the fact that he wouldn't call me, is he, that's the only thing that stopped me.

So I can totally see how you fell for it with this lovely woman who delivers your paper. And Terry Hart fell for it for like 700 bucks. So people do fall for this scam, but it's, you know, get that voice to voice. Well, I think, I think it's also like that flurry, the, the, the avalanche of emails and you get one asking you to do a favor for a nice person. It's like, okay, I'm going to carve out the time for that. You know, and I noticed that, yeah, it's, it's not a young person you're doing the favor for either. Like, so you feel like it's not a young person you're doing the favor for either. Like, so you feel like it's almost like you want to help them cross the street. I have a really good relationship with our pharmacist too.

And when I went and got first gift cards, I explained to her everything that I was doing. And she was like, oh, that's a really nice of you. But then when I walked back in the store 20 minutes later, they were like, okay, you need more. Okay. And you could see. Anyways, they went back and told them the story. But yeah, you live and learn okay, you need more. Okay. And you could see. Anyways, they went back and told them the story. But yeah, you live and learn, right? You live and learn.

Totally. Yeah. So, yeah. So shout out to all the Peter Grosses getting their emails hacked so that we get these emails. And we try to be nice guys. And next thing you know, we're out 500, 700 bucks. Peter Gross is really just a Russian bot. So Tyler.

Yeah. Curly lid. You know, and he's amazing. Every day on his, no, every year on his birthday, he gets up early and rollerblades to visit his mother because his mother lives like East End, but in a condo. And Peter does that from like Etobicoke.

Or maybe he's in Mississauga. I can't figure it out. Okay. So how can Torontonians help fuel independent journalism? Well, they can subscribe to the paper because frankly, we need more subscribers to remain healthy and to survive and to get through our year six. So there are a lot of people that are sitting on the fence.

And I'll tell you, most of our recent subscribers tell us that they've been meaning to do it for years, but they haven't yet. So if you're on the fence and are able to you know spend 75 a year to support local journalism and print journalism and independent community media in a time of russian bots and fake news and disinformation and it's come in canada like it's happening right the media has already been vilified a day after pierre paul of air paul evra uh first press conference so that's happening so we need to stand against it and one way you can do that is support us go to westinphoenix.com hit subscribe but also if you want that and you want

to have an amazing time seeing some of the greatest artists who in our community in our world come to our show saturday like it's going to be a brilliant it's going to be an amazing show and i want people we we have a few tickets left but um yeah we want you to come to to the show and you get to support the paper and you get to see you know two hours of incredible music okay to time stamp this because you never know when someone's gonna queue this up i. I hear people are like, I'm 18. No, I know. I'm 18 months behind.

Right. They're going through it. They want to go Saturday, September 17th, folks. 1655, the Planet Storage Courtyard. 1655, DuPont.

Starts at doors at 630. Show at 730. We go to 11 p.m. We have Damien Abraham of Fucked Up, Tyler Stewart, Bare Naked Ladies, Charlotte Kornfeld, Tom Wilson, Lucas

Silvera, Shakira Saida and countless countless countless Regina Gently it's going to be amazing we're all doing the basis for the set list is a Saturday Night Fever soundtrack but also tons of just cool stuff dance music disco favorites from the era

two hours of live music outdoors in an incredible venue that has never had a concert dance music, disco favorites from the era, two hours of live music, outdoors, in an incredible venue that has never had a concert before. And it's right in our West End neighborhood, and it's brilliant. And yeah, come on out. It's going to be great. I'm not just saying this because it's our event,

but I think it's really, really, really, really, really going to be fun. And people are going to have FOMO if they don't come, especially if they live in the West End. So again, Saturday, September 17, 2022. Yeah.

That's the year we're in. All right. And 730 to, uh, to 11 PM. It's the planet storage courtyard. As Dave said, 1655 DuPont street in Toronto. This is the West end Phoenix fall fundraiser and concert.

It is. I went through the lineup and it's a great lineup. And I just want to shout out the FOTMs. besides yourself dave badini i saw uh and you mentioned a couple of them but i saw ron sexsmith yeah ronnie yeah ron's gonna be there what a sweetheart that man is look oh they're all sweethearts why else would they be doing the saturday night forever that's a good point too and they're donating their time to support what we do which is beautiful you know although i had a you know tom Tom Wilson said he was going to play my event because I had a TMLXX event at Great Lakes

Brewery, and then he stopped replying to the email, so I had to take him out of the lineup. Oh, geez. That's really atypical of Tom. He's usually pretty good. I know. And he's a big fan. I think he loves the show because he's addicted to the Palma Pasta. But okay, so Tom Wilson's on the lineup,

and Tyler Stewart, man, what a great FOTM he okay. So Tom Wilson's on the lineup and Tyler Stewart, man, what a great FOTM here. So you got some good FOTMs on that bill and future FOTMs as well. So that's awesome. Midtown Gord wanted me to tell you that he says Gord from Oakwood says, hi. Nice.

Gord's great. He's a legend. He is a legend. He is a legend. Oh man. You want to ask him questions about, like, Lee Aaron or whatever? He knows his shit, man, that guy. It's true.

He says, thanks for the feature in West End Phoenix on Rock and Roll Heaven. So he loved that feature. We went to Gord. We went to the source to get some thoughts on Rock and Roll Heaven. He was there. He really was. He's amazing. He looks like he just walked out of Rock and Roll Heaven still.

No, I know. Yeah, He's amazing. He looks like he just walked out of rock and roll heaven still. No, I know. Yeah, that's great. I think he's lining up at the Rockpile right now in beautiful Etobicoke here. I kind of thought, I actually brought Gord his first paper once he subscribed and I thought his house would be an homage to rock and roll heaven, but it's actually very stylish, modern.

Okay, you know what he told me just yesterday? Because it came out in the Dan Hill. It's all about Dan Hill, you know. I'm sorry you hear that. But Dan Hill has lived in this, he's living in the same house he lived in in 1965 okay this is the house he so so i guess he got it inherited it from his parents or something so and then midtown gourd wrote me to say he also lives in the same house he lived in since 1965 which is the year of his birth wicked so that's uh that's, yeah, he's living where he's, I guess where he's always lived.

Nice. Imagine that life. There's been a redo. How many homes have you had? There's been a redo on that house. Well, no, no. We live in my grandma's house though. Is that right?

Yeah, it's true, yeah. But do you live in Etobicoke? No, I'm in the city. We're in the West End. West End, okay. Toronto. That's good. West End city.

West End, Phoenix. Okay. No. It'd be terrible if I published the West End, Phoenix and lived in like Milton or something. Oh, I enjoyed your Mimico issue. Thank you. I really enjoyed that. Okay. It would be terrible if I published the West End Phoenix and lived in like Milton or something. Oh, I enjoyed your Mimico issue. Thank you.

I really enjoyed that. Okay. Not a sheep nope says, Dave, who is the beer sponsor for Saturday Night Forever? I can't, I don't know. I can't remember. It's slipping my mind. No, Great Lakes Brewery,

Great Lakes Beer has supported West End Phoenix from the very, very, very, very, very, very, very beginning. And they advertise every issue. And yeah, they're making a special West End Phoenix from the very, very, very, very, very, very, very beginning. And they advertise every issue. And yeah, they're making a special West End Phoenix beer, folks, for Saturday too. I don't get that honour. I'm jealous. Well, you know what? You just play your cards right.

You keep your nose clean. Anything's possible. Is it going to be an IPA? Like, what are you getting there? That's a good question. No, I think our caller or whatever knows exactly. I can't remember. Not a sheep, nope.

It's going to be delicious though. And we'll have lots of it. And yeah, they're the beer sponsor. It is delicious. I did, you know, sometimes when I'm doing a really long bike ride on my way home, I pop into the Tobacco location because, you know, they have a brew pub now in Jarvis. Haven't been, but it's great news.

Yeah, totally. You know, they kicked that up a notch for the condo dwellers. So it's a little bit of a different vibe, but it's, uh, still the same delicious beer, but, uh,

love those guys. So you are going, not that you probably have a lot of great lakes at home, but you're leaving here with some fresh craft beer from great lakes. I'll take the, I will take the fresh craft beer. It's always, it's always delicious.

In fact, I think last time we had a rehearsal for event those guys helped us with some beer too so the musicians could have a good time yeah well at my event uh you know which was two thursdays ago uh great lakes i bought everybody their first beer uh and that was awesome and it was delicious yeah it's cool and you know like, I think it's kind of vanguard of Etobicoke community as you are and as they are. It's neat to sort of see, you know, listen, Upper Canada Brewery used to support bands in the 90s in Toronto through the same means. And now this is happening in Etobicoke. Growing up in Etobicoke, that never would have happened out here in the suburbs.

But it is now, and that's beautiful. It is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. I also want to thank StickerU.com for being a longtime sponsor. They're in Liberty Village, but anywhere you have an internet connection, you go to StickerU.com,

get those West End Phoenix stickers made up. Canna Cabana, over 100 locations across the country, and they will not be undersold. Are you breaking the law with weed advertising here? Because I, come on, I was told this couldn't be done, but you proved it could be done. Come at me, bro. I don't know what to say, except that they will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories.

And yeah, we can talk after the show about that. That's an interesting point you're making there. Oh, it's great. Come on, it's a civilized nation here. Let's go. But they classify it in that cigarettes category, which screws everything up.

They should put it in the alcohol category. They call that a jazz cigarette, I think. That's exactly what they call it. That's exactly what they call it. I also want to thank here before I talk to you a bit

about this song and somebody who actually did work at Great Lakes for a couple of weeks and went to Humberside Collegiate with the guys and this is his favorite song of all time. Oh, it's amazing. But

Ridley Funeral Home, thank you for your support. Brad Jones has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking and you can subscribe and listen to that. I get to co-host that show. I mentioned Canada Cabana won't be undersold in cannabis or cannabis accessories

and Electronic Products Recycling Association I mentioned Canada Cabana won't be undersold in cannabis or cannabis accessories. And Electronic Products Recycling Association are going to set up shop at TMLX 11 at Palmas Kitchen. And you can bring your old tech, like your old smartphones and your old tech that's like collecting dust because you don't know what to do with it. And they will recycle it properly and safely for our dear mother earth. That's all your sponsor worlds coming together right there. Very nice. Oh, and I got a little, before I forget, Ridley Funeral Home wants you to have this measuring tape, Dave. That's a Topico institution.

Okay, lovely. Thank you. I could use a measuring tape. You never know. Put in your wallet back. Well, we'll separate the bollards at the event. I'll use this measuring tape, right? You'd be shocked how many times, Dave, you need a measuring tape. You never know. This song, what's this song called, buddy?

Dope Fiends and Boozehounds, buddy. Awesome. So when Jeff Merrick visited, it was amazing because I think we went at the time. I was, you know, 90 minutes seemed like a long time. And I always felt bad with these superstars making them sit here for longer than that but he was like just warmed up at the 90 minute mark and then he started like I want to hear some real statics I want to hear some real statics

and he wanted to hear Dope Fiends and Booze Hounds he said it's his favorite song of all time so I just thought I'd shout out Jeff Merrick because not only did Jeff Merrick of course bury Harold Ballard but he did spend two weeks I think it was two weeks, working at Great Lakes Brewery with his buddies

Mike Lackey and Peter Bullitt. I didn't even know that connection, that those guys knew each other. But those are a bunch of beauties. Yeah, there you go. The Humberside connection. We can't compete with that. Amazing. Here's an interesting note from Eric. I'm wondering if you'll address.

During the Freedom Convoy, this is Eric talking. During the Freedom Convoy protests, Mr. Bedini tweeted that it might be time to change Canada's flag. And this will nicely segue into the 72 Summit series at some point. But he says, suggesting that the protests had sullied it. As we all know, hockey, especially international competitions, can inspire a lot of nationalism. Given his political views and the current social climate,

was it challenging for Dave to put this series together as it is rich with symbolism that has become polarizing in recent years? Maybe first, before we get into that whole 72 Summit series, your exact, I think I looked it up, you said, we need a new flag or no flag, but this flag is over. Do you want to walk that back a bit?

No, I don't. Well, here, I think really what I'm suggesting is that we should never be beyond the possibility of change, I think. I just think it's important for a country to be fluid. It's important for a country to grow from generation to generation. And I think we just have to listen to people for whom the flag

represents something that is not in line with where we are in 2022. And I think it's okay. Listen, we've already changed flags, folks. Like, we got a new flag in 1967,

so why can't we get a new flag in 2023? Like, it's, I don't think it should be, traditionalism for the sake of traditionalism is never a good idea. I think, I just think we have to, you know, we have to look at it from a lot of different perspectives and, again, be, we have to default to change as opposed to the lack thereof. Because that's how we grow.

Well, you know, Dave, I appreciate your perspectives and your insight. I think you're a very eloquent speaker. If you're secure in your nationalism, a flag doesn't define you, right? It doesn't, right? That's merely a symbol. You can always swap out symbols, right? You know, the Raptors define Sporting Canada. The Blue Jays define Sporting Canada.

The Leafs and the Habs and Team Canada. It's never just one thing, and it doesn't have to be one thing. Well said, except the way I approach it is, and I do know in that climate, I know, I remember, the convoy guys with the Canadian flag. Yeah, there was a period of time where I, too, felt like when I saw a car with a Canada flag on it, instead of the, you know,

previously when I'd see it, it would make me feel good. I would actually get upset. Like it was almost triggering. Like, okay, this is a guy who's going to have like a fuck Trudeau flag on the back of his pickup or something. Like that's simple.

But then what happened to me, and I remember talking to Marcy Ian about this because she came on that week and Marcy Ian, now an MP, of course but she said i i told her that when canada was making their run to qualify for the world cup so the canadian men's soccer team i'm not the woman champions of course but the the men and that run and then they qualified that there was something there where the spark came back and i was happy the flag meant something to me again and it was i was happy to say like i would like i'd rather like take our flag back

like instead of letting these hooligans you know take it from us like that's bullshit i gotta get a new symbol now because you guys are doing what you're doing in ottawa here like that's i want to take it back that's how i feel let's take it back okay okay well take it back. Okay, well, take it back, buddy. Taking it back. I'm taking it back. Dr. Kevin Finn says that you, Dave Bedini, are a Canadian literary treasure and apparently an excellent musician as well. LOL. So you're a jack of all trades.

Thanks. Thanks, Kevin. Dr. Kevin. Dr. Kevin. Well, he would know. You would know. Glenn with two N's says, Mike, can you ask Dave if there's a real statics box set in our future? Yeah, I think that's a six shooter records question because they do all that sort of stuff for us,

but it's a great idea. I mean, so we have three shows at the Horseshoe in November and I think we're just aspiring to get our vinyl in order for that. I don't think it'll be a box set, but hopefully we'll have a bunch of vinyl on hand for people to enjoy. Amazing. Okay. Brian says, which of his real static songs is he most proud of?

And then I'll give you the rest of the Brian, but we'll stop right there. I don't know. Like probably just the last one that I wrote i think you know um well here come the wolves was our last record i really am proud of that song that's a big seven and a half minute three part um epic and right yeah i think that one came across pretty well did what did now magazine say about it see not even around not even around to sink their daggers into our supple flesh. More Brian here.

He says, and similarly, what's his favorite song penned by Tim and by Martin? I don't even listen to those guys. I mean, really. Pausing here to see. Okay. So you're going to take a pass on that one. Oh, really. Pausing here to see if... Okay, so you're going to take a pass on that one. Oh, no, I mean... I'd have to think about it. Those are beautiful guys,

and we've known each other for 40 years, and they continue to thrill and amuse, and I'm lucky. We're all lucky that way. Which Rheostatics album is your favorite to perform brian wants to know brian had a lot of real questions wow brian the triple the triple threat melville is probably my favorite record that was our second album yeah because it was the first kind of time we had that new sound i guess it was the first is really when we discovered ourselves and discovered our sound.

Love it. Now, Ford Pier. I hope I'm saying that right. Ford Pier. Yes. Should I be boning up on the lyrics to Chemical World for November 24th, or can I be more useful?

No, the answer is always yes, I think, to that question. Yes, Ford. I do think you should learn it in three languages, too, if possible. Absolutely. Matthew K. I asked him this years ago,

but can he start working with Torstar on getting his old articles published? I still remember his review of the Nirvana show at the Gardens, which was about walking there and never mentioned the show at all.

What? That's not possible. I don't remember that review, but it kind of makes me want to go back and look at it. No, the Star has all that archive stuff. Yeah, with your library card, you can access all of it. Totally. I do it all the time.

It's one of my secret research channels. People are like, how did you come up with that? I'm like, I searched the Toronto Star. I'm the Brian Linehan of podcasters, I think is really what your response should be. Oh, I strive to be that every day when I come to work here. On the note of not remembering whatever, I'm just going to say this. So I produce Humble and Fred's show. And this morning, so I listen live, actually. It's my job, Dave.

I like it. And I heard Howard. At the end of it, he's talking to me through the show. And he goes something to the effect of, he plays some April Wine. Okay. Which is a band, like his first love. I can't remember what song he was playing, actually. It wasn't one of the big hits I know. But he was playing some April Wine.

And he said, Boone, if you're're listening because that's what he calls me boone if you're listening before we wrap up this thing which they've been doing since 1989 he goes it would be nice if we could get miles goodwin on the show okay this is like he's open recalibration and okay i put miles fucking goodwin on the humble and fred show in 2021 and howard was like as happy as could be and i so what i did I pulled a clip of him excitedly chatting with Miles like 15 months ago. I'm going to play it for them on their show tomorrow when I pop on. But how immemorable was it for him

to have Miles Goodwin on the show when he has zero recollection that it happened? So we tried to get April Wine in the 72 film, but Miles was asking a preposterous amount of money for one of the songs so unfortunately no april wine in the 72 film but i think all right is that no i think we wanted rock and roll so what i wanted to do was was end episode one sorry yes end episode one. Sorry, yes, end episode... End episode two, before they get on the plane to go to Russia, I wanted to end that episode

with rock and roll is a vicious game. But Miles said no, so instead it's fight the good fight by Triumph. That's some interesting inside info. Yeah, but that's okay, so good. So here, let's get to this the documentary which i will be watching on cb i'm going to the blue jays game tonight so i can't do the old school thing watch cbc at eight o'clock or whatever but but i'm watching it i'm going to

stream it on cbc gem and i'm like i'm totally jazzed about this uh i'll have my jazz cigarette as i enjoy the show yes yes guy couple of notes hey jimdy, I co-host the show with Mark Hepsher. That's the Sportsline Connection. I made, you know what? I made a buddy love connection with Mark and my friend Paul Duder. Paul came to one of our events. He is a supporter of the West End Phoenix and has written for us occasionally. He said, you know who I want to meet? It's Mark Hepsher.

It was like four years ago. It was an event in the Junction at Typebooks, and I introduced them. And look, they're at the Blue Jay game together. Okay, wow. They're buddies. That's amazing. So anyways, I feel like I'm responsible for that kind of fairy dust.

Does Hebsey still deliver the West End Phoenix? Because he did at some point, right? Hebsey kind of bailed on his delivery route, eh? I gotta say. Okay, I'll talk to him. I'm talking to him Friday morning. I thought that guy was loyal. Taddy has never delivered the West End Phoenix. No, no, that guy was loyal. Taddy has never delivered the worst of things.

No, no, no guy. No. Taddy also will not come on Toronto Mike because he says he never wants to look backwards. He only wants to look forward. And I'm like, I can't have you on if we can't talk some sports line because that's sort of what I do here.

People would, when we did, Bookman and I did high and outside, people kind of compared us to a low rent sports line or low rent Taddy and Hepsher, because we were an Italian and a Jew together talking about sports. It worked beautifully. And anyways, but we could never do what those guys did. We had to go alone.

No, I mean, but I will just let the listenership know, I've tried my best to reunite them on Toronto Mic. Oh, that would be so great. One party is not particularly interested. So, okay. Okay. Moving on now. Dave Schultz. Mmm, the hammer. Dave Schultz. Oh, so tomorrow Gare Joyce drops by and he's got a

new audio series on Amazon, an Audible series, which is actually narrated or I guess, what's the word? I guess the voice of this series is Dave Schultz. So, tomorrow I'll play a little bit of that when Gare Joyce jumps by ask Gare about Bobby Bond when you see him

okay alright Gare has the best stories yes Gare was one of my kind of idols sort of growing up like maybe mentor a little bit aren't you the same age? no, Gare's older than me.

But Gare, maybe not much, but he always seemed to kind of be one step ahead, honestly. Right. Anyways, and I just loved his voice. It stood out among other Toronto sports people. To me, he's like, yeah, he's best in class when it comes to sports writing. He's a great writer, an unbelievable writer. And he's a great he's a great writer unbelievable writer

and he tells a great story except you have to have time for his stories like he's very like it's slow the way he tells his stories sometimes I want to

speed him up a bit have you seen his Republic of Ireland tattoo have you seen that I'm sure I have like he's a he's been

we're pretty tight at this point well he's going to be here tomorrow he's coming from Kingston brilliant and he says not Kingston Road,

Mike. He goes, I'm coming from the city, Kingston. Amazing. I'll say hi for him. So I'll ask about Bobby Bond. So Dave Schultz,

there's two, so Dave Schultz says, ask him if Jim Cuddy is his favorite hockey player. So let that like linger in the atmosphere. So that was Dave Schultz. And then Brad Wheeler

chimed in to say, you, Dave Bedini, should be allowed time to respond to Jim Cuddy's comments. Rebut. So I will play Jim Cuddy's comments, and then you can respond,

and then I'm going to play the 72 Summit Series documentary trailer, and then we're going to talk about that. So it's all hockey here now, but here's Jim Cuddy on Toronto Mic'd. So now Badini. So Badini is a provocateur, and we played in a downtown Toronto men's hockey league together.

We used to have a guy on our team who was very easily provoked and would usually lose his stuff. And so Badini had obviously, in a playoff game, he had obviously told his team, do whatever you can to rile these guys up. So Dave and I were skating into the corner. And when he turned, I turned around,

he, he speared me in the stomach. What are you doing, Dave? It's me. You know, we're friends. Didn't say anything.

And then we go, go around and he, and we go into the corner and he punches me i have a cage so it's nothing right punches me in the cage and then i wrestle him to the ground and we have this little fight right but this fight is so lame that it's not even a fighting major we get roughing majors and i'm yelling in his ear like you're the dirtiest player in this league what's the matter with you so and dave knows this is true because, um, and so then, you know, subsequently I read his book and it's, you know, I think he has a

chapter about the asshole factor and it's like, you know, guys you think are nice guys and then, but they're this. And, uh, I have a very funny picture of, I have the galley of it cause he quotes try and I have to give my okay to it. And, and my, my dad, this is the last year of it because he quotes try and i have to give my okay to it and and my my dad this last year of his life and he's reading this and he's got these big glasses on he's got the galleys in front of me he's looking at me like what and i said it's just crap it's just not true at all so you know obviously i live with this for a number of years and then i run into dave at the uh at the um maybe leave gardens at the time i I guess. Or maybe it was the ACC. Anyway, he goes, oh, man, thanks a lot.

That's the best thing that ever happened in my life. I said, okay, well, fine, you can have it. And, yeah, so that was then. Okay. Respond, please, Mr. Bedini. Jim gives me way too much credit, first of all, when he says I instructed the guys to, like, get under one of their player skins i wish i was so tactful um well you know uh uh it it really does take two to

dance you know and um uh by by him traditionally dirty hockey player it It's true. But Jim and I were both going at it. He jumped me. That's what he does. Funny how we were. It's awesome how our memories are kind of corrupt. But I remember he jumped me. My wife was there. Janet can corroborate this story.

He jumped me from behind. So we were not squaring off by any stretch of the imagination. But yeah, and listen, at the end of the day, I got to tip my hat to him for allowing me to use that lyric. And the story is, so I told people that we were playing the Black Stokes, Jim's team, in the final or in a playoff game. And the drummer for the local rabbit said

you should if you want to get him going you should go up to him and say you want a piece of me jim all you got to do is try and i did it and he fucking lost his shit because i was i was a parroting his um uh delightful lyric back to him in those circumstances. It's amazing, though, and Jim will concur, like how fucking important those games were to us and how they were utterly, we were a bunch of idiots, man. We were young and we loved the game and it was all we lived for. And I think that just shows something about how important,

like the game is important to us. All we lived for. And I think that just shows something about how, you know, how important like, or just like, you know, the game is important to us. And that moment that we spend together competing and with our own teams is important to us too. So, but, and I did put it in Tropic of Hockey and it was a,

people read it and loved it. And I, I think what he's not saying there is that I, it's a funny, it's a funny passage too and people delight in it as well. But it's also great, listen, after many years

we can be friends again, which is beautiful. I'm almost all but certain there was some hockey incident with Michael Hollett, I feel. With us? Yeah, with you and you were blacklisted. It's like, no no this fucker we're never gonna put him on the cover of them now magazine no and i i don't even know if that even

fell to his uh to michael's feet honestly because there was the whole music department there too uh but i have friends who wrote for that paper too i just don't know what it was it was really weird i will find out that's what i do the brian line hand of this country okay yes now it's the time now is the time. Let's warm up with a minute trailer here. What's our system against their system, I would say? It was capitalism against communism. You had a team NHL.

Players from Boston, Montreal, Detroit, Philadelphia. And you had a Soviet team. These guys lived on a reef target. They played well. You're gonna ask him. They aren't good enough to beat the Soviets. Have any second thoughts? Nope.

Play again tomorrow. When you get beat, you get pissed off. Passing back. It's just a goal! Another one. The goal! And this crowd is going wild. Hard spot.

Puzzle here. Both teams have given everything. One of the best games I think I've ever seen. He has no respect for Green. Right by the door! That was the greatest thing ever happened to the game. It changed hockey for the better. It brought the whole world into the NHL.

Woo! I'm ready. I'm so pumped for this. I love a trailer. I love a good trailer. Oh, yeah. Now, the visuals are great, too. Now, well, let's start with, like, I mean, I know it's the 50th anniversary,

so I'm answering my own question here, but how did this come to be and how did you get yourself involved in this Summit 72 documentary series? We'd actually been, Nick DePonce and I, who's the showrunner and one of the directors and producers who shot my first hockey movie, Hockey Nomad, and has since gone on to make brilliant films

with his wife, Jennifer Baiswall, Anthropocene, Act of God, and countless great documentaries. Into the Weeds is their latest. It's really good. We talked about this project for many years in fact five years ago we talked about looking at the 50th anniversary and preparing something but we all got busy and then um nick got a call from kenny dryden to sort of say they had to ask nick if he would uh make the kind of official documentary documentary with the

players participation. Nick came to me and we were like, let's do it. And also, but I think one of the important aspects in terms of the film and the content was somebody kicked over a box in the basement of the hockey hall of fame and out fell a reel of 16 millimeter color film that was shot in 1972.

And once we looked into those boxes, we found 60 reels of unseen 16 millimeter. You're like Peter Jackson when you find this out. The Get Back of Hockey Baby. Yeah. That's my elevator pitch. And it's amazing. So we had all this

incredible footage expertly shot. Now it's all been restored to 5K. Yeah. And it looks fantastic and that's kind of, that's the visual spine

of the series is that content. Now it's the only, you just referenced this, but it's the only documentary series sanctioned and supported by the 1972

Team Canada Players. Which kind of, unfortunately, the way that's phrased, it makes it seem like it's kind of a state sanctioned. Oh, yeah. Like they have some kind of editorial privilege or something. They have none. It just meant that we had access to them as interview subjects, you know. And then it goes on to say Summit 72 72 yeah we'll have unrestricted access to the official game tapes and a trove of archival footage a trove 100 hours like it's crazy so

it's cool like there's there's there's great shots of those guys in montreal and in 72 like you see montreal and you see canada and you see Yonge Street but you also see Moscow in 72 right so it's the players arriving at the rink it's them eating it's them at the hotel it's it's fans as well they shot all the Canadian fans that went there 3,000 of them and they went to went to Moscow in 72 and um so so so it's not just we don't just follow the puck in the doc. Right. We paint an image of the times, which I think makes it pretty compelling. And will I see footage of 1972 Sam the Record Man? Yeah, man.

So can I tell you, Jason Snyder, have you ever had Jason on the show? No, but he was in Blue Peter. Well, Jason, yeah, and he's also now Ensign Broderick. He makes records under the name Ensign Broderick. Okay. And his records are fucking brilliant. Everybody should check him out right now. I want him on the show.

So Jason, so we, Reostatics during, I can't remember the name of the album. Maybe it was Night of the Shooting Stars. We did an in-store at Sam's when they had the stage set up there right and jason behind us hung a soviet hockey banner of like a snowman with a goalie stick and after i said what's the deal with this hockey banner and he said when i was a kid the russian team marched down from maple leaf gardens and we closed the store and they shopped for records and in exchange for allowing us like allowing them to shop for records they gave us this banner jason had it he hung it behind us so yeah those guys and i talked to them a bunch of the players when i went to do hockey name i goes to russia about that adventure and they were like

dave we were on you like they lived on the the we they lived in a military camp right when training for the team they their whole worlds were so tightly controlled for them to march down like wild young street in 1972 and go to this temple of vinyl was one of the most memorable experiences of their hockey lives and yuri blinov who's in the movie i remember saying like what did you buy he was like i bought i'd always wanted a tom jones record and he said you could only get that on the black market and he knew a guy who fucking traded his motorcycle for a t-rex album so to be able to have bring those records home they were heroes i mean they were heroes for for just for simply

coming to north america because nobody could at that time but to come home with this vinyl it was huge for them so that's in there amazing. And that goes back to going down the road in a way. We're tying it all together. You know what? That's what we do on this show. That's it. It's a small world after all. But a quick little PR piece is that there's never before seen 16mm

archival footage, which you mentioned, restored and stunning. Now you said 5K. I hear 4K. It's a lot of Ks, man. No, it's a Is it 4K? It's a lot of Ks, man. No, it's a quantity of Ks. It's a lot of Ks. At least 4Ks. Exclusive interview

of the key players. Summit 72 will bring an unforgettable moment in Canadian history to life on screen as never seen before. Audiences will relive or experience

for the first time the adrenaline-fueled edge-of-your-seat drama in one of the most monumental cultural proxy battles of the Cold War and trace its many reverberations in the zeitgeist right up to the present day. Well, whoever wrote that press release

knew there were onions, I gotta tell you. And a lot of hyphens, like edge-of-your-seat, adrenaline-fueled, that's a lot of hyphens, but I'm totally jazzed for it. Okay, now there's a, David hyphens, but I'm totally jazzed for it. Okay. Now, there's a, David Tindall wrote in and said, we'll wait for the episode to hear the answer, but curious on some tidbits not generally known about the 72 series that he was interested to learn.

Can you tease us with one or two things? Like, because some of us are old enough that we watch, I remember the one I had recorded the VHS, I used to watch a lot, was called Summit on Ice, it was called. I'm going to I had recorded the VHS. I used to watch a lot. It was called Summit on Ice, it was called. Sure. I'm going to say late 80s, I feel. Now, one thing I noticed is there's a lot of Alan Eagleson

in the one I remember. Right. And then I saw something like 15 years later, and he was like scrubbed. Yeah. Did you find the balance with Alan? I think we did. Because you can't really scrub him from the story.

No, you can't. Even if he was an asshole or whatever. Well, he defrauded the players and went to jail. Right. And Bobby Orwick wasn't in our movie because Al was in our movie. But Al was so important. Al was, Bobby's weird,

but Al was so important at assembling, you know, the series never would happen without Al. And we worried a little bit about that because we just simply couldn't find the time to tell Al's story either in the documentary. We would have sacrificed narrative, right? But he's in there. He's not in there a ton, but he's in there enough.

The part where you need him, I think, is that the red light doesn't come on. Oh, man. And he goes on the ice. Oh, yeah. Although he doesn't go on the ice. He's rescued. He's rescued. Okay. He's taken across the ice. He's taken across the's rescued. Okay. He's taken across the ice. He's taken across the ice, right.

But there's a moment where he pulls up his pants. Yes, that's right. That's good. He's pulling up his pants. Cinching, yeah. Right, and I heard him say, his dear mother was watching at home in Canada, knew he was okay when he was pulling up his pants.

That's right. That's right before the double finger, right? Yes. You know what? Oh, my God. So I will tell the listeners that there is lots of, I'm going to play a little bit here. I'm all over the place because I'm so excited about this thing. When is this thing hitting? My 8 o'clock? It's

on Jim. Maybe tomorrow I can watch it. I'm going to make some time for it. But here, I'm going to play a couple of clips real quick here. There's lots of clips in the recent episode with Scott Morrison because he wrote a book on this. And it's episode 1044 where I play lots of clips from this. Obviously, I'm going to just play a couple real quick.

I'm going to play one, though, because I think this is one of those moments. For the people across Canada, we tried. We did our best. And for the people at Buis, I'm really, all of us guys are really disheartened and we're disillusioned and we're disappointed in some of the people. We cannot believe the bad press we've got, the booing we've gotten in our own buildings. And if the Russians boo their players, if the fans, if the Russians boo their players like some of the Canadian fans, I'm not saying all of them, some of them booed us, then I'll come back and I'll apologize to each one of the Canadians, but I don't

think they will. I'm really, really disappointed. I am completely disappointed. I cannot believe it. Some of our guys are really, really down in the dumps. We know. We're trying. Hell, I mean, we're doing the best we can, and they've got a good team, and let's face facts. But it doesn't mean

that we're not giving it our 150%, because we certainly are. There's the Phil Esposito conversation with John that you saw that I understand most of the members of the team never saw. There wouldn't have been TVs in the dressing room,

that's for sure. Right. So there's that. That's sort of one of those Canadian moments, I think. Yeah, personally, I write about this in Tropic Hockey about how as an Italian-Canadian kid, seeing an Italian guy on the screen

holding our attention for that long was significant at a time when the CBC was all Pierre Burton and Horton Sinclair. It's true. There weren't a lot of ethnics on the CBC. And not only that, like this guy has given canadians shit for turning their backs on a team that's trying so it was strong stuff right and and i've told espo that um he's the superstar of this series espo is yeah both in 72 and currently the interview with him

was spectacular like he's fantastic he's um unfiltered he's honest wears his heart on his sleeve um and just really cares uh yeah it was great it was great and now i and now that i've processed the news so bobby orr is not in this thing which is too bad but bobby orr of course didn't play but uh traveled sure did so he was there but not on the ice but uh that's that's too bad that we that couldn't happen but uh i get his you know you know you know you said he's a bit strange i know you wrote that piece about donald trump so i mean no i mean strange is the wrong word but um just a bit funny because we you know we thought because phil was going to do it and harry was going to do it

bobby would do it um but listen you also have to see life from his view as well i mean the guy was the most gifted athlete of his generation when it comes to hockey and his you know his um his his his total greatness was denied because of uh you know a lot of surgeries go gone wrong and people didn't really know what they did you know to operate a lot when he was a kid on his knee and anyways it just um yeah ended before his time his career right so that's tough too and i can i you know a lot of the players automatically jump to doing this kind of stuff but uh but bob didn't and i i also have to respect that too absolutely uh now do you have

a like even one tidbit for david tindall that you were interested to learn from this new documentary on the Summit series? Harry Sinden told us that he, in the second intermission before the third period of Game 8, with Canada down 5-3, he told the guys to play as

if they had a 5-3 lead rather than being behind 5-3. So he wanted them to go out there to protect the two-goal deficit. He said if the Soviets scored a sixth goal, there was no way they were coming back. So he had them go out there. And that fucked with the Russians because they thought the Canadians were going to come out

and storm the net, but they didn't. And so the Russians were almost lulled again into thinking that they had the game won because the canadians were back back back interesting and then bang and they actually scored within the first two ten minutes and harry said after we scored to make it five four i knew we were going to win the game wow yeah and i mean the famous story is that we had to win that thing because the Russians were going to claim victory if we tied. Halfway through the third period, the 12-minute mark, the official goes up to, I think goes right up to Harry.

And Fergie, he might have gone up to Fergie and says, oh, so we're going to, you know, game tied, games tied, we're going to declare victory because we scored one more total goal. Wow. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And here, one last clip here from me me and then a couple of quick notes for you but here this is uh i gotta play this i feel like spoiler alert but i don't think it's like watching the movie titanic you know what happens at the end it's about the journey okay so here let me play this and talk about this gentleman

an indian team went into a huddle there which seemed to be a little unusual a little longer, so normally we get the 30 seconds or whatever, I actually wanted a little set up here carries it back into his zone to Shadron who missed it Peter Mohavlich is at center driving it into the Soviet zone

Lyapkin gets there first for Nwaye Farrell just touched it, Al Savard. Getting it at center ice. Clearing it off a skate. It goes into the Canadian zone. Yakishev, a dangerous player, is belted on that play. Barnwaye rolled it out.

Vasiliev going back to get it. 1-0-2 left in the game. Cleared pass on the far side. The Apten rolled one to get it. 1-0-2 left in the game. Cleared pass on the far side. The Apkin rolled one to Savard. Savard cleared the pass to Stapleton. He cleared to the open wing to Cornwallier. Cornwallier took his shot. The defenseman fell over, the Apkin.

And the Cornwallier has it on that wing. Here's a shot. Henderson made a wild step for it and fell. Here's another shot! Henderson made a wild step for Spell. Here's another shot! Right by the door! Henderson has scored for Canada! Henderson right in front of the net!

And the players in the team are going wild! Henderson right in front of the goal! Oh! Oh! Oh! I think this is from VHS, but... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not VHS.

That's the actual transmission. Oh, yeah. So yours is like that too, then, in your series here. We kind of wanted to honor the imperfections of the broadcast and all of that stuff. Could you imagine losing the signal at that point? How close it was? It was probable, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's funny. You'll notice in that audio there, Yakshav and the other forward come down on a two-on-one. Prior to that face-off, Harry said to the guys, okay, still got a minute 10 or whatever it was uh whatever you do don't get out man and harry said the buck went down all of a sudden so i could have ended very

very poorly but um you know and you know i think i've heard that clip a thousand times and uh even hearing it now again i get the like goosebumps it's like and then i feel this is what i feel and again i'm not quite 50. I was not alive when this series happened, but I feel like, oh, it's sort of like when I hear George Bell touch it. Not George Bell. George Bell. That's another story. But when I hear Joe Carter touch a ball.

George Bell calling the game would have been a completely different experience. Somewhere, Hebsey got me a clip of George Bell saying, you're listening to Toronto Mike. It was like a dream come true. Number 11. He was my favorite. In fact, here it is real quick. Hi, I'm George Bell. You listen to Toronto Mike.

So there you go. Can I tell you a quick George Bell story? So 1988. Yeah. The opening day he hit the three home runs in 88. Yeah, so 88 we take mushrooms and it's July and we go to the C&E. Yes.

And we're sitting about 15 rows up down the first baseline. That's the right field line. And just above the bullpen. And Jays are getting waxed. 7-3, the Yaned seven three the yankees playing the yankees um jays load the bases in the bottom of the ninth inning uh the manager at the time can't remember who it was gets um jimmy williams no no for the yankees oh for the maybe it says let's say it was lou panella for lack of he gets dave righetti up to to warm up

because they're going to bring him in the game. So me and my friends go, back then in the X-Men Stadium, we'd just walk right down to the bullpen and just scream at the reliever, the opposing pitcher warming up because security was like a 14-year-old in a windbreaker, right? So we go down there and we're giving it to Rigetti right in his ear

and he's warming up and you hear the pop of the ball and the glove and stuff and there's Rigetti. And for doing this relentlessly, George Bell comes to the plate. Two out, bases loaded. Rigetti gets called into the game. Ah, Rigetti!

So he goes into the game and first pitch to George Bell. George Bell hits a grand slam home run to tie the game. So we're really high. And I look at the mound and Rigetti turns to us and throws the ball into the right field stands. And it sails just over our head. Now, hold on. Here's the thing. The ball sails over my head.

I can see it. Claire's day just coming overhead. And I turn to my friends and I say, oh my God i can see it clara's day just coming overhead and i turn to my friends and i say oh my god can you believe that and they're like dave what do you mean it's like the ball he just threw the ball at us i'm looking around nobody has noticed anything so i assume it's a hallucination okay yeah because the shoes yeah i assume i've just conjured this, okay? Yeah. And then as I'm researching Baseballissimo, I get a book called The Relievers, I think it is, and I read the Dave Rigetti chapter,

and about halfway through it, he says, my most embarrassing moment in all of sports was when a bunch of fans were getting on me. I went to the game. I gave up the Grand Slam home run. I turned to the fans and I threw the ball. So it wasn't until like 12 years later that i that this was um uh this was proven to me that rags actually did that through vengefully threw the ball at us because of what we'd said to him

but dinny that's amazing like that's that's a mind blow and then you got like a corroboration like a i know book and i know the ball is long career that was the moment and you were the instigator that's amazing and bell and george brings it back to george too like those long fucking swings and clubbing the ball yeah in that in the in that in that park and then of course we remember you know 87 with him is back to the camera standing at the steps the dugout after sparky anderson said you know i will with him, his back to the camera, standing at the steps of the dugout. After Sparky Anderson said, you know, I will not let him beat me,

and got inside his head, and he climbs the fence to try to take away the Larry Herndon home run, and he can't, obviously. Down the stretch in 87, I think he was one for 19 or something. And that was an MVP season. It was, that's right.

I'll never forget the, yeah, shout out to Garth Orge. Okay, so here's where we're at. We're done. It was, that's right. I'll never forget the, yeah. Shout out to Garth Orge. Okay. So here's where we're at. We're done. It was amazing. But there was a note from Todd who says he's in Ohio and his VPN is set up so he can watch tonight's premiere. And he wants to say, and I'd like to echo these sentiments. Thanks for all you did to make this happen.

I can't wait. Thanks. Well, I was just, you know, it's, it's, it know, it's largely about Nick and the CBC as well. Like, you know, they committed a shit ton of money

to making this happen, to acquiring all the access. There was so much archive that we had to clear, a lot of stuff that we had to pay for to get, and they stepped up and stood behind it. So thanks to them. And this might mean we're 50 years in and not all these guys are with us anymore, but on that them and this might mean we're 50 years in and not all these guys are with us anymore but on that note this might be like the last time we get their stories

oh totally it is totally it is yeah for sure and it's kind of amazing we still have paul henderson considering how uh ill he's been through the years like but uh paul seems to be doing all right he's fantastic oh and it's great for these guys to take a little bit of a victory lap and i hope they all watch it tonight we'll see no no feedback like i don't think they've seen any of it so it's gonna be the first time for them to check it out yeah all right so only bill's seen it bill brio just kidding so exactly any thoughts because tomorrow i mentioned gare joyce comes over but he's an afternoon this is a double header okay yeah like ernie bank said he said it's a great play to play too.

Okay. So that tomorrow morning sitting, I don't know how I'm going to fit them all. I actually have to find a way to get three people at this table, but Ron Hawkins, Stephen Stanley, and Chris Brown all at once. Any thoughts?

A lot of ego in one room, buddy. I don't know. Any, anything at all, just since they're here tomorrow morning, any thoughts at all about any of those gentlemen? So a couple from Los de los and a guy from the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir.

I mean, the thing is, you know, having been a performer or whatever in this city for so long, I kind of know all the stories. And I just got to figure out. So you should ask Chris about the first time he was on Wolf Island. and I just got to figure out. So you should ask Chris about the first time he was on Wolf Island. You should also ask Steve and Ron about the first time the Rheostatics

and Lois the Low played together because that was pretty interesting too. Consider it done. Okay. I'm typing it out right now. And speaking of Lois the Low, as I play them now with Rosie and Gray here, I do want to shout out Terry Fox because the Terry Fox run is this Sunday,

and I'm running it at Hyde Park. And if anyone listening wants to pledge my Terry Fox run, torontomike.com, I have a link at the top. I think it says Terry. Click that, and you can give what you can, and you get a tax receipt and everything. click that and you can give what you can and you get a tax receipt and everything Bedini you hit it out of the park again

just like George Bell did all those years ago thanks so much for this and I can't wait to watch this documentary tonight awesome job really really fun great to be here and that brings us to the end of our 1110th

show that's like 1110 that's awesome you can follow That brings us to the end of our 1,110th show. That's like 1-1-1-0. That's awesome. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. You are at Hockey Esk. Hockey Esk. Follow Bedini.

He's a good follow on Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Electronic Products Recycling Association is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Electronic Products Recycling Association are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley

FH and Canada Cabana are at Canada Cabana underscore. See y'all tomorrow when I've got, again, Ron Hawkins, Stephen Stanley, and Chris Brown together. And then in the afternoon, Gare Joyce returns. Everything is rosy and green Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or do

For me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you Thank you. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize

There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? All them picking up trash And then putting down roads And they're brokering stocks The class struggle explodes

And I'll play this guitar Just the best that I can Maybe I'm not And maybe I am But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold

But the smell of snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Because everything is rosy and green Well, I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain

And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down On Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and green

Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow warms us today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy, yeah. Everything is rosy and gray. Rose in grey