Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ian Thomas: Toronto Mike'd #1135

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

In this 1135th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with singer songwriter Ian Thomas about his music, Tears Are Not Enough, his brother Dave Thomas, SCTV and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

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The lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed. Joining me today, making his Toronto Mike debut, is singer-songwriter Ian Thomas. Hello. How you doing, Ian? I'm good. How are you? Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. My pleasure. So how is it, you know, Steve, Mike? Well, he's been on my podcast several times and he, he became a fan of Toronto Mike.

And now, uh, I get the regular texts from Steve where he tells me, uh, he comments on episodes he just heard. I know he'll listen to your episode, of course. And,

uh, yeah, he's just become a friend. Uh, he's a good guy so your connection to steve is it because you're hamilton guys what's the steve pakin connection steve's dad uh related to i don't know if you uh remember the name sid kessler but sid kessler ran uh sounds interchange uh he was probably one of the biggest commercial producers with

i think it was called the air company uh or something of that sort um and he basically trained everybody who ended up opening their own shops like pirate radio and right uh anyway uh larry uh steve's dad one morning with sid drove me over to talk to johnny cash's manager who was a distant relative from london ontario saul hollis was his name and uh steve was i think it was just going to school and i think i had to autograph his long long way album that was my second album i think in 74 and just off and on marty short uh when he lost his parents and brother marty and larry uh sort of became uh de facto parents of a sort and just a serious family for Marty. And I think we were at one or two of the bar mitzvahs. And so it was just lovely to the Pekins in general are just a wonderful family

and big, big supporters of the arts in Hamilton. Well, I owe Steve for this connect because what happened was I had your, your brother on the program, Dave Thomas, and that was fantastic. And then I kind of left that like itching for more Thomas's. I'm like, I want Ian Thomas. And then I'm like, how do I get in touch? And I thought, you know what I thought about? I produced the show. I produced Humble and Fred show. And I know you've been, you've definitely been on their show in the past. And I was thinking, how do I get in touch? And I thought, you know what I thought about? I produce Humble and Fred show. And I know you've definitely been on their show in the past. And I was thinking, well, maybe a half dozen times, I think.

And I mean, you're always great on that show. And I was thinking maybe that's the way to go. And then Steve Paikin said he had an email address for you and the rest is history. Okay. But on the serious tip before we get into it, I do want to offer you my sincere condolences to you because we were going to do this in the summer, but you sadly lost your mother. of the probate. Oh, my. Death is, it takes so much time to sort things out. I mean, she was 94. Alzheimer's, terrible Alzheimer's. So it was a blessing in many ways. I certainly do not want to live like that, I'll tell you. So it, yeah, it was a very confusing period of time and just endless things to do. And it's still going on because she left a long

list of people for little trinkets or for jewelry to hand out. I got that list to my daughter and she's going through it all. And oh man it's just been a never-ending story i was reading a little bit uh the the obituary actually for uh for your mother and i was reading that she was a church organist for 40 years yeah well and piano teacher the church organist she did for about maybe 18 or 19 but as soon as she got her arct she was and she did it she did her ar i think in a year or something i mean she she studied when she was a kid so she was great with harp and piano uh yeah so she taught a lot of people piano and they all became good friends of hers for life,

more or less. And her music was a huge part of who she was. So you came by your, you came by music, the love for music quite, quite honestly there. It was, it was in the home. Yeah and humor so you know we were born and bred on on british humor so you know both of those things were ever present and uh you know dad was initially a baptist minister before he became a philosophy professor which he had to do because he had too many questions to stay in a pulpit when people just wanted answers right give us a pat answer for this leah we want somewhere to hide because we can't handle the questions so long story short uh watching our parents perform every week i guess we sort of well

we're i guess we're like the walenda family we we all got to learn to get on that tightrope. Right? No, it's a great analogy. Now, a couple of nice little notes that came in when they found out that you were going to be on Toronto Mic'd. One is from Rick A. And he simply wrote in, Wow!

But there's like five exclamation marks at the end of wow. Like this is one big wow. But he says, This is the one I've been waiting for. Jackpot. Yes. Rick A is a just a massive ian thomas fan oh lovely how uh how lovely is that at uh at my age just so still have people who out there who like my music and oh my goodness listen uh do you mind if i ask your age uh what

where are we at? 72. Okay. And you're about to embark on a tour. Is it in Europe? Where are you off to shortly? This tour is, we're finishing up Ontario. 10 more dates in Ontario. We did 18 in June and then last November we did BC and then last October we did the Maritime. So next June we'll be doing Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Yeah, I was sending you off to Europe. But you're doing your Canadian tour. Yeah, with Lunch at Allen's, it's pretty solid Canadian. At least we cross this country at least every year and a half or so, coast to coast. So I'm going to ask you about Lunch at Allen's, but I'm going to kind of keep it fairly chronological, and I have a few audio clips to play along the way.

How does that suit you? Fine. Okay. So Andrew Ward, also a big Ian Thomas fan, he writes in and he goes, so I'm going to ask you the question, then I'm going to play the clip, but he says, can you ask him what it was like

to be played on WKRP when it aired? Now, I've got a clip here, so let's listen here. I hope I've pulled the right one here. And a good, good morning to you. It's 10.06. You've got your husband off to work, your kids off to school, so it's just you and me.

And me? I'm Rex. Rex Earhart. And I'll be with you till two. So come on. Let's you and me have a bath together with the Ian Thomas band. Ian, when did you first learn about that reference? Peter Torkvay, who was a Second City alumnus, had moved to L.A. and he became the producer of WKRP. He used to come out and hear my band all the time in Toronto.

And, and then when he joined second city, he became good friends with Dave as well. So that was the connection. And Peter called me and he said, you don't mind if I play a couple of clips? Cause we have to pay the residuals on that. So anyway, so might as well go to you. So yeah, he was a big fan. And actually, the Boomers played, what's the famous club? Just off of Melrose and the Strip.

The Troubadour. The Boomers played the Troubadour just before Peter Torkvay passed. And he was at the gig. So that would have been in 1993, 94. And yeah, a lovely guy. I stayed over there when I was down in L doing in L.A. doing a film score on a couple occasions. And that's how Tinkerbell got played on WKRP. He was the producer and he shoved that tune in.

OK, so famously, I guess, yeah, famously, there was difficulties, you know, streaming and putting WKRP on DVD, etc., because of all the music and getting the rights to all the music. But do you still receive residual checks for your music being on WKRP? That's a good question. If I actually read the statements in detail, I bet you I could find it. They used to be more detailed than they are. And now I'm upset, even though I didn't used to read all the details. But now I'm upset it's not as detailed a recounting or accounting, I should say.

I've always been amazed when residuals come in from around the world it's just it was a song of mine off of I had a band called The Boomers in the 90s and when that first album came out I found out via the grapevine

that a song from that album called One Little Word was huge in Estonia. And the way I found out about this, we had some Estonian neighbors and their cousin came over to visit. And when they found out I lived down the road, of course, a meeting was arranged and she was shaking. This song was such a monumental hit.

And it was a reasonably emotional little piece of music. And so I was just blown away with that. Songs I'd recorded in my barn in Winona, you know, there they were parading around the world. And that whole boomers thing took off in Europe, which was, you know, I toured over there. It was just, you know take your pick we're going down the rhine and having breakfast on white tablecloths in this train i canceled all

the airplanes and uh and uh you know everybody was moaning a bit and then when they got on the on the on the train that morning and we're having champagne and orange juice and almonds they all went you like this and i said well if it had been as big in canada we'd be pulling into regina in a van right about now so there's the comparative for you anyway yeah i'm delighted when i see so i i have seen WKRP mentioned, but we're talking a couple of bucks here or there. I think it's not much. Coffee money.

Yeah. It's interesting to hear you talk about, you know, suddenly the boomers are big in Europe or whatever. I had a guy here two days ago. His name's Matt Dusk. He's essentially like the crooner. You know, next to Bub buble you got matt dusk here and he's very popular in poland of all like he's on his way now to do a tour in poland because

poland has really embraced his uh you know crooner antics and i just find that always interesting that this guy who lives in you know the king's way in in uh tobaco here he just yeah he hid in poland way in tobiko here he just yeah he hid in poland yeah it's uh it's a big world out there and sometimes it's nice to see uh that it doesn't need the machinery of radio or record companies because that machinery has just grown so uh monotone uh in its search of demographic and and pleasing a demographic with only surefire top 10 billboard hits that there's kind of no there's no uh b teams out there there's nobody farming there's nobody springing a hit in in toled that, you know, catches ground fire. So that there's actually some of us who are able to still go out and play. And so good on Matt for being, for having a following halfway around the world. There's something that's really lovely about that.

thing that's really lovely about that, I guess in some respects, it's validating in a business that is pretty stingy with validation. You know, you're pretty much cast out after the age of 35, 40 now, and people my age, you know, it's a heresy to think that any of us are making records and still singing. God, you know, if I'd grown up in this era i would not have heard louis armstrong saying what a wonderful world or hello dolly i would have not heard frank sing in my way i would not have heard uh dave brubeck take five you know there is so much i never would have heard if it had been that monotonic programming we have now. So many places I want to take that. But one is, why is this music industry so ageist?

I still hear, oh, fun fact, when Cher put out Believe, it was the first top 40 hit or whatever, first number one hit for a woman over 40 or something to that effect yeah and it was primarily the gay community that uh that did that for share uh they were uh they were still buying records and i think some country artists now are probably the last bastion of selling CDs because they sell them on the road. Country artists basically have to live out of a trailer down in the US. And the touring, just year-round touring

is how they make their living. And their CD sales from touring are significant. So how we got to where we are, really, it's all about the narrow marketing view. Not really wanting to do any work, just wanting to play bona fide hits rather than make them hits and find the hits. I remember Gary Slate telling me on one occasion, he thought he should get extra points for playing a Canadian record first before it was a hit in the US. And I just thought, well, there you go, Gary, you've pretty much said what's wrong with the industry in one sentence. Well, there you go, Gary.

You've pretty much said what's wrong with the industry in one sentence. You know, what a knob. It just, it never ceased to amaze me. You know, the record companies always wanted it their way. And they wanted to be in control. And they sort of are to a point. You know, I mean, they virtually own spotify now so they're paying themselves to play the product that they basically have scooped the the copyrights on more than likely and they're doing 360 deals with artists so they've even got a piece of the merch for god's

sake so the record companies are just getting uglier. It's, you know, you wonder how far capitalism can go. And I think it's already getting malignant. It's getting pretty malignant. The be-all and the end-all. Well, so earlier today I had Ralph Ben-Murgy over here. He now lives in Hamilton, by the way. And he was going off on capitalism. And he works with the Green Party.

And this climate crisis that people seem to be pretty blasé about, he's rightfully upset about that. Well, yeah. The awful thing is, we are all on that treadmill our entire lifestyles are so wrapped around fossil fuels and capitalism we would have to figure out some way to completely unravel our societal structures uh you know to try and make capitalism more humane when all you know

by definition it seeks profit so by definition it's corrupt to start with it seats only seeks only profit i don't know you know you have the fear of the just of the word liberal in the united states which is hysterical in the true sense of the word hysteria uh you know george bush could spend billions of dollars on a false war in iraq but oh my god talk about getting your backs up if you might actually help the poor people in your own nation that's liberalism That's socialism right there. That's a bigger sin than bombing the hell out of somebody you don't even know. So when we're that upside down, I don't know how we unravel the mess. Well, Ian, with the world on fire, I think we need to dive into a little nostalgia. This will be our drug of the day here, a little nostalgia. So

I'm taking you way back of this one. So I'm going to play a little bit and then I'll fade it down. And I'm hoping you'll tell us a little bit about Tranquility Bass. The way she smiles is with me now The way she loves is with me now She don't love me anymore Think you love me no more Never wants to come around Never ever thinking of this heart

But anymore Never wants to come on the road Never ever thinking of this one but anyone Ian, what are we listening to here? Well, right at that moment, you were listening to the late, great Jack Zaza on flute, probably one of the biggest session men and one of the best musicians I've ever met. He played everything from oboe to harmonica, electric bass,

flute, as you just heard, a mandolin. Oh, just an amazing guy. And his son, Paul Zazzer, was quite a well-renowned Canadian film composer. Anyway, that was RCA's, I think, biggest, RCA Canada's biggest hit. The band was named by the vice president of the record division of Canada, Canadian RCA. His name was George Harrison, which I think is why he got the gig because he was a washing machine salesman,

um, before he, uh, ascended to the vice presidency of the record company. And so I always thought it was funny that, you know, the band was damned because we were signed to a label that apart from us, it had the Camden label that had Juliet on it. And it also had the Carlton show band and those were their claims to

Canadian content. And so here I was in a band that was, we were wearing frilly shirts and singing pretty poppy pop, and we were in a band named by a washing machine salesman. Who got the gig because they thought he was a different George Harrison. I think so. It just didn't portend to a solid future to me. But that record did, you know, on the Canadian playlist, I think it was top 20.

And I think on the overall playlist in Canada, it was certainly top 40 So it was amazing actually And this is what it was like When I was promoting that record With the RCA Promotions Man Scott was his first name I'm turning over his last name

He used to be the bass player in the Shays With David Clayton Thomas And Scott, we'd been down London, St. Thomas. And, oh, I was just so high that day. People loving the record and playing it. And then we're on our way back and he drops me off at the corner of 401 and highway six and found the rest of the way back to the hammer Hammer because he had an important date that night with a chick. And so I thought to myself, there it is.

There's Canadian stardom for you. You're going to have to thumb your way home after a gig. Oh, that's funny. When I listen to some tranquility bass, it's almost like, okay, here's Canada's answer to the mamas and papas sort of deal uh am i off with my way off base there no it's 1970 we were a vocal group it was you know two girls uh two guys three guys because one was a bass player bob doidge who later bought Grand Avenue Studios in Hamilton So yeah It was a frilly band We were having to do a lot of cover material

So yeah there were I think there were a couple of Moms and Poppin songs in there as well So why does it end for Tranquility Bass Why did it what Why did it end for Tranquility Bass why did it come to what why did it why did it end for tranquility base why did it come to an end well there was just no way to stay alive in canada with it you know you get into the club circuit and then pretty much you become a club band and that was the circuit at that point bobby

curtola was doing and Ray Hutchinson. And, you know, they were all doing like Tom Jones shows and those sorts of things. It was an older demographic in 1970 in the clubs than it was by the mid seventies where, you know, rock and roll had pretty much taken over. We weren't good to dance to.

So I don't think we toughened up until after that record was done. So, yeah, it basically dried up. There was just no money to be had. Then my wife got pregnant. So I thought, well, I got three mouths to feed now. So I left that band and I was fortunate enough to land a gig as a producer at radio at CBC for two years. Amazing. So while you're producing at CBC, you're also, I guess, working on your writing your solo material.

Yeah, absolutely. It was such a wonderful education. First of all, the first thing I did was I produced a live show once a week in Studio G in the old Jarvis Street facility, which I think was a girls' school originally. And so it was like a 20-piece orchestra and a 14-voice male chorus live off the floor onto quarter inch mono tape. So it was kind of the best ear training money could buy. And then I was also hired to do, they called them transcription recordings.

So we had a reciprocal agreement with BBC. So we'd, I just basically scoured the country and was producing a lot of up and coming singer songwriters in that window. And so I was in the studio at least two, three days a week. And it was wonderful learning through other writers' mistakes and trying to craft a good recording of this stuff. It was kind of an education in the progress of working. And it really went my whistle to start writing myself again. And then so at night, I basically wrote my first album.

All right. I'm going to play a cut that people would, you know, shoot me if I didn't ask you about this great jam here. But let's listen to a bit of it and then we'll talk to Ian Thomas about Painted Ladies. Painted Ladies I remember setting out just to see what I could see Streetcars rolling by and airplanes flying high They all meant nothing to me

No one ever looked my way or knew that I was there. I kept walking and the rain kept raining until all the streets were bare. Ooh, feeling fine, mama. Painted ladies and a bottle of wine, mama. Ooh, feeling wine, mama Ooh, feelin' good, mama They took my money like I knew they would La-la-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-la

La-la-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-la La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. There's a radio veteran named Evelyn Macko who came on this program, and she used to be on the radio as Wacko Macko, and she'd open her show every single day with Painted Ladies, and it still sounds fantastic, Ian. Wow. Well, it's, I mean, where the song came from,

it's pretty autobiographical. So I'm a son of a Baptist minister, now philosophy professor, married to my childhood sweetheart, professor, married to my childhood sweetheart, miles away, sharing dressing rooms with strippers. Some of them were turning tricks on the side, so it wasn't all bad. Anyway, long story short, you just found yourself pining for home. And particularly when my wife was with child and I was, you know, up in Thunder Bay or something or Sudbury miles away from anywhere.

And it, yeah, it was kind of a longing. And that's where the song came from. And this, this song appeared on your first album. Is that right? Yeah. And this results in a Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year in 1974. Do you know where that Juno Award is today, Ian? Yeah, I gave everything to Max. University has all my archives because I'm not one to sort of you know put awards up on the walls and yeah that's my record from San that's and here's a warm I you know I know some guys who's they have rooms that are kind of

tributes to themselves and I just seem kind of cheesy to me. So I thought before it all got wrecked or too rusty, I'd give a lot of this stuff. So McMaster got all the archives, except for, actually there's one back there. You can just see it up there. This guy here.

That's the Socan National Achievement Award. And it's actually a musical instrument. It's functional. Yeah, you can take the little time thing off. You can hit it with. That came after I made the donations to Mac,

but I'll probably give the rest of those to him as well. Oh, I thought maybe that first Juno there, it would be maybe on display somewhere, maybe on a mantle or a fireplace or something. No, they've got it at McMaster university somewhere. So yeah, no, not for me. I like to keep the house as neutral as possible. Although, okay. Granted I'm in my room. Hey, so, so that's a tell. So those are, cause most people are listening to the podcast right now. Uh, you just showed us that you're in your, what your, your home studio. Yeah. So when I moved 10 years ago,

we were out of the country and my studio was in the barn out there. Uh, and I had done, I think 22 movie scores out there and countless albums uh when we moved a lot of my stuff wouldn't fit down here so my desk ended up in new york city and i think larry gowan now has my 24 track machine uh wait wait wait that you're just dropping bombs here okay so firstly uh larry gowan just made made his Toronto Mike debut two months ago. So he's an FOTM. That means friend of Toronto Mike, Ian Thomas.

You are now an FOTM. Welcome to the club. Okay. Well, I love Larry. He's a good egg and a hell of a performer. Wonderful performer. So,

yeah. Um, I was told via the grapevine, he got my, uh, my studer. Okay. And, uh, and I, Tomvine he got my uh my studer okay and uh and i tom petty got my neve console i had a neve console back in uh i guess the early no the mid 80s and i bought the recording console that we we did uh if you're looking for Tranquility Base, we were the first group to perform on that console

when it was installed. We recorded some demos on that, and then we recorded, if you're looking. But the demos, we were the first people because we came in in downtime just after it had been installed, so they figured they'd break it in on us. Right.

And then I eventually bought that console when it came up and then i needed new tape heads and uh i wanted an automated uh neve console so i bought an amec console with automation and then that neve uh gil moore bought it for uh the triumph drawer bought it for the studio they had what they called I forget the name of the their studio it's up at Brampton Way and then I think they got another Metalworks Metalworks right and then I think they got another desk in, and I heard that my Neve ended up down at Tom Petty's garage. So kind of interesting. No, that's fascinating.

So you didn't know Tom Petty. It just got there through different channels. Okay. Gotcha, gotcha. Wow. Okay, so I'm curious. After you get that Juno Award, I know you hit the road you hit the road of April wine and I recently had, uh, Miles Goodwin on the program. I'm wondering how that experience went for you.

Well, it was all strange to me. Um, there were things, you know, their road manager carried a gun for God's sakes. And then, you know, that was just like, Whoa, what the heck is this all about? Well, we were playing big arenas and they were walking out with bags of money. So the guy's nickname was Rags. I forget what his whole name was. So, yeah, we did two weeks full of dates out there. And it was interesting.

You know, Miles and I sort of became friends of a sort. He's been out to a couple of my shows, some of the Lunch at Allen shows, actually. And I don't know if he's ever been out to any of my solo shows. And so we bump into each other from time to time or get in touch on the internet. And he's a really interesting character. I found the band was, you know, they were hardworking guys. There's no doubt about that.

They were out on the road a fair amount. And I thought Miles made some, some pretty good records in his time. You know, I always, that first hit of theirs, I think it was called fast train. I always loved that guitar break in that song. It was just really, really cool. And he was very playful with some of his production stuff too. I like that. You're my girl and enough is enough.

It was very, very, very cool. So I was always a fan of interesting production, and Miles certainly got himself into some of that. No doubt, no doubt. Would you mind if I played another Ian Thomas jam and pestered you of more questions about it? Here, go ahead. Here we go. on. One by one they disappear

The minds of science and nation leaders To meet again their destination Sweating in their seats at dissipation On the salt flats Of Nevada All those Who mattered Waited for the word

Oh pilot Oh pilot This paradise is love forever. Oh, pilot, oh, pilot, we place our trust in the fire To deliver us from the fire we have made I did mention the world was on fire here, but we got a pilot. Tell me about where this song came from, Ian. Well, I mean, obviously, it's about the world being screwed and uh uh hd wells got there first uh what was his um war of the worlds what are we talking about

the shape of things to come it was called right and it was a fabulous story it was about how the first world war never ended and with all the just destruction one of the lead characters who was played by sir ralph richardson um his rolls royce was being pulled by horses because there was no gas being produced and it was about how basically society started devolving. But one section of society, basically the flyers, the pilots, and they hold up somewhere in Switzerland, and this whole futuristic city evolved. It was a fabulous bit of work.

But this song was, I saw a documentary around then as well it was called oh something three darn if i can remember the name alternative three and they had some out some some takes from one of the apollo flights where one of the astronauts was looking on the dark as they're going around the dark side of the moon he said why didn't you tell us about what is that and then it went to white noise and so the whole deal was there was already a settlement on the far side of the moon and basically big business uh was just going to rape the world and move on right sounds familiar so that's kind of that's kind of the underlying story you know just going to rape the world and move on. Sounds familiar. So that's kind of the underlying story.

You know, and the elite few get to go and leave the vast destruction and the poor shape that the earth has left in after its resources have totally been expended. And they were dancing to this, and the disco. I loved that. Yeah, I guess this is about, so I guess to get the timelines right, so Painted Ladies is like 73, and what we're listening to now is like 79. Yeah, correct. To get that right, okay. and what we're listening to now is like 79.

Yeah, correct. To get that right. Okay. I want to ask a question on behalf of a gentleman who goes by the handle RockGolf. And RockGolf says, Ask Ian about his dinner with Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr. It was 1974. I was recording a long, long way album

at Trident Studios in London. And Ross Reynolds, who was the president of GRT that I was signed to at that point, he later became the president of Universal. He came to the studio. I was working at Trident Studios. And he said, Ian, you're coming to dinner with me tonight. I said, Russ, I got a lot of overdubs tonight. He said, no, no, you'd kick your own butt if you didn't come to this. He knew I was a huge Harry Nilsson fan. And so I had no idea. He wouldn't tell me.

So I went with him. Canceled the, you know, blew the studio time out that night. We went to the, there was an Inn on the park in london in those days went to that restaurant at the end on the park hotel and about five minutes later harry and ringo show up at the table hey ross glad you could make the dinner and now i get introduced to ringo and and Harry and another couple came to dinner too. Anyway, Ringo just basically was going on about, you know, how the Beatles would have been nothing without him. And he was sort of trying to rewrite history and clearly his fame at that point was so profound.

It just made him a bit, something of a fool because he didn't know how to be normal so he was kind of piping into you know you know without him the world wouldn't exist almost and anyway so i just holed up down at the other end of the table with harry and he was an old movie fan like me and it turned out so was ringo and that that was sort of the salvation of the conversation because we got going on a it was a great old film called Random Harvest with Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman and uh I had remembered the name of the director and uh Harry didn't think it was that and I remembered his name because it was a Welsh sounding name. Even though he was Jewish, he had a Welsh sounding first name. His name was Mervyn.

And it was Mervyn Leroy, I think his name was. And he directed the film. And to find out who it was for sure, that's when Harry broke in on Ringo's extolling his virtues and brilliance in the in the in the beatles they say hey ring because ringo had an insane old movie collection he had on film he had all the 16 millimeters of these film and he said who directed random harvest and he said and without missing a beat ringo said i think that was mervyn LeRoy.

So we were thinking it might have been one of those great sort of romance directors. There were a couple of them that did a lot of Kate Hepburn movies. And, you know, at my age, I forget names ridiculously. But it was just a wonderful. And that was the night of the Ali Fraser fight. So they left dinner around nine to 10, the, uh, the,

um, Allie Fraser fight. It was fantastic. Which one is that? The, uh, the thrill in Manila. Which one is that?

Well, it was 1974. I don't know where it was. Joe Fraser that I don't think that took place in. Did that take place? I thought Allie Fraser was, uh, in Manila,

but I could be wrong. That might have been the rematch. Okay. It might have even been Foreman in Manila. I remember... No, that was in the Rumble in the Jungle. That one was there. Okay, yeah.

Don King wants you to keep your nicknames, all your slogans for these fights straight. I can't remember, but it took place in 74, and it was a January night. I can't remember what night it was, but that's how that came to be. It was Ross Reynolds who put that together. Awesome, awesome. Here I'm frantically Googling. I think that was Joe Frazier.

That was number two, and it was da-da-da-da-da, this one was at Madison Square Gardens, apparently, in January 1974. Yeah, January 28, 1974, so the rematch. Super Fight 2, they were billing it as, but yeah, New York City. There you go, okay.

What did we do in the days before Google, Ian? I just want to know we just we just didn't know we like i think so okay i'm hoping we could uh talk a little bit about your brother i did get a note from emily elizabeth and it was uh this time i don't have any questions unless you can ask him about his favorite memory with his brother and i'm curious um what you can share again Again, Dave Thomas was recently on Toronto Mike. It was a rather deep dive into all of this. You did appear on SCTV.

From your perspective, what do you remember about your brother being on SCTV and you joining him for a sketch of the Great White North? Dave was the quintessential, and remains to this day, the quintessential and remains to this day the quintessential big brother and and one of my closest if not my closest confidant uh i love my brother dearly he makes me laugh i make him laugh we laugh on the phone at each other at least two three times a week um he called me because the runner that album the runner was out and hold on was a hit at that point in on canadian radio and he said hey would this help you out of the states because we're broadcasting in the states now would it help

you to do a spot on on on sctv and i said are you kidding sure it would and i was in the middle of a tour so i was going past edmonton where they were shooting and um uh so dave set it up uh with rick it was complete nepotism and and so only two people ever ever appeared on the set of the great white north one was me and the other was tony bennett that's a fun fact isn't it yeah and his son was a big bob and doug fan was responsible for tony bennett doing uh sctv so that was a lovely memory i think probably one of the most meaningful memories we've had as brothers was when we did uh it did a nine show run around 2007 or eight, something like that. We got together and wrote a review, just the two of us.

It was called Brothers Forever. And we laughed so hard writing it. And some nights we even laughed harder when we went right off script and off the deep end it was just uh it was great fun great fun i love love to hear it absolutely and i absolutely loved my uh my time with your brother uh we zoomed it because he's he's not local here he's not local or local but he uh he was amazing and so giving of his stories, as you are, so you're cut from the same cloth here. Do you have a relationship with Rick Moranis? Only through David, really.

And also he was, well, when he used to be a jock at Chum FM, he played the hell out of Pilot, which is why I had to do pilot when i did that show and you got to play pilot that was my favorite song and at this point in time it was still fresh in canada it was only i think two years since it was on the radio and whenever he got a and you know a slot he would always play pilot when he was a a d. And then when he was putting out a country record, he sent me a copy of it to listen to before it came out. The rough mixes, I guess, the sort of country satire.

It was pretty fun. He has really good musical instincts. And we've had some really, really good gabs. And when my son broke his back and became paraplegic, Rick became heavily involved in the big fundraiser that was put together. Marty got the ball rolling on that. And then Dave got involved sort of producing it with Andrew Alexander. And it helped my son immensely. It was overpowering for me. So it was a big reunion.

Catherine O'Hara, Gene Levy, Dave, Rick Moranis, Danny. Danny came on board. And some kids in the hall came to some spots. Rick Mercer came on to be cannon fodder for Jiminy Glick, one of Marty's characters. And they were just, Andrea Martin couldn't make it. She sent a whack of dough to the thing online. It was just this old family that all we, you know,

I'd go to Second City whenever I was in Toronto. You know, if I finished a concert, I'd go out to the Fire Hall Theater for the improvs and, you know, came to love the lot of them. And they were just such a good cohort group, even though they all went their own ways. I always loved that Dave and Paul Schaefer from the Godspell days and Marty, they still get together to this day. And it used to involve Eugene and they used to meet in Las Vegas at least once a year, the four of them.

But I think Gene's wife put an end to that for him coming. But I've always loved that there's been that support system of good friends like Marty and Paul for Dave, because, you know, L.A. can be just such a soulless place. for Dave because you know LA can be just such a soulless place oh that was that's like just wore my heart to hear everybody coming together uh for your son there and then unbelievable just just lovely just lovely and then the people who contributed to the auction both Getty and Alex from Rush came on board and um you know Getty uh autographed one of his bases and put that up for auction. And Alex put up one of their platinum albums autographed by the band. And I think they raised about 50 grand with those items towards the auction. And Rick Emmett came on board and donated some guitar lessons.

and donated some guitar lessons. Oh, it just, there was such a rallying. And I remember Alex being asked by somebody, so why did you get involved in this, free in Thomas? And he said, well, he is one of our brothers and his kid's been taken down. So it was just, honestly, when they all got together at Second City for the rehearsal that afternoon, I had to go to the washroom. I just cried my eyes out.

It was just such an overwhelming outpouring of love and caring. Anybody I tried to say thanks to said, Ian, I know you would have played at anything for any one of my kids. And that's true. I would. So it was, and Marty got the ball rolling. Wow. Because Dave felt a little awkward at first.

But because Marty got the ball rolling, felt a little awkward at first, but because Marty got the ball rolling, he was able to then jump on and, and basically get everybody. And at the actual event who walks in late with his own security guy and sits next to my mother, but Michael Douglas made me laugh, but he was there. He was a huge, he was a huge bob and doug fan wow i did not know that and norman julison was there last night that night as well in his 90s my god wow he was he was really uh um it was a very powerful event oh man i'm glad there um i'm sorry it had to happen but uh i'm glad that everybody came to support you like that that's uh beautiful to hear now when when you're you know when you're

hobbing around the set in 1981 you know playing pilot and hold on for on the great white north like do you have i guess do you have any idea like, oh, all these people are going to go off and become big stars? Like, that is quite a moment in Toronto history where all these people kind of go off and, like, they're still stars. It's quite a happening there. Well, it was a happening. It was more this. I've been watching them since, you know, the theater days at the fire hall. I've been watching them since, you know, the theater days at the fire hall. And they were just such a bunch of talented people. Some were better actors than others. it didn't matter because it was a whole it was the

whole ball of wax um you know i remember when dave he was head writer for quite a while and you know how he finally got some sketches out of out of john because john always had to go and do errands so he's always leaving the writing room. They've sent two guys to go with John cause he'd be doing material while he was driving his car. And these guys were scribbling it all down and they got some great bits out of that. Wow. Johnny was such a sweetheart. I, I did the film score of his directorial debut. I got a phone call out of the blue. And it was Johnny.

He said, Ian, I don't know why I didn't think of you first. I hired this other guy. And he turned out to be a real poo head. This is John. So I take it you didn't like what he delivered. And John said, no, it was awful. Would you do the score for my film? And it was called Hostage for a score for my film and uh it was called hostage for a day with george

wint and uh so i said look i'll i'll uh i'll do this deal with you come on over because he was going back and forth past my house in winona every day he was shooting canadian bacon in niagara falls so bring me the film we'll watch the film leave me with a copy of the film pick three scenes crucial scenes to you i'll dummy up uh some uh some underscore for those three scenes and uh if you if you like it i'll do the film if you don't i I'll do the film. If you don't, I'll give you the name of somebody who I think is way better than me. So he said, that's fair. So he left the film.

So I think about four nights later, I dummied the scenes up, and I did with orchestral libraries. I was doing a lot of movies in those days. And so I went to his hotel room at the Sheraton in Niagara Falls. We lined up the video and we lined up a tape in his ghetto blaster and hit play at the same time. So he was able to hear the underscore. and hit play at the same time. So he was able to hear the underscore.

And in the middle of this scene where this airplane is coming in, it's George Wendt's dream of owning this beautiful cabin in Alaska somewhere, just on a beautiful lake. And so it was sort of the heart of the picture for John. So this tears started streaming down his face when he's listening to music and watching the picture. Before the cue was even over, he was on the phone to, I think the producer's name was Richard Brooks. And it was, Richard, listen to my music, listen to my music. And so I did the score for the whole film and uh we hung out at the mix

and he was just oh what a sweet soul i loved how the whole world loved john candy didn't matter if the movie he was in was crap johnny was good the movie wasn't so good that would that would be the worst you'd ever hear about johnny gone too soon man gone too soon yeah what a sweetheart wow uh maybe a quick little break here if you don't mind i'm gonna play uh you mentioned uh you you sang hold on when you were on the great white north with uh your brother and uh i'm going to play a little bit of that hopefully you'll share a few stories here. Okay. Don't rush me just this once I wanna make this moment last Slow down the pace, there's no hurry I can't let another pass me by again Let me be the one to say when I've had enough Just let me close my eyes

No more lies The way things are this minute So when you're gone I can go on If memory can hold me Believe what I'm feeling Should time trap it And I'm feeling Shook, tied, trapped, faded I'm stealing something away

Hold on, nothing to say Tell me why I feel this way Life wouldn't be worth living without you All along I've been the pretender me worth living without you all along I've been the pretender but now that's gone forever nobody's ever

loved me like you do nobody's broken through I absolutely love that story where your brother asks, would it help sales in the States if you came and sang this on SCTV? And there you were. That's just beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. What a big brother. Lovely guy. What can you tell me about writing Hold On? Well, I nearly threw that damn song out because I could never get past the sort of... I like the changes. I thought the changes had a really kind of cool...

It was a wonderful little cycle. So I really, it was sort of reminiscent of an old Motown almost thing, you know? And so. Let this change. I love the changes in the thing. So I liked it musically. And I was going to throw it out because I could never get past this kind of huggy bud, kissy face, typical love song lyric. And that it had the title Hold On.

I think there's about 10 or a dozen hold-ons out there dan hill had a hold on and rick emmett had a hold on i don't know was it canadians hold on a sec there fella so i uh so when my wife was I was talking to Catherine about it, and she said, if you throw that song out, you're an idiot. I said, well, the lyrics. She said, don't run your lyric down. The song makes me feel good. Leave it be.

So I thought, well, that's as good a reason as any, if it makes somebody feel good. So I put it out. That's some good advice. Pardon me? That's some good advice you got there. Yeah. And then it was a bit of a lifeline for Santana

because they weren't going to put the Shango album out because it didn't have a single. So that ended up being the single for the Shango album. Well, I'm glad you mentioned the Santana version. I'm now now gonna ask you another rock golf question uh he wants to know which cover and i have a list like this is like multiple choice but which of these covers are your favorite you ready okay yeah right before your eyes by america the runner by the manfred Man's Earth Band,

Hold On by Santana, and he's got All I Do or As the Days Go By, which were big hits in Australia for Daryl Brathwaite. Brathwaite, yeah. Brathwaite, my apologies. I liked the creativity of Manford Mann's The Runner. They went very ethereal with the lyric, and they sort of underscored the lyric,

as you would a film, I thought. I thought it was a really musical and interesting take on a song. And it was underneath the moonlight Passing songs till your heart beats in the moonlight Like a drum Through the night, through the dawn Behind you another runner is gone Don't look back, you've been there

Feel the mist as your breath gives the air And it's underneath the moonlight Passing songs to your heart Beating the moonlight Like a drum And you will run your time Shooting stars across the sky And you will surely cross the line To pass on the flame

Sun come up, sun go down Hear the beat, see the swell on the ground Watch your step, keep your cool Though you can't see what's in front of you And it's underneath the moonlight Passing souls to your heart beats in the moonlight Like a drum And you will run your time

A shooting star across the sky And you will surely cross the line It's the pass on the flame Pass on the flame Through the night Through the night, through the dawn Behind you another runner is born Don't look back, you've been there See the mist as your breath hits the air

And it's underneath the moonlight Passing suns to your heartbeats in the moonlight Like a drum And you will run your time A shooting star across the sky And you will surely cross the line Some of the other ones were regurgitations of my own versions. And though I'm very grateful for the residuals and I'm very validated and complimented as a songwriter that somebody would place their career, place, you know, that much faith in one of my songs when their career was depending on its success. So I've been very grateful in that regard but i think musically the that uh that version of the runner i found it quite interesting and i liked it a lot now i'm curious what is your most lucrative song what's the most lucrative song you've ever written that's interesting

well some of the boomer stuff in Europe was because I owned it. Rather than a record company owning everything, I owned the publishing and copyrights. That's an interesting point there. Okay, so the boomers, you mentioned, like that's like your 90s band, 91 through 2002. There's no middle man, so to speak, to use that nomenclature. So all proceeds go straight to

the artist copyright and mechanicals go straight to me yes uh and so authors share uh publishers share and mechanicals um so the mechanicals are x number of cents per record, per song, per record sold. I would say probably, though, I think the Runner did really well worldwide. But America's cover right before your eyes was huge in places like Italy and stuff. So they all kind of varied um i think the because the braithwaite cover uh of it i think as the days go by it was top five they were both top five uh all i do did really well uh as well for for dale brawaite. They were both from an album called Add Water, it was called.

And actually Anthem has just released that for downloads recently. So yeah, Daryl, lovely guy. I met him and actually he connected with me. I guess there was a big kind of, he did a big sort of nostalgic gig and sent me a video of it. There he was doing it as the days go by to a huge stadium full of people.

And, you know, as soon as the lick started out, the audience went nuts. And anyway, he sent me a little video of that song and the stadium going nuts for one of my songs, Down Under, with Daryl performing. He did a great job on it as well. As you can hear, I'll Zoom when necessary, but not necessarily Zoom. Zoom when necessary, but not necessarily Zoom. Ideally, all my guests are in person because then I give them fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery.

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cannabis accessories. Now let's get back to the podcast. It's just a wonderful feeling because your songs are like your kids, you know, and when they're embraced by other people, it's, you know, it's like when Bette Midler did a, she did a cover song called To Comfort You and the great Arif Mardin, one of the wonderful old Atlantic producers, did a wonderful job producing it. I love the heart she gave the song. She sang the daylights out of it. So each cover has its own things to me. You know, the America cover was, they did a wonderful job on. I think Bobby Columbia heard me playing that at the CNE.

I was opening for the Beach Boys and he happened to be in the audience that night and, and then got ahold of me for that song and did a good job on producing it. I thought, so yeah, it's, I look at all of that. I'm very grateful for people who have embraced my songs. Basement Dweller wrote in and said, is it, he said,

did Mr. Thomas ever receive any feedback from Phil Collins regarding the air pirates? Awesome song slash video. And love was. Apparently he saw it. Cause I think he was, he may have been on we, a Warner's electric Atlanta Atlantic in the same

time. It was just making fun of his in the air tonight, big drums, except this was the drum field that didn't stop. And we just kept. Because it was all samples. We took it right down to the bottom where the sample was just like, it was just, just a silly, silly takeoff. So no,

I never heard back from Phil on that. And it was just, it was a friend of mine. We're both having our midlife crises and we're depressed. So we just did an album full of bad fart jokes and satire. And it was far easier to sell a fart joke to a record company than it was to song in that. Doug Chappelle at Polygram, no, Virgin. He was president of Virgin at that point.

And he died laughing on the first track and said, I want it. I'm signing this. I left his office after a 20-minute meeting with a contract. It was hilarious. Amazing. We did speak earlier about you appearing on SCTV with your brother Dave and Rick Moranis there. But also you did the theme song for Strange Brew, which I'll just say,

I love watching Strange Brew because it's funny, but I love seeing old scenes of Toronto, like the waterfronts and everything. Like Toronto has changed so much since they filmed that movie. It's nice to look back at how it used to look. Yeah, yeah, definitely a piece. He's star there, huh?

It was great fun. The way that came to me was they had hired a very well-renowned film composer to do that. And they had, he hadn't brought them anything that worked for the opening or the closing of the film. So I had this phone call. the closing of the film. So I had this phone call. It was on a Tuesday and they were starting the master mix on the following Tuesday. So I wrote like a son of a bitch. Wednesday came up with two ideas. No, wait a second. It was, it was a Thursday. They called me. That was it on Friday. I present them two ideas. They liked the idea of the, the song too much strange group. And

so I then created a finished the song as a song. I booked phase one studios for, and I had to finish up something for closing credits too. So I figured the structure out for that. And then I hired a bunch of players and went up to Phase One Studios. Gary McCracken from Max Webster was free on that Sunday for drums. Dave Cooper was in on guitar. Terry Watkinson played some of the synth stuff for me. He was in Max Webster as well. I just had a real kind of off the wall bunch of players. And I did some synth parts and sang the vocals on it. And I FedExed to them Monday. It arrived Tuesday morning as they were setting up for the master mix.

Wow. So it was such a little, it was definitely a crash job. was it was definitely a crash job um you know as i listen to that track now sure could have used a metronome i'll tell you uh tempo is a little fluid um but the sounds are just so the era that uh it it's sort of where it almost had sort of a thomas dolby thing with that blonk blon clonk, clonk, you know, all those goofy kind of synthesis sounds, indigenous to the era. It was, and you know, that's, there you go. There's Dave and Rick again.

You know, would you do this for us? You got to help us out here. Well, that's what family does, right? Yeah, man. And it was just great fun just great fun uh what was it like uh the red green show you you've been uh credited as a actor in the early days of the red green show i did about six years um well steve smith called me up and said, you want to come over and play and just play a dumb character for me? We got this guy, Dougie Franklin, and he's a monster truck nut.

And he wears blue coveralls because he's always working on it, on his monster truck. And I thought, well, that sounds like fun. So I went over I did it for about six years and uh and I I realized I didn't have the patience to be an actor where you just sit around all day and and then you go out maybe do 30 seconds of copy and and um i did not have the patience for that and so we sort of parted ways after six years and he was starting to bring in you know some other guys to work you know like gordon pinson and graham green and god i remember graham green when he was a roadie for um crowbar back in the uh probably the i met him for the first time uh in the 70s uh

uh it was a band date playing wilford laurie university they had a pub on the third floor and anyway i was over at murray mclaughlin's for dinner one night and graham was there and i didn't know that i knew him and i said graham damn it you look so familiar and you know of course i loved you and and you know uh the wolf what was that dances with wolves dances with wolves i said you just brought so much dignity to your role and humor. It was fantastic. Where do I know you from? He says, come on, Ian, think back. Wilford Laurier University.

And I, oh, my God, you wrote it for Crowbar. His hair in those days went right down to his ass. It was really long, shiny black hair. And the reason we met was they were just so tired after their gig. They came back the day we were loading in to pick up their B-3, and they had to carry it down three flights of stairs. So they were on one of the landings when i came in and we introduced ourselves and told a bunch of jokes and just had a wonderful gab um green green i'd forgotten that

when you were on the set of the uh red green show did you uh become friendly with my buddy jeff lumby yes yes very much so uh jeff was a septic tank cleaner yes that was his gig on that lovely guy jeff and uh he was a good radio guy he was in radio for a good long time i think well here's his connect so you know his connection to the aforementioned humble howard is that uh lumbee and humble how Howard were the duo in Montreal and when they were recruiting for a new morning show on 102.1 which was called CFNY

I guess Lumbee didn't want to go. He wanted to stay in Montreal. He had a girlfriend and a life there and Howard said I'll go and he ended up going to Toronto and teaming up with Fred Patterson who was already at 102.1 Right, right, right Yeah, that was the big deal. Yeah, and Howard's from Moose Jaw, I think. That's right. Yeah, Howard's from Moose Jaw. Sorry, go ahead.

Well, we actually both showed up at, they have a big book festival out there. And it was either my first or my second novel had just come out. And I was invited to go there. And Murray McLaughlin's autobiography was coming out in paperback. So he was invited. So we were both invited to go there. I didn't really want to go. Didn't make much sense monetarily. And then the chap who ran the festival said would you and murray

consider doing a closing night uh concert and uh so we and it'll be emceed by howard uh because howard had i think it might have been some sort of biographical book out at the time so anyway here we were at book fest and he was he did a great job emceeing that night. And Murray and I were on fire that night. It was just, we had a good bottle of wine before the show and everybody laughed their heads off. It was such a fun night. So yeah, and then I ended up doing Humble's show a few times and he was sort of in the West End of of toronto area okay so he's now he's back there but yeah he was like he was like bluer west village oh but no you're sorry in this era

you're talking about the podcast era he's like he was on 30th street which is in uh i don't know what they call that area alderwood i think but now they've moved their look to uh queensway and islington area of the topical oh yeah okay that's where they are and quick uh lumby fact for you before i get to the the topic everybody wants me to ask you about uh jeff lumby and his wife moved to france they live in france now no kidding yeah wow if you had said that's where jeff was because they were out in the country somewhere in canada yeah they had a huge property for their dogs to run around and everything. Yeah.

Wow. Good for them. Yeah. That's fantastic. Hey, you're going to have to find where he is. I'll go visit crash. You should,

you should, they, do you kid me? Lumby would love it. Just bring some wine. And, uh, actually he's got the wine.

He's in France for goodness sakes. So, yeah, absolutely. Uh, my friend. Okay. So on on this show we have a healthy but uh rabid fascination with tears are not enough the charity single for famine relief in africa that david foster helped foster pun intended okay did you sing on tears are not enough yes i did i was in the back and as soon as the camera went on this girl i'm not going to mention her name jumped in front of me and i thought that oh man so you didn't see the thing about check your egos at the door right

right anyway i wasn't there for that reason and when a woman from ethiopia spoke about some family members she had lost it became very very real and all of that stuff just seemed so ridiculously petty to me so very worthwhile cause didn't raise as much money as governmental organizations raised i think they only raised three million or something, which is better than a slap in the head with a fish. But it was the point that people gathered to do that every once in a while. It sort of gives my faith in humanity just kind of a little bit of a boost. And about two weeks ago at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, we actually gathered and did that again because they were honoring Foster and Jim Valance and Brian Adams and Alanis Morissette

and Daniel Lavoie from Quebec. And then we did Tears Are Not Enough. It was great. Incredible, actually. Dan Hill was recently on the program, and he was kind of letting me know that this was going to happen because, of course, I had all these Tears Are Not Enough questions for him. But who asked you?

Do you remember who invited you to the recording of Tears Are Not Enough? I think they put feelers out to managers to get the word to. So I think Ray Daniels was asked to send all his label guys over. So it was Kim Mitchell and myself. And I think Getty went as well. Getty's got a big, a big part in that opening phrase in their frame there. Yeah.

Right. Okay. So that was that, that was the connection for that. You know, it was it was really interesting to see everybody kicking in on that. It was it was it was a fun afternoon. Did you witness the moment? It's gone down in history now, I guess. But, you know, Neil Young was singing his part in his Neil Young way.

And David Foster asked him to stay in tune. And Neil said something to the effect of, uh, that's like, just, that's like my sound, man. Yeah. He was a little flat. And, uh, so Foster wanted another take. We didn't have auto tune yet. That's my sound, man. And, uh, you know, cause Ann Murray hit her post one take and nails it. I mean, Anne always had a wonderful pitch. She ended up doing a song of mine as well called Good Again.

It was just after her manager died. And she was playing that Boomers record over and over. And then I get a phone call, you know, I'm listening to this damn record over and over. And you mind if I put it on the next record? It was very, very sweet. Anyway, it was fun seeing everybody gather for that. And there was, I thought a lot of positioning people were getting into to make sure they'd be on camera. And I just went to the back row.

I just didn't want to get into that. Well, good for you i've heard i wasn't there i wasn't there but i've heard maybe certain a certain member of a certain band that had very platinum blonde hair i won't name any names but i've heard some stories yeah it can't be helped you know it's it's a business based on selling yourself. And so that stuff is going to occur. It's going to occur. I'm going to close with questions about lunch at Allen's. But first,

you know, we talked about how the SCTV family and more kind of came out to support you by like a reunion of sorts. But of course there was also the Martinin scorsese reunion at the winter garden theater there here in downtown toronto that was recorded i know what happened because i know even uh even rick moranis was there and he hasn't done a lot lately other than your your special event there but uh were you at this reunion no no and it took place very very close to uh the fundraiser for my son and the reason it had to be bob and doug and friends was because they couldn't use the sctv

reunion thing because that was scorsese's big pitch. So because it was Bob and Doug, believe it or not, I think that ended up attracting even more interest. Right. When the friends basically included everybody more or less from SCTV plus Danny Aykroyd, who of course Dave started in the, the, the stage company with. So, yeah, it was filmed. And I think it was on Showtime or something like that. I don't think so.

So I don't think it's seen the light of day. I don't know why. I don't even think your brother knows. Well, if your brother knows why, he wasn't telling me. Okay. I was wondering if you would spill any tea here. Why is Martin Scorsese sitting on this reunion footage that I do not believe has been seen in the public yet?

I don't know. I know they did it before a live audience somewhere. Yeah, at the Elgingin there what's it called the winter garden theater right now yes um no idea maybe because it's it's probably just more of a q a that you know nobody they couldn't get together on doing any bits uh so that it had to be kind of more of a just live off the floor approach. Well, I say free the footage. Give it to the people.

I demand to see this footage. I got to protest somewhere, right? I'll protest outside Scorsese's office. All right, my friend. You've been so generous with your time. Charles wants to know, will your albums ever get remastered and reissued? They're in the process of doing it. In the last month, Adwater and Riders on Dark Horses have both come out. A company, I forget what it's called, has reissued the Glider album and the runner album,

but both of those albums are going to be issued by Anthem again. So they are issuing my entire back catalog right up to the levity album. I did an 87 and, um, one by one, they're coming out. Love to hear it. Murray McLaughlin's been here he's an fotm

mark jordan's been here he's an fotm you've now made your toronto mic debut unfortunately we had to zoom it because you're in the hammer but at some point hopefully we get to meet but you're now an fotm cindy church has not yet appeared on tronomite i need to rectify that but this of course is lunch at allen's what can you tell me about uh lunch at allen's well murray and i used to get together at allen's uh to complain about the music business and how uh you know and this is on the danforth right there by uh yeah yeah of course it was murray's favorite watering hole he had his book release party there as well when he put his uh autobiography anyway uh i had put together a song circle of myself and murray rick ammett and uh david

wilcox we did it at hamilton place uh as part of Hamilton Music Week. And it was great fun. And then after Murray's heart surgery, he had quit playing. He had an offer to put together a song circle. But I got this phone call from him asking me if I'd come out and do that with him. But he said, I don't want to do a song circle. I want all of us to all bring whatever we have instrumentally to everybody's songs and back each other up. So, you know, the problem with song circles is three people look bored and pick their noses

while another person plays their song and waits for their turn. Right. So the nice thing about lunch at Allen's is it's interactive. So we called Mark and he was on board. Originally we wanted Shirley Eichart, but she was so afraid of performing. She was getting panic attacks, God bless her, that she couldn't face performing. And I had just done a gig with Cindy

and I mentioned to Murray, well, what about Cindy Church? She sings like a bloody angel. She's just a sweet, sweet voice. And she's in quartet with Sylvia Tyson. So she's got some serious miles playing the Coast Coast. Anyway, it was just a marriage made in heaven. We got together for the first rehearsal and I think we had eight gigs across northern ontario and uh that was the eight

gig tour that we'd sort of put it together for and then all the theater owners started talking to other theater owners and pretty soon we were playing coast to coast and we thought okay well let's do a dvd and emi was all over. So we did one at the Music Hall on Bathurst Street. Bathurst Music Hall? It's an old Methodist church, I think. Anyway, that was over 20 years ago now. And we are still touring. So I've never been in anything this long with the same people ever

with the exception of my wife for 52 years now um but this lunch at allen's thing it i get together with friends and the dinners before the shows are as much fun as the shows and we just take all the goofy stuff we're talking about over dinner right onto the stage that night and it's just uh it's delightful it's fun and if somebody wanted to check out you mentioned just you're finishing up your ontario uh leg of the tour you're you're still on the road so where would somebody go to find out when and where and to buy tickets? Well, you can go to lunch at allens.com and I think the dates are, are there or Shantaro productions, which is the production company. And so they're on the web as well. And you know, if you go there, you'll find the artists they represent and where they're going to be.

So we start on the 25th at the Oakville Performing Arts Center, and we're all over. We're up into North Bay. We're up into Sudbury, Collingwood. We're the Capitol Theater in Port Hope. We're just all over. The Theater in Barry. I forget the name of that theater at, uh, at the college there. So yeah, it's, uh, you can find those dates online. Lunch at allens.com. Ian, that was amazing. I hope, hope you're okay. I took 90 minutes

of your life here, but, uh, I have no regrets. It was great. Yeah. You're editing it down for a five minute insert, right? Oh, I was supposed to record this. I thought this was. It was great. Yeah, you're editing it down for a five-minute insert, right? Oh, I was supposed to record this? I thought this was a private chat here. Thanks so much for doing this, man. My pleasure. All the best. And that brings us to the end of our

1,135th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Ian is at Ian C. Thomas. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta are at Palma Pasta.

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Are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all next week. Everything is kind of rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow, snow Warms me today And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well, you've been under my skin

for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears 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 Wants me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who, yeah I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah

I know it's true How about you? All that picking up trash and they're putting down roads. And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can. Maybe I'm not and maybe I am. But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray.

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and green well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain and I've

kissed you in places I better not name and I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour but I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up

Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine The wind is cold but the smell of snow warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now, everything is rosy Yeah, yeah, yeah