Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Bidini: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1847

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

In this 1847th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Dave Bidini about new Rheostatics, sampling Gord Downie, the value of journalism and how he sparked Stompin' Tom Connors's comeback. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Hey, folks, how we doing? It's Dave Bedina here. You probably know that already. We're going to talk about lots of good stuff. So stay tuned. Welcome to episode 1,847 of Toronto, Welcome to episode 1,847 of Toronto Mike. An award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

Order online at great lakes beer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh. Homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Fusion Corp's own Nick Aienies. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Building Success, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A.

Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making his return to Toronto Mike, it's Dave Bedini. Welcome back to Atobico. Oh, always nice to return to the homeland. Would you mind off the very top here, Dave? Like shout out some of the neighborhoods or streets or just some of the atobical stuff that used to be your haunting grounds that maybe bring you some pangs of nostalgia when do you think that? I had nostalgia when the Leafs were going to have their outdoor practice at Westway Ring, which they canceled because of the weather.

But I grew up playing on that pond. Dixon Grove. Yes. Middle school, you know, Westway Plaza, Ken Jones music. That's where I learned how to play guitar or not how to not play guitar. Depends you ask. Yeah. And, yeah. you know, I drive by and I do have the pangs of nostalgia,

but listen, great place to grow up until age 13, and then great place to get the hell out of. To get the hell out of. I always tell you this when you drop by. Love seeing you. Love encountering you in the wild. We'll get into some of that. But I love the Ballad of Wayne Gretzky video where you get to see the old,

old mill donuts. I was like to say the old old mill donuts. But yeah, there's some like old haunts. I went to school, high school at Michael Power in the original location. And that whole stretch there of Dundas, and then, you know, and I'll strand from Islington. And then, you know, it's weird. It goes like the bluer and there's that weird, where Jerry Howworth Way is,

the six, the, the, the Kip they're calling it now. Do you know this? They're calling it the Kip District. Nope. Didn't know that. Yeah, realistically. Wow. You know, so you want to, you know, move to the Kip District, everybody.

But yeah, I love seeing the old footage. You mentioned that donut shop. I wrote a story for the Star many years later about kind of dying the last of the donut shops in the city and there was a country style at Queen and Broadview for many years and I went and interviewed the guy

who was making the donuts there. He's the guy who made the Krellers at the Old Mill Donuts originally. I love that shit. I was shocked. I was shocked. You never know who you're talking to and how they're tied to something

and to me, that's a big deal. It is a big, yeah. Because I think, I think I mentioned that show. I mentioned the place, Old Mill Donuts, and I mentioned the crullers. And he was like, those are my crullers. That's amazing. Yeah, it's cool.

Like, what are the odds, right? Okay, that's the Cruller Man, right? I got to get that guy on the show. Crawler Man was selling weed and LSD out of the donut shop at Queen and Broadview. Okay. So, see, this is the stuff you know. He had a sideline. You don't hear about that stuff on like CBC radio.

Like, I feel like that's the kind of. Toronto history we need to uncover here. Well, that's what we're doing. Thanks for being here, man. All right, so I have a few questions that came in from listeners, but just before I get to these questions, and then I have music. There's new Rio Static's music.

I was at your listening party at the Paradise. Amazing. Like, we're going to talk about Kevin Hearn, Gordownie, everybody who's involved in this project somehow. But am I right? This is the 22nd year of your outdoor hockey tournament on Wolf Island. We just had it on the weekend. Well, tell me about that because I just had Sean Cullen

and Banjo Duncan. Fremlin. And they were talking about missing hockey. And I didn't know if they were talking about something with you or if it's a different hockey. But tell me about this outdoor hockey tournament on Wolf Island. Yeah, they played with the Joker's played with them for years. Um, Wolf Island, yeah, we, uh, you know, we, we, we, I went there to celebrate baseballissimo, uh, my, what is that, third book, I guess, uh, there in 2001. And, um, we had a little, small little literary festival, which is still going on on Wolf Island through my friend Mark Madsen. And I remember just standing on the baseball diamond and I said, what happens in the

winter here? And he said, sometimes I try to make natural ice. And I was like, okay, well, let's have a challenge match between the gas station islanders and the Wolf Islanders. It's the Lake Ontario Cup. So we had this challenge match on natural ice for a bunch of years. We actually played on the bay. Sarah Harmer's song, St. Peter's Bay is about playing out on the ferry dock off of Wolf Island. And yeah, here you are. You know, it's just like when you do anything that you love, but you blink in its 22 years, right? So, yeah, we had it this weekend. It was minus 16 in the day. It was fucking insane. So cold. But it's like, that tournament is like renewing your Canadian citizenship, really. Yeah, you've got to be a hearty Canadian, which we are, of course. But

is Christopher Hugh Brown a part of this? Yeah, he's, of course. Yeah. I have to bring up the, like, the people I know are like, well, the island people. The story with Chris is the first tournament. I called Chris and I said, listen, we're having. we're playing hockey on Wolf Island. You're eight hours from Brooklyn. Why don't you just drive up? So he drove up. And when we got to the rink on Saturday morning,

the first person on the ice was Chris Brown. And that was the first time he was on the island. And 22 years later, he is now running the Wolf Island Hotel, which is in great shape, I must say. It's really, it's coming along. The hotel is beautiful. The bar and the food is great. The stage is great.

Yeah. I mean, I think any business on the ion struggles with ferry service, which has been a disaster. Right. Another Ministry of Transportation, fuck up, majorly. The electric ferries don't run in the cold. So now they've got the old ferries that are going right into the village. Anyways, if you're ever in the area, drop-by, it's a great spot. Sounds amazing.

I read a long piece by Gear Joyce about Don Cherry's cottage. I guess he had a cottage there. Still does, yeah. Well, no, I think it's like 2019. Around the time, you know, when Ron McLean talked about the health scare for Don Cherry, there's a health scare, which maybe Ron regrets talking about. I don't know, but that's wrong that question. Like, you know, it's a little private that info.

But Gere was just talking to the residents, like you mentioned the gas station, everything. The residence about, I guess Don Cherry around that time sold his cottage, which there's a thinking that it's not a good place to have a medical emergency. Right, it's not. No, no. And that was, listen, the fairies were down completely for five days over Christmas, and that was the main concern. If you have to get off that island to be treated and you can't, then you could die. So it's like any kind of island. I mean, we have a lot of, we have a lot of them in Canada and ferry service to and fro, you know, getting to the mainland is super important. Don signed 500 ducks unlimited jackets and raised money to put artificial ice into the rink on Wolf Island. That's what, that's where we play to this day. Love to hear. Now, speaking of hockey, a question came in from some guy named Jeff Merrick. You ever heard of this guy? Mm-hmm. You know, sure have.

So, Jeff, I'm wearing a Great Lakes brewery hoodie because, you know, Jeff, you know, had a very short stint working at Great Lakes. Oh, I didn't know that. Because he's a humberside guy. Yeah. And the owner of the show, whose dad actually started Great Lakes, but the owner is a guy named Peter Bullitt. And the head of Brewer is a guy named Mike Lackey. Sure is. And they're Humberside guys who were buds with Merrick.

Like, this is the, you know, the fraternity or whatever. So it all, you know, all the pieces matter. Nice. So here's, I'm going to, there's three things here. I'll go one at a time. Does Dave have a copy of the group picture taken at the ball hockey record release party for whale music? I don't think I do. I mean, I have to go back and look at, look through the archives.

But, you know, ironically, I do remember that photo being taken, but I don't remember having a copy of it. Unfortunately. Sorry, Jeffrey. Okay, but we're moving on the next one, which is the back. Bathurst Street Theater were my favorite Rio Static shows. What are Dave's? What are my, they would have been,

they would have been up there for sure. That would have been our first, first time playing kind of a legitimate theater out of the club. It would have been our first, yeah, would have been our first show out of a club, honestly. And,

you know, we're going to talk a little bit about stomping Tom, and Tom, he turned, he turned 90. He used to come in disguise to those shows at the Bathurst Street Theater, which I only found out after reading his book, Didn't even know he's in the audience, but yeah, those were,

nah, those were great. So they would have been up there, you know, and then, you know, even, you know, our first few times playing in New York City and, uh, and of course, you know, Vancouver, Commodore. Incredible. Even some of the arenas we played with the tragic hip,

we're great, too, and some of the outdoor shows. But, but, but Bathurst Street Theater, totally right up there. And the final question, which will be a mind below if you could answer this for poor Jeff Merrick. And where did I lose my Melville T-shirt? I have. one, you know what, I probably have one for them.

Okay, now I want one too. Okay. I would wear it for the photos by the Toronto tree. I have a bag of old Rio's shirts that I have honestly been meaning to give away. Honestly, tell me when and wear to bike to pick this up. I want a medium Rio shirt. Okay, well, I don't know if I can guarantee sizes. No, come on. I want, I demand.

I'm going to give you a gift right now because you might be giving me a gift. You know, we, we, when we did those shirts, we hand painted them in Sally Lee's basement, I think. We, yeah, we, we, yeah, we, yeah, we all gathered around, did arts and crafts and painted them. I love all of this.

And I know you love your Great Lakes beer. Sure. I've got some fresh craft beer from the aforementioned, you know, Mike Lackey production there with. I mean, those guys have sponsored, helped sponsor the newspaper for 10 years. It's their, their devotion has been to local journalism has been unparalleled.

Pillars of the community. Indeed. My words, yes. So you got some fresh craft beer here. There is one I'm very excited for you to have, which is this one. You read that one right there. Read that label there.

It's got the cocktail glass on it. It's West Atopacocon. Yeah, that's awesome. So I feel like if Dave Bidini is going to visit the basement, he's going to get the West Atobacocan beverage from Great Lakes. So thank you, Great Lakes. Also, just arrived, actually. I just received the frozen lasagna from Palma pasta.

It's in my freezer right now. So you got your pasta from Palma pasta. Thank you, Palma Pasta. This is a quick plug, and then I'm getting back to the questions. And then we got music. and then we got to stump and tom we got a lot of ground to cover actually but i want to let the listenership know that all throughout all of february this is a great cause hospice mississauga is receiving proceeds from every purchase of heart-shaped pasta from palma pasta so this weekend is

a valentine's day now is the time to go to palma pasta and buy some heart-shaped pasta and help support hospice mississauga that's a great cause and i'm just proud of the palm of the palm of Pasta guys for supporting this, Hertz for Hospice campaign. Lovely. Lovely. Ridley funeral homes, talking about a Tobico here.

They're at 14th in Lakeshore. They have sent over a measuring tape for you, Mr. Bedini. And I should shout out Brad Jones. We're recording later today. He's got a podcast called Life's Undertaking. It's a great podcast. You should listen to.

And thank you, Nick Iini's for stepping up to help sponsor the show. Nick Iienes has a podcast called Building Toronto Skyline. He's with Fusion Corp, and we love your support. And then last but not least, because it's all Badini the rest of the way, Recyclemyelectronics.C.A. That's where you go, Dave, if you have old electronics, old devices, old cables. I bet you got a whole room full of that stuff.

Yeah, we just cleared out the office for West End Phoenix and I have bags and bags and stuff. Man, come and get it. Well, let me just tell you to go to recycle my electricity. Okay, I'll go. And then put in your postal code and then you can find out where to drop it off to be property recycled. So without further ado, though, fun story. I was, this is a very Toronto story, I think. I was on my way.

I was biking to see change of heart. I love Ian Lurton, as we all do, on Geary Avenue. And then I took a, I think I took a left on Bartlett Avenue. Are you familiar of this street, Bartlett? Sure am. And there at three Bartlett Avenue, I see my friend Dave Padini. But he's with two people and I go, oh my goodness, that's FOTM, Bruce Arthur. Love that guy.

Let me chat him up. And there's a face I know, but I'd never met her. Supria de Vetti. So I meet Supriya de Vetti for the first time outside your West End Phoenix at 3 Bartlett Avenue, which I'm about to ask you a big question about. And subsequently, I've had Supriya over a couple of times

and she'll be over more. What a fantastic podcast guest Supriah is. Yeah, she's really, she's brilliant, I think. Yeah, she checks all the boxes. She's a wonderful person, yeah. Well-spoken, but very, not like canned stuff, Like a lot of money going. She's super cool.

She's really like her a lot. Big fan. And so I met her like kind of through you. You and Bruce, I think you vouched for me, which. I think so. You know, I don't know if she accepts all invitations.

That was good though. You just, you just cycled right up and just started, yeah, introducing yourself. I hadn't seen Bruce in a long time. Yeah. Well,

he was in for that, for the event that we did last year. He came in. Yeah, came in. Even those words. I don't think anyone knows he doesn't live here anymore. Like, I feel like even that terminology. Like,

I didn't know. I thought he was a, You know, why am I not bumping into Bruce anymore? Well, he's not here anymore. But just seeing you and you can spot you a mile away. You're going to the sound garage, were you? Yes, that's right. That was my first concert at the sound garage.

It's great. And shout out to Ian Blurton if he's listening at home here. So can you tell us what's going on with Three Bartlett Avenue, the home of West End Phoenix? Yeah, our landlords sold the building. So we're looking for a new space, a new office for the newspaper. you know, a place that can also be a performance space, right? So, yeah, now begins the slog of looking at dozens of shitholes before we find the right place. Yeah.

Like, you have to leave immediately? Like, are you, like, would I, would you guys be there this week? We're gone. No, we're totally going. Yeah. So, I mean, good time to leave, though. The winner is not super busy. We want to be somewhere by April 1st, March, April 1st.

Okay. So the search is on. It is. It's on. Yeah. We want to stay. close to the neighborhood and and that sort of thing. But lots of stuff planned.

So we need somewhere where we can do our cool things. So it was, I mean, I was going to ask you that anyways, but hazardous on Blue Sky. By the way, Supriya called Blue Sky a home for Twitter refugees. And I think that's the perfect description for it. So it's so relatively civilized there. I like it. Do you still post on the app formerly known as Twitter?

I mean, once a month maybe, but that's about it. So what would it take for you to say I'm done? With what? Just done with posting on Elon Musk's... I'm pretty much done. It's once a month. I just go there to check my mention sometimes and see who maybe has messaged me.

And unfortunately, it still is the kind of place where if you need to reach out to somebody, X is better than Blue Sky because not everybody has migrated to Blue Sky, but everybody should migrate there. Everybody should join us Twitter refugees on Blue Sky. It's much cleaner.

So Hazardist wrote me there and said at Blue Sky and wrote, curious if the West End Phoenix will be getting a new physical location. So we have our answer. You're looking for a new home for the West End Phoenix, which we'll get to in a minute.

Also, he throws in, he wants a prediction of Canada's performance in men's and women's hockey at the Olympics. Oh, it was a tough afternoon yesterday for our women. Yeah, it classed. Yeah. You know, the Americans have flipped generations,

right, they're into their next wave and they're, you know, putting the games in the hands of their, you know, gifted 20-somethings. We haven't done that this time. Bigger brains than me, you know, know why that's the case. But, yeah, sometimes, you know, the student bests the teacher, and that's the case, I think, with us.

And it doesn't look good, but if they could get to the final, to play each other one game, elimination, Deminia stays and stands on her head and anything's possible. So, but doesn't look good. Well, that's the interesting thing about the women's hockey is that the worst case scenario feels like a silver. Like, it is an interesting.

What other sport is there out there? It's true. If everything goes to shit, we finish with a silver. Yeah, for sure. I know. So my prediction is our Canadian women will probably win a silver. And how do you think the men are going to do?

They start tomorrow. I don't know. I feel a bit funky in my... gut. So many close games against the states over, you know, the last decade, decade, decade, a half, 20 years. You just wonder at what point does it tip a little bit and does the, you know, the just by degrees underdog win.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised, honestly, if the Swedes won gold eyes. It's going to be a tough tournament. Wow. Yeah, we'll see. Clearly Canada's goaltending is a question mark and clearly their defensive depth is a question mark and clearly they have the most skilled forwards. And it's going to be a tighter game because it's on a smaller ice surface. But it can't be a physical game.

So does that, if that game favors speed, I think it favors the states. Their defense is so fast. And I think really, like Four Nations, a lot of it depended on Hellebuck and their goaltending. And he did not have a great final. He didn't have a great tournament. So we'll see if that can, it's really cool.

I can't. I'm terrible with predictions, but it should be fun. Starts tomorrow. So I'm going to play a very short piece of audio. So I was chatting with Maureen Holloway the other day because I was putting her on Humble and Fred show. She'll pop in once a month. And she shared something with me that I'm now going to share with you.

Okay, so this is Maureen pointed this out and now I have to play it. So this is the CBC Olympic theme. Okay, here it goes. So the Olympic heads have heard that a thousand times by now. but dun dun dun dun dun dun dun okay this is uh from the very famous disney movie the lion king you're when he was a young woodhawk when i was a young wordhawk okay very nice you're a musician dave bedini is that the same melody same too pretty close yeah pretty close right so pretty close but but every song is close to another song it's okay

there's nothing new end of the sun i mean it's all the same same set of notes. It's just how you put them together. Inevitably, it's going to be the same kind of order in similar composition. So, yeah, we, I always, there's a Blue Jays, there's a Blue Jays theme that I think is very similar to one of our songs from Story of Harmelodia, the last song. And I've always wondered whether the people that were putting that together used our song as a placeholder. That happens to, in film, that happens a lot, too.

You use a song that you can't necessarily clear as placeholders, then you put another song in there that you can clear. that is similar into that spot. So we'll never know. We'll never know. This is my question before I get to skip the DJ. And there is music coming very soon here

because I got questions about your new release from the Rio Statics. But I want to know, is it true? I believe this to be true. Is it true? The first Rio Statics gig was a Gary's presentation? 1980, yeah, October 1980, October 12th, 13, 14, 1980 at the edge.

It was. Yeah, that story is, do you know that story? I sent, we did a demo cassette. four songs that we recorded in Brampton. And I sent it in the post to Gary. But Gary Top. Yeah, Gary Top.

We have to be specific. There's multiple Gary's at play here. And Kermian Top, Gary Top. And Gary answered the mail. I don't really cormi. I did. But then I was at the New Yorker Theater on Youngstreet to watch Union City Blues starring Deborah Harry and Let There Be Rock by ACDC. as part of the festival of festivals,

now known as the Toronto International Film Festival. I was reviewing those films for the Sunshine News, which was a National High School newspaper that I wrote about. And when I was sitting at the, near the popcorn stand there, I was just between films. And Gary Top walked in, and I was like, oh, my God, that's Gary Top.

And he walked in, and he came over, and he sat in a chair across from me, and he said, are you, Dave? And I had no idea how Gary Topp would have possible, known who I was. And it turned out that he had called my mom that afternoon after getting my cassette, getting our cassette, wanting to book us at the edge. And she said, oh, David, which is what she called me, is seeing the movies downtown

at the New Yorker Theater this afternoon. So top, living right near there, walked down the street, found me, and then said, I want to book the Rio Static. So that was our first show. That's how we got our first show. That's unbelievable. It was. It was astonishing.

I have Rob Pruse in this basement every every month. And Rob's first ever gig with the spoons was a Gary's presentation at the edge the night that John Lennon was rendered. Yeah, that's right. Oh, there you go. Oh, is Rob in town?

No, he's, because he just finished doing mom. How does he come here then? He's mom, so his mom lives in Burlington. So once a, this is actually, he's a sweetheart. He is the sweetest guy. There you go. That's the, that's the Proust Christmas card I got that's sitting in the theater here. So once a month, Rob Pruse drives to,

Burlington to visit his mom and then visits this very basement with Bob Willett from Indy 88 and we do like a monthly series called Toast where we kick out thematic jams and we've been doing that forever. Cool. So yeah, Rob, I'll see him. I think I'll see him next week actually. Hi, I should be down. I will. I will. Skip the DJ wants to know is Pentatoni cake or bread?

Well, it's the perfect fusion of the two. Right? Good answer. You don't want to alienate any side there. Okay. M. W. Bauer says, Hey, Dave Bidini, will the Blue Jays make the World Series in 26? What is your crystal ball say, Mr. Bidini?

It's hard to repeat. It's hard to go back. I mean, obviously, I hope they will, but the odds I think are against them. You heard it here first. Okay. But, hey, it's baseball. Stephen S. I don't think that's Stephen Stanley. But is Stephen Stanley part of your Wolf Island?

He played. He hasn't played with the morning. stars in a decade, but he played on the weekend. It was great. Number 11. Okay, so I'm skipping Steven S for a moment to go to Scott Lyons, who says, how are the morning stars doing this year? Terrible. We're old and we suck.

It's pure bliss. It's pure bliss. Who would I know that's on the morning stars? You're asking me? Yeah. Who would you know? Yeah. Oh, geez. Well, Tim Thompson used to play with us. I know Tim. Very well.

Chris Topping. Do you know him? Yeah. Chris Topping's on the Morning Stars? I'm trying to think of other Tom Patterson, who ran the paddock is on the morning stars. Okay, okay. Because if I don't know them, these are people I should know. 100%.

Okay. I'm taking notes over here, Dave. You know that's what we're doing here. They're my teammates for 30 years, right? These guys, so we have eight original members of our team. Well, Tim Thompson played of my cousin at University of Guelph. There you go. He was a good defenseman as I recall.

Tim was, Tim won the last championship ever to be awarded at Maple Leaf Gardens. That's, see, there you go. Mind blow. He told me that. And I said, get any points? And he was like, yeah, I got an assistant in the first goal.

Of course he did. So, yeah, he's, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's very cool. So Stephen asks his question was, Turk Broda or Harry Lumley? Apple cheeks all the way. Who's Apple? I don't know.

Harry, that's his, Harry and Lumley's. I got some Harry Lumley catching up to do here. I mean, I love a portly gold hender. Well, Turk was Portly, too. But, yeah. I mean, I would answer, I would answer, Steve. And I would suggest either Charlie Gardner or a Wolfkewed would be the duo that I would have to choose from.

I'm going to tell the listenership now, Dave, that this is your third visit to the TMDS Basement Studio. Your first visit was October 2019. We're going way back there. That's pre-pandemic. That tells you all you need to know. In this 526th episode of Toronto Mike, Mike chats with Dave Bedini about Rio Static.

Shocker there. Etobico, Dave Bookman, the Lake Great, was very close friend of yours. Gore Downey, we also lost far too soon, the West End Phoenix, radio and more. So we had a great chat, a good chinwag in October 2019. Your 8 is out of your career, really.

And then September 2022, you came back. That was episode 1,110. We talked about, again, we talked about Bookie. We talked about the real statics, the West End Phoenix, and the new CBC documentary series, Summit 72. Oh, yeah. So another good chinwag.

Here's a fun fact for you. You ready? Yep. You, and you'll tell me if I'm right or wrong, because you are Dave Medini. You're the only Canadian to have been nominated for all three of Canada's main entertainment awards. That would be the Gemini Award for Television. Now you can't anymore, because these are all combined, but the Gemini Award for Television, the Genie Awards for Filmwork and the Juno's for music, but you've also, I'm throwing in,

you've also been nominated on Canada's National Book Awards program, Canada Reeds. Do you believe that? Could that be true? You're the only person to get a Gemini, genie, and a Juno Award nomination? I think that's true. Yeah. I don't have the hard data.

I think it's true. Yeah, I think it's true. Never, I mean, lost every time. Well, that's not true. Didn't win a Juno, but the other ones we did. How many Juno nominations did you get? Oh, I don't know. Only two, I think.

Okay. Because my guest yesterday, Amoy, wonderful Ray Gayt. Nine. She's got nine, right? Too many. No, she's on her eighth. Too many. She should really share that.

Share the wealth. She's the Susan Lude. of Canadian music. And one more fun fact here, and then I'm going to play a song. This is your... So I know you don't control your Wikipedia page. Third parties maintain this,

but I'm actually putting this out to Rosie Gray Tio. We have a devout listener who is an active editor on... Oh, please. Wikipedia. Here's what's happening, because I was on your Wikipedia page yesterday. Your Wikipedia page links to

Dave Bedini.ca. Which is, yeah, somebody bought that and now it's a weird environmental... Yeah, it belongs. I got a quote. environmental blogger bringing you environmental information and insightful posts on the environment, pollution, energy, recycling, climate change, and even more. And even though that sounds like it could be our very own real statics, Dave Bedini, that is not you.

No. I did an interview with somebody in Western Michigan, and he was like, I promise we're going to get to green energy. We're going to get to it. I didn't see that. And I was like, so he asked me a particular question about some green energy issue. And I was like, I'm not really into. And he told me about that website. I'd been to once a long time ago

and then just kind of forgot about it. Not too good on the... Not too good with websites, apparently. Well, it's not your site, Wikipedia. That's the whole idea, right? So you do need a good editor, a smart editor. Get in there. If your friend could do it.

Rosie Gratio. Named after a great lowest of the low song. So shout out to the aforementioned Stephen Stanley. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. That is, that's a... That's the first real track on our new record, but that's also the first thing we recorded when we were together.

Who's we? That's Hugh Marsh on violin, Tim Vesley on bass, Don Kerr, Dave Clark on drums, Kevin Hearn on keyboards, Alex Lifson on guitar, and me on guitar. How did Alex Lifeson? We're going to talk about a few specific people.

Let me just set the table by saying, The Great Lakes Suite is the 13th album by the Rio Statics. Your Rio Statics. And it came out in November of 2025 on Cordova Bay Records. I had a email exchange with, maybe it was Blair Papp. Somebody maybe wrote, I don't know if it was me directly, but somebody in the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe, reached out to Dave Clark about coming on Toronto Mike.

And he seemed very maybe about it. Like it was, do you think Dave Clark would be a good Toronto mic to guess? Oh, he'd be great. I can totally put a word in. Put it a word. The response was such that I'm like, I just basically moved on. Sure. You know, you either jump at this when the lure is dropped.

Supriah jumped at it when the lure was dropped and Dave Clark did not. But a couple of names I want to ask you about, how did you get involved with Alex Lifeson? Well, you know, we were always pretty close to the, to the, to the, that camp, that community. The Rush community? Yeah, because of, you know, our friendship with Neil here. He was on our, on well music, and that, and you just, we were friends. And, um, and Getty, of course, as well, uh, being a friend of ours and working with him and being,

they're, they're both great guys. And Alex was kind of the last person that we really sort of became close with. but I asked Alex in our first year of West End Phoenix if he wanted to work on a comic based on his musical experiences. And so we paired him with Casey McGlynn, the great illustrator, painter. And they contributed, I think, six or seven, eight comics

to that first year. So got to know Alex. And then I think it was the first or second year we were doing a benefit for West End Phoenix. And Alex, we invited him to come with the band. And with this great moment when we were rehearsing on a rehearsal space on College Street, he took out a black, less Paul guitar from his guitar case and vintage, you know, 50s or 60s, I can't remember, but maybe early 60s.

And I asked if there was a story behind that guitar. And of course there was a story behind that guitar. It was the guitar that Robbie Robertson played on the first band album that had just come for sale. So he bought it. So we proceeded to play. a version of Rec of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And it was wonderful having him play Robbie's guitar while we played Gord's song together. And so we started to make music together.

And then when, when, but that was always once every couple of years. It was never really a big deal. And when we, when it came time to think about doing this record, he's the first person that I reached out to. And he said that it was just that week. He was thinking to himself, I just can't play golf for the rest of my life. life. So he golfs a lot.

Yeah. So, um, you know, he, uh, they, they, he did envy of none, right? Like yeah, and they were, they were, yeah, they were working on that. Yeah, they were, yeah, they were working on Dave. He's the best, he's the best. He plays at the jitters now. He's the best. I think I mentioned Blair back.

Dave, Dave's parents went to Harbor Collegiate with my dad. Yeah. They knew each other. It's incredible. You still can't get Getty on Toronto mic, so I don't know what he's worth there. Oh, they're busy. He's so busy. I see, I see what those guys have to go.

through to go on tour and man they work hard. But so, but I asked out so he said yes. So he said he was interested. I laid out the whole idea. It's going to be improvisational, abstract kind of musical experiment. And he was like, yeah, let's try that. And then once he kind of, uh, uh, decided he would do it, everybody wanted to do it. We had, we had a rehearsal at the rat space on DuPont just to sort of try, because you never know, you get a bunch of musicians together. You never know if the chemistry is going to kind of work out. And we, we played for four hours, realized nobody, had taped it and then thought, well, let's just go in the studio and do it. So we recorded about 20 hours of music and then it was pieced together for this record. Yeah, and I was lucky enough

to be at that listener party, the release party at the Paradise. I had a, I think I had an octopus wants to fight that night with my buddy, the VP of Sales. Nice. Always a good time. Who was that? Tyler Campbell. Okay, great, great. Yeah, who also had, at a, at a West End Phoenix event, had a pretty good conversation with Sarah Harmer. What was it, Sarah's sister? Like, was it Sarah Harmer? I wasn't there. Sarah and Georgia played at our, one of our... But bottom line is Sarah, on gung-ho to come on somehow,

but this never appeared. I'm here to complain to you, David. You're here so I can complain about all your friends who have not yet accepted the invitation to visit. So I have a lengthy list of grievances. Sarah's a bit, she's a bit hard to get a hold of, like, yeah. I would just love it so much.

She's busy too, so anyways. We're all busy, Dave. I know, I'll put it a word in free. We're all busy. Come on, we got to work together. Yeah, she should have her, Dave and Sarah together. then you get them both at the same time. A couple of quick life, Alex Lifeson hits here.

One is I saw him play, he was like a cameo appearance when Tom Cochran opened for the Who. Yep, that's right. And that was very cool. But also I'm at 2 o'clock today, so we're talking at 10.40 a.m. At 2 o'clock today, I'm talking to Gordy Johnson. Okay.

And he bought a double neck guitar. Oh no, he didn't buy it, sorry. He was given to him. I've got to be clear here. Alex Lifson gave Gordy Johnson this Gibson. And I don't know what this means. I'm going to read it to you. It looks like a gearhead.

talks about curs. They don't know what they're talking about. I don't know much about guitars either. Okay, so I'll say it because I read it. I could be reading this wrong. Gibson EDS-1275 double neck. This is the guitar that Alex Lifeson gave Gordy Johnson. So if you ever see Gordy with that double-neck guitar,

apparently that was a gift from Alex Lifeson from Rush. Well, I mean, Alex is super generous. He donated three effects units to West End Phoenix to auction off. and we didn't. You know, all that stuff really helps keep us healthy. And anyways, they're all super generous. They come as advertised. Just all the things you hear about them being excellent people are true.

Remember earlier I said to you, Rob Pruse might be the nicest guy in the world. He's pretty close to me. But I'm here to tell you that, no, I just realized, no. Kevin Hearn is the nicest guy in the world. Is he? Maybe you know him better than I do and you'll tell me, Mike, you got them all wrong. In my experience, my limited experience of Kevin Huron. and he seems to be a...

Kevin is a beautiful guy, but he's also, you know, deadly serious when it comes to his craft, when it comes to his performance, when it comes to his, you know, just making sure that his vision of what he wants to do creatively is realized. Yeah, he's beautiful.

So there's a little sandpaper there when it comes to art. Everybody has sandpaper. And that's one of the great things about, you know, when you work closely with people who are, you know, whose work you admire. There has to be kind of sandpaper. That has to be, that relationship has to have a certain kind of depth

that includes every element of a person's personality, right? So, yeah, I do think in Canadian music in general, because the scene is so small, relatively small, if you're an asshole. You don't, you know what I mean? You just don't get invited to the party. But enough about boot sauce. Okay.

I don't know them. Are they, are they dicks? Yeah, well, talk to, you know, Art Bergman and Lois to the Low and get some, you know, and Brother Bill, brother Bill, get some stories. Poor, poor our art. Yeah. I felt so, he was so great. He came to our Western Phoenix space and we did an interview with him. But one of the reasons I'm glad we're moving because our washroom was a disaster.

And there was that, there was stairs going down to the washroom with utter railing. And I thought to myself, oh my God, are we going to kill Art Bergman? Yeah, you get it, yeah. So I went and I kind of made sure he was okay. And then on the way up, I was like, Art, do you need a hand? And he was like, fuck you. And he got up the stairs himself. But, yeah, I love Art.

I say art, art's underappreciated in this market. Because I saw him at the horseshoe. And I saw it like right out. Then I saw a junk house, like maybe the next week or something. And junk house, it was full. It was jammed. But I felt like Art, there was some room to breathe there. It's weird because Art lived here for, for, for the,

the longest time. Maybe just hasn't nurtured the fan base here or something like that. I mean, he is, he is a kind of, he is a, I think he's a national treasure, but he's a West Coast legend,

for sure. Right. Literally called the young Canadians. That's right. Let's go to fucking Hawaii. So good. Okay. So what we're,

because I was going to point out of Kevin Hearn that he was there for Lou Reed, the legend in Lou Reed's, you know, at the end of his life. And he was there for. But before we say who he was there for, I'm going to play a song.

And this is from the new Rio Statics album, The Great Lakes Suite. And I have questions about this. As you can imagine, here we go. I wandered down to the water's edge. I looked out. It was endless, all blue and gray and purple and pink. Waves sparkly on top and darker on the bottom. It was Lake Ontario.

I stepped into the water. It was clear and shallow and really warm. The flat rocks were entirely emerald green, carpeted and seaweed, gently swaying with the waves. It was so soft on my feet a little further. There were many kids around me splashing and chasing and yelling. And I thought, in the water, you're alone. And I wasn't a great swimmer. I saw Seagull floating in the water a little away from me, and I splashed at it.

Move closer and it still didn't fly away. And I was about to say hello when the bottom fell away. It was the drop off and I'd always heard about it. You know what was supposed to have water closed over me and I wasn't sinking but as hard as I tried I couldn't get back to the surface. I just sort of hung there. It was just quiet. The water was colder out there.

It was different shades of green and shot through with silver shafts of sunlight. I still hear the kids splashing, chasing, yelling, but now they were really far away. I guess I was drowning. Fuzzy flash of white. Close by. And mist. And now I was sinking. I lunged again, and my finger just hooked the string of a bright blue bikini, bottom.

And I could hear a muffled shriek from above. The sound someone makes on something unseen or from the dark bites them. An arm plunged down, grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me up. blinking, gasping to the surface. It was Charlene, my sister. She was mad and maybe a little afraid. I told mom, she said, I told her you shouldn't come to the lake. Dave Bedini, so there's you, there's Kevin Hearn, there's Alex Lifeson, Dave Clark, Tim

Vesley, got Hugh Marsh, and Gord fucking Downey. Where did that audio come from of Gord? That's from a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper event that was their annual gala. That was at the CBC. I heard him deliver that live and always kind of stayed with me and I talked to Mark. What's fantastic. Yeah, I know it was, we were really grateful to be able to play with Gord, posthumously, in the studio and ran that a lot. You know, spent an afternoon just like trying lots of different musical ideas around.

it and settle on that one. And when we played at the TD Music Hall, our second night of our Great Lakes Sweet shows, Kevin brilliantly paused that story halfway through, and then we set off into this incredible jam with Hugh and Alex leading it. That's that when we performed that song, it lasted about a half an hour, that version,

because Kevin brought the story back in once the jam and sort of ebbed. And it was one of the great musical experiences in my life. well it sounded amazing and when I was at the again the whatever that was the listening party yeah it's a listening party come on Mike wake up here but it's just hearing Gord and did those great lyrics and the music behind it

and again we did tease it a little bit but you know when you see Peter Mansbridge speaking with Gord Downey remember when Gord had to write Peter Mannsbridge's name on his hand or whatnot that's in Kevin Huron's living room and we there's a special episode of Toronto Mike where I just talk to Kevin about being there for Gord and Gord's final, you know, final weeks, final months and everything. And it's just beautiful to hear, you know,

Kevin and you guys playing with Gord again. It's hauntingly beautiful. Oh, thank you. The drop-off is the name of that song, by the way, when you're picking up the Great Lake Sweet, the drop-off there. Is there any involvement in this new album from Martin TLA? Oh, Martin.

No, not on this record. not this time. But we're hoping that Like do we know how he's doing? Or is that too personal? Well, no, I don't know. We don't kind of really know.

But he's working on music. And, you know, at his own pace, in his own space, in his own time. So Martin works really, he's really slow and really deliberate. And frankly, inefficient, if I can say that,

having been an amount of them. a long time. You can say that. But, you know, when it does seem, when it does see the light of day, it'll, it'll be great. So,

so yeah, we just, our, our dialogue is still really, and it's not for lack of trying on your part. He was invited. Yeah, for sure.

And then, listen, some, not, as, there's, at times, people just kind of don't feel

the project. And that's fine, too. That's fine, too. And he actually said, he said, listen, ask Lifson to do it.

Just ask Alex to do it. And I was like, well, I'm not going to ask. but he was right. Okay. Yeah. There you go.

Do you remember a Canadian television show called PowerPlay? Is that ring a little? That's right. I do. Yeah, of course, yeah. I think Quarington wrote a little bit on PowerPlay. Possibly, but do you remember at all the opening theme to this show? No.

Okay. So I'm going to play it now. Okay. And you're going to know the first voice. And I'm going to tell you before it because it's two, it's an original song that bleeds into a cover. But the cover is. by one of my favorite bands.

Rusty. Is there any real Statics Rusty entanglements that I could know? No, I think, no, you're good. I think we played together a couple times. It was fine. Well, I think Mitchell Perkins, I believe was the drummer in Rusty.

He was, I went to high school with Mitch. He was in the progressive rock band at our high school and we were in the new wave band. But it was Mitchell playing a yes, Steve Howe guitar solo on a yes, live album that made me go home and write dope fiends and boo's hounds. Which I think it's Jeff Merrick's favorite song of all time.

When he came over, which now I think about it was episode 74. So we're going back. Has he not been back? He moved to Stowville or something. I know. So he has not been back, but it's not for lack of trying on my part.

And on that note, I think I slagged harmer, but I didn't really slag hammer, but I do have a note on the live stream from the aforementioned VP of Sales Tyler Campbell, who says, he writes, okay, well, we're having a debate here live

while I'm trying to talk to the legend that is Dave Bedini. But he says, I think it was in your court to get back to Sarah's management, but she was into it. And then I remember that, and I remember actually doing my due diligence via email to book this and it dying on the Harmer Vine, if you will. So now VP's come around that he thinks maybe I hit a dead end. But all this is to say, eventually, if I do this long enough,

eventually Sarah Harmer will make her Toronto mic to debut. That's what's going to happen here. Pull in for you. Yeah. So why am I mentioning PowerPlay here? So I want to talk to you about somebody. And here we go with the opening theme to Power Play. Hello out there.

We're on the air. It's hockey night tonight. Tension grows. The whistle blows and the puck goes down the ice. The goalie jumps and the players bump and the fans all go insane. Someone roars. Bobby scores at the good old hockey game. Oh, go.

What a big game is the best game you can name. And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game. What do you think of a hockey stick in one gigantic scream? The puckie hockey game is the best game you can name. And the best game you can name is a good old hockey game. What do you think of Rusty's cover there? It's great. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. Good, good. Because multiple members of Rusty are listening to you right now. Oh, lovely. Glad you like it. Oh, no, for sure. Awesome. Can you share a little bit?

So you mentioned the heavenly birthday for Stomp and Tom Conner's. He turned 90 the other day. They call that the heavenly birthday? Yeah, that's what they... Well, no, they don't call the 90. If they call it, when you have a birthday, but you're no longer with us. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. That's like a heavenly birthday.

Okay. Okay, so I mentioned Banjo Duncan Fremlin and Sean Cullen were here because, well, you know, but whiskey jack and they're... You know, I see a whiskey jack album. here, keeping the legend alive, the spirit of stomp and tom. But when you talk to Banjo Dunk about stomp and Tom, you get a, you know, that's his version of his experience of stomp and Tom, but I am very curious about the Stomp and Tom Conners you knew in your personal experience with the man.

What can you share with us, Mr. Bedini? I was, I went to Ireland in 1985, um, to Trinity College, Dublin on an Anglo-Ireux. Irish Studies Exchange that was facilitated or encouraged by John Doyle, who was my TA at the time, who was the television critic. Yeah, he came here a couple months ago. Yeah, he was my mentor, really. I'd never met anybody like John. And I never met anybody from Ireland before.

And I really liked him. And he was like, you should go to Ireland. I was like, okay, so he told me about this program that they had at Trinity College. So when I went over there, my friend Howard Druckman, you should also have on this. show. Absolutely. He made me a tape on one side was the band and the other side was Stomp and Tom and Tom and Tom. And so when kids would come to my flat in Ireland and ask me about Canada, I would say, I don't know, just put the tape on because everything on that tape basically kind of explains its geography of Canada and the history of Canada and you know, right. That's everything. They were like, oh, cool. So when I came back to Toronto, I was like,

I wonder what's up with this stomping Tom guy. And I talked to the people at Nerve magazine and said I wanted to write a story about Stombatam, I'm fine. So I ended up hanging out at his record company office of Boot Records in Mississauga. And just, you know, I wanted to talk to Yuri Kreiduk, who was the, who ran the label and just find out about Tom, who wasn't around. He wasn't part of the... He had like retired.

He went in self-imposed exile. That's part of the story. Tom wanted to get booked at the... at the C&E, and instead of giving him a main stage show, they booked him at the Banchel during Maritime's Day. He was put out because all of the main slots were given to American performers. So he had a press conference where he brought all of his Juno's box in a cardboard box, and he gave back his Juno Awards.

And he said he was going to withdraw from public life for a year to not capitalize on the, for this not to be seen as a publicity stunt. And while he was away for his year, he just decided to stay in self-imposed exile. That was the case when I was at boot records. At my third time there, the secretary held up a letter that was addressed to Richard Hatfield, who was the Premier of New Brunswick, inviting him to celebrate Stombentom's 50th birthday in Balnafad, Ontario at this small community hall. She held up the paper for me so I could write down the address.

So me, Tim Vesley and Judy Perry got in our car on February 9, 1986, and we drove to Bounde to Fad, Ontario. We pulled up to this community hall, and we could hear some music inside. And there was a guy outside having a dart on the landing, and we said, is stomping Tom here? And he said, I'll go get him. So he went inside and he got Tom and Tom came out.

And I had had a petition in my back pocket that I'd circulated at Larry's hideaway the week before. Tom, Conner's comeback, the country needs you. And I also had a cassette tape of some really real stuff that I was going to give him. So Tom came out and I gave him the whole spiel. I said, like, listen, the kind of stuff. stuff that you sing about and the kind of music that you make, it's important for our country to have this.

We need it right now. And it was also post-free trade. There was a lot of, you know, worrying about, you know, encroaching American popular cultural colonialism, as we always do. And he said, where'd you come from? We said, we came from Toronto. And he said, Toronto, you come all away from Toronto. You might as well come in and have a few drinks.

So he brought us down into the basement of this community hall where they were celebrating his 50th birthday party. But this bud was there. Richard Hatfield was there. all of his friends were there, all of his band from all across the years were there. And we talked to him, you know, and I went home and I wrote this story. And I sent it to him. He framed it, put it on his wall.

And then, then he came out of exile and he returned to play with that comeback show at the Matador. So, and we, you know, when he was planning programming his memorial at the hockey rink in Peterborough, he asked if I would, he asked, uh, Lina, his little. wife to ask me if I would perform. So I was backstage getting ready to play at, you know, this sold-out memorial arena during Tom's wake, basically during his memorial. And Mike Plume, the songwriter, said, Tom's here. And I said, yeah, for sure.

He's here in spirit and his soul. And he said, no, you don't understand. Tom's here. And he took me out of the dressing room. He pointed to the Zamboni Bay and a hearse was pulling into the Zamboony Bay. and a coffin was wielded out of the Zamboni Bay and wheeled on stage because one of Tom's last wishes was to be on stage while his favorite musicians played his songs.

Wow, I'm processing all of this. This is amazing. So what I was unsure of was your role in sparking the flame, the comeback of Stomp and Tom. And again, listeners, I really highly recommend you listen to the banjo dunk Sean Cullen episode is a companion to this one because as I shared with them at the time

and I'm gonna play a little bit of the song that actually sparked it all. I was born in 74 so you get a few years on me but when so I'm growing up listening to lots of music I honestly don't know Stomp and Tom Connors like this is I don't know him I don't see him you mentioned the self-imposed exile okay that sort of coincides

with me becoming aware of music I'm listening to Corey Hart, platinum blonde, who knows right? But I'm a big much music fan and all of a side. and seemingly out of nowhere. I even, I'm going to play a little bit of this. Have you heard the news in Newfoundland rolling around the rock? A Reggie brought for Margie home a cowsy-dungsy-clock.

With Margie being a farm girl, she almost took a fit. To find the cowsy-dung-y-cloth was really made of it. The clock was from Toronto and her mind was soon made up. She said to Reggie, get the cow, and load her on the truck. We're heading for Ontario And we're off to make her big Because Margot's got the cargo And Redgie's got the rig

Redgie's got the rig Red she's got the rig Margo's got the cargo by And Reg she's got the rig So I don't know what I am 14, 15 years old or whatever And I'm like literally Stomp and Tom is suddenly like a much music hitmaker And to me it's like a new artist

And I distinctly remember loving it I'm like, where did this guy come from? Like, I had to ask, like, my uncle, like, had to explain to me, like, the history that, oh, this is Stomp and Tom Conner's. This is who he was. But he, so for me, I was trying to piece together, like, this comeback. So, because he did have a massive resurgence. And I want to say the late 80s.

I don't know if that timeline works, but I just feel like that. We met him in 86 for the first time. I think, I think, um, with me and Tom, he just was, able to see that he was, you know, valued and recognized by somebody who was, you know, in their 20s, right? Yeah, that their generation. Exactly. And then Dave McMillan, who worked for EMI, was the first person to get the good old hockey game into hockey rings.

Ottawa Senators played it for the first time. And his boss was Dean Cameron and Dean signed Tom to that. But, yeah, anyway. So, I mean, listen, it takes a bunch of people to make that happen. But it was great to be able to, like, I wouldn't say, was I close to Tom? I mean, not really. But I think he, you know, compelled me to find my direction musically. And it was with the Rios, right?

And it was, it was beautiful to be able to give something back to him. And much like Stompat, John Connors, your Rio Static's music was unabashedly Canadian, which people like me really appreciate it. I still gravitate towards unabashedly, no shame in being from this great country. Well, occasionally, there's shame, but... That's true. But that's okay. That's part of living in Atlanta, you know. That's true.

And, but yeah. There's no shame in being from here. Well, and that was... You can look at the missteps and the... the problem, look them in the eyes and confront them. It was big in Ireland for me to, like, going to a place where, like, a nationhood was, like, just part of the everyday conversation, right? And the Irish through art have such a very clear idea of who they are.

And there's no reason that Canadian artists can't lead the way in terms of our country's realization of self. I did not know your connection to John Doyle, who I literally, I want to say that was December. He made his Toronto mic debut in the basement here. And it was just a tremendous episode. Like one of the most delightful chats about everything at the globe, but also a lot about, you know, soccer. He's a huge soccer fan like yourself. Yeah, I was really close to John's parents.

They, when I went to Ireland for the first time I stayed with them, and they're wonderful, wonderful peoples among the best that I've ever known. And, yeah, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today or wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for John. Wow. Well, you never know who's connected to you. Small world here. And then I found out John Doyle has a great interest in theater,

in writing for theater. And he had just had a conversation with a now retired theater producer named Joel Greenberg. And it just so happens. I produced Joel Greenberg's podcast, which I found out later John Doyle is a big fan of. And we just batch recorded episodes from season four. And they're all, like, they're all queued up and going to drop soon. But shout out to Life and Stages by Joel Greenberg. What's that about?

podcast. So he talks to the unsung heroes of Canada's theater industries. The people you know the name, maybe of your theater head, you know these people, but... Well, Tony Napo just played as one of his first, first games in many years with the Morning Stars, a couple years ago. Can we talk about Napo just for a moment here? Because you know, I'm dear friends with us. I'm looking at them now. Stu Stone from, there he is of Jamie Kennedy, but Stu Stone makes movies with his brother-in-law, Adam Rodness, and they're called Five-Seven Films, I think is the name of that company.

but every movie Stu makes has a role for Tony Napal and I've got to meet Tony through Stu I like this guy very he posted a picture of a guy named David Storch he posted this photo on Instagram yesterday I'm like that man David Storch was just in my basement talking to Joel Greenberg when we were on blue janet and my wife and I were walking on bluer street several years ago and uh a guy came out of uh of of a shop naked from the waist up and started to do like you know like um like gorilla

Corrilla arms Howling. And Janet grabbed my arm and said, don't engage. Because she just thought it was a guy tweaking, but it was Tony. Tony Napo. Working on his, working on a role.

Love Tony Napo. And this is one of the guests who came by. I'm just going to play it because it ties into a Canadian band I quite like. But here we go. Ready? When there's nothing left to burn,

you listen to Toronto, Mike. So that's son of. So that's Tork's brother. Ben Campbell imitating his father who appears on that. Maybe the greatest star song ever recorded. Your ex-lover is dead. Who's their father? Torquil, well, he is a Campbell,

and his first name is alluding me as I talked to you. He was a legendary Canadian theater in film actor, who I'm going to have to Google his name. But his son, Ben Campbell, followed in his footsteps as a theater performer, and he came over, Ben came over. So Ben's sitting here talking to Joel, and I'm just producing,

so I'm muted the whole time. But after we record, I go, would you mimic your dad off the top of then? And I had been, I had been, record that here. It's kind of got a Mr. French thing going on there, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. What the heck is Campbell's Doug or David? I got to Google this one. But here's what I'll do.

I'll set you up with this because on our way out here. I'm dealing with the fact my boomer mother is getting misinformation from Facebook. Have you heard this before? Stop me if you heard this before. Oh, my God. So we're living in a world where there's no checks and balances and no rules. So you could, and this is not stuff you subscribe to you, right? It's pushed to you on Facebook.

Something completely made up. I see this myself all the time. And I'm like, oh, my God. I just saw one that came up the other day and it said, Dave Steeb finally got the call. You know what I mean? And I'm like, too think, I'm like, well, he's not on the ballot. He didn't receive any call from Cooperstown. But this article was talking about, was quotes from Dave Steve so excited.

he's finally going to Cooperstown, right? Well, I sent Sarah Paulian note a couple of months ago saying congratulations on doing the Sittler doc. And she said, I have no idea what you're talking about. You got that pushed you on Facebook. And I said, well, it says that you're making a film about a documentary about Sittler. And she was like, that would be great, but I'm not. And yeah. So, but listen, we live in nefarious times.

heads up now to folks in terms of disinformation because there is disunity being sown in our country through bad actors funneling millions of dollars into Alberta separatism. So that's something to really kind of be aware of as it kind of comes across your feed. But listen, get off social media, read a newspaper, right? Well, this is just it though.

Get off social media. Don't trust anything you get on social media. Go corroborate it with a decent source. But on our way out here, we're wrapping up here. And blue sky again. You mentioned blue sky earlier. It's so much healthier in terms of staying connected. Follow Dave and I on Blue Sky, everybody.

By the way, the name of the actor, I'm embarrassed to say. It was Douglas Campbell. Okay. And he passed away in 2009. That's not a very Canadian name, eh, Douglas Campbell? He had, I think he's born in Scotland, actually, but definitely a Canadian-based chap. But on our way out, I want to just talk a minute or so on our way out here on West End Phoenix.

Because I'm wondering, so I wanted to share a few that between AI and the flat-out lies that are presented as truths on social media. I do feel like more important, it's more important than ever to check your sources and ensure that there's some kind of journalistic standards at play. And in that vein, I thought maybe I could ask you, is there somewhere you can read the West End Phoenix journalistic standards? So is there some kind of a rule set before anything goes to print in the West End Phoenix?

I mean, no, there isn't anything online that you can read. but all of the ethics and journalism ethics and standards are ones that we abide by we obviously check all of our sources record all of our sources and we do intense fact checking copy editing

we have some of the greatest editors in the country working for us and yeah I know this to be true of course and I'm hoping you'll tell everybody how they can support it in a moment but I do think it'd be wise maybe to have a page online where you spell it out.

This is why you can trust what you read in our newspaper. I mean, I would like to think that the kind of the work kind of communicates that anyways, but you're right. It wouldn't be a bad idea. We've got, I'm really trying to get, I'm close to getting Carl Bernstein to come in, to talk to, to do an event, especially in light of what's happening at the Washington Post. He's been a fan of the paper for a long time, so we're going to try to get him up this spring sometime, potentially. We have our 10th anniversary show on September 25th. We're taking it indoors to the

Pally Royale. And Ron, I buy it every day, but I'm Ron McLean's. Yeah, that's great. Ron's going to host again. And we're going to do the Story of Canada in 22 songs, I think is the idea. Oh, I love that idea. Showed to Glengold. Yeah. So, um, uh, and our new issue comes out in two weeks. And I have a special code for people who want to subscribe with a discount. And that's thanks 20. So go to West End Fenis.com and sign on. That's how we pay all of our contributors through our subscribers. Well, I love what you're doing with West End Phoenix. I look forward to your whatever you, whenever you do the opening of the new,

wherever you find your new home. For sure. I want to be at that opening. 100%. Even if it's just so I could chat up Sarah Harmer and say, what the heck's going on here? I'm just kidding. But I got to say, I love what you're doing. I love the new music from, I love the Great Lakes Suite.

I love, there's at least, at least last summer, I did dip my toe in at least two of the Great Lakes. Nice. Shout out to Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Yeah, that's two. Love the music from the real statics. Love what you're doing for the community. Oh, quick hit here, because I'm playing the closing theme already. Shout out to Lois of Low.

Although it's a cover by Rob Proust. That's what we're listening to, Rosie and Gray. But are you willing to share that anything regarding the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team? Because you mentioned the community and everything. Is there anything you're willing to put on the public record regarding you in that baseball team? Yeah, we tried to buy it and lost your buddy. so that's not good but we continue talking with

Canadian baseball it's CBL now right They just rebranded CBL So uh I think something's gonna happen But you just gotta figure we don't know what it is But listen I would I would In my dotage I would love to be part of running baseball team

Is very distracted right now Because he's launching a women's professional baseball league Listen if he wants to sell it to us You know it was myself Mike Vec Tom Whaley and Bill Murray who wanted to buy that team. And maybe it'll still happen because they know their baseball

and they're so good at what they do. If I can play a role as a linchpin of sorts, a connector. I love Dave Bedini and I love Keith Stein, so I think I'm the perfect person to see what I could do there. But thanks for making the trek back to Atobico. This was a fantastic chat, buddy.

Always so fun. Thank you so much. Won't be your last visit. Maybe you'll come on with Jeff Merrick next time. I would love that. I'm going to see if I can do that. I love that guy. Okay.

You know, I'm going to make that happen. And that brings us to the end of our 1,847th show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and subscribe to the West End Phoenix. It's good for the soul. It's good for the community and it's good for your brain. And stop getting your news from Facebook. I'm talking to you, Mom. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery.

They support West End Phoenix and Toronto Mikes, so they're good people. You got your beer. I have the lasagna for you, Dave. Nick Iini's. Yeah, you're going to love it. I know you've had it before. That's great. Nick Iini's, he's great. He's stepped up to help fuel the real talk over here. Beautiful. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. They signed up for the entire year.

I can't tell you how valuable that is for a very... You think you're small at the West End Phoenix? I never said that. If you're not small, you're nimble. No, you're mighty. You're not small at the West End. Exactly. You can be small and mighty. Yeah, that's what I am. Okay. I want to shout out Ridley Funeral Home at 4, no, 5 p.m. today.

Brad Jones will bolts by and we'll record a new episode of Life's Undertaking. He just returned from Asia. We'll talk about it. See you all then. But my next guest on Toronto, Mike. Come on, Mike, who is it? I know I'm talking to Gore Johnson, but the next guest is actually Simone Denny. Simone Denny, do you remember Chris Shepard had the projects like Love, Inc? No. Do you know what Chris Shepard is?

No. Simone Denny, 1 o'clock p.m. tomorrow, just as the Canada hockey game is concluding. Oh, no. Okay. See you all then.