Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Deidre Kelly: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1884

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

In this 1884th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Deirdre Kelly, a best-selling author and award-winning journalist, about her three decades at The Globe and Mail and her involvement with the Paul McCartney Eyes of the Storm exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 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].

Hello, my name is Deirdrie Kelly. I am the author of Fashioning the Beatles, the looks that shook the world, and I am beyond thrilled to be making my Toronto mic debut. Beyond thrilled. I need to know what that's like. You're not just thrilled, you're beyond thrilled. I'm 10 plus above.

Wow. Welcome to episode 1,884. That's 1884 of Toronto Mikeed. An award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at great lakesbeer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Paul. Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

Visit palmapasta.com for more. Fusion Corpso, Nick Aini's. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline, and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle My Electronics.c.a.comitting 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 her Toronto Mike debut, it is indeed, Dear Dre, Kelly. First of all, hello, nice to meet you. I'm so glad to meet you, and thank you. This is quite the scene. Love it, all the sport decal, the free beer. Yes, it's for real.

It's not just a sponsorship. Yeah, and so off the top, That fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery, and, you know, that's a South Atobico institution, but you can enjoy it across this fine province. In a moment, we'll talk about how alien South Atobico is to Deirdrie Kelly. But that is yours to take home. That's heading back home east with you.

Yes, thank you very much. Well, that'll have pride of place in the fridge. And your name. Oh, but you want to know at it. Well, here's what I want to do. That it's so hard to say. Hard to spell. What's the typical, your name is spelled, D-E-I-R-D-R-E?

Correct. And am I right? The typical way, not the normal way, the typical way, would be Deirdre. Am I right or am I out to lunch? You're not out to lunch and it is a controversy yet to be resolved. And maybe all your dear listeners, you're now going to be flooded with mail. You understand that, right? From Deirdras?

Yes, because there are millions of deer dras. there are, I want to say, as many millions of dear dris. I went to Ireland last year, I guess, apropos our topic for the inaugural Kinsale Beatles Festival. And as soon as I got off the plane, I kept hearing, dear draw, dear draw, dear draw. And when I asked the organizer, I confess that I was having an identity crisis

because I'm dear drie. Right. And I will tell you, I was raised partly in Northern Ireland. I can hear a little bit of it. Yes, every so often the Irish comes out. A dairy girl right here, live in front of the mic. Love that show. So if you remember, there's a dear dream on the show.

And they pronounce it dear tree. Because in the north, it's dear tree. Right. And it's been, I guess, there are ancient relationships between our Irish. Ireland and in Scotland, my mom is Scottish and it's Dear Drie in Scotland. And in England, it's Dear Drie. And it was only, I think, gosh, it was in my teens or my adulthood. And suddenly people started out of the blue calling me Dear Dras after I'd say Dear Drie.

And that's the Dear Drie, Dear Drie, Dear Drie. And anyway, as I say, you will be now inundated with male. People saying, why doesn't she get her name, right? But I just explained to you. What's your name? You decide how it's pronounced. I was raised, Dear Drie. and in Ireland and Northern Ireland

and Derry, it was Deirdrie and if there was any variation on the theme, it was Dairdry. That right there, now I feel like I'm watching Dairy Girls when you say it like that. Now you're right. There's a character named Dairdry. So you explained it to me when you got here

because of course I was going to butcher it because that's like my sound man. And I was thinking, how do you say it? And I asked you and you explained like a deer, the animal, you know, the deer. I've seen many a deer in Toronto on my bike rides. A deer goes around the tree. You are dear, Dree.

And that's 90 minutes on your first name, which I will pronounce correctly throughout this episode. From now until eternity. How do I spell Kelly? And sorry, how do I pronounce Kelly? That is the one that sometimes is funny. Today. People will spell it with the E.

Yeah. No, it's playing K-E-L-L-Y, dear listeners. Let's shout out a gentleman who introduced us. Let us shell out and celebrate the wonder that is, Jim Sheddon. Yes, big applause if I were to do it. Good, because I would wreck your eardrums right now. Tell me how you know Jim, when you met Jim.

Give me a little Jim Sheddon off the top. Okay, I'm going to confess that I actually forgot about our long relationship. I reached out to the AGO as soon as I heard that Paul McCartney's exhibition was coming to Toronto, Eyes of the Storm. I was all over that. And, of course, I had just recently written fashioning the Beatles. And I'm like, please, please, pretty please. I'm a Canadian.

I'm going to fit in. So I sent a very polite, dear sir, madam. Would you read my book kind of thing from a... To whom it made concern. Yes. I have a book about the Beatles. And as I say, very, very formal and polite, as polite as I could be. And then I got a basically, hey, dear, Drey, it's Jim!

Because he reminded me that we knew each other at the... the University of Toronto at the varsity, the student newspaper, which is where I trained. I didn't go to J school people. I went to University of Toronto, do you have two degrees, a master's, and an undergrad. I know that sounds so pretentious now, but just to say, I studied English, but I wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote the whole time. And Jim was also writing, coming in, freelancing. We were all freelancing. I guess that's a kind of bogus word for student volunteers. I used to read the varsity when I was there. Oh, you did?

Okay. I was the paper's dance critic. So I don't know if you read my dance reviews. I may have read it. Can you give me, I don't want to, you know, aid you here, but what kind of era are we talking about when you were? Early 80s. See, I'm showing up in the mid to late 90s.

Okay, well, you only read me when you went into the archives to look up dance reviews. Right, which I was apt to do. I said, what were they talking about in the dance community? a decade ago. In the early 80s. Okay. I was going to say, I don't know if this is going to be mean to Jim, but when I met you at the door, I honestly feel like Jim Sheddon's got 15 years on you. Am I out to lunch here? Is that going to get me in trouble with Jim? You're going to take that up with Jim. I'm not going to comment on that. When you have a white beard, he grows a, like, I'm so jealous. I've told Jim,

I said, I wish I could grow a beard like that. I would do it in a heartbeat. But it does make you look a titch older, I think, when you have a big white beard. I'm not, you know, guinea for that for myself personally. So. Okay. So you are involved in the excellent Paul McCartney eyes of the storm exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. So what does that? So,

so, so lucky, fortunate, grateful. Can you, like, what does that encompass? Like,

I have, I've been blessed. I've gone to the art gallery. I, in fact, Jim Shedden gave me a personal tour. I've raved about it. I loved it.

But what is your involvement exactly? I, as author of fashioning the Beatles. have been invited to host a panel, basically riffing on one of my key themes of the book, which is, the Beatles have never gone out of fashion. Their fashion choices, random as they were, and they were mostly random, no stylist, nobody telling them what to do, sometimes dressing right outside fashion, which is why they become the biggest trendsetters of their generation. They are the real McCoy authentic to overuse a word today, which is why they were immediately

influential in their time and why they continue to basically rock the world of fashion today. Designers constantly raid the Beatles' wardrobe for ideas. I have a plethora of names, ideas in fashion. That's my final chapter, actually. I call it, you know, now you know about my English degree. slouching towards immortality from W.B. Yates. So I kind of borrowed that, paraphrase that for the Beatles because they have moved into immortality, not just with their music, but of course with their style, with their look. We're riffing it, as they say today. So my panel is going to bring on the stage

illustrious Canadian designers here in the big T.O. And we're going to talk about the eternal influence of the Beatles on fashion in general, but in particular, the influence of the Beatles on their own designs. And this is a range of women's wear from the great David Dixon. It's going to include menswear from an up-and-coming designer only in his early 30s named Joey Golish, who has a brand called Mr. Saturday. And I picked him because the tagline is subversive tailoring, and that is exactly what the Beatles are all about, which we could get into. And then my other choice, and I'm thrilled that I can finally bring them into a spotlight. They more than deserve it, and you should bring them on your show, excuse me, is call and response.

There are three women in an upstairs studio, almost like a garret on Queen West. Like, you're going to love the space with all the colored threads and lorix patterns and fabric swatches on the floor. Prince when he lived in Toronto saw their designs and he approached them to create for him. They created the clothing stageware for Prince. Then they told me, could we say, you know, more names on stage? And then they said, share. And then they said deaf leopard. And after that point, my mind kind of went blank because in my head, I'm going,

holy, you know what? Because I couldn't believe that. And then they saw my face. And they said, yes, we're poor as church mice, but we have dressed them all. And that is true. So they're going to bring to the four rock style in the here and now. And they are also Beatles people, especially Catherine, one of the founders of the brand. And she even told me about doing pilgrimages to the Kings Road, which is another Beatles fashion destination for those, not just Carnaby Street.

and so I think it will be a very interesting discussion this Sunday. Yeah, I'm going to say, when is this? So I want to timestamp this. So we are chatting on Friday afternoon. It is April 17, 2026. So if you're in the far off future, the way I would go back into the archives to read old dance reviews from the varsity, okay, to see what Deirdrie, every time I say it,

maybe I hit that stinger right there. Oh my goodness, you got it again. But if somebody's listening in the future, so am I right that In two days' time on April 19th, you're part of this panel discussion at the art gallery? Yes, can you hear my knees knocking together? Are you nervous? I am nervous, to be honest with you.

Do you do this often? I do do it. We're going to learn more about your background. You wrote at the Globe and Mail for decades. We're going to learn more about you before we get into this Beatles thing. But I'm curious how nervous you are, and I'm only asking because in about one month's time, on May 21st, I'm headlining at the Elma combo.

It's like a 90-minute one-man show. and all of a sudden I'm starting to have these weird dreams like I didn't prepare anything and I have to bike there in an hour and it's almost like those old university or high school dreams you'd have where you I had this in university when I went to UFT I used to have that nightmare where

oh my God I didn't drop that course I meant to drop the course I forgot to drop it the exam is like tomorrow or something and I haven't attended a single class or read a single book or textbook I had that dream all the time I'm having it now of the Elmo I need to be prepared for May 21

People can buy tickets now. Go to Toronto mic.com. And click Elmo gig and buy a bunch of tickets. Please, to see me at the Elma combo on May 21st. But tell me about your anxiety. I'm going to tell you immediately. I've had that same dream. And my course was always geography in my dream.

Can I ask you? I remember because I studied, I was double major English in history, but you had mandatory prerequisites. Like you needed a science, for example. Oh, I missed that. I didn't have to do that. But they had a list.

I remember this distinctly. This is actually when I said mid to late. Yeah, it was 93 to 97. So I guess that's mid to late 90s. More mid 90s, I guess. But I remember they had a list of, oh, so you're like an English history guy. These are science classes that won't kill you. Like, so you got the prerequisite.

So I wonder, like, was geog? Because I remember having to take a geography class to satisfy these mandatory prerequisites. No, I didn't have to do geography. Why did you take geography? I didn't. That's what I'm saying. My dream was always geography. I thought you took it.

There I am taking geography. What? What? And then I didn't, like you, you'd go to class. This is on the dream of people. This is all in the dream. So why do we have these anxiety dreams?

I think if you have, may I pause it? Do you have a perfectionist streak in you? You want to do well? Well, I am perfect. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, exactly. Except what I said the name,

Deirdrie correctly. You know, I think it's that. But also for me, and maybe this will segue into the writing the book, too. I mean, I was dead nervous writing a book about my favorite band. And it's the same, like, you want to live up to the expectation.

You want to live up to the standard. And maybe that's what does drive me to do a lot and try to do my best because I don't take it for granted that I will do my best. So I work extra hard and do extra research that doesn't often see the light of day. I do try to prepare. You are the Brian Linehan. Oh, yes, I remember Mr. Linahan. His picture's over here.

Oh, there he is, peering at me through. I had beer can. So over here yesterday was Rita Zekis and Rob Sayam. I know them well. That's my era when I was at the globe. Well, they asked me who's up next. And I said, Dear Drie, I'll pretend I said it that way. I said, Dear Drie Kelly.

And Rita said, she said, oh, I know her at the Globe and Mail. And I said, yes, one in the same. Okay, there's only one here. So we talked about Brian Linehan because they cross paths all the time. They're great Brian Linehan. I remember it vividly. So let me ask you, because I have a lot of places I want to go, Deirdrie, but you're sort of held captive now. But you will, you know, you're leaving with that beer, but I'll tell you, I have in my freezer, it was delivered today.

A large frozen lasagna for you to take back east. Look at all this. Treats. You're getting stuff for this. Not only get the privilege of being in the hot seat, but treats. You're getting treats. And I kind of tease this off the top and I'll just touch on it quickly, which is you're an east of young person. I call, you know, Trontonians are either east of young. or they're west of young.

And often it's when you go, if you're, like, I'm a west of young guy. And when I go east of young, it's like I went to a different city. Well, that's what I told you. I felt like coming here today. Yeah, so you don't spend much time in South Atobico. Mimico, I was seeing signs.

And I'm like, I remember hearing about that place. I've heard of Mimico. Mimico, by what, you're not in Mimico right now. No, I went beyond Mimico. You're in New Toronto. If you kept going, you would have hit Long Branch. That's how far west you are. I was studying the streetcar.

It's like, where am I? Where the hell am I? But it's not so bad in the West End here, right? You're okay. It's pretty people. It's very pretty. You pass the lake. We're more attractive here.

You finally get to see the lake that was shut off from the rest of us downtown. So that's very appealing. The lake is here for you to see. Okay. So welcome to the West End. Thank you. I was looking at my calendar. I said, oh, I'm going to Blair Packham's birthday party next weekend.

He's in East York. That's where I am. So he's on Mortimer. Oh, my goodness. Maybe I'll drop by and say hi to you. You're going to have to come over and bring more beer. and more relazone. I always bring the Great Lakes beer.

Absolutely. Okay, so. I am in the big, beautiful... Maybe I'll invite you to Blair's birthday party. Okay. Do you know who Blair Packham is? You're going to have to enlighten me. Lead singer of the jitters.

And the jitters back in the 1980s had a bunch of radio hits. But the big one that I always teased Blair Bill, because I freaking love this song because it was so catchy. We get stuck in my head is, I've been a fool, played it dumb. I should have played it smart. Use my head, but not my heart. Must have been crazy.

Played it hot. I should have played it cool. Now I'm just the last of the red hot fools. Does that trigger anything in you? It just actually just makes me super impressed and make me think I'm buying an advance ticket now for the Elmo show. I'm not singing. I've got to point that out before I lose everybody.

I'm not singing at the Alma combo. If I sing, it's an improv singing. You wouldn't lose your audience. Well, you'd be the only one there. I think we're not here. So how does a. woman, how do you discover the Beatles? I'm trying to do math quickly in my head.

Now you're older than I thought you were. So I'm trying to figure out, like, where does your love for the Beatles? You said it's your favorite band of all time. Where does that come from? Okay, here comes the long and winding shaggy dog story. The long and winding road. Someone actually recently asked me, well, weren't there other bands? And I immediately said there never was another band.

So I kind of, I absolutely grew up with them. now that everybody knows, how old I am, so now I'll really underscore it. So I know when the Beatles came to America for the first time because I had just turned four years old. I'm dead asleep. My father woke me up. And I do remember it very vividly because that was very startling for a little child. If you can imagine, it's like, you know, you don't know what's going on.

but in retrospect, you're kind of like, it's similar of, oh, is the house burning down or something? You know, and I was shaken awake. Right. And I was brought to the living room. And I was held under my armpits and dangled basically in front of the television. And I was told to look, to remember, and not to forget. Wow. But it was the Beatles.

They had the foresight. Like, of course, this is Ed Sullivan, right? My parents are the same generation of the Beatles as the Beatles. my mother was born in 39. Lennon and Ringo are born 40, to give you an idea. My father was younger. He was born in 41, 42, which is contemporary to Paul McCartney. So they were young people, one from Ireland, one from Scotland, as I mentioned earlier,

but they met in London. And my mom sadly died just three years ago. And someone who knew her, she said, a fellow last from Scotland. You know, they lived in the hostels together in London. and she started telling me that my mom, in essence, was way more hip and way more plugged into that scene than she ever, ever led on. So, for instance, there's a seminal live music venue in London in Soho that's known as the two I's, and that's the letter I.

And it was in the day avant-garde because it was one of the first places to have a gadget espresso machine brought from the continent. So they were coffee bars, not necessarily booze bars. And you went into the basement and the stage was about the size of this desk, which isn't very big. No. But that's where some of the first rock music. And even my mom's friends said, oh, we met this guy, Eric, Eric. Burden?

Like, are you kidding me? So anyway, just saying, that was a bit of a segue, but just saying, so my parents, I don't know to say hip, but they just knew. They were with it. My father also sang with another Irishman in the clubs and in the bars in Ireland. Can I guess Van Morrison? It wasn't Van Morrison, but I think they prided themselves as a kind of Everly Brothers, just as the Beatles did. And actually, I grew up not only with the Beatles in my eyes and in my mind and in my ears.

They were everywhere all the time. And in a way, you kind of take it for granted until the age of 10, which we'll get to that story in a sec. but the thing is too when my brother and I were left alone you know my mom will go to work we'd be sick let's say

don't want to make it sound to you know child abuse here but you know during the day and you're not bringing in a babysitter and it's like just don't open the door don't go anywhere so my brother and I Kevin we would play our parents old records and they're exactly the same records

the Beatles we're listening to so they're of the same generation And so I grew up on Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly. I knew all the songs that I obviously didn't know at the time that the Beatles were themselves listening, but all my research, I'm like, yeah, I don't know that song. I know those bands. I know, you know, the platters, my mom loved them. I don't know if the Beatles actually quote them, but, you know, certainly the Black Axe.

That was all part of being, I think, a British team. John loved Chuck Barry, for example. Yeah. Oh, sorry, I had Chuck Barry. As I said, I said fat stomino. So, you know, not only were the Beatles, you know, just there for me since the age of four, but actually all their influences were kind of being absorbed by me. And at one point I mentioned I lived in dairy.

I was sent at the age of five to live with my grandparents alone. I mean, without my brother and without my parents. and I started my schooling there. And again, I was very plugged into pop. It was just my sensibility. So I loved watching Top of the Pops. And I actually did watch it. Maybe not a lot of Canadians would know about that.

That was kind of a seminal music program on the BBC. And because I was in Northern Ireland, you know, that was piped in. I was a big fan of the Avengers. Absolutely loved Emma Peel. harassed my grandmother to get me black leather catsuits and fur hats, which she kind of stopped at the catsuit, but I did get a fur hat.

And I got high-heeled shoes. So I was really also plugged into the London look, the British look that was part of the British invasion at the time. So again, okay, and here we go. It's 65, 66. So I'm part of that scene, actually. And then I come back to Canada and my mom is a young mom.

My parents were 19 and 20, respectively, when we were born. And we listened, I never heard classical music until many, many years later. I was raised on AM radio bouncing in the back seat. Remember, nobody had seat bells then, so it quite literally was bouncing in the back seat. And really listening to all the songs, all the hits. And of course, Beatles were there all the time. I can't say I may be singling it out. And the other thing is, I'm of the generation.

I grew up on the Beatles' Saturday morning cartoons. You know, I had my favorites. I spoke to them in my head in my imagination. And then what does happen is they say the turning point is the age of 10 when I become a diehard freak of a Beatles fan. And that was because they have just broken up. And Chum is doing a retrospective documentary on the Beatles. So now I'm a certain age of a year.

from grade four, grade five. And I'm listening to, I loved music. I'm listening to a transistor under my pillow as I was want to do. That's maybe how I discovered the doc. And I was riveted by their story. Their story is just great. You can't almost invent it. It's got a clear beginning, middle and end.

It's got drama, characters, everything is, metaphor, everything is built into it. And that also captured my imagination. but what really sealed the deal was I am the walrus. And I had not heard that before. And I can still see my eyes popping in the dark, you know, the sinewy sound, the so-called nonsense lyrics, which we now know are inspired by reading of Lewis Carroll.

I loved Lewis Carroll. I loved grim fairy tales. So all this spoke to me. And then immediately I am a freak. I am, you know, you can't do anything that's got nothing to do with the Beatles. And I had, I guess, indulgent teachers. I know I was able to paper walls with beetle pictures and images. And again, my teachers were probably, again, thinking that's great because they're probably fans.

And I did my, I remember public speaking on the Beatles and I could do it. So I can tell you I was a finalist in the city. You know, I'm 11. I knew the story inside out, no cue cards, nothing. I could just stand in front of everybody and reel it off. And so it became known as the Beatles person from the get-go and maintained. And I could give a couple more illustrations of the fanaticism, you know, in grade seven. Now you're like preteen and I haven't grown out of this.

In fact, I'm at a different school now. I'm doing art class. And I know I signed my artwork, Deirdreux, Lennon. Kelly. And when I was a naughty girl, so yes, I know, you can't probably believe it looking at me, but I had my naughty moments. And when I was naughty, I took on a nom de plume or a pseudonym, and I was Rita McCartney. So, yeah, Rita and of course McCart. So people will know that. And yeah, there's more I could say, but I think I should let you have a word in Edgeways now. I know the Ramones named themselves after Paul McCartney's nom deput.

How did you know that? Well, this is a well-known fun fact. I like the fun fact. I like the tripe. Well, I happen to know a little bit more about that. Well, tell me a bit more. I need to learn. I only just found out there's a fashion connection to it.

So it was when the Beatles, it's an early iteration. People of the Beatles, they're known as the Silver Beatles. And they are right now the backup band for a soloist named Johnny Gentle. and they're on a pre-Homburg tour of Scotland, 1960. Actually, I do mention this in the book because it is also, there's a fashion point here. But what I didn't know is that when they all adopted pseudonyms or stage names, which they thought was hip,

and that's because in Britain at the time, that was a thing. You know, like, yeah, even Johnny Gentle, that was obviously not his name. And there were other names. Anyway, so they all just thought for a hoot they would adopt names. And George named himself, I think, you know, he took his name after Carl Perkins. And then Paul, I never gave it much thought. I didn't know where he came up with Paul Ramon. And I only recently discovered that he was riffing on a gentleman named Raymond Cohen.

So I guess he was eliding the R, the O, and maybe the way they say it over there. I don't know how Raymond Cohen got about Ramon, whatever. And it was that Raymond Cohen's claim to fame is he was known in England as Mr. Tizzy Weezy. He was a celebrated hairdresser. And so he was in command of style. And so it's not actually incidental to the genius of Paul McCartney that he actually connected with something that had style pedigree. that he gives himself this name. But yes, fast forward, and Dedey Ramon is, you know,

a huge Paul McCartney fan, and he knew his stuff, obviously, and he named the band the Ramones. So the Sex Pistols and Punk do have a lineage that connects back to my favorite band of all time. Right, and of course, yeah, sex pistols, sex was the name of the storefront clothes store. See, I don't need to teach you anything.

No, you're kidding me? I only know, I only know a little bit. You've got the vault here. So, you know that this is dangerous. You're going to say things and then I'm going to give you. Well, because one thing about the Beatles, we're going to cover a lot of grand here. But the Beatles, what I love about the Beatles story,

and I'm like a little bit younger than you, but I love the fact that it seems such an organic happenstance. Like these guys are buddies in school. Yes, as you said, a natural story. Right, even like, oh, we got Pete Best on drums. And then even the whole thing seems so authentic. It's the exact opposite as the sex. pistol story.

Mm-hmm. It's not fabricated. Right. Right. You were going to say something about sex. Oh, well, just about sex. Talk to me about sex, D-HG. Yeah, let's talk about sex.

Salt and Pepper. In a PG way. Well, that's your call. I don't care. How explicit do you get. The Kings Road, as I mentioned earlier, or just quickly alluded to it, is part of the Beatles fashion story. It is a street in London.

As I say, many people, when they don't know too much about London fashion, they will default to Carnaby Street. So, yes, there's an origin of British fashion and Beatles fashion from Carnaby Street, but that's very early days in England. But by 66, 65, 66, when we're now getting into more mind-altering drugs, you know, LSD, acid,

the whole nine yards, these boutiques that start sprouting up on the King's Road become very, very important in the Beatles fashion story. So one of the boutiques is on the King's Road and it's called Hung on You. I can explain more about that if there's time or you're interested, but eventually it is the exact same space that is purchased by Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood

and given various names, but I think the initial name was called Sex. So when I did a pilgrimage to London vis-a-vis Beatles fashion in 2017, I went on the King's Road to see the sites kind of of places I was writing about and that completely fascinated me. And I went into what was called sex still at the time Vivian Weston was still alive in 2017. And it was called World's End at that time. And that's because that end of the King's Road, close to where the...

The Stones, by the way, had a house, was the same place. And just down the street is okay. So I'm just going to finish it off because we'll get into it. The reason I was on that end of World's End, I started at the butt end of it. As I said, close to Mickon and Keith's place where they were locked up by Andrew Lou Goldham. That's that house that you've probably heard in Stone's lore. Anyway, it's because close by, just around the corner,

King's Road was a seminal boutique called Granny Takes a Trip, an appropriate name given the acid dropping times. And the Beatles shopped there, as did the stones, but they first stopped, shop down the street at Hung on You. And just if you want more of your fashion geography, who made the King's Road a fashion district in the late 50s was Mary Quant, who is a very huge fashion of Pioneer credited, or she liked to take credit for inventing the miniskirt, although there are other designers who want to lay claim to that, including John Bates, who dressed my favorite Emma Peel, Diana Riggas, Emma Peel, he created her wardrobe, but also Karej in Paris also is credited with inventing the miniskirt, not to take anything away from Mary Kwan, because she was a true

fashion revolutionary with women's wear. And when the Beatles, now I'm just going to finish this, you know, people don't often know this, but fashion was not incidental to the band or even their brand, if you want to even talk about that in more contemporary ways. So they open their first fashion boutique. They are the first pop and celebrity entity to have their own fashion identity. And that was called Apple, the Apple Boutique.

it was the first manifestation of their multi-pronged self-created and I guess you'd say driven and owned and operated company. Eventually, most people know it as the Apple label, but fashion was the very first manifestation of that, and that is in 1967. And then later in 68, fashion wasn't, as I say, a one-off for them. They invested in a boutique that was directly opposite Mary Quants. And at the time, it was called Dandy Fashions. It was started by the heir to the Guinness. Speaking of beer.

The storehouse or whatever that's called in Dublin? Yeah. Yeah. And he's the one immortalized in Day in the Life, the man who blew his mind out in a car. So after he died, In fact, that's when dandy fashions where the Beatles had already been shopping themselves, kind of was open to reinvestment, and the Beatles invested in it.

And they called it Apple tailoring. So you can see that they are very much plugged in and very much part of that King's Road scene. So I did say, you better be warned. You see, I go on and on and on, but you just said to the word sex and maybe in Westwood, and then you get this whole. I know a guy where they get triggered and they go. It's yours truly, okay? I'm just biting my tongue over here.

Look, I can do that too. I don't even know why I have guests on this show. Just let's go. Okay, how a bunch of quick hits here because, you know, I tried to lay back there. Don't talk over Deirdre. Fashioning the Beatles, the looks that shook the world. How can somebody pick up this book? Oh, thanks so much.

Let's plug this book. Yeah. Because it sounds like you know your shit, Deirdre. Thank you very much. I tried very hard to know it. So if anyone's coming on the 19th or any other time to the Art Gallery of Ontario, my book is for sale in the Art Gallery of Ontario Bookshop. And it is also part of the gift shop, you know, that they always put up for exhibitions.

So you can buy it at the AGO. But you can also buy it online through my publisher, which is Sutherland House Books. And again, plug to Toronto. that is a Toronto-based publishing house made in Canada book, Made in Canada author here, and Made in Canada Publishing House, Ken White, formerly of the National Post, McLean, Saturday Night. He's my publisher, and all hail Ken for publishing this book.

So if you order it through Sutherland, you can get autograph copies. You can also buy it online, Amazon, where I will say it became an Amazon bestseller. shortly after its release. Thank you very much. And it's in, I don't know how far reaching your podcast is, but it is available all across the United States, Barnes & Noble, Rizoli, I remember in New York City had it, various bookstores across the nation south of us,

and it should be available in all your bookstores across this nation, including Montreal, where I know it's available, I think, at Paragraph, which is, yep, close to McGill. Okay, where my daughter, lives. Great. So tell her to go get a copy. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Of course. So, okay, so much to unpack here. But let me just tell you that there are expats through, you know this. Toronto expats are across the globe. So I've learned many a Toronto expat listens to Toronto Mike just to hear what's going on at home, what's going on, you know. Hi, expats.

Hello to expats. Now a few things. Firstly, at four years old, I think you might be the youngest person who has vivid memories of watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. It is amazing that you retain that from when you were four years old. I think that's wild. I do have a good memory. Maybe because I will now truly confess, yeah, you say I rejected the beer. Yes, I should disclose. I offered our lovely guest, a fresh can of beer, and she politely declined.

Because I've never done the mind-altering drugs, even though. I was going to say, have you ever dropped acid? No, I have not. But you don't even drink beer? I don't. My brother, if you want my brother on the show, we can, you know. Who's your brother? Kevin Kelly.

Named after your Irish people and listening will know he's named after a rebel. But that's another story. Well, the beer I'm sending you home with, I don't know where Kevin lives. He lives close to me in Leaside. Get Kevin that great list. Kevin's going to have this beer. Hey, Kevin. If you drink beer, there's no better beer.

And it's his birthday tomorrow. Oh, my God. Happy birthday, Kevin. I don't have to go get anything. Kevin, you didn't hear that. You keep the lasagna, give Kevin the great leg. Will Kevin hear this podcast? Well, now he will, because I'll tell him.

You'll tell him he has to listen to now. He's now famous. So, okay, shout out to Kevin Kelly. There's too many K. Hope his middle name doesn't start with K. That will get awkward. No, no, it's Jay. Okay, good.

And also, it's nice to hear your story is about 1050 chum. I'll tell you, there's an episode of Toronto Mike. It's actually episode 1050, where I have a bunch of the old chum guys on. I was very smart of you. I know. I had to hold on to that episode. And by way, I can hear you, if you want, I can get you going again and get you a glass of water if you want. It's your, you know, I know I didn't offer you a glass of water.

Once you turned down the beer, I was so offended. I said, I'm going to butcher her name on purpose, but I did not do that. But here, quick, is there's an episode of Toronto Mike 1050 where I have some old chum people on. We talk about it. But the highlight is this episode I did with a guy named Doug Thompson, who I think is the guy you put together that documentary you love so much. Oh, yeah. Doug Thompson plays clips of it. And we talk about basically the history of 1050 chum as a top 40 radio.

radio station. So there's a lot, even though I was too young to appreciate 1050 is the top 40 radio station because I was listening to 680 CFTR, I have archived the history of that important Toronto station episode what, episode 1050. Just throwing it out there. Yeah. No, I grew up on that station, as I mentioned. That was my mom's.

But who are your favorite jocks? Well, I can't remember them from that time because then I do segue to trans. transition to Chum FM. Okay. And Marston, Dave Marston. And I just saw him at the Redwood Theater, by the way, and, you know, practically genuflecting and rushed up to him. And my girlfriend, with whom I've been friends since we were 12,

and she always will vouch how about my Beatles' knowledge to say, remember when Chum did that Beatles contest and you knew every single answer? And she reminded me that when Marston was on air, I don't know, I guess maybe that was my Rita McCartney side that I said, let's just go down there. And she said we did. She had to remind me. And so we went and saw Dave and I wrote him a little poem apparently calling him Daisy Dave, which I hope he liked it.

Well, you know how. And then he gave us a shout out. Now, we didn't request a Beatles tune, I must say, but we requested Led Zeppelin. And he duly played it for us and said, do you or do you properly on air. and Susan and, well, Susan Willemson, shout out to Susan. So we're big Mars bar fans on this program. He's been over multiple times. I'm assuming you know the David Marsden Beatles connection.

I do. Well, I know one of them. Do you want to tell me yours? Yeah, the John Lennon one. Yeah, he's in the room. Yes, he's with John. In Montreal. Yes.

That's the bed-in, right, with John and Yoko. Yes. And David Marsden was decided to tell a story, which he, about just a joke, just an innocuous joke John Lennon made about some people who came in who were blind. And it gets a lot of traffic

on my YouTube channel. So if you Google David Marsden, John Lennon, you might end up on that little clip I put up from his episode. But yeah, there's a Mars bar, of course, in the 50s. Was it 50s?

No, I guess 60s. When 590, he was Dave Mickey on 590. That's right. Before he, I guess, so if I get, tell me if I'm right, Dave Mickey on 590, then he goes to Montreal.

all. That's right. Then he comes to Chum FM and he's now he's David Marsden and talks David Marston and then of course he ends up at CFNY for the spirit of radio. David Marston. Yeah. Okay, that's our David Marston chat. I got to say your book, fashioning the Beatles, the looks that shook the world, I need it because I have no style. Like I don't think you could even help me with my style. I have complete lack of style. Like I wear T-shirts and hoodies and I guess I just don't care. care? Like I guess if I cared, I would like consult a stylist and I would buy new clothes and I would dress differently. But I don't know how to care. Like I guess it's one of those things where

you either care or you don't. The Beatles clearly cared. They very much cared. And that was part of my research too was to go all the way back if I could to the beginning of their, um, yeah, I guess you'd say their identity as just human beings and fashion was always there for them. But you have to remember that that was a different era, you know, in Britain. So we have, you know, documentation of George Harrison, for instance, at the age of 14, going to a local shirtmaker and getting flash shirts made because he wanted to dress to attract the girls. Sure.

The birds. Yes, as they would say, the birds. Hey, can I give you this? Listen, this is a hop-pop. Zero alcohol. There's no alcohol. I'm just giving it to you. That is from Great Lakes brewery as well.

So they don't just make beer, but they sell hot pop. It's delicious. And that'll give you something to drink. And we'll keep your, so you've never drank, am I right? Oh, that's not true. Okay, well, I'm clarifying here. Okay. So, and just for the record here, no cannabis?

Hardly any. I'm one of those. Your straight edge. You know what? I like Biff naked. Well, it's because there's various reasons. Oh, my goodness. It's not going to turn into a psychotherapy.

I don't learn more about deer dream, not just fetal. session. Yeah, I was at a school at a grade, you know, we were actually really young, 12 and 13, and a lot of the girls, it was a girl school, my mom sent me to a girl school to get me out of my Rita McCartney stage, probably. And she, anyway, the kids were all dope smokers, and I guess they had older siblings, but also it was more of an elite group, and I was not from that social class. So this was all foreign to me. And, and, you know, And my mom was definitely not that inclined to. That's why I say it was like a shock to find out how plugged in she had been to rock and roll.

Because she just was very proper raising a Scots Presbyterian mom. And I couldn't afford to lose it. I couldn't afford to go off the rails. First of all, my mother would kill me. There was too much invested in me. My mom, I had to be a success. I had to be the one. I mean, it's a long story, so I said...

But you needed to stay sharp. I had to, I couldn't fail. Right. I couldn't fail. And I always thought I couldn't be the person who, yeah, and if, or even fall, because there wouldn't be anything to catch me. And I would be a great disappointment. So I, that was in me from a very young age and all these other girls could do it.

So I would always be the straight one in that scene, mainly because of that. I wasn't like them. I didn't have privileges. And then, of course, I tried it 100%. But I'm one of those, if it's not apparent, you know, you're hearing me, I'm so loquacious. You know, dope speeds me up even more. So that's a bit embarrassing.

It's a bit embarrassing. I think I'm hilarious and I'm cracking jokes. I actually once got high, okay, a little bit, little story now. Yeah. And I'm glad my mom's not here to hear it because she actually would have been very disapproving. But yeah, Mark Breslin, I went to see him and there was a bunch of guys after and they just said here, you know, have a toke. And it was one of those like I thought, what the hell? Okay.

But then like, like, and I got them laughing. So my thinking that I'm really hilarious, I thought, I am. either that or they just were laughing because I wouldn't shut up. And that's how I ended up headlining at the alma combo. Well, listen, I mean, I'm no cannabis expert here, but it's not supposed to speed you up. I know, Mellar you out, but not me. Take the edge off a little bit.

Okay, well, you know, it's working for you. So I would say, keep doing what you're doing. Kevin's getting that beer anyways. And I did not lie to you. There's zero alcohol. Zero, yeah, it's tasty. Pop, pop, pop, everybody. There's a coffee flea.

Coffee-flavored hot pop, too. They have at the Great Lakes as well. Hey, quickly here, because I have a feeling, you're too easy to talk to. That's not an insult. It means I have to, like, be conscious of the fact. It's going to be like six p. You're going to miss your Sunday panel

because you'll still be in this basement. We'll be talking about various days. Because I actually wanted to spend a few minutes on you building up to this whole Beatles experience here. But let me quickly just say, Nick Iienies was here this morning, and we recorded a new episode. of Mike and Nick, I'm on that one,

and building Toronto Skyline, that's, in fact, with a chap who is responsible for building student residences at universities and colleges across the country, and it was actually very interesting. So check out the latest episode of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick from Nick Aienes,

and I want to tell you, dear Drie, that if you have old cables, old electronics, old devices, don't throw that in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill. go to recycle myelectronics.ca. Put in your postal code over there in the east end and find out where you can drop it off to be properly recycled.

So thank you to recycle my electronics.com. Got it? Got it. One last thing. And then we're rocking. I know you're into fashion, obviously. I feel like fashion people have to measure things a lot. I don't know why I think that.

Like, oh, I got to measure. Who is here? Carrie Oliver from the shopping channel was here earlier this week. and she's talking about measuring in seams, okay? That sounds dirty. It sounds fun. But she's going to do it now with this Ridley Funeral Home measuring tape. That's courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home.

A pillar of this community. So here you go. Thank you. Yeah, measure what you wish. Listeners, I have a beautiful new measuring tape. It is circular and lime green. Hey, there's a Beatles connection. Lime green trousers that George Harrison is wearing on the rooftop concert.

immortalized in the get-back film. So it's the same colored green people. Wow. I love it. I just love the tangents. And, you know, you can call them, what do you call them? Segways or sidebars. Keep going. Keep going.

Okay. So I'll keep my eye on the clock. You don't worry about that. You just be Deirdrie. And again, I'm just saying Deirdrie as often as I can to prove I will always say dear jury. You're now my best friend. That's your name.

Okay. Yeah, I'm going to be seeing you at Blair's birthday party next weekend. So we're going to be hanging out here. So we've already talked about fashioning the Beatles, the looks that shook the world. When did you write this book? Or when did you release this book? Because I know, Oh, okay. That's maybe a little easier. Yes. We, if you can believe it, because it still has longevity, still has legs. It came out in the fall of 2023. Well, that's not that long ago. I was prepared for earlier. That's not that long ago. Thank you. In my mind, 23 was like a few months ago.

Okay. Perfect. It was just a few months ago, people, so it's not a notebook. Maybe you have it for the other decade. I have this weird thing where I, I think, the 90s were 10 years ago. And then I realized, Mike, I have to catch myself. I'm like, you know, it's almost 30 years ago. And that's a mind blow to me because, I don't know, maybe because of what my age was

throughout the 90s. And, you know, I was just, just the nature of that was married and all these things going on. And it just feels like it was a decade ago. But that's my problem. That'll be from my shrink to talk about here. Okay.

So that's not your first book, Fashioning the Beatles. No, it is not. Thank you for speak of segues. All right. Well, shut out your books. And then I do want to spend a few minutes. on the Globe and Mail.

You ever heard of this newspaper? So my very first book is Paris times eight, which is a memoir. Sometimes people ask me, so is it true? Yeah, that means it's true. It's a memoir, which means it's all about me, myself, and I. But it is me, myself, and I in the context of eight trips to Paris, France, over a 30-year period, and I map a coming-of-age story through those eight separate and distinct visits, and the lay-it motif, big word, but remember, we're English majors here, is the mother-daughter

relationship. So that's the first book. Okay. A memoir? Yes. Written usually you're older when you write one, no? I guess, but I actually was encouraged by a publisher that was. wanted to work with me and in Vancouver, Greystone Books.

And they, actually, I remember what he said, because I wanted to write a dance book. I'm a dance person. I'm a Beatles person and I'm also hugely dance person. It's sort of parallel, passions, parallel loves. I know. I would read your work in the varsity. Of course I know this.

You knew that. You knew that. And he said at the time, you, okay, I had the idea of Paris and I can explain how to, that came about if you want. But anyway, at one point, I said a story about Paris and he said, yeah, but you do talk about your mom an awful lot when we're together. And I think there's some unsolved business there. And maybe you should explore that as well. And I was like, shit. Because I didn't want to explore it. But he was so on. I was going to say prescient. Yeah,

okay, there I said it. He was absolutely right. And, And that actually was very, it was very difficult to write the book because there was an exercise in uncensorship of the self, you know, because there's lots of things you don't want to say that are true because they could hurt other people. And also it was having to confront myself. And it is me, deliberately me, you know, as flawed, as, you know, there's something broken there. And first to acknowledge it. And then. And, you know, but also I mentioned about my mom that pushed for perfection and that I couldn't be a failure and all that, which I'm not going to say was a bad thing. It's made me who I am. And in fact, the book is dedicated to my mother. In fact, the very words, because I know you can, dear Dr. Kelly, because I know you can. So I lived up to that. You can never say never with my mother. So that was the first book, which was difficult just because I had to, not always self-analyze and say a lot of goop that you then have to turn into literature.

And then the second book, because they, believe it or not, enjoyed working with me. And then it's like, okay, now you can write the dance book. And so I wrote a backstage history of the ballerina from court of Louis 14 to the present day. And it has a mouthful of a title. It is called Ballerina, colon, sex, scandal. and suffering behind the symbol of perfection. And that became very, it's controversial, because when it came out, I was ahead of my time.

I was advocating for reform in a art form I love very much. And I am quick to say, people often ask me about ballet and why I like ballet, it was escapist art. No, no, it's because for me, the ballerina is a feminist symbol. The ballerina is female empowerment embodied on the stage. So I lived with that, grew up with that, loved that, you know, aspired to that, just like I would aspire to the excellence of the white album. You know, these kind of pillars of cultural achievement. And then I become, okay, now we're about almost going to get into the Gloven male naturally.

So I was mentioned I was the dance critic at the varsity. And then I was hired right out of the varsity as the Globe and May. dance critic and I was the nation's dance critic at a very young age starting in 1985, January 85. I did my first piece for them in December 84 and then I was dance critic for cough cough cough 30 oh anyway I was on staff at the global male 32 years. So it was a very, very long career. Anyway, so the dance book, the ballerina book, maybe one nice thing to say. I had nothing. thing to do with it. So several years later, the Guardian newspaper did a survey of the world's

dance books. And I didn't only make the top 10 list. I'm number one on the top 10 list. And I was quite a ston. So I think what happened with that book, because I did get a lot of pushback. Oh, what's your problem? Because I criticize George Balanchine for those who don't know that he's a 20th century genius of neoclassical ballet. Who doesn't know that? No one's. Listen to this program doesn't know that, please. But he is responsible for promoting or let me say promulgating a look of thin in dance, which had ended up being a medical problem affecting young women in dance more than any other segment of the female population. That's not me making that up.

I read numerous medical journals. So even it was the fact, but you had people say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. you obviously have a problem. And I was the first person also to blow the cover on racism in dance. I mean, there's a reason it's called the ballet blonde, meaning the white ballet, and it truly was, and many, many areas of the world, it still is the white ballet, where, you know, blacks were not, if they were allowed in, mostly it would be male blacks because there was a kind of, you know,

muscularity and exoticism, sensuality, and Balanchine played with that with the great Arthur Mitchell, who goes on to form ballet theater of Harlem. But the female dancer, no, you could not be Swan Queen because you're black. You know, you can't be Jezelle because you're black. And all kinds of things. So I blew the cover on that. And again, that was early days now, now, like since George Floyd, Black Lives Matter,

pandemic, there's been a massive amount of changes in dance that I was advocating for and or highlighting a lot of sins committed in the name of art, you know, that I was highlighting, mainly not to dump on an art form that I love, but to make way for the dancer that I believe should be the queen of her scene. And more often than not, she's been oppressed by various ideologies, various labor practices, and as I say, various isms in the society. So that was that book. Well, kudos to you for shining a light on that injustice. And I'm glad to hear it's getting better.

Yeah. Yes, it is. Very much so. And then the Beatles book, funny. You wrote a book about the Beatles? Yes. Let me tell you about that. Do we have time?

So I was the dance critic. I mentioned at the Globe of Mail for a million years. And actually, I was very controversial, and there got to be a lot of heat around what I was reporting. And so this is true stories. Maybe shouldn't be saying I'll go to watch it. But anyway, I was sideways, I was sideways into the fashion beat.

And I didn't choose that. In the beginning, I actually was quite indignant that I'd be put into fashion. And I do remember my editor at the time, So this will also underscore what you had said. I love fashion. And my top of the pops, I was always dressing in a certain way since childhood. I always wanted to have that fashion influence. But again, that's through my mom, I have to say too.

And she just said to me, well, look at you. Because I was like, why me? I don't want to do fashion. I thought it wasn't, I thought it was going to be beneath me. I know that sounds really awful because, now I have learned that it's a very difficult subject to master. It's a lot like dance in a sense that, and that's why I prided myself in the dance beat,

is you're trying to give verbal form to an elusive idea, an elusive concept on stage that's there and then it's not there. It's like poetry, truly it's been called poetry in motion, and you're trying to make that vivid for the reader after the fact. So there's a lot of skill involved in that and a lot of analytical skill that's involved in that, not just descriptive skill. And then you have to sell it to an audience

in a way that you don't sound pretentious, which I'm sure I just sounded terribly pretentious. So anyway, I remember my editor saying, look at you, you know, you belong in fashion. I was like, ugh. And then she said, but you'll get to go to Paris, we're going to send you to Milan. And I thought, okay, Kelly, shut up. Okay, I'll do it for a year.

And because I had already done the dance book, which anchored my years of writing, experience and knowledge and dance, it was suggested I now do a fashion book to kind of capitalize on all the knowledge and experience I was gaining in fashion. easier said than done. So I actually did numerous proposals, numerous ideas, and they were all rejected, well, I'm not sure, you know, even things like the history of the model and things like that. And then I was, if you can imagine, talking, talking, talking, talking at my husband, who while he was trying to just simply make himself a cup of coffee, and then it was he who slowly turned to me and we weren't even talking about them.

He goes, no, no, no, no, you have it all wrong. Your next book, it's got to be about the Beatles. And I'm like, what, what are you talking about? Because your Beatles obsessed. And I said, yeah, I know, I know. But what could I possibly ever say about the Beatles that has never been said before? And then because I wanted the last word, unless, of course, it was about their fashion. And I meant to say it as a joke.

And as soon as I said it, I went, wait a minute, because I actually do read everything on them, see everything on them, listen to everything they do, and people that other people say about them. And I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what did I just say? Please, please, God, please, please, that nobody's done it before. Did my research and then found that nobody had done what I wanted to propose, which was an in-depth analysis of the Beatles fashion choices, linking them to the cultural, political, social shifts and changes.

of their time, the turbulence of the 60s, how they shaped the 60s, how their fashion was unique and so wildly influential, not only in the day where people started instantly imitating them, by the way, not only the fans, but other bands, and that persist today with BTS, a K-pop band, you know, asking to be completely outfitted a La Beatles going to a contemporary London designer like Tom Brown and getting Beatles out for it fits. the knack, you know, ala beetles, it goes on and on, but it's also with the fashion designers. So that was a very long answer, did you?

Well, and Paul McCarney's daughter became a designer. Yes, and that's not accidental. In fact, doing my research, I would quip to myself, you know, in the darkness of my room when I was doing this. Well, now we know we're Stella got her chops, because the research does show that Paul was, so plugged in to fashion style, visual presentation from the very get-go. I mean, even I just alluded to that at the very start, if we can remember way back when I started yapping about the Ramon,

a name, you know, he's even tagged to, you know, something in fashion or beauty. And it was Paul who was driving a lot of that. Paul, who had a keen, keen, keen interest in fashion and style. And in fact, he had Stella apprentice with one of his tailors. It was a Beatles tailor. People will more know the brand as Tommy Nutter. It was a new kid on the Saville Row block just exactly the same time as the Beatles move on to Saville Row.

And isn't that interesting? They could have picked any street in London, but they chose the world's most legendary street associated in the public mind with menswear and tailoring and British fashion and British style. So there they have a building there. And Tommy Nutter is just down the road from them. It's a very small road, by the way. And it was their master cutter who Paul developed a relationship with and Edward Sexton.

And he taught Stella everything she knows in menswear. And in fact, I was really thrilled to see her latest collection is really rooted in tailoring and the 60s and her parents' own style legacy. And she talks about that. If you go on Instagram and just see some of her recent posts, she talks about Edward Sexton. And I had the great honor and great privilege of interviewing Mr. Sexton. Long distance, of course, on phone. He wasn't available when I went in 2017. and we together analyzed he and his atelier on Salvo,

me in Toronto, you know, each of us with large screen images of the cover of Abbey Road, and we analyzed and dissected the suits, three of which he definitely claims to have created. So what John is wearing in white, what Paul is wearing in a... And why he's not wearing shoes? Yeah, well, I know that.

He wouldn't know that, but I know that in Serge Blue. and then Ringo as well. And yeah, so that's the legacy there. Oh, okay. So it does not surprise me to learn from you that Paul McCartney was so stylish and into fashion because he was also into photography. I feel like this parallel.

And that's the whole reason we have, Eyes of the Storm, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. I think it runs through June, I think, or at least some time in June. Let's hope it's extended, actually. Okay, good, because actually my daughter, who lives in Montreal, is she's graduating from McGill in May,

and she's going on a European like adventure before she starts working full-time and then, you know, does that till, you know. First of all, congratulations, Dad. I know. It's a big accomplishment when you're a child. I'm going to Montreal for this convocation. It's in the calendar.

Everybody, I have to slow down my recording. It'll be right after my one-man show at the Elma Compton. Tickets still available here. But she's like, she wants to go to this art gallery thing. So, yeah, I do need it to be extended. So, Jim, can you make that? Jim. Hello.

You're listening, right? Okay, so that, yeah, I've seen his photography. It's what you can see in Eyes of the Storm, Paul McCartney. And it's, you know, your book, you said 2023, right? It came out.

Yes, because the Beatles are always, and again, I miss the Beatles, okay? I was born in the mid-70s. I miss the Beatles. But they're always in the, seemingly always in the news. Like, maybe it's a Peter Jackson, you know, a series, a docu-series that everybody's got to watch

with that footage that. we all watched. And then maybe it's like I just watched Man on the Run, which was a cool doc about Paul's post Beatles music career primarily in the 70s

kind of leaking into the 80s. And he's got new music coming out. He just released a new album. Yeah. I heard the first single. Yeah. And a new single. Yeah.

So like two, you know, two members of the Beatles. I don't know if Ringgo's making new music, but he's still playing. He is. He just released an album last year and he's got a new one coming

and he's on tour. I mean, it never stops. In fact, when my book came out, the timing of it, like, there was a new Beatles single. Hello? You know, the first single released by the Beatles in decades. Oh, the one they cleaned up with AI.

Yeah, right? Was it George Martin's son, right? Yeah, with Giles Martin. That's right. Yeah. And then on it goes and on it goes. But also from my perspective, too, or involvement in the topic now, you know, from fashion, because as I said,

Beatles have never gone out of style. They've never gone out of fashion. And since the release of the book, I am like, please you didn't make that up. And so I have been, every time there's a fashion week, and if your listeners aren't aware, there is an actual instituted fashion calendar and these presentations in collections with the big name designers happen minimum twice a year in the fashion capital, which is still Paris, but also in Milan, also in London, also in New York. And now there are fashion weeks around the world that emulate this calendar. White said Fred made sure we knew those fashion capitals, okay?

Yes. So what it's going to say is that Paris especially has Men's Week and Milan, too, men's fashion week. So I'll often just Google, you know, Beatles fashion 2024, Beatles fashion 2025, Beatles fashion 2026. And I'm never disappointed. And I'm actually astonished by the amount of direct as well as indirect homage to the Beatles. So for instance, just in June, just and it's in the stores now, probably not our stores. That's a whole other story. But there's, a British designer named Craig Green, and he debuted a collection in Paris, in June,

which is six months ahead. So it came out in the stores just now. It's his spring, summer, 2026 collection. And it's 100% of Beatles-inspired collection. It's going to look very avant-garde to people who might think, oh, am I going to see colorless? No, no, no, no, you're going to see that. What he's got is a very,

experimental look, but it's all saturated color, big florals. And then he gave copious interviews with the press about the Beatles and how it's not a slavish copying, but what it is is he says he's tapping into their endless creativity, their willingness to experiment not only in music, but in all aspects of who they were and what they represent, which is actually, again, to the point of my book. Yes, I want to show you the innovation, the fashion, but I don't make it a laundry list. I want you to see how it is a mirror, a direct mirror of their innate genius, their willingness to go where no band had ever gone before, their desire never to repeat themselves, which is why the look

constantly evolves. So going back, I have a sound effect now. I'm going to start using it. When we go back in the time machine, I thought I'd use it. All right, work in progress here. That's from Wayne's World, of course. That's from Wayne's World. So back to 1985.

Oh, can I remember? Just for a moment. January 85. Okay, good. I'm there. We're in the time machine. We're back in 1980. I see it.

I see myself. You know, it's going to be a good Blue Jay season. Okay, it's coming up, the drive of 85. So we're in 85. Got it. I guess you, maybe that previous fall, you graduate from U of T, maybe. I just convocated in November, 84, and I got my first globe byline December 84. Okay.

I'd been hitting them up. Okay. So you're, you just, yeah, right away. You're working at the Golden Mail. And they knew my stuff from the varsity, which was astonishing. And you're writing about dance. Yep. Yep.

Okay. And then at some point, by the way, yeah, at some point you, uh, transition into writing about fashion. Yeah, and in between actually, appropriate for our conversation, and I'm hoping for your listeners as well, because I was, now I could say I was young,

then I think they thought anybody under the age of 30 could do the pop beat. So actually, when I was the dance critic, I was simultaneously pop critic for a very short time, but I was. I had, I think your listeners of a certain age, we'll remember that Liam Lacey was our pop critic at the time. And Liam got one of the very first bureaus.

That's just when the globe was rebranding itself as Canada's national paper. And we were opening up bureaus across the country. And Liam got the first bureau in Vancouver. So I was given Liam's responsibilities. And I took over his riff-rath. riff wrap, sorry, column, so I did that every week. And also, speaking of those different bureaus, that's actually how I got to be dance critic,

is because it was Stephen Godfrey, who had been dance critic at the time, and he had inherited the beat. I just want to give credit to some of the great colleagues of mine. Yes, please. John Fraser had been dance critic just before that. Then Stephen got it. And then Stephen was made the inaugural Cultural Bureau Chief

in Montreal. And so for me, my story about, you know, getting into the globe was a lot of being in the right place at the right time, but all those years of volunteering. And you know, if you were, you've teased, you know, you were doing things on the side. You didn't get paid to do that and writing and writing and seeing and seeing and honing, you know, my eye for dance. But so when Stephen got that, there was an opening, they were doing a shout out. They wanted a dance critic.

So I thought, well, why not me? And I actually got it because the editor who hired me said he had read my, as he put, I read your stuff in the varsity kid. You're good. So he brought me in. And so that just to explain why actually there was a lot of diversity in what I did. I wasn't exclusively dance. And also I had to do a lot of other things.

And I actually wrote some of my very first fashion pieces, even during this early time, because I was keen. I do have eclectic tastes and interests. and my editors, I want to give Ed O'Daker. He just recently passed away, the great Eddo Dacre. He hired all of us, all the, you know, I was the only girl, only female in the department at that time. But if you, again, if your listeners were globe people, he hired Jay Scott, he was our great film critic. He hired John Bentley Mays, who was our great art critic, John Haslett Cuff, who did television, you know, Ray Conlog, who did theater.

and, you know, I was the kid. I got to learn and sit with these guys and also learn from them as well. So I want to really honor that time and honor my editor for encouraging me, not thinking of me, you know, strictly as the kid and, you know, and the girl, you know, just encouraging me to do all sorts of things. So I did the pop beat, I did fashion. They sent me to Montreal. In fact, I think when one of my colleagues,

Matthew Fraser, took a leave of absence to write a book. They made me the interim Culture Bureau chief of Montreal, so I lived around the corner from McGill for a while, right on Sherbrook and reported on East Coast theater, always in the arts primarily. And then as I went on in my career in the Globe of Mail, say I'm really proud of in the 90s, I want to say I pioneered something

That's why I'm really proud of it Is I did investigative reporting in the visual arts So I went after art thieves and art crime And I was inspired at the time Because there was a lot of reportage on looted Nazi art And I know I went directly to one of my ears I go, you know, you got to let me do that I'm going to find the art here in Canada

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. I am going to find it here. You know, come on. There are Jewish refugees, a lot of, there are Nazis in this country. I've met them, okay? It's like, not to put too fine a point on it. Let me do it. Okay, but you do it on your own time. So I did it on my own time, and I found them. And I found the looted art. And there was at the time, yeah, in the AGO, in the National Gallery, Beaverbrook Gallery, across the country. And then that led me to look at repatriation issues, which again, now is a hot topic, but nobody was doing it then. So indigenous art and artifacts, um, in international museums, you know, it's not just the elegant marbles that are in the British Museum that didn't really be there, or you could argue maybe they're protecting

them from the pollution. That's in Athens. But, but, you know, there's, there's our indigenous peoples. That's much, much, much more on the fore. Those totem poles in the ROM, they were actually appropriated. They could, if the people wanted to take them back, they could. So that became a hot topic for me. I loved doing that. I felt it was doing a really good thing. And then it got to then on the nitty gritty ground, like finding art crime here in the city. You know, smaller galleries, artists coming to me.

And I actually remember those days when it did have a reception at, Dear dream, there are some men to see you in the lobby. and then I go downstairs and there's this coterie of guys and they said you're the reporter for us and they were artists Toronto artists who had been ripped off by their dealer and they wanted me to they've been reading me and they wanted me to help them well that's like catnip you know for a reporter so I wanted to do it and I did it I got my editor again the same editor who Mamie Fashion Reporter, shout out to Catherine Bradbury. She said, do what you need to do.

And my librarian at the time, again, this was pre-internet, we found one of the art thieves living in the Caribbean. And my editor said, go, just go. And then I did undercover stuff. I got him on tape. You know, kind of a sideways confession. He was really pissed off about that afterwards. and then I got his partner here in Toronto arrested.

I got that guy an international warrant for his arrest if he ever tried to come back to Canada. So it was a good, these were good things. And doing the right thing by our indigenous people and right thing I think by victims of the war. And so really, really enjoyed doing that investigative reporting. And then I took that investigative skill set also to the ballet, which is where I said earlier I became controversial.

So I, which was the seeds of the book I eventually did. Right. Kind of exposing injustices. Like ballerina real talk. You know, in inequities and arbitrary firings and starvation policies and things like this. So do investigative, I actually got a national newspaper award citation for that. And then I did, oh yeah, what else? I applied that investigative skill to the war in the Balkans.

I went and did some coverage there. They sent me, the foreign page. Some people did have a sense of me. It's just the dance critic, you know. But some of my colleagues saw that I was a good reporter and I was solid. And I got the goods, you know. Well, you got the goods. You were there for over 30 years.

Yeah. So, you know, I worked hard. and I did break stories. And then, oh, I was going to say one of the biggest controversial thing with the ballet, and that's what pushed me into fashion from the powers that be, is that I was the reporter who exposed the unlawful firing of a principal ballerina named Kimberly Glasgow, and she was fired, actually wrongly dismissed, and it became an national and also international story.

sort of labor relations in the ballet. And that caused a big, big problem with the ballet because they actually were in the wrong. And I exposed that. And then it was a certain era where once upon a time, if I'm allowed to use bad language on your show. Of course. I encourage it. Once upon a time, we were as journalists,

and I grew up in this era, you were applauded, you were encouraged to be a shit disturber. You were to go places where people didn't want you to be. You were to expose things people wanted to keep hidden. And that's our ethos. That's who we are. And it did all change. And I don't need to preach to everybody if you're just paying attention internationally.

That happened everywhere. There's more censorship. There's more control of the dollar over what can be published. You know, as the rise of the internet and advertising revenues shrink, real estate in a newspaper became much, much more precious. It became much more... Newspapers are really difficult places to work in the first place, but it became even more aggressive, more cutthroat, so to speak.

And then that's when I started noticing that there were more clamping down on you telling what I will call the truth, because you were running foul of advertisers and companies such as the ballet that would say, okay, we're going to pull our advertising budget. And then it became, well, what do we want? The dollars for that story. Is this why you end up leaving the globe? It was partly why.

It was in 2017, where I had been on Front Street for decades, 444 front. the building had been sold and the globe was moving lock stock and barrel to a new location on king street renting the premises on king street i even packed my box thought i'd go and they were offering packages and i didn't think i could go because i i am the breadwinner and the family i take you know have a family to take care of and i'm not done yet but then i started noticing people i grew up with like this from my era you know the hardcore the people who put out the front page every day for 30 years. They were taking the buyout. Editors are respected to taking the buyout. My own manager was taking the buyout. And I did say to myself, maybe I'm on the Titanic,

and maybe I need to jump, and newspapers were really changing. And so I took the package, and I got time to find a new job. And I did find a new job. I am gainfully employed at the moment, you know, and I'm still writing and editing and things like that. But that was one of the reasons because it wasn't what we bought into at the beginning. And I'd say that that's true of, say, some colleagues who've left newspapers and opened their own publishing houses because it's not what we knew. The game changed. Totally changed.

And as I said, that's not, you know, Pache, the Global, a global mail that's not a global male story that's an international story that's affecting newspapers and news outlets and media all over the world all the time and we're all worse off for it in my opinion so

well I think so it's sort of again if I took my horn on the dance side of things you know I felt and people have said this to me so it wasn't that I came up with this by myself but it was a nice compliment in a way you know I

was educating my reader. I was making you, I was sharing with you the passion for an art form and you maybe got turned on that you wanted to go see. You might not have agreed with me, but I made an art form like dance, I think, vital to the culture. And now they, you know, there are no more, that was the other thing at the globe. I was no longer a critic. They, they were slowly getting rid of all the critics. And again, not a global male issue. That's international. They're, they, the Toronto Star wiped out the entertainment section, for example. And, yeah, I mean, shed out to Ben Rayner, who I talked to on the reg. So, you know, I said how I right place, right time.

So now in retrospect, who knew I was part of a golden era of newspapers and media. And that was in the 80s when I'll tell you the structure of the global mail to maybe hone this for your listeners is that it is a union shop. So there is a hierarchy of pay scale. And it starts at double A. And that's editor-in-chief. That's the editorial board editor-in-chief, okay? But category A, critic. We were way and above newspaper reporters, way and above.

They were like category D or E. So we were highly regarded and valued, because we had opinions. and that's what we were paid to shoot our mouths off. And then we eventually used to do that. And then the climate changed. You were no longer to shoot your mouth off because you might alienate. Well, it's so interesting having this conversation with you, dear dream, after the Rob Salem and Rita Zika's chat yesterday.

Because that was, Rob's been over a couple of times before. But Rita was making her Toronto Mike debut. And these similar sentiments, they talked about, you know, that time in newspapers and how radically different it is today. So interesting having that conversation and she'll fresher my head and then... And just in case, I don't want to slag the globe at all. I hope that's not coming across that.

They have reinvented themselves. And I was part of a reinvention when the National Post came on the scene. That was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Globe of Mail because it made the globe really eyeball the competition and up its game. Actually, it was very, very exciting. And I think that the Globe, yes, it was kind of dire there. but they're still alive.

They're still moving forward. They've done a whole bunch of new hires I see. They're calling out for new people. So they've found a way to survive, and it's just different. It's different than it was. So I actually don't want to be crying too much about the change. Change happens, man.

Change happens. Now, I'm going to shout out a few FOTMs on our way out here. If FOTM means friend of Toronto Mike, you, dear Drie, are now an FOTM. friend of Toronto, Mike. Can I get a button? You know what? I saw your button.

I've been eyeballing it all conversation. It's a Sergeant Pepper button. I see that. You kidding me? I hope we can see it in the, we're going to do a photo together by Toronto Tree before you say goodbye. And hopefully we see the button there. So I'm going to shut out three FOTMs who just popped into my head during this conversation.

But before I do that, how, like, what does somebody do if they say, I got to go Sunday to the art gallery and see Deirdrie and this panel? Like, how did you got to buy tickets? What's the deal? Yes. They're pretty inexpensive in my book. They're $15, and that's all in. There's no tax.

You can't even get a McDonald's combo for $15. That's right. 15 smackers. And if you're already a member of the AGO, it's $10. 10 bucks. My parking is way more than that. And then I think there's an interim price of 13. I really don't know what that means.

It's like, you got to buy a ticket. You're a passholder and you get it for 13. So, It's pretty inexpensive. It's like you just lay the $10 down, the $15 down. You come upstairs. I think it's the Bailey room.

And I know that the, I can tell you, as of Friday, there were only 60 tickets left and the capacity is $300. Okay. So we're expecting a full house. And I know a lot of people who are still trying to come just pay at the door,

but that's advanced ticket sales. Well, look, I would love those numbers for my Elma combo gig on May, So good on you. This sounds amazing. Yeah, you're going to have to sell tickets to all your friends there. Okay. So the three FOTMs, I'm going to shout out.

Obviously, we shed it out Jim Sheddon off the top. So he's not one of these three. So thank you, Jim, for connecting us. I enjoyed this conversation very much. Okay, thank you very much. And, yeah, you and I can both probably record a 10-hour episode if we were in the mood. You'll have to come back for that one. Okay.

I want to shout out because you're talking about covering fashion. And I know, obviously, look at me. I know nothing about fashion. But I did watch my fair share. of fashion television on city TV. We were looking at the Brian Linehan picture here, and I'm thinking of his dear friend, Jeannie Becker, who's an FOTM,

and in my head I'm hearing the song, Obsession by Anim Motion. Yes, okay. So there you go. So shout out to Jeannie Becker. I'd play it, but I'm actually having a little... Oh, let's, can we play a Beatle song instead? Well, we can.

Here's a thing. I can do that. I should just do it. But I need to... There's a whole rant in me about Spotify. In the past little couple of weeks, Spotify has been, they've been such asses about

any use of unlicensed songs on any podcast I produce. And it's become a huge thorn on my side. The worst they can do is they just tell you, we're removing this episode in like seven days, unless you can prove you have the rights to play this Beatles song, which of course I don't. Okay, it's shocking to hear that. I don't have a license for the Beatles song.

But then the episode's gone from Spotify, which I kind of don't care. And then I start thinking, well, but damn, so many listeners use Spotify. I wish they wouldn't. I wish everybody hearing me would use a different podcast app, but the fact is they do. Maybe that's because that's where they stream

their music. They're already there. I don't know. So then I think, okay, now it's going to be gone from there. I want as many people as possible to hear Deirdre on Toronto Mike, right? Okay, fine. And I got a client I'm working with, a Ridley funeral home. They use a little John Williams from the Imperial March is in

a little bit of the intro, and I got to weed that out because they're going to remove all these episodes of Life's Undertaking. What a thorn in my side. So I probably won't play Animotion. and I probably won't play the Beatles, but I'm hearing it in my head, is what I'm telling you right now, okay?

And I'm humming it. You're humming. I can hear, you should hum it because that won't get caught by the algorithm. So, Jeannie Becker, shout out to Jeannie Becker. I want to shout out David Schultz because I remember him coming in here. David Schultz worked for the Globe of Mail for decades as well,

and he covered sports. I doubt your department in the sports department. Did you ever interact maybe at a Christmas party or something? I actually wrote a story for sports because at the end of my days, I realized I had written for every single section of the globe, including real estate and the ROB report on business.

Okay, but when you wrote a sports story, I don't even know how that would happen. I did skating. Okay, skating. And that was front page, in fact. Okay. And then I did stories on, my goodness, trying to think, yeah, I didn't keep score.

Now, my mom, remember, I've been talking a lot about my mom. Of course. My mom was an athlete. My mom, shout out to my mom. She was a field hockey player. She was captain of the Ontario team. So I grew up with sport. Not a stranger to it.

And I profiled track stars because that was my thing. I produce a podcast for a former track star. Okay. Well, I did track as a kid and I love it. I loved running. So I profiled people. So I might not have gone to games and been able to give you the play-by-play. But I gave you, I hope, again, appreciation and, you know,

of the individual at the center of it and maybe even about practice behind the scenes. So speaking of a little tie in here, you mentioned Ken White and Sutherland, and that's how we can get this great book. Yes. I was at a book launch for Mary Ormsby's book. Oh, I know Mary very well.

And it was about Ben Johnson. Yes, I'm... And Ben was there and Ken White was there. And I remember this day very well. I quite like, I mean, Ben's been in the basement here. He's an FOTM as well. Quite like that event. I have a lot of admiration for Ben

and I put Ben in the glove of mail. Yes. See, and he's not the guy I produce a podcast for. I like him very much, but Donovan Bailey is the guy I produce a podcast for. And you mean, maybe

Andre de Gras now, of course, but those are the big three in Canadian, the modern sprinting history. Yes. Okay, last name, I noticed you didn't mention him. I don't know if your Paff's,

how much you want to say about him, but I had a great conversation. He had an Irish accent, a little Irish in him, too. Glob and Mail's John Doyle. Oh, I know Doyle so well. And in fact, I was just imitating him the other day because he, um, he was a buddy and he was, uh, he didn't actually make himself, let's say, he wasn't one of the flamboyant types in the newsroom. So it wasn't that I knew he was a supporter,

but he was definitely a supportive of mine. And it's funny, I just was relaying the story to my family because of a certain incident that one of my children, and I was trying to give them an example of that standing up for the right thing. And I stood up for the right thing. As you probably see it, and can shoot my mouth off. And then I did it in a meeting with everybody because I called something out that I thought it was unfair. And I thought, oh, God. And everybody's like crickets. You know, I'm thinking, oh, everyone's probably thinking, oh, well, Deirdre Kelly ever learned to shut up. And then it was Doyle who stood up for me. And it's like, oh, I'm going to say for Deirdrie Kelly, that whatever she's saying, you know,

what she's had to do and not she has to deal with. And he was there for me. So thank you, John. Well, thank you, John. I had a great conversation with John, who not only has the TV stuff, but covered soccer for your... Absolutely.

And he's just written a play. Did he tell you that? Well, this is where it gets really small-worldy, but he met with a guy named Joel Greenberg about that play. Yes. And I produced Joel Greenberg's podcast, which is called Life and Stages, and new episodes from season four are dropping now.

It is a small world after all. It is a small world after all, and we're all connected in it. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. So did I. Thank you so much. And thanks for my hop-pop, everyone. No alcohol in there.

Delish. It's Deerjree approved. No alcohol in that hop-pop. And you're bringing that beer to Kevin, your brother, right? Don't forget. Happy birthday, Kevin. Okay, if I got the list on you for you,

happy birthday, Kevin. and then we'll take that photo by Toronto Tree. And that brings us to the end of our 1,884th show, 1884. Go to tronomelomike.com for your Toronto Mike needs and click Elmo gig at the top and buy a couple of tickets. And see me at the Elmo combo on May 21st. Rob Proust will be there as well. And they're, I don't want to say anything,

but I'm working on a special, special, guest, so stay tuned for that. Much love for all who made this possible. Great Lakes Brewery, of course. We talked about their fine beer. We're enjoying the hot pop. Palma pasta. You got that lasagna. You're going to love it.

Nick Aini's, it was good to see Nick, but he did spill a cup of coffee on my table before he left, and I can smell it now. Like, I can smell the coffee in this room. Thank you, Nick, for that special, special gift. Recyclemyelectronics.ca.ca. Of course, that's where you're going to go. If your old devices, your old laptops, your old cables,

you're going to go to Recycle My Electronics.C.A. and Ridley Funeral Home, no more John Williams compositions in that opening theme, Brad. We got a new composition, thanks to Rob Pruse, who played in Spoons. He co-wrote romantic traffic. I know you're impressed. Deirdrie is clapping.

I am plotting silently. Well, you don't even have to be silent. See you all. Okay, let me see. What a busy week it's been. Who's my next guest, Dear, Dree? Let me go into my calendar. I bet I know them.

Well, let's see. Maybe not. Who knows? Let's see. Let's see. Well, actually, I don't think you do know the next guest. Warren Kinsella is here Tuesday morning. I'm sure you know the name.

I do know the name. And Tom Wilson is here Tuesday afternoon. I know Tom. I've interviewed him. And Alan Zweig is here Wednesday morning. And I know who Alan is. Former Globe and male guy, Geer Joyce is here.

Oh, yes. He was a great sports writer. Yes. Oh, yeah. Too great, maybe. But the next guest is a guy I'm going to guess you don't know. His name is Odd Marshall. He basically has quite the story. He was living in a cabin and he got in a bad car accident and he realized his dream is to make music

and he made music with the Blind Melon people. Obviously, Shannon Hoon's not involved because shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, but Blind Melon guys and Odd Marshall made new music and he's going to drop by on Monday. We will see you all. Then.