Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Don Breithaupt: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1972

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

In this 1972nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with musician Don Breithaupt about his song-writing, winning an Emmy for writing the 6Teen theme song, all the great artists he's collaborated with, his love for Steely Dan’s Aja and his induction into the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, 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]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, everybody, it's Don Bright Up. I am the lead singer and songwriter from Monkey House, occasional author of music books, a man about town in this great city, although I haven't lived here in a little while. And a lot of big projects on the way, which I think Mike and I will talk about today. And I'm very excited, of course, to be making my debut on Toronto Mike. I don't say that that just anyone done. Yeah, you do. Let me check the tapes.

Oh, yeah, you do. If there's a goal to want to get the city love, I'm a Toronto where you want to get the city love. Welcome to episode 1,972. of Toronto Mikeed an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery order online

at Great Lakes Beer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA Palma Pasta enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees

from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville visit palma Pasta.com for more Fusion Corpso Nick Aeneyne He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick two podcasts that you ought to listen to.

Recyclemyelectronics.c.c.mitting to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto Mike debut, it's Emmy Award winner, Dawn. Bright up. Don, welcome to Toronto, Mike. Great to be here in the mothership. This is exactly where you know exactly where you are.

And I had to ask you how to say your surname because reading it makes me think it's going to trip me up. But then if it is just bright up, not even I can screw that up. That's right. That's the anglicized version. If you said it that way in Germany, you might upset the odd person. Can you say it the way they say it in Germany? Well, it's two words, bright-hopped. You say every letter, and it basically means broadhead.

You do have a broadhead now that. Yes, I know. I know I walked into that. When you said you no longer live here, where do you live? I live in Clarkson out in southwest Mississauga. I know Clarkson, of course. Okay, so we'll get to Mississauga in a moment, but because this is episode 1972, I need to shout out something that happened in Toronto.

history in 1972. You ready? Yes, sir. Interesting. This is interesting. Toronto had its first ever gay pride week in 1972.

So I dug into it. What does that include? Well, there was a dance, a film night, I don't know what films were playing, and a march to Queens Park. So 1972, Toronto's first gay pride week.

Safe to say, I was unaware of that at age 11. Okay, I'm doing math here. Now I know you're a, Don, yourself up here. Okay. I know. Can I congratulate you off the top? How do you feel about that? Do you take praise well? Uh, yes, usually. Okay. Let's test that out. Okay. Congratulations to you, Dawn, on your Mississauga music walk of fame induction. Can you tell me what that means, what it

entails? Bury me in information about the Mississauga music walk of fame of which you are now inducted. Yes, the music walk of fame out in Mississauga. Sasauga is a very worthy annual thing that they do. And they honor somebody of note who's either a musician or is music adjacent from the mega city of Mississauga. Can you call it that? Are you legally allowed to call it a mega city? Well, I think I am because I grew up in Cooksville, which was not yet part of

Mississauga then. Okay. And it was one of those, let's amalgamate these eight, jurisdictions and call it a city. You're educating me here now. Okay, so you were in Hazelville for a very, very long time, forever. Have you always lived in Mississauga? Yes.

I would say if you drew a timeline, there'd be more Mississauga, I think, than anything else. Although I spent about a decade in Toronto and about a decade in Los Angeles along the way. Okay, we'll have to talk about your L.A. years for sure. Well, get to all of it. But okay. So who else is in, like, who else is in the Mississauga music Walk of Fame? Well, it's musicians from all manner of styles, including the great jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. I knew you were going to say Oscar first.

Yeah, because that's a big deal in my household. To be in the same club as Oscar is pretty huge. But, I mean, Tommy Hunter and current pop people. people like Alessia Kara and rock and roll people like Phil X, who is John Bon Jovi's guitar player. Right. And then some people who are more developers or media figures like George Strombolopoulos is one of the end of these. How does he get in there?

Wasn't he from Rexdale? Like how does he get in the Mississauga music log of fame? Yeah. It's not necessarily your hometown, but it's you must have conducted. a good chunk of your career in Mississauga. In my case, I went all the way from kindergarten through grade 13 there. You belong.

See, as far as I'm concerned, we're going to get to know you better, Don Bright up, but you belong in the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame. I'm just wondering whether we should remove Strombo, who is also an FOTM, like yourself,

friend of Toronto. Mike, we love Strombo on the program, but I'm not sure he's Mississauga enough. He's very Toronto. Are you hoping you start a groundswell? Well, listen, it's a letter writing campaign,

and it begins now. Now, let's remove strombo from the, I'm just not sure he's Mississa. I'm just saying, I mean, you know Strombo, I know Strombo. I never think a Strombo is Mississauga. It's possible that he doesn't think of himself that way either. But George, I want you to know that I have nothing to do with this if it actually gains steam and becomes a media firestorm. No way is George listening right now. He's on, probably on a motorcycle, making his way to Los Angeles or California.

somewhere to spend the cooler months. So he's probably already on route to California. But, okay, much love to Strombo. Hey, there was a death I learned about today, and I thought I'd play just a little music off the top and talk to you about this. Sure. All right, so here we go.

Don, I'm putting you on the hot seat here. Can you name that band? Well, having worked for Kim Mitchell for seven or eight years, yes, that's Max and that's a million vacations. I saw that tour in Kingston on Halloween night. I think it was maybe 1980 or 81. Okay, okay. So the singer you hear on this song is not Kim Mitchell.

It's Gary McCracken, the drummer. He wrote this song, so this is a Gary McCracken join, and sadly I learned Gary McCracken has passed away at the age of 75. Oh, I'm so sad to hear that. Wow, I didn't know that. I haven't been plugged into the outside world much today. Well, it's not a happy interesting, but the death was reported. He was in pallet of care, very unwell, dying, and his death was reported before he had died.

And I think Kim had to post that, like, the family needs privacy. He's in pallet of care, but he's actually not dead yet. And then I think the news was official like a day or two later. But, yeah, sad news in the Can Rock world, because this is the Max Webster song, I think I heard first, because it appeared on this four-disc compilation I own called, oh, what a feeling. Do you remember this? I think Juno's put it out.

Yes, I'm a music nerd, so I had that box set as well. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And a million vacations. And I was, you know, a few of the bigger Max Webster songs were not sung by Kim Mitchell, which was a surprise. I'm a bit younger than you, so I kind of knew solo Kim before I knew Max Webster. But always kind of surprising.

But it seems like they're passing away. I hope Kim's feeling good. He's still healthy. But can you tell me, if you don't mind, about your personal and professional relationship with Kim Mitchell? Well, I have been a fan since I was a kid. In fact, I think maybe the first time I saw those guys was at my high school. It was either that or they were opening for Genesis at the C&E.

Probably high school. That's definitely a band that played high schools across this province. Yeah, people forget there was this. circuit in the high schools. And basically every school would have a fall dance and a spring dance and spend some money to bring in an actual original band in that usually had a hit or three or four or five. So I think that was bread and butter for a lot of bands. Like even Rush did that in their day.

April Wine would have done that, I would think, definitely. And yeah, Rush would have done that. And Max Webster was big on the high school circuit. Yeah, and I over the years had a few friends who played with Kim, recorded with them as well, and I heard through the grapevine that the keyboard chair was open in Kim's band, and he had been working for a little while as a trio and just running the keyboard tracks from the records and having the drummer sync up to it and doing it that way. and he got a little tired of having to kind of do it the same way every time

because he likes to give a head nod in the middle of a show and go, let's take another eight on this section or whatever. And that kind of thing's impossible when you're playing to track. So I had a couple of my friends intervene on my behalf and recommend me. And I went and had a very interesting audition with Kim. Now that I know him, it makes total. sense. But I was asked to prepare a whole bunch of music and I thought I was going to go into this rehearsal space and maybe play with the band, maybe me and some other people. And I showed up and it

was just Kim sitting in this room with a bunch of gear with his acoustic guitar. And we played through a couple of things and it seemed to be going fine. And then just got into a chat, which went on for, who knows half an hour, 40 minutes or something. Right. And I said to him finally, so are we going to play anything else? Like are bass and drums coming or anything? And he said, no, no, no. I already know you can play because people recommended you.

I just wanted to make sure that I could hang on a tour bus with you. Chemistry test. Yes, exactly. And you passed. I passed, apparently. Yeah, he knows you can play. It's like, yeah, do I want to tour with this guy? Okay, so Kim Mitchell, you were the key.

keyboard player. When I hear a keyboard player, I always think of my buddy Rob Pruse, playing keys for the spoons and honeymoon suite. Yeah. And now a fixture on Broadway pit bands, I believe. Yeah. He did the Mamma Mia? Oh, he did a bunch of stuff, but I think most recently he did some touring

Mamma Mia thing. But yeah, he's a going concern, Mr. Proust. And he is, I will tell the listenership, he's back here, I think in about a week. I got to check the date. he's back in this basement where Don is right now for Toast and he wanted to kick out home jams because I think he's moving or something.

He's not moving back home like he should, but he's moving somewhere else in New York. We'll get the updates on Toast. But Bob Willett and Rob Proust back in the basement for Toast. I believe next Monday I have to check all this out. But Kim Mitchell, who, yeah, I mean, he's a wild party. So that's awesome you got to tour with Kim

and be as a keyboard player. That's cool. Yeah, I did it for, I think, the better part of eight years or so. And then I decided to move to Los Angeles and had to quit a few things locally here, including that. Why did you move to, like, I'm going to tell us. So normally we kind of go back, like, oh, when did you want to be a music?

And we kind of build it like chronologically. But we're going to do this a little more Tarantino style here. So tell me why you moved to L.A. Well, the move to L.A. came at the end of about 10 years of writing a lot of television music. Oh, can I put a pin in that? Yeah.

And play something. And just, if you're of a certain vintage, you know this well. And if you have kids of a certain vintage, which is me, you know this well. But can I play this? And then that might segue over to your LA years. And then we'll go back to the origin here. Okay.

Life begins after school. That's when we bend all the rules. Time to hang with all my friends. We like to be. together in a place where we belong. I'm 60. Still Slays, man. Don't tell me you had anything to do with that great theme song to 16.

That's impossible. Well, I hate to disobey. But yeah, that was written with my then TV partner, Anthony Vanderberg, who's a guitar player. And we cooked that up in kind of one afternoon back when we were pitching. on a lot of shows. And interestingly, if you know the show, it's about six friends who all work at the same mall, right? And the original title for this show was The Mall.

And they heard from some potential European broadcasters that the mall means something completely different over there. The mall is like a big street that's leading up to a square and is usually outside, like, you know, the mall heading toward, you know, a big statue in the middle of London or Paris. So they said that title is not really going to fly here. And not knowing this in the meantime, we had looked at the brief and titled the song 16. And not only did they like the song, but they decided to change the title of the show based on that. And it's worth noting the stylization of 16 is numeric six and then T-E-E-N.

Right, which caused no end of hassle for people trying to say what the show was or say when it was on or, you know, what we were up to. But that was, I knew that it was a local production. I knew some people involved with it in like a previous world. I was in, just when I was starting up Toronto Mike, actually. But this, this was a local thing. Was this Nelvana? It was Nelvana.

Yeah. Later part of Chorus. Yeah. And now what is it? Like there's no new developments at Nelvana. I have to say I'm a little out to touch with the Nelvana reality right now. I'm pretty sure it's like they'll nurture some existing things or whatever, but like there's no new, I don't think there's any new productions

coming out of Nelvana. I think it's a very sad, a sad story for such a, such a huge animation enterprise from Toronto. Yeah, well, it was very robust at the time we were doing things for them. We ended up doing more than one series over there, but the, but 16 turned out to be the big one. They, they, they liked the songs, so they let us also score all the episodes. It was a good show. Like, because my, I have a 25 year old and a 20, no, 24 year old. old, a 22 year old, and they would watch this show and I would catch it. And it was one of those shows, like a lot of the shows your kids watch, you sort of like, you just, you know, you don't even really take it in.

But that was a show I remember enjoying. Yeah, there was stuff in there. There were jokes in there for the grownups, for sure. And my kids were about the right age for it at the time as well. So I would get a lot of, your dad did that. No way. Yes. Okay, sounds like a character in 16.

Now, can you tell me what, when you were coming up with that theme? Are you thinking like, like, what is your inspiration? Like, what are you mimicking? Because it does sound like that kind of power pop, punky sound that was floating around. Like, almost like a, like a sum 41 style or something. Like, what were you thinking when you cook that one up? Yeah, I would buy that. I mean, there was a lot of what, what, I'm not even sure it was called power pop.

No, I think it was like retroactively. Punk pop, like, Avrilavine brought in this whole like poppy, punky sound. Well, and also significant. the Rembrandts who did the Friends theme were kind of in that world as well and I think that safe to say we got a little bit of vibe and maybe the tempo. Oh yeah, I hear that from that. Do do do do do do do. Okay.

Yeah. And so again, we're just Tarantino style. So tell me a bit more about the I'm writing TV stuff because you mentioned other shows that you've written for anything I might have heard of like just this chapter. at LA and then we'll start from the beginning. Well, sidekick was the other full series we did for Nelvana,

which was basically the idea was a town, a dedicated town where they're training sidekicks to be the sidekicks for existing superheroes. Oh, right. You know, superhero school, basically. Right.

So that was fun. And we did a lot of reality television. We did a lot of one-off kind of, custom songs for various shows. And then once our catalog became part of Anthem, they made all our stuff available to license online for people. And so every time I get a royalty check, there's another reality show or something that I didn't actually write the music for,

but they're using our stuff, which is kind of fun. For some reason, the whole genre of shows where it's, people getting rid of secondhand stuff or rating storage bins and that kind of stuff. Fascinating. Like that you could have, you know, oh, I'm in this new series for whatever. Oh, yeah. I remember doing that for something completely different many years ago. And then it's, yeah, you get a royalty check.

What kind of checks are we taught? These, like the Jerry Seinfeld checks he was getting from Japan or whatever? Like, what kind of checks are we talking about? Well, we did very well on that show, the two composers. and a big reason is there are several tiers of score in any kind of show, animated or not. And the highest tier is source music, which appears to be coming directly from the action.

In other words, it's not overlaid. It's something in the scene is playing music. What's the term for that? Like, there's a term for the music that's in the show, as opposed to just like overlaid. Yeah, well, I mean, we, used to call it source. Okay, okay.

But you're right, there is another. I'll come up with another word. Yeah. Because I remember, I was a big fan of the wire and it seemed like, and I think this is a fact that only season finale had the type of music that was, you know, obviously like an overlay or whatever. But I think every piece of music you heard other than in the season finale's, were just somebody's car coming by, like somebody playing something at a party or a door opens and you hear a little chunk of something.

Right. And there is a word for that, which I will Google in a moment once I get you going there. Okay. But just to finish that thought, because the whole series, as you know, basically took place at that mall. Right. Well, one thing that's true of all malls is there's always music playing. So even the kind of corny background musacky music that was playing very faintly in a lot of scenes, we had written all those cues.

And so on a typical cartoon, you know, the composers might have two minutes of music. And on those episodes, we were getting anywhere from 18. to 22 and so we had good back end from it. Good for you, man. Yeah. Good for you here. By the way, I have the word I was searching for. Okay, so you call it source music because you're an insider. You know the deal, but us, Normie is call it diageetic music. Diagetic, right. Yes. So that's basically when the music exists and is heard by characters inside the fictional world of the show. That's diagetic music. Okay. Yeah, and that's assigned a higher value. Interesting. I had no idea.

for the purpose of paying royalties. I had no, you know, today I learned. Okay, so this is like, what is this approximately, like a 10-year chapter of your life when you're writing music for television? Yeah, well, Anthony and I knew each other for years before we were writing TV music, and we got sort of back together in our, what were we in our 30s, I think, maybe. And we originally knew each other because we were, We were both in the live shows department at Canada's Wonderland when it first opened.

Those were our summer jobs. Okay, and that's the era of Canada's Wonderland. I look back with great fondness because you had all the Hannah Barbera characters running around. That's right. And Smurfs. That's right. And people having trouble, you know, getting oxygen and staying hydrated inside those big furry things. But anyway, when we got back together, we started really putting a lot.

lot of sweat into pitching on TV shows and ended up doing a lot of it for those 10 years. And at some point, well, actually, I got a call one morning at my office from a friend of my name Ron Prue. I don't know if you know Ron Prue, but he's a prominent music supervisor who would definitely know the meaning of diageetic. But he would call it source music. He at the time had an office in Venice Beach where I would be headquartered. not too much later, but he called me and said,

hey, congrats on the Emmy nomination. And I said, the what now? And I had no idea that the U.S. network that was showing 16 had put us forward as best song nominees. And we had gotten the nom. So that was the first I heard about it.

Wow. Okay, because I introduced you off the top as an Emmy Award winner. Yes. So you win that? Well, we went down thinking, this will be fun. Let's go to the award show.

Now we were up against, our show was on a cartoon network, or maybe it was Nickelodeon at the time. But anyway, we thought, well, we're up against three NBC nominees and one other major network. And they have big voting blocks, and we didn't think we had a prayer. But we went down. And what wisdom at the time was the NBC vote got split

between their three nominees, and we squeaked in. And we found ourselves thinking it was going to be just a fun thing to be at. And then the end of the night, we're thanking the academy. So congratulations. So you got a physical Emmy Award? I do, in fact, have a physical Emmy Award. And my partner, Anthony, was leaving L.A. after that great night.

I think he left the next day. And he had his Emmy Award in his carry-on bag. Yeah. And it's going through security. And it's quite heavy. and quite pointy. Okay, yeah. It's a weapon.

So, potentially, you could bludgeon somebody with it. So it came through and she waved him off and said it's fine. And he said, oh, I'm glad I was worried about my trophy going through and she said, honey, this is Los Angeles. We see these all the time.

You know what, this now, if I'm writing my piece of fiction, that will be like the weapon or whatever that somebody will use. It will be an Emmy Award. So congrats on. winning an Emmy. I'm glad my introduction doesn't lie. I called you an Emmy Award winner and it was for the

theme from 16, which honestly, it's a banger. That could have been heard on Kiss 92.5. You know what I'm talking about? Well, that was our whole thing at the time. We thought, let's get a live drummer in, let's get a true rock singer in to do it and mastered up like it's a record. Well, who sings it?

A fantastic singer who unfortunately passed a couple years ago named Phil Nero. He was a true rock star really a phenomenal singer. And he was from Rochester, but settled in Toronto. And he had legendary kind of high vocal range. And we brought him in that day and showed him the song.

And he said, that's it. You're not going to, we thought we had him pitched as high as you would politely ask a man to sing. And he was like, oh, I can go a third above that. Wow. But anyway. It works. Yeah, it turned out to be the right.

key and the right, the right tempo and the right groove and all that. So, you know, some afternoons, you do something that, that lasts a long time and, and some,

you're just throwing darts. Throwing darts. Okay, not smoking darts, but throwing darts. Okay. Let's, okay,

because of, yeah, that poor gentleman who's passed, but if you were smoking the darts, he couldn't hit those high notes, that's for sure. Okay, so this Emmy,

is that why you end up, where were you at, in California? Where were you again? Well, I lived in Santa Monica, but I had an office in Venice, which strictly speaking, is part of L.A. Right, right, right. So what is it that brought you there? Like, you were just going to kick it up a notch?

Yeah, well, I felt like my kids had grown up. They both decided to become musicians. I couldn't talk them out of it. What's in the blood? We'll get to that in the minute. They were off to Humber College for music. And I was sort of portable. And I thought, well, where could I go where my TV?

would be relevant and the obvious answer was LA and I knew a few people down there and um sure went down and uh did a lot of songwriting I was still writing for a couple of TV shows when I went down there and uh you know did gigs wrote songs with people um in a couple of cases people that I had admired for a long time well you got to name these people you got to drop some names here well the the biggest one was uh Jay Graydon who uh maybe he's not a household name but the musicians all know him. He's the guy who co-wrote, let's see, after love is gone for Earth, Wind and Fire,

turn your love around for George Benson. That's a big one. Produced. Kind of yachty there, a little yacht there. Absolutely. He's right at the heart of Yacht Rock. Al Jero, Manhattan Transfer, Dionne Warwick.

and worked with all those guys from toto and all the kind of triple scale A list. You've got Stu Stone's attention now. He's probably on a treadmill right now listening. He's like, did you say Toto? Right. Okay. Yeah, so I'll just get into the Jay Graydon thing a little bit. Yeah, please.

I had a mutual friend of his, and my band Monkey House had just done a record. And my friend Brian down in Chicago thought that Jay would like, he would think it was in his wheelhouse, which turned out to be true. And Graydon said, well, when is he moving here? I want to write with him. And he didn't know that I was, but in fact, I was in the process

of planning that very move. And so when I got down there, I looked him up and it was an instant kind of camaraderie and being on the same page musically. and the first time I went over to his place to work on something, I was still a little starstruck. And being a huge Steely Dan fan, I went in and said, look, I don't want to nerd out too much,

but I have to see the guitar that you played on Peg. Right. So he went in his giant guitar room and got this cherry red Gibson 335 and let me hold it. And I went, okay, I'm done fanning out now. on that note I will just tell you and the listenership that at the end of this chat we are going to have a little steely Dan segment

okay so hold on to those steely Dan hot takes until we get to I got a song loaded up and everything but please continue so what like what did you write with this gentleman well he one of the first things we wrote was a song called Good to Live which ended up on one of my monkey house albums and Jay played guitar on it And we've since written, I don't know, half a dozen, maybe eight songs.

One turned out to be a holiday song that Brass Transit recorded. And we had a song on hold with George Benson for a couple of years. We had our fingers crossed there, but George decided to do a bunch of standards instead. But we are still writing music on an ongoing basis. And that first night I was over at his place, I also was sitting at the piano. grand piano in this studio where a lot of, he made a lot of great records. And I said,

so tell me who else has played this piano. And he said, oh, David Foster, Bert Baccarac, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, kind of backed up and thought, oh, am I? And he said, oh, come on, drop some A-listers on me, man. None of these, nobody's. Never heard of them. You mentioned David Foster, who produced Tears are Not Enough.

I'm actually later today. I'm going to talk later today. to a member of lover boy, not Mike Reno, who said no. Mike Reno said no to the Toronto Mike invitation. Can you believe that? I know. I'm waiting for the big reaction here.

I want the world to know. Mike Reno said no. I'm aghast. But tomorrow, I'm going to speak with Bruce Colburn. But it's a strange arrangement where I can talk to Bruce tomorrow, but Bernie says I can't drop the episode

until mid-October. Can you believe that telling me to hold on to a Bruce Colburn conversation for a month. But he was on tears are not enough. So you mentioned David Foster. My brain went straight to tears are not enough. But you're not on tears or not enough.

I am not in fact on tears or not enough. I've met David Foster a few times. In fact, he participated in this Mark Jordan book that I wrote. Oh, you wrote a Mark Jordan book. He's been over with his wife too. Mark Jordan and I find, speaking of Yot Rock, he's got some yachty rock. He has serious credentials in that world. Marina Del Rey, that's the big one, right?

Back then they just called it soft rock. Or they called it West Coast, but yacht rock has got slapped onto it later. But tell me about this book. So is that a copy right there? Yeah, that is. That's swag for you. Oh, thank you. Okay.

So it's funny. I had a conversation with the guy. I won't name him because I don't know where this is that, but he was chatting with me about a desire he had to do a documentary about Mark Jordan. Well, that would be fertile ground. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now, so now I'm the great connector, okay, Don.

So now I'm going to be like, you know, you got to talk to Don. right up because he wrote, Rhythm of My Heart. There he is, okay? He didn't look that cool in my basement, but in fact, we're a couple of times, I'll be honest.

So Amy Sky and Mark Jordan are down here and we're talking. Yeah. A couple of times, I thought he was sinking into that chair, Mark, like really melting into the chair. A couple of times I thought maybe I should pinch him and wake him up.

Like, he was so chill, you know? And that's no indication that he's sleepy. That's just the speed that he runs at. Right. He's only ever in first gear. And, but if you, if you listen closely, he'll, he'll drop some very funny stuff and is nonstop creative. Okay. And here's a David Foster quote on the back of the book here about Mark Jordan. Okay. Rod Stewart, of course. Yes. Yeah, that's a rhythm of my heart, of course. And Bruce Hornsby, okay, any commentary from the range? No, I don't see. But so thank you for my copy, for a copy of Rhythm of My Heart. And I didn't even realize you were the author of the Mark Jordan unauthorized. biography. That's pretty cool. Well, the way it came about was I had for a while been Mark's

piano player and had written a bunch of songs with him over the years. And he felt like it was he was getting to the point in life where he was ready to tell his story. But because he's profoundly dyslexic, he didn't feel comfortable being the author of a book. So instead, we just went up to his cottage and did like a week's worth of interview. reviews and I started with that because he's a great storyteller but he but he's not a writer technically right and then I got to go out and talk to as many of the people that he worked with as I could excuse me including the people you just mentioned on the back of the book but also uh you know behind the scenes people and uh producers and uh record executives and fellow musicians etc etc

okay so I we are going to go back because you come from like musical DNA in that body of yours and we're going to go back to the origin story but can I drop some more names so you've already talked about Jay Graydon and you talked now

about Mark Jordan but when you said your kids went to Humber College for music one name popped in my head because I've had people over who have had some success after going through that program and they always tout a fellow FOTM who I know you worked closely with so I want to talk

about and he might he must be in the Mississauga what do you call that, the Hall of Fame or whatever. Walk of Fame. He's got to be in there. He's probably got like a big statue at the entrance or whatever.

But can we talk about Triumph's own, Rick Emmett? You can. In fact, Rick, who I've also toured with and written songs with, he's appeared on my Monkey House albums occasionally. He is indeed a Mississauggan. And he's in that in the Walk of Fame

as a member of Triumph. but also as a solo artist. And he was nice enough to make a speech about me on Sunday when I got in it. Okay, okay, so we're only talking on Wednesday in your induction ceremony, which I'm sorry I missed, was only a few days ago.

Yeah. Oh yeah, I kind of knew that, but you know, you're reminding me. There's a lot going on here, okay, but Rick Emmett,

did he teach your kids? Yes. I think my younger son Cameron was in his songwriting class. See, this is a small world, right? And I also want to shout out, because when you were talking about, about writing songs for Nelvana.

You know, there's TV shows. There is a beloved FOTM who comes over once a quarter who also wrote songs for some Bay Blades and some successful cartoons and stuff. And I know he's dear friends with Rick Emmett, but I want to shout out Blair Packham. Have you ever worked with Blair? I mean, I know Blair just a little bit

from the odd songwriting workshop and shaking hands at award shows and that kind of thing. Oh, yeah. But I want to say that Anthony and I pitched on that series, Bay Blades. Okay. Those guys got it. Blair, you got that one. But Blair, where were you on the 16 theme?

Come on. That one went to my man here, Don Bright. So here's another FOTM who also appears on Tears Are Not Enough that you have worked with. You've collaborated with. Please, Alfie Zappacosta. Yes. I feel like pizza now. You know, I'd forgotten that he was on tears or not enough.

Yeah, he's on it. But it makes sense, given the era that he'd be on there. Yeah, I mean, he's, what a voice and what a presence. It just so happens. This is here for my bruised thing, but I have the program. They handed out because, well, for a variety of reason, but the lawyer, the entertainment lawyer who had to sign off, you know, Joni Mitchell and Neil and everybody was a great FOTM named Don Farrbert,

Anton, Paul. You're a Don. Yeah. Paul Farberman. but I can go through here and see if is Paul Dean? I could actually do this while you're talking at some point. It was Paul Dean from Loverboy, a member of the choir or something? I should find out

because... Well, that period of time was Peak Loverboy. Well, Mike Reno's got a big part in it. But where's Paul Dean? Okay, playing guitar maybe. But okay, but back to Alfie. You had nothing to do with the pizza no pizza. Pizza, no. The jingle it's been on since the mid-20th century. Right, right. But Elfie and I wrote one of his singles.

When would that have been in the aughts at some point? He was over at my place and we were in there working on the song and my kids got home from school and after Alfie left my house, my son Miles said that was the loudest sound I've ever heard because he's just got such a gigantic sound. vocally that even if he's just in your office working on a song, he's shaking the foundations. 439. Go for it.

Oh, oh, pizza nova. Yeah, it's a big sound, man. But I got to say, if you want Italian food, Don, you don't want pizza nova. What you want to do is you want to go to Palma pasta because you're a Mississauga man. And Palma's kitchen, where is it, Seminic courts? So it's near like Mavis and Burnham Thorpe. It's, oh, is that where the kitchen is the location I go to? That's the headquarters, but there are a few locations.

The one I am, I do patronize Palmapasta. Glad to hear it. It's fantastic. I think it's near Queensway and 10. Oh yeah, here, Ontario and Queensway. 100%. I've been to that location too. And not only that, but Octopus wants to fight is my favorite IPA.

Okay, so I have, this is a great, great segue. I don't actually, so I don't have any octopus for you right now. but I do have fresh cans of Great Lakes beer. The Sunnyside Session IPA was just brewed for the last time this season. So you're a lucky man to get a couple of cans of that because soon that'll be replaced by the octopus fighting weight. That's the lighter octopus wants to fight. So they do that during the winter and then they come back to the sunny side.

So you've got a couple of Sunnyside Session IPAs. You've got their go-to Canuck Pale Ale and you got a delicious logger. That's courtesy of Great Lakes brewery. That's fantastic. I will keep one of those sunny sides closed forever as a collector's item. Well, it'll be back next spring. You don't need to do that. Okay, never mind that.

You got to drink that. But I did have an octopus last night on the balcony. Okay, I love octopus too. But if I have a couple of octopuses during a recording, I'm slurrying my speech at the end of that, damn. You know, the thing hits you pretty good. Yes, it's not polite. It'll get in you.

That's why when I'm recording, I've got to drink the fighting weight octopus, you know. But that's going home with you. And I mentioned Palmipasta. I have in my freezer upstairs a large frozen lasagna from Palma pasta. Fantastic. Is that going home with me too? Yes, if I'm not clear, you are absolutely taking home with you. That's an empty box.

But in my freezer. Should I do this to camera? Yeah, sure. You know, shout out to the Petrucci family and Palmipasta. Great sponsors for almost a decade now. And, of course, Great Lakes is hosting us. So, Don, this is in the east of Young. It's a long way for you.

But everybody take a note. Everybody. That means you. Jarvis and Queens Key Okay, lower Jarvis, they call it when you're that south actually in Toronto. So it's a lower Jarvis and Queens Key is the GLB Brew Pub and we're all collecting there on Monday, September 28. That's 12 days from now for TMLX 23.

Everybody, everybody is invited. It's 6 to 9 p.m. Just show up, meet some great FOTMs. There'll be some grub. You'll get a beer on the house. And I want to meet you and chat with you up. So everybody's invited, even you, Don. Well, I might just make the scene.

I don't know. What night of the week is that? Monday. It's a Monday. Okay, well, September 28. Okay, I got my fingers crossed that I'm available. And I'm sure you're a musician. You probably got old cables, I don't know, old devices, old electronics in some kind of a closet or a drawer, just there.

I don't know why you've got all this stuff done. But if you throw that in the garbage, those chemicals will end up in our landfill. So please go. to recycle my electronics.ca. Put in your postal code there in Mississauga and find out where you can drop that off to be properly recycled. You got it?

I got it. You're taking notes over here. I do in fact have boxes of stuff like that. And I bet. I mean, I'm guilty of this too. Every once in a while, I'm like, why am I holding on to like eight ISDN cables or whatever? Like stuff I just, that has been completely like antiquated at this point.

Like, you know, Ether, I got so many Ethernet cables. Well, you don't need unlimited Ethernet cables. So either give them to somebody who needs them or go to Recycle My Electronics.com. I just got off a call. This is my last shed. Well, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. They sent over a, where is it?

That's like a measuring tape meets flashlight meets leveler meets, what else is that bottle opener? That's good. As long as there's no knife, I can get it through security at the airport. It's not as dangerous as a Emmy Award. That's for sure there. But thank you to Ridley Funeral Home. Listen to Life's Undertaking for Ridley Funeral Home.

Great podcast, Brad Jones puts out. And last but not least, I just got off a call with Nick Aienis. And we are going to record a live podcast with Karen Stints at the Old Mill on October 7th, 7 p.m. So I believe, I believe it's a free event. So if you're nearby or whatever, the old mill, find us October 7, 7 p.m. come hang with us as Nick chats up, Karen Stints. Okay, here's what I want to do. We're covering, actually, maybe I should just pepper your questions,

but I do want to get the origin story, but can I ask you about another FOTM friend of Toronto Mike who just delighted me in this basement, and then I just got word. She was canceling concerts because she's unwell, and I'm personally, I'm concerned, and I don't like hearing that news because I love this woman very much.

You toured with Sass Jordan? Yes, I toured with Sass Jordan in the late 90s. And I heard just yesterday that she wasn't doing great as well. I would hesitate to speak for anyone there. We don't know. It made me sad. But she's obviously a dynamic, incredible performer and has been going great guns for decades. Great voice.

Yeah, and that was sort of my first proper role. rock and roll tour where the tour bus pulled up in front of my house and picked me in my gear up and off we went to um first stop was calgary maybe on that tour yeah and um and it she was still certainly in the peak of her popularity in those days i rode easy yeah we did that every night and uh you know got to know uh some great musicians including her guitar player husband, Derek Sharp. We have the former Guess Who. That's right.

Yeah, an extraordinary songwriter and singer. Right. Right. Although we could do a whole episode about the Guess Who saga. But yeah, we agree on Sass Jordan, I think. And I have seen Sass Jordan live. She played Colonel Samuel Smith Park in South Atobico, which they used to have this great thing called,

Lake Shore, Marty Gras. Yeah, I did it one year with brass transit with my horn band. Which is like, that's like Chicago? What is that? Like, yeah. Yes. Our trumpet player, Tony Carlucci, started this eight-piece Chicago tribute. And we thought we'd be just doing it, you know, at the orbit room once a month to kind of play that music.

Ah, I hear that. And it turned out to be easy to book that band. And so we're all over the place. Amazing. Yeah. The automation software heard of the ones who could not stay. The automation software heard the word Chicago and just started playing this song. I don't know what came over here.

But this is tell me the significance of this Chicago song all over the world. And you, Dawn Bright Up. Well, the background is when we started that band Brass Transit, our lead singer was, Neil Donnell, who you're hearing on that Chicago song. And at a certain point, I guess, they became aware of Neil, and they were looking for a new lead singer to do the high stuff. And Neil, I mean, technically, was just obviously the guy for that. And once he was in the band, they decided to start making studio albums again.

And I got the call from Neil that they were looking for songs. so we cooked up that song all over the world and made it onto the record. And the cool, well, it was all cool, but the best part for me was I had, because we were demoing a song for Chicago, ghosted in all these horn parts on the demo. Once they took the song, they said, I hope this is okay with you. Our trombone player, James Pankow, is going to do the horn chart. And I said, well, the foremost horn arranger on the, the planet Earth is going to do the horn chart that's fine with me wow yeah this is that's an

this is like uh what is it i don't know uh journey or something like you get these stories of these bands who need a new lead singer and uh oh there's a like a there's somebody like a almost like a cover artist or something and there's somebody out there who already knows the music i think a lot of times those decisions are made uh in a hurry and it helps if somebody already knows the sure book Excuse me. No. Yeah.

And they didn't make a lot of hay out of that story that, like, Neil just kind of became the guy in that group. Only because the story's been told already. Like, you know, it's not original anymore because we've heard it before. But it's wild that you were in the, like, your connection to all that is unbelievable. Yeah, well, you know, I had been writing music like that because Chicago is one of my formative influences. So that was an assignment I completely understood. Let's write a Chicago song. Okay, I have all the tools right here.

You've been waiting for that call your whole life. Right. Okay, do you want to go back now? Like, this is a good time. I feel like, because I was doing a little digging, like, where did you come from? And I know you were raised in Mississauga. Although, fun fact, born in Sue St. Marie. Born in Sue St. Marie.

Yeah. And once I got out of school, I lived in Toronto for a really long time. Young in Eggleton, Young in Summerhill, Christy St. Clair, Avenue Road in Davenport. Not really properly downtown at any point, but... No, that's like, what am I sure what, but that's where you could throw a rock and hit Casaloma or something. Yeah, Midtown kind of thing. And worked for Sam the Record Man, worked for A&A records, you know. Oh, at Young and Dundas?

Yeah. Wow. Those were the go-to spots for yours truly. Maybe I bought a CD from you or something. That's entirely possible. Yeah. It's probable. Okay. But your father was a jazz piano enthusiast. That's the term. Would you concur? Yes. He was the reason I was, you know, when you're 10 years old and you're a Dave Brubach fan and Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans fan, people look at you funny.

But that was all because of dad. And he never did it professionally, but I could definitely play the piano and, and, you know, turned me on to a lot of great music. And my mom was holding on the classical side. She was a classical soprano who ran the choir at the church and all that kind of thing. So music was everywhere in your home growing up. It was. And you know, when you're a kid, you think every household is like your household. And, you know, we were going to concerts all the time.

And there were always records playing. And I just thought, oh, everyone's house is full of music. like that. Yeah. And it's not so. Not so. You were a very lucky man. So who are you, I mean, you mentioned these jazz music, these, you know, Oscar Peterson,

Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck, these penists were big influences on you, obviously. But in the pop world, the pop music world, like, who are the piano-based artists that would have inspired a young Don bright up? Well, predictably Elton John, given when I was a kid and, you know, Billy Joel. Sure. But people forget about Robert Lamb from Chicago who wrote and sang a lot of their greatest stuff and was their piano player. Let's see who else. I mean, McCartney played piano.

And so anyone who kind of sat at a piano and wrote music and sang it was kind of my ground floor. Absolutely. So basically is the first chapter of your, like, because your life is so full. and we're going to get to, we got to talk Monkey House, obviously, but we need to talk about Steely Dan, which is, I think I'm going to close with the Steely Dan stuff. Okay. Yeah, and it just occurred to me that I forgot to say Burton Cummings,

because that, he was absolutely one of those original singer-piano player guys. Also on, not only as a solo artist, but with the guess who, he's also on that, oh, what a feeling, four-disc does that. Oh, for sure, he might be on there more than once. You know what? I bet you're right. you there's at least a couple of guess who songs on that there's probably american woman and these eyes or something like that yeah that and that was the first show i ever went rock show i ever went to

guess who wow wow 72 i was a little kid at the cn e grandstand amazing okay so we're learning a lot about you so i've already dropped names i've dropped written names like alfie zappacosta i love talking about althy mark jordan but you know some more i guess younger artists i guess and i say younger about my age, is that younger? But Sarah Sleen, you worked with Sarah Sleen? Yeah, well, Sarah, um, go ahead.

Sarah and I have, uh, worked together on and off for years, mostly around the songs that I write with my brother, Jeff. And so we do these, uh, in New York and here mostly,

we do these evenings of our original material with kind of an array of amazing overqualified. singers, and Sarah has consented to be one of those singers on multiple occasions and has recorded a couple of our songs as well. Okay, I'm glad you brought up your brother, Jeff, because would this be known as the Bright Up brothers? The Bright Up brothers, which is a bit of a misnomer, because there is a third Brightup brother who's not involved in the songwriting partnership, my brother Ross. Okay, so that two out of three ain't bad. I think Meatloaf said that, but this is, uh, successful duo, like, because, I mean, you mentioned,

is it the American songwriting competition and the international songwriting competition that you guys have won? We won the jazz category, yeah, twice. And we've also been up on the short list for this award in New York that's specifically for theatrical songwriting called the Fred Ebb Award.

Cool. Yeah. Sounds impressive to me. What do I know? Now, now here, I wonder if I can test, your memory because of course you've got the Emmy Award. Okay, they can't take that Emmy away from you. But I know at least three songs that you co-wrote have been nominated for Juno Awards. I don't think any of them have won, but can you name the three songs you co-wrote that have been nominated

for Juno Awards? Oh, geez. Okay. I'm really testing you here, but if you don't know, who would. Yeah, this was in the 90s when I was doing a lot of work at a studio in Toronto called Marigold and ended up writing or co-producing or playing keyboards on a lot of their stuff. And Debbie Johnson was one of the artists, and probably Power to the People was one of those songs. Okay. Let's see. Oh, and I wrote a ballad with James Collins for an artist called Carol Medina,

and I think that way till my heart finds out was that, the name of that song. Are you checking this as I go? I trust you in place. Are you kidding me? I trust you of my life at this point. Don't hit me of that Emmy. Oh, I know. I also had a nomination in the dance, best dance recording category for a song of Debbie Johnson's called I'll Respect You. And then I was not nominated for another Juno for years until Monkey House. My band got nominated for one a few years ago. Okay, give me the Monkey House story. I need the Monkey House story now.

Well, it's actually the right time to tell it because it has to do with that studio Marigold. Marigold is the studio belonging to Rich Dodson, who was the guitar player for the Stam Peters and co-wrote, I mean, wrote a lot of their hits, including Sweet City Woman. Which is on the Oh, What a Feeling compilation. That's right. That is the yarn with which we will tie it all together.

It's one of the first, maybe one of the first three songs. Like, it's a guess who song. and then maybe that and then maybe Lighthouse or whatever. Yeah. Pagliero, perhaps. Somewhere. Yeah. Anyway, over the course of working at that studio for, I guess, at the time,

maybe five or six years, I had built up this body of work, which were pop songs that I had pitched to people that were working at the studio coming in to do records. And they would think maybe the lyrics were a little off-kilter or there it was too jazzy or there were too many chords or how do I count that one part in the middle? And so ended up with a pile of those songs. And finally, Rich said, you know, maybe you are the artist for those songs that people are only semi-understanding.

And why don't you get a band together and we'll make, you'll be the artist. And so come up with a name and let's make a record. And that was Monkey House. circa about 92 or 93. And we were lucky enough to get signed to Aquarius Records, one of the great Canadian indie labels. Speaking of some 41, that was their label. Wow.

And as a consequence of that, my first record was distributed by EMI and got a whole bunch of airplay on both rock stations and AC stations. So at one point I was in heavy rotation at CHFI. Shum FM and KFM and a lot of big stations in this immediate area.

That's amazing. Yeah. So that, it kicked off really well. And fortunately for me, people gave a damn enough to say, when's the next one? And so I've continued to record with them

and I'm just in pre-production for the next one now. And I see you have a CD with you there. Yeah, I'm going to leave that with you. That's the latest one. Okay, this is the latest monkey house. Yeah. Okay.

Cash box. Don't call it cash box. Okay. All right. So you can write a song about your Toronto mic debut for the next, next monkey house CD. It's not too late. It could happen.

It's never too late. Well, until it is. Okay. But then we shed out really funeral home. Okay. Couple more. And again, we're talking about non-FOTMs, of course.

And we're going to talk about Steely Dan in a moment. But I do focus on the friends of Toronto. Toronto Mike to have been on the program. We're approaching 2,000 episodes. Okay, this is 1972, but here's a couple here. I want to ask you about. Ron Sexsmith. Well, Ron Sexsmith universally

adored as a songwriter. Right. And when Jeff and I were putting together kind of our dream team of singers for our album just passing through, to cover our stuff, we went to Ron, who we knew a little bit,

but not a lot. And he liked the song Any Day Now, which we had recently finished at that point, and consented to sing it on the album. And part of the fun part about that record is that a lot of the people who are on there covering our stuff are writers like Sarah and like Ron that we have immense respect for as well as Ian Thomas. Well, he's the next name I'm going to ask you about Ian Thomas because we haven't talked about Ian. Ian's been on a couple of... Well, once he was on just Ian Thomas,

which was great. We did a deep dive with Ian about his great career. But I had him on with his brother. So Dave Thomas and Ian Thomas together, and that was an unbelievable conversation because Dave will tell you Ian's the funny one. That's what they say.

Well, I've been around Ian when he's been hysterical. So, in fact, the song that he did on our record has a clarinet. It's kind of a Randy Newmanish song, and it's got a clarinet solo in the middle. And on one of the takes, Ian was on the mic, listening to the clarinet solo in his cans, and said,

that's me on the clarinet, eh? Excellent clarinet solo. And went into that character, and I desperately wanted to include that on the album, but I was outvoted. Oh, come on, your vote should count more than one vote. I'm going to randomly just play a song, and you're going to tell me a little bit about it

before we talk about Steely Dan. Sure. We'll see if you can recognize it here. Can you name this song? That is Swing Balboa down on Riverside. I co-wrote with Alan Paul from the Manhattan Transfer and they recorded it on their, I guess what was considered at the time

kind of a comeback album called The Junction. Very cool. I remember the boy from New York City and all this stuff growing up. was seen, yeah, Manhattan transfer. That's cool. You got to co-write a song for them. Yeah. And it's a good argument for being in the same city as the people you're writing with because Alan called me one morning and said, hey, can you drive up here?

I want to start something. And, you know, 20 minutes later, I was in his garage working on that song. So, you know, you can say it's a small world and you can fly anywhere and you can work with people over Zoom or digitally, but there's nothing like showing up in person. No, totally. That's why I made you visit my home studio here instead of letting you zoom in. Yeah, well, I got over here in no time today. It was perfect.

Can you believe Mike Reno said no? I'm still processing that. I'm happy to gang up on Mike with you just for the fun of it. Well, because later today when I talk to Paul Dean, I'm going to crap all over his bandmate. They're getting into some Canadian songwriters Hall of Fame together. That's what made them like suddenly available. But I got word Mike Reno said no. And I was like, I need to talk to him about tears are not enough. You don't say no to Toronto, Mike.

Well, I noticed just the other day that they were in the next crop of songwriters Hall of Fame. With the hip. Yeah, with the hip. And who else Feist? Feist is there too, 100%. And Rockvozine. And Rockvozine. Yeah. It's funny. I said the hip. And in my mind, I can hear, it's funny. We talked about Sass Jordan, who, great musician. you were all over, Q-N-07 and everything, great musician, but became pretty famous in this country for being a judge on Canadian Idol. Okay? And then Jake Old, after Gordownie and the hip said,

Peace Out to him, he also became a judge on Canadian Idol. And I always remember I'd say the hip, because a lot of us say the hip, and he'd be like, it's the tragically hip. Or if you'd say the, you got to get all three words in there, apparently. It's the tragically hip. You've got to say them all.

Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I would think anywhere in this country, you could say the hip and they know what you're talking about. Or maybe, I'm trying to think about he objects to. He's possible he objects to leaving the out of there. Like if you just said tragically hip, he would call you out and say, you know. But that's always a great.

Yeah, that's always a great area with bands like talking heads insist that you don't say the. Yeah, sometimes they care, but I ask Gordep about whether it's spoons or the spoons. And he said he did not care. You know, that's the attitude. You know what? That's the way to go. Like, be glad we care about your damn art, okay? Man.

Okay. So I know I want to close, but can you tell me about any upcoming projects? You sound like you're very active doing things all the time. Anything you want to tease? Well,

let's see. I mean, I'm about 14 songs into pre-production for the next Monkey House record, which I expect to be tracking sometime in 2027. Cool. With some special guests,

can't name names yet. Can you give us a clue or no? Well, Jay Graydon may be one of them. Okay, that's a big, clue. Yeah, because I think one of our co-writes will be on that record. I also have another book project simmering this fall. I do some work with a podcast in the U.S. called Inside Music Cast. And they started out as just a kind of long-form interview show where they would talk to top studio musicians, you know, like Steve Lukather or Steve Gad or all comes back to

All the steves. Yeah. And I said to them one time, you know, you might have the makings of a book there. Right. So this fall, I'm going to kind of distill all the stuff that they've done and try to make it a compendium of interviews with top studio guys. I love it. I love it. Well, it starts of a book and then it becomes some docu series on HBO or something.

Yeah. Well, it's already a podcast, so we can't turn it into that. That's okay. You got to get some of that. Oh, I don't know. Who owns HBO these days? Who knows what's going on in the TV land? But very cool.

Anything else before I play a band we've mentioned a couple of times? Well, I'm still very busy with Brass Transit doing gigs playing Chicago stuff. We're up in Gravenhurst this weekend. And we are all over the U.S. in the next 12 months, including San Francisco and Atlantic City and South Florida and North Dakota even. Fargo? Your line is quit bragging. I was going to say, I only know Fargo, thanks to the Cohen brothers.

Yeah, well, that band's been to, I think, about 47 states now, and we'll be ticking off another one with North Dakota. Right, and then let me guess. It's Alaska and Hawaii are the holdouts. No, we've been to Hawaii. Oh, you've been to Hawaii. Oh, geez. Okay, well, I got, what is it, Montana? What do you miss in there?

I would have to, is it Wyoming? I think Wyoming may. I think Wyoming, Maine, and North Dakota might be the last three. And Alaska. No, yeah, in Alaska. All right. You ready? I am ready.

It's a song you didn't write. You wish he wrote this song. It's true. What are we listening to, Don? That is side one, track one of the 1977 Steely Dan album, Asia. The song is Black Cow. What is the significance of this fine album by Steely Dan in your life? Well, everybody's got a favorite album.

This happens to be mine. And that's especially that first song, I remember hearing it for the first time on the headphones and just having my head explode. It is a headphone jam. Like, it's better with headphones on. It really is. That's why it won awards for high fidelity.

and engineering and all that stuff. But you're aware, I'm sure, of this book series 33 and a third. Absolutely. And it had started, I guess, in the early 2000s. And they had done a lot of the usual suspects like Led Zeppelin IV and Let It Be and that kind of thing. And so I just got a wild hair going one day and Cold called the series editor. New York and basically cursed him out for not having done a Steely Dan book yet. And his response was, well, maybe you should pitch us on a Steely Dan book.

And so I did. And they green lit it. And it was a great ruse because I got to talk to Donald Fagan. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's a big deal. And he rarely participates in any kind of official books or anything. I think mine might be the only one.

and I got to sit in his studio with him and pick his brain about my favorite record for a few hours. It was fantastic. Were you allowed to record the audio or no? Yes, I have two digital voice recorders with that interview on there for posterity. Okay, posterity. Are you allowed to put that out in public or would that violate some trust? Well, it might be, that would be something I would have to run by him before I did it. Yeah.

You know, I was very intimidated going in there because he's famously. kind of prickly with journalists. So I said, look, I'm not going to ask you any of the top 10 dumb Steely Dan questions. And he said, okay, that's good with a kind of overtone of, okay, that's good, I'll let you live. He won't kill you of a Grammy.

It became clear to him, I think, pretty quickly that I wanted to talk about arranging and musicians and production and all the nuts and bolts of making the record. And he was very happy to do that. That's amazing. So the 33 and a third series is very popular. And your volume,

I even took a note on it. I believe it's 46. So volume 46 of the 33 and a third series is both Steely Dan's Asia. And you are the, you wrote, did you write it with Jeff or by yourself? No, no, I wrote that one by yourself.

And I think that volume sells fairly well. And the great thing is, if you're an author about being part of a series, is the book stays in print for a long time. You know, it doesn't kind of go out there and do its thing and then fade away because that's an ongoing series and they're always adding to it.

And people are always discovering Steely Dan, like the youngsters are like, what is this? And it's like, it sounds, because I was listening to this when I loaded it up and I'm like, it sounds fresh.

Like this song sounds fresh in 2026. Yeah, part of the secret of that is they didn't use a lot of synthesizers. and that's the number one way to date your, your music. So the spoons tell me. Living in the 80s, okay. They would.

Yeah, I agree with you 100% there. Let me just ask you, one more name here on our way out though, because she's no longer with us, but an absolute legend, maybe the biggest name we'll talk about today. It's all debatable, of course, but did you perform with Aretha Franklin?

I did. I got a phone call one afternoon, noon from Rama where she was going to be playing. And my friend Guido Basso, who was also passed. I have the feeling he called me because I lived further north than any keyboard player that he knew. But he basically said, are you paid up with the union? Do you have a black suit?

Get up here now. They had already rehearsed. Her keyboard player couldn't get across the border that day. And so I You needed a keyboard player You got thrown into the fire And one of my all-time favorite artist I was just pinching myself

Particularly during the part of the show Where I'm sitting at one keyboard rig And Aretha's at the piano Right beside me singing Bridge Over Troubled Water And Unbelievable It was incredible

You're living the life right Like can you get a pinch yourself right Not to wake yourself up But to know what's really happening This life of yours I would agree with that. Yeah. I mean, there have been a lot of those things where I think,

am I really in this room working with this person? Holy shit. No, what you really are thinking is, am I really in the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame? Like, did that happen? And it did. And did the great Rick Emmett say nice words about me on my induction? Unbelievable.

Did we miss anything? Like, I know here I am playing the closing theme, but did we miss anything? No, well, I mean, when I do a couple more things, I'll come back and talk to you again. Do more things so you can have a sequel. Okay? Yeah.

Am I officially henceforth in FOTM? Yeah, they can't take that away from you, just like that Emmy Award. They can't take it away from you. By way, speaking of awards, I got to ask on the way out because I have been told by some people that possibly the great legend that is David Foster can be rather prickly. Was he prickly with you? He was not. He was happy to talk with me, and I think that was mainly,

because his old songwriting partner, Jake Graydon, was vouching for me. Okay. If I'd gone in cold, maybe not. I've heard stories, but glad to hear it. Glad to meet you. We'll take a photo by Toronto Tree, which was named by Dave Thomas.

Yeah, for mention, SCTV alumni. And I'll make sure I get your frozen lasagna out of the freezer before we go. But don't forget your Great Lakes beer, and I hope to see you and everybody else on September 28th, that GLB Brew Pub. Six o'clock. everybody's invited.

Thank you, Mike. Great being here. And thanks for the gifts. I can learn more about FOTM Mark Jordan and maybe share it with the guy he wants to make a doc about him. So I'll tell you after who it is. But that and that brings us to the end of our 1,9702nd show.

Go to Toronto Mike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. And much love to all who made this possible. Again, that is Great Lakes Brewery. delicious fresh craft beer here. Palma Pasta. Delicious Italian food. Nick Aienis, he's at Old Mill at the Old Mill on October 7th. Recycle MyElectronics.ca and of course, Ridley Funeral Home.

See you all. Well, tomorrow you're going to hear my conversation with Paul Dean from Loverboy. We'll see how hard I am on legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Mike Reno. So stay tuned for that one. See you all then.