Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ivar Hamilton: Toronto Mike'd #157

Episode Date: February 4, 2016

Mike chats with CFNY's Ivar Hamilton about his days at the Spirit of Radio, his memories of Martin Streek, how he was responsible for the Bon Jovi banner at the ACC and what he and David Marsden are up to these days.

Welcome to episode 157 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week is Spirit of Radio alumnus Ivor Hamilton. Hello. Hey, thanks for doing this. It's my pleasure. I'm happy to be here. I'm now convinced I'm the only one who can't say the word brewery. Well, it's great that you've got a sponsor and I know we've got a case of cold ones here,

so maybe we'll try one. Well, yeah, go ahead. I should warn you, though, that the last guest I had on, Mike Richards from TSN Radio, he cracked one open much earlier than this, I'll point out. It was at 10 a.m. And he cracked one open, and then I just heard before we started recording here today that they're shuffling the lineup at 10.50, and he's no longer the morning show guy.

Oh. This is like fresh breaking news. Well, there's certainly been, the Toronto media landscape has changed so dramatically in the last year with management changes and restructuring and all sorts of things. We could go on forever about that. Luckily for you, we have forever.

There you go. But I didn't want there to be a jinx associated with cracking open a beer on Toronto Mike. Okay. That's okay. As long as that's okay by you, right? Yeah. Go nuts.

So that's from Great Lakes Brewery, which I have it twice in the opening script. Brewery, I got to figure that word out. It's not a hard word, right? No. No. So enjoy. Thank you. Take it home with you. Which one are you drinking? Is that the

pompous ass? The Canuck. Is that the... No, that's a different one. Canuck Pale Ale. It's nice. Great artwork too. Yeah, it's cool. Enjoy, enjoy. And we're now recording with Swing... What are these called? The microphone boom

swing arms? Boom mic? Swing mic, I don't know. Boom mic, Swing Arms. And I want to say thanks to my buddy, Andrew Stokely, who, by the way, knows he sat in on some music meetings that you were a part of at 102 at CFNY. Wow. This is back in Brampton in the strip mall. This would have been back in the 80s, yeah.

It was 83 Kennedy Road South. Right, and he wanted to say hi to you, but he came over earlier today to help me install these boom swing mic arms things. So like, I'm still getting used to, this is the first recording with these, and I'm getting used to the fact that I can kind of like, I can lean back.

You can kind of chill and stay on the mic. It's good. And as someone mentioned on Twitter, it takes away my power move when I could stare a guest down and say, get on that microphone. Well, you know what, it's just, I guess because we're in

the basement of your house with the studios, if that's okay, but it's looking pretty professional. I like this. Well, thank you very much. That means a lot coming from somebody like you. That's great. So thank you, Andrew. And future guest, because in a couple of weeks, Rob

Johnston is coming on. In fact, I did the math. If we add you and Rob, we cover CFNY from 79 to 2015. That would be correct. Robbie J. as I know him is.

Well, Robbie J. said it was important I tell you that he is highly anticipating this podcast. So do you want to get into where that... Yeah, tell me. I know it's an inside joke, but... It is an inside joke. And I think it's really something that comes down to advertising in the music business. And Rob Johnson is a former producer at CFNY. He was there for very many years, and he's a good buddy of mine.

And myself now being on the record company side, record label side. So for years and years, you would decide, oh, and we're going to do radio spots for booking spots. And for us, and it's the same with our competition as well, they would put their copy together and send it in. And for whatever reason, I don't know what it is, but Rob was the one who pointed out this, is people talking about when they put together radio commercials and it's

like, the brand new record from whoever it might be, the highly anticipated new album featuring the number one hit single. And it's just like, and so he would call me up because for a number of years when I used to run the marketing department at

Universal, he goes, for God's sakes, would people stop saying that it's highly anticipated? And why do these records have to say it features the number one hit single of whatever it might be? And this is probably five or six years ago, but I think each and every post that we've had between each other on Facebook

or if it's something online or whatever it is, it's always like, oh, I highly anticipate seeing you, Rob, or it's like a highly anticipated football game this weekend or whatever it might be. So that's where it comes from. It all makes sense now. So he's highly anticipating this episode. So he'll be listening.

Are you a sports fan by any chance, a hockey fan? Absolutely. I'm a hockey fan. I have to admit I've jumped on the Raptors bandwagon the last couple of years. Good, me too. by any chance? A hockey fan? Absolutely. I'm a hockey fan. I have to admit, I've jumped on the Raptors bandwagon the last couple of years. Good, me too. Really great for our city.

I'm a big CFL guy. I've been an Argo season ticket holder for 11 years. So you're the one. Hey, you know what? It's going to be good this year at BMO Field. I really think that

now that they've moved it into that environment and that there has been a sale to Bell Media and MLSE there, that those guys are really going to take the bull by the horns

and I think a lot of people are going to start coming back to the football stadium. It's going to be a great environment on grass field at BMO Field. The Grey Cup is going to be there this year. So it's going to be exciting. And I'm also, you know, I like the odd soccer game. I like a little bit of NFL here and there.

So I'm not a fanatic about any of it, but I'm a big fan. I rode by BMO today and I see they're almost done. They got like the roof. There's a roof over each side, I guess. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I was for one year, I was a TFC season ticket holder.

And a lot of the season I thought was quite miserable just because of the conditions when you're down there by the lake and you sit there whatever it is at the start in April or May and it's like, oh my is, at the start in April or May, and it's like, oh, my God, it is so damn cold. And then, of course, you get into those days when it's really hot and then you get to the tail end of the season and it's really cold again.

With those two awnings that they're putting in or whatever the coverings, I think that's going to make a big difference in the comfort for the fans. So I think it's going to be good. I understand for Grey Cup this year, the capacity is going to go to 40,000 in there. So it should be good. And there's potential for hearing that the rumor is

that we will get the Winter Classic there at some point. Oh, cool. So those will be great events. Cool. What do you think of the new Leaf logo? You know, I think it's kind of neat. I actually think this is okay. I know it's kind of like grasping at straws to me,

but going back to the 60s when they had their most Stanley Cups. Great. Is it going to do anything for the team? It's a nice distraction for a little bit. What is it going to do for us? I don't know. I look at it the same way I look at the new Jays logo,

which is that essentially we all love the, I think what people make, what makes you fall in love with a logo is like success, like championships. So like the Blue Jays had championships

with their old original logo. For some reason, they changed it and then they brought it back with modern tweaks. Like now we have the original logo with like modern tweaks. Yeah. And we all modern tweaks like now we have the original logo with like modern tweaks yeah and we all love this logo i love the new logo because it reminds me of the

old logo just modernized and then the leafs have done the exact same thing we went back to kind of the last uh championship years we have the 60s logo with like modern refinements yeah and i love it yeah well i think i think because the you knows, it's the 2017th, the 100th anniversary. Right. It's the right time to do it, you know. And the one thing that I am glad of, you know, when Tim Lewicki was there, that there was this whole movement to set the history aside. And that went on for a very short time. I'm going, why would you do that?

You know, I mean, there is such a great hockey history in this city that it's not wrong to not acknowledge that, you know. So I'm glad that they've brought back some of these things. I think it's great that they resolved their issues with Dave Keon and that they've got the row outside with the statues and what have you. So I think that they're doing some good things. It's like, you know, and the rest of the organization, having Babcock and Amarillo and those people, it's like, let's just, you know,

I know it's going to take, I know it's a marathon, but let's just get that marathon going so we can, you know, get some decent hockey. And, you know, overall for me this year that I think for most people, it's like, holy cow, that no Canadian teams could potentially not make the playoffs, which I just think is just, you know, that's not good for hockey in this country. That's not good for Rodgers either.

Yes. You know, Lewicki was more concerned with paying tribute to Bon Jovi. I think that was his priority. Well, you can blame me for that one. Is that right? Yes, absolutely. Tell me that story.

So this is how this happened. Yeah. I'm just going to have a... No, sip away. Great Lakes beer. Go nuts. I don't usually drink beer, but I'm going to have this.

Thank you. So the story goes on the Bon Jovi thing was really... Tim definitely had a great relationship with the band, but we also... Tim definitely had a great relationship with the band, but at Universal we used to represent Bon Jovi. Myself personally, I had a great relationship with that band for a great number of years, and I'm sure that would surprise CFNY alumnus, but since post-CFNY I worked many years in the record business, and Bon Jovi is one of the acts I was very close with. CFNY worked many years in the record business and Bon Jovi is one of the acts that I was very close with. So I was fortunate enough and our company had a, we had a sponsorship with, um, the, uh,

with the Raptors and, and with, uh, uh, with MLSC, uh, for, for three years. And there was a trip that they had. And occasionally they take these clients on trips and I said, we're going to take you to take you to Atlanta to see the Raptors play down there. And it was a fantastic experience. But there was only a couple of clients with them, sponsors. And so I was sitting in the arena where the Atlanta NBA team plays. We were watching a Raptors game. And I'm looking up, and I'm seeing widespread panic, record shows.

I don't know how many it was, know 38 sellouts and and so i'm just sitting there i'm always looking for some some ideas just to do something there and said i look at this and i said hey how come you guys aren't doing something like this and they're like i don't know it's like so i said maybe just worth having a conversation when we get back and and so um so what they did was we got back and let's do, let's do the research. Let's do the math. Let's figure it out and go, okay, who sold out the Air Canada Center on a music level better, more than anybody else.

And, and of course, the other thing I wanted to mention was like, you know, a little, a couple of weeks before that, or maybe a month or so, there was a conference there and somebody from MLSE is saying, you know, the sponsors, he goes, you got to look around the building. You got to find things in that building, spaces that nobody else has used. And I was like, look what I just saw in Atlanta that nobody else has done.

So the league went, or the team rather, went and looked around and asked in the other venues around the league and said, okay, well, there's an Elton John banner hanging in Madison Square Gardens and there's a sting. I could be wrong, the police or whatever. But they went around the league and found out the other venues around North America in basketball and hockey

had done this in a number of other venues. And they went, wow, I guess maybe we better do this. So it came up that Bon Jovi had sold out the Canada Centre more than anybody else. If somebody said my guess, I would have guessed the Tragically Hip, but I guess I wouldn't have guessed that. Well, the Tragically Hip have sold it out more than any other Canadian act. But Bon Jovi, I would have to go and double check because Bon Jovi had played a couple of times since that. But I think the Tragically Hip number was 11, and I think Bon Jovi had played a couple of times since that but I think the tragically hip number was 11 and I think Bon Jovi was 17 so yeah so there was they really you know quite far ahead of that but um so that's why that exists but they also tied it in with uh

um you know MLSC's first you know hall of fame award and it was tied in with billboard and AEG and there's a plaque in the wall inside the foyer for Bon Jovi. But it came out of that trip originally and then they took it away and that's how it happened. I can't say I'm 100% responsible for it, but I got them thinking and that's why it's there. That's amazing because I think,

I'm pretty sure I took a big dump on that banner on my blog on torontomike.com I just didn't like it at all like it just seemed well I never liked it it's you know I think that there's um sure it would be great if something was would be there for the hip I mean there is a um in the dressing room that the Leafs dressing room there is a is a plaque or recognition in the dressing room to 50 Mission Cap, which I think is fantastic. And there's other, you know, there's other ways. You know what I mean? You can't go to a Leaf game without hearing Stompin' Tom Connors, the good old hockey game as well. So there's, you know, there's music tributes in there and in other ways that they do it. And, um, and I, and I certainly think around the hundred, you know, I I'm only

speculating, but I think around the hundredth anniversary of the team that there'll be other, other connections there because it's certainly been suggested to them. And, and, um, if you think between, you know, what's, what's happened at Maple Leaf gardens and what's happened at the year Canada center in their, in the history, uh. An awful lot of fabulous nights on a music level. You know, I mean, I heard somebody say at MLSC go, oh, you know, like the Air Canada Centre is one of the older venues in the league now. I'm like, it's considered almost a heritage

building. I'm like, okay, you opened in 1998. Really? Are you a heritage building? Yeah, I almost think it's, yeah, it might be 99 actually. Yeah, 98, 99, yeah. That's funny.

So anyway, there you have it. No, that's a great story. Have you ever been to Copenhagen? No, I've been to Sweden a couple of times, but I've not been to Copenhagen. Just bring it up. I just got back,

so I just wanted to, I just, I was there for the first time in Copenhagen and lovely city, but the Danish people are amazing people. Like I spent some time with a number of Danes, if you will, and just, just lovely people,

like reminded me a little of Canadians, but the best of Canada, if you will, at least the Danes I was talking to, just, just a great people. I found, I found that Sweden was very similar. I've been to Stockholm twice in Malmo, and I remember my first time coming into Stockholm, and it felt like as I was coming into the city, when you would look off to the left and right or whatever, and it would be like it's the lake.

It looked like the lake. It feels like I'm in Muskoka, and then, of course, you're really on the ocean, so around the corner comes a giant ocean liner. So that was a little bit different, but I found that the people were absolutely great and very polite in Sweden. And we had lots of common ground to talk about, certainly with music and certainly a lot of things with hockey. So that was great. And you know what the, speaking of common ground, the most popular act on Copenhagen radio right now, because I talked to some young people, but the number one, do you want

to guess who the number one performer on Danish radio is right now? Justin Bieber. Correct. There you go. Because he played over there recently. Is that right? Yes.

So it's Bieber. And then I point out, because I have to, you know, he's near, whatever, he's near Toronto, and they have no idea. I think they think he's American. I think that's the... Well, he lives there now, right? They're all American to them. He lives

there, and certainly he acknowledges it when he comes home and that, but that's his home base now. So, it's California. Before I came home, I had to make a quick trip to germany while i was over there and i was talking to this guy he's really into hip-hop a german guy and i and i just said hey what do you think of drake and he's like he loves drake like drake might be his favorite then i you know did you know drake is from toronto no idea he had no idea so well i think that you know with hip-hop's global and it's like it doesn't

really matter where it's from it's great music and and you know rightly so though that you know uh in germany hip-hop is is very very significant they they do a great job over there of embracing it a lot of acts go over there and play and it's it's uh it's good business and they've grown you know i mean europe's a great place to visit. No, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And play, for sure. Got to give a quick shout-out to some new Patreon patrons of Toronto Mic'd. So anybody could become, it's crowdfunding,

so anybody can become a patron of this podcast. And I want to thank Tom and John and Greg, who are recent patrons, and joining Cameron and Robert and Matt and David and Julie and Stephen and Pete Fowler, who, by the way... Scary Pete! No, because Scary Pete is... Oh, no, that's different. But I know Pete Fowler. Yeah. Yes.

Scary Pete. What's his... Cuno. Cuno. That's right. Yes, yes. I get that mixed up. Yeah.

And this Pete is actually a constable. He used to be constable anyways. I think he's sergeant or something now. He's the OPP. Okay. This is Pete Fowler. Norman, Ed, Moose, Grumpy, Al Grego, Hamilton Mike, At1236, Marc Asor, Steve Leggett, El Miller,

Mark Kluet, and Rick C. in Oakville. So thank you, everybody. If you go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike, give a dollar a month, give a million dollars a month, either or will work. Preferably the million dollars a month, and then I can shut it down.

All right, now tell me, Ivor, how did you end up at CFNY back in 1979? Oh, well, first of all, thanks for... I must have told you I started there in 79. My crack research staff dug up the stuff. Well, actually, to be honest with you, I was there before.

I had two tours of duty there on internships prior to that. So I was there right out of high school in 77. But it's also, you know, prior to that, when it was CHIC FM, you know, and it was very low power in Brampton. And it only was on the air in the evenings on FM. And I lived in Bramley I was from the area I did high school there so um so we used to listen to it our you know little group of friends at high school it

was like uh you know Chum FM but back in the day it was like yeah they they were playing you know his album Rock and Marsden was there in the 70s and and doing his thing and he was great. But it started to turn in about 1976 and started to become much more commercial. And I think, you know, for the little crowd that I ran with at school, we were like, we don't really want to listen to that anymore. CHIC is pretty cool. And plus the fact that it was so local and so near to us, you could get through on the request

line. You could get your request played unlike any other, the big radio stations in Toronto, when you could never get through. Is this the yellow house? Well, this was actually before that there was two houses on Main Street. There was the one at 2 Ellen Street. And then there was the one where the CFNY studio was at 340 Main Street. Originally it was upstairs at 2 Ellen Street, and then there was the one where the CFNY studio was at 340 Main Street. Originally, it was upstairs at 2 Ellen Street, and they would have a back room, and they would play the music there at night. And then eventually, they got the second house at 340 Main Street. So I started literally about a month into my college, which I decided at a very young age that I wanted to be in the music business and radio broadcasting was my first choice because I tried to be a musician, but I couldn't do it.

I just couldn't do it. I was terrible. I didn't have the rhythm. I just couldn't do it. So radio was my next choice, very heavily influenced by what I heard originally on not only Chum FM when it was kind of progressive and then CHIC. So when I went to Humber, on not only Chum FM when it was kind of progressive and then CHIC.

And so when I went to Humber, there was a very early opportunity to put the music library together, to go in there and help with the music library, which in those days, to be quite honest, it wasn't an awful lot. It was a lot of filing, putting things in order and putting tape on albums to go, oh, this red is going to be jazz

and green is going to be Canadian and white is going to be whatever it is. And so I did that for a couple of months and we got it done. And then it was like, okay, thank you very much. So that was 77. And then early in 1978, there was an opportunity, uh, from my course and it was, it was Humber college I went to, and they said, well, you know, um, there's an opportunity there for, for a further internship, um, to work there. So I went up there and they were the first thing they said they needed an operator. And they said, well, you know, can you run the board? And I said, oh yeah, of course I can. And of course I had no idea what I was doing. And so I, I, there was Terry McGilligot, which, you know, he's, he's on Jazz

FM these days and he was a former Chum guy. And I said, hey, Terry, I don't even know him. And I said, I need some help. Can you kind of help me figure this out? And he said, yeah, yeah, I'll help you. So I started operating there, and then it was like coming one day a week, and I helped in the music department, which was one guy at the time. So I did that, and it really, for me became one of those things

that was like right out of, if you, you know, if you know the, um, the movie, uh, High Fidelity, well, where the, you know, you've got the guys in the record store that they just keep showing up every day and they don't get paid, but they're like, hey, they're working. So I ended up showing up a couple more days a week. And then it was like, so I did that for a year. And eventually they said, well, maybe we should hire this guy. See, that's how it works, right? It literally ended up being that. And then the other thing is one of the reasons that I got in there too was that I wasn't making any money, but I did have some other jobs.

I worked at Sam the Record Man and and I worked in a kitchen part-time as well as doing my school. But I would take all my money, and I would go down to the record peddler at the time and spend it all on imported records. And they had an import show, and they needed music for it. And they're like, well, maybe you should work for us and do that import show or whatever.

So it ended up being that, uh, and I've been, no, I've been talking forever here, Mike, but no, no, but in March of 1979. So we're coming up on the anniversary of that, that I began my first, um, stint or my, my, I guess my, my stint at CFNY working in the music department. And, uh, um, and I, I, I had, uh, you know, my on-air stuff, you know, started fairly quickly. I did the import show and then I did a little thing called Listener's Choice where I ended up meeting a lot of people who would have listeners come in and they play their favorite music for an hour. And that was like two shows a week that we did. So, yeah. No, cool.

Yeah, right. The Listener's Choice program and the original import show. And then you had a cool title. Is this right? You were import music director. I mean, to me, it was great. I mean, I had a pretty good, I had a good budget, which is not something that you get in small radio stations, but I had a really good budget that I could go and get pretty much what I wanted. And so I would be at the record peddler, you know, whatever the music, I can't remember what day of the week,

but whatever the new shipments come in, I would be literally there when they were unpacking it and going through all the stuff. And it's like a kid in a candy store once a week to bring things back and, you know, get this on the air first. And that was a very big part of how CFNY, um, got their music first because we were getting things from, from the UK or the US or Italy or Japan or wherever it might be. We got them before anybody else.

We always got music before anybody else did. A reader of my blog named Peter K left a comment about you, and I'm just going to read it because it's pretty relevant here. I always particularly liked Ivor's import show. In those days, of course, it would have been impossible to hear

most of what Ivor played other than to listen to CFNY or to go to Europe. No internet or MP3 goes without saying. And maybe you'd hear something interesting on college radio, but with the same amateurish, aka awful announcing as today. So this Peter Kay was grateful for your import show and letting him hear some stuff he couldn't hear anywhere else. Well, it's great to hear those things. I mean, I think about the legacy of the radio station and the fact that I've been gone from that radio station since 1988 and that people still send in those types of comments and are still grateful. And that in 2016, I'm still doing a radio show on nythespirit.com. Oh yeah, we're going to get to that. We'll talk about that. But

you know, I mean, I was on the air there for nine years or at the radio station for nine years. And I don't think I could do it anywhere else is that I was never told what I was to play. I played what I thought would work for nine years. Right. And I'm ever so thankful that I had the opportunity to do that. And I know we want to get into this a little bit further, but even when David reached out to me about, I guess it's about a year and a half ago, to do nythespirit.com,

and I said, well, you know the rules, David. I said, I need to play what I want., that's the only way I'll do it. Have you seen the, uh, the documentary that David was made about the four DJs? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Were you at, by any chance, were you at the, um, the premiere? I wasn't at the premiere. I was out of the country at the time. Um, I, I was fortunate enough that somebody sent me my own personal link

to see it before, but I thought they were all, everybody had great stories. Yeah, I know. It was fantastic. All of it, all the DJs, much respect. I thought it was really well done.

Yeah, I think Roger King, I think that's the name of the guy who put it together. Yes. He invited me to the premiere, so I wrote off and sat there and, you know, David's there and a bunch of CFNY, you know,

CFNY alumni were there and yeah, it was just fantastic. I think the thing about, you know, the CFNY alumni is that, you know, I mean, I'm close with guys that are on my high school, but I'm still close with a ton of the guys from CFNY. And, you know, this past Christmas,

you know, Humble and Fred have their, on their podcast or daily podcast, they have their annual Christmas get together where they invite all the listeners in. Well, this past year, I think we probably had a dozen former CFNYers show up to the Christmas podcast. And it was just... Oh yeah, like you'd have guys like bingo,

Bob and, uh, Dan Duran would be there. They were, they were ton of the Jim Reed showed up. It was just like somebody from pretty much every era. All they showed up this year. And I just thought it was so great,

you know, and scary Pete would be there too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, and then even, uh,

but a year ago, uh, when the short lived, um,-lived Spirit of Radio Sunday was on, then the Sunday they had David... Scott Turner. Scott Turner had that, and they had David Marston on, and then it was like, well, myself, Alan Cross, Mae Potts, and Danny Ello, we just surprised David and we showed him. I saw those photos. I saw those photos. Fantastic. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. I had Scotter on this

show actually uh and that was a great car he talked about how you could play what you want back at the cf1 it's just this you know it's foreign to anyone in radio today they'll be like you know what's that like well i don't even think you don't even have the means to do it you know it's all coming there it's an automated studio you know and i've been out of it for a long time so i'd walked into the you know the the go, well, where's the CD players? Well, they're not there. It's all in hard drive. So it's like if you wanted to get something in, you'd have to send it ahead.

So it unfortunately, the requests and things like you used to have, they aren't really there anymore. But that's the way the business runs today. They aren't really there anymore, but that's the way the business runs today. You mentioned briefly that you wanted to be a musician, but you weren't good enough. Is that how you put it? Yeah, I think if you could go in the way back machine, I think you look back on yourself when you're younger, and I kind of go, oh, I probably just didn't. If you put enough practice into something, I'm sure I could have become better at it.

But I was impatient. I was like, oh, okay'm sure I could have become better at it. But I just, you know, I was impatient. I was like, okay, you know, you try the drums, you try whatever. And I just never seemed to have the rhythm to do it, you know? So, but I had a great passion for what I heard on the radio. I mean, I just hearing, my first radio experiences were hearing Terry David Mulligan on CKLG in Vancouver, because originally my family was from the Coquitlam area. Here's an interesting one. I went to the same public school as Matthew Goode, and we never knew that until many years later.

Yeah, I dig Matthew Goode. That's good stuff. But I remember hearing Terry David Mulligan as my first experience. And it was, my parents used to be, they would be out for the night and a babysitter would come on. So he'd blast CKLG. I was like, wow, this is amazing. It was fantastic. And then, and then my parents split up

and we moved to Ontario because that was where my mother was originally from. And it was like, then for the first time I heard FM in the late 60s. And I remember hearing the extended version or the original version of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. And of course, all you know from listening previously is Top 40 Radio. And it's like just the three minute version, the three and a half minute.

And then all of a sudden you're hearing a seven minute version of the song. I'm like, oh my God, my world has opened up. in a seven minute version of the song. I'm like, oh my God, my world has opened up. And so it really got me thinking that I just love going to record stores. I love listening to music. I love reading liner notes. I love trying to get to know everything about music.

See, that's it. Back in the day, and I'm going to sound like the old guy saying get off my lawn or whatever, but back in the day, it seemed like the people introducing the music truly loved the music. Like, you could tell they had a passion for the music, and they were knowledgeable

about the music, and it doesn't feel that way anymore. Now, it's more, it sounds more like talking heads kind of, sort of just reading the script or whatnot. I'm not saying they aren't passionate about the music anymore, but it just seemed, back in the day, it just seemed like they could talk.

I think so. I think you find your people out there that are like that. I mean, you know, let's say, you know, George Strombolopoulos, absolutely he loves it. That's a great example. He's such the guy, he loves it. Lana Gay in the 88 one, I know she's a huge music person. And Bookie, actually,

is a good example. Bookie's the other one. Bookie, you know, Bookie, you sit there, I love listening to Bookie because, you know, he talks his music, he talks his other one. Bookie, you know, Bookie, you sit there and I love listening to Bookie because he, you know, he talks his music, he talks his sports, he talks his, you know, his history.

And of course, you know, Alan, you know, Alan Cross. And, you know, so those people are definitely out there. And I think that, you know, yes, of course,

you know, when you've got to play your own music or play the music that they're telling you to play all that, I mean, I think there's certain people that just go out of their way to find things to make it interesting, too. Well, Ivor, I did some research and discovered you were the lead singer of a band for a short period of time.

So I'm going to play an old clip from CFNY. So let's listen in on this one. And of course, that's one of the more requested songs around CFNY these days, the 102.1 Band with Eleanor Rigby. And we just happen to have one of the singers from the 102.1 Band, actually the lead singer, Ivor Hamilton. How are you doing, Ivor? Not too bad.

Signing autographs. Signing autographs, are you? Signing autographs to the fans. Well, I didn't think we were that big already. Million seller. I understand you're at the Stones this evening. Yeah, I went down there and they wouldn't let me go on stage with them. Oh, well, we thought maybe you'd be opening

the show. Well, that was originally planned. John Belushi took over for me. How was the show? I know it could have been the event of the year. Was it indeed the event of the year? Close. Close to the event of the year. Was it indeed the event of the year? Close. Close to the event of the year. John Belushi was the only fellow,

the only person rumored to have showed up who came. He just opened it up. He didn't sing on stage with the band or anything. He just introduced the New Barbarians, and that was it. Do you think the crowd will be that excited when the 102.1 band performs? Oh, well, give it a little time. I think we've got a little bit of work to do.

Well, a fair bit, I might say. However, there you go. That's fantastic. Now, I will fess up on this, that I was not the singer of that song. Oh, really? Yes, not the singer of that song. Oh, really? Yes, not the singer. So the singers on that particular song was Jim Bird, who worked, he was a newscaster for CFNY,

and the other singer is Lindsay Gillespie, who was the original production director at CFNY. I was there when we recorded it. I helped out a little bit, but I think it was just at the time that I just wanted to be a part of it. I have a songwriting credit on it. I got one royalty check in the history of that record.

Oh, wow. I think I got my money back because I was also an investor on the song. So I think my investment was $75, and I think I got $25 back on one payment. That was the end of it. And that's the only, the interview clip, I don't know where you got that from, but fantastic to hear it again. And yes, the Stone Show in Oshawa. That was the Keith Richards fulfillment for his sentence.

When he got busted at Harborfront. Do you know Steve McCauley? Yes, absolutely. He's the source of that. He hooked me up with some fantastic vintage CFNY clips. Wow. That's one of them. I don't remember that one whatsoever.

It's funny that I're saying that I was the lead singer, but I will confess. Okay, I gotta talk about this 102.1 band, okay? Sure. Because I mean, this song, I think they still play this song. Once in a while it gets played? Yeah. And there's Nash the Slash, I believe,

has a... Nash the Slash on it, the rhythm section, Teenage Head, and the late Dominic Troiano. And as you say, Nash the Slash on it, the rhythm section, Teenage Head, and the late Dominic Troiano. And as you say, Nash the Slash. Yeah, the late Nash the Slash. Yeah, the late Nash the Slash. It was done in one night. So, I remember hearing this, you know, years ago.

And you still hear it once in a while, but maybe I'll let, I don't know how familiar people are with working on the radio, but this is, I guess this would be the big hit. Well, you know, if it was in a hit, I mean, there was a purpose behind the song, and there really was a time frame where the radio station itself was in receivership.

And it was really something that was put together to help drive the very small listenership to support it and keep that radio station on the air. Because we were in very, very serious danger of going bankrupt. What year? Do you remember what year this is? That would have been 79. And this is when I played for David Marsden. I called it his call to arms, but he goes on the air and he sort of tells people to write their counselors.

He kind of rallies the troops. Absolutely. Rallied the listeners to basically save that radio station and save that radio station as it was you know because i think that you know when the radio station basically went into that situation of going into receivership there was a really really strong possibility that okay it would survive or if somebody took it over that they would not see the vision that David had for that radio station and keep it in the form that it was and that was a big sell job so to have you know those whatever the amount of petitions that they ended up getting. I don't know the exact figures on what it was but I know it was immense for the time. Really

made an impact on the next owners of those radio stations which were a company out of Quebec that is not around anymore called Civitas. But they believed in the radio station. David convinced them to keep it as their spirit of radio and live on I will say that this is Jim Bird who's singing that right now he was very very highly influenced by Bruce Springsteen so if you think about

the way he's singing it and think about Bruce Springsteen maybe in that era think about the way he's singing it and think about Bruce Springsteen, maybe you know that era, that that was who he was trying to, that was his hero. According to my Twitter feed, everybody I know was at the Springsteen show the other night. I was there. I absolutely went. Yes. Well, you know what? And I will say that for me, it was like, it was like an old home night. I was like, okay. Uh, every, you know, half, half the music business that I know was there the other night. And it was, it was great. It was great to go and see it. And you know what? I mean, for a guy who's his age to do a three hour and 20 minute show, uh, and still be able to kick it out, especially in light of the amount of people that we've lost early in 2016. Bruce Springsteen has the energy

of half the bands out there that are half his age, you know? Right. No, I mean, I wish I could have been there, but I was not. I just had to see everybody on Twitter having a good time. So, okay.

So I mentioned Pete Fowler earlier in this episode. So Pete worked at CFNY in like late 90s? Is that right? Mid-late 90s? I think Pete was there in I'm going to, and I could be wrong because I wasn't that close with Pete, but I think

Pete might have been there early 90s. I should know this. Maybe late 80s through early to mid 90s. But yeah, I think that's something you might have to go and ask somebody else. I can't be that quite accurate. So I know he was co-hosting the Thursday 30 with Martin Streak. Okay.

And he told the story. Actually, Jason Barr told the story first when he came on. So at this, I mean, I'm thinking it's mid 90s because jason barr is in brampton opping or whatever this thursday 30 that's done on bathurst like bathurst and bluer at a studio there yeah and so martin is doing the thursday 30 with pete fowler and i've heard the story now from jason barr and pete fowler where basically uh i guess uh martin is upset that he they're not going to nine inch nails anymore there's something of nine inch nails where they were supposed to go and do some promo thing and it was canceled so live on the air he

drops a big loud f-bomb and this results in a a memo that goes out i've i had i got i read the memo in a recent episode from stew myers yeah about you know why you can't do that sure sure he's a and i remember just like you know a song might do it or maybe a caller might do it but the host is not dropping any uh no of course anyway makes sense so we talk about this and it's kind of this you know and then uh brother bill who is really neil morrison but brother bill is in vancouver yes or around there and he digs up some old archived audio and he converts to mp3 he find he finds this clip of martin streaks swearing on the air and he gets that mp3 to pete who then he has it now, Pete gives me a call and says, I can share it on TorontoMic.com, and I'm more than happy to do it, and I share it.

So I'm going to play this, and then we'll talk a bit about Marty here. Sure. So this is a rare audio of the aforementioned F-bomb by Martin Streak. Yeah, here we go. I work just aren't real good right now, and I don't know every time I go into work whether it's going to be my last week there or not. Frankly, I'm getting a little ticked off. Go to hell.

Leading edge. See if in Y102.1 the band is called Dink. They are from Kentent ohio and from their self-titled debut album that's that's the track green mind and that's steady at number 29 what the hell thank you debut song number 30 from the album day for night the trash will hit with greasy jungle on the thursday 30 thursday 30 from the edge of blur and bathurst martin street cure pete feller as well. And uh... What? If you tuned in last week, you know that

uh... What? There isn't something quite happening the way that we said it was going to happen. Spit it out. Okay. What was originally supposed to happen was I was supposed to be at Nine Inch Nails and Martin was supposed to be here in a little room by himself. Or something along that line. We'll lay it out for you straight. Pete was going to broadcast from here. We were going to

set up some broadcast equipment up in the press booth above the stage from Nine Inch Nails for the big gig tonight. Me being a big fan since day one. And, well, last minute, or very close to last minute, management from the band and record label

decided that they didn't really like the idea too much. Okay, how close were you going to be? Were you going to be... Fuck! Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, it's just... Sorry.

You want me to run with this. Yeah. Sorry. For those of you who may be offended by that, I'm sorry, but as you can possibly imagine, Pete, just run with it. Just run with it. I'm just a little fucking pissed off right now.

No, really? Because you look really happy and you're dapper. No, I'm just glad the band's going to go on at 10, which means that if we really race through this show right through, I might have a chance to see the smiles on the faces of the people as they leave Maple Leaf Gardens tonight. Let's get on with the Thursday 30 then. Exactly.

We're going to take a short break while I, I don't know, do something. Splash some cold water on my face. We're going to take a short break. In a moment don't know, do something. Splash some cold water on my face. We're going to take a short break. In a moment, we're going to get to a debut from Green Day. It comes from the Woodstock 94 disc, and it's When I Come Around. It's sitting at number 28. We get to it right after this. Hollywood, 1950.

Wow. There you go. And that tells you it's 1994 because I remember when that Woodstock album came out. Right. So, 94. So what did you think? What do you think? I don't think it's out of character for Martin.

I mean, I do, you know, I mean, we were very good friends and I know how passionate he was about Nine Inch Nails. So I could see how upset he would be that that situation didn't happen. If I had to be to the same shoes, would I have done that on the air? No, but you know, that's Martin's character and what set him apart. So it is what it is. So yeah, tell us if you don't mind. Actually, if this is cool with you, I'm going to start mentioning some names. If you could just maybe just tell me how was the work of these people. But let's start with Martin Streak, because for those who don't know, but Martin sadly took his

own life back in 2009, July 2009. So what was it like? What kind of guy was he? What was it like working with him? He was a very good friend of mine. I mean, he was a good, he was a personal, a good personal friend. You know, we spent a lot of years working together in the early days. Like he worked with me right from the start in, in radio. So I was there in the early days, um, when we brought him on to work on the CFNY video roadshow. Um, so he was kind of like the guy who was like, he was kind of like one of our roadie guys. And then it was like, as the roadshow got bigger, he was the guy who drove the truck. And then eventually, you know,

he ended up being you know the dj after i because i was a dj on that i ran the started the whole thing and and um but eventually i was like i had too much else to do and it was like you know i burned out on it after a number of years just kind of oh my god i was at every high school and university in the province 20 times over uh but martin martin continued to roll the flag, fly the flag for that, you know. But we were very close. We were very close. We did a lot of things together, some trips together,

talked together on the phone all the time. uh, talk together on the phone all the time. Um, you know, I heard something that was told to me, uh, shortly after his passing that somebody else had asked him, he said, you know, um, you know, are you good friends with Ivor? And he said, my good friends with Ivor, I consider him to be my brother. And that always touched me greatly that he, he would say something like that. And, uh, um, I delivered one of the, one of the three, I'd say it was four eulogies at, at the, uh, at his, at his funeral. And, and, uh, um, I have some, you know, I know the guy had some demons and it, but you know what, he was, uh, he was a wonderful man and CFNY was in his blood from start to finish. And, you know what? He was a wonderful man. And CFNY was in his blood from start to finish. And I remember after, when he left,

we had some conversations about what he can do next and what he has in the works. And we had a little get-together up on Stony Lake when Brother Bill was getting married. And he was a part of that. And it was great to see him. And it ended up being, there's a great photo. You might have seen it.

All the ex-CFNY guys all together. I think Freddie P, I think. Yeah, Freddie P was part of that photo. And it was a great, great memory. And, you know, so sad to see that he went before his time. But, you know, the fact that we're still talking about him, you know, uh, six years after the fact and talking about him favorably and carrying on his memories is a, is a, you know, I think is a, is a great thing. Um, yeah, we, we, as I said, we had a, we had a, a great friendship. I was friends with his, his,

one of his brothers, um, knew his mom well. And so, yeah, it was a very tight relationship. Well, we talked about the DJs who just have passion for the music. So he's one of those guys. Absolutely. Brother Bill and Strombo. He would call me up and go, Ivor, Ocean Ship, these guys, you've got to hear them. And I got people out from Universal to see them.

And we were very close and looking you know, looking at this band. And it was good because of Martin. And, you know, you could sense when he was into a band. You know, like he would have his, you know, his Nine Inch Nails and his Rage Against the Machine. Or Tool. A number of these other bands that, you know, he really flew the flag for over the years, and you knew it when he was a part of that, you know? You know, so he's, to get the timelines right,

I guess approximately two months before he takes his own life, he's let go by, he's fired, I guess, is the term. Everyone's semantics, all these terms. But he was let go by Chorus, so he was, because the day before Barry Taylor, because, no, day after Barry Taylor, because I had him on recently and we talked about the timelines there.

But he was let go. And then I have friends, you know, I've seen footage that he had great opportunities awaiting for him, you know. So he loses his job, but I see footage of him, you know, doing some pilots for some shows. I had Ash from Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker here, and he talked about a show that they recorded together in this time period.

So did you speak to Martin between the firing and then the end? Yes. No, yes, absolutely. So what kind of mindset was he in? Was he hopeful for the future? It was. He was working some things with, God, what is the name of the place down by the docks? Whatever the nightclub down there, the big club.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just saw Public Enemy there. Sound Academy? Yeah, Sound Academy. And they were putting a studio in there, and they were talking about doing a series of things there and and um you know and i think there was there was also i mean i didn't speak to him directly on it but i know there was um potentially going to be good opportunity for him to be on the rock where um where david was i've heard this too yeah so uh you know people wrote them to support and i i think

that you know if i look back on it i think I think it was just when you're with something for such a long time, it's hard to get over it, and is there life beyond? I mean, I know when I, myself personally, when I left the radio station and went to the record side, I probably sat there for a year going, what have I done? What am I doing? Like, is this the right thing? And you're still within that business, but it just wasn't the same. But, you know, eventually you get over it. And this was your decision, right? It was my decision.

See, that's an entirely different. It is different. But I also know that for me, if I hadn't had not have left, I would have been let go. left um they they would have i would have been let go um i was not you know back in that 1988 and i know we're talking about martin so it shouldn't it's okay we can me so much but it's okay but that you know the direction at the time was they were going to play top 40 music right madonna right oh there was all sorts of things and it was it was absolutely ludicrous the reasons that were given to to to play that music at the time compared to what you were doing before.

I can understand some of the business rationale, but the methodology was completely wrong at the time. So anyway, glad that they got over that and moved on to whatever they moved on to. But I think for me, you know, I had a call saying, we're thinking of moving you down to Hamilton because they owned the CHCH TV at the time. And we're thinking to put you on a TV show. And I was like, I didn't have any experience in TV. Why in the world do they want me to do this? And it's like the writing was on the wall.

So that's when I decided I better look for something else. Maybe it was just your last name. They felt it was too perfect. Put me in Hamilton, right? We'll base you down by Iverwind Stadium. Speaking of that, I've seen footage of, and I don't remember it firsthand. I've seen footage on YouTube of a CHCH show that...

Chris Shepard hosted. Was it Chris Shepard? Yeah, Shepard was involved. So wasn't Martin Streak never... I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it was Shepard hosted. Was it Chris Shepard? Yeah, Shepard was involved. So wasn't Martin Streak never... I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it was Shep. Yeah. So anyway...

Memories of anything. Yeah. I mean, it's just... It is what it is. So, okay. So, because then I've... Actually, episode 82 of this podcast was a collection of discussions

about Martin Streak of people like Alan Cross and Captain Phil and Brother Bill and lots of people like this. In fact, you were on my list. I don't know if you remember this, but you were on my list and we were corresponding. Just the timing never worked out.

It was all in the can by the time you were ready to come in, but we're doing it now, which is great. But Fred Patterson was like, I had Fred Patterson over, good friend of mine, and we had a good heart-to-heart about this. And Fred will say, other than a severance issue that martin streak apparently was having which was bothering him so there's a severance issue sure but other than that this is a guy you know positive

and hopeful for the future sure there's no indication this is a man who's about to end end it all and this is the toughest it's an impossible question to answer because you're not in his head and it's an unfair question to ask, but I'm asking it anyways, which is, was there any clues, was there any clues at all when you talked to Martin in that period,

that two month period? No, honestly, I mean, I felt for the guy, I was a little bit concerned for him, but Martin was also, Martin was a guy who always did things to extreme. Everything he did is extreme. If you kind of know his, some of the things that you would see him do, it's like, you know, if Martin was out hiking, well, he'd be the first guy to, you know, climb up to

the top of the mountain or the top of the cliff. Go big or go home. You know, if I'm going snowboarding, you know, he's going to of the mountain or the top of the cliff or go home you know if i'm going snowboarding you know he's going to be the guy who's going off the beaten path and go down the the course that nobody else will go down to so he took he took an awful lot of yeah he took an awful lot of risks um physically and you know outdoor life and and things like that. And things were done, uh, to extreme. So, um, I never thought about that, that, you know, that the end was coming. I didn't, I never thought about that because we did have some positive conversations up until, you know, a couple of

weeks before and, um, and, you know, we were in touch. So I didn't, I, I certainly didn't see it coming. I I'd heard after the fact that a couple of other people were concerned for his wellbeing. Um, so that's, that's what I know. How did you find out? Uh, I know he left a Facebook message, which is essentially a, essentially it's a suicide note to Facebook. Yeah. I saw the Facebook message literally within 20 minutes of, of him posting it. And I was like, buddy, you okay? Like what's going on? And nothing. Um, but you know, I also know that at certain times that Martin wouldn't be the most communicative and getting back to you on things. So, um, I didn't read into it, but I, I definitely raised my concerns when I saw that facebook posting uh back to him and then

of course and i believe it was mike rice who was the one who um discovered this this situation so well my condolences to you who actually knew the guy and was a friend because i know how how tough it was for the fans so myself for example just a, yeah. No personal relationship with Martin Streak. And I know how that just, how it hit me like a ton of bricks and how it kind of lingered for a long time. So I can't imagine what it's like for his family, his friends. Yeah, no, it was definitely tough.

I mean, I think that, you know, we also remembered, you know, Martin for a lot of the positives over the years, you know, besides the music. I mean, the guy had a wicked sense of humor. Like, oh, we had so many laughs over the years doing that roadshow. Oh, it was just so many stupid things that happened over the years. And he was great at doing impersonations of other people. Oh, it was endless. I mean, the laughs that we used to have all the time were just great.

Just absolutely phenomenal. And as Captain Phil told me, he's the best man you could ever hope to have would be Martin Streak. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, Marty was an absolute stand-up guy. Absolutely. Oh, well.

That's gone too soon. It's just terrible. It's just listening to that audio now, so it's just hearing his voice again. It just takes you right back. The live to airs and the live from the Phoenix and all the places. Yeah, and Thursday 30s.

Alright, so let's just move on to... I'm going to just drop some names on you but i'm going to start with names of people who have actually sat in that chair you're sitting in right now so okay you know you've alluded to them and this will we can talk about ny the spirit.com as well here but uh david marsden so marsden seems to be um the straw that stirs the drink when it comes to discussions about cfny and spirit of radio. Well, and so it should be. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, I think more than anybody else that brings forth that legacy is David, you know, I mean, there were other people before, you know, David. And when I actually started there, that was actually almost prior to David being there. It was, you know, Reiner Schwartz was, you know, David and when I actually started there, the first, that was actually, uh, almost prior to David being there. It was, you know, Reiner Schwartz was, you know, he was there and David Pritchard and, you know, in the initial start up of the, when they, when they got their license to go to a hundred thousand Watts, but David is the one who brought it all together. And David's the one who created the magic. And, you know, I mean, I've got fabulous memories too, of listening to David when he was on the air at Chum FM and, uh, in, in the earlier part of the seventies when he would be on in the evening and it was,

um, you know, more so than just about anybody, the theater of the mind that he created back then and is still doing now, um, is fantastic. And. And, you know, David rocked the boat. David goes outside of what's conventional and always has and was able to, you know, question and be able to get a, you know, I wouldn't say get around, but be able to have people see things differently. And I just think that it's been great. And, you know, when David went into

the Canadian Music Hall of Fame a couple of years back, I mean, I think that his, and I've been, and I've gone to every single Canadian Music Week, and I'm dating myself, but I've been to every single Canadian Music Week. And I'm dating myself, but I've been to every single Canadian Music Week since it started in 1981. And I have to say that, and I've heard every single speech, and I will have to say that David's speech that year

is one of the most riveting things that I have ever seen in that music business. And he shook a lot of shit up. He absolutely did for a great many years in radio, but that one at CMW was absolutely phenomenal. And I think for all of us who worked for him over the years, I mean, we'd look back on it fondly going, that guy, if I look at one of my all-time mentors,

he's definitely one of them. And I look back at it that I was very young at the time and he gave me a lot of rope and he gave us a lot of chances to do things that I've never been able to do since in just about any environment. And of course, a lot of things, learnings from him I've taken into

the business environments that I've been in and being able to, you know, work a little magic with those as well. Cool. I'm going to play another clip here real quick here. Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present the CFNYFM UNO Awards 82. Tonight, Long John Baldry, Martha Johnson, Carol Pope and Kevin Staples, The Spoons, B.B. Gabor, Bruce Colbert, Mick Karn of Japan. Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present the CFNY-FM UNO Awards 83. Jonathan Gross, Ivan from Men Without Hats, Murray McLaughlin, Carol Pope and Kevin Staples, Robert Priest, Vladimir Rogoff,

The Spoons, The Tenants, and of course, Lenya Lovitch. All appearing at the UNO Awards. Monday, April 2nd, Royal York Hotel. CFNYFM presents the UNO Awards 84. The listener's choice. A night with the stars. In honor of the

Canadian music industry. UNO Awards 84. Register your votes now. You'll find the ballot every Thursday in NOW Magazine. UNO Awards 84. Tickets go on sale March 1st at all Bass outlets. A Night with the Stars. The Listener's Choice.

The UNO Awards 84. April 2nd at the Royal York Hotel. A presentation of CFNY-FM 102, The Spirit. So there you go, the Junos. Yes. So whose baby is that again? Is that Morrison's baby? That's his.

Yeah, I remember, you know, I do remember, you know, having a, sitting around in one of our meetings and stuff and talking about the Junos at the time and going, well, you know, that he felt that they'd kind of lost their way and it was becoming, you know, too big for what it is. And, you know, maybe it's something that we can get our listeners involved in.

And it's like, and because so much of the music that we were playing in those days wasn't really being recognized by the Junos. And it's like, you know what, maybe we can go and do this and have an alternate way of recognizing Canadian music. And so it really, I mean, I distinctly remember, he goes, you know what, what do you think? Like we should do something. And like, and, and, and then it ended up just being this, um, you know, growing for something that was very, very grassroots into, you know, a number of years later, it'd been something that was, you know, also being nationally telecast and also something that was like an incredible time, uh, time management situation and just such a big thing in television production and what have you. But, you know, it's amazing to see that all these years later that, you know, Chorus still has it going, you know, and that, but it really came out of, you know, a lack of recognition for things that we felt that we were supporting at the time and that the listeners could be a part of it

was where it went to UNOS. And then, of course, there was issues with the UNOS afterwards. Oh, it's too close to the UNOS and litigation potentially. And it's like, oh, then it's when it changed to Caspi's Canadian Artists as Selected by You. Right. So, yeah, great. Now, Marsden, for those who want to go back and listen,

the episode was 106. Just want to get that out there if you want to go back and listen, the episode was 106. Just want to get that out there if you want to go back in the archives. Let me just throw some more names. The next one is Alan Cross, who was episode 66. Okay. What was it like working with the ongoing history of new music? So, Alan Cross. Well, Alan and I are still our best friends to this day. and I are still, you know, our best friends to this day. And Alan, you know, Alan came in as kind of like, you know, David hired him out of Winnipeg and he was very eager to be there. And we had a couple of, I used to share a house with one of the other CFNY guys, Kevin O'Leary,

and we used to, we had a couple of these giant backyard parties. And I can tell you they were, I don't know how, we can get into that in a bit. But Alan came to our parties and we just became friends. We just, you know what, there was a, you know, we just became, you know, really good friends. I was the emcee at his wedding. Oh, to Mary Ellen Benninger. Yeah.

Captain Phil was there. He was out in Winnipeg in 1990. And we worked together on a bunch of, we still work together on projects now. I, you know, things I do at Universal. Alan's done some, did some work with us with Vintage Trouble this past year. He's done some podcasts for us.

We worked together on the Tragically Hips, a fully, completely super deluxe box set. So those are things that we, you know, we talk all the time. As a matter of fact, on my way here tonight, we're cooking up something right now. And Alan and I had a conference call with a third party tonight.

He took a call during my episode with him. That's how busy this is. Literally, the phone rang and he took the call. He's a global traveler. He knows how to put things into... He's wonderful at being able to put things into perspective with his blogs and his ongoing history in new music, which is coming up on... Well, it's 23 years he's done it,

but it's 20 years it could take out when he was not doing it, you know. So, I mean, I think that Alan is, you know, one of this country's true music journal, journalistic treasures. And I think he's, and I think he's absolutely on a global level with the way he gets things out there and his consistency. So, yeah, always have great things to say about Alan. What about the lovely May Potts, who was episode 105? Ah, May Potts. So May and I, we worked together at CFNY in the last part,

I guess the last few years. And May you know, May, I think also, you know, one of the great passionate persons about music, particularly the CFNY era. And I think she does a terrific job at Boom. You know, we get together a couple of times a year. And this is usually, this is the Downtown Toronto Record Collector Show, right? So that takes place twice a year.

It's usually in November and usually in April. And it's a Sunday morning. There's usually about a dozen of us get together. We have breakfast on Sunday morning. And then we get first into the record collector show before everybody else. And he's usually part of that group. And she brings her daughter Lauren with her who also is getting into broadcasting. So it's great

that she's passed that on to her daughter. Yeah, who is here, actually. Oh, Lauren Kim. Not surprising. Like Lauren a lot. Great girl. Great, great, great. Okay, episode 102, appropriately enough, was Scott Turner. Turner. Okay, so Turner and I

we worked together on, we did the thursday 30 together for a while um and then we we had a like a kind of an interview feature program that we did together and uh um you know scott to me um, a little bit more of like a little more professionalism to what I did in radio. I think he was, he's a little more, you know, he's, he's good at kind of speaking better to a larger audience, I feel. But I also know that, you know, there was a lot of chaos with Scott and I, because the two of us weren't the boat that weren't the best organized.

You know, there was instances when we would be on the air and it'd be like, oh my God, it would be like he'd be talking and I'd be trying to edit the tape at the same time on something and press the wrong button. So there was lots of mistakes. And we did a show on NY the Spirit,

I don't know, about six, seven months ago or whatever. And I think it was the second song in, I played the wrong song or something and we think i think it was the second the second song in i played the wrong song or something we just howled with laughter it's like oh turner and hamilton together again same old shit same mistakes or whatever you know so um so it's always it's always great to get together with scott we're gonna we're gonna try and get together again soon and do another uh ny the spirit um show we we've done alan and I did one just before Christmas. We did like a three-hour year-ender,

and Turner and I kind of just did a three-hour thing in the summer together. Turner's always like, Ivor, make sure we, let's just bring in the beers, okay? We'll get a couple of beers going, and this is what we're going to plan out. I can supply you with the beer if you need it. Okay, for the next time that we do it.

But Scott, he's up there in Kitchener. He's working at Dave FM, and he's got a great staff working with him up there. He had a fantastic party last summer at his place and had just a kick-ass sound system in his backyard. Cool. So everybody who was there, most of the guys from radio,

and I was the first guy up, everybody got a turn to do a DJ set. And my shtick on this is like, because I'm super old school, is I just played 7-inch 45s. That's all I played. That's better than Bon Jovi. Yeah, there you go.

I did not play Bon Jovi. That's right. I loved the spirit of Radio Sundays that they were doing for a while. I mean, I guess I'm the demo for that. Yeah, we're the demo, but I guess the problem is the station felt we were too old for their,

they were targeting us younger demos. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, business decision. Radio and their demos, man. It's what they need to do. You know, if you can take more chances I mean it'd be great and I know that I know that they had some decent ratings on it I helped I helped Scott I bet within the course I don't know how long you know what was the show on for nine months or something

or ten months or something I bet I sent them 200 songs to play we Oh, cool. You know, the unfortunate part about that for them at the time was that they didn't have a lot of the music that they wanted to play in that program. So they'd reach out to myself or they'd reach out to Alan and go,

okay, I'm looking for... All right, because Alan got all the records when they... No, no, that's not... Let me clarify that. Okay, clarify that because he told that story

on the episode. Yeah, he tells that story a lot. He episode. Yeah, he tells that story a lot. So he tells that story a lot. So Alan has a portion of the records. Alan has a good portion of it. Where do you think the rest of them are? They're with you. At Ivor Hamilton's place, right?

But regardless, right? So whoever goes first, right? This is a true story. This is a true story. Whichever one of us leaves this planet first gets each other's collection. That sounds fair. That is, but that is, that is. That's for real?

That is, that is. That's in writing somewhere? Much to the chagrin of his wife, Mary Ellen Benninger, because, you know, my collection is bigger than Alan's. So, you know, she's not happy about it because if that come to their house, there'd be a problem. But anyway, um, but, but respectfully, so, you know, and when they did the program, it was like, you know, they had a library of whatever they still played from the eighties of that era. And it, but it was, it had been reduced to,

you know, something that was very, very small. And all of a sudden, especially there's a lot of songs that are out there that they're not on iTunes or they're not exactly at a giant record store because a lot of the giant record stores obviously aren't around anymore. So we would get notes from Scott every week going, I am looking for whatever, British Electric Foundation, Adam Ant, XXX from the era. Sent to myself and sent to Alan. Goes, who's got them? So most of the time it would be myself or Alan or one or two other people out there, some people that I work with, we say, okay, I have it in my collection, and we would be

spending time sending them their music for the program. That's awesome. And I was happy to do it. It was a real labor of love to help out. It's a great show. And I was a guest on there probably three times to come in on that show. I loved it. And maybe it'll

come back somewhere else. Who knows? But the thing is, we've got NY the Spirit. It's okay. I will get to this later. Let's right now show i loved it and you know maybe it'll come back somewhere else who knows but you know the thing is you know we've got ny the spirit and yeah it's okay i will get to later let's right now tell me though uh so anyone could go to ny the spirit.com and subscribe so there's like a monthly fee and then you can basically it's all you can eat with this monthly fee it's five bucks uh so it's not it's not a lot they're adding music to the stream all the time. David calls them the pop-up shows for the guys that do the specialty shows. My show is called The Teardown because I just want to do it differently.

But they've had a promotion on where it's 30 days free. So you can test drive it 30 days free. They've fixed the interface on it. So tell me though, is it like is there a smartphone app for this thing? Yes, there is. And there's also like something you could download to your Mac or your Windows machine. Well, it's an app.

But the difference is it's not on demand. So you couldn't hear my program on demand. You would have to go in and... Whatever's playing right now. Yeah, whatever's playing right now is what you hear. So that's the difference on it. I mean, there's identification. You can see everything.

It's on your screen or whatever. But the audio quality is exceptional. They spend a great deal of time making sure that you get superb audio quality on it. And he's adding a lot of great stuff to the stream all the time and between myself and the other guys that help out there's always things that um haven't you know haven't been on there i mean i pride myself i know they used to say in cf and when i said we never play the same thing in 24 hours i can tell you in the 68 shows that i've done i've never

played the same song twice there you go there you go right. And you know, that's for a music lover, hearing procured music like that by those who love it and know it, five bucks a month is nothing. What is that? A couple of Starbucks coffees? It's not even a specialty coffee. To say yes, it's the same price as Guy Lawrence at the President of Rogers

going, well, there are cable bills going up. It's only the price of a coffee. It's like, well, there you go. Thank you, Guy, for that. And yes. It's only the price of a coffee. It's like, well, there you go. Thank you, guy, for that. And yes, it's for the price of a, you know, whatever, a cafe something at Starbucks. You can listen to nythespirit.com. nythespirit.com. By the way, Scott Turner has a $6,000 bicycle,

by the way. I know he's big into the bikes. So I'm doing running now. I've got a $160 pair of running shoes. On that note, since I'm meeting you for the first time, but we have mutual friends who tell me there was a lot more of you recently. Like you are a smaller version of your previous self. So, yeah, I can go into this.

And listen, this is something for me that is a big lifestyle change. I'm 56 years old, and at this time last year, I was almost 280 pounds. I had severe sleep apnea, and I had problems with my feet, problems with my back. And, um, and I'd lost weight a couple of times before I've done some of the other programs that are out there and I don't want to get into it because it's just, you know, I don't want to say negative things about it, but I decided to take my life back. And, and I joined, um, I joined Harvey broker, uh, harveybroker.com and Harvey broker, what it is, it's a weight loss program. It's the only weight loss program in North America that is specifically geared to men.

And it's a year later on the program, I'm now down 89 pounds. Wow. Okay, so I've changed my wardrobe three times. I've taken 14 inches off my waist. And I started training for a half marathon. So I'm running in the Chile half marathon on March the 6th and will be probably, I'd say probably 90%, but I will probably also do around the bay, which is a 30-kilometer race. They say a race, but I'm not running the race. I'm doing it to cross the finish line.

It's a run, you know, and it's in April. And, you know, I think the whole thing is like, you know, I realize that I, you know, it's not even, you know, it's the diet, but it's also changing your lifestyle and changing it, you know, changing it permanently because if you do the same things you've always done, you'll get the same results. And, um, it's been amazingly, you know, it's, it's an amazing transformation, but I, I, you know, the, the most frustrating thing for me on it is that I've talked, I've had lots of other people come and go, Oh man,

you've done great. This is fantastic. And I'm really interested to hear about it. And it's like, can you, um, uh, can you just email me whatever the program is, and I'll look at it myself. And I'm like, well, it's a lot more than that. It's an education. It's like you can't press F6 and think that that's going to happen. You're preaching to the choir. In 2012, I lost 40 pounds.

Right, OK. 40 pounds. And I've maintained it since then, actually. Fantastic. But it really is discipline. And Harvey Brooker, this is the program. Yeah, okay. 40 pounds. And I've maintained it since then, actually. Fantastic. But it really is discipline. And Harvey Brooker, this is the program. Yeah, Harvey Brooker. So I'm sure what this program is,

I'm sure a lot of this program is education, like you said, and then discipline, like saying no to eating the six donuts right now and go have an apple instead. It's really, you know, a lot of it is education. I mean, you know, you meet with them, you know, once a week. It's a group of men that's in a room. It's like, okay, I mean, I've never been to AA, but I can only imagine that AA is something similar. But you talk about those issues and it's like, you know, my name's X and I stood up and I joined on January 16, 2014.

And I've lost 68 pounds. The next guy stands up and I lost 58 pounds. I joined in April or whatever. And they talk about, you know, all of these things, but you know, the education part is, is, is so important that, you know, you learn all these things going, okay, this is, this is how I need to eat. This is now how I need to plan. I mean, there's even, you know, situations in, in, you know, your, your business environment that, that you might face. I mean, for me, it's like I remember when I started on it and we were out at a big company function and our chairman's saying, I'm going to order for everybody.

And I said, except for me because I can't eat that stuff. And I've got a family thing coming up this weekend. And we're all going to the, you know, somebody's turning, there's a family birthday and it's like, oh, what are we doing? We're going to the, you know, somebody's turning, there's a family birthday, and it's like, oh, what are we doing? We're going to the Mandarin. I said, well, okay, I'm going to join you at the house when you open presents later because I can't be in that environment. So it's one of those things I've learned that I've had to change my ways. And even, you know, some of the people that are around that are having those bad old habits, you can't be around because I can't go back to eating chicken wings and drinking.

We're having one beer tonight. This will be my second beer of the week, and that's probably all I'm going to have. But it's not a bad thing. Right, right, right. Yeah, I know. I'm with you. It's about calories in, calories out, and making wiser choices with what you put in your mouth.

And portion control for me was a big thing. If pizza showed up, I didn't have this ability to like stop at two slices. You know what I mean? Like I'll go four or five. I'd go the whole thing. And you know, it's about, you know, having a clean environment in your house.

And I also found this very useful, like is, you know, tracking everything that you, you write down everything that you eat. And when you write down everything that you eat, so this program, you weigh in once a week. And okay, I weigh in and go, I've had a couple of instances where I went up a few pounds. When I've had one week, I went up five pounds. So I look back and say, okay, well, that burger and fries,

that greasy breakfast, that pizza and that steak dinner I had that week, that's probably where that five pounds comes. So the next week, get back on that horse, get back on the program, because it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, you know, and for each person out there, it's different, you know, and how long it's going to take you. But I just think that you know this program is is probably one of the smartest things that i've seen out there and their whole thing is about doing it long term whereas a lot of these other things you see out there there's short fix you starvation diet you lose all the weight and the next thing you know i mean i lost back in 2002 i'd lost like i don't

know it was like 55 pounds and by, I'd put it all back on plus more. And so, you know, I can't live that way anymore. No, you got to change your lifestyle. Yeah. But, you know, again, you know, if it's all right, I just say that, you know, for guys, the Harvey Broker thing, it works. And I fully support it. I've heard these ads on AM radio. Well, the whole thing is, if you could have done it yourself, you would have already support it. I've heard these ads on AM radio. Well, the whole thing is if you could have done it yourself, you would have already done it. You think about this. And even this running thing that I'm doing,

I'm doing this running half marathon thing. I'm doing it with the running room. And it's some pretty intense training that's out there. But I think about some of the distances that we've covered. I only started in early November this year. And we ran 22K this past week. And I'm like, I don't think I'd ever ran 6K in my entire life before that. I've started in early November this year and we ran 22k this past week. And I'm like, I don't think I'd ever ran 6k in my entire life before that.

I've been there, man. You start with that, the intervals, you know, you walk for two minutes, you run for me, you start with that. And then you, yeah, next thing you know, you're training for a half marathon. And you work it, you know, you work it up, but it's also that, you know, that group support environment, which I think is really, really important to get you motivated. And I think also too, you know, you, you know, when you're working in a, a, a group in your business environment, there's so many things that you can learn from other people that you

work with young and young or old or whatever it might be. Yeah. No, good for you. You look great. Thanks. Thank you so much. You see, I wouldn't even know about the weight

loss except that was tipped off. Oh, okay. 89 pounds. That's sick. That's amazing. There's a picture on my Facebook. If you want to, if you want to check it out. All right. I'll tipped off. Oh, okay. The 89 pounds, that's amazing. There's a picture on my Facebook if you want to check it out. All right, I'll check that out for sure.

I put a before and after picture I put up about two weeks ago. Are we okay with time? Yeah, we're fine. I'm sorry about that, but I have so many important questions. Okay.

Episode 34 was the aforementioned Fred Patterson, who I call Freddy P. Freddy P. So, yeah, what was it like working with Freddyson, who I call Freddie P. So, yeah, what was it like working with Freddie P? Because I guess he was there the whole time you were there. Yeah, Freddie, you know, Fred and I have a relationship going. Fred basically was there from pretty much the time that I started full-time there.

So Fred and I, you know, we've been friends for a very, you know, I mean, we go back to 79 and, and, you know, Fred is, he's a very direct guy, but he's a very funny guy. Um, you know, I've spent time at the trailer. I've spent time with his family. Uh, I love going to visit him, you know, during the summer when they're up at the lake there, we spend some time together. I'm proud to have Fred as one of my good friends. Always have been a total stand-up guy. I think it's amazing what him and Humble have done to run a business. You know, you're talking to the guy who was there day one

as the digital guy in the back end. So I'm the guy who they would create the audio and I was the guy in charge of making sure the masses could subscribe and hear that. Yeah. No, that's a show. In fact, this show here only exists because I got tired of watching them do that down the street. Down the street. Yeah, you're close. You're pretty close to them.

And I'm like, I can do that too, just to see. And yeah, yeah. So I'm a big fan of their podcast over there, big supporter. I think they do a great job. I mean, it's great that they're on SiriusXM. I think it's great that they've got a really good list of sponsors that have supported them through and they're adding new sponsors there. I mean, I think it's a great testament to do-it-yourself business. It's become successful

and that people loved hearing him and Humble. Hats off to them. Continued success. The main thing is right now, they're their own boss. That's an amazing feeling. There's no program director down the hall. They just do whatever, you know? You know, exactly. So that's great. That's great. Now, Freddie P., one of his best friends at CFNY in the 80s, is now on Talk Radio 640, but it was Mike Stafford. The miker. So what was it like working with Mike, who was, I guess, he was on Pete, I'm trying to

get it right, on Pete and Geet's, Fred was doing sports and Mike was doing news? Mike was doing news, yeah. I mean, yeah, Mike was actually my roommate at one point. Oh, get out of here. Mike and I and Kevin O'Leary shared an apartment at one point for a short period in the early 80s. And, I mean, Mike, you know, Mike is a guy who had a great twisted sense of humor.

I mean, he used to just make us howl with some of the stuff. Like, he'd make up these, he'd write these, like, we'd see something in National Lampoon at time and next thing you know stafford would write his own versions of those stories and throw them on your desk or whatever and i was like oh my god he's just like you know he was uh there's some pretty crazy stuff but you know what it's great to see what mike's doing out there these days uh uh i know got married recently and is doing well. I saw a great picture that he posted, I think it was yesterday, of him and Midge Ewer together. So yeah, I haven't talked to him in a long time, but I did send him a little shout out recently.

So if anyone wants to hear the episode of Mike Stafford, it's episode 113, Mike Stafford. I don't even know how long you worked with him. It might have been a short period, but he was on episode 123. Did you overlap Steve Anthony? Yeah, a very short period of time. I mean, he was the morning guy for a short period of time. It was like, you know, remember we had these little promotional radios, and it was like Toronto's new morning mouth, Steve Anthony.

But, you know, I mean Anthony. But, you know, I mean, Steve Anthony, you know, when he worked with us, he still liked to, you know, go out and have a good time. No, he opened up about that on the show. And I remember a number of times where he didn't show up and, you know, I mean, I know it was, you know, it was a similar situation at Much Music. And I have this distinct memory of Much Music where they were like, he's not, I'm not feeling well, I'm sick. And it was the two other guys, it was Mike Campbell and Mike, whatever, Mike and Mike at Much.

Oh, I remember Mike and Mike, yeah. So they were pretty tight with Steve and they're going, really? You're sick, you're not feeling well? And they were like, let's go over to his house and let's see how he's doing, right? And this was on air and so they, for whatever reason, they knew how to get into his house. So they were actually

doing a broadcast from Steve's living room with Mike and Mike sitting in Steve's living room and he wasn't there. So, anyway, I mean, I hear from Steve every once in a while and we don't know each other that well, but we're, you know, we're in touch. Right, right. Okay. And that's it for episodes of Toronto Mic'd, but I do have a bunch of other names I'm going to drill you with here. Pete and Geetz. So,

so, you know, guys my age grew up and it was Humble and Fred, but a little older than me, and it's Pete and Geetz was the legendary morning show on CFNY. What were they like? I love Pete and Geetz. I mean, Pete Griffin, here's what somebody used to call Pete Griffin. They'd call him, you know, because when he worked there initially, I think Pete was about 50. But he carried on like he was like 18 like and he partied like there was no tomorrow and it was like the world's oldest teenager pete griffin and you know we'd have our our

wankies baseball team pete would always be out there there'd be some get together at a pub pete would always be there and he would just he would have a whale of a time we'd have parties at pete's house everybody in the pool uh always having a good time pete was always gracious to everybody um you know pete was a militant smoker though and i always remember that's like you know hey pete hey pete so-and-so's quitting smoking he goes, more for me. Okay. You know, Geetz was the money man, but Geetz, Geetz, awesome. Geetz got stuff done. Geetz was the engineer, you know, so he'd say, you know what we do, but we'd all say, you know, there's a problem in the studio, Geetz, whatever.

He goes, yeah. He goes, we're in the problem in the studio because you guys are smoking in there. No, I didn't smoke, but other people, right. You know, you know, we'd spend a lot of time, Geetz and I would spend a lot of time talking about the radio station station the business we i have very fond memories of of geats and i going out to lunch at mother's pizza or some of the other places other various places around brampton back in the day and and you know geats is real name david haydu you know i see him he's still doing engineering work to this day i see him every once in a while i know know he did some great work for David on his NY the Spirit studio

in his residence, and he's still out there being active in the business to a much lesser extent. But Pete and Geet's were a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I also remember they had a couple of Pete and Geet's boat cruises, and they were – well, you forget about a lot of things going on there because there was too much fun going on. But they were great. It was the Pete and Geet's Pirate Cruises, I think is what we called it. Oh, that's great.

They were fantastic. And their Christmas parties, too. They had a lot of great memories of Pete and Geet's. I mean, really, too, one of the greatest radio teams in the history of Toronto radio, as far as I'm concerned. That's awesome. What about Liz Janik? Liz? You know what? Liz, her Streets of Ontario

thing, you know, real passionate music person. You know, what can I tell you about Liz? I mean, we knew each other for a long time. She became a very successful, internationally renowned radio consultant. I did not know that.

Absolutely. And really championing the cause of women in the music business, very recognized for the support of the advancement of music, of a woman in the music business. So Liz has done some great things over over the years and and um yeah i mean we we uh as i said we had a great relationship when when we worked at cfny back in the day live earl jive live earl jive okay it's like like so live earl jive and beverly hills i mean uh uh right you know, Earl, Earl was quite a character or Earl, uh, Earl did his own thing. You know, he, you know, you'd walk into the station and go like, who are all these people that are in here? Like Earl's helpers or whatever it might be. And, and, you know, I mean, Earl did some crazy, you know, did some crazy stuff. I mean, he had this stuff going.

He'd have these things. He'd be doing these nightclub shows all the time. It was like we'd have the CFNY Video Roadshow, but Earl Jive, back in those days, I mean, we never made much money. I got to say, when you listen to working on the radio, there's like the phrase in the song, we don't make much money, but we sure have fun,

was very, very true. We never made any damn money out there. So we had to get up there and be a hustler and make a lot of money. Earl was the king of that. So he always had a nightclub on the go. He would have a couple of nightclubs on the go. I mean, I remember times that the guy would be on the air and he'd be doing two nightclubs at the same time. I was like, how in the world could he possibly be doing two nightclubs in there? Well, I was like, how in the world could he possibly be doing two nightclubs in there? Well, he'd tape his show and not tell anybody, and he'd be out at this club in Mississauga here, and then he'd leave that club and then go to Hamilton

to do another nightclub or whatever. So, I mean, he was a huge supporter of the Spoons. He was a huge supporter of him and Beverly, of Duran Duran. He championed a lot of bands back in the days. He had a great way of presenting things on the air. I think the synergy between him and Beverly was fantastic. And we're still in touch. I mean, he does some radio blogs and things out in California these days.

He's back there. And the thing that I see from him occasionally is that he has some great postings of, you know, memories he has from his days working at CFNY or days at SHOM. And, you know, being an American, I can say he's very close to being, you know, he's a true honorary Canadian.

Yeah, no, fantastic. What about Hedley Jones? Oh, Hedley. Hedley, you know, deadly, deadly Hedley. What about Hedley Jones? Oh, Hedley. Hedley, you know, deadly Hedley. Always laughing. You know, I thought it was one of the things that was funny when they had the Spirit of Radio reunion in 2003, and there was a whole bunch of us that got a chance to come out and DJ that night. So, you know, we're going to go and everybody gets a chance to spin and and it was like you know headley what about you and he's like i said you gonna spin some reggae records with everybody goes i don't have any of those and i was like are you kidding me or whatever you know so but you know i mean uh i think that you know there was a great dynamic between headley and chris shepherd and uh you know there to be the, you'd walk in there on a Saturday night and Shep would be on from whatever it was,

eight to midnight. And then Headley was on from midnight to 5am or whatever it was. I don't remember the specifically the times, but he came in on a Saturday night. There'd be a good chance there'd be some, uh, you know,

there'd be a bit of a party going on in control room. Well, that was my next name was to drop on you was Chris Shepard. Yeah. Yeah. So,

so that Shep goes together. I mean, I, I knew shep before he was a you know a dj i remember him hanging out sort of like on the you know new wave early alternative scene more sort of like the new romantic thing back so i knew him from a very early early days because um roger powell who's known as roger roadshow worked with us they were they were good friends and went to high school out in etobicoke together. So I actually knew Shep before that. And then as his reputation grew in the clubs is when David actually decided to bring him in. And actually, for David being a guy who was a prominent DJ since the early 1960s,

Dave Marsden as Dave Mickey, and that he actually replaced himself with Chris Shepard. So that was probably some humble pie for David to do in those days to have Chris Shepard. But it comes a time, like with anybody, you just go, well, this guy's going to bring in listenership. And Shep was a real force. You know, I heard a, this is like, I guess, you can file this under rumor,

but there's speculation that when Martin, not Martin Streak, but when Chris Shepard was saying often imitated, never duplicated, that possibly that was a shot at Martin Streak because there was some sense that maybe he was borrowing his shtick or something. See this? This is the rumor component.

This is rumors. I mean, I think that there's some, you know, I think there's some inflections and you learn from other people when you hear them on the air. And certainly, I mean, for myself, I mean, you know, I was off the air for a great many years until I started doing my NY the Spirit thing.

And, you know, I admitted when I started back up again, I mean, it's like getting back on, you know, if you go to ride your bike again or you start back on something you haven't done for a long time, it takes time to get back into it. But what do you do? You listen to other people that you think do a great job or you idolize. And sure, I mean, I think that there were things that Martin took that were taken off of Chris Shepard, uh, cause Shep was great. Shep, Shep brought it, but I think

eventually Martin really had his own persona. And to be honest with you, I think that, you know, there's probably as much of a groundswell for Martin as there ever was for Shep. So, you know, in the long run, Martin was just as equally as good, you know? Sure, sure, sure. And one of the people you worked with at NY, I think, I believe you worked with him at nythespirit.com, but the late, great Don Burns. Yeah, yeah, no, I did. I mean, I worked with Burns at CFNY and nythespirit.com. For a while there, Burns was my boss. Don always had this very cheesy sense of humor. He always had the corniest jokes. He always had something that you could laugh about with him. Great personality.

I mean, I learned a lot of things from Don. He certainly also had one of the greatest voiceover voices in the entire business. I mean, this guy thundering all over the place. For the last number of years, every time I turn on some documentary on, you know, History Channel or National Geographic, it's like, Don Burns is the voice. And then, you know, he was in, he was acting and, and, uh, in theater. And, and, you know, one of, you know, I lost my mother four years ago. And one of the last things I did with my mother was, um, took her to see, um, Annie, uh, at the Rose Theater in Brampton, where Don Burns was starring as Daddy Warbucks, you know? So, so, you know, Don had a great career,

um, in acting. He had a great career in voiceover. Um, I also heard that he, you know, he did a lot of things to help people in the community, whether that be his involvement with Pride, but he also did, um, a lot of other things up in, uh, up in the Orangeville area where he was living and, and that I wasn't aware of that were really, you know, I thought were, were really great, you know? So, um, you know, it was, it was a real shock that Don, Don left us and it was surprising, didn't know that, you know, I didn't see it coming either. And, and, um, um, you know, I think a few people don't know this, but Don was,

Don had also been part of the Harvey broker program over, uh, you know, he'd lost a hundred pounds a few years before, uh, he passed away. Um, so it was, it was a bit of a, uh, you know, a bit of a surprise to see, see him go. Um, he always liked to be a part of things. I mean, one of the silly things that, that happened was the Sunday that we were on, um, Spirit of Radio Sunday when myself and Alan and, uh, May and, and, uh, Danny came down and we took a, we, we took a group picture of everybody together and Don was perplexed that he wasn't there. He was really upset about it. And so he saw the picture

and he Photoshopped himself into it and reposted it. And I remember Davis going, Don is such an ass for doing that. Like, why did he do that? Right? But you know, whatever. That was Don. That's what we'd expect from Don.

But you know, his, I'll have to say that, and maybe, you know, his wake was one of the, I mean, I might as well have been at Yuck Yucks. It was one of the funniest, funniest things that I'd ever been to. Um, but I know Don would have wanted it that way.

Right. That's the thing. Uh, reminds me of when, uh, the member of, uh, Monty Python who passed away in the eighties. Uh, and then, yeah, it was just a hilarious wake, you know, that's the way he would have wanted, yeah, it was just a hilarious wake. That's the way he would have wanted it. Don's was like that.

His best buddy, this guy out of Buffalo, Airborne Eddie, I mean, this guy just kept it going for the whole time and was like, I don't think I'd ever laughed that hard at a wig. You never know when you're going to get your next big laugh. Hey, thanks. I got to thank you big time for this. This was great. If I missed anybody you're going to get your next big laugh. Hey, thanks. I got to thank you big time for this. This was great. If I missed anybody you want to mention now,

I know it's putting you on the spot, but I just ran down a list of some people I was curious about. Yeah, I mean. It wasn't a thorough list, but. Well, I mean, I think you've covered, you know, a lot of the history of things that I've been involved with over the years.

I mean, you know, it's been a great span of, you know, since my days in radio and spending time in the music business. And, you know, Mike, what I, you know, currently position at Universal Music. And, you know, we do some good things to promote what we have out there. I'd like to just give a shout out to a website that we're involved with that is worth checking out. We're both there,

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. So it's musicvaults.com with a Z. And that's just if you want to learn more about what's going on with music as it kind of mostly speaks to heritage acts. And we've got a direct-to-consumer store there too that you can, you know, if you want to check out some hard-to-find things

and some special music items that you might not have had a chance to find elsewhere, we offer them there. And that's a big part of what I do today. And I'm hoping to help out this year on the Great Cup in Toronto. It's here and, you know, get a halftime show that people will enjoy.

You mean unlike, although you don't represent Sting, do you? We do, as a matter of fact. Just to me, and that's the big story recently, it just seems like such an odd choice. Do you have any insight into how Sting got selected to the NBA? Well, I can only offer a little bit of logistical perspective. And so the Grammys are the day after, You know, I can only offer a little bit of logistical perspective. And so the Grammys are the day after.

And anybody who's nominated for a Grammy really needs to be in Los Angeles for rehearsals and things. Any of those big award shows or events like a Super Bowl or, you know, those things. You need to be there usually the day before, sometimes two days before to do rehearsals and get involved. And, you know, the Grammys have, you know, a huge amount of performances. So I know there's a, you know, I've seen a lot of commentary on their trajectory on like what it should be. And it's like, totally get it. But when you've got an event in Toronto, an event in Los Angeles the next day, I think, you know, you compare the two of them, absolutely would have been fantastic to have whoever the weekend or whatever that might be.

Weekend Drake. All of those things. There's huge logistics. So I know that, you know, it wasn't for, and I'm only speculating, but I just said, I know that there was a lot of effort in going into finding the things that, you know, make sense. But, you know, let's remember that a lot of things over the years that you think this is what it is, and then maybe there's a surprise that's connected with that, that you didn't think something was going to happen that, you know, you never know. Because on the surface, you have to admit, it's a curious choice on the surface. Yeah, absolutely. I think for the diehards,

come back on June 29th and see Sting and Peter Gabriel at the Air Canada Centre for that. Right. Right? That's right. And you're going to hook me up with some tickets to that one, isn't it?

Thanks again. My pleasure. Remember that Great Lakes Brewery beer is is yours and i got some more for you too there's some winter ale here that people are digging so i'm gonna send you home with some uh gift packs thank you very much it was worth the drive absolutely and that brings us to the end of our 157th show you can follow me me on Twitter at Toronto Mike and Ivor although you don't use Twitter too much do you? I don't use it that much.

I've been tweeting at you. I think I caught you back on Twitter finally but Facebook is where you find me most. But you are for those who want to follow Ivor in case one day he starts tweeting Ivor Ham I-V-A-R-H-A-M See you all next week

I wanna take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around