Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - FOTMCast: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1874

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

In this 1874th episode of Toronto Mike'd, and 9th FOTMCast, Cam Gordon and Tyler Campbell visit to recap the previous quarter of Toronto Mike'd episodes and discuss what's new in the TMU. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

I'm Lauren Honnickman, lawyer and former City TV's legal specialist. The following episode of F-O-T-M-Cast is intended for real heads only. If you're not deeply immersed in the TMU, a devout F-O-T-M, do not listen. I'm not kidding. Stop playing this episode. Now! A little flat on innocence, but other than that, it was great. We'll go again.

One more time. Somehow are. That's my sound, man. Of course I remember says a feel there. Checks, figures and phrases that you didn't know you needed. It's FOTM cast with your hosts, Toronto Mike, Cam Gordon, and Tyler Cam. Was that always canned or did he used to do it live? I was always canned.

Did you remember that Cam, that part was in the recording? Like, I always thought that was VP doing it live. The music? No, wait, you know, the intro part. Oh. Where's your fucking keyboard? I don't know. I don't recall.

I think he's changed. He's changed. Something's changed of cams. I'm just annoyed that the bus tux on. Like every time. Well, welcome everybody to episode 1,8774. That's 1874. That is precisely one century before the VP and I were born.

Hey, oh. Of Toronto Mike, an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great Lakes Beer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Fusion Corpso, Nick Iienes. He's the host of Bill in Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to.

Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, returning for this ninth episode of FOTM cast, it's Cam Gordon. Oh, I ran out of song. Oh, yeah, it's a short time. Oh, let's do it again. Just kidding.

And, of course, the VP of Sales, Tyler Campbell, welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. That's the first time we used that intro. I thought we had the Whitney Houston We'd change it up. You know, you're not paying attention. I am paying attention.

He picks a song relevant to the previous quarter. And I know why Tyler chose that song. It's because I have finally seen Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. And I have declared it to be the greatest Toronto movie in the history of our time.

I agree with you. Everyone seems to love it. I loved it. Well, not everyone because I wrote about it on Toronto Mike.com. And the first two people to comment were like, oh, I could barely get through it. Or, uh, the humanity. Oh, I expect it so much better.

So, you know, one man's treasure is another man's trash. I've had to go on the internet to share. That's right. But I do want you, Cam Gordon, to see this movie. Maybe we'll do an episode and discuss. Like, it's, it's that Toronto. This is the most, and I, I know Scott Pilgrim versus the world. And of course, going down the road.

And we could go on with the various Toronto films that, you know, unabashedly featured. Toronto playing Toronto. You know, not like Short Circuit 2. That didn't play Toronto. But like this is, I won't,

if I told you about the cameos by the Rivoli or the dome or the C&Tower or the TTC or Raz and Moka or CP 24, I'm telling you, man. Yeah. This is the most Toronto movie and it is fucking funny. I loved it. I'm glad they're doing well.

And that song plays a key role. Yeah. Is that, and that's, that's a Canadian song. Like I said, I thought that, I always thought that was naked and famous, that band.

Same vibe. Brave Shores. Brave Shores. And yeah, so Brave Shores is a brother's sister collective, much like Len. Maybe brother's sister bands is a Toronto thing. Len is a Toronto band. The carpenters are a Toronto band. Yeah, of course.

What's to say the cowboy junkies, aren't they? Yeah, that's a brother sister. Yeah. You're right. Margo and Michael. Yeah. You're right. A rich history.

We're joking about the carpenters before Bob Willett writes me an email. Mike, you know the carpenters are not from Toronto. Mike Myers and Paul Myers. Oh my God. And Peter. Peter, of course. He loves his palm apostol. Shout out to Peter.

He was probably listening. Peter's the one of the three most likely to listen to us, right? PM. You were going to say? PM. P.M. It's initials. Oh, yeah.

There's, okay. You guys remember. Do you remember PM Toronto? Yes. Yes, I do. And actually, I, my trawling around the now archives I found does. Ziggy,

Ziggie Lawrence. Of course. Is there any, you don't need to tell us the last name of Ziggi. Well, Ziggy could be from the wire,

whatever there. Sabat, Zabatka. Yeah, but there was, I found out, it was a singles night hosted by Ziggy.

Wow. Host of mush music. Yes. It was right in the ad. I'll send it to you guys. That's hot. Yeah. I believe Storm and Norman

used to do remotes from PM Toronto like in the Leaf playoff. Like in the early 90s. 1,000%. Yeah. That sounds about right here. So we have a lot

catching up to do off the top. And then, of course, there is a structure to these episodes. And, oh, I was going to play a song, but I don't actually have it loaded up. So. Holy shit. Look at that. That, I would actually hang that in my. Okay, that's pretty, pretty rad. She looks like Brigitte Nielsen. Even though you were here for like a half an hour before I press record, Tyler, we never connected you to my board. Oh, shit. We didn't. Yeah. Do you have a cable?

No, what I was hoping is maybe we do a little update off the top. And I think most importantly, this was a big quarter for Cam Gordon. Was it ever? Like, I'm telling you he's everywhere. The Globe and Mail. He's Toronto-Miked. He's talking to Connie Thiessen. Like, he's on, were you on breakfast television? I did pitch them.

I never heard back from it. Okay, but why don't you tell, while I get this cable and set up Tyler, and then find this song I was going to play. Why don't you just update everybody listening in the TMU about this big quarter for you, Matt? Yeah, yeah. It's, it's been, it's been awesome. So my, for those of you don't know, my first book. came out. Track changes the origin story of Canadian music on the internet 1990 to 2010. I always catch myself. I want to say track changes the ongoing history of new music. Yeah, it's great.

The people seem really into it. We had a great launch event that Mike, you were a big part of. at Handelbar. Tyler was also there and a lot of the listeners, which was great. Really like fun room of people and, you know, Shad showed up and a gentleman reg. I saw there. Shad showed up. Yeah. And then he became a big part of the news when Drake kind of slagged him when Drake was on the Juno's celebrating Nelly Furtado. But just, yeah, so Shad got named erroneously and unfairly so. Shad got dragged by Drake on the Juno's

mere days after we were hanging with the man. Yeah, it's so dumb. Like, why he open up these old views? But it's wrong. I don't mind that it's dumb. I'm a big fan of dumb. You know that. I have Tyler on every single corner. No, come on. But I'm a save that for the Elmo gig, okay? But I'm a big fan of dumb, but he's wrong. Like, he thinks he lost, like, the six Juno's in this year to Shad.

Shad's like, I think he's only ever won one June or this, just, that's not how it went down. It's also just not a good look for Drake. No, it's petty. Like, yeah, look, what? It's about Nelly for Todd. And who gives a fuck about a goddamn Juneau? You know I've been saying that forever, okay? You have.

Yeah. By the way, did you see the ratings were like incredible for it. I was, I like the Junos. I watched it every minute of that damn show. like a lot, Joni Mitchell was there and the pride, the other PM showed up

in Rush, obviously. Is that Mark Carney? Yeah. The other PM. Okay. I'm loading in the song because I'm going to put it in the background

and you two were scheduled to visit for FOTM cast on April 1st. We were. And I had this loaded up to play. Right. And you did not show up by April 3. Literally other Canadian songs about April 1st. but this technically is not a

well you know what I've voted up the wrong fucking song you you know it's too early like what are we doing here just making it I'm embarrassed okay I'm embarrassed I'm embarrassed so I'll call up the song in a moment and do that whole spiel again I thought that was like a thought experiment

that honestly it's early on a like a good it's a good Friday anyway okay and any reason to play first day of spring oh yeah anyway so it's okay it's like what the I can't believe I'm loading in the wrong jam over here Oh my God, I'm off my game completely here. So you had a good quarter.

You launched your book and I saw that it got a lot of press recognition and a lot of people came out to support you, Cam. How does that feel to be so supported? Honestly, it's incredibly humbling and to say nothing of the FOTM community. There was a big turnout by FOTMs at that event. And always appreciated. Yeah, like everyone I speak to is really into this again. It's very, I'd say like it's very, very sad.

Because as you guys know, like I've been working on this for a long time. And yeah, like more to come. I have other sort of promotional activities plan. But I do feel like I've kind of tapped into something, this idea of, you know, just talk about everything we've lost, all these internet websites and technology and whatnot and what, you know, what it all means. And how do we best preserve it? I've had some deep conversations with the likes of Jeremy Hopkins and other folks in this space. Retro Ontario was helpful as I was putting this together.

So more to come. And yeah, just I can't give enough thanks to anybody. We bought a copy for all the Instagram account. Was someone to talk to as I put this together. Your parents were selling copies at the event. My parents, I put my parents, my eight-year-old parents to work. Did you guys talk to my daughter? You see, she was like...

No, I saw her with like girlfriend. Yeah, so she was there for little pals and my nephew Charlie. So, yeah. Oh, I met Charlie. Yeah. Your mom introduced me. Linda introduced me to Charlie. Okay, yeah.

It was a great night. It was just like a really fun room of people, like former co-workers, current coworkers, you guys, people I didn't know. Andy, I want to shout her out because she took video of my five-minute speech. It was a three-minute speech that became a five-minute speech, but I got a video. It was great, yeah.

Yeah, we got some good, like photos of you on stage, too. I quite like that venue, too. Yeah, it gets to have underrated. Yeah, it was a great night. Yeah, it was wonderful. I loved it. full house and like everyone was there for you. And we're very proud of you and very happy that your book is out.

And yeah, what a great... Any plans to write a sequel? Or even better, a TMU edition where it's hyper-focused in all things in the TV. Yeah, I would say I do have an idea that I'm starting to obsess over on the second book. So stay tuned. Okay. Stay tuned. Track changes.

Yeah. So this is the song I was planning to... play on April 1st. And I have a memory of being at the Ontario Place Forum to see Chalk Circle, but not really knowing any of the songs. And then they played this. And I remember having this. And I was like, I don't know, 10 years old or whatever.

And I had a moment of like, oh, that's the song I heard on the radio. Like, it was exciting to hear a song that I knew from the radio. Like, it was a moment for me. Were you just at Ontario Place? And they were, they had to be playing. I don't know. Like, I wasn't there alone because I was 10. Like, so this would be like parents bringing you there.

And I don't know how we, there was no way it was like, we're going. going to see April. We're going to see Chalk Circle. We're going to see Chalk Circle. Okay,

everybody. They like sat you down like so we're bringing their hands. I'm sure we were at Ontario Place for other

reasons and then, okay, there's a free concert happening here. Let's go check it out. It would have been funny if it's a Mike.

We're going to see Michael Jackson and then April Fool's. It's actually Chalk Circle who's at the song April Fool. Or maybe maybe they thought

you were taking you to see the Lazarettes. See, that's, perfect content for this episode. A reminder to the listenership. Lauren warned you at the beginning. I'm going to do it one more time before we get into it.

If you are not a real head, like if you're not listening to almost every episode that drops in the Toronto mic feed, if you're not at least interested passionately about attending a TMLX event, I think you should have attended one or maybe 21. You know, like Langer's on the live stream. There's a guy.

That guy is allowed to listen to FOTM cast, okay? everybody on the live stream, I'd say attending these live stream means you're allowed. Levee Fumke is on the live stream, okay? She's taking over the swag, okay? We're talking on this live stream about merch, Toronto mic shirts, something with the catchphrases we drop. Maybe it's available to Elma Combo on May 21. Get your tickets right now.

But that conversation is happening here. I think I'm going to, Moose Grumpy, Leve Fumke, Stephanie Wilkinson, they can take this on. Leslie's going to help me of the Patreon. It takes a village, all these good people, Greg, Winston, Hey, Ref, you know, I mentioned Leslie, Leslie, and Rob Del Mundo, okay, all these good people that are online early, Carlos Delgado, Gano, online early on a Friday, a holiday Friday to check out FOTM cast, they can listen.

But if you're a casual or you're like not really immersed in the TMU, you just cherry pick an episode here and there. Stop listening. Delete this from your iPhone. Yeah, throw your phone into the lake. Yeah. Get the hell out of here. What are you still listening for?

Shut it down and go listen to Rogan or something. I don't know. Get some help. Yeah, please. Okay. Tyler, how's your quarter been? I'm going to make an observation

and then you're going to tell us how you're doing. Okay. I have noticed, like it's palpable. Yes. You have withdrawn like you've been buried with some other priorities, some other responsibility that has consumed you this past quarter. I think,

I'm surprised you're here because I think you've been very, very busy. Yes. I've been busy. Thank you for noticing. Yeah, I started a new job at the end of last year. And it has sort of taken over my life. It's good. I'm enjoying it. Are you well compensated? Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I feel good about it. Or is this something where you're putting in the work? No, no. I'm being appropriately compensated for my time. But yeah, no, it's, we've started a new advertising agency. And it's, yeah, it's a lot of fucking. I know. It's like fucking Don Draper.

Yeah, hello. Yeah, I'm more of the, I'm more of the Roger Sterling of the agency. I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's just taking up a lot of my time. Your dad's name Roger, right? He is named Roger.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. How, Tyler, I know this because like we, I feel like we chat it. Yeah. Last time, but how sort of the ad industry out there these days? Like, what are, it's rough. It's really bad.

A lot of the big sort of global conglomerates are shutting down and, consolidating agencies. Was it WPP? WPP? WPP. WPP, yeah. Omnikom has done similar things. You know, not to get too deep into the weeds, but yeah, no, it's like a lot of people have lost their jobs. And so I feel very fortunate that I'm in the position I'm in. And we have a very, we have one client who is very busy and has a lot of work for us. So can't complain about that. These are people you've worked with before. Yeah. Like a lot of, which is helpful. Yeah. Is it an airline? It is not an airline. Is it tobacco? It's a pharmaceutical company.

Okay. Yeah, pretty close. Anyway, let's bring in a Tony Chapman for some brand chat or that. Anyway, that's what's taking out my time. That's exciting for you, Tyler. And that explains your, like, you seem distant. I haven't felt. Yeah, it's not by choice.

Like, you know, my heart is always in the TMU. And so, yeah, it's not. And you're here. And I'm here. It sounds like a good busy. Like overall a good business. I'm busy. I can't complain.

Okay. So you're busy. Yeah. Cam published a damn book. He did. Yeah. Okay. So what the hell have I been doing of my life?

What about your, I want to talk about, I think we're gigantes, but all these like no shows. Well, yeah. Maybe that, does that come up during the...

It does come up, but we can maybe touch on it now. Like save it for wrapped, maybe? Yeah, let's save it for wrap. Okay. But yeah. Let's save that for wrapped.

I will tell you, I did something that, it ties in with Tyler. So something happened mere days ago. Tyler, it ties in. I'm going to write that down

for the Elmo. Okay. May 21st, I'm going to get the right day. May 21st, don't you dare miss it, okay? Don't you dare miss it? Come there and see Langer, okay?

But May, no, I gotta get the right dates. Holy smokes. March 31st, which was mere days ago. Yes. I had Ralph Ben-Murgy visiting at 2 p. no, 11 a.m. maybe? 11 a.m., it doesn't matter. 11 a.m.

Ralph Ben-Murgie was visiting from Hamilton, and I was all psyched up for it. I love chatting with Ralph. So that happened. I was all said. I promoted it. But at about 10 to 11 or something, I got to knock on the door.

And I'm like, why is Ralph knocking on the front door? Ralph knows I want him to knock on the side door. And I go to the door to tell Ralph, go to the other door. It's not Ralph Ben Mergi. It's David Eisenstadt. Whoa. And I said, oh, David. And then my brain really quickly remembers we did talk about a Passover special that would

record the day before Passover. But this is going to sound terrible. Like, I wasn't conscious all the time of when Passover is. Like, it's not, you know, I'm sorry. I just, when's Passover, you know? It turns out Passover started on April 1st. So, David was there. for an 11 a.m. recording that never made my calendar.

So it never made my calendar, and I forgot about it. But I definitely did tell him he could come over for a Passover special on the 31st of March. So I don't know where the wires got crossed. The last time this happened was you and I, right, VP? You booked a band while I was in the middle of a chat with somebody. With Gilles LeBlanc, if I recall. Jill LeBlanc, okay. So that, I was fucked on that one.

But this one, I'm like, I'm quickly, I'm like, okay, David, how busy are you? Apparently he's as busy as Leslie Taylor. He had some time in his hands. So, David's, I said, you sit in with Ralph and let Ralph and I do my thing for 90 minutes, and then I'll record right afterwards. I'll record your Toronto mic debut. And I'll drop your debut on April 1st, which was the first day of Passover. So it all worked out, but it could have been a disaster.

Good thing you were home. Well, a lot of things, first of all, it's a good thing I was home, but I wasn't in the middle of a recording. Like, it all worked out the best it could have, considering. I have a question for Cam Gordon from a diehard listener who is worthy of listening to FOTM, He goes by the handle Van Ram. He's the chap who sent me to Bruce Springsteen. Oh, okay. So you know he's worthy, okay?

And he gave me some very expensive scissors. Oh, I held those scissors. Those are unbelievable. And he drove like three hours to come to a TMLX event at Palma's Kitchen. What can't this guy do? I think if I had to pick one FOTM, this is the guy I picked. This sounds cool. Hey, Van Ram, why don't you and the misses make that drive and come see me at the

Elma combo on May 21st? Just throwing it out there. But Van Ram says, I have a question for Cam Gordon. Wow. A couple or so years ago, he said he'd never seen any Saturday Night Live. So after,

even after all the Saturday Night Live, 50 Hoopla, is it true? He still hasn't seen any of it? I certainly haven't seen any since. I just, I honestly don't think I've ever... Because that's a mind blow, right, Tyler?

Yeah, like... Like, he's a almost 50-year-old man. Yeah, like even accidentally. He's been alive. certainly seen clips. I've seen, you know, I've probably seen like the... Okay, if I said this to you,

if I said to you, I'm living in a van down by the river. Does that mean something to you? Yeah, the bassomatic. I'm going to be, damn it, Wayne's World, Wayne's world.

I was making copies. Yeah, like even, you know, weekend reports. Yeah, that's what it's called. That's definitely what it's called.

Yeah. Can you name how many weekend update hosts are... Well, There's Norm McDonald. There you got Dennis Miller. Two. You have, who's that smarmy guy?

It was the talk show. Not me. I'm Chevy Chasing. You're not. He has a talk show on now. Who am I think of? Jimmy Fallon. I know, Seth Myers.

Seth Myers, yeah. Fallon never hosted Weekend up. Yeah, he did. Did he? Yeah. If I saw Fallon was there, I checked out. Oh, Jane, you ignorant. Beep.

Yeah. That's right. Was it that? Was Dan Aykroyd? He was. She was from Caden. She was from Caden Allie. heavy chase and you're not.

I know sort of, that's pretty good. Certain things break containment and cam has... But I've never, like, said, I'm going to watch SNL. Like, not even if a musician you really liked was the musical guest. Well, I did musical guest. Record when the tragically hip was on. Okay. Oh, there's something.

Yeah. But beyond that, I don't think so, no. Fascinating. So Van Ram, thank you for the question and for the follow-up. He lives in Buffalo? I don't think it's Buffalo. I think it's further than that. Oh.

I think it may be, but maybe it's Buffalo area. I don't know. But I do know, I feel like we should get into RAPT and do everything there. What do you think, Tyler? We should, should we remind people what FOTMcast is or do we? No, do it. Everyone knows. Well, Apple forgets.

He's getting older. This is specifically for Mike Apple. Hello, Mike. FOTMcast is a quarterly show where we recap the previous quarter. We talk about the highlights. We talk about the low lights. We talk about everything in between. So it's numbers, it's facts, it's figures.

All of your meta. Toronto mic needs are served here on FOTMcast. One thing that I did want to read, I got a lot of email to the FOTMcast at gmail.com inbox. Oh, I forgot about that. And I did get one message that I wanted to read. This is from a listener. Keep the long FOTM cast episodes with a prayer hands emoji.

Unless you old men can't talk for three plus hours. I will allow P breaks if you have prostate issues. from one FOTM Hall of Famer to another, leave a fomka. Okay. She's delightful. She is delightful.

So we have made a conscious decision to try to shorten the episode. We'll see how it goes. So we're going to talk about fewer episodes fewer episodes. But there may be longer clips, so it may still balance out. We'll see how it goes.

Thank you for your submission, Leave a Fumka. And what's the address again where people can write? FOTMcast at gmail.com. Okay, people write there. because it's going to have this fun segment. I got a ton of messages.

This one was really just the one that I wanted to highlight. You know. Yeah, you can't read them all. We don't have that kind of time. We don't have that time. My hard drive is not big enough. Hey, oh. You know what anniversary came and went that we didn't talk about?

The one year anniversary of us going to the second J's game. That's right. This season. That's what we did kind of talk about it. We literally played a clip of us talking. We didn't mark the anniversary, though. You know what reminded me of it when Cody Ponce sort of, sort of took a tumble and he got hurt

because I think Scherzor pitched that game we saw and he got injured because I remember saying oh this might be his only start for the Blue Jays this team I don't know remember how off those vibes were so bad terrible so bad Santander was just not feeling it

it's just no that was that was awful we called them fifth place in the ALE East yeah we watched about 40 seconds of that game it was so much fun it was a great time I had a great time yeah let's do that again We almost got booted from the dome. Yeah. I remember.

Peaking in the hotel room before the game. Wrap. Wrap. Wrap. Wrap it up. I will take it. Rapped. This is the longest segment of FOTM cast.

So we'll see how we do here. Producer note, so we never did test your volume. We sure didn't. You're plugged in now to the board. I forgot that you play your own clips. As they say, fuck it.

We'll do it live. How many episodes? are we going to talk about it is wrapped? I was working on this late into the night last night. I have... Yeah, you text us at 1 a.m. I did, and I was not done yet. Burning the midnight oil.

I was. I have 11 clips. How can you sleep? Our beds are burning. I have 11 clips, and I have 12 episodes that I want to talk about. There's one episode that has no clip, but it's just an episode we're going to talk about it. We're going to discuss it. Yeah. These are good ones.

Maybe Elvis will listen to that segment. I hope so. I hope he does. Because he's really enjoyed that. I think he listened to that episode. Did he? I think he saw the buzz in the Oh yeah,

what's after. He does bring it up a lot. He listened to it. And he likes to reference it. So the funny thing about Elvis, if I will, before we dive into Rapt is he listens to like, he brags about not listening to any episodes of it.

But whenever he does listen to an episode, he fucking loves it so much. Like, imagine the joy in that man's life. He actually listened to episodes of Toronto. He's such a passionate man. He's probably like tearing up. Because that episode we're going to talk about that you didn't pull a clip from. We kind of heard one already.

There was a small clip from it. By the way, he's so funny. He loves it. I really love Elvis. Yeah, I love Elvis. He's great. Not the first one. An infectious laugh.

Hey, oh, that's why he gets to co-host those Palma's Kitchen events. And there will be another one, everybody. So stay tuned to find out when that TMLX event will be. It'll be late November or early December. But the next TMLX event is going to be the last Thursday of June. And it's going to be at Great Lakes Brewery, which is not too. far from like Royal York and Queensway down the street from the Costco right around the corner what time is that by the way six to nine six to nine okay I had five to nine if six

was nine well five is when we want you to arrive because I get there at five and I need people to hang with that's right okay go ahead great well thank you let's wrap up this quarter as we do the 55th quarter of the Toronto Mike podcast 45 episodes in this quarter a very light quarter for Toronto. I felt it. Yeah. 56 in Q4. So way way way down. The lightest quarter since Q3 of 24 when you had 44 episodes. Can I address that? Well, I call that the kayak quarter. And so this was, this felt very much like the kayak quarter. And so I think where you might be going, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of postponements, a lot of cancellations, a lot of delays, some weather issues. No doubt it was a very nasty winter. People being busy. Tough weather. To get people in the

basement is a tough quarter. For sure. So like Andy Stochansky, which happened. Yep. Multiple postponements. Right. Bruce McCullough has not happened. But there were three times he was in the calendar. So once you're in the calendar, that basically, I don't like, I don't like to record more than one Toronto mic today.

So it's like that day is off the table. Yep. Rob Salem and Rita Zicus. Yeah. They canceled a couple times, although they're coming soon, I think, in April. Dan O'Toole. Yeah. He just ghosted me and then twice.

One time he canceled and one time he ghosted me. Is he back in the, no? Okay. And then of course the David Bronstein incident. Oh yeah. Bagel. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. So that these are great points, Tyler. Astute as always. And that was part of the headaches. There was a lot of postponements, a lot of cancellations, a lot of delays, a lot of trouble of the scheduling. And Mother Nature was a beast. And a lot of people just, I can't, snowing.

It's ice. It's mind. Understandable. Whatever. Fine. But another, and this, I want to apologize. to the TMU. And I feel I let people down this past quarter

because in the other parts of TMDS, Toronto Mike Digital Services, which is how I'm trying to send all these kids at the university and pay the mortgage and feed everybody and everything. I, much like you, Tyler, I was buried this past quarter. There were so many projects

that had nothing to do of Toronto Mike. And there was one particular project that had to do of a brand new, exciting women's professional baseball league, the WPBL, that I was immersed in since January and I'm producing a podcast for them,

a weekly podcast, and it's taken up a lot of time. There's a lot of, you know, we would record episodes and critique them and figure out the tone and who's the host and should I be seen or just heard and all these different things figuring out. So a lot of that, but also I did this whole arborist thing

and this precious metals thing and I, you know, I spoke to these accountants across, like I did a lot of different things at TMDS, but they were time hogs. Is this all word of mouth? like all these opportunities. Like generally. The PW, the, I gotta get the right initials.

The WPBL, because of my relationship with Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. Right. So that's how that comes in. The Arborist gig, which was Brad, we're going to do more.

And I was in London, Ontario for this thing. It was Brad. Oh, sorry. Sorry. It was rad. It was through the professor pricklethorn. Oh,

so it was word of mouth through that one. Yeah. Precious metals, I'm still not sure how I got it. I don't know because I was hired to host this thing and produce this thing and it was great. Hey, we all need aluminum. No idea. Honestly, I learned a lot in these conversations because it was way out of my comfort zone.

But I still don't know how that happened. And there was a gentleman who hired me for the talk to all the accountants across the country. Like, that was pretty cool. I'm doing this keynote thing to start off their conference. That was because this gentleman remembered me from a General Motors road trip like, I don't know, 15 years ago. Wow. And then because of that, he's been following me. And he has been witnessing the rise like a Phoenix,

the rise of Toronto Mike winning a podcast award in 2025. This all sounds like good busy. But all this, yeah, it's all be busy. We're all making money here. You know, the first thing to go is like, oh, maybe I can't record four episodes this week. Right. Like, and it really, I did, there were some weeks I recorded two episodes and I felt like, am I even doing this anymore?

Like, two episodes a week? Like, I felt bad and I felt like a failure. And I'm like, oh, I wish I could just do this, but that's not how the... Well, you should and you are. Just kidding. No, don't take it personally. These people, like, canceled on you. I do find, because, yes, it was very cold and icy this winter.

But you've had other, like, successful Q1s, too. I do feel like this was like... But there's something's happened. I think something happened since COVID, where people are reticent. Is that the word I'm looking for? To go to... Do it in person. Like Tara Sloan.

I think that'll come up in a minute. But Tara Sloan was always an in-person guest this past quarter, and we had talked about it. We talked about it so many times. And then suddenly, I can't get there, but I can zoom with you. And then you have that moment of like, do I, this lovely woman who I like very much, do I tell her, go take a hike, Tara? Or do I let her zoom in and the next time she can come into the basement? So there's been a lot of that. And I feel like the world wants to do the remotes, but I had this chat with Jeff Vidler last week.

if you listen to that episode, Jeff Vittler, we were talking. And he's kind of reassured me that maybe I should stick to my vision. Shout out to Maestro Fresh West. I do feel like perhaps also a factor. There's just a lot of heaviness in the world right now between, you know, layoffs and wars and politics and stuff. Yes. I feel like a lot of people just get to a point where like, I can't, I can't even.

Yeah. You know, and like a lot of extracurricular stuff, you know, secondary stuff, falls by the wayside, not suggesting doing a podcast is either of those. But I feel like just like almost subconsciously in this winter and people are just like, fuck it. Yeah, I considered, I considered zooming in today. Cam should have zoomed in. Saved him a 90 minute track.

That's okay. That's okay. I like coming here. Okay. Well, I'm still trying to make everybody come here, even if it means less episodes. So my apologies for the lighter load, but then again, maybe my load was just too high previously. Well, we've always said that you go above and be.

beyond and maybe you record more than you should. So, you know, and 45 episodes is still a lot of episodes. I suppose. That's like 15 a month. Yeah. You know what? When you say it that way, not so bad. Okay, let's get into these quarterly episode rundowns. Yeah, just a couple more facts that I need to burn.

There were 44 individual guests down from 61 in Q4. So that's a pretty big jump because you actually had quite a few guestless episodes this quarter as well. can you remind me? Because some of them, if they don't have a number, I don't count them. Like, I know you might count them. But like, so I, like, for example, my daughter turned 10. Sure. And I dropped a 10-minute episode with her.

Yeah. But I didn't number it. Right. So I didn't think that would, I didn't count it myself. And there was another one. Maybe it was like a St. Patrick's Day thing. Oh, yeah, my lucky charms thing. I did a little St. Patrick's Day, but that was not, I didn't number that one either.

Right. Right. I just dropped it in the feed. Yeah. So, okay. So then, yeah. But. So I'm trying to remember. I don't know.

did I actually have any real numbered episodes this past quarter that had no guests? Maybe it didn't in that case. And if that is the case, then... I was trying to head you off at the past. I'm like, oh, 10 minutes with Morgan, you're going to give that a number? I guess I could have given it a number, but I decided to just make it like a bonus thing.

Yeah, and I did not count those episodes in the episode count. So just to be clear about that. But Morgan is an FOTM now. I want that made clear. Yes. I would hope so. And then there were 23 first-time guests down from, That's not bad.

32 in the last quarter. Respectable. Yeah. And then a couple of milestones. So Rob Pruse became a member of the 40 timer club. Wow. Well, congrats to my Elma combo. Yeah.

He actually made, nice guys. Oh, the nicest. He actually made four appearances this past quarter. Oh, because Nash the Slash. And then three toasts. Wow.

Yeah. And then Ralph, not that kind of rabbi. Ralph Benmergy. He became a member of the 10 days. timer club. Okay, good for him. Double digits. I make him drive from Hamilton. That's the asshole I am. Anyway, that's it. Those are the numbers, the stats, the facts, the figures from Q1 of this year.

And Cam is the most, because somebody asked me this, and I said it was Cam, but Cam is the most frequent guest. Cam has made 113 appearances, not including today. He came on to talk about this new book of his, which I highly recommend. Like I said, the first genuine appearance where, like I was actually coming on for a reason. That's true. Yeah, well, the first time was just hate. That's, uh, Yeah, curiosity.

Oh, this guy's a... Well, that's in my five minutes stage. I actually might drop the five minutes speech at the track changes event as a bonus episode in the feed. I might do that. Actually, one of the other piece of coverage for the book coming out, I do actually have another anecdote about you and the LG shine phone and whatnot. We should write a book about that. Yeah, this could be more in a marketing trade publication.

But more, more on that later. Completely ignored. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So I think we are ready to talk about some of these. Even though I feel shame at those low numbers you just drop. Don't feel shame. I'm like Boba Shett over here.

All right. So let's go through it. We're not going to talk about every episode. We're just going to talk about some of the highlights that we've identified. Okay. Early in the, and these are pretty much in chronological order as well. So early in the quarter, think back, if you will, to early January.

We're all, you know, just recovering from Christmas. We've all got the FOTM cast Hangover, and we're getting into some new guests. And Rob Bowman, the wonderful and learned Rob Bowman, came to join you. His second appearance, he did not bring his co-author Daniel Tate with him. This was Rob Solo. Oh, later asked me what I was doing last night, speaking to Daniel Tame. Oh, yes, we will get into that. So Rob, a fascinating guy, music historian, wrote the book on,

Stax records from which a wonderful HBO documentary was made. Highly recommended. One of the conversations you had was about Steve Cropper, who had passed away not long before that chat. Steve Cropper, one of the great musicians in Stax, a member of Booker T and the MGs, across everything, Blues Brothers on a million recordings, Otis Redding. Produce sitting on the dock of the bay.

Sitting on the dock of the bay. Also, yeah. Parentheses, that too. So let's hear of good gems. Yeah, let's hear Rob talk about Steve Cropper and let's check the volume as we do that. I wondered if you'd say a word about Steve Cropper before we remind people how they can read more about stacks,

see more about stacks, and I got another big topic for you. The contribution of Steve Cropper is a guitarist, songwriter, artist, as a member of Booker Teton, MGs, and a producer is unfathomable. It's one of the most important musicians and soul music history. That's real simple. When Mojo names them the second guitarist of all time, whatever you're that stupid poll was, those polls are dumb. First of all, you know, second best, why not third?

Why not first? But the idea, and what do you mean by best guitarist? I mean, I don't know who they were's number one that year, but, you know, Steve can't play lead like Jeff Beck. He can't play like Jimmy Hendricks, and nor did he ever really want to. Steve was primarily an extraordinary rhythm player who understood how to make a track, a dance track. A dance track was funk. He did play some leads. You know, you hear that play at Steve and Soulman.

But those aren't long solos, like a Beck or a Page or a Clapton or Hendricks would play. You know, he wasn't technically advanced the way Eddie Van Halen was. But that wasn't what he was trying to do. So again, who's better and who is ridiculous? He's probably one of the best rhythm guitarists ever, and one of the most important guitars to black popular music in American history. That's the symposite. Boom.

Yeah. Not wrong. Listening to him, Rob Bowman, he's fantastic. But I'm like, oh, yeah, like he did take the time in January. He sat here in the base. basement and then we had a conversation like that. That reminds me why I do this show. Thank you.

Yeah, and it's just amazing to me that a guy like that who has that kind of knowledge and history of music is, walks amongst us, you know? You bump into him at like events. He was at the Red Room. Yeah, he was there. He was there. I will say, like, listening to that too,

I do worry that, are we going to have these sorts of relationship as musicians going forward. Like when you think of someone like Steve Kropper, all the things he got involved. Like it's just it's, it's awesome. To quote Stu Stone, remarkable. The range of stuff. Like, even a lot of the Booker T and the M.G. Solo stuff is

like incredible. It's all like instrumental. I don't know. It's, again, it's probably just an age thing. But I worry that we're going to sort of lose a lot of that, just sort of the reverence for like, but you're doing it. I'm doing it. You know, Ed Conroy's doing it. Yeah, but like we're all on, like this is all

kind of respectfully fringy stuff too and I don't know like it's one thing like I was thinking like at the book event like you know my daughter's there and my nephew who are like teenagers like I was just think why would they care about it yes you know it was it would be like us hearing about like the 1950s when we were kids it's like it seems like why do we care about Steve cropper and Otis Redding and stacks records yeah that's fair I mean it's before our time and the i teased it the other topic I was going to bring up his other is muscle shoals like Like you can have Rob Bowman go buy him a beer and he'll do hours telling you about muscle shoals and Stag's records. And you're like, that's way before my time.

And I give a shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The song Melting Pot by Bookerty and the Angels. Oh, yeah.

So it's not, I don't think it's a generational thing and it's not an age thing. It's a curiosity thing. Yeah. It's not for everyone, but. Yeah. 20-year-olds were really curious and 20-year-olds who just don't care. Yeah. Yeah.

Fair enough. You know. Come on. How dare you? I guess our kids today as curious. as maybe previous generations were. And they probably are just about different things. Some are.

I know my oldest is always telling me about, he'll tell me about, he'll listen to Paul McCartney's RAM and then he'll break it down from me. We're going to walk after this. And it's like, I haven't listened to Ram in its entirety. Although I did get, I want to shout out Jim Shedden, a good FOTM who gave me a personalized tour

of the Paul McCartney photography exhibit at the art gallery. And it was tremendous. And I did watch Man on the Run. which was interesting to see some of the Paul McCartney world post Beatles. They did a really nice job. You saw the photo of Paul McCartney reading the Toronto Star. Of course I did. Yeah, I think he's on a train going to Montreal or something like that.

Love it. Yeah. Love that. Okay, and I love that clip from Rob Bowman. He was tremendous in quarter one. I'm glad you recognized him. You mentioned Ed Conroy in there, and I think we've all probably seen the trailer for the new CN Tower documentary. You know, I haven't.

Oh, you should check that out. I'm loosely aware of them. Okay. Well, Ed's in that. He's sort of a talking head in there. I have to dig, why didn't you tell me? Like, why didn't you watch that in a link to this thing? I assume that you would have, you're in the zeit guys.

Can you text us when this happens? I'm waiting. She let us know what you had for breakfast. You could send us the fucking C&Tower doc. Anyway, we'll discuss off on. What a jerk. Okay, well, I hope there's some footage from Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Oh, a good C&Tower content there.

Construction document. No, not that one. Okay, so I look forward to the... Not that kind of documentary. The CN Tower doc. Okay. Moving on. Rushme and Supriya.

Oh, good. This was a hot episode. Lots of... Got to do that again. Too hot for radio discussion. Lots of chatter about the whole Mike Stafford thing, which will... I want to ask you about sort of at the end of this. Yeah.

This is sort of earlier in the conversation talking about... AM Talk Radio and whether it's safe for for people like Reshmi and Supria, women of color, who were on talk radio and endured quite a bit of abuse from listeners and others. So let's hear some of that chat. Is AM Talk Radio in this country a safe space for women of color? Is that a joke? So I mean, I mean, no. What's a safe space, though?

Well, and that's the other thing. Like, I'm not asking for a safe space. You want to come at me? Come at me. Like, you want to, you want to argue about stuff? You want to, like, talk about, like, you know, big issues of the day. You want to talk politics? I want to talk partisan politics?

Sure. I'd love to do that. Like, I'm not scared of any of that stuff. But, like, you're going to come at me and tell me that, like, you know, we're under a surreal law or that all of a sudden you're not going to be allowed to do X, Y, or Z because of a non-execor. law that doesn't exist. There you go.

X, Y, Z, thank you. This is not a safe space. Yeah, exactly. But I just, like, I think, you know, are we actively putting brown women, women of color, black women that are,

you know, in and around talk radio, are we putting them into a line of fire? I think it's less of a safe space and more in that we're actually actively putting them into an adversarial space in which we know they're not going to come out without a few clocks to the face after the fact, proverbial or real.

Yeah. I mean, safe space, I think, is an unsafe space is where someone doesn't feel like they can be themselves. And I think most people would say in a workplace, you have to have a certain level of professionalism. So now you can't be your complete self. But when someone brings their professional version to work and they're othered, or they're treated differently, then I would describe that as not a safe space to work. I mean, like, there were perks to my job, like, mileage,

and I never knew it because no one told me. And it's one of those things around. But would they tell, would they tell Carrie Agar about mileage? I don't know if they got him never go on site anymore, but yeah, sure. So there's this white woman, who's the manager, who just never told me that there's mileage. And I'm going out and I'm claim this mileage. Yeah.

And I'm doing all of these events. It's kilometer ridge, by the way. And it sounds petty, but it's one example that I'm coming up with where I'm like, well, why didn't anyone tell me this? But also, was I the one who was supposed to ask? And that moment, in those moments where you find out that there are these things going on and you don't know about them and were you supposed to know, and of course you are. Every employee should know these things, but they weren't told to me.

Then you wonder, is it because there's something different about me? So I can't say that she was being racist and not telling me. She could not be racist at all. She could just not like Rush Me Neer. And then she just doesn't want to tell me. But either way, there's something about me that I'm not being given the same information as everyone else. That I think I would describe as like somewhat of an unsafe space. So is radio safe for brown girls?

Is radio like Supriusat? I don't think it has to be a place where everyone is accepted because you want to debate and you want to debate. and you want to take on different positions, but the respect has to be there. And it is not. I would love for 10-10 to respect a trans person for five minutes and let them speak. I would love that. They'll never do it.

That's why I would say that's not a safe space. There's a lot of meat on that bone. That's the real talk right there. You know, hook that to my veins. I could just do that. I loved that episode with Supriya and Rushme. Honestly, just incredible snapshot, just like realities of what, you know, trying to work in the media in 2026. Like, I don't know.

Especially AM talk radio. And it just seemed like they're swimming upstream because like not only are they getting the abuse from listeners. They're also getting bombarded with disinformation from other hosts on the show or on the on the station. Yeah. And then they're being put in the position to respond to those. Oh, yeah, Supria particularly. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just, yeah, it seems like. Well, we can say that Alex Pearson would have like a late night show and there would be topics that would then spill into the morning show and these topics may not be, you know, truths. Yeah. I will say also there's all that and then there's just what's happening again to our media ecosystem where like course. owns a lot of the legacy like talk radio stations across Canada with law shared programming via Ben Mulbruny and I think David Cooper he's, is he course or is he, I think he's Bell. He's now, no, I believe he was Bell and I believe he's now Chorus. Yeah.

So that's on the radio side. He's an FOTM too. Yeah. And then like post media owns Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton, Edmonton Journal, National Post Office. Like, does all this stuff's just going to like fade away into like nothing, really. It just seems like it's happening like bit by bit. Like even this week, some other course folks got the totts.

I don't know. Tap on the show. Although this listenership knows what that means. Yeah. Kind of a slow slash fast drain. Okay, which only makes me feel like we need the CBC more than ever hearing you say these words. Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay. I did want to ask. So then the conversation sort of turned to the whole Mike Stafford situation, which has been covered. extensively. If there's a word beyond extensively, they would apply here. It was a really interesting chat because it was almost as if you and Supria were on one side of the table. I sense that too.

I sense that. How did you feel that conversation went? I shouldn't. I'm careful with this because I am the white guy in the room there. But I do understand where Stafford was coming from with all that. And I have a certain level of sympathy for Mike Stafford and how he was treated because of that offense. And Reschmi does not have any. Right.

Yeah. I felt with Reschmi it was a black and white thing. Like you typed in those four letters, the Piesler. Once you type that into an internal teams chat, you know, just she's done with you. Like there is no redemption. There is no conversation to be there. They have the receipts. It's a third rail.

Yeah. Yeah, and fair enough. But I am more nuanced than that where I, because of the context of it, I'm willing to have a conversation with Mike Stafford about his intent, why he typed in those four letters. You know, I know he erroneously felt it was a safe space because he trusted his audience as like buds and we say things sometimes with our buds. We might not say on the radio, for example.

Not that Mike said any of this on the radio. This was all an internal teams chat. But I just was a little surprised at how judgmental, Reschmi was because it was like, okay, you wrote those four letters. You're essentially, whatever happens, you go fuck yourself, go live under a bridge, you deserve everything that comes to you, you typed in those four letters in that internal teams chat. And I personally am a more, I'm not, I'm far less judgmental, but again, I'm a white guy.

And it may not matter my feelings on racism here. Yeah. I think it's also just interpretation, like what type of offense based on workplace conduct rules and whatnot is grounds for suspension or dismissal. Yeah, it's all judgment. To me it's different. If he's calling a woman of color, the peaceler, now it's a different context.

Now you need to go talk to somebody, you need to talk to a therapist. Why are you, why do you have this inherent? Why do you have this inherent racism? Well, Wendy's another one. That's a, the context is okay of that one too. But it is the completely, I get the way Mike Stafford writes a joke and crafts a joke

and he assumes the persona of this buffoon named Doug Ford, and in the height of COVID, this is what Doug Ford is going to go out and call the variant. Because Doug Ford is the ignorant who uses the P-sler. And Mike Stafford, maybe things are different. I asked this question, I can't remember the answer, but if it was P-a-sterisk, K-I, is it the same ramifications? You just have to know better, right? Like, you just can't go there.

But I can see him in that environment. him and trusting these friends and thinking they'll get the same joke because the joke is on Doug Ford. Not a joke I would make, but I don't know if he's dead to me because of his actions. Sure. Well, he's not dead to me or I wouldn't have invited him over several times to talk about it. You should make like a list. But Rushme was, I found Rushmey very much, it was like a third rail.

Like she wasn't, there was no sympathy, no compassion at all for Mike Stafford. And that is her right, but I was surprised by him. Yeah. And I think that's. barren some ways. Honestly, it's just... But she kept saying, you know, this white man did that and didn't suffer

consequences. And the thing really was shocking to Supri and I was didn't suffer consequences. They fired him with no severance. Yeah. What should he have gone to jail? Like what,

that to me, he suffered very, and he hasn't worked since and he's like, you know, he's in precarious situation. Yeah. Lots of consequences. You know,

to me, tremendous consequences. Like, you know, I don't know how much more consequences you want this man to face for that action. Yeah, lost your job. Yeah. Like that is it.

You're fired. And the no severance is so they're saying you're fired, it's cause. That is the absolute supreme consequence. Yeah. Well, also, whether it's Mike Stafford or John Derringer or Travis Dan Raj, like all these, all very different situations, but all of them, it's hard to imagine any of them ever sort of working in like mainstream media again because all these things were it also like widely covered to varying degrees.

Oh yeah. You're right. We could do a whole episode about Travis. I mean, I'd do some vaping. When is our 90 minute deep dive into the Travis Dan Raj's situation? Anyway, we are probably the three least qualified people to put ourselves in the show. But that's why I wanted resh me and supremacy. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I do seek out. Crips don't exist. I do seek out. I do talk to people and I'm interested in your perspective. And I know I'm well aware. I'm a white guy. Yeah.

Like, I'm, that's the first thought on all this, yeah, I'd say that episode divergent opinions on topics, but all of them

extremely valid, too. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, and I want to, I want to pair them up again at some point,

but I also want to pair, not rush me. Actually, that's a bad idea. I almost said, rush me and Stafford, but I don't think that's going to fly. But I do want to bring

Supria and Mike back because their episode, which was the previous quarter, was also stellar. So maybe the common denominator here is Supria DeVetti gives good podcast. She does. Write that down.

She's excellent. There you go. Real talk. All right. Let's move on to something like the real issues here, which is tears are not enough. I think, you know. Oh, yeah. By the way, do you guys know there's a podcast called Big in Canada?

I played a clip from it on this program because they were Googling snow, I think. Snow. And they found on YouTube me talking to Snow about how he's related to Stephen Page. And on that podcast, they brought this up and they credited and I played the clip because they actually said something like, oh, some guy named Toronto Mike. Like I was surprised because most of the time they just steal that. They don't actually, but they said Toronto Mike and I was appreciative of that.

Yeah, good for that. Anyway, on March 10th, they actually did a full podcast. Oh, I listened. I listened. I guess it was sort of different. It was so ranked. It seems like they were. I found it a little infuriating, but I think a big part of it is, yeah, they got a lot of

stuff wrong. Oh, wow. Like it was very, got a lot wrong. They're probably on the Wikipedia. Well, let's play this clip. Maybe that speaks to it. Yeah, okay. Let's just play it.

And we'll come back and talk about it. Were you at Mantas Sound Studios in Toronto on February 10th, 1985? I was not. Mind blow. That's a mind blow. We have to make an edit to the Tiers Are Not Enough Wikipedia page. Oh. I was not aware that it actually stated that I was there.

It's got you listed as a member of the chorus. It is news to me. Well, now I need to, why were you omitted? You should have been there. I'm trying to think. Because you mentioned Brian Adams. You know, the heart, the brain trust of this, Tiers Are Not Enough is the Vancouver contingent.

Bruce Allen, you know, Jim Valence is co-writing this thing with, with we mentioned Brian Adams. And then David Foster's producing it. There's a Vancouver heartbeat to tears are not enough. Were you to Toronto? Maybe.

Maybe I have no idea. All I know is I never got a call. You want to know who else didn't get a call? Because I had him on the show and he didn't get a call. And he says it's because Bruce Allen was pissed at him. You want to know who didn't get a call?

Yeah, I do. Randy Backman. Really? Well, that surprises me. Please don't tell me. Yeah. Well, you're in good company, I'm telling you. Well, now I don't feel so bad.

Now I feel bad that I was going to ask you all these questions about a recording you weren't invited to. A party I wasn't invited to. I don't know what to tell you. You weren't invited. I can guess. I can guess what it was like. Okay, guess. I was not there.

I was not there. I can tell you Mark Holmes from Platinum Blonde. Remember, this is for famine relief in Ethiopia, right? So he took a limousine to the recording. Of course he did. We opened for them a couple of times. One at Maple Leaf Gardens. And that was an experience.

A million screaming girls. And they weren't screaming at the arrows. They were screaming at Platinum Blonde. Sounds like situation was critical. Oh, my God. I had to leave that in because it's so bad. You know what? I can't believe I said that.

the same time. I'm kind of glad I said that. But also, I was cringing in the Supria Reschmi clip that I corrected the Z and I corrected it. I just made it after that. I tagged on that with the mileage,

kilometer edge. But hearing it back, I was like, oh, that could have been terrible, but it actually was okay because the ladies played with it. But that situation critical.

God awful. Yeah, I regret the, but you know what? I regret it, but I don't know how to not do it. Yeah. That's also not wrong.

Yeah. Like it was screaming. you know, sure. They fed a million into that Maple Leaf Garden. And you're going to speak to this, of course. But that was a moment

because he's on Wiki, you find out he was there and I had a bunch of questions about Tears are Not Enough. I'm a scholar of Tears are Not Enough as his Cam Gord. Ownership over. Right.

And then you find out he wasn't invited, but Wiki says he was. And that's why we talk to these people to get the facts. And just to be clear, that was Dean McTaggart from the Aeros. We didn't set that up at the beginning. I didn't set that up.

I would like to know what's the origin of Dean. Listen to the fucking episode. I did a deep dive with him. Everything's in there. Are you kidding me right now? You're wondering now about the Dean McTaggart? Oh, you're wondering why he's on the list for being there? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm actually just looking here. Did you make that the change? Yeah, I'm just looking at the edit summary. It wasn't credited to Rosie Gray to you. Yeah. Who is this person? It's, I don't know.

Dean McTiguer is not a course member and a link to a YouTube video. We're in the edits page. I could have honestly just been like logged out and that's like my IP number. I can't imagine anyone. What's the IP? Not for here. Frank Mills or something. By the way, that was a big mind blow from this past quarter.

Cam Gordon revealed that he is in fact. It's like deep throat coming out years later. That was a big deal. was big. Anyway, I thought that was a fun little conversation. No, I'm glad you did that because that's kind of the crux of what we're doing. We, yeah, we are the curators in particular and Cam of tears are not enough more. Did either of you see the big in Canada tears are not enough episode?

Listen. I have not heard it yet. I do want to give it a listen. Yeah, I'm going to listen. Well, you should listen because it is interesting to me from the fact that this is a generation younger than us. So we Gen Xers did our tears are not enough thing. But this is like these people, I get the sense. they're like maybe 40.

Like they're at least a decade younger. And they, you can tell by the way, they talk about things and the names they don't know and stuff. Like, oh yeah, that's a big difference.

10 years younger. And they might be more than 10 years. I'm not sure there's a woman co-host and I can't remember. She might be younger than 40. But the point is, it's very interesting to get that perspective from the generation that came after.

Yeah, I do know, because I know they follow track changes. So I see their stuff show up. Well, he's a CBC guy. Like, I know. Always really? He works at CBC.

Yeah. And I think, if I remember correctly, he pitched this idea to CBC podcast and they said no. Yeah. So he basically said, fuck it, I'll do it myself. Yeah. No, they do nice. Like, I see their clips. They're good.

But you're right. No, but they'll definitely like it is the next generation. We're going to do a, you know, we'll do a snow episode. And sometimes it's tough from my perspective to listen because they'll get things wrong that, like, like, I guess that's part of the deal. But sometimes it's, sometimes it's infuriating to listen to. But I'm glad they're doing it because they're independent and they're focused on Canada. I'm all about the CanConn, man. Yeah.

It's not like we ever make mistakes. Oh, that's Canc. That's Concan. Concan. It's Canc. Yes. Thank you. Very harsh. Also, not.

Also, someone that had to be edited out of, that's right. Wikipedia. Right. But he was in the chorus of the O Canada. All star. Oh my God. Talk about cringe. Yeah.

We'll do an episode on that. All right. All right. All right. That's right. Okay. Tara Sloan, the lovely and talented Tara Sloan. I like it very much.

I was on the show. I was going to say she was here, but she was not here. No. Remote because you were kind enough to give her the option, and she chose to stay home, as is her right. I guess. So it's a classic Toronto mic thing where you get an idea in your head and you won't let it go.

And so... I know where we're going here. So this is a, a conversation that you and Tara had about a theory that that you have. So let's listen. I know I went on a little tangent here, but I love talking about Sloan. So all four members of

being in the basement. I've had like deep dives of each of them. And you know, I'll often ask them about this name Sloan. Okay. And they kind of always have this look on their face like, oh, there's this like they have to print the legend. Like I always sense this. This is all speculation

on my part. But they tell somebody of theirs, they called Slow Right. That was the story I heard. And I'm here to tell you, I don't believe that story. I'm here to tell you, and then you could react to this. But I'm going to say definitively, on the record, this episode of Toronto Mic, I'm saying it out loud, I believe the band name Sloan was a reference to Tara Sloan from Sam the Record Man in Halifax. They just changed the spelling.

That's ridiculous. No. Tell me why it's ridiculous. Why? Because they didn't know who, like, I feel like, I don't know if the band existed before I knew Jay, but I'm, I cannot imagine. I just cannot imagine that I played enough of a role in their existence to, that they took the name. I mean, who, like, who knows? Maybe they just heard it and they like it. But yes, I always heard slow one. Yes, but I believe that is printing the legend, the way we say, you know, the way we talk about Neil. peer saying the word subdivisions in the rush song. Or example. Like we print the random example. We all know

that's a sample of Mark Daly on City News but that's a you know, a chum city property. It's cleaner to just say it was the drummer. But I feel like it's easier and cleaner to say this is because of a buddy called Slow One instead of saying oh well there was this this cute young woman

who worked at Sound the Record Man who had the last name Sloan and we liked how it sounded so we changed the spelling. Have you ever asked them that? So okay So let me tell you a little. So I have, they had a new album out. I'm looking at it right now, actually, based on the bestseller. There's vinyl in my studio that you could see if you were here, Tara.

So next time you can see it. But I had Jay and Chris over to talk about that album. And then I met you at a JD tragically hip event. Do you remember this? Yes, of course. I know. I guess I just telling the listeners. So it wasn't that long ago.

Do you have a good memory, Tara Sloan? Okay. So. No, I mean, I am 52-year-old woman. but that I remember, big stuff I remember. You know, you're this second 52-year-old woman I've had on Toronto Mike in a row because I always say, because I'm born in 74. I know you're 73, but I just had a woman named Michelle Crystal on who was also born in 73.

And does she talk about also like forgetting things like, you know, putting milk in the cupboard instead of the fridge? No, but you're ready for this. She met. So the reason I had her on is she's the widow of a broadcaster who's no longer with us, sadly, but his name was Andrew Crystal. And she met and fell in love with Andrew Crystal in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Always comes down to Halifax, doesn't it?

Mind blow. Okay, so is it plausible? Because I will at some point ask this question of Jay Ferguson. I don't believe Jay can tell a lie. I dare you. I mean, he will laugh. He will laugh and say no. But will you at least say it's plausible?

It's possible. Listen, I don't know the Sloan name timeline, but sure, sure. It's plausible. There it is. But I also hear myself going down a road that I actually forgot to get back on, which real quick here is that the reason I brought up the tragically hip event was because I had a chat with Tara at this JD event, and that's when we talked about Sam the record man, and that's when the light bulb went off in my head.

and that was after Jay and Chris had visited. So I didn't tie up that loose end. But I actually think I might be right. I know Cam is shaking his head over there. What are your thoughts, Cam? My first thought, that poor, poor woman. And it goes out, there's more. I know, I listened.

It was only 25 minutes. I got a bit of Gino Vanelli quick out black cars already. You don't think that's a significant detail. I am so upset. For someone who rages every time people a bare naked lady's first TV appearance was on speaking of quote.

You're like, it was a documentary. It wasn't set in a subway. You've got like those like hammer fists. You're like losing your mind. This like, part of my language is bullshit. So you're trying to like spew here.

You have no basis for this. You don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Why do you know? Where did this theory? Jay Ferguson and Tara Sloan worked together at Sam the Record Man in Nova Scotia,

Halifax before the band Sloan was named. What's, What's your point? The point is, Chris, not Chris, Jay Ferguson is working with a Sloan, and then they name their band Sloan.

I think you're the slow one here. Oh, connect the fucking dots. I think that this theory belongs in a Sloan urinal, because it's, uh, and it's pissing me off, pun in very much intended.

I'm shocked, Tyler, I'm shocked at his dismissal that this is absolutely, it's not ludicrous. I don't understand. And why do I leave him out of this? These dots connect Cam Gordon. They connect.

It may not be true, but it is absolutely possible. I think it is a... You go with that. Yeah. Like, I have nothing else to say on this. I think it's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous.

Don't waste his time. I'm shocked you don't think it's worthy of a conversation. I mean, yeah. What do you think, Tyler? Tyler, you need to be the reason tiebreaker. Start out to the comment. The people in the chat room.

I personally think it's an interesting coincidence at best. You're with Kim. That's a nicer way to say. We've all worked with lots of people. Sloan is a distinct word name. How many Sloans do you know? There's the urinal. There's slow one.

There's P.F. Sloan from Ferris Bueller. That's right. That's right. Ferris B, that might be that one. But it's a lot. just interesting that Jay... Jerry Sloan. How many people are working at...

That's right. That's right. Utah Jazz. Of course. Of course. Of course. I just think it's interesting when I find out

that Tara Sloan worked with Jay Ferguson at the Sam the Record Man before they named the band Sloan and it's different spelling but it's the same word. I find that interesting. I'm sorry.

Can we fucking get Jane Zibri on the line? I know. Can we get off Sloan already? Which is fine. But I will talk to Jay and Chris. She's right behind here. Jane Sibri. At some point I'll find.

find them in the streets of Toronto and I'll ask that one question. But an interesting revelation from Blair Packham in his most recent rewinder was he's been talking to David Quentin Steinberg from the Mauds, who is the lawyer for Rush. And he, David Quentin Steinberg said to Blair, he's, from his process of elimination,

he says he's narrowed it down to two possibilities. Who said the word subdivisions in that song by Rush subdivisions? It is either Neil Pirt or Mark Daley. Okay. Sure. Well, we're down, so we're in the finals. Were they always the two options? Well, you know, the lip syncing in the video was actually Alex Lifes.

But I don't think of it. Why don't, this could be like a project for you. The definitive public vote, let the people decide. Democracy, look at where that's gone. Do you want to hold this? Yeah, I know. Think of the average voter. Half of them are dumber than that.

Yeah. All right. Next clip. Wow. I don't want to dwell on the Sloan thing anymore. Except I believe it's possible. And I would like to explore this. Because if I find out, hey, Mike, you got us.

You know, it's true. We liked how Sloan sounded. We liked Tara Sloan and we named her band. We changed her spelling. You guys are going to owe me the biggest fucking apology. Okay. Yeah. I will gladly eat crow.

Yeah, I will gladly apologize. Okay. Yeah. Anyway. Wow. Good episode otherwise. Yeah. She's had a really good career, too.

Like she's done a lot of interesting stuff. It sounds like she's back making music too. Yeah, there's going to be new Joy Drop. Yeah, that's great. Maybe Joy Drop will play a TMLX event. Do you guys remember Thea Andrews? Yeah. I think whenever the name Tara Sloan I see, I think of Thea Andrews.

She was on TSN for a while. Yeah, like a cooking show and then she went to the States. And there was also like some trivia, like football trivia show or something that she hosted that played on with Tim Steve's. I think he's dead now. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. That is a name I've not thought of. A quick observation. No FOTMs passed away this past quarter. All right. We made it.

Oh, I was going to talk about somebody who I really think should have been an FOTM and I'm mad he didn't become an FOTM but he died on April 1st so that's actually not this previous quarter. Right. I thought you were going to say someone you thought should have died. There's many of those. Sorry, who are you? William Burr. Oh, yeah. Oh, William Burrell.

And I talked to his sister last night. Oh, yeah. And his nephew posted on Reddit about it. And then I did some digging and I found an interesting bio that Brad Wheeler quite likes. And I just shared before we started recording. I shared with Brad Wheeler from Globe and Mail, the source of this bio that I uncovered that William Burrell wrote about himself. But he's the kind of guy who was walking amongst us all these years. Why did nobody tap me on the shoulder and say, you should talk to this guy?

I read so much of this guy's stuff. in I Weekly in the 90s. A real sort of Bakowski type. He should have been an FOTM. Yeah, should have been. I think of him and Art Bergman sort of together. Like sort of, I feel like they similar.

Bigger musical success. Well, yes, yes. But yeah. But okay. Key figure in this. Cold pizza. So Rob Delmundo reports in the live stream that Thea Andrews's ESPN show

is called Cold Pizza. Thank you so much, Rob Delmundo. He was at the book launch. He was there. There are a lot of good, I want to give credit to this community I'm talking to right now really came out for Cam Gordon. I hope you fucking come out for the Elma combo gig on May 21st.

I think you'll be pleasant. I just don't want it to be an empty room. No, this community supports it. Rob Bruce doesn't want it empty either. Yeah, this community hopefully comes out. But I will say it was, I wanted it almost name check him. But when I see, there's Cousin Janno, there's Leslie Taylor. Gilles, uh, Jill LeBlanc is there, of course.

Rob Delmundo, Neil Jays. Yeah, seemed to be on sort of some sort of work call in the back. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. He went off to the back to close the deal. That's what you should be doing VP. I know, I know. But there are a lot of great FOTMs.

I would say if you looked around the room, there was also a lot of interesting. And I saw Ken Hunt was there, former publisher, Toronto Life. I don't think I know what he looks like. He has like a beard having a deep conversation with Sammy. Sammy Cohn. Oh, yeah, so Sammy Cohn was.

He used to work at Toronto. He was on the panel. Yes. Alan Cross was on a panel. You sure was. And I was going to go up to Alan after he was done. Confront him. Not confront him. To make sure we're going to, like,

Take him outside and give him a thrashing. I'm not going to fight Alan Cross, okay? I'm a lover, not a fighter. I was going to make sure we're cool. Like, I didn't want any bad blood between Alan Cross and I. But the moment he was done with your event, Cam Gordon, he's like Kaiser Soze. Like that, he's gone.

He couldn't have left faster. He had a flight to catch. He was going to Bali the next day. All right. Well, hope he caught his flight. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

No more Sloan talk. Moving on. Thank God. Sean subdivision Colin Oh Sean Colin Corky and the juice pigs Corky and the juice pigs

Big time Big time comedian Very funny Was here with banjo dunk Yeah Celebrating Stomp and Tom's Heavenly birthday I believe was to be his 90th

I think that's correct So they were doing a show at the horseshoe tribute show I only have a very short clip From this episode It was just a very funny story That Sean Colin told

the Elmo came up. And of course, you know, another good opportunity to plug Mike's show at the Elmo. Go to Toronto mic.com at the top I put a link

for Elmo gig. Click that by 10 tickets. Your work is done. I will be there. Cam, will you be there? I don't like this. I don't like this.

I don't like to hear people say they're not going to be there. Oh. Okay. If you had not gone so deep on the Sloan thing with Tara, then he probably would have bought a ticket. Damn it. Anyway.

I was on the fence. The talk of the, there was some talk of the Elmo, and your gig came up, and it sparked a story that John told, so I'll share that now. Do you know I'm going to play the Elmo in May? Euler. I played it in about 1988

with the Forgotten Revels from Hamilton. Of course. With Mickey DeSatist. Okay, who's in this new movie, Kairi Papoots just directed. I just had this, this director named Kyrie, you'd like this guy, actually, and he's got Desaides as an actor in this thing.

I can only imagine. Yeah. So Sam Grasso, again, just react to all these names. I have one short story. Go ahead. Mickey DeSattest, one of the guys in our group smoked a lot of dope. He was smoking backstage, and you could do that. And he said to Mickey DeSatist, hey, is there an ashtray here?

And Mickey DeSatis said, You're standing on it, man. And then at that point in punk music, the thing was that people would spit on you from the audience. And Mickey DeSatist was so angry at the crowd. Stop spitting on me. Stop spitting on me. And it was hilarious because he's singing like,

bomb the boats and feed the fish about the Cambodian boat people. and angry that someone's spitting on him. That's a great impression of him, though, because he's in this film. That's a great impression. Stop spitting on me. Because I've seen this movie, which is called Junkie Run,

and I found out from his wife, it's not Kyrie Papoots. Like I've been saying for a couple of years now, it's Papettes. Pappets. I've been making it like, I don't know, I've been giving it a little swagger. Did you guys ever listen to the jerky boys?

Oh, yeah. There was like one of the characters sort of sounded like that impression. Like sizzle chess, Saul. We're Gen X, okay, we heard the jerky book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hey, remember the jerky book.

We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll save that fire. Anyway, I love that, that little story. Yeah. I'm definitely going to spit on you at the Elmo. I would welcome, if you buy a ticket, you can spit on me. Okay.

Actually, there it is. Could I ask Tyler Campbell a question? You grew up in Hamilton. I did. Forgotten rebels. What footprint? Yeah. What footprint did the forgotten rebels have?

Were they sort of known even, you know, if you didn't know a lot of music? I'm going to guess second biggest punk band in Hamilton history. Yeah, I remember as a kid knowing about them and, you know, kids at my school would talk about them. Big local band. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was like the one band I can think of until really Spoons came around who were from Burlington, but we kind of assumed they were kind of claim them as our own.

But they were like the Hamilton band that everyone knew. But what about Teenage Head? Wasn't Crowbar from Hamilton? Crowbar was from Hamilton too. But Teenage Head wasn't the band you'd think of. I would think they'd be more. I don't know. I think it was a little of both.

For whatever reason, I remember talking more about forgotten rebels and Teenage Head. Teenage Head like in the 80s and 90s. We're kind of in a weird place. Yeah. Very weird place. Yeah. The teenage heads.

Didn't they change your name? Yeah, they did. That's right. For Americans. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Dave Rave will tell you that in Toronto Mike.

Of course. That's right. The longtime singer of Teeny Chod. Well, I kind of covered that with Liz Worth because I think, I hope Dave, I think he might have heard it actually. But Dave Rave does present himself as more a member of the band than history might suggest. He was sort of adjacent. Yeah.

He was there, but he wasn't on stage. The biggest New York accent of anyone I've ever heard from Hamilton. That's right. That's right. Before we move on, I'm just going to open this beer. Yeah, I've got beer out. It's early. Happy Easter.

Shout out to Ridley Funer Home for Jesus. 3 p.m. I remember. He'll be back. Spoiler alert. He's going to be back. And Hag, Pesach, Samia.

Oh. It's over, right? It's two days. I believe so. We still, you know, I mean, no podcast celebrates Passover more than Toronto Mike. It's so true. Those two episodes I recorded on,

I know he said crack that. But those two episodes I recorded on March 31st, one of which dropped on April 1st, both very Passover heavy. Are we excited that the Js have a Jesus now? Jesus and Jesus. He had a home run. He did. Yeah, yeah.

He's a slugger. How are the vibes over there? They're good. They're high. Well, it's four and two, right? Yeah. Yeah. What more do you want?

Yeah. They're not really hitting. They're not really hitting, but that'll come around. All right. All right. Keep me posted. Okay, that's a premium logger. The big news I have on the Great Lakes beer front is that the sunny side

Session IPA. And by the way, Sunnyside is where the April Fool video by Chalk Circle, F-O-TM Chalk Circle, Ben. Nailed.

So Sunnyside Session IPA is now available. We have a can on the table right now. Indeed. Excellent. That's fresh, brother. Okay, shout out to

Chris Tate, both of them. Okay. All the Chris Tates. Okay. Dave Bidini. Woo! Big name.

The Rostatics, publisher of the West End Phoenix. general man about town was in for a great chat, a wide ranging chat, lots of, lots of different. I think that's Padini's best visit.

Yeah, he's just a great chat. Like, he's got lots of stories and he's, he's just a captivating guy to listen to. And this episode was no different.

He spent a little bit of time talking about the new Rio's album and a couple of other topics. And you and I were at the listening party. We were at the listening party. That was a lot of fun. With Kevin Hearn. That's right.

And, yeah, and some other. I didn't see Alex Lyson He was not there. He was not there. And I did call that they would play the Juno's. You did. Yeah. Are we a static?

They probably played before. I don't think so. I don't think they're too ethereal. Like, I don't feel like they're ever going to play the Junos. They're too artsy. That's possible. Yeah. Possible.

All right. Let's listen to Dave. Dave Bedini. So there's you, there's Kevin Hearn. There's Alex Lifeson, Dave Clark, Tim Bestly. You got Hugh Marsh and Gore. fucking Downey. Where did that

audio come from of Gord? That's from a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper event that was their annual gala. That was at the CBC. Gour was Gord. I heard deliver that live and always kind of stayed with me and I talked to Mark. What's fantastic. Yeah, I know

it was, we were really grateful to be able to play with Gord posthumously in the studio and ran that a lot, you know, spent spent an afternoon just like trying lots of different musical ideas around it and settle on that one. And when we played at the TD Music Hall, our second night of our Great Lake Sweet shows, Kevin brilliantly paused that story halfway through. And then we set off into this incredible jam with Hugh and Alex leading it.

That's that when we performed that song, it lasted about a half an hour, that version because Kevin brought the story back in. once the jam and sort of ebbed. And it was one of the great musical experiences in my life. Well, it sounded amazing. And when I was at the, again, the whatever that was, the, listening party. Yeah, it's a listening party. Come on, Mike, wake up here.

But it's just hearing Gord and those great lyrics and the music behind it. And again, we did tease it a little bit. But, you know, when you see Peter Mansbridge speaking with Gordowney, remember when Gord had to write Peter Manse, Bridges, name on his hand or whatnot. That's in Kevin Hearn's living room. And there's a special episode of Toronto Mike where I just talk to Kevin about being there for Gord

and Gord's final, you know, final weeks, final months and everything. And it's just beautiful to hear, you know, Kevin and you guys playing with Gord again. It's hauntingly beautiful. Oh, thank you. The drop-off is the name of that song, by the way, when you're picking up the Great Lake Suite, the drop-off there.

is there any involvement in this new album from Martin T.L. Oh, Martin. No, not on this record. Not this time. But we're hoping that... Like, do we know how he's doing? Or is that too personal? Well, no, I don't... No, we don't kind of really know. But he's working on music. And, you know, at his own pace, in his own space, in his own time. So Martin works really slow. He's really slow and really deliberate. And frankly, inefficient, if I can say that, having been an amount of a long time. You can say that.

But, you know, when it does seem, when it does see the light of day, it'll, it'll be great. So, so yeah, we just, our dialogue is still really. And it's not for lack of trying on your part. He was invited. Yeah, for sure. And then listen, some not as there's at times people just kind of don't feel the project. And that's fine, too. That's fine too.

And he actually said, he said, listen, ask Lifeson to do it. Just ask Alex to do it. And I was like, but he was right. Okay. Yeah. There you go, Cam. You got a little Lamarton T.L.E. update there. Yeah.

Yeah. Which I'm always craving. That's a remind, just here, but I did listen to this episode and hearing just sort of what Martin's up to or not up to. It sort of reminds me of that article that about John K. Samson and Haslett about how, you know, just these like heroes, just sort of drop out and they're doing other things. Yep.

Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to explain. I heard him say the name Hugh Marsh. So I have a exclusive for you gentlemen. Okay. Do I have music for this? We need a stinger for the... Because, you know, like Rush will play the Juno. Get out your violin.

All right. I can play the Rob Bowman clip again, if that would help. I have it on good authority with an inside source, that there will be new, live concert performances by FM. Whoa. Whoa. And Nash the slash

shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. So playing electric violin on these FM songs will be Hugh Marsh. Wow, perfect. I mean, that makes total sense. Yeah. If anyone else. And shout out to another Cam,

Cam Hawkins, who will make his Toronto mic debut and will dive deep into the history of FM and talk about his relationship with Nash the Slash, who was a big part of this past quarter, not just the episode about Nash the Slash, but I was at the viewing of the Nash the Slash Rises Again documentary. It's got a bunch of FOTMs in there, like Don Pyle, for example, like a lot of interesting people.

Farberman's in that, for God say. Definitely going to watch that. You said they did a nice job. Yeah, I thought they did a nice job. Yeah. I liked it. Good. And the great Hall of Famer Rob Bruce did music?

Yes. He would make a score that sounded like, a sound like score that he did that was very good. An homage. Yeah, that's awesome. Good for Rob. Get around some of those music rights issues. Can I just say that Reostatics album's great?

Like, that is the perfect album they should be doing, and it did seem like a real celebration community. And obviously they'd worked with Lifeson and Hugh Marsh. Yeah, it's really beautiful. Like it's perfect for like this stage in their career. Yeah. No argument here. And I really enjoy that Bidini.

I feel now that I have a, a rapport of Bidini and he's been over enough times that I can cherry pick the spots. You can't really do it all in one visit with Bidini. You've got to break it up. There's a lot of stuff you want to cover with him. And I thought this last episode of Bidini was particularly strong because I could kind of laser target

certain spots and get him to especially the Stomp and Tom stuff because I just had Sean Cullen and Banjo Dunkover to talk about the heavenly birthday. And of course, a lot of credit goes to Dave Bidini for the comeback

of Stomp and Tom. Absolutely. And it was good to get those details. And of course, we're just over one year, or maybe it's like just under one year, you ran to Dave Bedini on your bike. That's how I met Supriah. That's how I met Supria.

Yeah, yeah. On the way the change of heart shows. Yes. The Geary. Yeah, that was one. Wow. Yeah. And Bruce Arthur, who revealed to me,

and I think I can finally have another exclusive. It all connects. He whispered to me, don't tell anyone, but I don't live in Toronto anymore. Where does he live? Vancouver. He's a Vancouver guy. I was just I used to West Coast.

But he went back. Just to tie a bow on the Bedini thing, in a couple of weeks, there is an event. Actually, I think it might be next Saturday, a week from tomorrow. There is an event at the Paradise Theater where we went to that listening party, where they're doing a screening of the newsroom, an episode of the newsroom. I invited you to this. The Ken Finkelman Newsroom will be there.

You have to say that because there's another. Oh, yes. Sorry, the Ken Finkelman newsroom, the Canadian one, the good one. Ken Finkelman will be in attendance. So Tyler was kind enough to make me his plus one for this. So I could storm the stage. That's right. Zweig style.

He's back in the calendar, by the way, for next quarter. Alan Swiglin's over. And I'm going to tell Ken Finkelman to get his ass in the basement. We need to talk. I need to know about that interview as a writer for the Simpsons that he walks out of and flies back to Toronto. Like, I have questions. I assume you've invited him. Oh, I've tried to.

He's a tough one. I'm impressed that Bidini got him. I guess you have to be Dave fucking Bidini to get Ken Finkelman. Yeah. That's amazing. Is Jeremy Hott's going to be there? I don't believe so. Okay, but I'm looking forward to this.

Thank you, I would like to know where Tanya Allen is. She was on the newsroom. Do you know who else is going to be there? Karen Hines, who played one of the producers. And then there were a couple of other names that I actually didn't. Oh, Peter, Callahan.

He's a big deal on that show. Yeah, he was fantastic on that show. Yeah. And the gentleman who looks, like, it looks a bit like Mark McKinney. What's his, Dave, something maybe? There's another, Mark Farrell. Mark Farrell, yeah.

Yeah. There's a Mark Farrell thing. I remember when he used, this is a total tandem. He's in a lot of things. He is. I think he has beef with Jerry D. Oh, I love it.

And I would like to get to the bottom of it. You've come to the right place. Mark Farrell on, and the old days of Twitter used to make like these little snide comments about Jerry D. And I really want to get to the bottom of that. Remember Twitter? Yeah.

Yeah. Man. Mike, have you ever invited Don McKellarler? over? Not directly, but of course I would love

Don McKellar on the show. John McKellar is involved with Alan Zweig's movie, I think. I love Harold somehow. Yeah.

And I bring up Zweig because I just chatted with him. And there's going to be a film, a viewing of his vinyl

documentary, which is like his magnus opus really. Yes, and he's going to come over here before that

viewing to kind of dive into vinyl. Okay. And we're going to kick out his 10 favorite pieces

the music on vinyl that he owns. I saw you just had Andy Richter on his podcast. I saw that too. And I actually had a coffee yesterday. No, two days ago I had a coffee with this guy Michael Mangiarty who's an FOTM. And he's producing, his

company is producing that series and he was joking that that's their gateway to Conan. Like their plan is to get Conan by getting Andy on first. I think that's a stretch. So this is the person involved in the new Westin funded publication Giant be giant? Am I mixing this? I think I'm mixing this up. They're called the Sonar Network.

I feel like you said someone's involved in Giant. Yeah, someone who's close to Bedini is. I feel like it's some name like whatever that name you just said. No, this is unrelated. This is the Sonar Network and they're actually, if TMU might know them best, is they had the ones who now take a cut of dynamically inserted ads you might hear on Humble and Fred. So that's where this comes in. The last two minutes of office. is proof positive what you say if you're listening to this. This is the episode where we can talk to the real heads. That's right. And if we lose them, good.

Yeah. That's my philosophy. But there's a lot like news in there. We drop some bombs, man. Hugh Marsh and FM. We're dropping bombs, brother. If you care, you care if you don't, that's cool too. That's fine too.

Go and listen to another podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Where you at, Tyler. Where I'm at. how this is, we're shortening the episodes. Yeah, I'm dubious.

We're talking about less episodes, but we're talking more. Yeah, that's right. We like each other. It's a good hang. But remind me, at some point, you have to ask me what I did last night because I think it's interesting. Okay. Even though it's technically not the previous board.

There's, uh, there's no logical point where I would ask you about that, but we'll get it in. You want me to do it now? Let's do it now. I think you want to talk about this. Fuck it. We'll do it live. We'll do it live.

So, what did you do last night, Mike? I was hired by. sponsor of the program, Nick Iienes. And let me tell the listenership that he's got a great podcast called Building Toronto Skyline. And we did, you ought to listen to that. And there's another one with me,

but listen to Building Toronto Skyline. We did a live recording of Building Toronto Skyline with special guest Brad Bradford. Whoa. And we did this last night. So I packed up my studio and I set it up at this lovely restaurant called Viali. How'd you get there? I had to drive. And it was rainy and I hated that drive.

I hated it. I actually thought to myself, oh, I could bike this in two hours. And it felt like I was in the car for 90 minutes, and I would make that trade every day of the week. But, you know, I had a lot of gear with me and stuff. But we recorded video, audio, it all went off without a hitch.

Brad Bradford in front of a very big, boisterous crowd of Brad Bradford supporters. This was last night. And somebody in the WhatsApp group linked me to a Progress Toronto post on Instagram, which was something to the effect of, Hey, you might not be able to get a meeting with Brad Bradford in East York, where he's a city counselor, but if you pay $250 and drive to Woodbridge or something, you can have a conversation with him.

And once I saw that, and again, I've been accused of being a lefty, if you will. I've heard that. I've been told him a lefty. But the moment I saw Progress Toronto slagged this event or whatever, I was so happy to be a part of it. Like, I was glad to be there. I enjoyed the experience. I was hired to be there.

It was a gig for TMDS, and it all went off about a hitch, and that's where I was last night. Just hanging up Brad Bradford and McGuinies. Feeding my family. Toronto Merrill, Candide. And it was a great conversation, and yeah, and soon I'll be able to share it in the wild

if you're interested what transpired. Yeah, very leaned in. But one key thing, I had been told along the way that this was going to be a fundraiser for Brad Bradford, and then I was educated, and I'm here to clarify definitively for the record, Ed Keenan, not a fundraiser.

You cannot raise funds for a candidate until May 1st, 2026. Those funds are just hanging around. Yeah, you can't even, you can say you're going to run for mayor, which Brad is done. But you can't even officially run for mayor until May 1st. May 1st is when the campaigning may begin.

But we do know John Torrey not running. He said he's not running. Michael Ford is not running. He's out. We can assume Olivia Chow will run. Yes. And who else? Who else we got?

Josh Matlow. No, he's not going to run. He's not going to run. Anti-fury. Because Matlow would have to leave his seat as a counselor to run. The by-election was that once-in-a-lifetime chance. That's why Bradford ran and everything. When do we think Amber Morley will make a run?

Not yet. Like she's only done four years, right? Like, she's a first-time counselor. So she'll run for re-election. She won't get the vote from Andy the Barber. Okay. To take his farewell. Oh, my goodness.

Shout out to Andy the Barber. I miss Andy. He's in the... The Maritimes as we speak. Digging a hole. We'll get to that in a minute. Oh, yeah. Perfect.

You know what? That's why you host this. Continue. I feel like I just want to tell the listenership. I'm glad I got that. So Brad Bradford, who is the only person who said he's running so far. We'll find out later, like who else joins this race. But I don't think he's well liked in the TMU.

I would say generally not. And I would say you don't have to vote for him. You can vote in the privacy of that booth, vote for whoever you want. I'm going to vote for who I want. in the privacy of that food. But don't be afraid of a conversation with Brad. I am going to probably have Brad over for a conversation. And my job will be, my role will be to get him off talking points and to talk about things.

It would be a real person. Yeah. And I think he, with me, I find Brad is actually a real person. Like he is a, he's a real person. He listens to Toronto Mike. He shows up to like all your event. He comes out to every TMLX event he came to. He loves Toronto Mike.

And I think he's well aware. Yeah. That's when Zweig, Russia. at Palma's Kitchen delicious Italian food in Mississauga. And then we did the Nighthawks parody that he didn't like.

Shout out to Edward Hopper. Hi, bra. I thought that was almost a version of... Thank you. You always raised the level of discourse. I was going to say when you had the world's biggest like rubber ducky

and you know, did you learn anything from the... My Twitter fame. Yeah. But it's like highbrow, a bit of history. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that was the Trojan War. Yeah, Andrew Ward talking about. Did we learn nothing about the Trojan? Yeah. Andrew Ward is my TSO connect. Oh, my God. Totally. Yeah.

And God bless him. Andrew, buy a ticket at the Elmo so I can talk about this with you in the stage at Elmo. Sorry, can I just ask one random question apropos. Did anyone go to Rusty? We were talking about that before you came. Yeah. I didn't go. It kind of like just came and went.

What day was it? It was on Saturday. Yeah. Moose Grumpy is risking her real head status. She's dropping off the live. feed because she has family obligations. She says, happy Good Friday to all, but I'm here to ask you as a guy who was

raised Catholic, I went to Catholic schools. It's not a happy day. Like, you're not supposed to have a Happy Good Friday. Yeah, yeah. He fucking died. Like, he dies at three. For all of our sins. As I recall. At three p.m. Yeah. 3 p.m. Oh, is that? I was, I went to Catholic schools. Three Eastern time?

GMT? What are we talking? That's a great question. What the fuck? Bethlehem. I believe at 3 o'clock P.m. Eastern time, of course. That's how Jesus rolled. Yeah. Is when he dies. And I believe today is a day, like, not a happy day.

It's a sad day. Not a good Friday. Like, you're supposed to, like, not even have fun today. Like, you shouldn't even be drinking that fucking beer over there. This is not a day for Wang Chung. We should have some fish, like eating some fish here. Listening to fish, like Canada can't have. Yeah, that too.

Yeah, none of it. None of it. None of it. Yeah, none of it. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Back to the clips.

Oh, my God. We're taking so much time here. Shout out to MF, who's on the live stream. And I saw her at. the handlebar at Kansas the Marquins. She did make a little MFs. I think she got taller.

We all do. Wish I was taller. Wish it was a baller. Skelo. That's right. Name another Ski-Lo song. I can't. And I won't.

Continuing. Moving on. A really fascinating episode from this quarter was the great Simone Denny. Oh, M.F says hell from DC.

I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think that's a typo. Yeah, she correct. She's on enemy territory, hopefully for work purposes. No doubt, no doubt. And it is hell. Seconded for a few days. Anyway, sorry, back to Simone Denny, member of Love, Inc. She's a superstar. Yeah. And, you know, a topic that comes up on this show repeatedly is where in the world is Chris Shepard.

We didn't really, you didn't really get in. that with Simone, but she had some very interesting things to say about her time with Chris and particularly about how things ended with Chris. So let's listen to Simone. What the hell happened in Regina?

Okay. So is Wiki suggests that you were going to be at like a Chris Shepherd DJ show and you were going to sing songs live, but you had to pull out and then the club says no, no Simone, no show. She's the star. That is.

happened there? Is that what happened? I can tell you what happened. David Brady at the time was Chris Shepard's manager. And I was already at a point where I was thinking I've got to leave. And he approached me at the last minute just before, like, I mean a few days or a week before the tour would leave. And he's like, we need to know if you're in, yes or no. And at that point, there was a lot of tension happening in the group. And I said, no, I don't think I can tour at this time. but thank you for the offer. And I think Chris legally felt that he's like, well, and I think his words exactly were,

well, I'm love ink legally, and so we can go forth and do the tour. And what happened is, is he started to do the tours, and I think he tried to replace me with another girl who kind of looked like me, but didn't sound like me. And so he started to do the tour,

and each venue would call ahead to the next venue, saying, Simone's not there. And the next tour, and the next show, and the next show would keep canceling shows. And so within about a week span, the entire tour was canceled because I wasn't there. And they had to call it, pack it up and come home. Yeah, they're not interested in Kirkland brand Simone Day.

No, no. I mean, I don't even know who the girl is because apparently they took her also to the UK because it was launching off in the UK in 2003, 2002 to Top of the Pops. and when they got there with her, they were like, this is not Simone Denny. I'm sorry, you can't. We can't proceed. So on the bright side,

that must feel nice to know in here. You're not just an interchangeable part here. Exactly. I am not in it. I was never an interchangeable part, and I don't think they realized it. I think they thought we can kind of put any black girl that sings in there and it'll work.

And it's like, they found out the hard way. it did not. So that's the end, essentially. That was it. That's the end of loving. That was it. And that's the last time you talked to.

Well, there were negotiations. You know, we tried to negotiate and I ultimately had to choose me because there were many factors. I thought as a woman in this industry, everybody was talking about it. As a woman in this industry, knowing everybody knowing what was going on. And I go back to the group and I accept that treatment. What message am I? ascending as a woman in the industry, two other women coming up in the industry, and also to other

people in the industry who are watching me. They're like, she went back. You know, that would have been really horrifying for me. And that was, you know, I had to really save myself at this point. Well, kudos to you for having the courage there to stand up for yourself. Had to. No, good. That's why you're being celebrated so much over the next few weeks. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. It was a very, it was a very, you know, difficult part in my life because I had worked so hard to get to that success. And so to have to make that decision to walk away was heart wrenching. I liked Simone Denny very much. She's delightful. Like what a great, great spirit. Would you say she's a superstar? A hundred percent superstar.

I did not realize that she was the vocalist on the the queer eye song. I did not know that. That's a big deal. Yeah. It's a huge deal. huge deal. Absolutely. Big deal. And that's why she, I made her visit the basement. I said,

you're a big deal. We got to talk about all this. And you're right. It wasn't the heart of that whole where's Chris Shepard thing with the CFN Y doc and everything. And I said, oh, she worked with Chris Shepard. Yeah, it was great.

Yeah. No one, again, no one knows. No one knows. I will say, I was just showing Tyler, and we might talk, like,

she actually tours as something called Loving still in Europe. I don't think I realized that they had a presence outside of Canada, but like, because I follow her on Instagram and I see periodically, she's playing like Glasgow or different parts of the UK under the moniker Loving, Optum with like a package of like other 90s start. Like this one's with Entrance.

Oh yeah. I feel like they did staying alive, like the cover. Oh, yeah. I think. Oh, we're not sure. Yeah.

I would say that would be like, like a techno trip or some kind of. Yeah. Yeah, like a little package. Anyway, I'm just curious how she uses the Lovingt monitor. Yeah, fascinating. Maybe it just kind of overseas. You know what we fit right in with that?

The techno version of walking in Memphis. Yeah. So true. Like here's another one. This one's in Liverpool. Shout out to the Pulma Grin. But this is Lovingk featuring Simone Denny. So maybe that's sort of the workaround.

I thought that was a donut. It's a QR code. So she may have that IP or Shep just doesn't know. Well, they can't find them. So what are they, you know, if he wants to sue, he's going to have to serve. Brilliant. Yeah. Simone Danny's calling him out.

Like, surface asshole. Come get me. Come at me. Here's a photo of her in Molly Johnson. Oh, two great musicians. Let's just describe Instagram the rest of it. That's a good segue for this next clip. Yeah, it's a great segue for this next clip. Did you do that on purpose camp?

That was really good. We're all professionals here. And I just want to call that. I think we're doing a great job. Nobody's. listening and we don't care. We don't care. We're just chewing the fun. Speaking of Molly Johnson,

which we are, which we often do. Often. Gordy Johnson, no relation. No. From Big Sugar. Oh, I used to work with him. He's named after me. That's right. Gordon, Gordon Johnson. Oh, it must be. Go on. What's he drinking

over there? He's just drinking. Ever since he released that fucking book, he's been different. Some hot consummate. Yeah. So yeah, you had a great chat with Gordy Johnson. I'm surprised it took so long for you to get Gordy Johnson on this show. I don't know, I don't know why. I think it was back to I wanted Gordy in the basement.

And then at some point I threw up my hands and said, fuck it, we'll do it not live. What's the name of his new concern, the thing he does? He's in Austin. Oh, the Texas, yeah. Yeah. Grady. It's Grady.

That was what I was looking for. Grady. Thank you. Anyway, here's Gordie Johnson talking about the very central to the TMU ethos, Molly Johnson. Let's hear, Gord. Can we talk about Molly Johnson? Oh, yeah, I wish you would. Can you share with us, the listeners.

We all know Molly on Toronto Mike. She's a big part of the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe. But what role does Molly Johnson play in the trajectory? of big sugar. She plays a pretty massive role. That woman saved me from the street more than once. I had no place to live at a point. I was sleeping in a car,

and then I would sort of move to a different car. It's like, you can't sleep in a car. You have to sleep in a house. You're staying at my house. Yeah, we were roommates for a while at the camera, house on Queen Street. We shared an apartment there and then eventually she got herself a place. But she really just sort of grandfathered me into all this stuff in Toronto.

Again, I was just like young guy hustling, you know, playing the blues, playing some jazz, playing some rockabilly, but just out there on the street with my guitar, trying to make ends meet. Toronto tough, you know. Yeah. And we just, we got a call one day from Molly saying, if she wanted big, sugar to be her backing band. She had a gig and would we learn some songs and back her up? We're like, sure, she's like sort of famous jazz singer, we're more of a blues band.

But yeah, that would be cool. That sounds interesting. We got to her apartment and we're sitting around learning songs. Well, what's the gig exactly, Molly? Like, what should we wear? She's like, oh, we're opening for Ray Charles at Ontario Place on Sunday. like this Sunday. Wow.

So that was our first show. We got to meet Ray Charles and play with Ray Charles at Ontario Place in front of, what, 20,000 people Sunday afternoon. Yeah. So that's a pretty big opportunity. Thanks, Molly. And after that, we were her band. We just did everything thick as thieves. She was like a big sister to me.

Um, she did a thing. She wouldn't come on stage at the beginning of the show. We would have to play a little bit of instrumental jazz or something. We'd play a song, get the crowd just kind of everyone in their seat, quiet, ready for Molly to come out. We'd introduce and play her walk in music. She'd walk on. And then she stopped coming out.

We'd be playing a song and she'd say, Gordon, Gordon. I'm not coming out until you sing a song. Like, I'm not really the, you know, I don't, you don't know, you need to sing a song. What would be? When? Like, yes, tonight. So I'd have to sing a song before she'd come out. Okay. The crowd kind of like that. And then she'd started insisting I sang for the second set, two songs. And then she'd make me sing songs with her, do little duets and stuff.

So really pushed me in. to being a singer. Okay, Gordy Johnson, celebrating this angel, known as Molly. That's right. Yeah, the first time I, actually, first and only time I ever saw Big Sugar play

was in Hamilton and Hess Village and some sort of outdoor stage. And they were, like Molly Johnson was the headliner and they were her band. And it was pretty much exactly as, as he described, like they played a few songs. He sang a couple songs.

And then she came on stage. So she did just, doing like solo stuff but also like infidel stuff like I don't think there's any infidel stuff I think it was mostly like jazz and blue stuff that okay yeah interesting you know it's a good song uh I think it's called happy now I know by the breeding ground that's a big much much music jam yeah let that song with her on uh back and vocals yeah very 80s why do you think I invited molly over big fan here here's the answer will you ever have Molly back that came up in episode recently.

I can't remember who asked. Yeah. But the answer is if, if Molly wanted to come on, I would have her on. Okay. That's the answer. That's the answer.

I'm not going to... I'm not pursuing. I'm not pursuing, but if Molly had any desire to come on Toronto mic again, the door is open to her. Look at that. Oh yeah.

Those two great FOTMs and this photo cam showing me here. Okay. This is a very photo heavy episode. Yeah. It's not a visual presentation. I was actually showing Mike that younger.

Gordie Johnson kind of looks like Cam Gordon. You could be brothers. Just handsome. No, no, no. Handsome. Yeah. He's more rugged. Well, you can be rugged.

He's your rugged brother. Anyway. You're very handsome and Cam Gordon. Thank you. You know this. You guys are too. All right. Let's class this place up a little bit, shall we?

Like, we're, you know, we've been a little low brow. That's kind of how we roll. At least you and I, maybe not Cam. Oh, yeah. Me too. But Linda Cash, the great Linda Cash. This was a really nice conversation. And this was quite an emotional moment. I actually got a little, a little forklempt listening to this part of the episode. Let's listen to Linda talking about her mom. Why don't you tell us, Linda Cash? What are we listening to?

You're listening to my mother singing. I believe she's singing. Okay, here it is. I'm saying, like I can't tell you how many times I saw my mother singing. on the stage and I was just teasing my brother and we weren't listening or I was asleep or she would raise her amazing eyebrow from the stage going please behave children. My mom was the very famous Canadian National Treasure Moraine Forrester and you know I really did not appreciate who she was and how special she was until she was gone which is You know, it's always the case. And I'm in fact reading her book right now because I'm hoping, I'm doing a talk on Monday about her

and I'm hoping to write something like a presentation because this book, which is not in publication anymore, it's called Out of Character. And it's about my mother's very humble beginnings in Montreal and how she made her way to a debut in New York and then got to Europe and eventually did Las Gala. and Tanglewood and, you know, we traveled all over the place. She had five kids.

I'm number four, opus four, as my dad would call me. And we had an amazing life. But she was, she had an extremely special gift. I have talent. I love what I do. But it's nowhere near what my mother was born with and worked very casually. in her life was not pretentious. She just hummed a little while she put her makeup on,

went up on stage, and blew everyone's mind. Yeah, I loved my Linda Cash conversation, and that was a highlight for sure, talking about Maureen Forrester. Families are complicated. Well, she mentions, like, reading the biography of her mom after the fact, almost to sort of get a better, almost like sense of who mom really was.

Yeah. She had early on set of, On set of dementia. Yeah. Yeah. It's very touching. Yeah. It really was.

And just like having that come out of your mouth, you know, like I. I know. Really did class up the joint actually. I felt the change in the atmosphere here. It's like here we are digging a hole with big sugar and then that comes on. Yeah. Holy shit. But yeah, like the Philly cream cheese angel, you know, Seinfeld, waiting for Guffman,

best in show. Like she's done a lot and, you know, mornings with Dan Duran and Peterborough. Right. Was, um, she the only. Seinfeld actor you've had on the show. I know you had, who's the, someone who's like a writer? Oh, Jonathan Gross. Jonathan Gross. Jonathan Gross is, Marjorie Gross was Jonathan's sister. Yeah. So the funny episode she was on, the lip reader. Yeah. No, yeah, yeah, no. I don't want to sweep alone.

It was my play clips too. So maybe, I don't know. I don't know if I've had anyone who's been on Seinfeld beyond Linda Cash. I don't know. But what strikes me is that Linda Cash, Gordy Johnson, Tara Sloan, and Dean McTaggart. Do you know what they all have in common here? None of them were on tears are not enough. They were all on Zoom. So I feel like it's working against me here because that's a big percentage. You're playing like 11 clips and like four of them.

Yeah, you've done a lot of Zoom in the basement. A lot of Zoom this quarter. I can't remember each of them has their own reason. Well, Tara did the bait and switch. Dean McTaggart lives like kind of far away. Yeah. And I couldn't get. Gordy in the basement, so I gave up.

And Linda Cash lives kind of far away, like near Peterborough or something like that. Sorry, does Gordy live in Texas still? I think he does. He was on tour when I talked to him. He was in like Alberta or something like that. Somewhere in the prairie. Sounds like he just woke up.

He was like the Don Landry Sleepy Wilner. Yeah. Well, I was thinking of Don Landry's Sleepy Wilner because I had Don Landry do a Vic router that I played for Vic and Vic and Vic announced his retirement yesterday. Doa Vic Router. Yeah, dueling Vicks.

Dooling, okay. Dewey and Vicks. I thought I said do a Vic Router impression. No, well, he did do a Vic Router impression. Make the final. Make the final. So yeah, so shout out to Don Landry. Yeah, shout out to Don Landry.

Yeah, shout out to Don Langer. Sleepy Wilner and Duoling Vicks. You know what, you're right. Shout out to Don Lander. All right, home stretch here. We're real close. Because we're way longer. This is too damn long.

You know what? I think it's perfect. Okay. The next episode, has no clip. We heard a small clip off the top. Dave Mendonka. We've talked a lot about nostalgia. Yeah, we've talked a lot about nostalgia. You know, with Cam's book has an element of nostalgia too. Mark Carney said that nostalgia is not a strategy. He did. Don Draper said that nostalgia is a pain for something that. Yeah, Teddy told him that. Yeah, Teddy told him that.

Exactly. He's a Greek guy that Don knew. Yeah. That's a great clip. Great clip. Anyway, that's the carousel, right? That is maybe my favorite clip. Amazing. That was amazing. Wonderful episode. I was weeping in the pitch. Yeah.

That's right. Harry Crane had to leave the room. Oh my God. Anyway. Dave Mendonka, nostalgia A, EH on TikTok. Right. His brand is nostalgia, like Canadian nostalgia.

I didn't pull a clip because I didn't want to embarrass Dave Mendonka. I don't think we need to do that. but I think we should talk about it because and this will come up again in a minute. It's almost worse. Maybe. Maybe it is. This will come up again in a couple of minutes when I play the last clip. But what he's doing and the Cecilfielder thing, I think, was the sort of the pinnacle of the whole thing, right?

Like very early in the conversation. But it was tied with another one. There was back to back. What was the Michael Johnson? And I can't remember now which one was first. But he saw this calendar I'm pointing to now. And that's May 1986. George Bell is the player featured there.

And then he looks at me and it's not like he's doing a bit. Like I can see, you know, Cam or Stu would do this as like a bit. But he was being very sincere. He said, do you remember Cecil Fielder? Right. And I don't think I pounce. Like I think I, okay, you get one or whatever. But like, yeah, of course I remember Cecil Fielder.

He had 50 home runs in the majors. Yes. Like, and I'm older than this. Yeah, okay, early 50, yeah, more than 50 home run. We had a 50 home run season. Yeah, and I mean, it went out of Tiger Stadium. So I'm already, yeah, I was, my thought was, you almost should have pulled the clip. I said, do you know where you are?

But then he, I, just before Dave got here, Donovan Bailey was here for his show, and I mentioned Donovan Bailey's name. And then Dave looked at me in all sincerity and asked me, do you remember when Donovan Bailey raced Michael Johnson in that 150 meter race at Skydome? And then I kind of, kind of lost it. And he knew it too. Like, I felt... He said, I feel like I've offended you. It wasn't offended. It was more like,

how can you be so completely unaware of what podcast you're on right now? Like, at least have some... Because it's not like this was booked through a PR person. He wrote me a cold email and said, can I please come on and talk about my TikTok channel? And I'm like, I don't have a TikTok account,

but if you want to talk Canada nostalgia... I'm your guy. I'm your guy. And he came over, and that's precisely what I was anticipating to talk about Canada and nostalgia. But I didn't expect that kind of...

Well, and I think the thing you said to him shortly after that was you got to up your game. Yeah, well, that's it because everybody remembers Cecil Fielder. Okay, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here. His formula, you know, it's pretty... I'll call like high concept. Hey, remember this thing. Consumers distributing used to fill out the sheet. Yeah, you don't do that anymore.

Anyway, see you tomorrow. Right. Like, oh, remember this thing. Let's remember some stuff. Yeah, let's remember some guys, but sort of like... to one minute version. And there's a place for that on the internet. Sure.

It's not in this basement. Yeah, but it's not in this basement. Like, I don't want to be, I needed, I kept thinking, okay, we're going to drill in for something, there's going to be a mindblower or a fun fact that I didn't know or something, some context to it that maybe isn't at the surface. Because everybody, so nostalgia, you have to, you can't have nostalgia for something you didn't experience. Like, I can't have nostalgia for when man landed on the moon.

Remember Woodstock. Right. Like, good point. I can't have nostalgia. Yeah, but big in Canada, they're talking about Gowan. They, they weren't there for like, yeah, gowen. I was, as a, sure. I talked about 1050 chum as a top 40 station with Tim Thompson.

Not Tim Thompson. Doug Thompson. Yeah. Tim Thompson is the, uh, the montage. The montage. Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm getting off topic here.

But so if, so you had to have memories of it for you to enjoy the nostalgia and experience the nostalgia. it, right? So now we need to like, okay, maybe you didn't know this about the Michael Johnson Donovan Bailey race or did you know that Donovan, you know, he got five million dollars for participating and then he got this for, for winning or something like that. Like there's got, I need- The GP want this though. Do they not just want to see like, I remember the general population? I remember that. Well, fucking red lobster wants it. He's got the red lobster money. So again, you said you don't want to embarrass Dave. I don't want to embarrass Dave either.

He seemed like a lovely man. You know, and I think he's laughing all the way to. the bay. Red lobster. Red lobster. Waving money at him. Cresation catch. They're bringing endless shrimp back. I'm saying for my taste and what I'm trying to do is I don't want the surface. Do you remember Sessel Fielder piece out?

I don't want that. I need deeper. Let me reframe because I feel like I've done Dave dirty. Like, Dave might hear this and he's a lovely man. I hope he does. I think. Different type of product. It is a different thing. He's out of his element here because that level

of surface nostalgia is just, it's something we've called a level one convo in the past. Right. Yeah. We're rebranded. We're working on a new name. You're right. But it's, it's just so, so elemental, right? We all, it's like, yeah, of course we remember that. Like, do you remember Wendell Clark? Yes, of course I do. But, but it works because on TikTok, there's lots of people who maybe don't remember those. Maybe I'm not appreciating this, the media that is TikTok because I'm not on it. Cam, are you on it? Yeah. Is track, track changes on it? No, no, no, no, no. But, like, it's also, like, we've talked a lot about, like, these Facebook, like, the old Kansas series.

It's almost, God, and he's, we love Eric Alpert, but it's the same thing. It's like every three months. Regurgitating the same. Yeah, this photo of, the one I've seen a lot lately is like Marilyn Monroe at Banff. Because she filmed the movie, and there's, like, the photo series you can get on the archives. That old Canada series on Facebook seems, every time I look at it, it seems like it's that exact photo. Yeah. Or the photo of, like, Joseph.

bluer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I feel like that should. And every time it's like, there's fucking 200 people and it's frustrating for me as it's frustrating. So I'm trying to like actually like mine actual like a mining Bitcoin with So I would say consumers distributing is a great example, right?

Like there's that surface hit like, oh, remember consumers distributing? You had to fill out a form, find out it wasn't in stock or whatever. And it's like, oh yeah, I remember doing that. Like circling things in the catalog or whatever. Like we all have it. But what I want to do is let me find somebody Lorraine Summerfield. Does I have spelled? Yeah.

Let me find somebody who worked there for many, many, many years. And let's dive into like the behind the scenes, get something new about consumers. Okay, this is actually really good because I don't know why, like sometime in Q1, consumers distributing came up with a co-worker. Oh. And because I worked very close to like...

Maybe they follow the nostalgia A account in TikTok. I think it was because I worked near like Nudembrook Plaza where they used to be. And then the person said, oh, I used to go. I said, oh, my friend actually just did a podcast to someone who worked there was talking about the stock with, this person could not have been less interested. They just

want like, yes, this existed. Let's go on with their life. Okay. And that's what TikTok is for. Right? Like, if you want a quick hits, right? If you want a deep dive, you're going to come here. If you want like a 30 second,

like hey, remember this thing? Like a chocolate, you're hungry. It's a chocolate bar. Yeah. But if you want to, if you want a substantial meal with nutrients, you got to come here. Yeah, exactly. And you got to come here.

Capture people's attention. As far as snack, snack size. What he's doing, again, a big, big brand like Red Lobster is giving him money to be associated with that.

He's obviously doing something. There's obviously, and he talks about millions of people viewing these things, right? So there's obviously a huge audience for those quick little dopamine hits or whatever. And, you know,

maybe there'll be a smaller audience for the deep dive, but it'll be a more like attentive, invested audience. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's again, like sort of this passive consumption of content. It's like a real, like, you're really even like Netflix. The scrolling. Yeah, like content designed for people that are not paying attention, which I think it's like so unbelievably fucked up at like the Netflix level. If you're doing like full movies. Oh, right. You have to reiterate the plot every 20 minutes or whatever. That's like the old Toronto AI stuff. Like you read the comments and it's like, oh my God, I remember that. Oh, yeah. So I get a lot of this pushed to me on Facebook. The vintage Toronto is one of it. Yeah.

and it's all AI, almost all AI slop. And you go into the comments and a lot of people don't seem to be aware this is bullshit. Or they don't care. But it's again, why are people going to see fucking foreigner with no original members? It's like we talked about this last time. It's like, hey, all you fucking people on the lawn,

do you care there's no original members? That's a tribute band that had the legal. I had a dream. The first storm out. I did not think it would be Cam fucking Go ahead in. Anyway. So what do we blame this on the breakdown of? Society?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I also think it's so. That's a Moses Lack. Scott, I hate to like bring it back to, I think it's like a technology thing. I wrote in 1996, I wrote my thesis paper

on the death of the attention span. What? Oh. Yeah. I didn't know that. I did. And, you know, and that was 30 years ago

when we all... And you were blaming much music in MTV. You were blaming me. Yeah, I was blaming TV mostly. Sesame Street was big on this. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, fucking Sesame Street.

I, you know, these apps that keep, I see, you know, my wife, I see these people go on them, they go on the scroll, on Instagram or whatever it is, and they're doomed scrolling or whatever. And it's, you know, designed by the same people who work at casinos to get you invested in the, uh, one-arm

bandits and stuff. Like, it's all science. And yeah, How is that world that is emerging ever going to listen to two and a half hours on tears are not enough? But I think there's a way to do this. I don't know if you guys are following Tim. I'm going to quit the fucking program. Tim's. We talked about Tim Shore.

I would love to have Montrose. Just created a new substack to talk about like the origin story of blog Tio and whatnot. And it's, I feel like some people have some opinion because it's a very different approach to media. But I think what he did with blog Tio was actually the right way to do what you're described. where there's actually value. Sunny size session IPA just popped. Yeah, and like he always talks about, well, how do we do service

and sort of respect our reader? And I do feel like at its best blog Tio did a good job at balancing both. Yep. Where it's quick hit, quick information, but useful information that doesn't, doesn't sort of treat its readers like idiots,

not saying any of this stuff treats their viewers like idiots, but I don't know. It's a different type of like attention economy. This is a good book. I don't know if you guys have read this. Ben Smith used to be like the media critic for the New York Times traffic. It's all about the rise and fault like Gawker and BuzzFeed.

It sort of gets into the same topic. But anyway, I feel like this is totally going off the rails. There is an audience and a desire for the Dave Mandonka, the Dave Mandonka content, the Eric Alper content. Remember this man? Yeah. And I don't want this to be the place for that. Yeah.

But is this like, I feel like you squint a bit and there's a bit of retro kid, you know, it's, this is all. A byway bag? Yeah, a byway bag here, a retro kid there. A hay cana, Cecil Fielder. You know where I'm going, that's Bo Burnham. I'm going into that whole white woman Instagram. Buy way bag. No clue.

No clue. A shopper's drug mart, Blue Jays calendar. Could have been the Richard Floyd. could have been the wine. Hey, that's a good call. Okay, well. We got a cook, brother. I actually got family shit.

I got to do. What's your heart out? What's your heart out? What's your heart on right now? Hello. To finish this fucking episode. We're almost home. We're almost home. Okay. Two more clips and then some more clips and then some more chat.

And then four different types of features. And then we're out. Yeah. But there's the quick ways. This episode is just, what's it called again? No, but what's this section called? Rapt. Rapt.

FOTM cast is 95% wrapped. Yes. Okay, go. Yeah. But then the fun stuff is the other 5%. Anyway. No, it's just my oldest son. Yeah.

And I, right about now, we're supposed to meet. So I texted, it was a whole, it's a whole family thing. Amazing, he was that age when this episode started.

Now he's like a graduate from university. That's my Jamesie over there. Little guys. James. We didn't even have color film back there. Wow. Yeah. Okay.

Anyway. Do you remember that photo? I remember. it well because that's not even digital. That's film, brother. I didn't even have a digital camera yet. That's how old my... Let me... Nostalgia. We had

film in our cameras. Those were the days. Let me tell you. Archie Bunker. Anyway, Stu Stone was here. All the way Glenn Miller playing. It was quite a day. Stu Stone. And Cam Gordon were in the basement on the same day.

Line blow. Did not cross. Super weird. Did not cross. That's weird. Because Stu postponed. He's one of the many people. So it wasn't supposed to be that way. I'm trying to think what he talked about now. Was this, like, it was a great, you know what? So this was my favorite. Oh, no, it was this like California. This was my favorite solo stew up because he told a great story. And it's much longer than this clip, but about his LA origin. Well, that's just similar with Padini. I feel like you can now laser point some of the missing links in the Stu Stone story. So let's listen to Stu talking about his, uh, his LA days. I actually learned stuff on this. Within the

first day of being at the oak woods and mingling with other child actors i we i go to this party that ben savage what walks into this party of course he's a big deal at the time i guess because you know boy meets world yeah and he walks in with phil glasser phil glasser and the two of them come in and they're sort of like the king shits of this party and i'm the new guy you know like no one knows me yet uh but they will uh and somehow or another i get to talking with phil And he's telling me that he was five old of the mouse, and I couldn't believe that he was... That's a mind blow.

I didn't watch Boy Meets World, but I watched American Tale. So I was marking out for... So Ben would be like, oh, you're the brother of Fred Savage. Like, he would just be... Well, he was, Ben, it was a very successful show. No, no, I mean, to you who wasn't watching Boy Meets World, he'd be like, oh, you're the Wonder Years guys.

And I got along with Ben, by the way. We were friends. Okay. But Phil and I hit it off because he was a voice. voiceover guy. Right. And I had come from my background at that point. It was Magic School Bus and all these other things going on.

Like Phil and I were speaking the same language. My pet monster. So Phil and he ended up staying in our studio apartment with us. Within a month, we got kicked out of the Oakwoods because we were three teenagers with no parents and no rules and we were throwing parties and we were getting Wu-Tang Clan to like buy us beers or whatever the hell we were doing. We got kicked out of there. And the three of us moved in.

into a place in Encino, California. The only reason why we moved to Encino is because we knew the movie Encino Man. Right. And that we had heard of Encino. We didn't know where it was, what it was, but we knew the movie. Polly sure.

So we were like, okay, Encino, that sounds good. That's funny. We moved into this place in the apartment, it was a townhouse. And the apartment, the unit was 5A, which is the same unit as Jerry Seinfeld, I believe on Seinfeld is 5A also. And shout out to Justin Trugman.

He has a Korean pop group called 5A, but that's another conversation for another time. The three of us live together in this apartment together, and you have to understand this is at the height of Devin Sawa's Teen Beat magazine cover. You know, this was like entourage. Like the show Entourage, that was us. Devin was Vincent Chase, right?

And I was like Turtle E and Johnny Drama combined into one. And Phil Glasser was probably a combination of those two. The three of us, the parties and the, you could do a movie on this. Well, you can make the doc about that then. It was insane. Needless to say that we didn't last very long in that place either, we got kicked out of there. But we were roommates for the very first formative years of us all being in L.A. together. Phil was an L.A. guy, so he kind of showed us the ropes.

He showed us where, you know, he introduced us to a lot of people that became our friends. Phil was our guy on the ground. He was our fixer on the ground. Wow. And Devin, you know, Devin's career exploded when he moved to L.A., so you're welcome. But he ended up landing idle hands, and he ended up, you know, doing a movie called Wild America with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, which basically, if you were a teen beat kid, those are the two cover guys that are, and they're in a movie together, what? So, yeah, Devin's career really shot off. And then he obviously did Eminem Stan video.

Right. And he just like was on another level than anybody at that point. And anyway, the fact that all three of us have Funko Pops now of characters that we played was pretty cool to me. All right. Yeah. Just like a really cool story that Stu's never told. A missing link. Yeah.

Yeah. He's still friends. The LA years of Stu or have always been a little hazy on Toronto Mike. I saw it's Stu and Devin were at one of the J's games. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because my friend, Lindsay, who I feel like you guys have met, not my, not my sister.

Lindsay, the other Lindsay. She actually DM me, says, I didn't know Stu is friends with Devin. I loved him. And he said, listen to Toronto. Again, like, I've talked to, it's so, because, like, this is what Stu was doing while, like, I was at McMaster. Like, we had all gone to, like, university. And Stu took, like, a very divergent path, but has done so incredibly well. Like, I'm so proud and impressed of everything he's done.

When I was crafting my three-minute speech, that took five minutes to deliver at the handlebar at your event, I was thinking about our first meeting in 2018 and how in that initial conversation we had in 2018, June, I think, you talked about this guy you went to high school with. You were just talking about the Stu Stone guy. And I left that convo, and I remember thinking, I need this guy to introduce me to Stu.

I need to talk to Stu. Like, he sounded like just this. How would you even describe it? Well, it's a bit of acting, but a bit of music. He's a bit of music, a bit of podcasting, a bit of pro wrestling, a bit of sports, a bit of retail. He's remarkable. And that got me wondering, okay, oh, yeah, so Cam goes to high school of this guy. And then in 2018, there are buds again.

But there is a lot of time between those two events, like the missing years. Well, again, without social media and even, like, texting, like, none of us had any idea what Stu was up to. Like, I didn't find out about any of this shit to like years. Like, it's, right. It's all remarkable. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's so, it's all remarkable.

so nice. It's all to have people from high school that we've been on very different paths, but we're still in each other's lives. That's great. Beautiful. Anyway, I enjoyed that episode with Stu. A strong episode of Stu Stone. Very much so. Last episode to talk about

and this one really hits close to home because what you're going to hear is a conversation between the two of you. Oh, perfect. Just what you need. Talking about we never do that. The wonderful new book track changes. Oh, yeah. I got a copy here.

And I said it earlier, but like I just, I can't express to you, Cam, how how happy and proud I am of you for you, for not only publishing this book, which is a huge accomplishment in and of itself. But just all the, the attention you're getting and all the, the positive vibes around the book. It's a really, it's a really wonderful thing that you've done. And I think this, this clip, I think really kind of gets to the ethos of track. changes. And so let's listen to the two of you talk. This book is somebody with a Canadian perspective. That's key. I'm going to visit that in a moment. But you took great effort over several years to document this disappearing internet that I came of age in and many others did. And I'm going to say right now,

thank you for doing that. No, you're welcome. I mean, we've talked about this topic a lot with also folks like Jeremy Hopkins and Mark Wiseblot, to say nothing of AI and sort of the Slop Fest that we live in, but all of these like really shitty Instagram accounts and Facebook groups where you see the same photos over and over like Toronto memories. And like Jeremy Hopkins, I feel like is going to have like a, he's going to go like completely postal.

If he sees like one more of these groups, if it's like, oh, there's Joseph Bluer. You know, I feel like I see that photo. Yeah. And it's just like there's no effort put into it. So it's like the people that are actually, I was trying to like actually do the work. Like this stuff is all hiding in,

it's not even hiding in plain view. But someone has to dig it up and polish it and then give it some context and then present it to the, the seeking public. Yeah. And that's what I was going to do. That's work. Yeah.

But somebody's got to do it. Somebody has to give a shit enough to get that right and then put it out there. And I've been trying to do that since 2002. Yeah. Well, like one thing. thing I'm very happy about this book. This is not like an underground book. Everything in here is

completely mainstream. It's all lived experience, but it's all fallen out of sight because the URLs are dead or the magazines or out of publication. We don't use the phones anymore. We don't use the phones anymore. I feel like I've been like

on that mass between like shitty PR speak and what I actually think about topics, given what we were just talk about 10 minutes ago, but yeah, I mean, I don't think we need to belabor the book anymore. But again, of all the things, and yeah, like there was Globe and Mail and CBC coming to do this podcast and Amber MacArthur and stuff in Vancouver has been awesome. And the launch event, Aussie was a really special night. More than I think, I was just showing this to Tyler.

The Toronto Public Library has actually bought like eight copies of this and there's already people, that alone, because I do want this to be a history book. like a moment in time in a record of shit that actually happened. So it's also like remembered properly, at least in my impression. Yeah. As someone who was a music fan, worked at Twitter, did PR for LG, came on Toronto Mike's podcast 100 plus times. You know, all of it, I think, is all in this book.

Yeah. And it's so like it really hits at the heart of who I think the three of us are and many of us, many of our friends and colleagues. you know, we were all there at this time. You know, we lived it. The, you know, my first job, I was still in university. I worked at the Hamilton Spectator and my job for the summer was to catalog every story about every Hamilton musician that had ever run in the Hamilton Spectator. Wow.

That's fun. It was great. It was awesome. So I was like in whatever was Lexis Nexus or whatever pulling up like these old articles about fucking Dave Rave and the, you know, teenage head and junk house and all these, all these great Hamilton bands, uh, to be,

uh, repurposed for this thing called ego interactive, which was, a website that was, that was basically the Hamilton Spectators' entertainment section. Ego and interact, ego interactive.

So ego. Almost a cease and desist, they intimate. Yeah. Um, but it was like this, this revolutionary quote unquote thing where there was going to be these multiple feeds like they're going to be live

journalists, there were going to be historical articles. It was all going to feed into this machine. That's cool. Pushed out into this online magazine. Shot GPT. Yeah, basically. But like that was, you know, and no doubt that was happening in newsrooms and, you know, media outlets across the country where people like the internet is finally kind of here and we've got all this content. How can we kind of push it out there? And nobody really knew what to do or how to do it or how to monetize it.

definitely didn't know how to monetize it. But what your book captures is that moment in time and how it impacted us, how it impacted how we consume media. And so I'm just really grateful that it exists. Well, thank you. And honestly, getting it in the library alone, the fact that when I'm dead, at least there'll be a wreck, because I personally don't think Wikipedia is going to exist long term.

I don't think the Internet Archive. I think all this shit's going to go away, like most history. does and at least there's this and this book will become very obscure quickly. But at least it exists and I do like also I do feel like it's good shoulder content to the stuff

Michael Barclay did and Johnny Dovercord and Lizworth and Sam Sutherland and also like a lot of the books about Canadian tech like Josh O'Kane who actually did the Globe feature he wrote like the Google Side Rock Labs. What's a Blackberry book? Losing the signal that the movie was based on. Matt Johnson. Yeah, like

I actually want to put together like a movie. A book list of like, it's in the back of this book, too. It's like, here's some other shit you should read, because this is all, I'm trying to continue the story of all these writers. It's good grout. That's what that is. Good grout, yes.

I'm nothing if not grout. We get it. We get it. Had to interrupt a mid-syllimo. Amanda Biles. God bless her. Any words, Cam Gordon, before I play your forgotten can't con.

No, like as always, I'm glad I thought of this one because I didn't, this is like, I say this a lot, I genuinely not thought of this song in probably like 30 years. And Tyler, for you, once you recognize it, just speak up. It's like a hundred song. Well, yeah, that's also true. Including Atlanta Miles. I was thinking about Jane Child at first. Yeah, yeah.

No, it has a Jane Child vibe. Absolutely. I definitely know this. Bury Jane Child, though. Yeah, yeah. Don't want to fall in love. Don't want to fall in love. Woman's work.

Yes. Oh, my God. I don't know why it's not ringing a bell with me. So you don't know this one. It's not, it's not. This song is like late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, but tell me, like, this is on much music? A little bit, I think.

It was definitely on the radio. Who's the artist? The artist is. Shiree. I don't even recognize that name. I know this song. It's weird.

I hear this like Jane Child I don't want to fall in love. Yes. I don't know why I hear a bit of like Van Hill and Jamie's crying.

Yeah. I hear Alana's Alana Miles. Alana Miles. Like Still got this. Yeah.

It's got a. But with those like 80s fake drums. Oh yeah. Um, so anyway, five fun facts about Shire here. Shire.

Jaycock is her full name. Prior to becoming a solo artist, she worked as a backup singer for here's some names you might recognize. Gordon Lightfoot, Rita McNeil, Glass Tiger, and Kim Mitchell. Wow.

Even sang on her album. So she... I love that inside reference. That's for the real heads. So this song came out in... Oh God, I didn't write. I think it's 1990. Okay, 89 or 90.

But Shiree was actually nominated in 1986 for most promising female vocalist. So that award was won by Kim Richardson. Don't really know what that is. The other nominees were Chantelle Condor,

Francisco Gagnon, and Chabon Crawley. A bunch of household names. Don't know any of those. The year before was Katie Lang, so at least you know Katie Lang. Shrey didn't do a lot that was too visible in the music business after. This 1994, she did do

the theme for something called Wild C-A-T-S, Wild Cats, co-produced by Nelvana. I would say this was like a dollarama version of X-Men. Interestingly, someone who's an F-O-T-M did some voice work. Oh. And so it's too stoned. Melanie Melody. No.

That's a very good guess. I'll say a male. Okay. I think he identifies this mail. Okay. I'm just going to say it because I don't think you're going to get it. and we've been going two half hours, Dean McDermott.

Wow. Yeah, played the character Warblade. Okay. Warblade. Wow. And Chiray must like other musicians, including Sammy Cohn and Bill Giovanovitch from Buffalo Tom.

Now works as a real estate agent. She works for remax. Drumming up results. Yeah, has some good stuff in the Leaside right now. I yelled that out at the handlebar. Yeah, so Shray. This is not a bad song. Like, it's totally fine.

It's generic, but it is of the time. Yeah, definitely. I don't know why I don't recognize it. I feel shame. I was listening to 680 and I was listening to 640 and I was watching much music. And I don't think this song, I was listening to Q107 at the time. Do not resonate. No, even CFMY.

I'm now listening to CFM and why and none of those stations. Kate Bush had a song. This woman's work. This woman's work. I was just the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, um, the, the, um, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, The SEM on this is horrible, or the SEO. Like, it's very hard to find this. 89, by the way, is the year of that song.

Yeah. And do you know, I don't know if you have, do you know who co-wrote this song? Jim Valence. Dean Taggart. No, but it is an FOTM. Who? It's not Jim Valence then. Lou Poulmante. Oh, Lou Pumanty.

Yeah. Sorry, who's that again? So he, we saw him at the Massey Hall doing that. He was the musical director of the Canadian music. He's been on Toronto, Mike. He's a friend of James B. Okay, that tracks. F-O-J-B.

And this song was covered by Tina Arena. Yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She came up in Toronto, Mike, at some point, Tina Arena. Is that maybe the Lou Pimanti episode? I feel like it was more recent than that. Okay, more recent than that. Okay, we get-

Anyway, final comment about this, Mike. I don't know if you remember. Then I'm going into next thing. I texted you this song in like January. It's like, I'm totally going to forget that this was my pick. Did I know it then? I'm not sure. Anyway, so I've been sitting on this.

Because I didn't listen, and now, I listened for the first time, and it did not ring a bell. Well, women's work is never done. Indeed. Yeah. I feel shame. Mike doesn't respect women's work. Oh, baby. Lexicon Corner. Got some hot stuff here. Very hot stuff.

Because I have a suggestion, too. Okay, what do you got? Well, I was going to suggest. I noticed in that clip you played from what clip, who's the Love Inc girl again? I can't be... Simone Denny. I know this.

I know this. She's a beloved FOTN. What beautiful mind stuff if you got going on this? I was going to say. You're not allowed to see that. Obviously, I'm writing my Elmo show in the bag of this.

So she says, Simone's not here is what she says because it's Love Inc. is going to play somewhere and she goes, Simone's not here. Yeah. And I was thinking that's a good way. Like, you know,

instead of like, you buffied me, you bailed. But Simone's not here. It's like I wasn't there. What's that restaurant? It's the opposite. Fred's not. Yeah. It's not here.

Yeah. That's right. Beside DeAngelo's place. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Forget about it. It's the inverse of, um, Alan Cross wasn't there. Alan Cross, he wasn't there.

Yeah. The inverse is Simone's not there. Like I, I wasn't there. Like, it's like you're, I chose not to be there. You're more of a positive thing that I wasn't there. That's right, right, right. The shit went down there, but yeah, I was, Simone, Simone's there. I like that.

Just a thought. Okay. Well, and that's a perfect time to bring it up because it is lexicon, right? Right. That's, I held on to it for now. We, uh, We had the appearance of a new character in Q1. And I call this character Angry Keenan.

Oh. Angry Keenan. So let's listen to Angry Keenan for just a few seconds. That's the most sanctimonious bullshit fucking thing I've ever heard, right? No, I mean, Lanrick may have a disability that prevents him from understanding like humor or whimsy or anything like that. And so I don't want to pick on people who have that kind of condition, like those people who can't detect sarcasm or irony or anything like that. Sure.

He's hot. Yeah, that's Lanark Bennett Jr. Yeah, I'm trying to remember what this was about. Yeah. So it was, uh, there was like a thing in the star where people were like basically writing in their suggestions for what, like, how we could improve Toronto. And somebody wrote in and said, in the winter, we should turn the bike lanes into

like a skating track. All right. And Lanrick. Yeah, Lanark's like, no, we'd eat bike, you know, winter. We still bike in the winter. Landrick and I are the only two, maybe, but we're biking all winter long. And Ed Kinnon fucking lost.

Yeah, that is Angry Keenan. And he was supposed to be here yesterday, by the way. He also postponed. He's going to be here April 8th. But yeah, that's Angry Kenan. We heard him. I love it. Was that a-

He was fired up? Was that a serious idea, though, the bike, like the skate? No, I think it was, I don't think it was, I think it was more like, just a fluffy little star. Yeah, like logistically, it could never happen. No, it's ridiculous. Yeah. But I don't think it was meant to be taken so seriously,

but Lanrick felt it was... And Kenan lost his fucking mind. Showing more like the Toronto Star showing more like, we don't need to maintain bike lanes in the winter. But his duties is the Toronto bike mayor. But he's no longer the bike mayor. Oh, he's done. Oh, Allison Stewart.

Oh, yes. F-O-TM, Allison Stewart. And apparently that's a two-year term because we just had a... Oh, I think you're... Longfield. Michael Longfield, we need a new bike mayor. I think you're up next. It might be Tyler Campbell.

Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. All right. One more clip. All right. Yeah, one more clip. But this is actually, this is a surprise.

This is a new Stinger because we have a new segment within Lexicon Corner. Danger, danger. Trigger warning. Danger. Trigger warning. We got some Toronto mic triggers. I don't know if you remember that from an early, an early FOTM cast. Right.

Young and Charles. If I were to say Young and Charles to you, what would you say? I would tell you I lived there. That's right. David Bronsty came up with David Bronstine. I was at 30 Charles Street West. Toronto Mike lived at Young Charles. I don't know if anyone knew that.

Brass rail. That's right. Above the up, no longer present. I used to park under that building when I worked. Was it in the tall, the tall building there? Well, there's a 30 and a 35 across the street.

And they were University of Toronto family residences. Because you were a family man. Yeah. So if you were a family and I'm at UFT and I'm a fan, because I'm a family person on UFT, subsidized rent. And I had a bachelor apartment there and I remember cutting the check every month for $429. Reasonable. What a time.

Eminently reasonable. Yeah. And that's the, that's mid-90s. There you go. Okay. Yeah. So that is a trigger. You can't say Young and Charles about me dropping that on you.

You can't do it. Mix 99.9.9. What would you say, Mike? Oh, Humble Howard. Humble Howard was the first person to say That's right. Mixed 99.9.9. This came up the other day with Jeff Vidler.

Jeff Vidler. That's right. Which was I thought was a pretty good chat with Jeff. Last one, rapid fire. Well, you wonder who's Jeff Vidler's brother is? Who is Jeff Vidler's brother? FOTM Chuck McCoy. 1050.

He was on the 1050 episode. I remember that. Chuck McCoy. That's a deep cut. Cam could get the fuck. Is he Chuck Vidler or is Jeff McCoy? is a fake name. I think Jeff Fiddler is a real name. Chuck McCoy sounds fake.

Chuck McCoy. Okay. Last one. Last one. Hughes Room. What do you say to Hughes Room? Oh, Jane Harbor. There it is.

Okay, I got some triggers, brother. I got, you know, like a jukebox. You are like a jukebox. Oh, I like it, though. Come back. Jack White's on this track, actually. Wow. Yeah.

That's up in Electric Six. Electric Six. Yeah. Danger, danger. It's a fun. High voltage. All right. All right.

Here we go. Almost there. Breaking along. I'm so fucking late. Shout out to Midtown Gore. We're going to be so fast here. Okay, I'm supposed to meet somebody in the junction that we want to fly. Okay.

We're going to get you out of here. Okay. As always, if you hear anything that sounds awry off, please email me, FOTMcast. Our team of fact checkers are on it. Please do. There could be a very high value price company. Okay.

Let's get into it. On the first toast of the quarter, metal jams. We had a rare double whammy. Oh. New Hallfammer. I hate this section, by the way, did ever tell you that? Yeah, he did. I love it. A new Hall of Famer, Bob Willett, said that the lead singer of Catherine Wheel was Rob Halford's brother.

But then someone on the live stream corrected him to say that the lead singer Rob Dickinson is actually the brother of Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. And that is incorrect. And that is incorrect. And that is incorrect. And I should have known better to correct. I regret. I don't mind that one because I didn't make that either. Yeah, you weren't involved in that. Thank God. It's understandable, though. It is understandable. But wrong. Ultimately wrong. I should have known better to correct them. Mark Medley, Globe and Mail opinion editor. Yeah. With respect to Fergie Oliver said, I never saw him play. He wouldn't have been televised.

He didn't reach a level. I mean, what I think, he played pro ball. I think this is more of a misunderstanding or a misremembering. I think what Mark is referring to is Canadian great Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins. Oh, wow. I think that's what Mark is. That's a big name. Ferdbodge.

Yes, a furt botch. Okay, okay, okay. Could I let it go because Fergie did play a high level of ball. but he, yeah, a long time ago. Not in Mark's lifetime. Actually, Mike, do you remember for Yolab? It's not Oliver, brother. Oliver, Oliver.

By the way, guess who's in the calendar for next? Kerry Oliver. Kerry Oliver. Did she postpone? No. Okay. Well, they did postpone once. Yeah, they were supposed to be last quarter, but Kim McDonald postponed.

So it's going to be both of them together. They're both from the, they were on the weather network together and their friends. Yeah. But they have never been on together. Haven't they? No. Okay. Because.

Oh, because Kim was on with her husband. Her husband. and came on solo. And Kim McDonald came on of her husband, Chris Packed. Yes, I remember that. And they kicked it and Kim came on solo. So this will be Kerry Oliver and Kim McDonald. Amazing.

I can only assume that Mark Medley regrets that grave error. Finally, on the Sean and Dunk episode, our very own Toronto Mike made the grave error. I made a mistake. Referring to the Tim Robinson Netflix sketch comedy show, I think you should leave as maybe you should leave. Toronto Mike, Without question or reservation, do you regret the error?

Yeah, I do. But I always say that is a great fucking show. It's a great show. Take for a ride on the lone bus in China, down that where in the world is Stu Stone. Greetings Toronto, Michael. It's your boy Stu Stone, Hall of Famer, Stu Stone, and you want to know where in the world is Stu Stone. I'm actually in Toronto right now for the holidays, Passover. Happy Passover. to those celebrating. Hopefully you're not eating carbs this week. Happy Easter to those celebrating this

weekend. And if there's any other holiday that I'm missing out on, happy that as well. Happy Blue J season, happy Leafs tanking season, happy Raptors, hopefully make the playoffs season as well. Shout out to Cam Gordon, whose book is out and available now. Track change it. His event looked spectacular. Can't wait to hear all about it. Simone wasn't there. going to be mentioning that or already has mentioned it on this episode. And I'm looking forward to listening to it. I will be traveling in case you are wondering.

I'm heading to Las Vegas in a few days with the great Doug Flutie. More on that in the future. Then I'll be in Los Angeles. Remarkable. I'll be back in Las Vegas, back in Los Angeles. And then back in Toronto, hopefully in early May, to pay another visit to the basement. Love you, Mike. and love to the FOTM universe, to the FOTM cast members,

and of course to the friends of Stu Stone, the FOSS's. That's Cambrio. Yes, yes. We did it. And Linda, as I recall. There was at least two, I recall. Yeah, gentlemen, so I know this was long. Let me see how long it was.

I think we're like two and a half. We're at 240. That's not bad. But part of the problem was Cam's TTC issues. Yeah. We didn't start on time. That's fine. I need to leave earlier.

I envision this being, I envision these episodes being two hours. Yeah, that's never going to happen. Yeah. Two and a half. But you know, there's an episode we never talked about because we were talking about fewer episodes,

but there's one that I thought was really strong with kind of an interesting person that did not get discussed. So I wanted to shout it out now on the way out. Andy Stochansky. Yeah. I was a little surprise, Andy's on the cutting room floor.

Yeah, that was mostly because it was like almost 2 a.m. And I was tired. Oh, did you listen? Did you listen to Andy Stichensky? Yeah. And Blair and his lady friend were also intended. Oh, yeah. And that was the woman he went to Germany or something.

Germany with and had some feelings for it. Got some feelings. Were they rollerblading? What am I thinking of? Anyway, as you were. I think of Peter Gross. Okay. That's great.

Peter Gross. Oh, he didn't make the cut either. There were some. So, I don't know. I'm just... What do you want to do, Mike? You can't do it all. Can't do it all.

I still, I don't like a remote. I'm in trouble. I get it to see your boy. But I get it, let the song finish anyway. So I can just tell you that I, you know, I am busy. Yeah. I still love Toronto, Mike. I don't have time to chase the big names.

I felt like maybe we didn't have enough big names in the first quarter and I carry that with me. Like, I need to deliver these big names. And, you know, Andy Stochansky is not a big name. Bruce McCullough is a. big name and he canceled three times and I found that frustrating. But I aim to do better in quarter to. Don't be so hard. I thank you guys because Tyler,

you did a lot of work. And Cam, it's a long way for you to travel. Anytime. And I appreciate you both that we get to do this every quarter and make Mike Apple's day because he listens to every syllable and then tells me he wishes it was longer. Amazing. And so does Libet Fumpka. Yeah. Well, we love L'Bey Fumke. Punch of sickos. Lebe is back at work and we're Happy to hear it. Yes, we are. Absolutely.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,874th show. Go to Torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and buy a ticket or two to see me at the Elma combo on May 21st. Much love to all who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery.

I got beer for you guys. Palma Pasta. Nick Iienes, Recycle My Electronics.ca. That's where you go with old cables, old electronics. You don't throw that in the garbage. the chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to Recycle My Electronics.com.

And Ridley Funeral Home. I have a new trinket for you. It is like a bottle opener. It's a flashlight. It's measuring tape. Very excited for this. It is a level.

Swiss Army knife. Whoa. Thank you, Mike. Oh, my goodness. Out. Courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Don't cut yourself on that bottle opener. Guys, everybody, I'm back Monday. Wow. Does you need a battery?

No, I'm not. Monday's a holiday. Dave Hurlo, do you guys remember the Darcy's? Yeah, man. Dave Hurlo from the Darcy's is going to visit at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

That's cool. See you all. Then. Bye.