Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Gary Topp: Toronto Mike'd #530

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Mike chats with Gary Topp about his role in weaving the cultural fabric of this city, including bringing The Ramones and The Police to Canada for the first time and his other work with Gary Cormier as The Garys.

Welcome to episode 530 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. Tapadilla LLP CPAs. And Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is concert promoter extraordinaire, Gary Topp. Hi, thanks for having me.

I don't break out the word extraordinaire for just anybody. You gotta be... You gotta be Mishy Mee. Well, Mishy Mee gets... She's more of like the hip hip hop goddess, if you will. But yeah, I only break it out for special people. You're my third Gary. Okay.

I know the Gary's are, there's two of you in the Gary's, but you're my third Gary because you're following your longtime collaborator, Gary Cormier. Correct. And Gear Joyce. Gear Joyce goes by Gare, but he's really a Gary. He's been on the show a few times, so you're number three, so welcome. I welcome all Garys. Who is Gare Joyce? He writes for,

right now he writes for Sportsnet, but he's actually an excellent, he's a sports writer mainly, but he also writes some fiction work that, have you ever seen this show of Jason Priestley? It's called Private Eyes. No. So, it's okay. okay i haven't seen it either but i'm told it exists but sorry but he uh like he wrote the books that that series is based on he's an author basically who focuses on sports but when gary cormier came on a little over a year ago gear joys tipped me

off that the name g Gary is almost extinct now. Are you aware that there's no more Garys being made? I actually was aware of that. I think I read about it on Facebook maybe about six, eight months ago. But there was a heyday. Like, I mean, Gary was a popular name. It was a popular name in the 50s.

Is that Gary Cooper's doing? Gary Cooper? Well, a good friend of mine was named after Gary Cooper, but I don't know who I was named after, but it wasn't Gary Cooper. No. Oh, I had a little Gary jam just to... Gary Glitter.

Oh, I was going to save you from doing the Gary Glitter. I was going to do somebody else because gary glitter has fallen out of favor i know it's too bad uh one of my most favorite shows gary and i ever did was gary glitter and uh yeah i know it's uh it is too bad because i don't even know if they play Rock and Roll Part 2 anymore at the hockey arenas. No, no, no. It was a fixture, right? Like you couldn't go to a hockey game without hearing some rock and roll. You know, right after Gary and I presented should get Gary Glitter

to record OK Blue Jays, Let's Play Ball. It's a perfect song for them, right? Right. I approached the Blue... Well, I approached Gary Glitter. He was more than willing to do it. He would have come to

the opening game and performed it with the band. Okay. And the Blue Jays never heard of him. Get out of here. They had no idea who he was, so they weren't interested. Can you tell me, are we talking late 70s?

When are we talking here? No, it would have been 80s? Early, yeah, early, mid-80s. Fascinating, because of course, the original vocalist for that song is Keith Hampshire. Right. First cut is the deepest, who's been on the program.

And Tony Kosnick was involved. Right. It's still played every game, I believe, yeah. I think they maybe play a shorter version because they now do this take me out to the ball game thing. a questionnaire to various people in the industry to name their, maybe their top five songs of 1979. Mine was OK Blue Jays. Nice.

That was number one. I love that song. I love it too. I think it's fantastic. Some great, at some point they say the lights are out, it's dark I think it's fantastic. Some great, at some point they say the lights are out, it's dark,

but that's okay. No, the lights are off, but that's okay. It's a day game. Like it's such a ridiculous lyrics or whatever. Yes. All right, Gary,

I have a question right off the bat. Get a little of the stones going here. You saw on my desk here, I can't give you this because it's so valuable to me. I can only let you hold it. I can let you hold it. This is...

I have many. You have many in your collection. Okay, these are chum charts. And my last guest, are you familiar with the name Doug Thompson? Yes. I see you're on the stand here. Okay. Now, Doug tells me, and I don't think he said it on the episode.

I think it was after we finished recording. I think he asked me who was up next, and I said Gary Topp. And he said, you, sir, have a letter. You have a letter sent to you from Alan Slate because you wrote them and said, why don't you play the Rolling Stones?

I think that's fascinating. There was a period of time when 1050 Chum wasn't playing the Stones in the 60s. Can you tell me the story? time when 10 50 chum wasn't playing the stones in the 60s can you tell me the story i um i'll start the first music that i really got into was rogers and hammerstein all the uh broadway shows right and then rock and roll el Elvis, Gene Vincent, whatever. And then the first counterculture, you know, see, I would have been about 15 years old

and I got into the counterculture of folk music and protest music and bluegrass and all that in the early, early 60s. Bluegrass and all that in the early, early 60s. And the folk music, you know, just started to get really quite boring, very generic. You know, with the highwaymen, everybody sounded the same. Everybody dressed the same. It didn't have the balls of, you know, the very early Bob Dylan. And, you know, I was into the Weavers in the late 50s and whatever.

And anyway, I was studying for a final exam in a friend's backyard. Her name was Rochelle Bernstein. Not a girlfriend, just a friend. And the transistor radio was on out in the backyard and listening to Chum. And out of the blue, Not Fade Away comes on, which I had never heard. I'd heard the song by Buddy Holly, but I'd never heard the Rolling Stones at that point. And I was really kind of bored with folk music. And, oh, what the fuck is this, right? This is like, what is this?

You know, like, amazing. And I was never really a Beatles fan. I didn't really get into the Beatles until I saw Hard Day's Night. Gotcha. Anyway, so I became a huge Stones fan and joined the Rolling Stones fan club. I think the president lived out here somewhere. Okay.

The president of the Rolling Stones fan club lived in Toronto? In Canada, yeah. But out near where you live. Okay, wow. Small world, okay. Anyway, I have the card, so maybe you know her. Maybe. Maybe you're married to her.

No, I think my wife is too young to be the president of the Rolling Stones. Okay, anyway, so I was a huge fan of the Rolling Stones, and I saw them in 65 and twice in 66 at the Gardens. You know, they weren't very popular but at that point they um chum decided to ban them because they were dirty they didn't wash they peed behind gas stations they did drugs uh the whole you know, their image was perfect, but not for Chum or Chum's audience. So they banned them. One afternoon in geometry class, I still have the original draft on, you know, lined three-ring paper.

I wrote a letter to Chum and complained. wrote a letter to chum and complained and you know too bad you didn't remind me i asked me i would have brought the letter oh i'm sorry but um you know you can play the platters but they've been busted for drugs you can play dean martin whose whole shtick is being an alcoholic. You can play the trashman Surf and Bird, but you can't play the Rolling Stones. And I got a letter from Alan Slate, who was, I can't remember at the moment what he was, but like a program, a station manager or something like that program director something like that anyway yeah uh he wrote back and said uh until they change their image we will not play the rolling stones oh and i've sent this letter to gary slate who um

uh has never replied to. Oh. That's, I think that's a fun piece of Toronto radio history, that at some point the stones were deemed too dangerous for chums, which is... Yeah. Well, at least you got a reply, so that's... Yeah, no, it's great on Letterhead, Chum Letterhead, 1050 Chum.

Very cool. So that's a good way to set us up because I'd like to learn about you before the Garys. So, of course, we talked a lot about the Garys on the Gary Cormier episode of Toronto Mic'd and we're going to do it again in this episode. But can you take me there? So talk to me about your background

and what got you into being a concert promoter pre-Gary's, if you will. When I was a kid, the Jewish Y at Bloor and Spadina was built. I learned how to swim there. On the weekends, they would show films in their auditorium, which is now the Algreen Theater. And you can imagine that they got all the best movies because the whole movie industry was Jewish. So they would show these movies on 16 millimeter in the auditorium, and I loved movies. I used to just stare at the full-page movie ads in the Star every day and loved all the graphics and everything. But I was pretty young.

But anyway, I would go to these movies, and along with watching the movie, I kind of daydreamed about this big screen on this stage and the black curtains and what went on behind those curtains. And, you know, wouldn't it be great to have a stage in my house like that? Right. So I was kind of interested in show business right from the beginning. You know, and I listened to radio from as long as I can remember. You know, on Friday nights, listening to like Boston Blackie on some American station. And I actually thought for a while that, you know, at that time,

CBC was about the only radio station that I can remember anyway. And I always thought that, like you and I talking right now, there'd be two people talking on air, Frank Sinatra and whomever. Right. And then Frank Sinatra would get up and play a song live. Right. So I finally discovered that that wasn't true,

but I was always interested in radio and showbiz. And as I said earlier, I was an avid fan of, through my parents, of the Broadway musicals and whatever, and followed that. you know, of the Broadway musicals and whatever, and followed that. The very first concert I ever went to was, I think it was around, I think it was 1954, 1955.

I was about 10 years old. My parents took me to see, I mean, they were going, but they took me as well to see Bill Haley at the Gardens. And I was looking up about those shows at the early Gardens, and I think that was like the first rock and roll show they ever had at Maple Leaf Gardens. So I was always interested in that. Maple Leaf Gardens. So I was always interested in that. And then, you know, my thanks to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol and the whole culture in the early 60s, mid 60s.

mid-60s, I had a very terrible high school career. It was horrible. I hated it. I was only interested in what I liked. And I would be locked in, not locked physically, but put in my room on the weekends. I couldn't go out because I had to study, and all I would do is, like, read magazines and listen to the radio and all that. And my parents were great. I mean, they encouraged me even though they wanted me to do well in school. And I went to Forest Hill Collegiate, so it was pretty much a rat race there because everybody was going to be following their dad's footsteps of lawyer, accountant, doctor, whatever. And so I just, high school was terrible. And I kind of plotted out my career as I was locked in my room, being forced to study, which I didn't do.

being forced to study, which I didn't do. It took me, in those days, high school was grade 10 to 13. And I failed twice, and I went to summer school twice. So I may hold the record. But I just was not interested. On the other hand, my parents went to new york a lot and they would take me and when i was when i was uh old enough not to have to tag along with them i would hang out in the village on my own but they took me to clubs and you know i met lots of uh musicians and and i hung out and you know in the folk days hung

out in yorkville and i wasn't a hippie by any means but i went i was really into the music and i mean this is very progressive and cool of your parents to drag you along to the bill haley show in 55 right this is the this is the birth of rock and roll yeah yeah and you know at 15 years old my dad bought me a uh a gibson long neck five string banjo direct from gibson in chicago and wow you know i could play it and uh you know my mom if she went to new york with her friends i say well you got to go to this record store and get get these records and she'd come over you know where you set me i had to go through an alley and but she did it you know up a fire escape and but she would do it so you know on one hand i was

letting them down uh education wise but on the other hand they knew you, you know, where I was at. So I, you know, I finally got out of high school. I didn't, oh yeah, so very interesting. One of the two years that I was in grade 13, they sent a questionnaire around that we had to fill out what you wanted to do when you got out of high school. Right. And I'm a pretty honest guy. I said, I don't know. So I had to go to this place called the Jewish Vocational Training Center,

which I think, but I'm not positive. You know that movie about the three brothers who were, were they twins or whatever? And then they went through a hell of a time at one of these Jewish, I can't think of the word. What's it called? It was a CNN movie and then it played theatrically. Anyway, it was hell for these guys.

And I think this place was connected with, anyway, I spent a week there doing testing and talking to counselors and all that shit and um the final the final result which i ended up putting on the questionnaire gary wants to be a dj so i got into uh i guess i got into grade 13, and then when I got out of grade 13, I didn't want to go to university. And there was an ad in the paper for Ontario Community College that was opening for the first time, Centennial College,

on Warden and Danforth Road. And that sounded interesting. And I signed up, registered. When I went to register, I drove by it about four times because it was basically an old armory. I had no idea it was a school. But anyway, I finally registered. And I took public relations and journalism.

And you had to take things like some law, which was interesting, and different other economics. But while I was in high school, a friend and I used to, around the time when, just before Batman became a TV show, with Adam West, and we used to rent 16-millimeter cereals, 15 chapters or 12 chapters, Republic Columbia cereals.

And we would, a bunch of us would, friends would, all chip in a dollar to pay for the movie and a bottle of Coke. We did a bit of smoking. And we stayed up all night and watched these serials. I mean, each, you know, each chapter was basically 20 minutes long, plus the changeover for, from each reel, each reel, each chapter was on its own reel. So I would do that. And, you know, in my own way would publicize it to get people out. Right. And

then I had a, I had a little film society on Yonge Street around Roxborough, which is now a clothing store, and it was an old butcher shop. And some people that I knew had bought the building and renovated, restored the upstairs. It was beautiful. First time I'd ever seen anything like that kind of work being done in a, you know, in an old kind of store. Anyway, they left the, um, they left the, uh, the ground level vacant. So my friend and I would go in there. My dad had a 16 millimeter projector and we'd rent movies and show them.

We'd put movie posters on the window facing Yonge Street. Right. And we were packed every week and we were charging like a buck and people just loved it. And we, I mean, we were showing like Tennessee Williams, you know, obscure kind of movies, popular movies, not the regular thing, but people loved it. But I would be promoting. And I did that also in a French restaurant on Davenport, just east of the concert hall, where there was a car wash that just recently closed. And so I get into Centennial College, and we're learning all about this public relations and how to do press releases

and what you do with them and all that. And I'm thinking to myself, I've been doing this for like three or four years. You could teach that course. Yeah, basically. You know, they were refining it for me. At least they were validating that you were doing, like you weren't missing anything you know what i mean like yeah yeah you can no it was great and i actually ran a film society in at the college which was extremely popular got busted

once by the morality squad if you can believe it for showing the chelsea girls and then we figured out how to show the chelsea girls make you know we had our our law teacher said we'll make it a real club with membership then you can do that so that's how you get to smoke cigars indoors right yes i know these loopholes. Absolutely. So, you know, I was in show business. When I got out of Centennial College, my first job was writing for a trade paper called Canadian Film Weekly. It was a national trade paper like variety but only for movies and it was owned

it was published by Nat Taylor who was one of the is one of the legendary Canadian motion picture showmen as they called them, you know.

And he had a theater chain called, abbreviated to Twin X, but it was 20th Century Theater. Downtown, Glendale, St. Scarborough, Odeon, Parkdale, you know, not Odeon, but, you know, they had millions of theaters. And like I said before, I used to just stare at these movie pages all day long because the graphics were, I loved them. I wish I had kept them because you just don't see that anymore. And so I was writing for them at the time when Nat Taylor took his Uptown Theater

at Young, just below Bloor. Yes. I used to see it from my balcony. So I lived at Charles Street in Young. Where? 30 Charles Street West. It was a high rise. And so you could see the brass rail on one side,

and then you could see you were right on top of the old uptown theater. Well, just to get off topic. Yeah, sure. So I lived at 68 or or 62 right at the corner and i can't i can't remember if mine's 35 or 30 like my memory can't remember it was either 35 charles street west or 30 charles street it was affiliated with the u of t so it was uh right at the corner of charles street and young on the uh north northwest corner so and i can't remember over the bookseller and all yes there's a yes there's a concourse down there yeah yeah so i lived at church in charles gotcha just

about to tear it down and before that i lived at 50 st nicholas which was just down the street from a space which was right across the right across uh right around the corner but that uptown theater while we're talking is i i mean i think the last movie i saw there might have been like saving private ryan or something but it was a fantastic place to catch a flick i really like that theater oh yeah i mean you saw it before it was changed uh well yeah well before it was before it was i didn't tell you so anyway he turned turned it into Canada's first multiplex. Okay. And it was like a grand theater, the grand theaters.

Right. And he took the main auditorium and turned it into three cinemas. three cinemas. And then he took the remainder and turned it into two backstage theaters, which were on Bel Air, just west of Yonge. Right, yes, yes. So I had to review this. And I did review it.

I said the three cinemas are a brilliant idea, but why the hell are you showing second-run movies in the backstage 100-seat theaters when you could be showing obscure movies that nobody's ever going to get to see? Well, I got fired. And this is, okay, so just i'm uh keeping up with you here this is the canadian film weekly where you're writing this right yes gotcha gotcha gotcha so

i got fired and i did when i was writing for them did champion uh films by this specific company called Film Canada. Film Canada had an office over a CIBC bank diagonally across from where you lived, Charles and Young, south east corner. Okay, yes. And across the street from it was a cinema called Cine City, And across the street from it was a cinema called CineCity, which they owned, which was a great 250-seat theater. So I went and I got a job at Film Canada. I was doing publicity. And this company was quite unusual, especially for the times. And, you know, their catalog of movies was included,

Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, movies by Jean-Luc Godard, all the underground movies from the 60s, Children of Paradise, you know. And so it was a pretty interesting time. And at one point, they decided they were going to run midnight movies at CineCity. And I was lucky enough to get the job to program it Fridays and Saturdays. Nice. So it was very popular.

And at one point I say, we've got to run Yellow Submarine at midnight. And they all said, nobody's going to come see Yellow Submarine. It didn't even do well when it first opened. It was like a bomb. And nobody's going to come see y'all. I said, Marina didn't even do well when it first opened. It was like a bomb and nobody's going to come. And I said, they'll come at midnight. And it played for about four years. Sometimes it was so crowded that we would have a two o'clock show, two in the morning show. So I got a lot of experience booking movies and sort of culty and, you know, for the midnight hour and art films when I was there. But they, you know, about the Festival Express, the Festival Express film that was made about the pop festival that toured across Canada in a train.

Tell me about this. Assume I don't know anything about this. So, yeah, tell me about this. Brower and Walker, Eaton, Brower and Walker were the promoters, Walker, Eaton, Brower and Walker were the promoters. And they put on this festival, played at the C&E, and it traveled across Canada by train. And it was basically the same lineup right across Canada. So they all traveled together.

And it was completely drugs and debauchery and everything. And it was a bomb. The festival was basically a bomb. The band was in it, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Sky, C-Train. Oh, I can't think of them all. But anyway, it bombed, and there were a lot of protests outside and people got in for free

and friends of mine that I worked with at Film Canada went on on the train but I ended up programming at the newly built newly opened

St. Lawrence Center, all-night movies for the people who had nowhere to sleep. We took over both theaters in the building and showed all our movies and just moved them back and forth. The place was packed. There were people sleeping in the the, in the, in the lobbies on the stage, fucking on the lobbies, you, you name it. But it was like from midnight to

seven in the morning or something. And, uh, you know, um, which was kind of fun, but that's, that was my part of the festival other than going. Um, anyway, the owner of Film Canada Anyway, the owner of Film Canada knew all the great cinematographers, music and documentary cinematographers from the movies that we represented. and, you know, I don't know, cameramen from all. And so he got this notion that he was going to make the Canadian Gimme Shelter Monterey Pop. Anyway, the whole festival was such a bomb for the promoters and Mr. Poolman, Willemem Pullman who was the director of Film Canada really had no idea how to carry

this out and it put him into bankruptcy and nothing ever got done with it for years and I can't remember when that movie came out,

but the story was that these cans of film, big 35-millimeter rolls of film, were stored in his basement and his son used to drag them out in the winter for goal posts. Oh, yeah. Anyway, at one point, he wondered what was in them and ended up making that movie, which is a pretty interesting film.

I haven't seen it on video or anything, but I think they've got lots of good extras in there. So anyway, the film Canada went bankrupt, and it was going to be taken over by crawley films out of ottawa which were basically industrial industrial film company but they also like produced industrial films but also had some success with a movie with gordon pinsett called the rowdy man and just what you know, after being at Film Canada for a few years and the shit that went on there

and what we represented and everything, I had no interest and I quit. And I spent about a year just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. One thing I tried to do was, there's a play called Dutchman by Leroy Jones. It takes place in a subway car. And I tried to produce that on the TTC spontaneously,

but TTC were afraid somebody would get murdered. Right. So I never got to do it. But anyway, then Film Canada went under and I've always, um, sort of invited people to work with me. So two guys, one was the shipper and one was the bookkeeper. I said, let's form a film company. Let's form a film company. So we formed a film company called Top Soil Films with one P.

And I'm saying one P for those who don't know. Right, because you're Gary Top. I'm PP. Yeah. And we were distributing some films. One day, and our office was on Yonge Street above the Isaacs Gallery, which was a legendary um contemporary art gallery got busted a few times for you know different exhibits and but very influential and um so we were right in the in the midst of it right so one day on the door knock on the door, and this British guy says,

Hi, I'm Jerry Stickles. Would you be interested in representing this movie that I have? Oh, come on in. What's the movie? Hendrix at Berkeley, which immediately I had got a hard-on thinking I'm going to make my first million in two weeks from now. And anyway, we took it on. So there's a little Hendrix in the background. Oh, you're smart.

Unfortunately, unfortunately the movie was 50 minutes long. Nobody would run it. My plan was I'd show, based on my experience with the serials, we'll show Hendrix at Berkeley, a 20-minute chapter of a Batman serial, which was now hugely popular. Absolutely, yeah.

And a cartoon that a friend of mine had made, Bambi Meets Godzilla, Marv Newland. And I took it around to theater exhibitors like Odeon. And of course, Annette Taylor, my former boss, wouldn't run it. And I thought it was perfect for the backstage.

It would run for years. Anyway, nobody would run it. And I thought it was perfect for the backstage. It would run for years. Anyway, nobody would take it. So immediately I said, we've got to get our own theater. So there was an ad in the paper for this theater out on the Danforth at Greenwood. And we went out. And Marv Newland actually drove me out in his he had like a volkswagen van

with no windows in the back i had no i i literally had no idea what existed east of church street or jarvis street i had no idea so i'm out here i'm i'm driving out here in this van. I had no idea where I was. We go into this theater. It stunk because it hadn't been cleaned because it had been vacant for a few months. And what I did realize was it was

267 giant steps from the Greenwood subway station, which we used as promotion. Excuse me. And so we decided to rent the place. And we had it cleaned up, and every night we would light incense just to keep the smell down and all that.

But we ran Hendrix at Berkeley for about five weeks at 99 cents. And then I thought, you know, I'm thinking back when I went to the Y. This is what I really want to do. So I decided, let's continue the theater and I'll program. Well, it started off as one and then it was two different movies every night, and all night shows with five or six movies, and midnight shows, and just make an animal house out of the place.

Right. Not intentionally, but we did, you know, and continued with that. And I did do some music there. The stage was basically the lip in front of the screen. And, you know, I decided to bring in some bands there. So you can imagine like the bands are all lined up along the stage, vertically along the stage. So the drummer's in the middle

and the singer's on either side of them and all that. And we brought in Thundermug from London. And Breathless was a favorite. And that's how I met Nash the Slash, who wasn't Nash the Slash at the time. But we became friends. And Rough Trade, who I met through Marv Newland and his wife, Vone, had been a duo called the Bullwhip Brothers, and they wanted to have a band. They were starting a band, and they were calling it Rough Trade.

a band and they were calling it rough trade so they did their first live show at at the roxy well and this was um i've heard gary's interview so uh this was uh you know three or four years before gary started working with them as manager before i knew Gary. And at some point, we had to, the place was just, I mean, we're doing like 1000 people a night. Theater chains were trying to have us blacklisted from the distributors because we were taking away business, you know, the Odeon at Pape and Danforth and the one across the street on Danforth, everybody was complaining about us because they were all bombing and we were getting tons of press. I mean, we had such good press that in those days the cops walked their beats. They would come in in the winter especially to get warmed up

and we'd give them some popcorn and stuff. And the place was just like a gas chamber of pot and hash smoke. And in those days you could smoke. But never had any busts or anything like that. And no problems whatsoever. But, you know, they tried to boycott us, and we never had a problem. But the place was a real mess because of so many people, and the landlord said he didn't have any money.

It was the same guy who owns two brothers who own the Danforth Music Hall. the Danforth Music Hall. And, you know, I would go once a month and pay them rent. And I'd go, they would be showing like all night biker movies and stuff at the, it was called the Titania at the time, it was a Greek movie theater. And I'd go in there to find them. And Mike would always be backstage sitting on a chair, you know, just killing the night away.

And I kept saying to him, why don't we do concerts here? Why don't we do concerts here? Well, I can't. This is where I keep my ice cream freezers. I have nowhere to put them. It was just like behind the screen there was the speaker for the movie and ice cream coolers freezers and uh he would never do it and uh anyway he we needed to clean the roxy up and um

he said well i said okay we'll raise our price to a dollar fifty and and uh you take the extra money and clean it up, paint it and all that. He never did. The New Yorker on Yonge Street was available, so I decided to move there. And is this at the New Yorker, that where the Garys are formed? At the New Yorker,

I moved to the New Yorker. Uh, I moved to the New Yorker at that point. I had been, I was part, well, the two guys that I was, that I brought in from film Canada tried to screw me. And the bookkeeper cheated the government on the realty. One day I get a phone call and and it's revenue canada saying uh you haven't been paying your realty you haven't been paying your entertainment tax and uh yeah sure we have now we haven't been getting anything for months i go to the checkbook yeah there's stubs here for it and all that like i was into the art right to sound corny but that's

what i was into right he was the bookkeeper what he had been doing was stealing the money and writing the stubs so we had to go to court and fight fight it and we all had uh had to have lawyers and stuff i got off i had to pay a fine for being stupid. The other two guys got into more trouble, not jail or anything, but had to pay a lot more money. And I had a good lawyer, John Laskin, who was the son of Bora Laskin, the Supreme Court judge of Canada. But we moved to the New Yorker. It's funny, though, hearing that story,

because today if you get a call from the CRA that you're not paying your taxes, they're going to ask you to go pay them with iTunes gift cards. They're going to be like, you know. Anyway, it's funny to hear that back in the day. You could get a call from the CRA or from whatever, and it was real yeah so anyway when those two guys when those two guys they i

mean they actually tried to shove me out of the roxy well that's when i got a lawyer and um a friend of mine no the woman who or girl, whatever, who worked at the box office at CineCity, I said, why don't you come to the Roxy and work for me? And she did. So her boyfriend was this guy, Jeff Silverman. And Jeff Silverman was a New Yorker, always used to come just hang out outside. And then when I was going through all the trouble and trying to do everything on my own and, you know, he would

help me take tickets, whatever. And then I said, hey, you want to become my partner? So he was my new partner. Okay. Anyway, we ended up moving to the New Yorker. The very last thing we did at the Roxy, other than movies, was this old guy, he seemed old at the time, wanted to, he was a piano player, and his name was Jim Montesino,

and he wanted to get into the Guinness World Book of Records playing piano continuously for five days and five nights and beat the current record. So we thought that was fun. We didn't realize it was torture. And we did it at the... What we would do is he'd play at the roxy at night and then on a flatbed truck with a little toy piano i'll think he'd be tinkling playing

we'd ship him over to the new yorker and he'd play nobody came it was the biggest design we had cftr when it was a news station covering it like 24 hours a day for five days. Nobody came. It was horror. Anyway, that ended, you know. You know, he'd be playing piano and he'd have to get up and go behind a curtain to take a shit or something. And then I was the guy, nobody would do it, would take the shit out to the garbage can on Yonge Street.

Oh, it's a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. Yeah, yeah. When it ended, the ambulance came and took him away. But it was kind of fun, but it was horrible. I don't mind listening to a piano tuner, so it was kind of like that after a while. But he was a good piano player. And that was the end of the Roxy. That was the end of the Roxy. And Jeff and I moved to the New tuner. So it was kind of like that after a while. But he was a good piano player. And that was the end of the Roxy.

That was the end of the Roxy. And Jeff and I moved to the New Yorker and continued the policy. And at some point, I guess around 1975, I was showing a movie called Blank Generation, which was a homemade compilation of 16mm film that this guy Amos Poe put together. And it was all documenting the new bands coming out of New York, Ramones, Talking Heads, Wayne County, The Fast.

I was showing this at midnight and during one screening, I'm sitting there, like I've shown every movie available to me because you couldn't get movies online. Like this was like actual picking up cans of film. And it was all changing. And, uh, well, it hadn't changed yet, but I just, I'd shown, you know, imagine showing that many movies for like six years and every kind of combination. was excuse me very particular what i would show so i'm sitting there and say new yorker all these new york bands and i knew

about these bands because i used i had a subscription to village voice and i followed it i said um i thought to myself let's let's build a stage and bring these bands here. So my wife's brother, she wasn't my wife at the time. I met her at the Roxy. He came down with his band of merry men from Emsdale, no, Sprucedale, Ontario, north of Huntsville, and they built a concrete stage. When the building inspector saw the concrete, he said, why didn't you just build it out of wood?

This is like a fallout. If there's a bomb, you can go under this thing. You can put an elephant on this stage. Right, right. So we had the stage built. Next thing was to book bands. I knew what I wanted. I had no idea how to do it. I'd never really dealt with agents or the music industry. So I went to David Blustein, who was like, you know, the greatest music agent that ever

happened in Canada. Forget about Sam Feldman, all those slugs. And I said, okay, first of all, I've got this stage. What do I need? Where do I put power for them to plug in? What do I need for PA and lights? So he told me. He says, okay, what do you want?

Who do you want to book? I said, Ramones. He didn't know who they were. I said, give me a few days and let me try to find them. said give me a few days and let me try to find them and he just a little Sheena's a punk rock a few days we were ready to go

he calls me and he says I found the Ramones I told them what I wanted two shows one show on a Friday night one show on a shows, one show on a Friday night, one show on a Saturday night, and one show on a Saturday midnight. They'll do three shows for $5,000. Okay, let's book them. And the rest is kind of history.

Danny Fields, who was their manager, came up to me after the show, what do you think? What did you think of them? I said, they're the who of the 70s. And we, a few years ago, I was in L.A., and coincidentally, there was a Ramones exhibit at the Grammy Museum opening and we were there on the opening night so I called Monty Melnick who was the Ramones

initially their sound guy and then road manager and sound guy and was at every Ramones gig ever and said I'm gonna be there can you get us in so he did I figured there might be a problem getting in you know that the Grammy Museum would be fucked up at the box office something would happen and I couldn't get a hold of him so it didn't happen that way but um I looked up in Monty's book there's every gig that the Ramones ever did and I counted all the shows that we did with the Ramones 36 shows we did more than anybody else in the world. Wow. I mean, they probably played CBGBs a lot, but I wouldn't count that as the same kind of gigs, right? And not every CBGB gig, I think, is listed.

Maybe it is, I don't know. But 36 shows. So I just had that ammunition in case they said, who are you? Well, let's, yeah, awesome. And they also, on their second album, Ramones Come Home, they love the New Yorker so much. Dee Dee is wearing, on the album jacket, the New Yorker T-shirt.

Let's be clear to people that this is the very first, you brought Ramones to Toronto, that's their very first Toronto visit. This is the first Canadian visit. First Canadian visit. And one of their few outside of New York visits. Amazing, amazing. And they were good guys? Oh, yeah, they were really nice.

They were like, and they ended, I mean, you know, with so many shows, they were like family. Total. Well, I had to check. So Kim Hughes was on very recently, and i was playing a clip of live in toronto on 102.1 like early 90s stuff and the ramones dropped by and i was playing this clip and yeah seemed like uh seemed like nice guys just listening to the clip yeah it's so tragic what's happened to a part of my ignorance are they all gone they? They're all gone. Wow, that's amazing. Monty's alive.

Arturo, who would have been the fifth Ramon, who did all their art design and everything, and lights, he's gone. Danny Fields is still alive, and Monty's still alive and very active. I was

listening to this podcast about, it's funny you mentioned batman earlier the uh yeah 60s batman because there was this uh uh jan and dean did a batman album like this like a weird novelty album they did and then that got me thinking that dd ramon put out a rap album i don't know if you ever caught yeah yeah so it's just yeah just while we're talking ramones here okay so uh i need to know uh because when I talk about Gary Taup, people are like, oh, the Garys. Like the Garys is this term

that gets tossed around all the time. And we're going to talk more about stuff at the Horseshoe and the Edge and everything. But is it the Garys who brought Ramones to Toronto? Like were you already hooked up with Gary? I just want to hear the Garys origin story. We're at the New York. We're at the New Yorker, and Jeff and I,

and he liked movies, but he did not like music, which later on things happened. But Jeff and I wanted, there was a terrible snack bar in the theater, and you really need a good snack bar, especially when you're doing midnight movies in the mid-70s. Right. And David Andoff, who was an art director at A&M,

and he did all the McKenna Mendelson mainline posters and art and all that, McKenna Mendelson mainline posters and art and all that. We knew him, and he suggested this guy, Gary Cormier, could build a snack bar for us. And Jeff and I also wanted to bring Nathan's hot dogs from New York and sell them on the street from the snack bar when the movie theater wasn't open. on the street from the snack bar when the movie theater wasn't open. Of course, we couldn't import the hot dogs from New York because I think the casing or something was not legal in Canada.

So we met Gary Cormier, and he was a carpenter at the time, but he had also been in the music business as an agent, and he was a musician. And we met him, and he and I really just clicked from day one. And we each had this very similar idea about music and how to do it and just the whole thing. And so eventually I asked him, do you want to be a partner? And so we became partners.

And the Gary's was formed. No, the Gary's wasn't. Not yet. It wasn Gary's was formed. No, the Gary's wasn't. Not yet. It wasn't really formed then. So I had met Gary after I booked the Ramones, but before the Ramones played. Now, just to go forward to the horseshoe, which we went into after the New Yorker.

Right. Jeff kind of freaked out and left and there were problems, but Gary and I continued to do the music. And we were bringing in, for those days, we were bringing in a lot of artists, more so than most people, because the bars were basically bar bands, and the El Macombo was a competition, but we brought in a lot of people.

Anyway, I can't remember which band, but somebody came in, and I'm always saying, like, how did immigration go? Because we would do their immigration and, and taxes and all that for them. And, um, whoever it was said,

Oh yeah. The immigration said, Oh, you're playing for the Gary's. And it hit on us. That's our name. So Canada immigration actually gave us the name, the Gary's. and it hit on us. That's our name. So Canada Immigration actually gave us the name The Garys.

That's great. That's a great origin story. And that worked in your favor, I suppose, that maybe some musicians that had a sketchy past could get through because they were The Garys. Yeah, we had a few problems because of who we were good stuff they trusted us okay i want to talk about the so i guess uh the horseshoe tavern period and i know it's only a brief i it's funny when you talk about like you know the gary's at the horseshoe tavern it sounds like you're talking about several years but this is like less than one calendar year that

you're at that you're actually promoting for the horseshoe tavern right or around a year about eight yeah eight months yeah and it's funny it's just funny how the legend kind of because yeah when you when you hear about it sounds like oh they had a good run there yeah eight months okay so before we dive into the horseshoe tavern because of course i gotta tell you talk about a little band at england here but let me pause here for a moment and give you some gifts for coming and helping what i believe to be like an important part of this city's cultural history. Like, I really think capturing these stories is important as we, you know, try to. I had DJ Ron Nelson in talking about bringing the first hip hop acts to Toronto. I had Gary Cormier on.

That's, you know, 50% of the Gary's, but got to get Gary Topp in here to complete the story, so to speak. So please, for your efforts, I have a six pack of fresh craft beer courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Thank you. Take that home with you. Thank you, Great Lakes. I think they did a special beer

for the Olympics, I almost said. The marathon that ran this weekend, I was checking it out. It was very cool design, but a Runtio beer they put together, but great partners of the program. ran this weekend. I was checking it out. It was very cool design, but a Runtio beer they put together, but great partners of the program. Love these guys. Can't wait to return to their patio in June

for a Toronto Mike listener experience. I have a big band that I, this is me trying to be like the Gary's. I'm going to, I have a band coming to play that gig. I'll be promoting that shortly. So thank you. Great lakes.

Speaking of Toronto Mike listener experiences, the next one is at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga. That is, this is an empty box, but this represents the frozen lasagna in my freezer for you. I have a frozen lasagna for you, Gary. So that's courtesy of Palma's Kitchen. That's palmapasta.com. They're also on Skip the Dishes. And again, if it's not in your calendars yet, let me channel my inner Garys here and promote that on December 7th at noon, I'm recording live from Palmas Kitchen.

Again, that's near Mavis and Burnham Thorpe. Go to palmapasta.com or Google it, people. But please join me there. I'd love to see as many of you out there as possible. I'll have some giveaways, and you can even pop on the episode. Gary, you're, of course, invited as well. Thank you, Palma Pasta.

Some stickers for you, Gary. There's even a temporary tattoo, but there's a Toronto Mike sticker, and that's courtesy of StickerU.com. I realize I never did congratulate Bridget for winning the contest. We had a contest. You take a picture of Toronto. You tweet it at a sticker you and at Toronto Mike with the hashtag sticker you to, and I wasn't going to pick the winner because I didn't trust

myself to pick like a, somebody I, you know, I liked or I knew. So I let Laura do all of that. And she chose a Bridget from Mimicoico I believe as the big winner so Bridget's getting a hundred dollar gift card for the bricks and mortar store on Queen Street so thank you sticker you there might actually be a Toronto mic listener experience there soon okay what else oh pumpkins after dark we have what 10 days left okay so what is you're probably wondering gary what the heck is pumpkins after dark and let me tell you it's 5 000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies at country heritage park in milton it runs through november 3rd i've been getting notes from people who have used the promo code pumpkin mike because if you use that promo code it saves you 10 and

everybody who's reached out has said they had a fantastic time. It's family-friendly, and I know Pete Fowler was sending me pictures. He said it was very cool. So go to pumpkinsafterdark.com, use the promo code PUMPKINMIKE. Gary, I can email you a couple of PDF passes for you or somebody you care about to enjoy the pumpkins after dark while you can. Not much time left in that. Brian Master, you are a radio

fan. Are you familiar with the name Brian Master? Putting you on the spot. From the radio. Actually, going back to, or are you setting me up? No, no, please. I want to hear this. Is it a... going back to my letter to the to chum about the rolling stones right so when the rolling stones played at the el macombo

chum was promoting a contest to win win pass to party as they said, with the Rolling Stones. In 10 or 20 words or less, why should I be invited to this gig? Right. So I sent them my answer. I should be invited to this gig because of the following letter and I sent the two letters from Chum

drop the mic that should be a slam dunk and it was supposedly Mick reviewed all the answers. I don't know if he did or not. that was evidence. Yeah, so anyway they took you, I guess

from Chum, they took you in a bus to the El Macombo. Everybody knew at the time what was going on. And Brian Master was the host the chum host in the bus isn't it funny how uh small world guide yes yeah yeah i think i've maybe i've seen a photo anyway this is uh that's great story and there's also a picture of that's running around the police right or yeah at the at upstairs at the edge with the police. Right, I've seen this picture.

And Bob Makowitz, I think, and Gary Slate, maybe. Yes, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. And I have seen that photo floating around. And yes, Brian Masters. So Brian, in addition to being a radio star in the city, Brian is a salesperson with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage, which is a mouthful. So I'm going to let Brian take it from here.

Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. I like working by referral. I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go. So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program. And this is really great material. It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is, but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home. We've also had things about how to throw a party on a budget, some travel tips. It's really great stuff. And it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program. It's really great stuff, and it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program.

I'd love to get you on it. It's easy to do. Send me an email to letsgetyouhomeatkw.com, and I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an email that's something related to the item of value. You can't miss. It's great information. It's something you can share with your friends.

I'm Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. Thrilled to be on Toronto Mic'd. Thank you, Brian. And Rupesh Kapadia dropped by this past weekend. He is the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. We recorded several answers to Toronto Mic listeners' accounting questions. So I'm going to play the first one now. Malfurious, who I met at a Toronto Mike listener experience

at Great Lakes Brewery. Malfurious sent in a question. Rupesh answered it. Here's Rupesh. I'm here with Rupesh Kapadia, the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. Hello, Rupesh. Hey, hey, hey, Toronto Mike listeners.

How are you? I'm back and I'm happy to be back. Thank you, Mike, for calling me again. Malfuria says, how old is too old to pursue a CA designation? Well, my friend, it's never too old to do anything, let alone to be a CA. A case in point, I started running marathon last year and I've been going on and on and on. And I was 46 back then. So to answer your question directly, it's never too old to do anything. CA is the least of it.

Thank you, Rupesh Kapadia. Hook me up if you want a free consultation with Rupesh. You can just run your ideas or questions by him one-on-one. And again, complimentary consultation with Rupesh Capadilla, the rockstar accountant. All right, Gary. I got to tell you, he reminds me of Fred Shakbar, who was the rockstar accountant and booker of Larry's Hideaway. Same humor. Oh, really? Yeah.

See, it's all coming in a full circle. Fred was from Tanzania, but hilarious. That's great. That's great. I'm going to tell him that. He'll love that. Now, okay, Horseshoe Tavern. Are you recruited to promote shows at the Horseshoe Tavern?

How do you and Gary Cormier end up at the Horseshoe Tavern? How do you and Gary Cormier end up at the Horseshoe Tavern? Gary knew whatever his name was. You probably know. Graham. Yeah, I can't remember. Anyway, knew him who was running the horseshoe at the time

for Jack Starr who owned it. The for Jack Starr, who owned it, the legendary Jack Starr. And Ron, not Ron, anyway, he asked Gary if we wanted to go there, move there. And we thought it was the right timing to go to a club. So we agreed. When the New Yorker ended, the night it ended, Gary and I, he was a carpenter.

We went to the Horseshoe. We built a stage where it currently is, positioned where it currently is now because we didn't like, our idea was to keep the concert vibe of what we were doing. So we were, we were actually promoting our move to the horseshoe as Toronto's first concert club,

as opposed to just another bar. Where was the stage before? The stage was where the current bar is, just when you go up the stairs. Okay. And so we moved it in and made it, excuse me, raised it, and we were there all night.

And, you know, until we left, when we left, they actually moved it back to where it was initially, and then... Realized you were right. Yeah. Now, okay, and I got to give some credit here to David McPherson. So he's been on, and we did a whole episode

just like the history of the Horseshoe Tavern. He wrote a great book about it. But if anybody's read it, the Ramones never played the Horseshoe Tavern. Okay, yes, because of course, you just told the story, But if anybody's read it, the Ramones never played the Horseshoe Tavern. Interesting. Okay, yes, because of course, you just told the story and I think there is definitely a perception out there

that the Ramones, in fact, I think the perception out there is that the Ramones' first Canadian gig was at the Horseshoe Tavern. Well, he's got it in his book. That's where it's, yeah. It's not true. Okay, well, he'll be listening to this.

You can issue a correction. But that's the kind of stuff that spreads like wildfire and forevermore they'll be talking about that Ramones gig at the Horseshoe Tavern. So I'm glad you spoke up there. So again, we're in 1978. The Geary's are now at the Horseshoe. And you're right, you're promoting it

as the first concert club in Toronto. And as I read in the David McPherson book, it's the, the, the regulars were not, we're not happy to have such disruption in their watering hole. Or is that fair to say? I,

I, I think, I think many regulars didn't care and some regulars didn't like it. But to hell with them. You know physically how the horseshoe was when we were there. Currently, opposite the stage, there's a wall.

When we were there, no wall existed. Stairs, like on the other side of the room. And there was a room, I guess a quote-unquote dining room, on the other side, opposite from the bar. on the other side of the, you know, opposite from the bar. And there was a Greek guy there who served souflaki and walked around with it. And the bars were pretty strict in those days, you know, having to sell food and all that in a bar with a liquor license. So he would go all around selling souvlaki, which wasn't actually bad,

but he hated the music we were doing. And one time Nash Slash was doing a sound check, and he, Gus, I think the guy's name was Gus, was screaming like it was driving him crazy. And he actually ran up the stairs to the stage with his butcher knife. Oh, my God. He wanted to kill Nash.

Oh, my God. Hence the slash, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was, I guess we can tell people if they don't know, if they're younger, it was country and Western music was basically what they were playing. It was, I guess we can tell people if they don't know, if they're younger, it was country and western music was basically what they were playing. It was, period. Yeah.

So, yeah, you're bringing an ash to slash. There's going to be a little culture shock there. Now, of course, I want to hear about the highlights of your eight months at the Horseshoe, but I need to talk. In fact, I'm going to play, the song hadn't broken yet, but I need to find out the full story of you bringing these guys to Toronto. All right, tell me this story in all its glorious detail. You guys bring in the police to play their first show here at the horseshoe. Okay. Well, first of all, this wasn't even a hit.

It wasn't even out when they came the first time. Which is a key detail because you probably wouldn't have got them at the horseshoe had this come out already, right? Well, we may have because people didn't really want to take chances anyway. Gary and I worked out of our individual homes. We didn't have an office. And I was at Charles and Church, and he was above, which is now the Kit Kat Club, when the CN Tower was being built. And we were so,

we were so, we were so tight that we knew what each of us were doing without even having to talk minute to minute. And I was a huge fan of a UK eccentric singer-songwriter called Kevin Coyne. C-O-Y-N-E. And one day I'm sitting on the couch at Charles and Church. Gary calls, said, oh no. Anyway, we were so busy at the time that I, for one, had my telephone landline with a huge cable on it. So if I was going to the bathroom, I could take the phone with me. So I'm sitting on the toilet,

and the phone rings. Scary. You want to bring a band called the police? Who are the police? Never heard of them. Do you know who's in the band? I'll find out.

Calls back. He said Stuart Copeland's the drummer and I knew who Stuart Copeland was from Curved Air. Sting is the bass player and singer. I don't know who he... I knew nothing about Sting. And Andy Summers. Andy Summers.

Find out if that's the Andy Summers who plays with Kevin Coyne. He also played with the Animals. Yep, that's the same guy. Okay, let's book them. And when the police arrived in their minivan and behind the horseshoe for that gig, after handshake introductions,

Andy Summers, how do I get Kevin Coyne? And it turned out that two years later, Kevin Coyne was the last performer at the Edge. Took two years to get him.

But the reason we booked the police, we probably would have booked them anyway, but the reason was Kevin Coyne. coin tell me they play two two shows two nights two nights and how many uh different people do you think uh attended these shows like combined how many different like how many people how many people yes well they were only because some of you might go to both shows i was was trying to think. The only people that weren't different were the record company guys.

No. About 30 people a night. And that includes the record company. Okay. All right. I think I heard at some, maybe I heard this. 60? I heard like nine people.

No. Okay. See how this works? It's about 60 for about two nights. It's like a fish story here. Okay. See how this works? 60 for about two nights. It's like a fish story here. Okay. So, 60 people over two nights see the police at the Horseshoe Tavern.

And again, this is, what, a few months before Roxanne breaks? Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. We actually took the police to Chum to introduce them and to give them their single which wasn't roxanne we waited in a lobby for 20 25 minutes no we left it's amazing how quickly things turn in this oh yeah in this in this industry here

now I have a question from Jerry the garbage man Jerry the garbage man says which is a great handle did the police fight like cats and dogs in the early days he's curious about what you witnessed being around these guys if they fought no they were

they were just a nice they were nice guys and I didn't i didn't notice any fighting at all hung out good okay and no i mean no if this jerry is looking like he's a garbage man he's looking for dirt here but uh the fighting would come later i suppose now uh is it is this the show of course is this where Sting is playing in his underwear? For the encore. Okay. Because people were just like going crazy for them.

They weren't expecting an encore. I think I've seen a photo of, yeah, which was very cool to see. Okay, crazy. Is there, I mean, before we get you to the infamous Last Pogo showcase here, are there any other artists you want to shout out you're proud of bringing to the horseshoe

during this eight-month stint? Well, I'm proud of everybody that I've brought because I, and Gary, we only booked who we wanted. I mean, they were the odd band that we had to book, but not like other promoters. We booked out of our record collection. I think one of the greatest shows

that I was ever involved with and most proud of, and I hate to say it's more so than the police, would be suicide. Because they were headlining and Teenage Head was opening and Teenage Head fans hated suicide and created a mini-riot, mini compared to the police picnic.

I mean the last pogo. But that show will always resonate with me. To see a riot like that. I mean, when I saw the stones at the gardens, they were riots. They were like the sex pistols. But this was actually like violence. We had great shows there.

I mean, we did like Toots and the Maytals for a week and Etta James. One time we had Etta James for a week and then the second time when we rebooked her she was sick and couldn't come and talking heads filled in for her just to help us out wow um god there were there was a completely unknown band called daryl rhodes and the maha maha vishnu or and the Ha Ha Vishnu Orchestra. I forget where they were from, but down south.

Hilarious. They were so much better. They were like a low-budget but way more intelligent band than the Tubes. The I-3s, Bob Marley's, Rita Marley and the backup singers for Bob Marley for a week. What I liked doing was more than one night. Because word of mouth is like, to me, the most important thing of building whatever it is you're trying to build. These bands come in or artists come in. Parubu was incredible.

That was like the first imported show that we did at the Horseshoe. Wow. But to have the opportunity, which doesn't exist anymore with the touring as it is, to be able to bring artists in for more than one night, even like five nights, was the best, especially if you're huge fans.

I mean, it was the best job of ever because all you were doing was bringing people you wanted to hear. Well, that's just it. And these artists you're naming are this very eclectic taste. That's what happens when you're curating. Sun Ra. Right, yeah.

Here's a good one for Sun Ra that goes back to how the Garys got their name. It's a Saturday night. Sun Ra, the Sun Ra Orchestra, he was still alive, were coming to play. And at around 5 o'clock, get a phone call from Canadian Immigration. And the guy says, I've got this band here. They all have their paperwork, but there's the elderly gentleman

who does not have a passport does not have anything but the contract claims he's not from planet earth and he doesn't need a passport and well no he didn't say that he said he just doesn't need a passport. Well, no, he didn't say that.

He said he just doesn't have a passport. And I said, does he say he's not from planet Earth? He's from Saturn? Yeah. Please let him in. He's like legendary. He's amazing. He's like the greatest. This is like a major thing for us to be

presenting okay what a good old days eh yeah times have changed wow okay tell me about the uh last pogo showcase to assume people listening have no idea what that is what was the last pogo the last pogo was our farewell to our eight months at the horseshoe it consisted of two nights basically the farewell was two nights the first night was a lot you know an evening of our you know or seven, I don't know how many bands, probably about seven or eight, actually, of our favorite punk new wave, as it was all termed back then, bands. That was called The Last Pogo, which was to be our version of the last, our version and the punk version of The Last Waltz. Right. version of the last the our version and the punk version of the last waltz right and then the other the second night the saturday night was um bands like rough trade and a couple gay bands and some reggae and we were calling it the last bound up and uh we were doing on the Friday night, the last pogo, and the place was jam-packed and there were some plainclothes, not plainclothes, off-duty cops sitting at the bar.

And I guess they were a little drunk and they assumed that things were out of control. I mean, we did have about 800 people in the place, which was probably 400 more than legal, but we had done a thousand people in the place with the stranglers and talking heads. Anyway, they decided they wanted to close the that it was out of control, which it wasn't. And Teenage Head were on stage, and they were up there talking with Teenage Head, and I was told I had to go on the mic at the mixing console and tell everybody the show was cancelled, and that we're sorry, you know, but the police want to close the show down. So I said that.

And I pressed the tape deck. And guess what came on? Anarchy in the UK. Anyway, there was a riot of sorts. You know, people were all pissed off. They had like, you know, wooden bar chairs in there with tables. They were like slamming the wooden chairs. It sounded like a thousand lumberjacks.

At that moment, playing that song, I think they'd charge you of inciting a riot. Yeah, they could have. For sure. Even now, I want to break something myself. Well, it's like that. It was the awful, let's say, 30th anniversary of Woodstock,

and they had Limp Bizkit playing Breakstock. It was the same thing. It's like, okay, now you're just asking for it. Okay, so that's it for you guys at the Horseshoe. And then the next stop is the Edge Club. Correct. And it wasn't even called, you guys decided to call it the Edge, right?

This is... Gary actually came up with the name. It was a folk club called Edgerton's at Ryerson. And it was in the building or house that at the corner north uh northeast corner of Girard and church was Edgerton Ryerson's first schoolhouse and uh it was a brilliant name way before CFNY became yeah way before and I think that's important to point out because I think some listeners who are younger are going to hear about the Edge Club and they're going to combine the two there.

But yeah, this was Edgerton, Ryerson, Edge. Okay. And it was a perfect description of our musical tastes and the times. I need to ask you about a band who never played at the Edge, unfortunately. But in fact, maybe I'll read the question here. So this is from Cam Gordon, friend of the show. Hi, Cam.

Question for Gary Topp regarding the Joy Division Toronto concert from 1980 that was ultimately axed. One, he wants to know, and I want to hear detail of how this came to be, and of course, we all know what happened with Ian Curtis and why it never happened, but his questions are, how were ticket sales and were Joy Division getting buzzy, but in quotes, buzzy, no one in Toronto at that time,

and then he wants to know, B, how did you find out that Ian Curtis had hanged himself? A lot there to unpack, so maybe we start with what made you want to bring Joy Division to the edge? Well, they were worth bringing, period. They were an interesting band. Yeah, they had a buzz. They were an interesting band.

Yeah, they had a buzz. In those days, all those bands, I mean, you know, all the bands, not all the bands had a buzz, but they were all kind of in their infant stages. You know, I mean, the place was only 200. But it was sold out. And the woman who was booking them from New York, Ruth Polsky, who was a legendary promoter of this genre, and she took new order and worked with them for years. She was actually outside, I forget which club, one night and a car went under control and plowed her into the wall

and killed her. But yeah, she just called and told us. And that was... It's quite sad. I remember sitting at the edge that night, you know, because we had to be there for people who didn't know. Pretty depressing. Now, this was the... Literally, he took his own life, the ease before the trip overseas.

Right. He took his own life, the ease, before the trip overseas. Right. There's actually, in one of the movies about him or Joy Division, they show, what's the guy's name, the manager, I forget his name now, who was up in Birmingham. I know the movie. At the same time, there was a great documentary and there was the film at the same time.

There's a shot of his diary with all the dates and the places that they are itinerary on there and Toronto's in there. Wow. So Joy Division is the

unfortunately never never did uh happen because ian curtis took his own life uh any other before we move on from the edge here do you want to share any more uh highlights from uh the gary's time at the edge club which is like 70 79 to 81 I guess because it's right after Horseshoe I mean the shows were all completely electric considering the size of the room and how intimate and how close to the audience

the artists were I think the building itself had a lot to do with it. There were wonderful moments where the washroom above the stage would flood and water would be dripping down or flowing down in front of the stage. At one show Jonathan Richman was up there playing and the water started pouring down and I have always done lights I love doing the lights and it's something to do during the show and I find it creative and whatever

but it almost looked like Jonathan Richman playing behind Niagara Falls with the lights on the water. That happened a lot. There were a few little riots, you know, little gangs of groups or gangs of guys coming in from Burlington and trying to cause trouble. And once we did Nico and we were doing a tour of the building and she ran into a ghost okay a few people had died in the building okay sometime you know at one point or another but yeah interesting it was fun but the great part of it like it felt like you were the band and I'm, that's how close I am.

Wow, yeah, intimacy. Yeah. And it was an all-ages club, because it was a restaurant. So kids, underage kids could come, which was nice. It's funny. I record a podcast with Mark Hebbs here called Hebbsy on Sports. And he's very close with Jake Gold, who was managing the Pursuit of Happiness and Tragically Hip.

And we were just chatting about the Diamond Club. And he was telling me about when he was at the Diamond Club watching the show. And then I let him know because I had done some homework. And I was well aware that it was actually the Phoenix by then. So it was basically his memory that Jake said was the was the diamond club i said well what were the hip what album came out from the hip i'm like no that's actually the the phoenix so um the diamond club which is now now it's been the phoenix for a while now since the early 90s uh i'm going to play a little bit of this this band and just ask you i want to hear about other highlights too at the Diamond Club.

Gwar. Am I saying that right? Gwar? I realize now I don't think I've ever said it out loud. And as you say it, it's like, that sounds funny coming out of my mouth. You booked Gwar at the Diamond Club, right? Well, I can't remember. Was it the Diamond Club?

To me, I don't think they would have fit on the Diamond Club stage Where do you think you would have brought them? Well, I remember the concert hall a couple times Okay They were really nice guys You know, and They were brilliant Their stage show was brilliant

And their costumes and their... They'd be making the costumes up on the floor of the auditorium before the show and mixing up their blood and everything. Yeah, that would be... They went out. They were doing an interview on City TV one time when they were here, and they just stormed out of the studio and were in gear, blocking the traffic and everything. Wow.

Well, this is the right season, I think, for Guar for sure here. And again, if I skip anything major you want to call me out on, I just want to ask you about Edge of Morning. So you were actually hosting, this is on Q107, right, in the early 80s? What was Edge of Morning? I did a 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday morning radio show on Q107, playing what I liked. Is this your first radio gig like your first this was my uh no i had done some stuff no yeah it was my first radio gig um i had done some stuff on CKLN as well, but The Edge of Morning was Sunday mornings, and the people that knew me loved the show,

and the bulk of the audience that was Q107 absolutely hated the show. They wanted Led Zeppelin. I brought in what I was going to play. It wasn't out of a... absolutely hated the show. They wanted Led Zeppelin. I wouldn't play. I brought in what I was going to play. It wasn't out of their library or anything. So we had bomb scares.

We had people calling in with bombs for threats. To let people know, this is that period in Toronto where the bands, so I guess Spirit of Radio is going on and CFNY and then you had Q107. And the Q107 sound and Never the Two Shall Meet, like I would say bands like U2, for example, right? Like U2 would be a CFNY band. You would never hear them on a Q107. So there seemed to be this polarization. seemed to be this polarization and i know there were some terms derogatory terms we won't use on this particular show but for you know they would or the q listeners might refer to a band that cfny was playing or whatnot like it was really quite the uh quite oh yeah no totally you know they it

was hard rock uh i once gave a one when um black sabbath were reuniting and they were rehearsing in Toronto, I think at the what is now the Region Theatre on Mount Pleasant, which had a stage because it was called The Crest originally, and they would do Shakespeare there in the 50s, and they had a show called Spring Thaw you know in the 50s and they had a show called Spring Father was always there anyway they were rehearsing there and I managed to get some drumsticks so I was giving away drums Black Sabbath drumsticks and you know in one moment like there's a million people calling in for these drumsticks and then the next song they wanted to kill me. And I would, Q107 at the time was in the Hudson Bay Center.

So leaving the Hudson Bay Center at 2.30 in the morning, and I didn't live too far away, just down Church Street, but I was always terrified that somebody was going to kill me. Dangerous times. They were so,

the audience was so devoted to that station and what they played and did not like what I had. And it's funny that, like, today's Q107 is playing all those bands they shit on back in the

early 80s. Well, everybody's playing those bands they shit on in the 70s and 80s. That is true. That's funny how that... Closet Queens. Now, CKLN you mentioned, but you had the G-Spot, right? This is the name of the gospel show you were hosting? Yeah.

Not the right one? And Toronto Life, what did they call it? They voted it the best black music show. Correct. Two years. There you go. And the show was called The G Spot. And, you know, I'm talking with, I'm dealing with Michelle Schacht right now.

We're doing a show together in November. And she ran into some political problems, which I won't get into because she was totally misinterpreted and, and kind of blacklisted for a while and still the religious right. Think, you know that she's the devil, but I was telling her about the G spot. I was telling her about the G spot. Like when I had this gospel show and I like,

I like like big black choirs and religious blues and R&B, and that's what my show was. It wasn't like born-again Christian. Well, you know what I mean. But anyway, I called it the G-Spot because I thought it was the perfect name for that kind of show. And for many weeks, I really got a lot of complaints, and the station got a lot of complaints about me calling it the G-Spot. I said, like, it's a perfect name, you know. It's the utter climax, God, Gary, you know. Yeah, you know, interpret it as you wish, right?

You can let the listener decide what the G-Sp-spot means yeah but it was a good show i did it for about five years until our first kid was born our daughter and then uh it was just too much for me with that and and um and doing the you know promoting and whatever i also did a show on ckln before the g-spot which was again called The Edge of Morning. It was on Saturday midnight until 7 a.m. Sunday morning. And I did that for, I didn't do it for very long because it really killed my Sundays. Right. Now I have a special guest about to ask you a question. He happened

coincidentally, he was over here last week. Not for an episode of Toronto Mike, but we were talking about some business stuff. And I said to him, I said, you know who's coming on next week? And I dropped your name. So without further ado, listen to this question from the mystery guest.

What I'd like to figure out is, how did you learn the difference between a really great act and an okay or good act? Now, specifically, what Ralph Ben-Murray is referring to is that you were the music producer for Friday Night with Ralph Ben-Murray. I was. Their final season. Right.

Well, they didn't have many seasons either, right? Like final of two. One of two. So you finished off a bang. So, okay. So, yeah, Ralph wants to know. Well, hello, Ralph. Nice to hear from you again.

You know, Ralph and I used to live a couple doors down the street from each other and known him for a long time. And I think he actually, I'll support Ralph in saying that I think he really got screwed by CBC and the producers of that show. However, Ralph, it was just my taste. If you liked it, you liked it. If you didn't, you didn't. It was just my taste.

If you liked it, you liked it. If you didn't, you didn't. And I'm glad people did like it and found it interesting. In the days of, well, even in the days before fax, you'd have to deliver all your promo packs, which was really a lot of driving through Toronto, even in those days, delivering packages to all the press and everything.

And Wilder Penfield, who was one of the sort of legendary music columnists for the Toronto Sun and the Telegram, once said to me, you know, he says, because I'm giving him stuff like every day practically. He says, you know,

I may not write about the story, but I know you believe in it, so I'll always listen to it. Very good. Which I, you know, I think it says it all, you you know i don't know what's good or bad i mean it was like at the movie theaters you know i wouldn't i wouldn't play beside an

adventure but i'd play airport because i liked airport and i thought beside an adventure was shitty this is what i i my opinion is missing from radio although i think strombo still has a show like this so it's not completely missing but it's almost gone which is that you have a person with their own tastes and they would curate sort of the uh the content that they would sort of deliver to you like I'll be on a radio show and you're hearing somebody's uh specific taste like that's all gone now pretty much well as I said before we bookedary and i both booked out of our record libraries i mean you know there were times like uh we were listening to the troggs just doing just working booking whatever we had to do and had the troggs on the on the record player why don't we bring

the troggs same with georgie fame the jazz i mean, people always consider the Garys as the punk promoters, but we did a lot more than just punk. And when I first heard the Ramones and read about and heard all those new bands out of New York, and read about and heard all those new bands out of New York, what it reminded me of was the jazz scene in the 60s, the free jazz and the different ideas that were coming out of, you know, more or less mainstream jazz. We did everything.

We did everything from Cecil Taylor to the Women's Bulgarian Choir. Yeah, you're, like I said, eclectic. It's all over the place. Bluegrass, you name it. But we only booked what we liked because I did most of the promotion and there was no way, even in the movies, there's no way that I could beg somebody to write about something that I didn't really believe in. You may not like it. That's fine. But if I believe in it, I don't care. And I don't care if you don't write about it, but I'm going to be 100% behind it. Now, this integrity that the Garys had, yourself has, Gary Topp, is what helped you become, in 1995,

the first promoter to win a Toronto Arts Award. Now, I actually have to admit, I'm not 100% sure, I don't have the understanding or context what that means, but to be the first anything, and especially something called the Toronto Arts Award, I feel like this might be a big deal.

You tell me. You're proud of being a fan? Yeah, I am. I mean, nobody else recognizes us. The music industry doesn't recognize us. We don't get a, you know, everybody gets the, what do you call it, the Governor's General Awards and Stars on the Street. But I'm happy with the Toronto Arts Award because I think it really, it did mean something as opposed to all the other awards that are just sort of generic, I think. I mean, whoever's giving out a Governor's General Award certainly doesn't know anything about your career.

Right. Or hasn't followed it. And I think that arts awards, they follow the careers of the people that they award. And it was actually literally the award was for the Gary's. So you got to share that. Is that just one award? Or did you each get your own?

We each got. Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that. We each got, you know, and the award was, you know, what do you call it, a medallion or whatever. Nice little medallion. But what they gave us, they gave us money. I can't remember the sum.

They gave us money to, what's the word anyway to give to an artist like a grant or like a okay I gotta quit but basically it's something you could to help an artist and they

they to commission an artist to do something okay gotcha. Cool. That's cool. Yeah. So I commissioned Sam Ferrara, Screamin' Sam, to do a metal, he's a metal work sculptor, to do a metal frame and a photographer to put his picture in.

Gary had a portrait of the two of us done by another artist. That's cool. That's really, really cool. Yeah, it was nice. Now, you said I opened up questions from the listeners, and Let Mike says, amazing. He's very excited you're coming on. So Let Mike says, ask him how he secured Jandek

for his 2006 show at Center of Gravity on Gerard East. Well, I had been following Jan Deck, and I started writing Corwood Industries with no response. And then one day out of the blue, I get a letter saying I'm interested in, right after he had sort of started performing live I get this letter and he wanted to come

and that was it. It was quite easy. He was a lovely man. He played a great prank on me which I will never forget and he's

he's like what he did was he came to Toronto a week before the gig, wandered the streets wrote the lyrics asked me to put a band together of

certain instrumentation with players that could play freely, spontaneous. Right. And he loved it. And he actually loved it so much that he did a... Oh, we didn't have to pay him, actually. We did not have to pay him. What we had to do was document it,

record it, or film it. So we did both, and we had... And he liked it so much that he did the CD, and then he did, it was a box set, the CD and five DVDs, one of each camera. Amazing. Live in Toronto. Very cool, very cool. Please, before we play off, by the way, what am am I playing I'm playing Naked in the Afternoon from 1978

in case people are curious are you still close with Gary Cormier yes I'm glad to hear that just spoke to him it was just his birthday on the 20 on Saturday happy birthday Gary Cormier did he warn you about coming on here?

No, he said you're in good hands here. Yeah, no, he enjoyed it. Okay, good, good, good, good. And maybe just before we go, tell us a little bit about, you mentioned Michelle Schacht, but what are you up to these days? Anything, like, tell us what's going on.

No, I'm not doing, you know, when I left the movie theaters i couldn't go to movies and i find this now i go to movies but i find it really difficult to go to clubs unless i'm doing the show because i get really anxious about why isn't the light interesting you know the sound the atmosphere in the room I just, and I, it's not the same. When we were doing shows, it was a particular era. And our venues were like clubs for people who liked what we were doing.

It wasn't, you wasn't mass production. So you go to a club now and you just sort of stand around, the band comes on. I'm into the whole scene from the minute the door's open to the minute the last person's out. I did a show

with the members, one of the first UK punk bands that actually brought in reggae into punk rock before the specials and all that anyway i had them here you know we're at the club into the night the bouncers just turn on the light bright lights right and uh okay, everybody out here. You know, I just, so I don't, I'm not doing a lot of shows. I will be doing a few in the new year. We just moved and renovated and, you know, I just kind of want to relax.

Well, you've earned it, my friend. Thanks for. Thank you. Thanks for coming on and telling the story of Gary Topp. I think it's an important part of this. I'm glad to be a part of your catalog. I know it's raining out, but

I'm still going to make you pose for a photo outside in front of the trees. I hope you don't get sick. I'll feel guilty forever there. That brings us to the end of our 530th show. You can me on twitter i'm at toronto wank gary are you on twitter i'm not a twitter i'm on facebook but i'm not on twitter so just look up

gary top with two p's and top and you'll find gary on facebook our friends at great lakes brewery or great lakes beer palma pasta is at palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, you need to email him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com to get on his mailing list. Do it. Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP and Pumpkins After Dark are at

pumpkinsafterdark.com I have one more thing to say. Yes, please. Just for the interest of your audience. If anybody's interested in hearing what the music was like live back then, and this isn't a self-promotion, but I do have a website, GaryTop.com, and if you go to the tab that says the G-spot, and if you go to the tab that says the G spot,

there are a few lengthy, like, you know, 70, 80, 90-minute tracks, compilations of live recordings from various shows that Gary and I did, and I think it's pretty great, and you might be interested in hearing what energy was really like back then. No, that's a great tip. So Gary Top, that's two Ps in top, GaryTop.com, and then click the G spot. Yes. Cool. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you.

But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true Because everything Is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah the wind is cold But the smell of snow Won't speed a day And your smile is fine

And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is Rosy