Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Eric Alper Kicks Out the Jams: Toronto Mike'd #569

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Mike catches up with musicologist Eric Alper before he kicks out the jams.

Welcome to episode 569 of Toronto Mike. 69! Lucky you. A weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, The Keitner Group, and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week to kick out the jams

is musicologist Eric Alper. Without a title. Without a degree. I was trying to think, like, is that a proper designation for you? You are a musicologist, but you're self... I'm self-read. Yeah, it was strange when somebody first called me that,

and I thought, oh, I wonder if... I hope I don't get into trouble, because that's like a degree. That's like calling, you know, Mr. Mike, or Dr. Mike. Or Dr. Mike. You can't just call yourself a doctor. There's laws against that. But nobody has come up to you and said you prove you're a musicologist right right exactly it's like i know

besides to singles does that help and then it would be like no but um in spirit how about that could i call myself a musicologist i like music you can call yourself a doctor i mean you really could you heal people through the power of podcasting oh i'm gonna test our lives you make people feel good you know you've already prescribed me four balls of ambience so you know and i haven't even sat down yet that's not a bad idea i uh want to let people know that this is not your first visit because although i noticed your visits are like an hour long so you you really are good at keeping us wanting more is that by design no it just it feels like um look my wife doesn't even want to listen to hear me talk for two hours and so why

would anybody else but the last time i was here we had a really good conversation and then i had to go and tape my show right and we just lost track of time so we never got to do my you never got to kick out your jam so you're back to so let me tell people if they want to go back to that conversation. And I'll even read the description so we can remember what you talked about. But in this 509th episode, Mike chats with Eric Alper about his career in PR, the stars he's worked with, his grandfather's tavern. Remind us who your grandfather was. Al Grossman from Grossman's tavern in toronto on

spadina that's a big deal yeah it it is in in my in my life it's one of the the the first and big influences that uh got me into music in the first place and is it fair to say that if not for that you probably aren't a musicologist i'm nowhere near this life if it wasn't for him you know we all kind of look back and say, well, what was our passion? What was the spark that generated everything? And for me, it was hanging out at the bar when I was seven and eight and nine years old, realizing that music is part of the community. It's like how chefs see food.

They don't see food as a healthy way to get calories. They see food as a way to bring the family together three times a day and music for me was like that too well we god i don't know what i would do i was gonna ask you like would you be an actuary or no you're not smart enough i have no other skills whatsoever i i'm horrible at everything else but music was something that i just latched on to as a fan first really really early on how often do you get a haircut? Once a year. This is my last one that I'm ever going to have for the rest of my life.

I've told myself that. What if you get like, and I don't know, my hair's never been that long, but split ends, you don't get issues with that? I do. I just go on. You don't have to clean that up? I do, but I go on like self-destroy missions when I'm sitting in the car in traffic.

I'll just like rip them off myself. How's that for gross stuff at 1030 in the morning? Oh, hey, it's never too early for a real talk. Okay. What is the reason that you've decided to never cut your hair again? I look like a dweeb when I was 13 and I had my bar mitzvah and I just look at those pictures and I cringed and I realized that when I was 13 and 14 and I started to grow my hair out, a girl started noticing me. And so if that wasn't a reason to do anything in this world, you know, talking about music, I mean, is there any reason why anybody picks up a guitar when they're a teenager?

Because it's like, yeah, I just, you know, the earrings and the long hair, it just kind of, it suited, it just suited me. And I never liked short hair on me. I never put any ponytail. I can never do that. Now, I mean, what a tangent because I'm actually still in the middle of the description here.

So, okay, so your grandfather's tavern, his daughter's success. So how's your daughter doing? She's great. She's in school right now. She's going to be turning 17 and she's in school right now um she's going to be turning 17 and she's a blogger she's an author she has her first book out called momentous that is out it's how to find your spark how to do things that you want to do and how old is your

daughter again she's she's turning 17 next week see she wrote the book at 15 you're making my 15 year old daughter look bad i never wrote a book she makes the 49 year old me i mean forget about anything i mean when she was when she started her blog at age nine i was thinking what i was doing at age nine and it was essentially playing in mud you know collecting baseball cards yeah i was doing nothing you know she's like getting a hundred thousand hits a month on her blog oh yeah yeah, she's exceptional. And you must be ridiculously proud. Elated. Every time I look at her, I burst with pride.

And not just because of that, but because she's a really, really great kid. And much, much more. This episode is exactly one hour and seven minutes and seven seconds. So we're going to have the same length this time. We have jams to kick out, so this preamble won't be as long as normal but i want to know if you can share quickly uh how did you build up your twitter account you're sort of a famous tweeter yeah um i started twitter a almost uh almost 11

years ago back in like 2009 and i just got on there just for giggles, really. It was just a chance for me to share the things I was reading, things that I loved, the songs I loved, and I just started tweeting more and more and more. Now it's about 52 times a day what I tweet from 7 in the morning till 2 in the morning on the half hour. But it's all designed to be pro-music. I don't care what kind of music people are into, chances are they're

going to find something that they love whether it's classic rock or new music or talking about charts or talking about the historical value or birthdays or anniversaries of albums and uh for me it's just a chance to to kind of purge my little brain of of what i'm seeing and hearing every single day and people seem to kind of latch on to that. So watch your back, Alan Cross. Alper's coming. You know, it's funny because Alan and I have had this conversation.

Whenever something bad in the music industry happens, whenever there's a lawsuit, wherever there's some sort of controversy, I don't talk about that stuff because I learned

really early on that you never know as a publicist or working at a record label who your next artist is going to be. So keep it positive. Yeah, keep it positive. There's no reason to go snark or angry.

Alan, God love him, can do that because that's kind of his job. He's a commentator, but he's also on the radio. So he has to have an opinion. He's more of a journalist. He's definitely more of a journalist. I'm more of an enthusiast more than anything else recent episode with sean mckenzie uh revealed sean was uh unabashedly a massive nickelback fan so i'm pulling up an old nickelback song to ask you how like how in your career how are you tied to nickelback so the first label i worked at was

a label called Shoreline Records. It was a small record label that was based just north of Toronto. And they had three artists. They had Patricia Conroy. They had the Nylons. And they had the first EP from Nickelback. They signed the band when they were virtually unknown. And it was at the time when Chad's mother would be calling up radio stations,

personally herself, asking them to please play the band. They gave us the EP. I worked the EP for a little bit, and then they gave us the first real album. Which was The State. The State. This song is from The State. We heard this album,

and we thought, can I swear on this? Yep. We thought, holy shit, this band is going to be huge, and there's no way that we can afford to do it. So they went off and they signed the big record label deal

with Roadrunner and EMI, and that was it. So I got to work them before they broke. Wow, okay, so just a few seconds of early Nickelback from The State, which is an album I still defend. I think it's a great album. I will defend these guys to the end of the earth. Not only are they a great rock band, in the style of ACDC,

they make this stuff look really easy, but it's really hard. He's a great songwriter, and the four guys are the nicest guys you will ever want to meet in this industry, hands down. I dig it, okay? You know what?

It's funny, you know, going back to this whole Alan Cross, Nickelback thing. And Alan, like, we love you here. Like, there's no... Oh, yeah. You know, there's nothing about that. I remember when there was a petition going around

for Nickelback to not play the super bowl remember that of course and that was really big news back then and i was doing a slew of interviews across the media about um about this and all the jocks would be trying to goad me and say you know come on like don't you think that they really have a point and i would be like no they don't and they were like you're you're not against you know you're against free speech i'm like absolutely but they're wrong you know um and so i would take one side of it as opposed to giving any credence to the other side of it so that's how i kind of work okay so so alan cross is still i know he doesn't work there's a permanent full-time employee but he's still

affiliated with uh with the Chorus radio station. Yeah, absolutely. What are your thoughts? I'm curious because you like the same kind of music. You like a lot of different kind of music, but we both like listening to alt-rock and new rock, and 102.1 was a go-to station for a long time. So what do you think today?

I think the ratings lately show, I believe, the ratings that I've seen anyways in the targeted demos that, uh, 88.1 is caught. Yeah. What is your thoughts on that? Would you have seen that coming like a few years ago? I don't even think anybody even at chorus or indie 88 saw that coming.

Um, you know, what you're referring to is like every, every quarter there's a book of ratings that, that decide what the ad rates are going to be. And it just basically, you know, figures out what everybody's listenership is.

And the Edge has had a lock on the station in terms of New Rock for decades. Since you and I probably were listening back in the 80s when they were CFNY, the Spirit of Radio, playing The Cult and The Cure and Depeche Mode and all these amazing bands. And then Indie 88, I think what it is, is that there's never i

don't think it says anything about indie 88 and the edge specifically i think what it's telling everybody is that nobody knows what to do now thanks to music streaming thanks to podcasting thanks to everything available um audio format at your fingertips and thanks to netflix like it people cannot under appreciate or undervalue um or overstate what netflix has done to the entertainment industry it's allowed people to be okay with streaming services in general and that made it okay for people to be you know listening to podcasts and and it's only one step away but i think what it means specifically for this city is that the rock and the pop that everybody is playing in the city they could find on spotify they can find whenever they want to

they're not looking for some music director to tell them what they should be listening to because rightfully so radio isn't a different game they're playing this they're playing the first single of an album from an artist when spotify already has seven songs from that album over 10 million streams like they're behind because they have to be behind so things are moving so quick and indie 88 seems to be a little bit faster on the mark because they're not interested in breaking hits. They want the brand association of new artists. What does this tell us?

What's going to happen in the future? What happens to music on radio in the future? I think there'll always be music on the radio. I think where it seems to be going is Bell, Rogers, Shaw, and Stingray are leaning in this country towards national programming where there's one music director or one program director. Homogenization. What happened to the good old days

of the local hits? Remember this? Lowest of the low, Toronto. You know what, as a publicist, I was so used to working radio with artists. So I would be going to radio stations asking them if they can play this specific song. I would be going to secondary markets first. I'd be going to radio stations, asking them if they, if they can play this specific song. And I would be going to secondary markets first.

I'd be going to Sudbury. So say Marie Timmons stations that weren't really relying on. We've, we've got massive competition like Q and Oh seven, you know, um, I would be going to them first, building the story and then proving to chum FM and CHFI and,

and Virgin radio that it was a hit over here so let's try it here now i can just walk into bell radio at 299 queen street and the person there handles like 17 radio stations so that's where it's going but the one thing that nobody can replace is local news traffic weather sports and that's really i think what these with these stations have to do is they have to start having the local flavor but you know what the genie's out of the bottle everybody's just kind of clamoring for their own space out there yeah it seems like a uh we're in an era where local is i mean you mentioned like yeah traffic weather uh news or whatever but local is kind of evaporating like i'm thinking like like

now is now no longer independent for the first time they just bought the georgia straight in vancouver right i was gonna bring that up too like so so like what i just national advertising it's gonna it's gonna eliminate the local um advertising revenues and make it into national advertisers for ford and gm, um, because that's where the money is. And, and, uh, um, but print advertising, I mean, that's a, that's a whole other, that's a whole other podcast about where journalism is going into, which I'm always happy to talk about, but it's, it's, it's scary. Cause I don't know, I don't know where it's going. I know that clicks matter. The truth doesn't matter anymore um headlines are everything

and uh um it's it's sad because i think that we're losing sight of of what's important as as people and we're just clogging our minds with with bullshit but at the end of the day i never tell people how to consume music that was my first rule of life was I don't care if you want to listen to it on cassette, on eight track, on vinyl, on CD, on streaming. I just want them to consume music with podcasting or with online or print. I'm not going to tell people how they should be consuming their entertainment or their news. I just want them to just be aware of every time that you click on this story that story that is far more important gets buried alive man i uh this loss of local like i i feel like yeah i mean maybe did you see that the toronto star merged their entertainment section

in the first section of the news are you reading my notes over here no no how good are those atomic eyes of yours? That's hilarious. I'm serious. It's the very next item. That's scary, and I love Ben Rayner from The Star, who's one of the greatest writers

this country has ever had to offer. So what's the future for Ben? Does he still have a, like, what about, okay, what about a Peter Howell? Only because he's, I saw him on my calendar. He's coming over next week.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, what happens to all the entertainment writers at The Star? I think it's, I think everything is just so up in the air. I don't know anymore, and I don't think they do. It's so easy to pull a review from Associated Press or Variety or Hollywood Reporter

and pay the license fee to print that in your local newspaper rather than paying a full-time writer, and we're seeing it. It's scary. I mean, and I'm not, I know. But do you know anything does ben still have his job yeah yeah yeah he's still he's still out there absolutely yeah i know he is too i just wanted has he ever been on the show yes he has he's a great oh it was fantastic yeah yeah it was really good i'm gonna get him back too but uh yeah i can i can say that i've had toronto star Star writers booked on the show for early 2020 who have asked to postpone

while things settle there at One Young Street. It'll never settle. It'll never settle. I'll be waiting a long time. Yeah, I think, you know, nobody, I used to say this with people in the music industry. It was like, you know, we were figuring out marketing plans

for seven months down the road and I'm looking at the staff going, we may not even be here at this time. Is that an E1? That's, that's everywhere. And that's everywhere. Now that I'm working with all sorts of different record labels, it's so, you know, everybody's just trying to, you know, look, everybody's just trying to keep the passion job going, you know, whether you're, you're, you you know whether in anything that has to be consumed by the general public it's if we all try to figure out what works we'd all be millionaires and billionaires well i gotta keep pumping out episodes of toronto mic so there's some local flavor here getting the you know the justin rutledge's of the world giving them a spotlight, right? Yeah. You know, yes. But you know, it's, I, I'm not, I'm not a

fool. I know that when I'm working with somebody new, they need to prove themselves. They need to prove to other people that they're worthy of sticking around for two or three years down the road. But I think that we're all interested more and more in these overnight sensations that are truly overnight sensation before using that term meant like oh this is the first i've heard about it but you didn't hear about the 1400 gigs that pearl jam did right before the album 10 now you're really truly hearing about 16 year olds on soundcloud getting three and a half million streams on their first single because drake happened to like a tweet of theirs you know

and so there's no method to the madness anymore so it's kind of exciting so what has legs right like what you know what is a i will use the term uh rush coined uh fly by night uh like like yeah is that one of your jams no it should i think at the end of the day as long as you're creating great songs because nobody has time for good anymore ain't nobody got time for that nay nobody's nobody's got time for great you know everybody has time for great series on netflix or great articles that are being written about or deep dives people will always have time for that okay so we're gonna get to these jams and while we kick out these jams of course more conversations will uh naturally evolve and and then i'll begin my uh pursuit of getting the third appearance of eric alp the third

hour we'll do this in one hour installments here but now i need to i need to give you gifts but first i want to tell everybody about the keitner group the keitner group is a group of real estate agents with uh kw and yesterday night, Austin Keitner came over and we did some recordings and I'm putting them together. We're calling this the Toronto Real Estate Minute with Austin Keitner of the Keitner Group at Keller Williams. And I've got a bunch of questions from FOTMs that he's answering, but I'm looking for more questions.

So if anybody out there has any question whatsoever about Toronto real estate, DM it to me at Toronto Mike or email it to Mike at Toronto Mike.com. But here's what Austin sounds like. My fellow Torontonians, real estate inventory in most markets is down by 27%. We have similar interest rates as we did two and a half years ago. We are similar conditions overall in the market as when we were at the peak. People who have been on the fence about selling are calling us right now to get free home evaluations. And a lot of them are surprised with how much their house is worth. If you're looking for a free home evaluation, just text Toronto Mike to 59559. That's Toronto Mike to 59559. and we'll get you a free valuation for myself or one of my listing

specialists okay thanks Austin cool now from Austin to Banjo Dunk uh and then after I play this I'm going to ask you uh if you have any Stompin' Tom uh stories so here's Banjo Dunk Duncan Fremlin here you know me as Banjo Dunk and on on April 16, 2020, I'll be bringing my band Whiskey Jack to Zoomer Hall in Liberty Village to host the 7th annual Stompin' Tom birthday celebration. This is the highlight of the year for our touring show, Stories and Songs of Stompin' Tom. This year, we'll be joined by FOTM and Funny Man Sean Cullen, as well as Great Big C's Murray Foster. More guests will be announced soon. The show will be broadcast live on Robbie Lane's nightly show on AM 740 and 96.7 FM. It'll also be streamed on the internet,

but there's nothing quite like being part of the crowd when everyone stands to sing what is clearly our national anthem, the hockey song. It's not a large theatre, folks, so get your tickets early. Go to hellooutthere.ca and click on show to buy your tickets. We'll see you April 16th. You're not supposed to be crazy to write songs like that, but it helps a hell of a lot.

Did you ever cross paths with Stompin' Tom Connors? I didn't, but, you know, one of the, I love music memorabilia, and I have a few really cool things in my house. But one of the things that I... I went to a silent auction once and they had the board that Stompin' Tom... The board? Well, a board.

A board, okay. It must have been a multiple. I think every show he probably had one. I always thought he had the one board. Oh, yeah, because he... It used to be, I remember now, back in the day when he always thought he had the one board. Oh yeah. Cause he used to be, I remember now back in the day when he was really active at the horseshoe and everything, he would go through a board at night.

Yeah. He was right. Yeah. So there was one that was up for auction and I lost out by $10 and I didn't feel so bad, but I shouldn't like it's that it's one of those things where I would have loved to be able to, to have,

to have, to have one of the boards. Yeah. Oh, maybe I can see if a banjo dunk, to have, to have, to have one of the boards. Yeah. Oh, maybe I can see if a banjo dunk, because he worked very closely with stomping. Maybe he's got a board lying around. I'll find out for you.

I have a sticker for you, Eric. I don't know if you got one last time. Did you get one? Okay. Where did you put it? Another one. Where'd you put it?

You're on my computer. Actually, this is live. Okay. Did you? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Uh, here's another one for you. Maybe for your, you pass it on to your daughter. Maybe. absolutely. Courtesy of sticker you.com they're actually uh launching a sticker museum and permanent sticker art exhibit at their location at 677 queen west uh so you can uh they're gonna have a party too but i'm gonna have more details on that everyone's invited that's january 30th but thank you sticker you.com great place to get your

stickers and your decals and your temporary tattoos etc etc etc eric i have a six pack of great lakes beer awesome for you fresh craft beer had a great meeting there yesterday was a very busy day i was at great lakes as well uh having a great meeting there with troy and they're all they're on board for 2020 uh Palma Pasta is also on board for 2020 because we're going to have another TMLX in December 2020 but don't worry I won't start promoting that yet it will start that promotion in November how does that sound here but thank you Palma Pasta you can go to palmapasta.com to find out where they are. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. Or you can find them on Skip the Dishes. Thank you.

Palma, tastiest Italian food in the GTA. Eric. Mike. Are you ready? I'm ready. To kick out the gems. I'm so ready to kick out my gems. Thank you. I can't escape it. You know, we might have kicked this out last time. Remember you had to go?

This was the last song, or this was the first song that we played at the end of the segment as a little bit of a teaser. Okay, good. I like that we start off with it again. Tell us why you love Talk Talk's life, what you make it.

You know, you asked me earlier about how I generated and gained the audience on Twitter. One of the things I love to do is ask questions. And although I don't necessarily give my own answer, I love reading other people's answers. And these go viral because

I see massive responses. 1,200, 1,500, 2,000 responses. And it's just fun things like, you know, what's a song with harmonica or what song would you like to have played on your funeral? And that was the first question that went viral where I had over 15,000 responses. And somebody asked me, what would mine be? And I thought for a second, and this was the song that I would want to have played.

Not because of the fact that it's one of the greatest songs I've ever heard, but I think more and more, the death of Mark Hollis, the lead singer, devastated me. It was one of the few people that I never got to meet that I know very little about because he rarely did interviews. I am obsessed with Talk Talk,

and this song is just so bizarre so weird and it's still uh it's still one of the greatest songs i've ever heard from one of my favorite all-time bands well that's a hell of a good reason to stick it on your jam list yeah first i mean whenever somebody asks me you know what it's funny because you know if somebody were just to come up to you and say quick what, what's your favorite song of all time? You, you, most people would just draw a blank. This is my go-to answer for them. But you know what?

You probably get that question more often than regular people. And I blank out. Because you're a musicologist. Yeah. It's like, hey, what's your, you know, because you got to think of a reason. It's like, well, should I say like a James Brown song to show how progressive I am? Or like, should i say like a james brown song to show how progressive i am or like should i do or the move would be to say like pick some obscure frank zappa song because you're so like part two right exactly just to show how cool i am no i'll go for mickey you know i'll

go for mickey by tony basil like who cares yeah oh that was a big jam when i was a kid yeah are you kidding me uh i'm trying to think in my head if I have an answer. You're right. You do need to. I've never kicked out the jams. Should I kick out the jams? You should. You know what? I'll come back for my third hour and I'll do an interview with you. Okay. It's a date. I was thinking, I'll kick out the jams

when you start answering your own Twitter question. Right. Ah, nice. Okay, so it's got that, yeah, of the era that sound uh sort of like how soon is now yeah that's exactly it the drums are weird i um the piano keeps going over and over again mark hollis's voice is one of the the most distinctive distinctive in music history and just, you know, what a loss. Let's kick out another jam. One, two, three.

All I need is a TV show That and the radio Down on my luck again Down on my luck again I can show you I can show you Some of the people in my life I can show you, I can show you Some of the people in my life I can show you, I can show you Some of the people in my life

It's driving me mad Just another way of passing the day I, I get so lonely in the day I I get so lonely when she's not there I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I

I I You just another face That I know from the TV show I have known you for so very long I feel like a friend Can't you do anything for me? Can I touch you for a while? Can I meet you on another day?

And we will fly away I can show you, I can show you Some of the people in my life I can show you, I can show you Some of the people in my life This traveling man It's just another way I gave her a couple of laps there. I'm digging it. What is the genesis of this choice?

The genesis of this choice is turn it on again. And if you know anything about me, or if there's one thing that you should know about me, I fall squarely in the Phil Collins led Genesis led genesis camp i get the peter gabriel era i don't understand it i tried i fucking tried i love peter gabriel's solo stuff they'd lost me between the years of 1969 and 1976 is it too prog rock like so it so, it's, I'm not even, you know what? It's funny because I never go negative. I don't understand it.

I love Yes, but I love 90215. Like, I love Owner of a Lonely Heart era Yes. I can never get into the 16-minute song. This, everybody has a band that they first get into on their own merits, meaning it wasn't like a band that your sister who was older brought it down to you, or if you have an older brother who turned you on to The Doors or Zeppelin. Genesis was the first band that I loved based on me. Is it because you discovered them on the radio?

I discovered them on the radio. This album came out in 1980, so I was 10. And then I saw the tour with my sister. And I got so unbelievably high from the secondhand marijuana smoke. Oh, secondhand. Yeah, secondhand. Okay, Ross, we're back, we're ready. So I, you know, I felt good.

They were a thrilling, thrilling, exciting band back in the day. And then the next thing that I bought after being obsessed with Duke, where this album comes from, was Phil Collins' Face Value. That's the album with In the Air Tonight and I Missed Again. And that was it. Complete obsession about Genesis and Phil Collins ever since then. Do you play drums? I try to for four and a half minutes. I played in the worst cover band of all time that had,

if my memory serves me correctly, at one time our cover band had Hayden and Howie Beck in there. Hayden? And Howie Beck. Both artists, true ice. Hayden Desser. Hayden Desser. We all lived in Richmond Hill, so we used my parents' basement.

I was awful. I was horrible. I couldn't count to four several times over. I had a drum kit that was made up of 15 other pieces of drum kits, but I'm amazing on the steering wheel in my car. Are you still friendly with Hayden? I see him from time to time. I just saw Howie Beck a couple of weeks ago.

I know. No disrespect to Howie Beck, except I'm a massive Hayden fan I see him from time to time. I just saw Howie Beck a couple of weeks ago. I know. No disrespect to Howie Beck, except I'm a massive Hayden fan who needs him here. Yeah. Deliver me, Eric Alper. Deliver to me the Hayden. He rarely talks.

That's more reason to get him down here. But I'll let you work on that offline and we'll kick out another jam. I'm giving Eric homework assignments right exactly how come I'm coming here with more work than you guitar solo Is it a horrific dream?

Am I sinking fast? Could a person be something As to love and love on my own? Could you ease my load? Could you see my pain? Could you please explain the hurting? Tears for Fears, The Hurting. So when this came out in 1983, it was the start of my teenage years. And I'll go on record and say that I had a really great childhood.

I had a really great teenage group of years. So I wasn't depressed. I wasn't, I was a teenager. You know, I went out, I partied, I hung out. But I never, any problem that I've had in my whole life, I could never blame on my childhood or on my parents listening to

Tears for Fears made me wish that I had problems because you listen to their music and you listen to Change and Pale Shelter and Shout and Mother's Talk and it's all about the primal scream therapy that this doctor Arthur Yanov

who is a real doctor, developed about how all babies are born with a wall that's inside of them. And you have to scream like a baby and go back to being a baby when you're in your childhood or teenage or adulthood years in order to tear down the wall.

It's essentially what Roger Waters kind of leaned on a little bit during the wall period of pink floyd um i never had any of that but i love this band and it made me wish that i had problems so i can understand them a little bit better um but this was the band that got me into the uh the alternative scene it it it opened up the doors for those bands I mentioned from The Edge, from Depeche Mode and The Cult and The Cure and Duran Duran and The Smiths and all those bands. And I realized that something that I still hold to this day, it's okay to like the classic rock stuff like Genesis,

and it's okay to like the new music. I didn't have to set myself in one road. You didn't have to pick a side. Yeah, I can hang out with the smokers, and I can hang out like the new music. I didn't have to set myself in one road. I could smoke. You didn't have to pick a side. Yeah, I can hang out with the smokers and I can hang out with the jocks and I can hang out with the cheerleaders and it was okay.

And that's kind of what my whole philosophy is that I can hang out with anybody. We call that a floater. Right, right. Yeah, so I, you know. Or maybe I'll call it a linchpin. I had that long black trench coat and I, you know, I didn't wear the mascara, but I had like the spiky black hair.

And but, you know, good times, good times. Glad that no photos exist. OK, sometimes when I'm recording these podcasts, I get this thread stuck in my head and it won't stop. I have to pull it out and say it to get it out of my head. So the song we're listening to now is by Tears for Fears. Tears for Fears recorded Mad World. it out of my head so the song we're listening to now is by tears for fears tears for fears recorded mad world a fantastic cover of mad world appeared on the donnie darko uh soundtrack donnie darko features fotm stew stone stew stone went to high school at some point i believe in Thornhill, so maybe with Hayden Desser.

So there's a Hayden... Sixth degree of separation from Hayden. Yeah, and these things form during these episodes and if I didn't spit that out. So yes. That's hilarious. So it all comes together. It all starts and ends with Hayden.

It really, really does. You know, his big hit on Much Music was, of course, Girl of My... my yeah bad as it seems yeah it got signed to uh neil young's label right in the day too when he when he plays it loud he's changed the lyrics because the lyric is uh girl of my dreams uh she sees she's a girl who's 16 that's why she's only a dream so he's like like, you know. Right. But he's changed it to, girl who's 23. That's why she's only a dream.

There has been an edit in the lyrics. See, Ringo Starr should do that with your 16. You're beautiful in your mind. You make it like, hey, girl, you're 43 in your mind. That's a good tip for, you know, we got to give Ringo that tip here. Yeah.

All right, my friend. We should have him on the podcast. Richard Starkey. I'll jot that one down too. Nah, just Hayden will do. That's okay. If you're going to get me a beat, I'll get me Paul.

Come on. I go big or go home around here. Right, right. All right. Let's kick out another jam. There's that beat, Eric. You know, can you guess my age based on these four songs? You know. The drum, right?

It's just the fucking drum beat on this. That James Brown. This is the Amen break. Yeah. This is it it's in a thousand hip hop songs a thousand different songs

yeah but it sounds great in everything she leads off her concerts doing this song acoustically with no drum break

and you know that everybody is bopping their heads like this because they have that drum beat in their head and I wonder

if you took a hundred random people and you played just the drum beat which song would go in their head yeah it I wonder if you took 100 random people and you played just the drum beat, which song would go in their head? Yeah, for sure. It would be 100 different songs? Yeah, it would be like the Stone Roses or this or that.

Well, it's in Let Your Backbone Slide. Yeah. This is like the Let Your Backbone Slide. Look at Maestro Fresh West just eyeing me right over there. He knows. He hears it. You know, I'm thinking Public Enemy. There's so many.

Awesome. Yeah. There's a great video on youtube that that goes through about 120 of these songs in like three seconds each song that it's astounding it was like this was it this was like our version of the four four drum beat back in the 90s no absolutely and it's funny when i was queuing this up last night i was queuing it up in the soundboard here and i'm listening to it, and yeah, I'm hearing Chuck D in my head. And I know that's Sinead O'Connor and Chuck D

don't sound very similar. But so, okay, so this album, of course, came out in 1990, and the big hit was a Prince song, Nothing Compares to You. Yeah, which is actually produced by Chris Birkin, who's a local uh a local producer here he's in toronto um um yeah so shanae o'connor i got to work with her um for a couple of albums in the uh mid 2010s brilliant um i think everybody owes her an apology for the way that she was

treated after she ripped up a picture of the pope on oh yes indeed sir are you kidding me and the way that she was treated in america with the booing and um during the bob dylan celebration concert she um she was right she was right fuck off everybody she was right no matter how you feel about the catholic church she spoke out and she was um she had her career destroyed just like the dixie chicks did back um back in the day as well have you noticed something though this scene these the repercussions seem to primarily come for females who speak i could we could talk a whole podcast about the way that the mass media and radio has treated women, performers and artists, still to this day,

where you would find less than 12% of all country songs on the radio are sung by women, even though that most of the women listeners want to hear women on the radio. They want to hear the representative. So when somebody like Sinead O'Connor comes along and is angry and is defiant as The Clash, The Beatles, The Who, all these bands, she was broken down and destroyed.

And it was a great honor and a privilege to have any moments with Sinead O'Connor because she is right up there on my all-time best list. Look at that. I'm folding my hands. I'm angry. No, I'm like, I'm angry. Just, you know. No, I feel this. I've never felt such anger from someone who's so positive.

This is jolting. Okay. Now, as you know, and this is a comment left on, it's on torontomic.com. It's a blog and we have, there's comments, it's open. And somebody raised this point

and I found it interesting and it had me kind of mulling it over. But we just celebrated the career of Ken Shaw. Ken Shaw. Ken Shaw from CFTO. Ken Shaw. Correct that Ken Shaw because he's retired and there was a lot of fanfare I think his last newscast was Monday and we're recording on what is this Wednesday so this is very fresh so but somebody compared it to the last kind of the goodbye to Christine Bentley. So Christine Bentley was also in the same position for the same kind of tenure. And as she disclosed on this very podcast, which is why I can speak with authority,

she said that at some point someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, your time's up. We can do this one of two ways. One way is we retire you. Even though she had no interest in retirement, she was young and full of energy and wanted to work. And they had a very quick one week thing with a cake and it was gone.

Meanwhile, Ken Shaw had a very elaborate farewell. And then the thought on the blog was what is the difference between a Christine Bentley and a Ken Shaw? And the one difference is gender. And then it just got me mulling over was like, what is the difference between a Christine Bentley and a Cam Shaw? And the one difference is gender. And then it just got me mulling over with the Shane O'Connor thing. Would that have stuck to, I don't know, Tom Petty?

No. No. No, because Tom Petty would have been hailed as a hero. He would have been hailed as an unspoken activist. He would have... Look, if these... I mean, the sheer amount of of hatred and snarkiness that comes along with being on social media for women is 10 times worse that person that wrote

the comment and thank you for writing that comment because it's always great to to see what people think they know what the answer is of course it's a gender thing like there's no other bullshit eric well um you know what there there's a kind of thinking and i mean i'm not going to speak for for cftl or ctv but there is a kind of thinking where um uh the audiences are more um feel that they have a more heavier and longer and more authentic relationship when they see a male host as opposed to a female host i may not personally agree with that but there have been you know there's research into because that's all they know it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy you know jerry seinfeld once said um and he had a great line he said that the people that are in the higher positions of entertainment do not know how to entertain.

They don't know what they're looking for. So the people who would give Peter Mansbridge a long, long, long goodbye might be the same people who might give a short drift to a female host. Maybe, maybe not. But they could absolutely probably justify it using their own numbers that this is what the audience wants and this is what they're getting. That comment reminds me of something Humble and Fred have told me in the past. They said often their program directors were people who were failed DJs

who were suddenly telling successful djs what they should do that's like that that's like baseball players who batted 220 are now suddenly the managers of their team telling people how to hit right well let's kick out this is a much shorter jam uh let's kick out another one Speaking of Ringo. Here we go. The only recorded drum solo he ever did. Wow. I can play this on the drums.

It only took me five years to do that. Kind of amazing that's the only drum solo in Beatles. He could care less about recording solos. I mean, he had no interest in it whatsoever. As if it needs an explanation. Why this obscure track from this unknown little band from Liverpool? Not only is it the greatest side that has ever been recorded in music history, that being side two of Abbey Road,

but I chose this one because not only do you have the Ringo Drum solo, but these guitar solos that we're listening to are each of the Beatles. So you have Paul and you have George and you have John. And then with the last line, of course, and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love that you make. It's brilliant. It's just the last line of the last Beatles album that was recorded, even though that came out before Let It Be.

Like, brilliant. Like, if that's not a philosophy of life for anybody out there, I mean, that's it. And the fact that the greatest group in history, the biggest selling group of all time, still the crown jewel of what music can be, to create that, not knowing that they were going to really end it is one of music's greatest bookends i i think it just it gives me chills every time that i hear that ending

especially when they keep releasing um stereo versions and quadriphonic versions of it it's still one of the greatest pieces of music i've ever heard it's almost a little bit of a shame that um some beatles chart records will fall because of the massive changes to the billboard i get that a lot on twitter whenever i post something like here's uh here's the updated list of the billboard hot 100 with glee at 207 and Drake at 206. His next song is going to tie it for all time. And the Beatles at 97. People are like,

what the fuck? And it's like, that's okay. It's just like, you know, going back to baseball. It's like, you know, moving the fences forward in order to have or juicing those baseballs.

It's okay. They're just records. They're not fucking with your memory. They're not fucking with your memory. They're not playing with your mind. It's just a nice roundup. And we forget, a lot of fantastic singles never even qualified for the top 100 because they weren't released as singles.

They weren't released as singles, yeah. Like, I mean, Stairway to Heaven, for example, was never, it was never qualified to be in the Billboard Hot 100. The Beatles did something like 206 songs at the end of it all, and they would have had 206 singles. I mean, they just would have been on the Hot 100

because their album just sold. So now when Drake releases an album of 26 songs, all 26 songs make the Billboard Hot 100 in the first week because that's what people are streaming, and that's what the chart should really be. It should be what the music consumption is rather than what the record labels want it to be.

I have a question about the charts, but let's hear a little bit of this jam. I see you running, baby, out of time Okay, that's all I need to hear. It's going to make me cry. Because this is the song that makes me cry. Well, then I'm going to turn it off. Where? Think I'm new to this? Come on.

The best episodes require a box of tissues on the paper here. It's sponsored by Kleenex. If you can get through it without crying and then I'll kill it. Tell us why you love this song by Drive-By Truckers. Yeah, Drive-By Truckers are one of the great American rock and roll bands and

I love their outspokenness. i love just the ability to kick out the jams just like this show is um and that this segment is um but this song just devastated me the first time i heard it and again it wasn't anything personal it wasn't like i had another girlfriend that broke my heart or this or that i could just relate to the lyrics on a purely personal, emotional level. And whenever it comes up on my Spotify playlist, it's like, oh shit, here we go. Now, I promised you an hour, which means I will be cutting off Drive by Truckers. But I want to let people know the name of the song is You Got Another. And correct me if I'm wrong,

I'm not as familiar with the band as you are, but she doesn't always sing. She's not normally a lead vocalist. Right, yeah. What is her name? I'm putting it on the spot now. I'm drawing a blank. We have to Google that one.

Yeah, but she was in the band for a number of years and she wasn't the lead vocalist, but she came on and did background vocals and vocals on a couple of songs. background vocals and vocals on a couple of songs. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. One of the bands that if I ever could play an ounce of an instrument, I would desperately want to join. Every rock and roll band should look like a band that you want to be a part of. You want to look like a gang.

You want to look like a unified front. The Clash, The Beatles, The Who, Duran Duran. You have all of these groups that are just looking like they could kick your ass. And Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for me is the coolest band that I've ever had the witness to see. You go see them live, and they're just like Jesus and Mary Jane. Smoke everywhere. They're all dressed in black.

You can't even see them, but they're just the coolest motherfucking band I've ever seen. And this jam is called Lean on Your Dreams, but lean is cleverly spelled L-I-E-N. Yeah, because they want that little piece of it. They want the ownership of your dreams. I think it's track seven on their album, which going back to Peter Gabriel,

he's always said that the best track on the album, on any album, should be track seven. Duly noted. album on any album should be track seven duly noted sorry this is the song that makes me cry oh before i even hear why you love this song i gotta thank you because you helped uh you helped me get andy kim on the show yeah that's why he's on this list his return okay so the first time was great you know legendary andy kim we had a on the show. Yeah, that's why he's on this list. His return, okay, so the first time was great. You know, legendary Andy Kim.

We had a very good time. His second visit was totally different in that he came in so freaking chill. Like he knew the score. He knew the drill. It was a different Andy.

We were brewing coffee or talking about my kids and just he was giving me like inspirational life lessons and we sat down and kicked out the jams and it was like it was so different from the first time and not that the first time was bad but this time he came in like knowing what toronto mic was all about and it was so comfortable yeah

you'll find um i mean you probably had this experience as well i i certainly have is um when i'm working with a with an artist for the first time, you know, you're, you're trying to figure, you're trying to figure each other out. You're trying to kind of circle the wagons a little bit and see, you know, how we work with Andy Kim. When I got a phone call about 10 or 12 years ago from Bill Carroll, who used to be on CFRB.

Of course. He said, Hey man, how would you like to work with Andy Kim? And, or cause i was working at the record label at the time i was working at kotch and he was like andy kim looking for a record deal and i've told this story to him and and so i'm not offending him um and i said why

the fuck would i want to work with andy kim like why like i'm here working the new artist the fresh artist um why do i want to work with somebody who had a hit back in 1974? And I spoke to Andy. So Bill set up a phone call, and I was like, okay, tell me about the new album. I listened to the new album, and I loved it. And it's called Happen Again at the time. And the first time we spoke, we spoke for just under seven hours of my whole day. Really? Just about life, art,

music. But in person? Over the phone. It was like I was being set up on a blind date with Andy Kent. It's like you're a teenager. I was. I fell in love with the man

ever since then. Wow. And I've worked with him to this day. He's one of my all-time favorite people. He is a mentor. He's a,

he's been like a father to me. And, you know, when I left E1, he was the first call that I made. And I said, I jumped. I'm going off on my own. And he was like, whatever you do, I'm going to be a part of it. So when I opened up the PR company, he was my first client. Amazing. And still my client.

Amazing. Yeah, everybody needs somebody like that in their life. i'm so lucky and so blessed to have him he's the uh what is he's the bruce colburn to your bernie finkelstein that's right that's exactly it that's exactly it yeah we we don't we don't make a move without each other going yeah okay yeah that sounds really good i mean we should all have that mentor, somebody like that. Okay, now, do I refer to them as downchild or downchild blues band? You can do both. They were known for many, many, many years as the Downchild Blues Band,

but now Downchild is kind of the shortened version of it. But this goes back to the beginning of our conversation, in case if you're just joining us. My grandfather is Al Grossman from Grossman's Tavern, and Downchild Blues Band got their start at the bar. And my grandfather had no idea who they were. He just heard that having music along with alcohol would be a really great idea for a music venue instead of just a cafeteria like it started back in 1946. So in the 50s and early 60s, he started having music and Downchild was the kind of pseudo-house band, and different members kept going on with Daniel Lenoir,

and there's probably been about 40, 50 members, and this is the band that Dan Aykroyd has said that gave him the inspiration to create the Blues Brothers. Wow. One of the all-time greatest movies. Of course. And this, of course, is Flip, Flop, and Fly. All right, cool.

Now, up against the clocks, we're going to get to the last jam, which thankfully is very, very short. But let's get it nice and loud and proud and kick this out. Talk to me, Eric. This was a single that I bought with my own money. This was the very first song I bought with the help of my mom. She bought several of albums, including the Donny Osmond's Greatest Hits and the Partridge Family and the Bay City Rollers.

But I saw a clip of Jerry Lee Lewis on American Bandstand, and that was it. That was the moment that I've read about by so many other artists who see the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and say, that's what I want to do. Or people that sit in their rooms by themselves wondering what to do and hear the Sex Pistols for the first time and they said, fuck it, I'm going to join a band or start a band.

This was the artist and the song that made me think that rock and roll is the most dangerous thing in the world he was the killer i want to fucking be a part of it and ever since then i i i have and i saw there's a movie called american hot wax that's uh that i saw when i was eight back in 1978 and it's the story of alan freed and it's a it's a kind of docudrama. And they had clips of how Alan Freed, or it's a story of Alan Freed and how he helped create rock and roll in Cleveland in the 1950s

and setting up the very first rock and roll concert. And at that concert, he had Chuck Berry and he had Jerry Lee Lewis, among others. Watching Jerry Lee Lewis as an eight-year-old blew my little fucking mind. And still, I mean, he was like 35 40 years old jumping on the piano kicking the piano bench um amazing and when i got to work with him um later on um in the early in the mid 2000s um i was more terrified of of working with him oh you got to

work with jerry i did i worked with his Last Man Standing album and got a gold award for a gold sales award for the video. But one of the all-time greats who, fuck me, is still around. You know what I mean?

Yeah, he's still around. He's still alive. And Little Richard's still around too. Those are kind of your last stalwarts, I guess, from the origin of rock and roll.

Oh, I have one more quick gift for you. Oh my goodness. So these candles are from the Electric City Candle Company because you were going to come in in December and we postponed it. So it's like a holiday treat for you. Thanks, man. That's special needs adults who make candles and sell them at ElectricCityCandles.com.

All the proceeds go to their hockey league. They play hockey and they're trying to get proceeds to buy a used van to help with the travel. If you want to learn more about the Hockey League, it is electriccityspecialneedshockey.com. Dude, they're fantastic candles.

They smell great and you're going to love those, man. I can smell them from here. They're great. Good idea. Yeah. Awesome.

And that brings us to the end of our 569th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Eric, you're already following him. No, Eric is at The Eric Alper.

That Eric Alper. I said that Eric Alper. I'll fix that in post. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at

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