Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Eric Alper: Toronto Mike'd #509

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

Mike chats with Eric Alper about his career in PR, the stars he's worked with, his grandfather's tavern, his daughter's success and much, much more.

Welcome to episode 509 of Toronto Mike's. 509? I saved the best for 509. That's like those numbers in Sesame Street, where you have no idea what they mean, but you're like very impressed by that. That's a big number. Brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Capadia,

LLP, CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. Man, you're going to love what you get from Pumpkins After Dark. I'm already loving being here. The other stuff is just a bonus. But yeah, look at all this swag I get to come home with. I was going to say, do I get to keep the other stuff?

Is that what you're saying? I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com, and my guest this week is Eric Alper. Uh-oh. I didn't know how to bill you. How would you want me to bill you? PR guy? What are you?

Yeah, PR guy, music guy. It's funny when I see music industry expert underneath my name whenever somebody dies or a club is closing or bad news strikes the music industry you know what that means it means that Alan Cross is busy right they'll call me well it's really funny because Alan and I have known each other for decades and I never go negative except for that sentence I never go negative except for that sentence. I never go negative when talking about the music industry. Um, it,

I can't because as a public, why? Because it fed you. Um, yeah. And you know, I learned the hard way that sometimes, um,

making, um, making your, um, revealing it, an opinion that you have about somebody or a musician can come back to bite you when they decide that they want to work with you eight, nine, 10 years down the road. And I'm like everybody else. There's things I like, there's things I don't like, there's things

in the industry I don't agree with, but whenever something bad happens in the music industry, whenever people want to talk about um allegations against michael jackson or what's going on with r kelly i've got my own opinion but i leave that to the house i don't reveal that and then they'll call alan cross because alan cross loves that stuff and he that's his job he's a commentator he's a a radio guy his job is to have an opinion. Mine really isn't. Mine is kind of to reveal to people like you and other people in the media what is happening in the music world.

So let's be specific. If Tom Petty, I heard this actually happen. So when Tom Petty passed away, would you appear on different mainstream media outlets? About four dozen. Four dozen of them.

That's a big day for you. Like right now, you're checking your phone. If somebody right now croaks. Yeah, I used to think of myself as a priest. Nobody goes in the ground until I get to say four minutes on television giving their last rites. But yeah, for somebody like a Tom Petty or, oh wow, so many classic rockers in the last... Like David Bowie. Yeah, but yeah, but you know, for somebody like a Tom Petty or, oh wow,

so many classic rockers in the last, David Bowie. Yeah. David Bowie, you know, it's always steered towards the good. It's never about, well,

let's talk about the time that David Bowie might have given a hand signal that was very Nazi like, like we won't discuss that. But I tend to, that tends to be the way it is when someone dies anyways. Like I feel like... You gloss over all the bad stuff. It's the best thing for PR. You're a PR guy, you know.

The best thing you can do is die. Yeah, your sales go up, your streams go up. But now there seems to be, because everybody does have an opinion that has an audience, especially through social media, there's always going to be that audience now

that has the ability to get heard and seen in mainstream media giving a negative opinion about that person and i think we you know every celebrity is going to have that you're not going to have the undying love of a john lennon right or george harrison you know even to this day, John Lennon has many, many books about, you know, the unseedy aspects of his life. Oh, sure. You're absolutely right. I think the only exception might be Tom Hanks.

I think he's the last, when he goes in 30 years. Tom Hanks might be the one. I think Dave Grohl might be the one in music. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Dave seems to have a pretty good image there. Now,

I want to tell everybody, this is kind of an exciting first. I think it's exciting. I don't know. But this is episode 509. You're the first guest ever to appear on this podcast, 509 episodes that I didn't personally book. Like, you're the first one. Right. Yeah. So I booked myself. I called you i said dude i'm coming on um yeah i got an email from tyler yeah so uh tyler campbell i don't know if he's watching on the live screen but he'll listen later so this happened i guess around okay i met tyler does he not work for you you're giving me the impression he does he does he does in fact the way you know he works for me is he has the login to the at Toronto podcast Twitter account,

which is the official Twitter account of Toronto Mike. And he will DM from there. Like he's got the keys to that palace. But yeah, he's authorized to do this. We met for lunch at like Young and Bloor. And I was telling him about how like I'm so busy right now. And the hardest part would be like tracking down guests like yourself and getting them, you know, be here at a certain time, which we're going to get to in a minute because

you didn't follow the rules. I didn't follow the rules. No, you're the latest guest I've ever had. That's the other first. And then I was thinking, and Tyler and I were just DMing. And I said, is it a coincidence that the first guest I didn't book is the latest guest I've ever had? Yeah.

Is that a coincidence? Or is it because you knew, oh, it's just Tyler? Well, no, it's so funny because I booked a lot of people with you on this amazing show. And I always tell people and musicians, whatever interview it is,

get there early. Just go and hang out, soak up whatever atmosphere there is. And here I am showing up 45 minutes late. 45 minutes? I got you an hour late. You're at 10.30, you're booked. It's now 11.40.

That is how busy the deaths are in the music industry. Where I have to, no, no. I actually had a hearing test. Nobody died today. Nobody died today. No, I had a hearing test, which for people in the music industry is almost like... Do you want me to turn up your headphones?

No, it's almost like turning up the hearing aids to a level of a megahertz that I can get without feedback. I used to think it was a badge of honor having tinnitus, and so many musicians have it, but now it's getting to the point where, you know, I'm in my 30s, and I need to uh that's your jacket's in its 30s yeah and i need to you know start taking care of my body a little bit more we all do man we're not getting any younger so i apologize so to finish that thought on tyler who uh fantastic

guy of course but uh i told him my struggles with like i need i told him i needed an unpaid intern to help me wrangle guests and stuff and we were just shooting the shit and then he said like straight up he says he would love to do it and i was in my head i'm thinking of like a student like uh i don't know early 20s going to college you know needing some experience maybe this is the closest thing to like a radio station or whatever yeah and tyler's like my age okay so uh and tyler was he was and i said like i don't want to put you in that spot. He's like, no, he wants to do it.

And I said, finally, I agreed, I think in August or whatever. So he's, there's a bunch of guests coming up in the next couple of months that I did not personally book. And you're the first one, which is funny to me because- Are you okay with that? Do you feel a sense of a lack of connection with that

because it didn't come from you? We're going to find out because it's also new. I don know yet but we have a shared spreadsheet tyler and i and i have a list of guests i'd like to have on and then he'll start uh and i and then another list of people i personally already kind of touched base with but it's funny that tyler booked you first only because you've been you've literally been here before like you alluded to uh colin james for example which was a fantastic guest yeah you drove him here yeah yeah trying hard not to get into an accident so that the newspaper the next day wouldn't say colin james slash other gets into a car accident that's always the worry but one of the more uh i won't even talk about the real infamous one but one of

the more fun infamous episodes of toronto mic'd Gino Vannelli, who was fantastic. He was great. And you were not down, you were upstairs for that, but you were in the house during the Gino Vannelli episode. Yeah, I've been here a couple of times. I was here,

I wasn't here for Maestro. But Maestro I booked directly. Yeah. So that's the thing. So sometimes you represent people I have on. Andy Kim you booked, but a good example would be Biff Naked, okay? So Biff's gonna make her third appearance tomorrow all three times i connect at least the

first two times i can't remember this one actually i think maybe differently this time but the first two times i literally just reached out to her directly on twitter and said hey i'm your neighbor come on and she's like she's been fantastic but here so tell us who like who how are you representing these people? Like maybe give us a- Not very well, it looks like. No, you're doing great. Well, Gino Vanelli might be the second most alluded to episode

of Toronto Mic'd ever. Who was the first? Someone else you hooked me up with. Oh, with Molly Johnson. Who, by the way, I know the Kensington Market Jazz Fest is happening this weekend. Did you ever ask her if she could do a round two? And what did she say?

She's very busy. What if, you know what, let's leave that one then because, you know, if she doesn't want to do it, she doesn't have to do it. But did you listen to the Molly Johnson episode? I did. I did. I listened to them all. I know you'll be careful.

This is one of the few places where I will actually sit down and listen to a podcast. Is that right? Yeah. Because it's a deep dive, right? It's not going to be like five to seven minutes about the Kensington Market Jazz Festival. No, but that's what I love about podcasts in general is that I'm so used to being in an industry where, you know, a great mark of somebody's career would be a long form piece of journalism that's in the Rolling Stone or in the New York Times. And that stuff isn't really available in Canada anymore

due to the lack of newspaper space that's devoted to music specifically. So when podcasts started, it was the great long form that I missed. And you always have fantastic guests. You and me both. And amazing insight. And there's a couple of them that I listen to when I'm taking the dogs out for a walk.

And this is absolutely one of them. Yeah. So can you run down a list of people that you work with that have been on? Whether you booked them or not, it doesn't matter to me. Andy Kim, you mentioned. Andy Kim. Andy Kim I've worked with for the last 10 years. He is a guy that when I was working at a record label called cotch and then cotch got bought out by entertainment one right um i got a call from bill carroll uh who was at cfrb and he

was a good friend with andy kim and he said hey um i don't know if you know this guy andy kim and i said yeah i know andy kim yeah it's like he's looking for a deal. And I'm like, great. And he's like, do you want to talk to him? And I'm like, not really. Because I didn't know what was happening with him. You know, he co-wrote Sugar Sugar by the Archies. He had the first real independent single, number one with Rock Me Gently.

And of course, his many, many, many Christmas shows. And he's done a lot. But it wasn't something that I was really interested in signing to a record label um we set up a call um honestly i think we got on the phone at 11 o'clock um we got off at seven o'clock at night we talked for almost eight hours non-stop i shut the door and that was it and i found one of my best friends, my guru, my partner in life. And, uh, um, it, you know, he's a guy that, um, won't really want to make a move without me knowing about it, but that's just not so that I have a brilliant insight on the industry, but it's just so that we can bounce ideas off of one another and talk it out before we actually do things.

So he's a guy that is at the far end of a spectrum of i know everything of what's going on in his life and then there's other people that um i'm working with like say a biff naked yeah who you know she's been around for 10 or 15 years even before i started working with her a couple of years ago so i never i always tell artists if you've got the relationships with those people in the media or the music industry or associations or concert venues, go for it. Like just because I'm here doesn't necessarily mean that you have to cut these people off. I'm not that egotistical.

And also Biff to me, unlike Andy maybe, Biff's like savvy to the new digital medium age. Like she gets it and stuff. I felt this with Andy, who was fantastic, by the way. But Andy, I could tell, he had a sense of, oh, this is different than it was when I was back in the day.

Every time he turns on his cell phone, he's like, oh, this is different. There's people who love the technology. I'm looking at Maestro Fresh West. He's a guy who's right into the socials he's right into making um you know his videos and content going viral somebody like that's tom wilson yep that's tom wilson you know he's right in there 54 40 love what's going on do you represent uh 54 40 i do because uh tyler told me he's talking we're gonna have him

we're gonna have him on in december they're coming for three nights at the Horseshoe Tavern. So we're just working out their Neil and everybody's schedule. They're great. Neil's great. That's a great band, actually. That's going to be cool. Now, did you work with the Smashing Pumpkins? I did.

When I was at Koch, we released their live DVD that ended up going platinum in Canada. So we worked with them closely on it for about six months, seven months or so. And then, because they were already fully signed to their record label and rightfully so, they just did a deal with a third party company that happened to be us specifically for this DVD release. And recent guest, Chuck D,

did you do some work of Public Enemy? I did. Public Enemy used to have their own record label and i think that they still do and and they put out a couple of releases but sadly it was during the time when they didn't really come up to canada a whole lot they were working on so many different things like their music streaming service and their website and their social media right planning back in like you know the mid 2000s when this was really early for a lot of people um so i ended this was really early for a lot of people.

So I ended up doing the PR for a lot of their releases here in Canada. And Slash? Slash. Amazing. Slash's Snake Pit for their second album when they went on tour with ACDC. And that was one of the best moments that I've ever had working as a publicist in the music industry because look there are certain people where um they come to me to do their pr because they know that i have whatever name is out there in relation to them just starting out so sometimes i've got the clout and i use that clout to try to get you know a little bit of heat on some of those artists

slash is somebody um maestro is somebody tom wilson andy kim they're somebody where you send out 150 pitches and you'll get 149 of them back and slash was absolutely one of them because he was you know gone from guns and roses but he was uh putting the slash the snake pit album and tour together with acdc and i remember that at about five o'clock we had we were stuck on the gardener expressway here in toronto heading to the the the air canada center um uh trying to get him on stage and we were sitting in the limo and and he just got so happily frustrated and he says fuck this and then he opened up the door grabs his guitar and walked across the gardener

down the lane into the venue through the back way and i'm like that's it he's gonna get killed ah oh my that's there's a headline you don't want to hear yeah exactly eric alper let's slash escape limo right but uh slash yeah i love that guy but uh here's a guy i gotta ask you about but i'm gonna let i'm such a gentleman i'm gonna let beatles maniac brian gerstein ask you about, but I'm going to let, I'm such a gentleman. I'm going to let Beatles maniac, Brian Gerstein ask you about this next guy. So I won't spoil it, but here's Brian. Hi, Eric, Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Galleria Condos are finally here. I attended the launch event yesterday

and have the complete pricing and floor plans. I already submitted a worksheet for one of my clients to get one. This Saturday, September 14th is the first day of sales. If you want one, call or text me right away at 416-873-0292. They're perfect for living in yourself or renting out. Eric, doing PR for Ringo Starr, what a gig that must be.

How do you possibly get any work done when Ringo is making you crack up all the time? Can you regale us with a Beatles story that we have never heard before? Back up the truck here. Ringo Starr, that's a Beatle. Yeah. You worked with Ringo? Yeah. So Koch was, at the time it

was one of the biggest record labels independently in the world and usually for artists that are that have their career on major labels they tend to you know mostly everybody gets dropped from their from their label whether it's just dwindling sales or the A&R department, the department that signs and works with bands, changes and they want a new vibe in the record label. So Koch ended up signing a whole bunch of artists in about a two-year period that I was unbelievably so happy to work with.

They signed Sinead O'Connor, they signed Joan Baez, and they signed Ringo Starr to a multi-album deal with a number of studio albums and then a couple of live albums. And one of the first things that I got to do with him, because when he would go on tour, he would go on tour with the Ringo Starr-stars and that year it was howard jones and richard marks was there and a couple of other people and they kicked off every tour for a number of years up at casino rama up at rama ontario and so they would go there and hang out there for two or three weeks rehearse play two nights and then that's it then they go out on the road um the first i think the first time that i ended up working with them about halfway through their rehearsals george martin

came out and said that uh george harrison was on his deathbed and wasn't going to last very long and this is the time when i went from 60 experience in life to a hundred it was like pedal to the metal because you're not fucking up anything that has to do with the beetle um and um we ended up having to do a press conference with about 220 230 people in the media from around the world we had playboy rolling stone spin where it was coming up from uh um from new york and la um because ringo was really the only person that would go on record potentially to talk about the upcoming passing of george harrison and um so we ended up doing a press conference with him. He basically shrugged everything all off. As Ringo does, you don't get very deep in interviews

when you're talking to him. There's a level of Ringo that nobody really has been able to attack or get to. I'm sure his family knows what the real Ringo is like, but the media, it's almost like you know you're not even getting to that level yet but all the time when i'm working with them i keep looking at him going you're ringo star like you're ringo star and that that fan part of me never leaves ever ever ever still to this day now he fantastic cameo on the simpsons yeah fantastic one of my favorites and uh when he made that uh he did that

little video where he said he wasn't gonna reply to fan mail anymore right and he signed it off i think he signs it off like peace and love peace and love peace and love i adopted that so i heard it i think i heard it the first time i think i heard it on the howard stern show right yeah so i heard it ever since then no more i've been uh i've been dropping the peace and love to close off uh convos who wouldn't really i mean it's it's so simple you know as of january the 14th no more letters if you send them i will not return them of the so the three beatles that were alive when the simpsons was on uh all made cameos on the Simpsons. And I put Ringo's number one. George's is great. It's brief.

And then Paul does the one with Linda about vegetarianism. Vegetarianism. When Lisa went vegetarian. Correct. And the only reason why Paul went on there, as long as Lisa stays a vegan. And she's still vegan. Could you not lie to Paul McCartney?

No, you got to keep honor that. But the best cameo of any Beatle was, in my opinion, Ringo Starr. He won that one. Now, okay, so there are other guests. There's a guy I now recall because he got, not buried, but because I did this episode just before the Gino Vannelli episode, and people really, really, really liked the Gino episode because it was a little bizarre.

Did that surprise you? I guess it was the Gino episode because it was a little bizarre. I guess it was all Gino because Gino, Gino's brother was making sure the audio was satisfactory. That was a big deal too. And which brother was it again? Ross. Ross. Right.

Yeah. So, and Ross was a great laugh track by the way, cause he sat over there and you could hear him laughing throughout. And Gino had his guitar and I had a different configuration actually. I can't remember what I was. I changed the different configuration, actually. I can't remember what. I changed the configuration here a lot. Yeah, I think it was here.

Yeah, there's been a few different. I'm trying to get it right. I like this one right now, so I'm sticking with it. And he had his guitar and Gino, I'd ask him a question, something like, oh, I hear you just flew in from Montreal

and then he'd break into song. Like, all right. So it was like, that was like his way of warming up was he wasn't going to answer. And it was like, I was like his way of warming up was he wasn't gonna answer he was and it was like i was thinking to myself as i'm talking to gino vanelli is he gonna do this the whole episode like how do you converse with somebody randy bachman's like that too randy bachman will always bring an acoustic guitar with him and he'll sing the

answer to you can you get me randy bachman um you don't represent him no i do i do can you get me randy bachman uh love the vinyl pad. He's a little tough to kind of get in podcasting. He's the guy that if anything happens, you want to make one interview go everywhere. Because he's a busy guy. Not only is he a writer. I'll come to him, though.

I'll come to him. I've been doing that. I did it for Chuck. I do it for Randy Bachman. Now, the guy I'm talking about is Marie McLaughlin. Did you get feedback from Marie? Because I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I just couldn't tell whether he was digging it or not. Nobody has ever given me negative feedback about the show.

Okay, good to know. Yeah, yeah. Even Molly. But did she give you any feedback? No, just no feedback. The Molly one baffles my mind. I have no idea how that happened or what you think, and I know you'll be careful because you work with molly and uh the molly one it's almost like i had a tiny a

sliver of ptsd for a while like it took me a while to because i don't know i think you still have it maybe i do look i do i when when bad things happen sometimes or when things don't go the way that they plan it's what keeps me up at night. Instead of the future action of death or doom and gloom, I think about all the things that went bad during the day. Yes, we all do, except that usually because we can point to something we did, you can say, okay, well, that's why it went wrong. I did this or whatever. So the reason this one bugged me was I was my normal self doing what i've done hundreds of times charming is all

for sure and she just didn't like me you know not not with molly specifically but sometimes artists and i see this more and more the more that i work with veteran heritage artists and nobody really in in particular but i'll kind of lump them all in there together um that you know going back to this idea of long-form journalism where um you had music writers who worked full-time doing what they were doing and getting paid for it um in the last number of years and I'm guilty of this on my own blog as anybody else is that you just tend to want to get through the things that you need to get through and sometimes with artists who have a long career I get this on my radio show I'm doing this in in an hour where I'm going to be talking to Rupert Holmes. Pina Colada guy. Pina Colada guy, right?

Won six Tony Awards. He's written 70 novels and mysteries. His bio is like 16 pages long. Right. I just kind of want to shoot the shit with him for 15 minutes and see how that goes. But I know that for artists that have been around for a long time,

it's a little bit of a new way to realize that you'll be lucky to get two or three things out of your mouth that are important to get across because you don't have that long form stuff. And so sometimes you'll end up with that. But for Molly, I didn't hear anything bad from her whatsoever. Interesting. Okay, that's good to hear yeah i got the sense maybe she had one one topic she wanted to talk about and then maybe i was bugging her a bit by wanting to talk about other things because

she really was there to promote the kensington market yeah i don't i don't subscribe to that i know a lot of record labels and managers want that um they want to just talk about the new album that's what it's like on like a breakfast television for example you get five minutes and it's going to be you're in four and a half are going to be about that current project you're pushing and then you're allowed to ask about that i mean that's the thing with ringo stars you're not allowed to ask about the beatles until he brings it up once he brings it up it's fair game chuck d's uh pr person asked me not to bring up the fact that uh flavor flay wasn't there i had the same thing this summer talking to him interesting don't bring it up and it's like okay you know that's okay um but you know from a publicist

viewpoint i get it but from a fan viewpoint you're like well that's like the number one burning question is hey why is this Public Enemy Radio? Where the hell is Flavor Flav? You need a Flav to have Public Enemy. And of course, that's what we're all thinking of. Tell us where we could hear your radio show you just talked about. I'm on Sirius XM Canada on Canada Talks Channel 167.

And it airs four to six times over the weekend. And people can hear it on the app anytime. And that's the station that has Todd Shapiro on it. Todd Shapiro, yep. Yeah, Todd used to be on the Comedy Network and then they moved him on over to Canada Talks. Right, because Humble and Fred were on the Comedy Network for five years

and then they helped get Todd over there and then that contract for Humble and Fred was not renewed, so they're not there anymore. But yes, I did hear they moved uh yeah todd over still doing their thing which is amazing yeah of course and uh they're on a hamilton station called 820 funny funny 820 now when the uh like you were at i want to see how long it was it was a long time 18 years at e1 music canada yeah yeah did you make did you keep did you have any shares or anything like did you make any no i wish When, um, I started working at a record label called

Shoreline right out of university. I had my own PR company for a number of years called Slap Happy. And we were doing a lot of independent artists and we did the free times cafe here in Toronto and a number of, um, of small festivals. And, um, uh, started working for a record label called Shoreline. And Shoreline at the time had three artists. They had Patricia Conroy, who's a country artist. They had the Nylons, the acapella group. Of course. And they had a brand new band that just released their first EP called Nickelback.

And we changed distribution from Select to Koch. And then about a year after we did that deal the president of Koch Canada said hey how would you like to work 700 artists instead of working three and I was like sure because at the time distributors were essentially moving boxes of CDs from the warehouse to the record store and that was it everybody else was marketing and sales but Dominic Zarka the president at the time was really smart because all of our labels were american-based and didn't care about canada we were like four percent of the world market to them so they would give us you know 60 cds and the bios and the photos and that's it right and then go like fuck off go do whatever you need to do so i ended up working with i mean

amazing record labels like Smithsonian Bookways and Compass and Metal Blade and Hopeless and all of these hundreds and hundreds of artists. I would be working The Wiggles in the morning and GWAR in the afternoon and Bob Geldof at night. And it would be like, this is the best job in the world. The Wiggles and GWAR should collaborate.

They should absolutely collaborate into the world. Man, okay. Yummy, yummy. Now, I mean, now when you think about, Collaborate into the world. Man. Okay. So. Yummy, yummy. Now, I mean, now when you think about, when you think about the E1 Music Canada, you think about, like, that's the Peppa Pig thing. That's the Peppa Pig, yeah.

And Hasbro just bought them for a couple of billion dollars. I wanted to, I was hoping you got some slice of that through some shares or something. I got one copy of every CD that we ever put out for 18 years. And that was good enough for me. That was great. I was living the dream. I had the attitude of a musician. I get to do this for a living.

This is amazing. My worst day as a publicist was better than most people's best day ever. So I didn't complain a single day that I worked there. I loved what I did. than most people's best day ever so i i didn't complain a single day that i worked there i loved what i did so do you mind sharing with us uh why why you ever left such a wonderful place yeah well there there's you know the writing on the wall essentially happened i think when when when hmv shut down um and we knew that you know the more that entertainment one was focusing on the film and the television world because they were like

a two billion dollar company and music was somewhere around 250 300 million dollars so we were we were a vibrant slice of the pie but it was during the time when like the music industry barely saw the light at the end of the tunnel music streaming was just starting um you know we were still using myspace in some aspects for a couple of years before i left um and i just felt like if there was ever going to be a time to jump this would be it because at least i've got the skills that are transferable as a publicist that i could do this on my own and on the way home um i started my own pr company and had all of the artists that i was doing pr for at the label just came on to the company.

Grossman's Tavern on Spadina. How are you connected to Grossman's Tavern? My grandfather is Al Grossman, and not the Al Grossman that ended up managing Bob Dylan, but Al Grossman started a cafeteria back in the early 40s, in the early 1940s. And I have to say 19 in case if people listen to this podcast 50 years down the road and go like 20, 40, that's amazing. Good point. We got to start stamping those. We got to start cataloging this stuff. You're right. And he started the cafeteria.

Then he realized that if he brings music, people will stay at the cafeteria longer. So he started booking bands and then got one of the first alcohol licenses that was ever given out in the city of toronto and the city of toronto and the media said that it was going to make the city go you know hell in a handbasket of course and but i remember you know growing up going to grossman's tavern and dancing as a kid and loving music and loving that community because we before I was born the rooms upstairs in Grossman's Tavern it was where it's where my parents lived it was where like my family grew up in Kensington Market was you were living eight nine ten people sometimes in a house and it was where not only you lived but you worked literally down the street if not your own house so um yeah you know when i when i think about how my life went it it really

all started from him i mean he was a profound influence he was a he was just a real mensch in life and always did things always for the right reasons and love music. Now, speaking of a successful familial connections to you, Eric, uh, please take a moment to, uh, gloat if you will. See,

I'm a proud father. I have two daughters. Okay. I have a teenage daughter. She goes to these, uh, we day events. Yeah.

Uh, and I'm like, it's, she has these amazing experience. You always tell me, you know, I saw, I don't know,

she'll name Cardinal official is there. And then be like, Oh, the I saw, I don't know, she'll name, Cardinal LaFichal was there and then be like, oh, the Barenaked Ladies were there, whatever. Yeah. Amazing stuff. She saw Gore Downey there

that one year and she was like bragging to me like, you know, I saw your favorite. That was one of his last appearances ever. Yes. I think,

yes, Canada Day, right? Yeah. Yeah. At the Canada Day. She was in Ottawa. Right.

Yeah. She was there, my daughter. And yes, she was there. I don't believe he made another public appearance after that, sadly. But tell us about Hannah, your daughter. And yes, she was there. I don't believe he made another public appearance after that, sadly.

But tell us about Hannah, your daughter, and the amazing work she's accomplished in a very short period of time. It's amazing. Yeah, Hannah started her blog when she was nine years old because she realized that she wanted to do something to help animals. And she realized that the environment affects animals. do something to help animals. And she realized that the environment affects animals. And so she started a blog about what we could all do in our house and our neighborhood in our community to make, you know, our spaces a little bit more environmentally friendly. And it kind of took

off from there really, really quickly. Part of it is that, you know, whenever I would share something on social media, it would be seen by people in the media and then they would have her on and she's like a cute adorable nine-year-old um talking about saving the world catnip for these oh it was it was remarkable and uh at 10 years old craig and mark kilberger the um the founders of free the children um asked her if she wanted to go on wee day and then they asked her if she wanted to go on We Day. And then they asked her if she wanted to go on a 90 day, 120 school trip visit across the country with Neverest and Spencer West. So we did that. And my wife went on the road and became the tour manager. And she had a tutor with her on the road and uh last year she published her first book

called momentous it's um how um little things add up to make a big difference and there's 19 interviews that she's done with people like spencer west but also malala um lily sing lily collins and and it's talking about how they were able to do little things that all add up to make a big difference and uh it hit number one on amazon's bestseller list for sociology so i can actually say that she's the number one bestseller out there okay what how old is hannah hannah at 16 i was gonna she's 16 now yeah it's amazing like that would be a good career right she it would be a good she can shut it down now it would be enough and she kind of you know she she's not talking about the things that interested her at nine and 10,

because she's a little bit older and she's a lot more wiser. And she's talking about the things that matter. She's never really wanted to get involved with politics, but now she's kind of more aware of what's going on and where decisions are made at the top, rather than let's save the bees. And it's like, that's an amazing statement to make. But now she's digging deep into how those things can actually be done. And that just comes with age and experience.

There's someone else you work with. I didn't, I connected with her directly because I have a relationship with the, the jazz people from jazz FM and jazz cast and whatnot. But, uh, she's, she actually, uh, gave me this bottle of screech. I won't open it cause I like it on display, but you, you work with, uh, Heather Bambrick. Yeah. I, yeah, right now I'm working her, uh, I'm working with her on her latest album. She's somebody that I've known for years and years and years.

And we've always talked about doing something together and we started working a little bit after her last album came out um and now with uh fine state out a couple of months ago it is a a brilliant album full of of covers and uh um she's one of the the funniest happiest brightest people that i know because she's from newfoundland have you ever met a an asshole from newfoundland never never i mean even her live shows even if you don't like jazz you have to go and see her because she's like a cabaret artist because she's like a stand-up comedian and a thinker and a singer all rolled up into one she should have a sitcom on cbc she should absolutely i've told her many times all she needs to do is start a podcast,

but not a music one. Just go and shoot the shit with somebody or herself for 25 minutes, and she'll have the country wrapped up around her finger. No, I'm with you. She's lovely, and I know she's going to play at the Kensington Market Jazz Festival as well. She's playing this weekend. She came back to Jazz FM. So she's still,

I mean, JazzCast continues. Yeah. But Jazz FM, welcome back Heather Bambrick. So back where she belongs, I suppose. And James B. and a number of others.

It's a good move for them. There's a character. I love the Toronto characters. James B. Just, just those guys, they, whatever,

they're the threads in the fabric of this wonderful city. You know, the city may not treat its architecture really, really well, but it seems to honor the people that are older and add a lot of amazing color to the music and art scene. You and I do, but I'm not so sure enough people do, actually. Like, I feel like you and I are... We're just old. We add nothing to the no we appreciate we appreciate i have i'm working on a project hopefully with uh peter gross and

john gallagher okay yeah together gross like the sports guy yeah former city tv sports guy former 680 news sports guy so peter gross gross and gallagher saved the world we call it they were here last they were here what day is i, like, so much is going on. Today's Wednesday. They were here, I'm gonna say it was last week, but it could have been this week, that's how, I can't remember, but they were here recently to record a couple of what I,

pilot, like, test episodes of what this would be. And we're gonna talk later about, I wanna make this an actual, like, like a bingeable series that we would drop on the city. Like a five minute series. It would be, no, it'd be like 20,

22 minute, like eight, 22 minute episodes. But instead of every week you get an episode, we drop all eight at once. That's interesting. That's like Netflix. That's like,

right. You give them all together and let them all binge. So they can binge it. Cry, you know, four days later going, I want more. But I'm,

I mean, I'm, my mic is muted. So unfortunately I don't, I wanted to contribute, but this is, them all binge and they'll all cry you know four days later going i want more but i mean i'm my mic is muted so unfortunately i don't i wanted to contribute but this is uh the gross and gallagher podcast so i just did the production and the back end work here and i listened and they were sitting here at the table and i'm listening to these guys i'm thinking like this is what i'm desperate like this is what i'm hungry for what i'm looking for, like celebrating these characters in the city. Yeah, we've had a lot of really amazing sports people in this city. I mean, partly because we're just so hockey mad and we demand it,

but yeah, Peter and there's so many cool people in the media that got to do what they wanted to do. And partly, I think think because of somebody like moses yeah moses definitely loved he could tell he appreciated a interesting character and he gave a lot of them a lot of them not only their first start when he started you know city tv and then much music and then going on to zoomer but it it kind of paved the road for all the other stations to say wow we can we can kind of be a little bit fucking wacky too yeah but then they stopped being wacky didn't you notice they stopped it like you're right and you're right and i'm thinking of like i just had on the phone uh steve anthony because we did this

breakfast television oh yeah one of the geniuses of much music yeah and like what a character he wouldn't be on air now there's no way that but it wasn't that long ago he was the the head anchor for cp24 breakfast like that only ended i want to say eight like a year ago maybe you know what i mean like it wasn't that long ago but even and i love steve and i love steve but even when you look at him it immediately brings back just how zany yes he was and those heady days of much music where anything went you, they were throwing stuff off of the balcony before David Letterman was. Yeah, the Christmas trees. Yeah.

And did there any of you, I mean, Erica M was one of the most brilliant, smartest people on that station, no matter what anybody wants to tell you. She had it all planned out. Do you represent her? I want her on this show. Can you put it in words? I know her well.

Tell Erica, she's a friendly space, a safe you know christopher ward has done it uh master t has done it and erica m should do it oh she's got no i always think that she would have no problem doing this one oh before i give you gifts i got a lot of gifts for you to give so uh i want to uh ask you about your twitter followers okay so you've got a massive Twitter following. It's enormous. My wife is so fucking happy. Because then I don't have to bug her with like, hey, let's talk about these 18 artists that took 20 years to put together their next album

after their last successful one. She's like, I don't care. Is it like, I don't know, I saw 670,000 Twitter followers and you have frequent, what I would call viral tweets. You'll ask something like, without using numbers, how old are you?

I'll see these shared so many times by people I follow. Oh yeah, I'll get 5,000 responses for something like that. Twitter's funny because we all started off with zero. We all started off with an A. We all started off with zero friends on myspace or zero connections on linkedin and facebook and once i got on um facebook i hit that 5 000 the brand mark really fast because every band in canada when i was at e1 in koch they didn't read they might have not even known who we were but they were like i'm going to send you my demo and i want to be friends with you. And that was it.

And that was the connection. But once I got on Twitter, that was the be all the end all for me because it kind of gave me a real good outlet for people that I don't even know who have an interest in music to follow me. And without fear of getting involved with politics or anything nasty or anything

negative um it just allowed me to kind of purge all the fun stuff that i see online so between seven in the morning and two o'clock in the morning every half hour there's a new post about something and it's stuff i'm sharing or photos i found or questions i want will you share uh the link to this episode? I will not. Come on. I'm going to do this every day. Every single day for weeks on end, I'm going to do this.

All right, good. Because I feel like I've got to... What's amazing about Twitter is the people... I love Twitter, by the way, yeah. I remember the first time I think Cameron Crowe responded back to me on something. I'm like, fuck. Yeah, yeah. I know that feeling, he's there he's there right and you know people like monica lewinsky follows me and i have a whole bunch of you know very big name porn stars that follow me

all because they just for like shits and giggles they want they probably see your twitter account and it attracts them like uh like a moth to a flame they i i think people um there's there's people who are using social media for good and you know going back to hannah that was always one of the first rules that we had was you have to use the tools that are given to you or around you for only good i don't want to see anybody bitching and complaining. There's enough negativity on there. And I don't deny that it's important, you know, and I'm not immune to it. And I don't shut the door on it. But I can't tell you how many hundreds of people have come up to me in the 10 or 11 years that I've been on there that say that they're just so happy to see my stream being nothing but good fun bright

things as opposed to you know look at what trump did today because there's enough of that and there's people who do that very very well but it's on me it every day you know i i'm that's a good example of a topic i just can't stomach anymore uh we know what trump is we know we know what this guy is. Like, I don't, you know. But I'm also a hypocrite, though. Okay. Because while I can sit here and talk about people like Ringo Starr and Sinead O'Connor

and Tom Wilson and Biff Naked and Sash Jordan and Maury McLaughlin and Bruce Coburn and Buffy St. Marie, artists that I've worked with still to this day, using their voice for good and speaking out against politics and speaking out against the evils that this world has and here I am going yeah I don't want to talk about any of that stuff which is fine because I don't need to nobody cares about what Eric Alper has to say about Donald Trump they may not even care about what I think about the last REM album which I love by the way okay Okay, well, we'll have an REM moment. Don't worry.

Buffy St. Marie. I discovered her from watching Sesame Street as a kid. Yeah. That's my Buffy St. Marie introduction. That's a lot of people's memory of it. You know, going back to this whole thing about, you know, you can ask artists certain things. You know, it would be a shame if Buffy ever said,

I don't want to talk about that thing on Sesame Street. And it's like, tough. I'd have to say, say no i can't have you on the show right well because that's everybody's first moment i think when you're a kid to so dude sesame street was like my my road the first time i saw stevie wonder it was the first time i think i might have even saw debbie harry and blondie on the muppet show like so many artists were you know dr teeth and the and and his band was like the who to me you know animal on drums animal on drums was like every it was like the template for every crazy drummer afterwards so you know somebody like a buffy saint marie who's always outspoken um you know she uses her platform really really well and

i'm so happy to be working with and proud and honored to be working with somebody like that. I was just in Victoria, BC and I saw posters up that she was, I think it's Victoria. I did a lot of stuff in BC at once and I get my places mixed up, but that she was coming to do something in Victoria.

But yeah, yeah, she's always on tour. Sure, she's great. Now the show I think gets a little underappreciated i just want to give a little love to is fraggle rock which i thoroughly enjoyed but no one really talks everybody talks about the muppet show on sesame street yeah but fraggle rock was fantastic yeah fraggle rock hasn't hit that that moment of uh of of twitter versing of uh of people going viral and creating memes based on on that right kermit seems like Right. Kermit seems to like, yeah, Kermit seems to like have that locked down with sad Kermit and Kermit on the bike and Kermit singing hurt.

Have you seen the other? I have seen. It's pretty great. Okay. Gifts are coming your way, but first I want to tell everybody about Rupesh Kapadia. He's the rockstar accountant. He'd be perfect for you,

Eric. If you need a free consultation with a accountancy firm that sees beyond the numbers that here's my shoebox honestly free call you tell him what yeah you tell him your problems and he'll give you best practices and great advice rupesh is amazing for that but here is uh milan talking about why he uses uh capadia hello toronto mic listeners Capadia. Hello, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Milan from Fastime Watch and Jewelry Repair. We've been using Capadia LLP for many years, providing guidance for all of our corporate and personal accounting needs. Over the years, Rupesh Capadia has put together an effective tax plan for his clients. And the bottom line is he and his expert team of accountants save you money thanks toronto

mike and thank you capadilla llp this is courtesy of capadilla llp it's what i've been playing with this entire time pop sockets i think the code goes on the back of your phone if you want to watch it yeah so enjoy that courtesy of capadilla thanks this is a six pack of fresh craft beer courtesy of great lakes brewery yours too you can take that home great thank you they're also hosting uh the This is a six pack of fresh craft beer courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Yours too. You can take that home. Great. Thank you. They're also hosting the Toronto Mike listener experience for TMLX4 on September 19th from

six to 9 PM. We're going to have a live recording on the patio. Oh, you're going to have a live audience. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So people can, if they want to come and watch, they can. By the way, Great Lakes will buy your first beer for you.

So you can come and get your beer on the house. Wow. And meet me and the people and see it all happen. See Tyler. Is Tyler going to be there? Yeah, of course. I'm not going to go if Tyler's not there. Tyler's going to be there.

All right, perfect. But then everyone in attendance who wants to will have an opportunity. I'm going to have the four microphones set up and can come on a mic. I actually just did something similar at the Opera House on Friday for the Party for for marty for martin streak all his a lot of his friends and colleagues uh were there and i i set up the same thing in the opera house and people like uh david marsden or alan cross or may pots or danny elwell would pop on a mic and then we it was it worked out wonderfully so we're going to try to have the same thing for for listeners like you could come to this event and pop on a mic and say hi it'd be amazing that's amazing that that's such a cool idea you know you're bringing bringing bringing this to the community that's it how was

that that martin streak night uh i never the funny thing is because i i recorded for three hours in the the front like right as soon as you come in the whatever that would be the lobby or whatever yeah i never got to see the actual i never got into the main room for the action i had it on my calendar from the day i found out about it i couldn't i couldn't leave the house to go not because i had other plans it his death really fucked me up his death devastated me i think still to this day and it's somebody that um you know there's other people who have worked closer with him. There are people who, um, um, had, you know, had those moments where they spent hours building up a show. I got to hang out with him for about three or four years, um, before he passed away. And we spoke every week we saw each other every week for about an

hour i used to go down to the the the edge studios every thursday night and hang out when it was a student when it was like a street run studio by the eaton center and we would just shoot the shit during the breaks and and then go to like catch 22 it it's funny because i talk a lot about artists that have passed away to the media. And I'm cool with that because I'm always one degree of separation away from them, even if I've worked with them before. With Martin, it devastated me because I knew, you know, he said something to me. I don't know. Do we have time to get into this? No, please.

He said something to me. I did an interview with him for a magazine that's long gone and forgotten. I can't remember what the name of it was. but it was about five or six years before he passed away and we were talking about kurt cobain and we were talking about the the success of grunge music and especially when it was related to the edge who broke a lot of these artists whether it's smashing pumpkins or the cure the cult or or nirvana and um um it was it was a couple of years after kurt cobain died and i remember Martin Streak telling me that he's been close to that level of depression before but if Kurt was in front of him,

Martin would have pulled the trigger because he knew that that's what Kurt wanted to do. Meaning that it wasn't so much of the relationship that Martin had with Kurt, because I don't know if they had one, but Martin was just the kind of guy that would be doing whatever you needed to do, even if it meant ending your life.

Now, I'm sure that that was more symbolic than anything else. I don't want to go on record and say that Martin Streak would have pulled the trigger on anybody. But when he did what he did um I just felt just such immense fucking pain for him and I couldn't I couldn't go I couldn't go to to the event and and I felt I felt stupid I felt like what like who the fuck are you you know but I couldn't I couldn't be around those people specifically for that moment. And I'm not in denial, but it just really screwed me up. I've saved one message in all the years that I've been on Facebook.

Martin wrote me a note about a half hour before he passed away. And I've saved that one. And he just said, thanks for everything. I'll see you on the other side. You were a good friend on and on. And that's the only one that i've saved after all these years yeah wow yeah it really kind of screwed me up i mean you you've probably had this too where you know you grew up in a city of like toronto and and we're so bombarded by what

goes on in the uk in america and when things happen in your own city, in your own community, good things, the Free Times Cafe, the Horseshoe Tavern, the Grossman's Tavern, Lee's Palace, the El Macombo, Rough Trade, Big Sugar, Molly, Blue Rodeo, Pursuit of Happiness, Much Music, all those things shaped me beyond my parents you know and um the edge was absolutely a big part of that you know getting into the the shoegazing scene with my bloody valentine or or the grunge stuff i mean i was 19 to 26 years old that was when i first got in the music industry and it was happening around me in the fourth biggest music market in north America. And Martin was a big, big part of that. Wow, man. Well, I'm glad you shared that. Yeah. Because we're 10 years out,

10 years removed from Martin's death and there never was a like public collection, collective to sort of remember Marty and play the live to air jams we were all used to yeah radios like that you know when you leave radio for whatever reason your history goes with you and i understand it because they don't want you to not listen to the station and that they the branding of that of of any station is is usually bigger than one artist or one dj and one host. And people move on and life goes on.

But yeah, you know, for Marty, it was just something about the way that the community didn't, I think, get a chance to do it. But now that there's going to be a new documentary that's going to come out soon enough about him. So hopefully he'll get his due as much as I think, you know, I think that he was just as important to the city as john peel was to the bbc or for what it's worth we talk about martin streak a lot on toronto mic like we all have rob johnston on oh yeah and uh we there's and even

before this get together at the opera house pete fowler and dj craig g came over to kick out the jams which i should tell everybody we're about to kick out the jams. Cause we could probably do an episode without the jams, but I want to kick out these jams with you. What time is it? Well here. So do you have a hard stop? We're 55 minutes in.

So what is that? 12, 28. Okay. I got 15 minutes. No. Yeah. I got to do my show at one o'clock.

Okay. This is by the way, we can't kick out the jams then. So we, you have to come back another time. Okay. I'll come back. Do you want to play one jam yeah sure we can play one jam just just as long as at some point and by the way next time next time you come back i have to come i have

to sleep over here i was gonna say you can't be an hour late because that hour was our jam kicking i know this is all your fault it is like it is all it is so tyler's fault pressing depressing no it's totally my fault I thought that I would be at this appointment for 20 minutes and turn to an hour and a half yeah I'm awful I feel like since you brought a medical thing into it now I'm the asshole and that's not

publicist talk for like yeah you were just doing drugs in the bathroom totally medical so let me now before i forget let me make sure you know i'm this is not it this is an empty box in the freezer upstairs i have a lasagna for you from palma pasta i am so fucking hungry too well you guys it's pretty frozen you'll break those i don't care i'll lick it while i'm sitting in traffic in the car i'll break it down yeah i don't recommend eating it till you put that in the oven for a little bit. But courtesy of Palma Pasta,

it's a great family run. They're in Mississauga in Oakville, and you can find them on Skip the Dishes. But if you want authentic Italian food, Palma Pasta is where you want to pick up your Italian food. But they have an amazing hot table. It's called Palma's Kitchen. It's really close to Burnhamham thorpe and uh mavis and you can go to palmapasta.com to find out the exact address but you go there for like lunch or to pick up just it's just they got

they got uh pasta pizza it's good coffee it's fantastic place to just go in for a hot table i like food i like food Alright. Enjoy your lasagna. Thank you, sir. You got your beer. Stickers. Here's my final. I see I got a couple more gifts for you. Yeah. In fact, let me play a jam here while I just put this on the background since I think you might dig a little ministry here. It's in the background. But these

stickers are yours, man. That's a Toronto Mike sticker. This is a reverse, what does it go? Temporary tattoo. And you a fan of Lowest of go temporary tattoo and you fan of lowest of the low love lowest of the low shakespeare my butt one of my favorite albums of all time at mine too and completely revolutionized the canadian music industry with the yellow tape from the bare naked ladies right it was yeah prior to that yellow tape uh that was the number one indie release right shakespeare my butt and we just gave some love to 102.1, which we both listened to.

And they played so much Lowest of the Low. Oh, my God. That's when I fell in love with that stuff. That's amazing. And you get to talk to them. How fucking great is your life? The previous Toronto Mike listener experience at Great Lakes Brewery, we had a live performance from Ron and Lawrence from Lois Alone.

See, doesn't that blow your mind? That like, didn't you ever think that like as an 18 year old that you would be sitting and hanging out with the people that you're listening to the radio? I get like that all day long. It's happened to me so often now that my mind stopped being blown. It's almost like I hate it. Can you become complacent or something like that? But I start thinking, oh, I just had a one-on-one chat

with Chuck D. You can have those moments to yourself. Right. But I don't think anybody in my family really truly cares, you know,

but that's okay. You know, it's like, hey, I'm working with so-and-so. They're like, hey, that's cool. And then they move on to their lives and meanwhile I'm like, okay, I've had my fun.

Now it's time to work. But you're so right. In fact, I close every episode with Rosie and Gray from Shakespeare in My Butt. And when they did it live at Great Lakes for TMLX3, they changed the lyrics to, I want to take a streetcar downtown, listen to Toronto Mike and wander around,

drink some Great Lakes from a tin. So they changed Guinness to Great Lakes. Do you get royalties now? You should stick that up on Spotify and kind of confuse people. That's a whole different episode. So StickerU is, I want to thank StickerU, StickerU.com. They have a new store open on Queen Street West and

they're the ones who made up these stickers for us. The decals. And people who need stickers or decals or buttons or tattoos should go to StickerU.com because they help fuel real talk like this. This is the newest Lowest of the Low album. That's why I introduced them.

That sticker was made for them. So stickers, you got your stickers. So one last gift of playing every day is Halloween because this is the latest sponsor.

They're here through Halloween appropriately enough. But I have two tickets. I'll send you these. They're PDFs. I'll send you two by email. Where am I going? You're going to Milton

for Pumpkins After Dark. That's actually fucking cool. Yeah, it's great. Well, let me wait to hear it it's five i don't need to hear it that's all that's all i need so you get obviously it's after dark so you gotta let's let the sun go down right and then you get uh you get to see 5 000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies at country heritage park in milton ontario it runs runs from September 26th to November 3rd. Not only the 5,000 pumpkins, but there's like 100 sculptures and sound as well. Like this is an amazing experience.

If someone listening wants to save some money when they buy their tickets, go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code pumpkinmike and that'll save you 10%. Every day is Halloween. You're getting two PDF tickets. You can take Hannah, take anyone you want.

Yeah. When did Halloween become an adult holiday? I love that. It was Streak's favorite holiday. Yeah. Because I got a lot of those stories. Apparently, he would dress up to the max like on Halloween when you went to the chorus building or whatever. All right.

What jam of your jams do you want to play before you go to work? And then again, Tyler will book you because that's how I roll now. Tyler will get you here to kick up the jams. And I'm going to sleep over and I'm going to stay here. I'm going to sleep in my car. Let's play some Talk Talk. Okay, fine. Then when you do kick up the jams, pick a different one to replace that one here.

So let's hear a bit of Talk Talk. Thank you. I'm out. Can't escape it Baby, yesterday's favorite Don't you pay that So Eric, why this jam? Talk Talk started off being a band that was kind of next to kin of Duran Duran when they first started. They released a couple of albums and most notably was an album called It's My Life

and that song became a huge hit. And that's when I started to get into them. But as I became a fan and as they kept going, they strayed more and more away from the mainstream. And this song, Life's What You Make It, from the album The Color of Spring, was just a brilliant album that was a little bit poppy, but also took references from jazz and folk

and New Age music. It's got a bit of Smiths and new age music. It's got a bit of Smiths and stuff in there. You hear that, like you hear that How Soon Is Now part. Brilliant stuff. And then they released a couple of other albums after this, Laughing Stock. And they were just a band to me that I want every artist that i've ever worked with in the past and to

the present to be able to have that kind of creative control over the music that they want to record regardless of record label constraints or how their audience now will perceive it and it's also this is the song that i want played at my funeral. Hopefully far, far, far down the list. This is an actual funeral. I want a, I want a 15 minute funeral where I want women to cry.

I want men to shed tears and then everybody on over to Grossman's Tavern for a beer. And that's it. Why not just do that part? Like, why not just have like a, this is an aside, obviously, but a celebration of life at Grossman's Tavern or something just do that part? Like, why not just have like a, this is an aside, obviously, but a celebration of life

at Grossman's Tavern or something like that. Because I want, I, I want that five or 10 minutes of just people talking about

how wonderful or how shitty I was. And, yeah, you know what? Maybe I'll do a special episode of Toronto Mike's for you. Yeah,

okay. That'll be, that'll be just, just good. Live at Grossman's Tavern. Live at Grossman's Tavern. Live at Grossman's Tavern, yeah. So this song to me is just, it's a philosophy of life. Mark Hollis, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

That's a real fucking shame right there. And just everything that I want in a band. Now you have to replace this song on your 10 jams list. By the way, your hair. Yeah, I just got a cut. I was going to ask you, how often do you get that cut?

I got it cut last week for the first time in seven years. I felt heavy. I weigh like 115, I think. Is that right, 115? Yeah, with the haircut, it's like I'm like 93. Like, you know, like it was so fucking heavy on me and I couldn't do anything with it.

So I've always had long hair. So this is the shortest it's been, I think, since my bar mitzvah when I was 13. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like, so I'm, normally my hair's shorter than this. I know it's nothing compared to yours, but normally I wear it much shorter than this.

Could I get to that? Like, could I do that? You can do anything you want, man. You're Toronto Mike. You know, your hair will go. I want to be like Richard Flohill and Rob Bowman. I want to have that long, gray, flowing hair, you know. Right.

Now I have a goal. Just that hippie, awesome look. Like George Carlin or whatever. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're going to lose it at the top and you know we're i'm always striving to get the hair that michael hutchins had and just failing oh man there's a cool rock there's a cool guy yeah man i know a guy who worked with him on a movie just before he passed away the movie's called limp it never got released it's custom

you remember hey mister yeah yeah yeah custom direct duane levold is his name he directed this movie called limpimp starring Michael Hutchins. Wow. Never got released because of a whole bunch of stuff when he passed away. But okay. So Eric, you will come back to kick out the jams. I will absolutely come back. I'll keep on to them for you. And that brings us to the end of our 509th

show. An hour shorter than expected because Eric They don't need more time for me than that. You can follow me on Twitter I'm at Toronto Mike Eric is at the That Eric Alper Now he's got a lot of followers He doesn't need you but he can always have a few more

Strength in numbers people When I build my army I'm going to need each and every one of you To stamp out bad music Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer Propertyinthesix.com friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptor's Devotee. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP. And Pumpkins After Dark are at PumpkinsAfterDark.com. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Biff. Naked. She'll be here longer than 45 minutes. She better be. ... ...

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