Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - In Loving Memory of Custom: Toronto Mike'd #974

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Mike talks about the passing of Custom, a.k.a. Duane Lavold, with music and clips from episodes with Rosie and Roz Weston.

Thank you. Alone for the first time in this crumbling space Winches on ceilings, needles and other traces Of past ambitions, industries and themes When I leave here they'll find tears and strains Clean windows for someone else's dreams Das war's für heute. to say goodbye This past Wednesday I learned that my friend Custom also known as Dwayne LaVold

had passed away suddenly at the young age of 54 My sincere condolences to Dwayne's family and all of his friends, his many, many friends. This is some very sad news. I'm told he passed away on December 18, 2021 as a result of cardiac arrest. I thought I'd take this opportunity to spin some custom jams and revisit some conversations about custom I've had over the years on Toronto Mic'd. Let's go way back to March 6th, 2013.

It's hard to believe that was almost nine years ago when my dear friend Rosie and I talked about custom and I shared several details as to how I got to know the man. The song I'm playing in the background is called Goodbye and it's one of dozens of unreleased custom tracks The song I'm playing in the background is called Goodbye,

and it's one of dozens of unreleased custom tracks I've been enjoying these past 15 years. This is from episode 26 of Toronto Mic'd. Movies, although I have watched some good movies on the plane rosie do you know this song at all i do not okay interesting so in 2002 let's say like 11 years ago this song was i would call it a pretty big alternative rock hit. It's called Hey Mister. Let's see if the refrain rings a bell with you.

I was going to say, maybe I'll know it. Like 102.1 would have played this, for example. Whatever they were then, Edge 102. So I used to run a site, I don't run it anymore, but I used to run a site.

I don't run it anymore, but I used to run a site with my buddy Mark Carey called Smells Like Sour. And we ran it for years. Really? Yeah, like 1999 to 2005 or something. I did not know this. Yeah. So Smells Like Sour, the premise was

you would nominate a song to be included on the bi-yearly Smells Like Sour compilation, which was like 20 songs every six months. And let's say you heard a good alt-rock song that you dug, like let's say that one. You'd submit it. And then there was a forum to discuss the merits of the song, like whether it was SLS-worthy or not. So this was our fun project from the 90s. And every six months, we put out a smells like sour compilation

which was essentially just uh an illegal company we would just we would we would locate the songs from whatever napster whatever was the source of the time and we would put together the best 20 songs that we were digging from the previous six months so in 2002 i wrote about customs hey mister because i really dug that song. I liked the sound. I liked his blend of like, there's like a folksy rock hip hop-ish blend that I've always really liked.

Sounds good, yeah. He found me because I was ranking very highly for Customs Hey Mister and he wrote me an email. I love these stories when people find you. It's so, they're great. They're my favorite. And this is 03, I I think when we hooked up so we start chatting through email

it turns out his name is Dwayne and he's from Calgary but he's living in a Manhattan loft and he's got this one album called Fast and that was the big hit, Hey Mister, and it was a big hit but it was one hit off the album although I had the album and it was a really cool album

so me and him for the next 10 years, I'd say, because we're on 10-year anniversary now, every once in a while, he would record a new song in his loft. He did it all himself, like I'm doing right now. And he would send me a song and ask me for my feedback because it was going to be on his imminent new album. And he had an imminent new album every single year for the last eight years, I'd say,

to a point where I actually, I used to get excited about it, and I used to help him run a website for a while, his custom website. And then I just, he became the boy who cried wolf. Like, I'd get the new songs. Like, this album never materialized. Like, it was sort of like all the ducks were lined up. So he has this one album called

Fast in 2002. And now he becomes an independent artist without a label. And he had a new distribution deal for a new album. It was always five months away. For the next ten years, it was five months away. So it's always been five months away. And he was always sincere

about it. The greatest guy, we had a great relationship, he wants to play my wedding. He wants to come and play my wedding on June 15th. Really? Yeah, he's Canadian who lives in New York.

I've heard of Custom. This is Custom, yeah. I have to admit, I'm not that familiar with that song, but it's lovely. But over the years, I've collected,

I have about 50, five zero, unreleased Custom tracks that I have that are amazing, but he's never put out a second album. But I have a question, why did he's never put out a second album. But I have a question.

Why did he not have a label after releasing the first album? Because he was with some company called Artist Direct, and it went under. So his label went under, and he was basically labelless. And no one picked him up? No one picked him up. Oh, okay. I think there's a lot of artists with similar stories.

But he became this one. So he is a bonafide one-hit wonder, I'd say by every definition of the term. And the greatest guy of the greatest tunes that I dig, but none of it's seen the light of day. But once again, he swears. A new album is coming out in 2013, and he's planning a tour in a new album,

and he's got a new website launched, and he's darn serious about it. But I just wondered if you had heard of Hey Mister, and I wanted to share this. The last 10 years, I've been this confidant for Custom the musician, and he's the most awesome guy. One time, my ex had to be in New York to visit a friend, and he invited her to his big party.

And during this night of craziness, Mark Wahlberg is showing up, and it's just like Manhattan. It's one of those stories from girls or whatever. Custom is definitely on my consciousness. So he needs to release this album. He definitely needs to release it. Well, yeah, of course he does. He's got so much great material and no distribution.

Basically, he should roll his own, right? But he's trying to get some kind of a label to help him distribute or something. I don't know. But anyway, he promises it's coming. So I just wanted to share my decade-long relationship with Custom. This is very exciting, and I'm sure for him, he appreciates the support. I think a lot for musicians, people that were early fans,

that are loyal, I think for them that means a lot, right? To have that long relationship. Two quick Custom fans, because I'm sure he's got a lot of fans listening. That means a lot, right? Two quick custom fans, because I'm sure he's got a lot of fans listening. One is, he directed a movie called Limp, I think. Limp.

And it starred Michael Hutchence. And it was the last thing Michael Hutchence did before he died. Oh my God. Yeah. You're kidding me. No, I'm not kidding. So there's that. And secondly, his name's Dwayne Laveau in airports. When you see the French Dwayne in apparently customs in an airport, it's translated as Dwayne Lavold. In airports, when you see the French Dwayne, apparently customs in an airport,

it's translated as Dwayne. So his friends always called him Custom because Dwayne was Custom on the sign, Custom was Dwayne on the signs in airports where you saw the bilingual signs. So that's how he got his name. So that's how he got his name. That is really neat.

So there you go. Look out for some new Custom. I'll share it as soon as he lets me. Yeah, good luck to him getting the album out there. Persistence, obviously, for 10 years. Are you going to let him play at your wedding? Of course, yeah, of course. He's got the open invitation.

If he's in Toronto on June 15, he can play an acoustic couple of tunes at the wedding, for sure. It's done. Did he move to New York, obviously, just in hopes of more opportunity? I don't know. He's always surfing in San Diego or walking the streets of Italy.

I get a sense from him. He's not doing this from the... He can't have made enough money off one hit to do what he does. It feels like there's something going on. Trust fund baby? I don't know. I don't have that detail.

But there's some money coming in from somewhere because he's got a loft in Manhattan and he's living a good life. Yeah, and those aren't cheap from what I hear. We'll be right back. Catch me if you can before it's too late Because I'm falling in love somewhere else somehow And I don't know why It's you and me, the rest of myself The rest of myself Is that a thing that you do?

And all that we've felt Is what we wanted to be But left in our mouths This was left in the rest I guess we never made it out Catch me if you can before it's too late Because I'm falling in love Somewhere else, I don't know why Catch me if you can before it's too late

Because I'm falling in love Somewhere else, somehow, and I don't know why Ooh, ooh Catch me if you can before it's too late Because I'm falling in love somewhere else somehow and I don't know why It's too late because I'm falling in love with someone else now and I don't know why In a rather small world story, in about 2003, when I took over the official custom website, which was teamcustom.com, by the way.

It came to my attention that Roz Weston, who's now a very famous radio and television personality in Toronto, he's one half of the Roz and Mocha show on Kiss 92.5. He's also on Entertainment Tonight Canada. I learned that very same Roz Weston was a custom super fan like myself. Roz loved the album fast. So when Roz visited my home for episode 120 on April 27th, 2015, I knew exactly how I'd start the program. Hey, welcome, Roz.

Very good to be here. It's really great down here. I dig this. This didn't exist years ago, this kind of thing, the ability to do this. And I'm fascinated by it. I love how easy it is. I love that you can just come down here

and you got a show. I grew up like a dual cassette deck dubbing crap. Absolutely. I had high-speed dubbing, baby. Yeah. And yeah, I used to make my own, like, do my own DJ stuff around, like, tunes I'd record from, like, CFTR 680. Yeah.

This is, yeah, we didn't see this coming, did we? No. And, you know, what you have on a Mac, I used to play music a little bit when I was younger, and I never liked playing live. I did it just in extreme stage fright, but I always loved recording. And now with GarageBand alone, you have the equivalent of back in the day what would have cost you $100,000. If you wanted to build the studio that is in GarageBand, you would have needed $100,000.

You're right. The grand total of everything before you, excluding the Mac, is bucks these are like yeah no it's amazing no it is it is and i i applaud you for doing this because it's uh you know i think that everything can sort of coexist in the same world that's awesome to hear man so you you've actually listened to some episodes yeah i did yeah yeah i listened to uh you had danny stover in yeah that's the last episode oh two episodes two episodes ago. Two episodes ago. I heard that one just because I really only just found out about her because I have a weekend place out by Peterborough.

Right. And I love medium to small town Canadian rock stations. I just do. The dock stations. Especially on the weekends because they just play a ton of music. And I didn't have satellite out there i don't have anything else out there i'm a cd player out there and uh and it's a station called the wolf i believe that's it yeah absolutely and they when guys call in they make them howl like a wolf their listeners

love us i think uh april wine is still on the wolf's top 20 i'm sure it is hey i'm playing a tune. Do you recognize this tune? Oh, yeah. You mentioned this tune. Yeah. So this is actually 120. So we're episode 120. Oh, amazing. And this is customs 120 from Fast. I know.

It just worked out that way. I want to say I planned it, but that's a lie. So, okay. So just, and I know I gave you a heads up on this, but you first came to my attention, like, I'm going to say, what is this, 2015? I'm going to say 11 years ago. 11 years ago. I think so.

I guess it would have been, yeah. Because for a period in the mid-2000s, I was the webmaster for Custom's official website. Is that how it was? Yeah. That's amazing. It is amazing because Custom only has one, everyone knows, he's got an album called Fast from 2002 yeah which had one radio hit called uh hey mister hey mister yeah which and the other one was a hit too i

shouldn't say a hit actually it wasn't a hit it was there was a this one was the was a song that i liked yeah this might be the best cut on the album this one it's great so the funny thing is um one day custom and i we would talk all the time. What's his name? Beat Me? Beat Me, right. Yeah, yeah. And he wrote me and he goes, Mike, do you know a reporter named Roz Weston? And I'm like, I actually knew who you were from the Toronto One stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah.

And he goes, okay, just curious. He's like a big Custom fan. And I was like, okay. So I had this like mental note that 11 years ago you were a big Custom fan. Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's when social media started and really the the first interaction that any of us had with it was myspace yeah and i remember when i was the first time i was there because myspace was very heavily music based you know and then sort of tried to change it into that again and it just failed but myspace it was a great place for bands and it was the first time that I had realized in my life that you could just as a fan write somebody a message that you were a fan of.

And you didn't have to find out who their agency was and send it to someplace in Los Angeles and then hope to get a reply. You could actually just sit there and write something and send it. And sometimes it would take three hours even, five minutes even to get a message back. And I remember being, this is something special special and it wasn't necessarily my space but it was we were going in the right direction where you then had that cutting out the middleman yeah it was and it was really cool it was really because i often wondered you know whether you know the artists themselves wanted that you know and you know so now because i we get a ton of fan letters and we get a ton of tweets and everything else and you realize that you know on this end of it, I do love that. I, if I didn't have the ability to write back to somebody or to, to,

you know, say, Hey, thank you for this or look out for this. I would be missing a huge part of what it is to be in this business. Skyline after three decades at sea Like the first time crying when you never could But I always knew you should Like an Enzo with Diplo plates at dawn On sunset from PCH to Hollywood Like when your dad proudly tells you son I always knew you could You're beautiful

In ways I'm not allowed to describe The last thing I want to see for the door of my eyes You're beautiful in ways I'm not allowed to describe The last thing I want to see For the tone of my eyes

Waking up and found Innocent after a bout Of your worst behavior Boy, I'll flush against your Multiple times over the past Five years Custom agreed to be my special guest On Toronto Mic'd

We would do it via Skype, or Zoom, or phone, and this was a time when I wanted all of my guests to visit the TMDS studio. Custom, as you may gather by now, was a ridiculously talented man, but he was also an enigma wrapped in a riddle. And these episodes of Toronto Mic'd never materialized. Correspondence with Dwayne started to dwindle these past few years. But in the summer of 2020, I received an email from Custom, and the subject line merely read, truth. One word, all lowercase, as was his style. Truth. There was nothing in the body. I replied to this email, asking

I replied to this email asking if everything was okay and to let Dwayne know that there was no message in the body of this email in case that was a mistake. Almost immediately, I received one of those Gmail auto-replies telling me that Dwayne's Gmail inbox had exceeded the quota, and he could no longer receive emails. I didn't think much of this at the time, because it seemed to be him. He was this eccentric artist creating music out of his Manhattan loft. He'd pop in and out of my life, you know, to talk hockey

or to touch base with the homeland, being a fellow Canadian. And that one word, truth, got me thinking. What was Custom trying to say? Truth. And then I remembered. Way back in 2003 or 2004, Custom sent me a song he was working on. It was titled,

Truth. Bring your pickups, bring your guns Bring your big shepherds, daughters and sons Bring your anger, bring your hate Bring your ammunition in big huge grates And a call to rescue, a call for fair A call to the words that are already there A call to arms, a call to the words that are already there A call to arms, a call to reason It's the beginning of open seas

If you're not with us, then you're against us If you're not one of us, you're one of them Bring your flags, bring your bibles Bring the message, we have no rivals Bring it to the streets, bring them coffins Bring it to the airwaves, we will stop the call to test You were called over there, a call from land, sea, space and air A call to arms, a call to evens It's the beginning of open seas

If you're not with us, you're not against us If you're not one of us You're one of them You can't say, on the radio You can't say, on the radio You can't say, on the radio You can't say, on the radio You can't say, on the radio You can't say, on the radio you can say You can say You're with us Or you're against us

If you're not one of us You're one of them If you're not with us You're against us If you're not with us You're against us If you're not with us You're against us

You're not one of us You're one of them Custom was only 54 years old. What an incredible loss. We've lost a true talent. And I've lost a good friend. Again, my sincere condolences to the Lavold family and all of Dwayne's friends.

I leave you now with my favorite song from that debut album, Fast. This is Beat Me. Do it. Do it. This is Beat Me. Like a four alarm Some kind of danger I look that way You try to be cool With little to say I can't become Your bottle of wine I have to be a quarter Not a nickel and dimes

I wanna be the prayer Answer when you need me The pain, the bad And the blood When you beat me The pain, the bad And the blood when you beat me Cause you're infallible, bombastic, sonically elastic Energetic, spastic, explosive, plastic

Sculpture, cast it, McLaren, past it Emotional, drastic, egg first, crack it First date, mack it, suitcase, pack it Eight ball racket, sadness, don't mask it Thoughts, scholack it Suitcase pack it, eight ball rack it Sadness don't mask it, thoughts scholastic Glockenspiel blast it, pack up attack it A hit song track it, a hatred racket Sorrow sack it, waste it, drink it You thought it, think it, like pretty and pink it Battleship sink it, big dream, make a bid Do what you just did

You find out the crack of the core, and the shot in the arm Across the room like a four alarm, some kind of danger I look that way, you try to be cool with little to say I can't be the calm, your bottle of wine I have to be a quarter, not a nickel and dimes I wanna be the prayer, answer when you need me The pain, the power, and, answer when you meet me The pain, the power and the blood when you feed me The pain, the power and the blood when you feed me

Because you're impulsively protected, criminally respected Soulfully connected, chaotic and hectic Temptress, naked, candy coat faked Tim's city, wicked, concerns placated You know you have to make it If it's not broke, then break it If it's stolen, take it Answer with a bayonet Time bank, smash it Accelerator, mash it Get out like an exorcist, say no like a masochist 9-0 thrash it 5-0 smash it

Hotel room, trash it Coming down, thrash it 5-0 smash it Hotel room trash it Coming down thrash it Like this is a beast hit Stir it up and drink it Big weed make a bid Do it, you just did Do it Do it

Do it If I'm not the crack of the court and the shot in the arm Across the room like a four-alarm Some kind of danger, I look that way Try to be cool with little to say I can't be the gum, you're a bottle of wine I have to be a quarter, not a nickel in dimes I wanna be the prayer, answer when you feed me The pain, the pain, the blood when you feed me

The pain, the pain, the blood when you feed me The pain, the pride, the blood when you feed me The pain, the pride, the blood when you feed me The pain, the pride, the blood when you feed me Oh, oh, oh, oh