Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Gary Cormier: Toronto Mike'd #377

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Mike chats with Gary Cormier of The Garys about his years promoting concerts in Toronto at the Horseshoe Tavern, The Edge, Larry's Hideaway and elsewhere, including The Police Picnic.

Welcome to episode 377 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB, brewed for you ontario and property in the six dot com toronto real estate done right and paytm an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot download the app today from paytm.ca and census design and build providing architectural design interior design and turnkey construction services

across the GTA I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is Gary Cormier 50% of the dynamic music booking duo the Gary's are you okay with that intro uh

you're a-okay with that okay the gary's uh we're gonna dive into the gary's there's some younger listeners who are going to wonder what i'm talking about there's others who are just uh excited to hear tales from from Gary Cormier this is a fantastic thanks for being here my pleasure I want to update everybody on something exciting so I do the Terry Fox

run every year and it was this past Sunday and I did it at High Park and it was great and this year it's really it's just listeners and Twitter followers and like blog readers that contribute. Like some people do 25 bucks, some do more. It's amazing. Like everybody kind of chips in and we raised 1500 bucks, which I thought was really cool. But then I got an email yesterday from the Terry Fox Foundation and they congratulated me that I am one of the top 5% online, I guess, contributors or whatever you'd say for the Terry Fox run.

And I thought that was amazing. Incredible. 5%. I've never been top 5% of anything, I don't think. But good to see you. You mentioned on the phone that would there be video. So let me take a good look at you here. You look fine, by the way. see you. You mentioned on the phone that would there be video. So let me take a good look at you here. You look fine, by the way.

Thank you. You were worried you would not be ready for video. Didn't sleep last night, didn't shave this morning. I didn't shave either, if that makes you feel better. It do. So do you want to share why you didn't sleep or obviously you don't have to. Well, I was just in the process of buying a new house

and was out with the home inspector. And, you know, a million things going through your mind. Are you going to get it all done in time? Oh, I know that feeling. It's one of those, yeah. Are you like me? Like you'll wake up every hour thinking about something new? I wish I could wake up every hour.

I didn't sleep at all. Oh, no. But you're still here, which is amazing. I'm just so glad you're here. Do you have, I don't know, do you listen to any podcasts? Occasionally, I listen to Lefset's podcasts. I listen to, but I've sort of gone off Mark... whose last name escapes me right now,

but I'm sure you know who I'm referring to. WTF? Is that the one? Yeah. Mark Maron. Yeah. I liked him a couple of years ago. He wears a little thin on me. He gets big guests.

I mean, I like to focus on like toronto famous people and interesting toronto so that's my that's my reason why uh you know i think uh mark maron had like barack obama on his show like he's he's uh he's getting some big time names but i don't want barack obama i want the i want gary cormier that's the way i'm rocking i'm here for you he can have obama he. But do you have any, like, just because you mentioned, you know, you asked if there was video, is it just audio?

And it is just audio, although we'll take that picture after the podcast, which is it. But do you have any thoughts on this? Because I get like lots of times, I wonder whether I should have video on this. Do you have any? No, I think podcasts should be without,

personally. I love sitting at the desk, puttering away, doing my stuff and listening, picking up stuff in the background. That's where I learn everything. I'm with you. I like it. It's just like, and I'll listen to podcasts on like a bike ride, for example. I like it being

audio, like a theater of the mind. It's audio only. But you know this, I always call it the pivot to video, but it seems like oh i i have a i do a podcast here called hebsey on sports and mark hebbshire comes over twice a week and he's always setting up this table over there gets moved over he sets up the camera because he wants a video because he wants to share like clips of it on youtube and stuff and for my podcast i like the fact that you and I are just two voices here. We're just chatting. There's no worries

about, did I shave? Should I wear a clean shirt? You know what I mean? You don't have to wear a shirt at all if you don't want to, but I'm glad you're wearing a shirt. Pants are coming off right now. Oh, no. That's a whole different podcast. I have a, well, he's

a very good sports writer. His name's Gare Joyce. And Gare Joyce, I should point out to people, the last episode of Toronto Mic'd was 376. So this is 377. 376 was actually, I stitched together the stand-up comedy and my speech from the Toronto Mic'd listener experience, which was a couple of weeks ago.

One of the stand-up comics was Gare Joyce and he was hilarious and you can hear his comedy on episode, uh, three 76, but Gare sent me a note when he heard that, uh, you were coming on Gary Gare, of course,

this is short norm, short, short form for Gary. This is what Gare Joyce says. He says, it's a Gary fact. Last year, no child born in British Columbia was given the name Gary.

Wow. Where have all the Garys gone? Who knows? Who knows? It was a popular name in the 50s. Who's the famous actor named Gary? Cooper. Right.

That's probably what spurred on me. I know. Somebody tried to tell me once that the name never existed until he brought it forward, but I'm sure it's derived from Garibaldi. You have to forgive me. I have horrible allergies, and if you hear my breathing and it sounds awful,

then I'm sorry. I apologize. My wife suffers from allergies, and it sounds horrible. And I always think, thank goodness I dodged that bullet. Yeah, you haven't dodged it yet. I didn't have any problems until I was 45. So I got one year to go. You got a...

I'm 44. That's one year to go. Okay. If I can hang on one more year, maybe. But yeah, I don't like that little fun fact. The Gary Joyce fun fact was interesting, but this idea I could get allergies at 45, I don't like that little fun fact. The Gary Joyce fun fact was interesting, but this idea I could get allergies at 45, I don't like that at all.

So I'm going to burn through very quickly a few Gary songs. This is really quick. Don't worry. We're going to get to the Garys here. And this is no longer cool, I don't think, because this guy has some legal issues. Yeah. His show was amazing.

Tell me. We were at Larry's Hideaway, which has a ceiling about as high as this basement. And they set up a set of stairs and he got at the top of them all crouched down because he had to make his entrance coming down a flight of stairs as if he was Princess Grace or something.

It was quite unreal. The band was unbelievable. Gary Glitter. Yeah. Now, this is Rock and Roll Part 2. Is there a Rock and Roll Part 1? Probably. They probably played that one in England and we got Part 2.

That's right. But you still hear it at sporting events. I know. I was just going to say anthems, man. Like the Ramones, the first time we did the Ramones, if you told people you'd be hearing them at hockey games and football games, nobody would have believed you. Yeah, you're right, anthems.

And this is one. So, yeah, Gary Clayton Rock and Roll Part II. Let me bring her down here. This guy here I thought of. This is going way back, though. I don't know if the Gary's ever presented this guy. Mr. Lewis. Yes. Song written by

Paul Anka, I'm guessing. Leon Thomas. Not Leon Thomas. What was his name? The piano player. Just died recently. Leon. Oh, my mind. It'll come back to you later. the piano player just died recently Leon oh my mind it'll come back to you later

you can spit it out I'll just spit it out in the middle of a number of songs that's okay I do that too I do that too so Gary Lewis and the Playboys this diamond ring

he played piano on the Mad Dogs and Englishman tour you know what you can pepper me with these facts all episode I love this you can swear on this spot guys I'll start I love this shit Englishman tour. You know what? You can pepper me with these facts all episode.

I love this. You can swear on this podcast. I'll start. I love this shit. Just hit me up with that stuff. That's great. One more though.

This is the remix too. I didn't want to go for the radio edit. So the remix. Let me bring her up. Still an epic little ditty here. Our Gary Trifecta.

So we did Gary Glitter, Gary Lewis, and here's a little Gary Newman. Did you ever present to Gary Newman, Sean? No. No. I struggle to name a... And similar of Gary Glitter, actually.

And actually all three of these guys. These Garys, I can't name second singles from these guys. Yeah. I was never a Gary Newman fan. We did some electronic stuff, but... Right. Just not your cup of tea. my cup of tea you mentioned the Ramones here so let me play a bit of that while I ask you about the the

origin tale here so Ramones so who are you Gary who were you who were you before you met Gary Topp? Can I hear how the Gories, the Garys came to be? The Gory Garys. The Gory Garys. I alternated between making furniture out in the country and working with different musical organizations. This was in the early days of Chum FM when they went from a classical radio station to a progressive radio station where you'd hear bluegrass followed by jazz, followed by rock and roll, followed by classical music.

And it was an exciting time to be in the music business. be in the music business. I phoned up the biggest promoter at that time, who was a fellow by the name of Martin Onrod, and I told him I desperately wanted to get into the music business. He suggested that I work as an agent because that was the center of all the actions. Agents' careers usually span 30, 40, 50 years. Musicians, who knows?

Right. But anyway, so I approached a guy called Ray Daniels who managed a band called Rush. They had offices on Yorkville Avenue and the music industry could still afford to be on Yorkville Avenue. It was like early, early 70s. Did that for a while until I got fired for booking a band called Breathless

that had Jeff Pluman, who was Nash the Slash, who would steal furniture out of schools where I would book them. Then go back to making furniture, and then somebody says, go see this band. And I walk in the room and immediately realized this person is a star. It was Carol Pope, Rough Trade, managed them from, uh, playing at Grossman's to upstairs at the Colonial in less than six months, which was no mean feat in those days.

Um, and then I got depressed again with music, started making furniture. A friend of mine, David Andoff, who's an artist who did the album covers for Mainline and a number of other bands, said I should go down to the New Yorker Theater and talk to these guys because somebody had installed a candy bar where the patrons couldn't see the candy and the operator couldn't get the candy. So I fixed that up for them. Gary invited me into the theater to see the stage that they were building. What a sight.

Solid concrete, four feet deep, 20 feet deep, 40 feet wide. Must have weighed enough to collapse any building. Anyway, realized that it was the first person I'd ever met in my life who saw things the same way that I did about music and art and how it should be presented. Got on my bike, drove home. On my way home, I was thinking, I got to hook up with these guys. And as I'm running up the stairs to call them,

the phone is ringing, and it's those guys, Gary Topp and Jeffrey Silverman, his partner at that time, saying, hey, you probably forgot more than we'll ever know. Why don't you come and hook up with us? Which I did. And the first band we booked in there was the Ramones in 1976. Three shows. At the New Yorker.

At the New Yorker. Okay, stop right there. So, just because, Rough Trade. Now, so your involvement with Rough Trade predates the Garys. Yes. So your involvement with Rough Trade predates the Garys. Yes. Could you play in the great high school confidential here, but could you just share a little more maybe,

and then we're going to pick it up with the Garys again because I got lots of Garys questions, but the Carol Pope, Rough Trade, can you share a little more detail about that relationship? I walked into the room at Grossman's where they were playing at that time. It was like a Saturday afternoon matinee. There was, I don't know, probably 50, 60 people in the room. And you could, I mean, she just wreaked stardom. It just was dripping off her

like nothing you've ever imagined in your life. Said I desperately thought, not desperately, I thought they were amazing. I'd love to manage them and help them with their career. I worked with them for, like I said, about six months, seven months, and managed to book them into a variety of different rooms

to where we eventually ended up playing upstairs at the Colonial, which was on Yonge Street, great jazz club, where you could see people like Morales Davis and Thelonious Monk and a variety of others. Amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. And this is, I mean, when you, you know, if you were going to come up with like Canadian greatest hits or whatever,

I don't know, but if you're putting together some, you know, well, the Junos actually did it, right? They did the Oh Canada. They put together like the box set of great Canadian singles or whatever. This is on it. Deservedly so. I'll learn how to speak English at some point. But fantastic.

And you're right. She has that, I guess you call it charisma? Yep. And you can recognize it when you see it, right? Like it's one of those things where you have the... Some people, absolutely. Very cool. Very cool.

And the Ramones, I mean, at the New Yorker here, let me, I want to, okay, here's what we're going to do because I have to do a couple of quick sponsor mentions. But I want to find out more about the New Yorker. I want to talk about, then get you to the horseshoe. I want to tell you about an episode I did. So I did an episode with David McPherson. It was episode 310. If anyone listening wants to go back, we just spent 90 minutes talking about the Horseshoe Tavern. We just had an anniversary. Was that in 2016? I don't know. We just spent 90 minutes talking about the Horseshoe Tavern. It just had an anniversary.

Was that in 2016? I don't know. It just had an anniversary. And there's a whole chapter called the Garys. And I got a Gary here. So we're going to dive deep. But let me give you a gift here. So in front of you, there's a six-pack of Great Lakes

beer. Why, thank you. All yours. And that's courtesy, of course, of Great Lakes beer. Why, thank you. All yours. And that's courtesy, of course, of Great Lakes Brewery. They're a local craft brewery. Great people. They hosted this recent Toronto Mike listener experience. And everybody, I mean, the weather was amazing, but on

the patio, they bought the first beer for everybody. Then it was $5 pints and they have that great food truck. And everybody had a blast. And thank you, Great Lakes Brewery. They have, if you're in the neighborhood, they have a big pig roast, a pig roast on Saturday. I think it's like 11 to 6 or something like that. But go to Great Lakes Brewery's website or on Facebook and find out when it is. But it's this Saturday. Go to the pig roast. They have some live music and good food and drink, and hopefully weather holds up. It'll be a good day. So you have your beer.

I am going to hold on. I have a message for you from Brian Gerstein at Property in the Six, but it introduces the police as a topic, which I'm going to get to shortly. So I'll kind of play his question when I get there. So let me just tell everybody here before we move on. Let me share with everybody about Paytm Canada. I actually went to their office earlier this week and chatted with the CEO over there. They got a good thing going there. There's no fees. There's no charges. There's no additional costs. They don't make money because you pay your bills with Paytm. They make money when you buy rewards in the reward stores. So there's no hidden costs at all. You go to paytm.ca,

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Census design and build provides architectural design, interior design, and turnkey construction services across the GTA. If you want to learn more about the possibilities for your home, you call them now. 416-931-1422 or go to censusdesignbuild.ca and schedule your zoning and cost project feasibility study. Where did you buy this house that you were inspecting yesterday, Gary? Port Hope. Port Hope. Okay.

So that's not the GTA. We don't call Port Hope the GTA. But I don't know if census will head out there. And also this will tie into Brian Gerstein's message, which we'll get to in a bit, where if you were buying in the GTA, I would have highly recommended his honest services. So let's go to the New Yorker.

You're at the New Yorker. And you mentioned... So tell me how... So you brought the Ramones to play in Toronto. This is, what a band, like what an amazing, tell me a little bit about that. Three shows, 500 seat room, I think we probably did about 800, 900 people over the three shows. Most of the people left laughing, including the likes of most of the Toronto music scene

who were there out of curiosity, Peter Gabriel. I think you get the picture. Show was quite short. It was 20 minutes. Violent Fury. When I say Violent Fury, just the speed of the music, not the crowd reaction.

Well, I was going to say, in 20 minutes, they could play 10 songs. Exactly. But still, only 20 minutes. So why was it only 20 minutes? It was the nature of the music. The songs were all short,

and they were played at quite a pace. Okay, so Toronto wasn't ready yet? Were we ready for the Ramones? At that time, Toronto was populated mostly with cover bands. There was very few bands doing original material. It was, you know um early days still so um you had band or places like the gas works and uh all these different clubs young station where you know the they measured how the how good a band was by him the empty cases of beer there were in the hallway

on saturday night and that was what determined how good a band was, which is like something that Gary and I were not into. We wanted that excitement. So that's what we chose to do. We did a lot of different things. A lot of people thought we just did, you know, the punk and stuff like that. And we sure did our share of it. But, uh, we also brought in Carla blaze, Cecil Taylor, sun raw, you know, uh, you know, at, um, at the horseshoe, we did, uh, a variety of different acts, a lot of

blues acts, a lot of jazz acts, everything under the sun. Everything our motto was, anything that we would pay to see, we paid for. That was our guiding light. All right, let's get you to the horseshoe then. So why did you leave the New Yorker? What happened at the New Yorker? The rent was increased dramatically from, I don't know, probably something like $900 a month

to $2,700 a month. That'll do it, yeah. Yeah, well, in those days, yeah. Well, a dollar is a dollar, but you triple it, and that's significant, absolutely. That is, yeah. No, the place started catching on.

We were doing all kinds of weird shows. They were doing really well because it was in the right, you know, part of town. And the landlord, I guess, felt that there was, it was a going concern and was going to increase the rent. You know, usually they double it before they triple it. Yeah. Oh, no, no. This was beyond doubling. Oh, man.

Yeah. So, so how do you end up at the Horseshoe? I need a lot of detail on the Horseshoe Tavern era of the Gary's. So you and Gary Topp relocate essentially to the Horseshoe Tavern. Yep. How did that come to be?

I lived at the corner of King and John where the Kit Kat restaurant is upstairs. I had the top two floors. Kids would drive around in the living room, which was like 50 feet long in what it was raiding when there was nowhere to play outside. And that, the horseshoe was pretty, the black bull, I saw this guy called Joe Hall in the

Continental Drift and started working with them his hangout was the horseshoe so we would go in there and have meetings I got to know the guy who was running the joint at that time whose name was Peter Graham he was starting to become aware of what was happening at the horseshoe

and that musical tides were changing at the New Yorker you mean that musical tides were changing. What, at the New Yorker, you mean? Yeah, what did I say? Oh, at the Horseshoe. Oh, sorry. He was at the Horseshoe and was aware of what was happening at the New Yorker. And he said, well, why don't you just bring your shows here?

We'll give you the place for free, no rent. You take the door, we'll sell the booze, and we'll make a go of it. So we did that for approximately nine months. The police force, not the band. Right, you gotta clarify. It was their hangout, and I think they became, I don't want to say intimidated,

but they didn't feel comfortable with all these punks hanging around. Because it's kind of like, I mean, it's like Stompin' Tomland, right? It was, yeah. It was definitely, I mean, the most successful thing that had occurred in there just before we started

was a show called Sneezy Waters and it was, he had a show called The Show He Never Gave which was about Hank Williams and so it was definitely heavy duty country or western probably the best part about it was watching the people who hung out there who were like bus boys and girls who would just sort of sit at the bar all day long adopting this whole punk fashion philosophy and musical style so you you know like you if you went in there one day you'd see somebody wearing a cowboy hat and dungarees and then you know safety two months later short cropped hair and torn blue jeans

and razor blade earrings, you know, and had totally gotten into it. That was the, I mean, honestly and truly the best part of the horseshoe was seeing the punk kids

coming down and hanging out during the jazz shows or the reggae shows that we were doing and there was this great cross-pollinization of cultures, kids, musical styles.

I mean, on the opening night, we had a reggae band. We had a new wave band. We showed some movies. Because you had carte blanche. It was like everything under the sun that was worth seeing, you know? Amazing. And you're right. It's just that old country and Western crowd.

How did the regulars react, though? They weren't protesting or anything, right? They weren't protesting, but you could tell the old-timers, because they just sat at the stool and they didn't pay attention to any of the music, and you sort of got the evil eye from them. So they eventually won in the end by convincing the owner to get rid of us. And right near the end,

it was like they had, it was like City Hall. They were taking over the reins again. Now, okay, so in 78, when you guys get that carte blanche and you start getting control of the bookings, the Gary's take control of the bookings, 78. And how long, year do you uh stop booking for the horseshoe just to

give us an idea of how long probably the same year like i said it was probably we started right because uh man uh the legend is bigger than the the quantity then because uh it wasn't much more than nine months i think we started like in march or or April and we were done by December because when we closed it, Gary and I went to England, um, to meet up with Miles Copeland and Ian Copeland, who were the brothers of Stuart Copeland, who was in the police. Okay. Now you mentioned the police, uh, and I'm going to, I'm going to, I got some police queued up here, and I got Brian's question about the police. But just real quick, when you take over, so it's only nine months, which is still blowing my mind, because I don't, you know, I wasn't around back, I was, I was in diapers, I think. But what are the changes you made to the horseshoe? Like, there's some changes that are still there today that you kind of brought in that nine months, right? Yeah. When, um, if anybody's familiar with the layout at the horseshoe, the bar, when you enter the room, the elevated part of the bar, uh, that's where the, the original stage was.

And we moved it to where it is now. And then when they threw us out, they moved the stage back to where it was originally which is where that bar where kenny hangs out all the time so um the the long stand-up bar when you walk in off queen street there was another part of the bar on the other side of that that so the room was twice as wide it was as wide wide as the room where the entertainment is featured all the time. The whole building was that wide.

Originally it had like a capacity of close to 700 people. And is it, I read that your wife Martha created the horseshoe, the horseshoe that's the back, the black backdrop of the stage. Yeah. That's her work. I can't remember. Oh, yeah.

I'll take your word for it. Yeah, I think it was in the Globe and Mail, so hopefully that was fact-checked. That's 40 years ago. Think about it, 78. And we talk about it like it was like 25 years of your life. But it was nine months.

Yeah, no, it was a really, when you look at the artists that played there in that nine months, it's mind-boggling. You know, we had Ramblin' Jack Elliott. It was, you know, Randy West and all the whack of great people. Okay, let's hear from Brian Gerstein.

So Brian Gerstein is a proud sponsor of this show, and he is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. And he recorded a message for you, Gary, so let's listen to Brian. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Gary. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mic'd. I can be reached by call or text at 416-873-0292 for all of your real estate needs,

including some exciting new condo developments, one of which is first access to 49 King Street West, architected and designed by world-renowned Bjarke Ingalls. Gary, I read a really cool article on how on November 11, 1978 you booked The Police at the Horseshoe Tavern kicking off their first North American tour. Do you have in your

possession a picture of Sting playing an encore in his briefs? Or can you at least confirm that actually happened? Also, So Lonely was released that month as a single. Do you recall if they played it then? This also led to you booking the police in their historic concert series,

The Police Picnics, with the first one taking place in August 81 in Oakville in the Grove at Highway 5 and Trafalgar Road. Now, I believe, a smart center. It would be very cool to also hear any stories that came out of that show. Lots of police there to unpack, Gary.

But yeah, talk to us about, well, you can answer, if you can remember Brian's first questions about, do you remember him in briefs? Is that what he was playing in? They came out and did their encore in bikini briefs. He was sweating profusely. So that's where the Red Hot Chili Peppers got it.

They stole it from the police. There were, I think if my memory serves me correctly, the dates were November 2 and 3, and there were 19 people over the two days. Whoa. And if you can imagine working up such a sweat playing to eight or nine people and coming out and doing an encore in your underwear.

And this song, when we did them, they didn't even have a record out in Canada. We did them for the strangest reason that you could possibly imagine. Gary used to play intermission music for each specific show that he would make. And on one particular show, he had a guy by the name of Kevin Coyne singing a song. And I walked up to him at the show and said, who is that? And he said, that's Kevin Coyne.

And I said, wow. So I get a phone call from ian copeland who worked at paragon agency where the allman brothers and all those southern bands were asking me about this band called the police and i said is that the band that has andy summers who's the guitar player who used to play with Eric Burden and a bunch of other British bands. He said, I'll check. And he phones me back and he says, yeah, Andy's in the band. So we booked the police basically to get to Andy Summers to find out how to get Kevin Coyne, who coincidentally enough was the last act to play at the Edge.

When they pulled the carpet out, when we closed the Edge, they told us on Friday the place was closing on Sunday. And the Edge is where you go after the horseshoe, right? Correct. Okay, okay. So just to come back to the police for a minute here. So I'm thinking they do two nights and you said probably about 19 people? 19, 20 people.

So is it, at that point, if you take us back to 1978 and I'm thinking of a station like, I don't know, like CFNY or something

or even like Chum FM, like back then you mentioned they were playing, they were kind of album oriented. They wouldn't even let us in the station.

The band wanted to go and say, hi, we're the police, here's a record. That was it. they wouldn't even let us in the station three months later you couldn't turn a radio on anywhere in the world never mind north america the world and not hear that song blaring out of the radio that's funny yeah and your origin story it's almost fluky that it happened it wasn't like you heard the police

and said they're going to be massive you know what i mean this is it's no fluky that it happened. It wasn't like you heard the police and said they're going to be massive. You know what I mean? No, we'd heard them and liked them because we were into reggae and all that. The only book stuff you would pay to see. That's it. Yeah. And that's a great little rule of thumb. That's a great filter. If the Garys would pay to see the band,

they're worth promoting. That's eventually what happened. People began to trust our opinion or trust our opinion or not our opinion but whatever we decided. If the Garys liked it, it was going

to be cool. It's like the good housekeeping seal of approval. Kind of. Kind of. Oh, that's fantastic.

Now, okay, so we're going to get to the edge but I want to just wrap up with the Horseshoe Tavern. Now, you know, you mentioned that like

you guys are kind of now knowing we talk about the punk acts, the great punk acts you booked or whatever. But I read that you were booking even comedians. You were all over the place in terms of the talent that you had booked. We did Jerry Seinfeld way before the TV show. Had he been on Johnny Carson yet? Probably.

Okay, but still. And where did you book Johnny Carson? Where did you book Jerry Seinfeld? At a place called Superstars out in Brampton. Okay, wild. So at the Horseshoe, though, just to wrap up the Horseshoe chapter here, which I still can't believe was only nine months, but I'll take your word for it because you were there. Yep.

Who am I to question? I don't remember a Christmas party. Let's put it like that. Okay. That's crazy. But like I was just looking, okay, and this is in the book again. David McPherson put out the book

on Horseshoe Tavern. You got a whole chapter for those nine months, the Garys. And you mentioned the Ramones and then the police, but they were talking about like, I guess the file tones and a lot of like these great acts.

Alan McIlwain, Stranglers, the B-52s. If anybody knows who the B-Girls are in Toronto, we had the B-52s open for the B-Girls. Tell me who the B-Girls were. B-Girls still exist. They still play occasionally. We'll play occasionally. Cynthia Ross,

sister worked for Ray Daniels, coincidentally. They were basically kids that hung around shows in those days, you know, and probably went around saying, God, is this the best that these guys could do? We could do better than that

and form their own band, which is what the whole thing was all about. And we're a great little band. And you had the B-52s open for the B-Girls. Yeah. And is this before Rock Lobster? Yeah. Okay.

Crazy. That's crazy. Now, tell me, to wrap up the horseshoe segment here, tell me about the last pogo. So this is a documentary about the horseshoes punk rock era, essentially? Pretty much. Yeah. And this is, I mean, The Last Pogo,

I only learned this existed and now I need to see it, but tell me, did it chronicle the whole nine months or was it about the final show? It was basically, you know, we did it in two segments. There was six bands a night. I can't remember all of the bands, but one night was The Last Pogo, which featured mostly punk acts,

and the other night was called The Last Bound Up with Rough Trade. Bound, get it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Drastic Measures. It was more new wavy kind of bands and reggae bands. So it was showcasing all the best bands that we had presented at that time who were local. all the best bands that we had presented at that time who were local. The show got shut down near the end

just as Teenage Head was about to take the stage. The police are on stage. The manager, Jack Morrow, was on stage with the police pleading to let the band play. Now when you say there, that's the police force. The police force, yes. The police wouldn't have any problems with Teenage Head, that's the police force. The police force, yes. The police wouldn't have any problems with teenage head playing, but the police force.

But it was like they were getting, like I said, referred to it earlier, they were getting the reins of control back, and they were, I guess, flexing their muscles and showing us who was in charge. They said a riot was about to occur, and when they stopped the show a riot basically did occur the all the chairs and bongs got thrown into a pile at the um on the dance floor and it was uh it wasn't very nice there's great pictures of the building surrounded by

police cards with uh coats hanging out of the doors of the police cars. Everybody rushed in in such a rush that they couldn't even close the doors properly. The last pogo. Now, let's say. They instigated the whole thing. The kids just, they were just going to rock on and that was it. It would be all over, you know. But you had cameras rolling, right?

Yep. Now, if I, let's say a guy like me, let's say me right now, let's say I decide I need to source this out and watch the last pogo. How would a guy like me see the last pogo? I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find it. It's in the liner notes. It's in the liner notes. It's in there

somewhere. Yeah. Oh, man. I'm going to totally do that. But very, very cool there. Now, you mentioned the Edge. Now, a lot of people my age will say, oh, you know, Gary's talking about the Edge. That's a radio station, 102.1. But no, the Edge Club.

This was, tell me, you were there a couple of years, I think. Before the razor blades, before the car, before the radio station. Right, everything's the Edge now. I called, originally what that place was, was Edgerton Ryerson, who basically founded the educational system that we subscribe to in Canada.

That was his residence, and it's across the street from Ryerson University. So it was a little folk club called Edgerton's. It was 200 seats. It was exposed to folk club called Edgerton's. It was 200 seats. It was exposed brick and fern plants and hippy-dippy kind of plays, girls in grainy gowns and stuff like that. And the guy who ran it really wasn't...

Folk coffeehouse kind of circuit had sort of peaked a couple of years before this guy took it over a fellow by the name of ron chapman who made a movie called who the fuck is arthur fogel uh and arthur fogel was a manager at the edge so he he ran this place and he was hanging out at the horseshoe because everybody who was in the in the know as it were in those days was coming down to check out what was going on we were pointing a new direction in music and fashion and all of that stuff so he was hanging out there so when he heard that uh things were

about to collapse for us at the horseshoe offered his place called edgerton's which as i said was a 200 seat folk room so um i said yeah let's do it and i said we'll call and everybody said what are you going to edgerton's i said we're going to call at the edge we're going to feature all the same bands that we always you know believed in so the first i't know, the first nine or 10 days we had, um, Ultravox with John Fox, who, if anybody's into Ultravox, John Fox was the original singer, more akin to somebody like David Bowie, who was really great. XTC, um, John Hammond, uh, John Hammond a whack of different acts it took off

it became our springboard from there we started doing shows at the concert hall the music hall we did shows even at Club Kingsway out in this neck of the woods which was a bingo hall is that on Bloor Street?

no it's on the Kingsway. The Kingsway, of course. It was Club Kingsway. We did the Ramones there. We did James Brown there. We did all kinds, 999. I love hearing about these old venues. There was one I just learned.

James Brown apparently did his first Toronto concert at a place called the Mimico. It was in Mimico on the Lakeshore and it's long gone now. An arena or something. It was like a roller skate rink or something. Yeah, the Mimico something. And I'm like, this was there? I bike by that place all the time. It's like, I don't know,

a strip mall or something. But James Brown played there? I love hearing about these places. It's part of my history. Quite a storied little town. And you're a big part of it. A big part of it.

People, when I hear, was it Mike Stafford was talking to Lou Skeezes on 640, and Lou was talking about, oh, you know what? Off the top, I should have done this. I hope he's listening right now. I want to thank Lou. Lou Skeezes is the gentleman who tipped me off that you would be willing to chat with me.

I love Lou. I love Lou. It's my only dose of reality that I get. Is that right? Yeah. Lou was at this Toronto Mic Listener Experience last week. I see him. He's a great friend of the show, as they say.

But he was talking to Stafford about you. And Stafford, of course, was at CFNY doing news for Pete and Geats. And he's like, yeah, of course we know the Garys. You guys are legendary if people remember going to concerts, primarily in

70s and 80s. Cool concerts, I should say. The Garys are the brand. Well, cool concerts, I should say. The Garys are the brand. Yeah. Well, earlier I had mentioned Superstars, and the original Stars was under CFNY, run by a guy called Scott McClain, who was always after us to get different bands

that we had into his club. Is this the, I'm trying to think, because they were in the little house in Brampton and then they did the strip mall in Brampton. That's right, in the strip mall. Gotcha, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're going to get to, I'm going to chat a bit more about that station soon

because, you know, I've had, I'm friendly, I've had over Ivor Hamilton and David Morrison and these cats, so I'll have more later. But any excuse in the background, any excuse for me to play some XTC? Ivor Hamilton, I believe, he came over to kick out the jams, his 10 favorite songs of all time, and I believe he had some XTC on there.

So very cool. So you're at The Edge, the formerly Edgertons. I think The Edge is a very natural, cool nickname for that venue. And you're there a couple of years. And at what point does the police picnic enter the fray? I heard Brian mention the police picnic. Oh, by the way, Brian wants to know if you have a picture. Do you have any photo evidence of the Gordon Sting

in briefs at the horseshoe? Yes. I'll scan it and send it to you. Oh, yes. Brian, we're going to see that. He wants to see it. It's $50. That's all it's going to cost. So you got a PayPal account? Brian, we're going to see that. He wants to see it. $50, that's all it's going to cost.

So you got a PayPal account? Brian, we're going to hook you up. Now, tell me about the police picnic. It's the police picnic. So the Edge Club, you're there 79 to 81. And by the way, I wasn't believing your nine months, but I actually see, I excerpt a part of an article I read

in the Globe and Mail. It was 240 days that you were at the horseshoe tavern. It's about right, eh? Yeah, 240 is probably nine months. Wow, okay. So what can you tell me about the police picnic? We were doing what we always did, setting up lights and microphones at the edge.

And this guy came up and said, hey, I got this property. I think I can get some money. Can you get the police and we'll do a big show? Um, we thought about it for a while. I spoke to Ian about it. Uh, the band really wasn't working, but they were going to get together and do that and one other show in Philadelphia. I mean, when I mentioned earlier we went to England after the horseshoe closed and we met with Ian Copeland, he was in Macon, Georgia, working at an agency. Rogers Redding was there. That's Otis Redding's son.

And they were booking all these blues bands. And here was Ian booking Suzy and the Banshees, Penetration, all these different British new wave bands. And so their agency folded. I hooked them up or helped hook them up with a lady by the name of Jane Friedman, who was John Cale's girlfriend at the time. She used to be Frank Zappa's publicist.

Wow. And so Ian goes to New York, and we became really tight. We got almost all of, all the other agencies had like 25, 30 acts. Ian had 50 acts, and 25 or 30 were working all the time, whereas the other agencies only had 5 or 10 bands working at any given time. His bands would sort of like crisscross North America.

He bought three vans and three sets of equipment, and one band would arrive at JFK, go out to the parking lot, find the van, and start their little trek around North America. He had a whole system set up and it was just fantastic. It was fantastic to be part of it, obviously. So anyway, we were pretty close with Ian, phoned him up and asked him if there was any chance of putting something like this together.

Because by that time we had done a whack of police dates and the biggest one we'd done at that point was Massey Hall, but the band just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The next logical step would have been Maple Leaf Gardens, but they were our competitors and they were not going to play ball with us, so we had to find a way of generating a big payday without having to rely on going to Maple Leaf Gardens. So we got this opportunity to do this show in the summer at the Grove.

And I can't remember. Let's see if I can remember who we had on there. Iggy Pop, The Go-Go's, Killing Joke, where Nick Cave emerged from. Who else was there? The Paolas. John Otway, Nash the Slash, a couple of other bands. All the specials. The specials came on.

That was with that guy who played keyboards. Anyway, it was a great day. Amazing, amazing. Yeah. And what was that, 81? When was that about? 81, I think, yeah. 81, okay.

Let me play another part as I wanted to ask you about here. A little music. I think, you know what, time plays games with my brain. I think it was Killing Joke. Killing Joke as opposed to, or no, Birthday Party. Okay, instead of Killing Joke. Instead of Killing, yeah.

Like you said, it's been a while. 40 years. You're doing well, though, my friend. Yeah, I'm trying. That's all I ask. Just try your best, and I'll let you keep the beer. That's what I while. 40 years. You're doing well, though, my friend. Yeah, I'm trying. That's all I ask. Just try your best, and I'll let you keep the beer. That's what I say. All right.

What can you tell me about Martha and the Muffins? Great people, great band. We were sort of working with them, getting dates for them. They weren't really part of the music scene in Toronto they got hooked up with Virgin Records in the UK and were happening big there and like it always happens they came back and that's what not you know that's what made the Canadian music industry finally realize that they were to be taken seriously. Isn't that weird?

You got to go away to get... I know. For us to say, hey, you are good. But you were here all the time. Yeah. Yeah, that's the story I've heard many, many times. Now, much like, actually, Rough Trade with the High School Confidential,

this Echo Beach, you'd find it on all those Canadian singles box sets or whatever. Classic. A lot of different influences. Not sounding like any of the bands from Toronto at that time. It was more art school derived. And a staple, like we mentioned a couple times, CFNY, but just a staple on the airwaves, that's the spirit of radio there.

For sure, for sure, for sure. Take down Martha because... Let this warm up here. I got a question here. I love this jam. I'm sorry. I throw it on all the time, and it's like,

I don't even want to talk over it. I just want to hear it. But Atmosphere by Joy Division. So, May 25th, 1980, Joy Division was set to make their Canadian debut at The Edge. For $3. Yeah.

So, was not to be, of course. Sadly, Ian Curtis took his own life just prior to the North American tour, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how can you tell me how, like why, and how you booked the Joy Division for $3, which I don't know what that is in today's money, but it still sounds like a bargoon. I know.

Gary and I would sit around and always, I mean, our main thing was how cheap can we make this show for the kids to go to, you know? Which is so punk, right? As opposed to today where it's what's the most we can charge? $85 service charge today. Well, CBC and The Star have partnered up on this really interesting investigation. I was listening to CBC earlier today, actually, and they were discussing some of the details.

But they're uncovering some really disturbing business practices by Ticketmaster. I mean, I'm a big Pearl Jam fan. I remember when they went to court to try to, you know, I remember all that. And of course, Ticketmaster's been gouging us forever, but man, some of the stuff, like these secret websites where you basically legalized

scalping where they can double dip and all this. It's like, forget $3 to see Joy Division. It's $300. Everybody's just gotten so greedy. It's just taken all the fun out of this. It's ridiculous. That's why you end up...

I mean, the bands need to generate more money because they're not getting anything from the record companies. They're not getting tour support. They're not getting money from record sales. And it costs a lot of money to put one of these shows out on the road, you know? So companies like Live Nation will offer the artist mountains of money, and they're getting it there and covered off

from a variety of different places. Parking fees, beverage sales, merchandise sales and stuff like that. And you know, I mean, Live Nation owned Ticketmaster. And is there any way for a band I mean, of course you could do small little

stops here and there but way for a band to... I mean, of course, you could do small little stops here and there, but to do a decent venue-sized tour in this country without Ticketmaster, is that even possible without Live Nation? Hard. Can be done. Can be done. But it's hard. I mean, initially, what they were doing was great,

because if you lived in Barrie, you didn't have to come down and line up at Maple Leaf Gardens at four in the morning and sit in a sleeping bag waiting for the box office to open so you could buy your tickets and everything. Right. And it had an incredible, it was valid, you know, it was the whole thing was valid. But there's too many places where people can skim off too much you know and uh it's it's the the guy who was the tour accountant for the police who was also the same tour accountant for michael jackson who was also the same kid who booked albus presley at the arena in his town when he was a kid, being a promoter, said to me one day, Gary, when the tickets are over $100, that's time to get out. You know, that's not American.

You know, like a kid should be able to take his girlfriend to a show and have a burger and get out of there for like 50, 60 bucks, you know. And now you're paying $200, $300 for one ticket. I mean, I kept all my ticket stubs so I can point to, like even not that long ago, we'll say like 1999, let's say. Like I'll point to a 99 show. Like, oh yeah, that's where I saw, let's say big bands, like the Tragically Hip at the ACC, and I'll have my ticket stub and it'll be like $25

and then some service charges. I paid 30 bucks or something. Our police picnics were all like $25, $30. Yeah. And there were like six great bands, talking heads, the police. Yeah, yeah. You know, talking heads of the police

or the police and James Brown or, you know. I know. It's a damn shame. But like you said, artists can't, and I mean, I have a lot of artists in here, from like lowest to low. Acid Test was just here. They told me how they had to stop touring

because they couldn't afford to tour anymore. And my brain, because I'm not in your business, and I'm like, well, don't you tour to make money? Like this whole idea you can't afford to tour anymore, it's like an eye-opening for us. No, it's expensive, expensive. Tour managers, the guys who organize all those things, they make more money than the artists.

The artists don't make that much money. It's all the people that they got to support on the road, you know, and then you got to buy their food and pay for hotels and the gas for the truck. And oh, it broke down or the bus broke down. But at least back in the day, not that far back, but back in the early 90s, if lowest of the low put out a great independent release, which they did, let that far back, but back in the early 90s, if Lowest of the Low put out a great

independent release, which they did, let's say Shakespeare and My Butt, and I'm bringing them up because I just talked to them the other day and they're going to come

play in this basement. So I'm booking them here in November because they have a big box. Speaking of box sets, a huge anniversary thing of Shakespeare and My Butt or something.

But you could sell albums and records. I would be going to Sam the Record Man for day of one release to shell out whatever, 15, 20 bucks for a new release. I can't remember the last time I did that. You can't make, unless your name is Taylor Swift or Adele,

you're not making money on music and record sales anymore. I know. So it's one huge stream of revenue that you've evaporated. And this whole streaming thing, and again, I're not making money on music and record sales anymore. I know. So it's one huge stream of revenue that you've evaporated. And this whole streaming thing, and again, I'm not in the business, but I talk to people.

Apparently, you know, artists are getting just robbed through the streaming conversation. A million streams, you get $3. Man. Yeah, I know. So all you have left is,

you got to hope, hey, hope the fans will buy, I don't know, the vinyl is like a souvenir and maybe they'll buy the t-shirts, right? And you get 10 bucks for that or whatever. And then they'll go to the shows and there's something there.

It's like everything else. It's all going to come crashing down and start all over again. That's what it was like when Gary and I started doing shows. It was like everything was corporate rock, you know, and then there was this whole movement, do it yourself, with bands like the Ramones

and the B-52s and the Cramps and all that stuff. So we need you, man. We need it again. We need the Garys. We'll get to this in a bit. I'm an old-age pensioner now. I know, and you're moving to Port Hope. Yeah, I'm moving to Port Hope.

Is there a vibrant concert scene in Port Hope? They used to have a decent jazz festival, but they haven't done it for a couple of years. They ran it for about 15 years, and it was quite good. And I'm hoping I can breathe some new life into it. Oh, cool. Yeah.

Oh, that's great. Let's talk about the other edge, the station, which wasn't called The Edge back then. It was called CFNY. I think it became The Edge in the early 90s or something like that. But in CFNY, maybe it seemed like that was the biggest overlap

in terms of airplay in the city and what you guys were promoting at your venues. Yeah. It was 102. Absolutely. Can you share with me your relationship with the station? Any and all details here.

And maybe then we can even turn into a little bit of Bob Makowitz at Q107 as well. But tell me a little bit about the guys that I mentioned iver and david marzen like what was it like dealing with these guys and working with the edge uh sorry cfny and please uh any details appreciate oh it was we worked with them on all our police picnics and a variety of other shows they were a treat you know it was like uh finally finding somebody who believes in what we're doing and supporting it by playing the music on the radio. I mean, we did shows with a variety of other radio stations

who presented the shows but never played the music, including, well, including all of them. Right. Yeah. But they'd play the music. Played the music, did the interviews with the artists, helped bring the whole scene forward, pushed it along.

People like Ivor and David were great to work with. I actually worked with when, when David moved to Vancouver and then came back and I worked with him at a thing called Iceberg, which was the first webcasting kind of thing. So I was out there recording shows. I did like 300 shows where I would go and actually record the show, put it on the air live and then archive it so people could go and watch it the following day. And I'd come

in in the morning and the best part was like getting emails from kids in Australia asking me about who this opening act was, which was a local Canadian opening act, opening for, you know, whoever it was I was doing that night, whether it was Joe Strummer or some other band. So I worked closely with David for about two years with that particular project. Man, that's the spirit of radio, man. And David Marsden, because he's been on the show

and he spoke extensively extensively about iceberg and it's almost like he's just uh just ahead of his time you know what i mean like on the bleeding edge i always call it yeah you got it bleeding edge i can't think of a more apt term we weren't ready for iceberg yet yeah no i know we had there was four different stations. Too Cool for Radio, which was like mostly alternative. There was a hip-hop radio station. There was like a trance radio station. Sure.

There was my station, which was like live concerts with video. Man. And now he's doing, his current project is Spirit, no, The Spirit NY. I hope I get this right. The Spirit NY.com. But again, it's curated music that old fans of CFNY would appreciate. And I'm sure Ivor Hamilton's got a show there. And of course, David Marsden and others.

But fantastic. And Ivor, of course, can we say it? He's sold out. Can we say it? I know he's got to feed the family and all that jazz. But he's like Sony Music now, right? This is where he's at. I thought he was at Universal.

You could be right. Did Universal get gobbled up by, I feel like they got swallowed up by Sony, but I could be wrong. Yeah, Universal maybe. I think they still exist. That's basically where the whole thing went crazy when Brofman decided he was going to own

the entire entertainment industry and started buying up different, uh, radio, selling companies like Seagram's and Tropicana and having the entire business world laugh at him. Cause if he'd hung onto it for another week, he could have got an extra billion or whatever. Right, right.

So, and yeah, his, his appetite for all of that stuff just, and it's, and yeah, his appetite for all of that stuff just, and it's like anything else. The person who actually founded a company believes in it, loves it, it's part of his life. And then you, when you hire people to administrate all of this, it's not the same, you know, it's just a job for them and they couldn't care less.

But you guys, you guys only promoted what you'd pay to see, which I think, yeah to see which I think is the big difference maker and you're charging three bucks because you can and you're trying to make it accessible for the teenager who has no money in his pocket we would go through our record collections and find different acts that we wanted to see

that's where we booked all our acts from was our own personal taste amazing but this era is dead you said it's going to burn down and then like a phoenix is going to rise from the ashes or something from was our own personal taste. Amazing. But this era is dead. Like, I don't believe, you said it's going to burn down and then like a phoenix is going to rise from the ashes or something?

Yeah, hopefully. I feel like I shouldn't hold my breath. I know. Hopefully, you know, the redeeming thing won't be country music. There's a rumor.

Because that's basically rock and roll today. Well, Danny Stover is a young lady. She's at BlogTO doing a podcast, but she used to be on Edge 102 producing the morning show. And her

rumor that she spread on this show a couple of episodes ago was the rumor that 102 was going to become a country station. And I said, oh, you got a good source? And she goes, this is unsubstantiated rumor. Taylor Swift was country before she became pop. You know? It's all melding into something.

I'm not quite sure what it is. It doesn't hold a lot for me. No, apparently. Okay, so can you tell me a little bit about your radio? You mentioned Iceberg, but you were on Q107. You had a show on Q107. No, that was the other Gary. Gary Topp.

The Edge of Morning. Edge of Morning was Gary. You know what? Did you107. No, that was the other Gary. Gary Topp. The Edge of Morning. Edge of Morning was Gary. You know what? Did you ever have that happen where people confuse the Garys? Constantly. I am talking to Gary Cormier, right? Derek.

Derek Cormier. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I got to make sure I'm talking to the right Gary. By the way, what's the current relationship status of you and Gary Topp? Uh, fine.

We talk a couple of times a month. He's still doing shows at, uh, the Rivoli, um, or, or similar kind of places. Uh, still believes in music the same way he always did the same way I do. Um, so it's, uh, he, he left and got involved with the Ralph Ben-Murgy show on CBC. Late night. Yeah, late night. Friday night, Friday night.

Talk show. And, uh, we sort of drifted apart then. We were awarded, uh, the Toronto, uh, music or Toronto Arts Council Award for Music. First time that a non-musician had won the music award, basically for our contribution to making this city a mecca of culture. Well, that's a prestigious award. Yeah. Congrats on that.

That was a 95 you got that? Correct. There's a quote from Sting. I see some guy named Sting says that it's about time. It is. That you help define the city of Toronto as a cosmopolitan mecca of artistic expression.

And then he predicted that you would continue to be one step ahead. We'll call that the bleeding edge. One step ahead in shaping the city's cultural landscape. As my mother says, it's a lot easier to become well-known than rich. That's true. Yeah.

I think that's why they invented the word infamous. I still promote shows with different artists that I've worked with over the years. I've been involved in programming and producing shows for the Toronto Jazz Festival, and I have taught at different facilities. Currently, I'm teaching at Durham College, which is out in Oshawa,

which is a little closer for me if I move to Port Hope because it takes me so long to get anywhere in this city these days. And you didn't come here from Port Hope, we should point out. You're still here. Yeah, still here. Probably here till close to Christmas. Okay. And you're Durham, but you also, so prior you taught concert promotion at George Brown College, right?

Yes. And you're, like, I mean, the Toronto Jazz Festival and other places like that, you're still programming shows. Yes. Is that the one with Bill King? No, that's the beaches. I get my jazz festivals. Yes. I think there's 14 within the GTA jazz festivals.

Markham, Unionville, you name it. And there's a Kensington one that just happened. That's right. Molly Johnson's working on there. Okay, so yours is the Toronto Jazz Festival. Used to be held down at Nathan Phillips Square in a tent, and then we started doing shows in facilities

like the O'Keeffe Center, or not the O'Keeffe, there's my age, and the Sony Center. I still call it that. I know, it'll always... Because it was the hummingbird between the two, right? Yeah, it'll always be the O'Keeffe Center to me. What do we, I mean, that's the big thing, is they renamed that Rico Coliseum,

they call it, now it's the Coca-Cola Coliseum. Yeah. Olsen Amphitheater just became the Budweiser stage a year ago. And now, of course, the Air Canada Centre, they want us to call it the Scotiabank Arena.

You can't keep track. You've got to have like a cheat sheet. A program just to keep track of the names. And I find what's interesting in this day and age where when you have to go anywhere,

I don't know about you, when I have to go anywhere, I like to bike everywhere I can, but the first thing I do is I drop the location into Google Maps. Yeah. And it tells me

the best biking route to get there. I was going to Scotiabank Arena to see the Smashing Pumpkins recently. And I popped in like, what route should I take? And it didn't know what I was talking about. Like, Google Maps still called it the Air Canada Centre. Really? Like, this is what you're going to have now. I know.

I know. You're lucky you didn't end up in the lake. It's okay. By the way, I had a very, lucky you didn't end up in the lake. That's okay. By the way, I had a very, my only serious bike accident, I would say. I've had a few bike accidents, but the one I had was most recently. I was coming home from seeing a band called Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker along the waterfront trail, and my bike crash was right in front of the Palais Royale. Oh.

Right in front of it. And I broke my pinky, actually. Oh. So pardon my weak handshake when I met you. But that was another venue that you used to book, right? Did the Pogues in there the first time. They drank all their allotted liquor, which was $1,100 worth in those days,

before 7 o'clock. We had to go out and duplicate their rider at 7 o'clock, sending somebody out to the liquor store to go buy another $1,000 worth of booze. Well, I'm glad they're as advertised. I love that band. Oh, yeah. The specials in there, too.

The specials cross the border. The hardest people to bring into the country at that time were Jamaicans, because if you sent them uh telex requesting more information on a specific person you'd never get a telex back from the jamaican government and irish people because a lot of the buildings the government buildings have been blown up or burnt down so a lot of the records didn't exist so you had jamaicans irishmen englishmen and americans on three buses that slowed down at the border and waved at the immigration officials and tried to sort of just gently roll through and got stopped by the opp like 100 yards away and dragged back

to the border and i was sick in bed with the worst flu i ever had when i used to get sick i'd go to bed with a bottle of vodka and wake up the next day feeling fine so it was i was drinking the vodka before because i wasn't getting up and uh i had to phone had to track down when you get stopped at the border, the only person that can overrule the person who stops you. You can't go to his boss or his bosses. You got to go right to the head. And I managed to track this with the help of some people. Actually, we got called the Garys by immigration people at the border.

They would, a band would get stopped at the border for whatever reason, and they would phone us just to make sure that they were legitimate, and we'd vouch for everything. And then when the band made it across, they'd phone us and say, we're through. So we'd phone back the border guys and apologize profusely and say it'll never happen again until next week. It would happen, then would eventually when

when uh they everybody started to know who we were because we were bringing so many bands at that time had to go get al green across the border because they wouldn't let him in they thought he was drunk but he was just high on the lord but anyway so they said oh you're working for the gary's and the bands said the the Gary. Oh, yeah, okay. And then when they'd be interviewed by somebody, they'd say, oh, we're working for the Garys. And that's where the name actually came from, was the Immigration Guys.

Anyway, had to track this guy down at a cocktail party in Ottawa. And I explained to him what was going on, and I was half-loop myself. But he was gracious enough to phone the border guys and have the band okay to come through, and but he was gracious enough to phone the border guys and have the band okay to come through and that's how we managed to keep the show.

We, we hardly ever lost bands at the border. We had bands where they'd open up the tour manager's briefcase. It'd be like an ounce of pot sitting there. And the guy said, you think I'm crazy? I just forgot about it. I forgot about it. And they'd let them in, you know, they were very cool with us. They were very cool. Those days are long gone, I think I'm crazy? I just forgot about it. I forgot about it. And they'd let him in.

They were very cool with us. They were very cool. Those days are long gone, I think. I think so. They're not talking about the Garys anymore. Especially if you're going the other way. Oh, yeah. Forget about it.

Forget about it. What did I not cover I wanted to cover? Oh, yeah. Could you tell me a bit more? You mentioned it, but Larry's Hideaway. Can you share a bit about what you were doing at Larry's Hideaway? Do you remember any of that?

I'll tell you what I remember is we would settle with a band and they would give us a key to a room upstairs. So we'd go into the room and I swear to God there'd be steam rising off the bed as we'd go in and throw our briefcases down and start counting money and paying the act because the rooms were rented by the hour there were shows there you're not going to believe this honest to god but there were djs who would come down and emcee a show and i'd come back two

weeks later and they'd still be in that hotel. They'd end up hooking up with somebody and spending two weeks in that room. Forgive me. No, that's okay. You got the allergies. That's okay. That's okay. We're in the homestretch here.

I promised you keep this under 90 minutes. Some little indie band out of Georgia. So many bands. I mean, we could do a laundry list. Actually, I almost feel like we should do a... I mean, we've already named so many, but so many bands you brought. But even R.E.M., right?

Yep. Tell me about that. Yeah, we did them at Larry's Hideaway. I remember the review. I can't remember if it was Alan Nestor or maybe it was somebody else whose day this gave to you right now, but he said he thought the PA at Larry's was crap,

and the PA was actually great. The guy who ran that PA was one of the best sound guys ever and ended up working for Blue Rodeo. They hired him. Who, Blue Rodeo? Yeah, Blue Rodeo. Actually, here's another funny story

about Larry's before we go any further on REM. Rush had a big fight with their manager about playing at Larry's Hideaway to showcase for a big record company because the sound was so good. Because it's a basement room, it's all concrete. The bass stays in the room and you really feel it

and the leader of the band was Geddy, so you can only figure. Gary, right? That's Geddy's Gary, right? Geddy is Gary. Another Gary. I've got to point all the Garys out. Exactly. So yeah, he didn't want them to play there. He wanted them to play in a nicer room like the Colonial or whatever.

And they insisted on playing at Larry's because the sound was better and they were all about sound. Anyway, getting back to REM. Yeah. They played Larry's and, like I said, the review said that the guy thought the PA was crap and then he went home and listened to the record and still couldn't figure out what the guy was singing. So yeah, we had a good relationship with them. They ended up having a lot of British kids working for them as drum techs and stuff like that.

I remember before they broke, if you will, like before they became like some mainstream big rock band like U2 or whatever, they were referred to as college rock, right? This is the term, I guess, that you would use for a band like R.E.M. at the time. Tremendous band. I mean, sometimes you'll hear comparisons. Like whenever you try to explain

the tragically hip to an American, you can't, it's hard to do. Like, okay, who's Gord Downie? You're talking to an American. But you usually work,. Like, okay, who's Gord Downie? You talk to an American. But you usually work, he's got a little bit of Michael Stipe going on. That usually makes it into the equation. That's right.

Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. They don't have an equivalent. There's no Gord Downie equivalent to the Stipes. He's all unique. He's ours. But you didn't, did you ever promote any hip shows at all

since I brought up the fact that... As a matter of fact, one of the first things I ever did was... Like, when you're in the music business and you've got a bit of experience as a manager, as an agent, you get different club owners hitting on you to book their room for them. And one of the things that I did was booked a room up in Wasaga Beach called the Dardanella, and I'm sure a lot of people remember it or have been there.

And Tragically Hip was one of the bands that I booked in there, in the basement room, actually. They played there for a week. I actually played there when I was in a band as a kid. Really? For a week, yeah. And I guess this is before Up To Here comes out, I guess.

It's when they had the last... Oh, they didn't have any records. They had an EP. They were still living in Kingston. They didn't have any records out at all. I just thought the name was great. Okay, because I actually, some people who saw the band in this era have reported back to me that they used to call it

the Tragically Shit, is what they were calling the band. Not around me. Not around you. I know, I know. Because I didn't discover the band until Up to Here was released. Yeah, no, they didn't have any records when I did them there. They were playing Toronto clubs, and

they were becoming an item. Right. Now, quickly, shout out. So Stephen Brunt, who's a great sports journalist, he came over to kick out the jams, his 10 favorite songs. But he actually had 11 jams and he played out 10. On the cutting room floor was the Forgotten Rebels. Yes.

And so I played this for Stephen, but you also, that's another one of the Hamilton punk bands. Most entertaining. Most entertaining. Most entertaining. Smart Kid. Mickey DeSade. I hear a lot about these Hamilton punk bands. There was quite the punk scene there.

He was quite articulate, actually. He was very, very up on his game. He knew what he was doing. Surfing on heroin, but Stephen Brunt left it on the cutting room floor. But I had it loaded up for him, so I wanted to play it. And last song I'm going to play us out on, because this is for my buddy Mark Weisblot from 1236.

It's Husker Du, so it's another band that... Mr. Bob Mould, yes. Right. Recently passed away, right? It's possible. Oh, I'd hate to eulogize the guy if he's still with us. I am at that age where every time the phone rings, I'm afraid to answer it because it's usually Gary going,

bad news. You know, it's not about his car. It's about somebody having passed on. So yeah, no, I'm at that age where I don't keep track of him anymore. It's just, it's heartbreaking, you know? Well, one guy who I know passed away, sadly, is Nash the Slash.

I'm going to get the right names, but it's Ivor Hamilton and this era of CF, sorry, yeah, the era of CFNY with David Marsden at the helm and everything. And they put out Working on the Radio. This was the single that they, what do they call themselves? They call themselves the 102.1 band or something

like that. And I have a bunch of these cats from that era on, like be it Scott Turner. I have a bunch of them on. And I've been told and of course it's true, that Nash the Slash plays on that single. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. I would actually expect him to roll up his sleeves and get involved with those guys, because they were very supportive of him. Big time, yeah. More so than any other outlet in this country, for sure. I'm about to

play you off, but this is like a catch-all. I'm glad to, first of all, I'm glad to hear that the Gary's chat a couple of times, a couple of times a month, that's more than most people talk to their moms. Yeah. That's actually really strong.

Yeah, no, we're, everything is normal. Good. Yeah. Good, good, good, good. And he's got a book coming out, Gary Top. Did I read that somewhere? I think he's got a book coming out at some point. Did I read that somewhere? I think he's got a book

coming out at some point. Maybe I have to do a sequel to this show with Gary Top. You probably have us confused one more time. You have a book coming out. I'm working on it. That's horrible.

I did that twice. That's all right. Why do you have to have the same names? Hey, I run into people who think that we had a mother who called both their kids Gary.

They call us the Gary brothers. The Gary brothers. Or your last name's Gary. Yeah, exactly. You're from Gary, Indiana, like Michael Jackson. Yeah. So tell me about the book. It's a recollection of being involved in the music business

over the last 40 years. Hopefully people will remember a lot of the good things i've got a lot of great stories about things that happened and part of it is going to be useful i think for people who are in the music business to find out what it was like when we started there was like 25 guys who knew how to book somebody right into a 200 seatseat room and take it to the next level, bring it up to 400 or 1,000 or 2,000 or whatever. And all of the things that were involved in doing it in those days compared to what it's like today, which is just another corporate offshoot.

Sounds amazing. That's my cup of tea right there. My cup of tea for sure. Last question for me, and then you can share any miscellaneous stories you wish before we go but Joe Strummer yes I'm scared to ask this question but

was he as cool a guy as I think he was cooler he knew about us when we did the Pogues was involved in doing a thing called Archaos, which was a French circus, the complete flip side of Cirque du Soleil.

These guys were from France and had motorcycles and chainsaws and bizarre, bizarre, bizarre show. So we were doing this in the C&E and there were nights where the circus was down Because we did it over a period of three weeks So on Sundays we tried to schedule concerts in there And one of the concerts that we scheduled was the Pogues

When Strummer was in the band And it was like when he got there He wanted to meet us And talk to us about a couple of different things. Let's just leave it like that. But yeah, and I did a webcast with him actually when I was at Iceberg. And he was a great person to work with. Definitely had his finger on it.

Is that when he was with, I always butcher the name of it, but the Mescaleros? Yes. They have this jam called the Johnny Appleseed. Speaking of Gear Joyce, we share it. It was used as a theme song for an HBO show called John from Cincinnati. Gear Joyce and I,

it's one of his favorite songs of all time. I have the same feelings for that song. I would watch that show just to watch the opening credits and hear the Johnny Appleseed by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros unbelievable yeah and i oh i mean i never got to i mean i the legend of joe strummer now is larger than life i've seen the doc and everything but i get to talk to you who's met him i was just like he just seemed like he was drenched in cool

yeah totally glad to hear that's the that's true good but he's a guy who left us too soon. Way too soon. Way, way, way too soon. Gary, anything else you want to say before we play? Amazing. I'm done. My nose is running. I only promised you under 90 minutes.

I just want to let you know, 83 minutes. I'm a man of my word. Tight. Thanks so much. You're more than welcome. I only promised you under 90 minutes. I just want to let you know, 83 minutes. I'm a man of my word. Tight. I could have gone two and a half with you. Tight. Thanks so much. You're more than welcome. That brings us to the end of our 377th show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Gary, are you on Twitter? I'm not on any social media whatsoever. Unbelievable. So you cannot follow Gary. You cannot follow me. Who could?

Great Lakes Brewery, Great Lakes Beer, propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee and Paytm is at Paytm Canada. See you all on Friday when Ed Retro Ontario Conroy comes in to kick out

the Canadian themes. Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been?