Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Charles: Toronto Mike'd #955

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

Mike chats with radio vet Dave Charles about his years at CKOC, 1050 CHUM, launching Q107 and more.

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realestatelove.ca I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is Dave Charles. Yeah, this is, I can't believe I'm on Toronto Mike. I mean, I've waited in my entire career and here we are on a very cold, windy day

on Black Friday and we're talking to Mike. Now, Mike, this is your life. We're going to switch it up here. I'm going to interview you. Doesn't work that way, Dave. No, sorry, buddy. I'm so excited to have you here. Do you remember I tried to get Bob McGee on the show? Do you have memories of this? Yeah, I do. I don't you here. Do you remember, I tried to get Bob McGee on the show. Do you have memories of this?

Yeah, I do. I do. I don't, yeah. I couldn't get Bob McGee. I couldn't get him, but at the time I wanted you, but I want to give some credit to the man who finally, you know, sparked this and made this happen, because I've wanted to do this for a long time.

But Mark Hebbshire. Hebbsie. Okay, so I just like literally like a half an hour ago i stopped recording this morning's hebsey on sports with him uh but how do you know hebsey oh just by being a fan i mean i'm a sports nut so i watch a lot of his sports on tv and he's just such a real guy and i finally got to meet him and he's even more real in person and i just love his attitude i love the way he frames things the way he describes things he's even more real in person. And I just love his attitude. I love the way he frames things, the way he describes things. He's really, you know, he's a very unique talent.

And he should be on major market television and radio because I'm really a big fan of his. He's just good. He's just a good guy. He knows his stuff. And in sports, my favorite is like Howard Cosell, Bob Costas, those kind of people. Right. But Hebsey is that kind of person. You know, he does his homework.

He doesn't talk shit. And, you know, he knows his stuff. Dave, you had me at hello. All right. Before I met Mark, I only met Mark Hebsey because I invited him on this show. Because I was a big Sportsline guy. So I was a big fan before I met the man. And we hit it off.

So he came on several times, and then eventually I was lucky enough to co-host his show and produce Hebsey on Sports. And he claims that he's the reason you've discovered Toronto Mike. He's taking credit for that. Did he tip you off about what was going on here? No, I knew about you,

but I was kind of in the background. I didn't know what was going on. I have a very busy life. You know, is this guy out to get anybody? I mean, what's his profile? And then I heard a couple episodes and I said, no, you know what it is? It's just like a really honest chat about stuff. And I think that I'm looking forward

to the conversation more than doing any showbiz. I am not out to get anybody. I'm just a natural, I'm a curious cat and a true fan. And may I ask, do you remember the episodes you listened to? Like, I'm sure they were colleagues of yours. Yeah, the one, both Hebse's and Farah Nasser

I heard. Yeah. I thought she was very articulate and I watch her on TV as well. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Quick promotion. is very articulate and I watch her on TV as well. Okay, excellent, excellent. Quick promotion.

So I just want to communicate to the FOTMs directly for a moment. On December 9th at 7 p.m., we're going to have an open holiday Zoom. So anyone who can hear my voice can be on this holiday Zoom and there's a big announcement that's going to be made and it's going to be a lot of fun. You can crack open your Great Lakes beer maybe on the Zoom call. So if you would like a link to the FOTM holiday Zoom that's December 9th at 7pm, just write me, mike at torontomike.com or DM me on Twitter. I'm at torontomike and I will send you the Zoom link and the more the merrier. And I just wanted to share that that's happening December 9th.

And you're invited as well, Dave, if you're around. December 9th is 7 p.m. Thank you. I will be here. Ian Marchant? I hope I don't butcher that. Maybe it's Marchant. I'm not sure.

But he just tells me right off the top that you're one of the great ones. Thank you very much. That's all you get there. That's it. Okay. No pats on the back. No, I've been around radio for 58 years. Wow.

And yeah, I just enjoyed every minute of it. It's been a long journey. Originally started at CJBQ in Belleville. Well, you know, slow your roll there, Dave. As you know, this show is not a 20-minute special here. We're going to dive in here. So here, before we bring you back to Moncton here, that's how far back we're going to go.

Oh, no. Not Moncton. Can you share a few words? You're as a radio vet. A lot of the youngsters are wondering, who is this Rosalie Tremblay we're learning about? Rosalie Tremblay was an associate, a mentor. And when I was at Chum as the music director

back in the early 70s, Rosalie was the music director of CKOW, the Big Eight. Right. And they were the power in five states. And they just ruled the roost. They broke a lot of hits.

And Rosalie broke a lot. For example, I'll give you an example. Yes. Elton John met Rosalie. And Elton John was trying to plug one of his many hits, but she flipped the record over and said, you know,

I really like Benny and the Jets. And he said, I don't hear that song. And she said, trust me, this is going to be a hit. And it was one of his biggest hits. That's Rosalie. Rosalie knows how to pick music. She's got a great ear and she's just a wonderful human being. And we're sorry we miss her. Yeah, she passed away for those. She was, and we will dive deeper into her

career with Mark Weisblot's monthly recap we do on the program in the, you know, the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. But the song, Bob Seger's got the song Rosalie. Rosalie, you got the power, you got the tower, Rosalie, meaning that he, she had the power of the big eight and uh artists artists would come across the river from detroit into windsor into her studio just to have an

audience with rosalie and and uh you know motown would send limos forward to hear their new music and she was just a very very good music head and just loved what she did and and you felt that i mean you heard it on the radio station but she she just had that ability to, uh, to pick the hits. So, uh, rest in peace, Rosalie Trombley. And I'm glad Dave had somebody who, who knew the woman and could, could speak to that this week.

So, uh, that was fortuitous. Okay. Uh, let's go way back here. In fact, I pulled a clip that might jog the memories, but you're, you're from, uh, you're from Moncton. Yeah. Born in Moncton, New Brunswick.

My dad was in the Air Force in Penfield next to Moncton, and we moved up to St. Thomas and then into Hamilton, where I spent a lot of my growing up. So, yeah, I'm a herring choker, a New Brunswicker. But, you know, yeah, great part of the world to be from, but most of my life was spent in the hammer in Hamilton. I'm going to play a little clip. This is going way back, probably before your time, though, because if I do the math, you were, this might not be the episode you remember.

But let me just play a little bit of some radio just to spark your story here. I have more if you want it, actually. It's, uh... That's true. The William Tell Overture. That's the jingle for the Lone Ranger. But you're forgetting about his trusted sidekick, Tonto. I think it's coming. It's coming.

It's coming. Yeah. Stand by. I think it's coming. It's quite the build-up here. Hold on. And remember, this is a radio show. You need a lot of patience here. But while we wait for the voice to return,

this is what you remember, right? This would be a typical radio drama. My dad and I would listen to radio serials, Superman, Ozzie and Harriet, just all those great radio shows, radio theater, and it was The Lone Ranger, and Harriet just all those great radio shows radio theater and it was The Lone Ranger and it just sparked the imagination. We never did find

Tonto. Tonto would always disappear, right? Theater of the Mind Theater of the Mind, that's exactly what it was and you'd listen every week you knew exactly what was coming on the radio and that's really what got my interest also music, my dad and I used to Here we go. Pause that.

The master rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. The stories of his strength and courage, his daring and resourcefulness have come down to us through the generations. And nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver. The Lone Ranger rides again. Come on, Silver. Come on, big fellow.

Wow, Dave, honestly, I could listen to this. This is the theater of the mind. But sorry, you were telling me you would listen to these dramas, these shows with your dad. My favorite was The Crimson Ghost because it was very scary. You know, ooh, The Crimson Ghost because it was very scary. The Crimson Ghost. But no, these radio serials became very, very famous. It was comedy, drama, and westerns.

A lot of westerns. You never see westerns anymore on TV or hear them on radio. No, you're right. Once in a while, the Coen brothers will do something and bring it back for a little bit. But you're absolutely right.

So is this when you fell in love with radio yeah the other part of the story is my dad and i lived in ancaster and we could pick up on our radio uh american radio because the the mountain is a little bit higher than the the city center and we could hear in nashville we could hear wheeling west virginia we could hear uh fort wayne indiana we could hear new york city we could hear Wheeling, West Virginia. We could hear Fort Wayne, Indiana. We could hear New York City. We could hear Chicago. And so we would sit up at night and we would make a list of all the stations we could hear. And it could be classical. It could be jazz.

It could be country. It could be theater, stuff like the Lone Ranger. But yeah, it was just a lot of fun. And that's really what hooked me. What's the studios look like? Where are the people? I mean, that's what created the theater of the mind imagination and that was really the big part of radio growing up uh you know radio serials and radio music but i got hooked on music big time by listening to

jazz with my dad and country and then eventually rock in the mid 50s so this rock that you discover you're in the hammer right so that's uh's CKOC. Mm-hmm. Yep. 1150 CKOC Hamilton. That's right. The busy bee. And I mean, we'll return to that in a moment here. But you also,

as you mentioned, you're a big sports fan. Mm-hmm. So maybe your first time announcing anything is the Hamilton Junior Red Wings. Yes, that's right. Very good.

Hamilton Junior Red Wings and the Junior Bees, I would do the penalty announcements you know sure people like bobby or honest to god bobby or played for the oshawa generals and if he got a penalty bobby or uh you know two minutes for eye sticking then and i would do those announcements i thought it was great and then on saturday afternoon i would do i would do the skating which they'd fill the form with skaters, and I would play music and be a DJ. And that's where I got up to.

And the late Bill Stirrup of CHML was the one that got me hooked on that. And he had so many gigs in the city doing PA announcements, he would give me all the other ones that he couldn't do. But Bill and I made a great team, and he was the guy responsible for me getting into radio. See, you wanted to start with Belleville, but you would have missed all this. No, this was before I got to Belleville, you know. But it was great.

And Ed Preston, who worked in the library at CHML, where Bill was, they couldn't pay me any money because I was not legally on the payroll. So they would pay me off in things like Beatle Records and 45. So I had this amazing record collection. And they didn't play this music on CHML because it was sort of a talk adult station,

so I got all this great rock and roll music. And I thought that was more than payment enough, and that's where I really started to mock up radio shows. That's your buddy calling you to say, you're live on Toronto Mic, aren't you? We'll just let that go. The mics probably don't even pick it up, don't worry. These are nice and unidirectional here.

So, okay, so let's get to the belleville here so uh how do you end up at uh cjbq cjbq in belleville stands for the bay of quinte in 1962 the saga starts while i was in high school in hamilton i really wanted to get a job in radio and i was was a 16 year old kid. And so I would spend all of my allowance money traveling out to places like Brantford and Guelph. And I would try to persuade the station manager that I was good enough to be on radio. And he said, well, come back and see us when you finish school. So anyway, I kept part of the, part of the deal at CHML is I could use the studios late at night to do voice work and practice. So I'd go in there at 11 o'clock midnight, and I'd pretend I was on the radio. And I would spend time reading news announcements.

I'd read commercials, and I'd just make shit up, you know. And they would record it. And I played for Bill Stirrup, and he would give me ideas and suggestions. And eventually, I made up what I thought was a pretty good three-minute demo. And I would send that out to many stations. And one of them was CJBQ. And lo and behold, I finished my last year in high school. And I got a call from the manager, Frank Murray. And he said, are you interested in working in radio? I said, absolutely. I said, where's Belleville? And he said, oh, it's just down the lake. But he ended up meeting me in Toronto at their rep company, Stove and Biles.

And he said, okay, we got a deal here. So when can you start? So I started August 3rd, 1963. Can you share the deal, the compensation package for you back in 63? It was big. It was $50 a week. Wow. It was what I got.

After I paid my room and board, for there's $37, I had $13 left. So what am I going to do? That's a week, right? So eventually I figured out I can't live on this. So my mom and dad bought me a 60 Volkswagen, which was my Beetle. And then I had to start gigging by doing bar mitzvahs, weddings, everything. So I would make, you know, 50 bucks doing these dances and these gigs. Right.

And I would make more doing that than I would be being paid at the radio station. Well, there's even fairly modern days when, especially these live to airs at the clubs that were big in the nineties, these were always a big deal for me. And, and when I was listening to the radio, a lot of these DJs,

like I'm buddies with people like brother Bill, I'm thinking of who I just recorded with. He was at CFNY. They made more money doing these like live air games than they did on the radio. Well, it's strange who I just recorded with. He was at CFNY. They made more money doing these like live air games than they did on the radio. Well, it's strange. I just, my first six months at CJBQ and I started making a lot of noise locally

and I figured out that, you know, Belleville had an active teen scene. So I'd go out and I'd do Dave's gigs. Dave's gigs. At high schools, you know, and the people at Coca-Cola who had a plant in Trenton said, hey, we'd like to hire you. Do you want to come work for us?

And I said, no, no, my thing is radio. But it was great. I would do their Christmas parties and stuff and get it out there and parties for the mayor of the city council. It was just a lot of fun because I realized early in the game you had to promote yourself as a brand. You had to get out there and let people know who you were and that you cared about your community.

And that's exactly what I did. Now, Dave Charles as a brand, quite the, like when I hear that name, I just assume this is a fake radio name, Dave Charles. Uh, a lot of times you, you know, these names back then were often fake, uh, you know, Roger Ashby accepted, but we'll get to that. But, uh, well, yeah, my, my funny story about that. My middle name is Charles. Okay. So Frank Murray said, look, you know, your name is Roy Bull, B-U-L-L. That's my last name. And he said, there's too much bull on the radio now. So he says, no kidding.

I looked at him. I said, oh, my God, I'm in trouble already. He said, what's your middle name? I said, Charles. He said, well, that's okay. He said, why don't we call you Dave Charles? Right. And that's what happened. And I said, okay. And then I had, why don't we call you Dave Charles? Right. And that's what happened.

And I said, okay. And then I had to tell my parents that I was Dave Charles, which is another story. So, I mean, you're not proud of your family name? What's wrong with our name? I said, well, the guys, there's too much bull on the radio, and I can't use it. So, I became Dave Charles.

Well, that's part of your brand, and Dave's gigs in Belleville. And how do we get you back to Toronto here? Or to Toronto, I should say. To Toronto. Well, it's a bit of a challenge. I was there at CJBQ from 63 to 67. And really, I was very terrible on the air. I mean, I had to learn the hard way.

I practiced and I worked. And it didn't come naturally. So eventually, I figured it out enough to get a job at CKOC in 1967. And that's how Weaver had left the drive show. And he went to Chum Radio and I took the drive show and I said, I'm home. I'm home in Hamilton. I'm going to make the most of this. And I worked damn hard every day to prep the show and do the whole thing and created a following. And I was really proud of the ratings I got there. And we gave Chum at that time a run for their money.

We, you know, CKOC was a great hit radio station. My mentor, the late Nevin Grant, taught me how to be a good music person as well, how to put the charts together. And it started from there. Now, did you skip possibly, I'm curious about the offer you got from CBC Toronto, because the action set. Yeah, well, that was part of Belleville, because remember, CJBQ was a CBC affiliate, and

they called me up and said, look, we're hearing about your show, would you like to do a segment on the action set? Gotcha. Every week, and I said, sure, and they said, well, you talk about some new music, and I said, be happy to. Well, one of the songs they ended up talking about was new music. And I said, be happy to. Well, one of the songs they ended up talking about was The Beatles.

I went to England in 1967. Hold on, I got some music for this story. I was anticipating such a story. Hold on here. I know that song. Thank you. And that's the remastered version. So you got the... What happened was in 1967, I had enough money to get a jet flight

from Montreal to the UK. Because, you know, the Beatles were hot. The British music was hot. I just had to see what was happening over there. So I went to Soho and Carnaby Street. And I went to a record shop. And honest to God, the week that Sgt. Pepper was released,

there it was. And I said, I want that. On Parlophone Records, great, great sound. I also bought! And I said, I want that on Parlophone Records. Great, great sound. I also bought Jimi Hendrix, Whiter Shade of Pale. No, Jimi Hendrix, Procol Harm, Whiter Shade of Pale,

and Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix. Those three, I brought them back and played them on my radio show. A thing about Sgt. Pepper, I was the first DJ in Canada to play that on the air, and I got hell for it. I played the whole album. I was so excited. Because it wasn't available here. I, and I got hell for it. I played the whole album. I was so excited. Because it wasn't available here.

I know. That's what I said. I didn't know that. So I just ended up putting on CJBQ at night. I said, you've got to hear this. I brought this back from vacation just for you, Sergeant Pepper. I'm going to play the whole thing because it's all connected. Yeah.

And they said, oh. So anyway, the phones blew up, and I kept playing it. People said, where'd you get that? And so my manager, Frank Murray, got a call from Paul White at Capital EMI, and he said, look, your DJ's playing music he can't be playing because we have license for it, and Sgt. Pepper's not yet released in Canada.

And he said, okay, I'll tell him. So he told me, and I still kept playing it. But anyway, the reason that the Beatles had to deal with capital emi in canada but in america america didn't believe in the beatles so they were signed on this little r&b label called vj records right what is this and this is fantastic music so anyway i i broke the story on the action set back to the cbc connection and they said whoa this is exclusive yes it is and you got to hear this, this is exclusive. Yes, it is.

And you've got to hear this music. This is a montage of incredible music. It's all mixed together. And I said, there's nothing like it out. Nothing. And our fans agreed. Our radio fans couldn't get enough of the Beatles. And Sgt. Pepper was that breakthrough record for me. And that just blew it all up.

Well, let's not bury this lead. I'm going to state it again. For the record here, you're the first, at least the first Canadian DJ. Are you the first in North America? No, first in North America. Okay, well, even bigger. Okay. The first North American DJ to play the entire Sgt. Pepper's album on air.

That's amazing. Like, I would just have a t-shirt that reads that. You know what I mean? I know. I didn't know what I was doing. Remember, I'm stupid. Yeah, we we got in trouble but here's the big thing about being on radio yeah i am a fan first and foremost the reason i love radio so much is i love the music and you gotta love something really to get into it and so the thing for my show every day was always about how i put the music together the curation the mixing the music, and the little things I would do in the trivia.

Because that was the hook. And I would set this up, and I'd have contests and guess this. It was always about the music. So one of the things I did in Belleville, which really bolstered my brand, was I created a thing called the Capital of Canadian Music. Because Belleville was halfway between Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa and a lot of these great bands like David Clayton Thomas and the Shays and the big town boys and the townsman JB and the playboys would all come into the area and they played Dave's gigs we turned into arena shows and I would would make $2,000 and $3,000 a show just as a DJ presenting these things.

And the actually Bay of Quina area became a very famous music area. And we would be published in RPM Magazine, which started back in August of 1964. And I declared every week there was a story about me and Belleville and about the Canadian groups. And I really promoted Canadian. 40% of our chart was Canadian. And I look why not support our own I figured that out and nobody had to tell me nobody had to legislate the fact that we needed to play Canadian music I did it and as a result of doing that the bands became very popular the gigs were packed they created a whole star system and I was part of that and I'm really proud of that amazing and I mean speaking of like Prince Edward County,

we got to shout out FOTM. You're now an FOTM, Dave Charles. I think enough time has gone in this episode. You're officially an FOTM. But Bernie Finkelstein as well. Bernie's a good friend. Bernie was actually the first manager who brought in a band by the name of Luke and the Apostles

into my studio at CJBQ. And Bernie was a wonderful human being. He was just smart. He loved music like I did. So we ended up booking them in Belleville at the Armory's, and they did great business. And for years and years, Bernie would say, come to Toronto, come to the Riverboat,

where he had these artists like, you might have heard of Joni Mitchell or Neil Young. And I said, you've got to be kidding. So I'm actually driving my little car to Toronto every other weekend to see Bernie at the riverboat. And we became really good friends. Well, I've been in heavy negotiations with Bernie for nine years now to try to get Bruce Colburn on the show.

So I'm still working, I'm still working on it. Nine years in, I'm not giving up quite yet. Bruce needs to make his Toronto Mike debut. Okay. So CKOC, and i have friends i'm thinking of vp of sales and uh stephanie wilkinson who who you know grew up listening to ckoc uh what can you tell us i know you replace how weaver there when you oh no yeah because how weaver went to chum he went to chum yep yep and then you replaced him at and that's like your hometown

station ck so what's it like being there and then tell me if you don't mind i already dropped his name earlier but uh how you're connected to uh another fotm named roger ashby roger ashby uh came to audition for the late night show after the drive show which i did and roger was i think 18 or 19 at the time just out of high school and he had a radio station in the basement of his because so many we hit it off immediately and we both love motown right so it was just like magic so roger came on and he was there for about a year and just such a hard worker he was very very good and uh after a year was hired to do the all-night show at 10 50 chum and i was so proud of him and we still are good friends to today i mean you know he's just a magic kind of guy you know you so you play a key role though i mean because i mean i had roger over here but he only gave me a half an hour or we're taking longer with you my friend but uh you know ckoc is where

he starts and then very quickly he's off to 10 50 chum uh but it's you and i you in another gentleman you've already uh name dropped nevin grant? You two kind of basically, you guys hired Roger and kick-started his radio. We did. See, the three of us really love music. Nevin was the ultimate music director and he had such a great mind for music and a great music collector, but he broke a lot of hits.

He really championed Canadian music before the legislation. Remember, I started there in 67. The Canadian content regulation was not legalized until 1969. Right. And, you know, every third song you played was Canadian. And before that, Nevin was a champion of Canadian music. He supported local artists and artists in Ontario

and groups like the Stampeders from out west. You know, we just wanted to play good music. And Canadian music needed to be heard in its home country and hometown. That's the end of that. Like we opened this chat, chatting about the late, great Rosalie Trombley. And I'm wondering in your opinion, how did the, uh, the CRTC, whatever we called it, the

CanCon regulations, uh, how did that affect like someone like Rosalie's, uh, ability to, to break songs to a United States market from Yeah, that was a real difficult one for her. And I remember that she broke groups like the Guess Who in the States and Gordon Lightfoot and a few others. But because of her proximity across the river to Detroit, and remember the CKLW signal, the big eight,

50,000 watts was heard in five states. So it was really difficult. So they did a thing called stacking in those days where they would play a lot of can con late at night and so they could play less during the day and you know that was the way they made the quota but uh eventually uh they got caught the crtc said no you can't stack and that kind of destroyed that but you know again we had to the canadian artists in the canadian music industry had to grow up very quickly and i'll tell you more about that as we get into the caris juno days uh but really we had a challenge we had a lot of good artists we didn't have the recording studios or engineers we had the talent but we had to get that talent produced properly right we had

to get that talent heard on the radio and that that's what the CRTC 30% content. Now it's 35%. And we make it easily because right now Canada has so many major artists around the world. Drake, Shania Twain, Celine Dion. Don't forget Justin Bieber.

Justin Bieber, huge, huge. You know, you grew up as a teen. And The Weeknd, who has the biggest hit of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. Think about that.

Of all time. He replaced the twist. Think about that. Of all time. He replaced the twist. Right. Yeah. Chubby checkers. Yeah. For number one, most weeks, number one on the Billboard chart. Yeah.

The Weeknd, Blinding Lights is the name of that song here. Okay. So there's a gentleman, I know you know him, but I'm going to shout him out right now. Doug Thompson. And Doug Thompson came over, this is going back a few years now, but he came over and brought with him the most amazing audio clips.

And we talked about the basically Chum, 1050 Chum as a top 40 station, like the whole reign. Did you by any chance tune into that episode featuring Doug Thompson? I missed that, but Doug is- You got to catch up on to catch up on that one yeah he's a connoisseur he was at chum uh producing the beetles specials and uh you know just a lot of great uh motown special great audio of that on this episode honestly this audio is going to blow your mind when you hear the doug thompson

yeah i'll check it out i'll check it out dougie's a good one that's an order uh and why do i bring up doug thompson because it's a great retrospective of 10 50 as a top 40 because guys my age and younger uh don't actually we remember it as like a a golden oldies station and then now of course it's a sports station okay but uh the whole top 40 era was a bit before you know before our time and uh i'm now i need to know how you end up at 1050Chum yourself. Well, 1050Chum, eventually after about five years at CKOC, Jay Robert Wood called and said, would you like to join us at Chum?

And I said, what do you have in mind? And he said, I'd like you to come in to do music and assist me in programming and do some on-air work. And I said, sure. So we put a deal together and it was very exciting. I mean, being at Chum was the center of the universe in Canada because everybody knew about 1050 CHUM. And when you're there, you have an enormous responsibility. You have to be very open and fair minded to artists coming in. And it's a lot of work because to curate and make that station as hot and great as it was, was a lot of work. And people like Doug Thompson who produced commercials and jingles and events for that show.

And you had to be sharp on air. I mean, J. Robert Wood was a very good program director and demanded the best. And as a result, CHUM was one of the top stations in all of North America. And to be there was special. So let's name drop a little bit here and chat about the roster, if you will. So 1050 Chum in 1970, that's when, uh, when you show up, uh, do you remember, uh, tell me about your, your colleagues there who were on

the air. Oh, Jay Nelson doing the morning show. John Gilbert did the talk show. Uh, we had Terry Steele, Terry the Bear. We had Scott Carpenter. Right. You know, we had J. Michael Wilson, John Rohde, Tom Rivers, Shotgun Tom Rivers, the funniest guy ever on radio.

Tell me anything you can about Tom because I remember him on CFTR. Yeah, the same thing. He was just absolutely nuts. And he would drink a few before going on the air, but he was incredibly talented. He could turn on a dime. He could turn things around very quickly. Uncanny sense of humor. Very sardonic in a lot of ways, but he was just a master of the one-liners and and you know he created a he created a show within a show cousin raul's radio ranch as it was just insanity every day he'd make up this whole radio character cousin raul's radio ranch how does that work on a top 40 station but tom just had that ability to craft it and and do it and he would most of the time do it on the spot he wouldn't do any kind of rehearsal he just had that gift you know know, and he was very, very good.

As a top 40 jock, nobody was better than Tom Rivers. And we lost him far too soon. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But lots of great memories, and, you know, everybody, anybody who grew up on 1050 Chum will remember Shotgun Tom Rivers

and that whole team. And then when 1969, 1970 hit, when Chum FM was doing the underground thing and then crossed over, and then, you know, album rock hit big time, you know, Top 40 started to fade a little bit because, you know, there was more interest in album groups, Led Zeppelin, Emerson Lincoln Palmer, you know, Queen.

A lot of these big groups, you know, just surpassed Top 40. They became bigger, and the sound was bigger on FM, obviously. Sure, and that's where you'd get, I'm thinking David Marsden and Pete and Geats and all these chum FM guys. CFNY, CFNY, the spirit of radio. Yeah, David Marsden, Pete and Geats.

But even before that, I'm thinking the chum FM guys. I do this thing where I see who's on. Benji Karsh, Larry Green was there. uh brian master brian master was there uh you know just just an incredible lineup you know um benji karsh was on the air and uh tim thomas i love hearing these names now a couple more names though from the uh when you're at 10 50 chum uh one uh these names have actually already been mentioned on the show, but of course Roger Ashby's there, but Bob McGee,

because I've been unable to secure Bob McGee on this show. What can you tell me about Bob McGee on 1050 Chum? Well, Bob McGee was just a great format jock, but the difference with Bob's format was that he talked a lot about Toronto. He would do these little drawings of weather, you know, little cartoons of weather and leave them in the studio.

But he was really good with music, very smooth. What Bob connected with was the audience. He did a lot of shout outs, you know, a lot of name drops. And, you know, really was very, very good at doing that. And that's what made him special. And how's he doing these days? I mean, we're going to jump ahead and then we're going to get back to it.

But so when I was, when Doug Thompson took me on a tour of Element FM, and this is sort of when I first, I think we exchanged some emails at that time and I tried to get Bob on the show. The, Bob was like the only, I think when Roger Ashby was retired, I don't know,

although he's doing the greatest, he does this show. Yeah, the oldie show. Yeah, it's very good. Right, so he's still technically, of course, he's still on the air. But I think there was like, at the time, before he got that show, Bob McGee then became like the Toronto radio person who had

been in the market for the longest period of time. Yep. And how's Bob doing these days? Bob is doing a lot of commercial work. Bob is a very gifted narrator. He does a lot of narration, and he does a lot of commercials. And you can make a very good living at that. So I think that's pretty much what Bob specializes in right now. Okay, cool.

I think he's had enough, you know, he did enough of radio, and after a while, you can get tired of it. Well, that's a long while, though, yourself as well. But that's a long while, man. He was on the air in the 60s, right? Pardon? Bob McGee was on the air in the 1960s. No, he was actually a little earlier.

Early 70s. Yeah, early 70s. Okay, gotcha. When I met him at Chum, he had just started there. But he also did some work for Munch Music and City TV. Sure. And Mark Daly, who was there, another great voice. The voice.

We talked about the big eight. Everywhere. Yeah. City TV, everywhere. And Daly will come up again, because I'm going to give you some gifts before we get into the Q107 talk. And I even have a jam for us here. But Daly was on the air at Q, right? Yep. Yep.

Mark Denark. He was really, really good. But he was the guy, and here's why you got to remember, he was the guy that broke the Elvis Presley story. When Elvis passed, he saw the story and nobody believed it. So what he did, because he also worked for the Ohio Sheriff's Department, and he knew right away to call the chief of police in Memphis. And he did, and he identified who he was and the chief was yeah he's in the morgue he's died and he got the actual story on the air

and next thing you know ctv is in the studio and john donabee john donabee who was listening put together like you know off the top of his head an incredible elvis presley special that ran on cue so anyway ctv came down and filmed it meanwhile chum fm was denying the fact that elvis had passed and and this is mark daily mark knew how to how to get the news he was connected he broke the story when we actually did a very interesting, I'm going to shout out Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario because we did a very cool Mark Daly retrospective with clips and we went through his career and literally brought us to tears.

Ed was actually in tears having this conversation, but Daly was one of a kind. This is an underrated loss. I mean, we worked, John Paracall, my business partner at Q107, and Mark and I would go for, after a long day at the Mighty Q, we would go across the street on Yonge Street to a Hungarian restaurant and have a schnitzel dinner. And we would sit there and work out the world. And Mark would tell us all these stories, and he had incredible contacts.

Figuring out news things, like he had a thing, he said, the weekend, we have no news on the weekend, so here's what I'm thinking. Why don't we do a feature called High witness news so what are you talking about he said yeah there's a lot of bad drugs on the street according to my friends in the trauma lots of cop buddies for daily so he said so yeah we'll tell people what to stay away from so he had eyewitness news on saturday morning then he had another one called news circus all the bizarre news that doesn't make the regular news. So Saturday morning, High Witness News and News Circus, just incredible.

Amazing. People loved it. That's Mark Daly. All right, we're going to get you to Q because we're not quite there yet, but I'm going to give you some gifts here. Hold on here. All right. Oh, yeah, Dave.

Dave, where do I begin? So many gifts for just making the trek here to the... Oh, my God, here. Okay. It's Christmas. It is. Basically, these are your Christmas gifts here. So what do you have there?

You have a wireless speaker. By Boxan. Yeah, by Boxan. And it's branded Moneris. And the reason I'm giving you that is because you're going to use that wireless speaker to listen to the Yes, We Are Open podcast, which is hosted by FOTM Al Grego.

Al's been traveling the country, interviewing small Canadian businesses, and then he gets them to tell their story, their origin story, their struggles, their future outlook. And if you're a small business owner or entrepreneur, and I know you are, and I am myself, you'll find that podcast, Yes, We Are Open,

both helpful and motivational. So everybody should go to YesWeAreOpenPodcast.com And I got more for you, buddy. It's in the freezer, but that's the box it's going to go in. Lasagna, you're taking home a Palma Pasta lasagna. One of our favorite, Rita, my wife Rita and I, we go to Palma Pasta in Oakville.

And we love, eggplant parmesan is our favorite. We love their eggplant parmesan. And they're the best i mean we actually got you we got a thanksgiving dinner there which it was fenta and it was sides of pasta so we had the best thanksgiving dinner ever thanks to palma pasta and we love their eggplant parmesan eggplant lasagna eggplant uh no it was i'm trying to think of it now eggplant yeah eggplant lasagna that's what it was oh okay well my friend you're gonna love this i got in the freezer for you i got a i got a a large uh lasagna from palma pasta if you take home with thank you yes and shout out to thank you

palma pasta for that speaking of gifts uh great lakes brewery has sent over a case of fresh craft beer from great lakes uh You're going to love that, man. They're in LCBOs across this fine province. GLB, thank you. You'll enjoy your Great Lakes. In fact, I learned next week, everybody's asking me, when is the winter ale coming? Because it's, oh man, it's delicious and it is the season. But next week

the winter ale will be released from Great Lakes. So keep your eye on for that. Speaking of the season, Mike Majewski has reserved 200 beautiful full-size Christmas trees. And you can have one in exchange for a donation to the Daily Bread Food Bank. So this is like a win-win-win. You just need to email Mike. Mike is, of course, Mike is the real estate agent in the know in Mimico.

And write him mike at realestatelove.ca and put Christmas tree in the subject line. And just let him know what date you can pick up your tree. He's got, I think, November 27th and 28th and he's got December 4th and 5th. If you can make the trek to Mimico and pick up your tree, this is a wonderful thing that Majeski's done. So good job, Mike Majeski. More gifts for you, my friend. I have a $75 virtual gift card for you to use at chefdrop.ca. There's amazing chefs and restaurants and these prepared meal kits that get shipped directly to your door. It's delicious.

You're going to love it. You got $75 to spend. Wow. And the listenership can also get $50 off their first order. If they use the promo code FOTM50, just go to chefdrop.ca and make that happen. So just to recap here, okay? You got your beer, fresh craft beer.

You got your lasagna from Palma Pasta. You got your wireless speaker. And now you've got the $75 at chefdrop.ca. There's also, this is the best of all. It's on the red box. So there's right on the red box there. There's a Toronto Mike sticker. This is the best of all, it's on the red box. So there's right on the red box there, there's a Toronto Mike sticker. This is the best of all, my friend.

StickerU.com made you. I love it. You got to have a Toronto Mike sticker. I love it. Tell your friends. I know exactly where that's going to go in my office. Oh, amazing. Yeah, that's great.

Tell Bob he can have one too. I'll hunt him down for you. Hunt him down. I'll even let Bob, maybe I'll even let him zoom in. I'm in a good mood here today. But just before we get back to your impressive radio career,

I want to thank Ridley Funeral Home for their support. They've been helping to fuel the real talk here on Toronto Mic'd for years. And you can go to ridleyfuneralhome.com to learn how you can pay tribute

without paying a fortune. Okay. So you're part of the Q107 launch, but I just want to very quickly touch on the things that happen like between 1050 Chum and Q because you went, you've been in my wife's hometown, which is Edmonton. So we can do this very quickly,

but is that your first stop after Chum? You're at CHQT. Well, the thing at Chum, just to finish up on Chum. Yeah, of course. I love talking to Chum. I mean, I realized that I was better behind the scenes.

I really liked to put programming together and the music and all that, and I wanted to be a program director like Jay Robert Wood, my mentor. Right. And I said, Bob, Bob, is there any other thing opening? Because Chum had a lot of radio stations, and he said, no, not yet, not yet.

Anyway, coming up to my third year at Chum, it was time for me to move. And he said, look, we have something in Edmonton. Our consultant, George Davies has a radio station called CHQT. It's not like Chum. It's, it's actually a sort of a middle of the road radio station that really needs help. And I think that you're the guy. So I said, okay, let me talk to George. So I did. And they flew me out to Edmonton. I met Lou Roscoe, the manager, and it was just a crappy little radio station, to be honest. But there was something about it. And I said, well, you know, it's radio, it's got music, city I'd never been in before. And I said, I just got to

start somewhere. And this is my beginning. So I said, this is where I have a chance to be a program director and put all the pieces together to make up a radio station. You're like a builder. There's a problem with that. Here's the problem. You know where I'm going with this. But you build these things. And then after a couple of years, they don't need you

because you did such a good job. And you got to go on and build something else. Well, that's part of it. But the thing is, is that wherever I have been in my my radio career i've always managed to make friends with just about everybody and it was it was the you know the people in the sporting world because i loved hockey and the edmonton oilers were there but they weren't in the nhl at that particular point so i got a chance to do some hockey hockey games as well but moreover this station was number eight chqt of nine radio stations and the big station the number one station was 630 chad which was like chum i said oh i want to be there so my job was to

get chqt off the mat get some ratings so within about about a year and a half we took them from number eight to number three in the market you're like like Andy Travis. It was just, you know, and the reason we did that is because we got the staff together and said, look, it's not fun being on the bottom. It's not fun being, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to get out and meet the community. We're going to do blood drives. We're going to, you know, really start to,

first of all, we're going to tune up the music. We're going to get the music right. We're going to get out in Edmonton. We're going to do all these things and start at a market station. And we got some believers. And after a while, the radio station, this little station that was losing all the time yeah became a winner number two yeah unbelievable and then you get to go to uh 6 30 ched no what happens

no no no no no no you may anyway here's what i did i made friends with all the djs including the station manager at 630 Chet. And they would sneak me in the back door to announce meetings. So what is he doing here? And I said, well, these are my friends, you know. But anyway, they adopted me. They adopted me, not realizing that I was the program director down the street of the competition. But, you know, not really competing directly for their ratings, but we had a more of an adult, you know, an adult sound. But anyway, they took me to football games. They haven't done Eskimo games, and they were really good.

Anyway, the guy who was there, the head of the team, was Keith James. And Keith told me the story. He said, look, I got a call from Alan Slate about you. And I said, why? And he said, well, I recommended that he hire you. Because you're driving me nuts. So anyway, sure said, well, I recommended that he hire you because you're driving me nuts. So anyway, sure enough, get a call from Alan Slate, flew me down back to Toronto. And he said, look, we have a station, CFGM, country music station. I have a station in Sarnia,

CHOK, and I have CFOX in Montreal. But he said, more importantly, I would like you to apply for an FM radio license. He said, you're not going to get it because there's 14 other competitors, but you need the practice. I said, okay. So a year later, CFGM, we took the ratings as high as they could go for a country music station against CKFH. But I brought this friend on board, John Paracall,

and we put together the license application, which is now Q107. We won the license. Two of us won CKO and our group. And Alan didn't think you'd have a chance. No, no. He said, he said,

look, you're not going to get it because nobody knows your work and you know, but we figured out what the CRTC wants. So what I would do is I'd fly to Ottawa and meet the CRTC staff and said, look, we're new. We have no idea what we're doing. Can you help us out?

And we just befriended them and they helped us. Oh, look, here's what you need. Make sure you got this covered. And they coached us all the way through the process. So by the time we got to the earring, we had it all nailed. And here's how we got the license, which is really a story. Rock 102 in Buffalo was getting a lot of rock listeners because Chum FM was kind of wandering and they hadn't got their format figured out yet. They're trying to move into Chum AM territory.

And so all the listeners who loved rock would listen to rock one or two in Buffalo. So we said that to the commission, do you realize the station Buffalo, New York is draining listeners out of Toronto. Not only that, they're selling radio advertising in Toronto and that's not on. So commissioner really took note of Toronto. Not only that, they're selling radio advertising in Toronto and that's not on. So the commissioner really took note of that.

And so I think that is the reason we got the license. So as a result, we said, we are going to play 40% rock because it was so much good rock. And as a result, Q107 got the license and the rest is history. And within, I guess, two or three books, we had taken most of chum fm's

audience away cut it in half and we just started to take off and become the brand it is and then we adopted the superstars radio format with lee abrams added that to the mix and the thing just blew up and it became the iconic brand it is right now well we going to lots of ground there to cover. Let's start with a song and this will bring us back to May 22nd, 1977. You're born in debt and you're never free You live all your life for the company And the smoke pours down on your mercury As the paint chips off your walls slag cars

roll to the heap side down the slope flows a hellfire slide and the kids grow up too fast

inside and they're spitting in the high school halls it's a hot rock town it's a hot rock town. It's a hot rock town. It'll ground you down.

It's a hot rock town. Yeah, Murray McLachlan. FOTM Murray McLachlan. Oh, wow. Married to FOTM Denise Donlan. Actually, that was the first song we played on cue, but the very first sound we heard on cue was Joni Mitchell, Turn Me On on the radio.

Oh, that's a fun fact. Okay, and then we went right into Murray McLachlan. Gotcha. And then it was just fantastic. And then it just took off, and everybody loved it. Okay, but I'm very interested in this station. I listen to quite a bit of this station in my day here. And it's still around and we got to talk about your thoughts on the current iteration.

But Alan Slate wanted like adult contemporary, like easy music. He came to me and he said, look, this station's not going to work. We're going to lose a ton of money. And so he insisted the call letters be C-i-l-q silk right and i said silk he said yeah that's because we're going to be a beautiful music station i said oh i don't don't anyway so we got into a lot of hassle on that tony viner who was the station manager and john paracall my business partner there and our marketing manager, we fought tooth and nail to keep Q hard rock and rock. And it did.

Thank God it prevailed because Alan Slate had another vision for the radio station. He wasn't wrong, by the way, because there was room for a beautiful music station in Toronto. He was absolutely right. But because we were so spirited about Chum having the dominant share in the marketplace and because they were losing their audience to rock one Oh two and Buffalo said, no,

we can do this. We can do this. But you know, uh, eventually after a while, it just became too difficult because Alan was really, you know, very,

very insistent on stuff. And, but thank God he let Q remain. And Gary Slate came in after us, his son and realized that, Hey, this is a goldmine. This radio station is needed in Toronto.

It is good for Toronto. And he kept it rock. You really are Andy Travis. Okay, hear me out here. Because it was Arthur Carlson's mother, mama or whatever, she wanted, she had that easy game, you're having my baby, right?

And then Andy came in and plays Kiss and he's like, no. Around the same era. Tell me, R.W. Kierpie, that's the life story of Dave Charles. It probably is. You know, I love that show, Venus. Yeah, Venus Flytrap.

Venus Flytrap. Johnny Fever. Johnny Fever. So who is your Johnny Fever? Give me some of the names when Q107 launches. Well, let's see. We had in the morning, John Donabee was there.

By the way, can I just say this? His episode of Toronto Mike, John Donabee's so amazing. He's one of the best radio jocks ever. Has so many stories. A Bob Dylan nut. A band nut. But he's just, he loves the music.

I mean, we have the same DNA. He loves the music. And he was there when John Lennon is doing the bed in and he's all over Leave on Helm. The last waltz. The last waltz. He was there. He was there. I know.

He was there. And also, remember, he put that incredible Elvis Presley special in August of 77. And you were only on the air for a few months when Elvis dies there, because you launch in May. Yep. He launched May 22nd, 1977 at noon and Elvis died in

August. And you know what launched a month before Q107? You're wearing the hat. The blue jay! And I was at the first game and we beat the Chicago White Sox 9-5 in the snow at Exhibition Stadium. And guess who sang the national anthem? Oh, let me guess.

Murray McLaughlin. No, Anne-Marie. That's right. That's Stadium. And guess who sang the national anthem? Oh, let me guess. Murray McLaughlin. No, Anne-Marie. That's right. That's right. And Doug Alt hit two homers. Yeah, that's right. The late great. And Bill Singer, who had the, I'm trying to remember now.

I mean, I wasn't. Singer got the win, I think. He got the win, I think. Yeah, yeah. I think he just passed away, too, actually. But that's one of those great, you know, you see the Chicago guy in his snowshoes or whatever. No, he was a catcher. And he put the catcher, I guess

what do you call them? Guards. Catching guards. He made them into snowshoes. He made them into snowshoes. Yeah. Very funny. But it was freezing. I was sitting right next to Bernie Finkelstein. Wow. And he and I were watching the game and we were looking at each other and we were freezing our ass off. And it was baseball. Was Geddy Lee at that first game? I'm not sure if he was. I did not remember. Because you know, and he and I were watching the game. We were looking at each other. We were freezing our ass off. Wow. And it was baseball.

Was Geddy Lee at that first game? I'm not sure if he was. I did not remember. Because, you know, now there's like 500,000 people who claim they were at that first game. You know, I think there was 47,000 or something. But I know my buddy Freddie P was at that game. But the, yeah, I'm trying to, yes, April 7th, 77, if my memory's correct. April 7th.

So, okay. So that launches in April. Q107, 77, if my memory's correct. April 7th. So, okay. So that launches in April. Q107 launches in March, sorry, May 22. And then, of course, Elvis expires later. What date did Elvis die in 77? I'm not sure. I think something 22nd of August. Something like that.

Somewhere around there. Okay. So we have already spoken about Mark Daly's contributions to Q. I think a lot of people who know him from City TV and then hear about, oh, he was at the Big Eight or whatever, don't realize he was actually on Q107. I think that's a fun fact. Yep, absolutely.

Great voice. Okay, so Q107. What do you think of the current iteration of Q107? It's become classic rock. In other words, this is, it's, it's audiences taken Q lovingly into their generation and they still have

great ratings and people still, I mean, those songs are iconic. They're, they're the music, that's the music of your life and that's the music you take with you. So anybody who grew up on Q is pretty much taking Q with them. And it's, it's always got a

you know a place on that radio spot you know so if you have five presets on your car q is one of them now if i may if i may uh back in the day they were never they q107 would never touch a band like let's say duran duran okay like they're not going to touch you have a 10-foot pole this new wave band no that might cfmy might play that or whatever but uh no so there's a whole bunch of music now on q107 which i think i called the boomification of q this is not me talking here dave we'll hear about the you're the expert consultant but boom their format was so successful i feel uh q had to sort of uh get in that mode they pretty much did. And remember, people today are curating their own radio stations.

Yes, indeed. I mean, I do it myself at home because I love jazz. I love a variety of music. So I sit there and I make my playlists, and my playlists are my radio stations. So a lot of people can do that now. So if radio is not serving you or super serving you, they can go somewhere else, and they do. The thing that makes q and chum and all these brands so great is they identify with their market they identify with toronto and they talk about things that

matter to people who live in the city like the blue jays and other things that that you know and this don't forget we're living in a market like toronto with 287 different nationalities so you got to realize that all of that cultural mix is going to end up somewhere. And it usually morphs into the music, which is why you have some of the other brands out there right now, Virgin Radio, and doing very well. And what do you think of the continued success of John Derringer in the morning? John's a good friend. He's such, John, another guy who just loves music and loves radio.

But more than ever, John loves to tell a story. You know, he's a great storyteller. And he is the everyday average guy on the street. I mean, he has great peripheral vision for culture. And culture being what you and I experience every day. If you and i walked into a mall with john and at the end of that trip we were talking about what did you observe and see it's john's ability to describe that that makes him special you know where you and i was oh i

didn't notice that but john does john has a great sense of what's going on around he's doing something right oh yeah and that's what it is. He's the everyday guy, you know, and he connects the music and the stories and he and Ryan Parker have a great show. So your success at Q107, launching Q, basically, what do you do next? You must get a ton of offers after that. Well, you know what happened?

It exploded career-wise. People said, can you do Q for me? Well, there was a network. First of all bob mackiewicz who put together the six o'clock rock report right was huge there was every station in the country wanted to have that show and we networked that one out there but when we met lee abrams this guy who created the superstars radio format in america 136 stations strong we started working with lee and we developed his research sense. We started doing lifestyle research and things of that nature that

added a whole layer to his great formatics and music. We ended up working out of Atlanta and doing a lot of stuff there. After Alan Slate, after we had our time with Alan, Gary, his son, was going to take over anyway. So we decided with the notoriety we had achieved and the success that it was time for us to spread our wings. And we set up a company called Joint Communications Corp out of our, out of our home on Hazleton Avenue in Yorkville, the village, as we called it. And from there we had, you know, clients like Moffitt Radio and, you know, Jeff Sterling in, in Montreal uh show my fam and oz in newfoundland right and

we started working with lean we started traveling in the states and doing stuff like that so uh that and this is where i met my australian clients who came to a national association of broadcasters in dallas texas greg smith and paul thompson they said hey we've heard all about what you guys are doing. Why don't you come to Australia? And so we ended up speaking down there and ended up having them for clients. And then they ended up hiring me to become the head of their entertainment division. And so based in Melbourne and eventually in Brisbane, started traveling all over the world, 42 countries later. And that's what spread my wings, you know. This might be a good opportunity to speak to a friend of yours who passed away very

recently, Brad McNally. Oh, that really touched me. Brad and I consulted in five countries. He was based in Perth. And I first met him when he was in Melbourne. And he worked at CFNY. And he wanted a job at Q. And I said, Brad, he was in Melbourne and he worked at CFNY and he wanted a job at Q. And I said, Brad, I got nothing for you. I love what you do, but you know,

so as it would turn out two years later, run into him in the parking lot of his 3XY radio station in Melbourne. And I said, how's it, how's it down? Are you having a good time? He said, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. So he turned me onto all kinds of Australian music. And eventually we ended up working together in Perth. And then we started our consultancy overseas. And Brad and I worked in Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany. It was just, and we did, you know, basically we were radio geeks and we had fun doing it. Now, yeah, we lost Brad very recently.

Very sorry to hear that. But we talk a lot on this show about CFNY. So, you know, be it Scott Tom, sorry, Scott Turner. Scott Thompson's from Kids in the Hall. Future FOTM. Scott Turner and Ivor Hamilton and all these cats. Remembering Brad McNally and David Marsden, of course. But can you tell me about your work with Karis?

Well, yeah, I'm actually have my Juno bottle here, my water bottle. What happened is I started, when I worked for Alan Slate on the country station CFGM, I started working for ACME, the Academy of Canadian Music Entertainment. And then we changed that to the CCMA, Canadian Country Music Association.

So I worked there for four years and basically tried to build up the country star system. So we got together with people in Nashville and said, Hey, we've got some great country artists here and did that work for four years. Then when I went to Q, uh, which remember was owned by Alan Slate's radio companies. Um, I got a call from Peter Steinmetz, who was the chairman then of Karis, and said, hey, we'd like you to join our board. I said, really? What do you got? He said, we'd like you to work with Duff Roman

on marketing and promotion for the Junos. And I said, sure, love to. So I ended up there for four years. Eventually, Peter said, look, I'm going to retire. We'd like you to become president. And I said, remember, I'm a radio guy. You're a broadcaster. This is a music association. And I said, how's that going to sit with all the record companies? He said, no, it'll be great. You'll be great. Because during the time

when I was consulting radio, I was also consulting record companies. We'd consult A&M Records with Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Shania Twain. So we ended up doing A&R artist and repertoire for these artists. And so that's where I developed my reputation in the music business as well. Remember, I got into radio for music. Yes. And so when I worked with Karis and became the president there in 92, 93, and put Juno's shows on the air, that was another trip as well. And got to meet people at the Grammys and

people in Nashville and, you know, really widened out my horizon of contacts. And so that was an amazing time in my career as well. And I'm going to ask you, I actually have the answers here, but what were your, you had three objectives when you took over as president of the Keras chair there. Moved the Junos out of Toronto. It became Toronto-centric, and I think the Junos became very much insular. It wasn't promoting all of Canadian music. And I said, that's wrong. So we moved the Junos out of Toronto.

First place was Hamilton. And then the second thing we did was develop independent music associations in each of the provinces. So I flew in every province and said, look, if you set up a music committee that is authentic and does work for the artists represented in your province, you know, apply to us to host the Junos. And as a result, they did. And the Junos have been all across Canada as a result of that. And theos have been all across canada as a result of that and the third thing we did was to make sure that the junos show on air was 100 canadian those three things were achieved in my tenure good for you buddy look at you more than just a pretty face

no and i you know we're canadian music industry. The record companies hated me. They wanted to fire me the first time I announced that. And I said, look, what are you guys talking about? Oh, we're going to have, we need our American, no, I said, we had Rod Stewart on the journals. You know, that's not right, you know. We need this slot once a year. It's the night Canadian music comes home,

and I'm going to make sure we stick to that. So the first host I had on the show was Celine Dion. I said, are you crazy? Nobody knows who she is. I said, her music is great. She's a star in Quebec, and we had trouble connecting with Quebec, the Ad-Disc star system. And I said, look, we've got to build that bridge. And Donald Tarleton, one of the great promoters out of Montreal, introduced me to the quebec music scene and i said we're going to show you respect we're going

to have one of your artists host our show and as a result of that you picked a winner there we did she wanted to be a mega star i'd argue she's the biggest she might be the biggest uh female uh recording star in the history of this country yep bigger than barbara streisand and bigger and then after that it was rock was he who did a great job for the second year sure but shania twain came out of that wow and shania twain i met up with shania in australia when i said what are you doing down here and i said the same thing i did in canada and she said oh wow this is so great you know well this begs a question okay so i counted them up you were in 42 countries from 1993 to 2009 okay holy moly

yeah i worked in them not visiting sorry you were working in radio in 42 countries from 93 to 2009 but here we are in 2021 and you were able to drive to the tmds uh temporary uh dining room studio here please uh what brought you home? What brought me home was my mother had a stroke and I realized that I would come home every year for a few weeks and visit my sister and my dad was alive then and my mother. And I realized, look, they're getting older, but my career is really hot at the moment down under.

And I, you know, and they said, don't worry, you know, you do what you gotta do. But, you know, when I got that call saying, you got to come home and I got it from our family lawyer said, and the other side of that, my sister was not well and she had, she was the principal carer. Right. So I said, when I came home and I realized my mother's in hospital, got to get her into a nursing home. She can't go back home. And my sister had schizophrenia. So I am not going to leave what's left of my family on the beach

so family first buddy you got it and i came back and parked my career basically for a year and um eventually got back into it through working with the ross porter jazz fm and said look ross porter there's a name i know and ross was very good and and we had a lot of fun for a couple years at Jazz FM. And started to establish myself back in Canada, because going back to Australia, a country that I was there for 15 years, it's very hard to pick up after you've left for that period of time. So I sold my business down there to my business partner and came back home. Came back home. And there's no Palma Pasta in Australia. Not as good as that.

No, for sure. All right. Jazz FM here quickly touch on this. And then I want to talk to you about something we covered quite a bit here because Alan Cross is a regular FOTM on this program, an FOTM. And we're going to talk about something very interesting you did with Alan, but Jazz FM,

I'm thinking, okay, Danny Elwell, Garvia Bailey, Ralph Ben-Murgy, of course, Heather Green, Heather Jazz FM, I'm thinking, okay, Danny Elwell, Garvia Bailey, Ralph Ben-Murgy, of course. Larry Green. Heather Bamber, but I'm just thinking now of people who've come on the show, which resulted in a very interesting legal letter from Ross Porter, but we'll get into that after

I stop recording this, after I stop recording. So basically, you were helping with the programming on Jazz FM. Yeah. I mean, I started out, I told Ross that, look, I've really got to stay close to Hamilton. My mother and my sister are not well. So I started volunteering, you know, they're fundraisers and I started talking to Ross about radio and things that I'm hearing on the station that I think we could improve. And he said, well,

why don't you help me try to hire a new program manager? And I said, okay. So we went through a number of auditions, and we interviewed about eight to ten pretty good people, but they weren't right for Jazz FM. So I looked at Ross, and I said, look, why don't I do it? He said, are you available? And I said, yeah, I think I can do that. So we signed a contract for a year,

and we started working with Ross on Jazz FM. And, you know, improving the imaging, the sound, the formatics, coaching of the announcers, just getting the station a little bit more focused. Ross was extremely good with the music and had a good feel for the format, obviously, or otherwise he wouldn't be the manager. He was iconic.

I mean, his knowledge of jazz is second to none. Mine was pretty good, but nowhere near what he was doing. So Brad Barker and I, the music director. FOTM Brad Barker? Yeah. And James B. Don't forget James B. Oh my God. Do you think he's famous? James B. I think he is. He's very good. Thank you. I'm going to cut that clip. He's very good. So anyway, I was in there and I wanted to be the person behind the scenes to make sure that what we did, because they had jazz for kids, they had showcases at some great halls in the city. And I really wanted to be a part of that because I loved the music. And I figured, okay, let's do this for a while.

And then eventually I wanted to establish my consulting firm, which I did. And off we went. Okay, so here, a lot of people, again, who listen to Toronto Mic, also know and love Alan Cross. And we're going to get into a very interesting tidbit because we talked about this with Alan back in the day. But I just want to very quickly give some love to McKay's CEO forums because they have this great podcast called the CEO Edge Podcast. Fireside chats with inspiring CEOs and thought leaders. Nancy McKay hosts these.

I actually post the newest episode of the CEO Edge podcast on torontomike.com every week. And I urge you to listen and subscribe. I mentioned Alan Cross. You were partnered, you worked with Alan Cross on that. I remember when Alan was telling me about it. Tell me about it, but the MLSC in, in arena.

He got a call from, he was at a dinner. I drove a Porsche and the guy who was working in MLSC also drove a Porsche. And he said, by the way, what are you doing? I said, Alan told him what he did.

He said, look, he said, I'm having trouble with the game music. He said, you know, can you help us, you know,

figure it out and put it together? Cause it's not right. And Alan called me music. He said, you know, can you help us figure it out and put it together? Because it's not right. And Alan called me up and he said, hey, guess what? And so we started to, we went down and met them. And they hired us on for a couple of years. And we started to go to the games, listen to the music presentation, and figured out the demographic of the Leaf fans. And we put together a playlist.

And we figured out, you know, the music that when there's a penalty on or when there's a fight or stuff, and we started to figure out the whole presentation. And when we did and it started to work and gel, they loved it. And then we had to train people up to make sure that we do that every week with that kind of quality. And people just started noticing, and it really was special. And I'll never forget those two years because first of all,

seeing those hockey games from the Foster Hewitt gondola, being there and watching the game from a different perspective behind the scenes, and then actually going sitting in the arena and doing critiques of the music and seeing how, how we did with the fans and walking around, uh, you know, uh, then Air Canada Center, now Scotiabank, uh, we got to see what fans really want, you know, between the play and we figured it out.

And again, um, when you, if you know your music and know your demographic and know your fans, um, and Alan is a brilliant music guy. So we put a package together and it's still there. That's the most fun project possible. Oh, absolutely. Kid the Candy Store. I couldn't believe it. And that's the Andy Frost era too.

And Frosty was just down the hallway and he did all the game announcements. Score scored by number 13, Matt Sundin. And he said, hey Charles, music's good. I like the music. Yeah, I bet. And so he did the the game announcements and so scored by number 13 and he said hey charles music's good i like the music yeah i bet and so he did the second like sunday in q uh but you know andy knew that it was the real deal and i credit alan for most of that he did he did a lot of the the great work on the music oh very cool and it's kind of interesting in a couple one regard is that you know of course uh you know uh andy Frost's son is now an NHL player. I know.

I know. Which is amazing. You've got to be a thrill for him. And a good one, too. Yeah. And also, of course, where, oh, yeah, this is a nice, like, for you, it's a nice bookend. Not that that was the end of your career or anything. You're still going.

But, like, that you start off in, like, hockey arenas doing, like, you know, penalty calling Bobby Orr penalties at the Hamilton Forum. Hamilton Forum. The Barton Barn, they called it. And then you are. How many decades later you're at your Canada Center, you know? And being from the Hammer, anybody in Hamilton will tell you, we hated Toronto.

We hated the Argos. We hated the Leafs. And my affinity hockey wise was always the Bruins. Why the Bruins? Because they had the same colors as the Hamilton Tiger Cats cats and so my dad my dad bought me my first bruins jersey when i was just a kid and learned to play hockey i played bad goalie but i was i was good i loved my boston bruins i still do today you know and and it was kind of weird being in maple leaf gardens and inside of the brain trust and watching all them walking around. And I said, I can't tell them I'm a Bruins fan.

Well, Gore Downie was a Bruins fan. I'm trying to think. There are some great Toronto, he's originally a Kingston guy, but he was a proud Torontonian for many years. Okay, so let's close with what you're up to now, but I do want to speak to you about the work you did with Indigenous media businesses.

I was lucky enough through my wife, Rita Kujini, who was a CRTC commissioner. She said, I'm doing work for APTN, Aboriginal People's Television. Yes. And they want to apply for five indigenous radio stations. There was two in the area, one in Toronto and one in Ottawa. And we won, of the five we applied for, we won two of those licenses. So Ottawa and Toronto are under now FPR, First

People's Radio. And Jean LaRose, who I had a chance to work with and still do, said, look, can you come on board and put these stations together and develop the format? So we did. Now, not only are these stations on the air, uh, as commercially rendered and developed radio formats, we have 35% CanCon, we have 30% indigenous music. So think of a typical hour,

four songs in every hour is indigenous. And that was the challenge. I mean, we had, um, we started with about 850, uh, indigenous gold tracks.

We went through that and found out the production values weren't great. So we selected about 85 to 100 of those. And that formed the basis of our library. And then new artists started recording. And the major artists in the indigenous societies were playing hip hop, pop, soul, R&B, rap, and rock. So, okay, that's a good wide spectrum. So we started to put together a really good, unique playlist. And it became Element FM.

Well, I was going to say, I had a, like I said, Doug Thompson. I think I was delivering, I believe I was delivering a Palm of Pasta lasagna to him. It's just why I went to the Chorus Key building there. And then I got, you know, once I'm there, I'm a bit of a radio fan, so I wanted a tour. Yeah, you went to our studios, and Q107 is right. You know, ironically, I walk by the Q107 studio every day. It was just like, it was a whole week, you know.

And it was just wonderful to be in that building, and Chorus are great to us, and we're still there. Well, can I ask, how does Element FM end up in the Chorus Key Building? Because they had space. They initially wanted to look at Barber Green, which is where their TV studios are, and there were some spots out there. But I asked, what about the main building? We hear good things about that, so we went down there.

And sure enough, there was a couple studios available. So look, if we start here and we get some office space, we found ourselves a home, and so we worked out a deal. Nice. And we're still there, in Ottawa as well. So 106.5 Element FM, that's Toronto, and then 95.7 in Ottawa. Yep, Element FM.

Okay, good for you. And it's great that now that there's like a home, an FM home for Indigenous artists that will spark more music. And what we want, we want to, Indigenous artists will tell you, we don't want to be ghettoized. We want to be seen on the same stage.

We just want to have respect for the artists that are making music and we want to be I call it inclusiveness. It's make sure that they're in a format that's not going to be ghettoized or specialized, but actually you are hearing a different mix. You're hearing a contemporary music mix featuring the best indigenous artists across Canada

and we love it. Good for you, man. Dave, how was this for you, buddy? I love this. You're just like a walking, like Toronto Radio encyclopedia guy you've been you've been there it's important to brother bill and the other fotms that you were actually there and how was this experience for you i loved it i mean i don't get a chance much

to reflect on what i've done i'm very much a current person i mean even though i've had this long history in radio and music i really love about what i'm doing right now. And the most important thing I'm doing right now is I'm talking to Toronto Mike. That's it. I mean, you know, I very much like living in the moment. I think if you go back, I don't like dwelling on what I did. I always look about what am I going to do today

that's going to make a difference. I met you, and now because I've met you, I'm going to meet a whole bunch of other people that are going to just be added to my lifespan. It's a great community. I'm going to, this is a bit of tooting my own horn here, but this community, the FOTMs,

it's really wonderful. Like I was just chatting with a bunch of FOTMs yesterday about, we have this thing on, this thing, there's a thing where, what else do you call it? It's called Toronto Miracle.

December 4th, and we're working hard to get awareness here that if you go to torontomiracle.org you can learn more about this but we're looking for all torontonians to leave non-perishable food items at their front porch and if they're in a condo or an apartment we have a solution for that as well but we're looking in this one day to get 250 000 tons of non-perishable food because of the food insecure in the city to help with that. And little things like that,

I'll hear about, you know, an FOTM who steps up to donate. Another one will step up as a community captain. And I just, there's so much good to come out of a community like this. And we get to talk to great people like you. Yeah, well, thank you so much. But the real thing I love about radio

is you get a chance to meet the public. And the key thing is you've got to give as good as you get. The one thing I really respect in my entire life is volunteers, people such as yourself that volunteer their time for worthwhile. Do you know how many people are lonely, who can't get a decent meal, who are out of work, who are doing it hard and doing it tough? And drives like this make it worth living. And there's a lot of depression and a lot of people who are blue

during the holiday season. We've got to remember. And what you do makes a difference. And this is where radio connects the community. In addition to all the music we love and all the fun we have, it's connecting to the people who listen, who want to feel part of you. I'll never forget, my father was blind since 1955. And the reason I love radio so much

is because when I would go home to see him after my show at CKOC, and he would be sitting there, I said, Dad, what did you hear today on the radio? And he said, oh, I heard the news, and I heard you show. God, you're nuts. He said, you're crazy on the radio.

And I made him laugh. And I said, well, isn't that what it's all about? I said, you turned me on to radio when we moved to Lancaster. And I heard all this great music because of you. So I remembered my dad being blind. And his connection is really his only connection other than our family was to things he was listening to about the community he lived in, about the Tiger Cats, about the new songs of the day. And I'll never forget how important it is. There's a lot of people who are in that situation, who feel ugly, who feel alone, who feel separated

from real life. And radio magically can connect those people to what's going on. And so I think that's a really important thing about radio. We connect things. So well said. And I'll just throw in my little two cents here to say that podcasts in many ways are a modern radio. So we might not be heard here today on terrestrial airwaves as was back in the day. But we have a bunch of people who will subscribe.

I'm hoping that you'll share it with colleagues, friends and families, and people will be like, I didn't know that about Dave. And then, you know, many people will be, Hey, I didn't,

I didn't know who this Dave guy was, but look, he's been everywhere. As a result of today, we are now connected. I mean, it took this meeting over pasta, over beer.

Right. I've got my logo, my brand. We are now connected. So consider us connected. So I want you to make me a promise now that you will let me know what you are up to and who we need to plug because I have a large network. I'm an influencer and I respect that.

I don't use that as part, as ego. I use that as part of my thing is that if I can connect Toronto Mike to good things and vice versa, then that's what it's all about for me. And today has been a pleasure. Well said so eloquent. That's why you were in broadcasting for several decades, but Dave Charles, what a true pleasure it was to,

I mean, just the, just the 10 50 chum and Q talk alone. Like I could do a 90 minutes, just, just hearing those stories. So thanks so much for making the trek and giving me all this time today. Wonderful.

Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Oh, yeah. You don't have to twist my arm on that one. For sure we're going to do it again. And that, that brings us to the end of our 955th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike, and I only learned this yesterday, but Dave Charles is also on Twitter. Dave, what's your handle on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and I only learned this yesterday but Dave Charles is also on Twitter. Dave, what's your handle on Twitter? At Dave Charles. Look at how easy you made that. At Dave Charles. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. ChefDrop is at GetChefDrop. Remember

the promo code is FOTM50. Say $50 right now. Do it. You'll love it. You can thank me later. Moneris is at Moneris. McKay's CEO forums are at McKay's CEO forums. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Dave, make sure I grab that

from the freezer before you go here. You got to take our photo too by the magic tree there. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home there at Ridley FH and Mike Majeski

of Remax Specialists Majeski Group is at Majeski Group Homes on Instagram. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone.

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