Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jeff Chalmers: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1513

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

In this 1513th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with radio veteran Jeff Chalmers about his years at CFTR, Q107, CBC, The Hog, Boom and more. Will Jeff corroborate John Gallagher's story about Labatt paying the Q107 morning show team 20k to not say Molson for one year? Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1313. No episode 1313. No episode 1513. Jeff Chalmers has me so fucking nervous over here. Toronto Mike'd. He's a real broadcaster everybody. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Made Believes baseball team, the best baseball in the city outside the dome. Join me July 7th at Christie Pitts at this coming Sunday. I'm recording live with Mike Richards and others.

Recyclemyelectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic debut is Jeff Chalmers. Welcome Jeff. Hey, thanks to see you. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me.

This is amazing. Well, listen, I've never butchered the opening like that before, but I'm like, this guy's a real radio broadcaster. I don't want to fuck it up. But of course, once I said that in my head, I fucked it up. But what a pleasure to meet you, man. Nice to meet you as well. Can we just take a minute before we go anywhere with the discussion and shout you out? I wanted to take your time. Okay, now seriously, I mean, what a what an

interesting niche you've carved out for yourself in a very non traditional way. I mean, you're bringing back the long form interview. It's like It's like Peter Zosky on Morningside, right? Thank you. These long drawn out in a world of, you know, cute little snippets and sound bites. There's someone who's investing in people and taking the time to have decent and interesting conversations.

I think it's really admirable. And you've really done this really unique sort of thing on the internet and taken advantage of The situation so congrats to you and 15 13 15 13. That's my favorite number I mean, it's unbelievable the coincidence you can get a tattoo that says 15 13 on it I I've got to say Jeff that I you're highly desire. I know you're gonna say well Mike what took you so long Well, I kind of was like I need Jeff Jeff Chalmers on. You're still on the radio in this market. I used to hear you all the time on Q107. We're going to walk through your career, but your name was dropped by none other than John Gallagher a couple of, a few weeks ago

on Toronto, Mike, he dropped your name. And I'm like, I got to get, and I reached out on, I think LinkedIn. I reached out that day when John Gallagher said the word You know Jeff Chalmers. I said I gotta get Jeff on Toronto mic and here we are Well, thank you. Yeah, John John's great John and I worked together beginning in 87 at Q we can talk about the the the timeline but John is as we know as you know from your episode down East and and still full of beans still full of beans and I pulled a know from your episode Down East and still full of beans. Still full of beans.

And I pulled a clip from the episode because he says something that blew my mind and he said you would corroborate it. And then I mentioned this in passing to Humble and Fred because I produce a podcast for Humble and Fred. And they basically called bullshit on it. So they said, we've never heard of anything like this. And they called bullshit on it. So at some point when we get to your, uh, you know, first tour

of duty at Q or I don't know if we're going to walk through it when we get there, when it's appropriate, I'm going to play John Gallagher's clip and you're going to say, did John Gallagher embellish this story? Did he make it up or did that happen in humble and fed or wrong? I can't wait for that moment in this podcast. Okay. I know where it's going. Okay. You know where it's going. You did your homework. Yeah. I heard the episode. Okay. So don't don't we're going to just tease it. This is a sure like a real radio show. We're going to tease things. Okay. Your shirt. I love that you're wearing that shirt. So chalk circle was the first band I ever saw live. I saw them at the Ontario place forum when I was like, I don't know, 10 years old. And I had a Chris Tate from chalk circle on Toronto, Mike.

He's an FOTM now you're an FOTM. But one last interesting thing when I saw the chalk circle shirt shirt is that tomorrow on Toronto, Mike, my guest is some guy named midge year and midge is coming to Toronto to play the Alma combo. And he's going to be playing with Chris Tate from Chris chalk circle. That's happening. Wow. That's, that's a pretty big deal. I know. Mid-year. Why did you pick yeah exactly say it again I've been mid year that's right mid year why did you choose that shirt? I'm a huge fan of this band and I

saw them recently at the horseshoe back in the fall they were playing was like a one-off it'll do a lot of shows live anymore. Right. And you know, I've always been a fan of this band and when we were playing, when The Mending Wall came out, we were playing that album at Q107. And we- Is that with April Fool on it? I believe so, no, April Fooling was another, it was a subsequent album, I forget now. Okay, okay.

The Great Lake EP, is that it? I can't recall. But Mending lake, um, EP, is that it? I, I can't recall, but, um, mending wall, 87, 86, 87. We played that on queue. I was a huge fan about the cassette and I have, I'm into boating and I had a, I had my first sailboat off the, of the, of bluffers park. And there's a, there's a video my brother took on a video camera that was about this big. Um, and there's a, there's a shot of the boat going by and we can hear the truck circle album

playing below. There it is. And today I'm a huge fan. And, and, and so they were playing the horseshoe. I thought I'm going to go by myself. I love going to shows by myself. You know, you can come and go as you please. Yep. I took my GoPro. So are you taking any video of this? I don't think any guest is ever... I think that's kind of cool, your perspective or whatever, like a different angle. Yeah. So do whatever you like. I want to capture all this. You're gonna edit out the mistake I made off the top in the intro. You'll clean that up for me? Yeah, yeah, for sure. But anyway, so they had a merch table. I thought, you know, I'm gonna support the band.

I love Black, I love Chalk Circle, I love the logo. Dressing Black, you're a heart attack. You know, Chris Tate seems like a pretty cool guy. And so this is all of what we're doing, man. Out of Newcastle, Ontario, Chalk Circle. 100%. And I'm surprised already off the top because my memories of Q107 back in those

days is that they weren't playing a lot of the new wave stuff. So am I out to lunch on that? To me, Shock Circle's got the synthesizer, kind of a little bit of a new wave sound that would be a CFNY band and not a Q107 band. Am I out to lunch here, Jeff? Q really did a lot of different format changes over the years. There was a time when I think we were playing Madonna. I mean, you look at the early 80s charts and it was Thomas Dolby, you know, Men at Work. There were a lot of sort of, I mean, that's sort of a poppy rock band, if you will, I guess,

is that band, but there were a lot of bands that weren't, one would consider, you know, traditional rock bands. And I think Q just sort of morphed with the times. We were playing Human League, don't you want me? I mean, you can't imagine that. See, I'm shocked, because I would think, again, I'm a little bit young to kind of be comparing

in a real time, but just historically, talking to people that if a band like Human League was sort of a CF and Y band, the vibe I got is that Q wouldn't touch them. Like they'll just, they'll go play Aerosmith instead or something. Yeah. No, I mean, Q was playing Blue Peter, another band you might associate with CFM.

Sure. Chris Wardman's an FOTM. Absolutely. Big fan of Chris Wardman. Who produced the Chalk Circle record. It's all coming full circle. Holy shit. Yeah. Chalk Circle. 1513. Well, full Chalk Circle.

It's incredible. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, Q was, Q had a huge universe back in the early eighties when I began there, the universe being the, you know, the songs. Okay, we got to get into it. Now we got to walk through it because you were there and I'm going to learn so much in this episode. But I got a note from FOTM Gene Velaitis who says, can he play Freebird? Longtime listener, first time caller.

So what are your memories, just off the top since he wrote in? What are your memories of Gene Valletta? Gene's great. What a talent, you know, what a what a great You know in radio in in jeans and whose guy and when the Q morning zoo started at least When scruff began with Q107 in 80 Gene was the co-host he was doing news at the top and bottom of the hour, I guess it was. And Gene is very, really, really good at improv. And that's a key quality trait one has to have in this business is how do you bounce off the host? So whether it was Jake or Scruff or Jesse, uh, Dylan, Jean was always there. He knew how to play off the other person.

And it's, it's, it's, it's so vital in broadcasting. He was really good at it. Jeff, if I haven't said it yet, I'm so glad you're here because I want to talk about these Q morning zoo shows there. And I want to talk about, you know, brother Jake, who's also an FOTM. And the reason John Gallagher is even in our lives here in Toronto, from coming from Halifax there and Jesse and Gene, they've been on the show. Gene, I got to shout them out because he came to a TMLX event at Palmer's Kitchen and I got a lasagna in my freezer for you, Jeff.

Do you like lasagna? I love lasagna. The best lasagna. Ask Peter Gross, okay? Do you know Peter Gross? I know Peter Gross. And I wrote to Peter Gross very quickly recently because he was in this episode of what was the local Toronto Produce show.

Was it like a lawnmower? The neighbors stole his lawnmower and then he murdered him or something? No, no, no. Is he auditioned for that role on this program? I interviewed or I worked with Peter at Rogers back in 06-077, but I had seen Peter, I'd seen Peter on a recent episode through YouTube of a show produced in Toronto about a guy who had superpowers flashback, I forget what it's called now.

And I wrote to Peter, I said, Peter, I just saw you on YouTube in this episode. And he'd almost like, he sort of played a lot of, he'd almost forgotten about it. I thought, wow. Okay, well, I didn't even remember that myself. And I'm his like, you know, the official biographer of Peter. Peter's amazing. He's so Peter. So much fun. Peter says the best lasagna he's ever had is made by Palm is kitchen,

palm pasta, and you're going to bring one home with you today. Shout out to who fed us all on Thursday night. We all collected at Great Lakes Brewery for TML X 15. We all ate palm pasta. It was amazing. It was my birthday. It was the best birthday ever. The FOTM's gifted me a kayak. You mentioned you're a boating guy. I have a foldable, like it's like origami. You fold your kayak and you stick it in a backpack.

Wow, like papyrus reeds. I'll show it to you before you leave. It's unbelievable. And I bought myself a paddle that breaks into four parts and goes in the backpack. And I got myself a PFD that I attached to the backpack. I'm so ready to get this thing. You know how close you are to the lake. Right down the Don, man. I'm going to, I don't know if I'll get to the Don my first trip out, but I'm going to work my way there because the Humber River is beckoning right over here.

But okay, I digress. Take me back. When did you realize, Jeff Chalmers, that you wanted to be on the radio? You know, it's funny, growing up in Scarborough in the late 60s, early 70s, you know, the advent of the home cassette decks. Right. You know, my dad bought us this really, well, bought for the house, a really cool tabletop Ampex cassette deck in 1969 from a stereo shop downtown Toronto. And you had the microphones and it had those little DIN plugs on the back and the RCAs that we tapped into our electric home stereo with.

Do you recall Mike, the first time you ever heard your voice on tape? Sure. It's the weirdest thing, right? That's not me. That's not right. I still think that when I hear myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

And so we played around with those tape decks for a long time. We had sound effects records at home. We thought it were hilarious. And so when you're at home and you're playing with audio and playing with sounds, it's a big part of what broadcasting is, is that. And in Toronto in the late 60s, being 10 you know, 10, 11, 12 years old, it

was 1050 Chum. That was the station. Before CFTR, before Q107, you had CKOC and Hamilton doing the top 40 radio. Yeah, 1150. Yeah, exactly. Legendary station. Who are your favorite jocks on 1050? Do you remember?

Tom Rivers for sure. Tom Rivers. Tom Rivers is amazing. Shout out to Larry Fedorik real quick who I was going to shout out when we get to the CFTR part because that poster behind you, I don't know if you can see it on the wall there. Right. That's the Dr. Ruth ad that was in the subways to push Dr. Ruth's show on 680. And Larry gave that to me Thursday night. So shout out to Larry Fedorik who worked closely with Tom Rivers back to you, Jeff Yeah, I know but Scott Carpenter on Chum was incredible. They were Yeah, there was there were that was that was the art of AM radio with these guys were doing You know, it was it was great and listening thinking of 1050 Chum in in the late 60s early 70s

I'm thinking of songs like Crimson and Clover. I'm thinking of songs like Hair by the Cowsills, CCR, Shocking Blue by Venus. These are the songs that we were listening to on Chum back in the day. And the songs on AM radio sound huge. And when you have announcers who deliver these little sound packets over the intros of songs in such a beautiful, concise, artful way.

Is that the Drake format? That is the Drake format. Amazing, now we've got that. No dead air, just boom, boom, boom, and the hits just keep on coming. And you had in those days, I worked at the same gig, is you had an operator, an op, a board op.

So the jocks, the announcer sat in there both and on the other side of the glass was the announcer and at CFTR where I worked in the mid 70s, there was this large McCurdy board and we were all on carts, of course, back in those days in radio cartridges, two tracks. And it was just a very, it was just a seamless sea of sound. It was beautiful.

So how do you end up at CFTR in 1976? It was interesting in Scarborough in the mid 70s, everybody had a CB radio. This is before you know, C.W. McCall came out with Convoy. That was singing in my head right now. That's beautiful. We love the great big Convoy. So that was, I think November of 76 that came out. But we all had CB radios and that was the culture and you had to get a license back then for these things.

So driving to Young and Eglinton to the ministry to get a federal license for this thing, getting the license, the 23 channel before 40 channel CB radios were out, 23 channels in the 68 Corolla, right, four speed, non-synchro mesh, 1100 CCs of power, total rust bucket, my mom's old car with the CB, tooling around Scarborough, meeting at donut shops.

And I met a guy at this donut shop one night. Mike Myers. Exactly, quite essential. Head banging to Queen, I mean, it was just perfect. And one of this gentlemen I met one night volunteered at a place in Scarborough called Wired City Cable. Okay.

It was before Rogers came into the scene. Okay. Wired City Cable had a TV station upstairs where they did local programming. There's a show called Watts world with bill watt discussing the local issues of the day. Hey, how about that new Toronto Scarborough town center? Anyway, it's that kind of thing. And then in the basement was a little radio studio.

And they said, Jeff, we have an opening. Would you like to do Sunday nights in the radio studio? I thought, wow, this is really interesting. So those days on channel 10, if you recall, they would have sort of this very basic. McLean Hunter, right? Wasn't it McLean Hunter before Rogers? Or at least it might, it depended on your neighborhood, I think.

Yeah, well, it's Scarborough in 1975. We had channel 10. They would invariably play CHFIFI who at the time were still playing beautiful music and so you'd have this sort of this news feed going around and then but on Sundays they'd play the feed from the little radio station downstairs and so I went out and bought the the chum top 30 on 45 from Sam the record man downtown. Oh, by the way, just to pull full circle again. Okay. Uh, the son of Sam, son of Sam. Okay. That's not Berkowitz by the way, was in blue Peter. Yeah. Jason Snyderman,

who I saw who was playing keys the night I saw chalk circle that night. Yeah. The chalk circle, blue Peter, uh, synergies are epic. This is wild. I'm loving this. And this is, this is a quintessential Toronto sound. It really is that blue Peter chalk circle sound. And we play both those bands currently at the station I'm with now boom 97 three. And when we play these songs, I get so excited. It's, it's, it's, it's incredible to, to, to play these songs because they're timeless.

They're, they're, they're, they're beautiful. So anyway, that was what we were doing, and I was doing this radio show on Wired City Cable, and one Monday someone said, hey, Jeff, we saw you on the TV last night playing music. I went, wow, this is amazing. You're famous. Yeah, famous, totally famous, like four listeners, if. And so that was sort of,

that was sort of the beginning of my interest in radio. But listening to the radio, you know, in high school, there was a station across the lake, still there, WGR 55, GR 55. Sure, they had the Buffalo Bills games. Yeah. But at the time, before it was a sports station, was an MOR station. And they had, you know, they had a lot of jocks. Brother Shane did the evening show and then from Sunday to Thursday, from 11.30 till 2 a.m. was a talk show, a call-in show, a local show, hosted by a gentleman by the name of John Otto.

And John Otto had this beautiful golden radio voice and a great command of the language. It didn't have that Western New York accent, which I love, but just a guy who could be from anywhere. And he had this wonderful way I found of communicating. He was so warm and he was so real in himself. I could hear him lying in my head, lying in bed with my headphones on.

I could tell, I knew he smoked cigarettes. I could hear that zip-o. That's how you get the good voice. Yeah. Well, exactly. Anyway, I, he was such an inspiration for me. He had cheesy sound effects. He had a great sense of humor. He had jingles and it was a talk show and it could be just, it could be a trivia show. It could be a general come me all as he called it, talking about whatever the issues were in Buffalo in that community. Usually it's a fire. Yeah, well, that was a lot of that too, but that was really an inspiration for me, the

way he connected with listeners. It's all about connecting with people and for me, he connected with me and that was a huge inspiration. Okay, so before we get to the CFTR, I just want to shout out on the live stream, live.torontomic.com, I always want to shout out Jeremy Hopkins, he's the official historian of the Toronto Mike podcast, he's talking about on the live stream that chalk circles mending wall features the Scarborough bluffs on the cover. The bluffs are on the cover and he thought that was pretty neat. I also want to shout out midtown

gourd who says when I did my one hour radio show on Q 107 in 1987 because I was a metalhead live Earl Jive assumed I was from Scarborough. So apparently Scarborough was the breeding ground for the metalheads back in the day. Now get yourself, Jeff, to 680 CFTR. It was great. I went to this open house. My mother cut an article out of the paper, a little ad out of the paper. And it wasn't the NIB, the National Institute of Broadcasting, who for decades, for scores, advertised in the Toronto Sun. the NIB, and it ran forever. It was a private radio school, but there was

another subsequent school that my mother noticed cause she knew I was into radio or wanted to get into radio. So I think it was called career Canada and she cut this ad out and had to go to this open house, right? Chose to go to this open house, downtown Toronto and, and, and, and hosting it was Trump's Scott Carpenter and CFTR's Pat Bergen, right? And CFTR's, the late Paul Godfrey. Okay. And so we went to different Paul Godfrey. Okay. He went by

your Metro music chairman. Okay. But Paul Godfrey, the politician was the chairman at the city of Toronto. Right. Right. At the Right. Anyway, so I went to this open house to, to meet these people and it was all very good. And I went home and that was great. And I thought I should follow up with these, with these, these jocks. And so I called Scott Carpenter and I said, Hey man, I just went to your open house at this career Canada thing. I, I'm working in, you know, cable radio, TV. I want to get into real radio. Any, any advice? He said, well, have you, have you taken the course yet? So we'll,

we'll know. I just went to the open house. He said, we'll take the course. I said, well, good advice. Thank you, man. Appreciate that. Call Paul Godfrey. Paul Godfrey called me back. I thought, oh my God, I'm sitting out on my parents' bed on the beige rotary phone. It's Paul Godfrey from CFTR calling our house. Wow. Calling me. And he said, Jeff, why don't you give our operations manager, Chris Brooks, a call? So he's very excited. Yeah. Called this guy. He said, Jeff, your timing is really interesting. One of our operators is getting an

honorary gig down East. We have an opening. Do you want to come in and talk about it? So I went downtown to CFTR 25 Adelaide street East, beautiful building, gorgeous squatty building right downtown and began training in about March or April of 76, just finishing up grade 12. We'd had a strike. There was a school strike that year. So we'd been off for weeks and weeks and weeks. So he sort of lost interest in school. So when you're in, when you're, when you're 16, 17 in Scarborough with a car, with a CB radio and you want, and you're, and you're young and full of life. And it's all about the radio and there it was.

And so I was training at CFTR on the all night show. Do you know what Toronto smells like on a hot summer morning at six o'clock when you finish your training and you get off the air and you're right downtown and it's a humid day in the mid seventies. There's a certain beautiful in the mid seventies. There's a certain beautiful stench to the city. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a quiet din. The subways wouldn't start until seven o'clock, I believe on Sundays. So one had to get up to,

I used to walk up to the young Bluer line to get it back out to, to Guildwood. You know, you take the train to warden, right? And the 86 a or the three for the 86 a got Kingston road. And it was just a beautiful thing to be walking around Toronto at six o'clock on a Sunday morning in the summertime. Hot time, summer in the city. Love and spoonful. We were playing that and CFTR at that time, summer in the city. Love and Spoonful, we were playing that. And CFTR at that time, you talk about the universe, they had a huge universe of songs they were playing. This is pre, just on the cusp of disco, okay? So you think about CFTR, AM radio in the mid 70s.

When I think about, I learned so much about R&B music back then, because I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't, I wasn't aware of these bands, you know, but I got introduced very quickly to the stylistics, the Delphonics, Marvin Gaye, Tammy Terrell. Um, we were playing bands like, um, the Tramps, Chairman of the Board, the Five Stairsteps. Uh, it was incredible. And these songs sounded great on AM radio and you had you

had jingles at CFTR, you had cold voice IDs, you had top hour IDs, which at CFTR in the mid 70s was the guy came on that the announcer came on and it was CFTR all hits all the time and the timpani drums and it was just a beautiful you know statement here we are this is CFTR and it was big and it was AM and the jocks had this this great reverb on the microphone there was huge compression it was a seamless like you say Drake format ordeal it was really fun it was really cool and as an operator your job is to keep it tight. You don't want any dead air. And it was, it was, it was so that the jocks would talk up.

If there was an intro on the commercials, you would talk that up. Wow. Right. So it would be marked on the carts, like Susie Shear, Dialex was the company. It would say three and a half to vocal on the commercials. So not only would you talk up the song or you talk the jocks would talk up? Take out talk back sell the song and be no dad area You know out of the song before it before it faded out then you talk up the commercial was that seamless exciting Yeah, it was great man and no room for error like so excited just hearing your passion for it, too

I'm great. I'm digging this so much because my introduction to CFTR is several years later. And in fact, Tom Rivers in the morning. So you're there in 76. Now quickly, you mentioned the other Paul Godfrey. So the political Paul Godfrey who's still with us. Fun fact for you, Jeff, is that his son is part of the ownership group that just bought

the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. Wow. Isn't that fun? Isn't that wild? Like all these things are connected. 1513 man. Yeah, 1513. Is that the right number? I butchered it off the top. I know it. But I have. Wow. And it's under your camera there. But that book is the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. They play at Christie Pitts. And I'm gonna be there next Sunday at 2 p.m. Recording live from just beyond the left field fence. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club. They play at Christie Pitts and I'm gonna be there next Sunday at 2 p.m. recording live from just beyond the left field fence. Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club. You've been to any games at Christie Pitts? A winning team. Well we're getting there but they have won at least since the Toronto Maple Leafs

hockey club. I have the number here. There has been eight championships for this Toronto Maple Leaf Leaf since 1967. So Christie Pitts, right? Christie Pitts, 2pm on Sunday. So come on out. If you did come by, I'd throw you on. Mike Richards is going to be there with me, but I'm going to have a third mic where a bunch of people are just cycled in.

If you showed up, Jeff, I'd throw you on the mic and find out what's the feedback from your Toronto mic, your highly anticipated Toronto mic debut. Amazing. Thank you for having me, by the way. Oh, thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. Keith Stein, by the way, is the other owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team.

And we'll try to get him on the mic as well on Sunday, but great baseball, no ticket required. Shout out to Phil Collins, no ticket required. And you get to grab a beer. Think the fuzz, man. This is the age we live in. The fuzz can't get you for drinking a beer. I'm taking myself back to 1976, okay?

The fuzz can't bust you for drinking a beer in Christie Pitts anymore. Isn't that amazing? Good food. It's amazing. So I hope everybody comes out, says hi, enjoy some high quality baseball. That's the most important thing here.

Okay, now I wanna get you to Q107. You have more than one tour of duty. You have at least three tours of duty at Q107, Jeff. This is where I'm introduced to Jeff Chalmers. But you're at CFTR, so maybe shout out some of the people on the air at CFTR in 1976. And then at some point, I know you go to Oshawa before you get to Q, but get yourself to Q107. Right. So did you want the lineup at CFTR? Yeah, yeah. I'm like a historian here myself. Right, so when I was there in 70s,

I was there 76 to 79. So I was 17 to 20 years old. So young. It was still Jim Brady in the morning. Yeah. The shifts were, the shifts outside of the morning show were three hours. Can you imagine that?

Three hour show. Never mind a three hour tour, a three hour show. So it was Gilligan's Island. It was it was it was Jim Brady who had his own uh operator, our Carlton Rampershad. Great guy. He was the soul guy. He was his guy. Then you had a rotating series of Ops who opt for the jocks and it was Paul Godfrey, your Metro music chairman, who did 9 to noon. Dick Joseph who did noon to 3. Red Knight who was my hero. Okay.

I don't even know this name. I'm listening so closely. Peter Thompson is the gentleman's name. Red Knight. Then it was Bill Edwards. Then it was Bobby Day. And they had other jocks. Mike Christie did the All Night Show.

There was Glenn Walters who's a legendary broadcaster, Big G. And you had Don Beifer, who we just lost a few months ago. Those were sort of the mainstays of CFTR when I was there. And you weren't on the air, right? No, I wasn't on the air. You must've had the dream was to get yourself on the air.

Well, you're working with these guys. Yeah. And you think, wow, this is cool pushing buttons and stuff. But I want to I want to sit on that side of the glass, you know, listen to how they're interviewing these songs. Stu Jeffrey does both, you know. Stu is amazing. Stu is great.

Stu is a great communicator. He's a really, really, really cool guy. And I know Stu Jefferies. I know this guy. You know, I know this guy. Good rocking tonight, Stu Jeffries. Oh, yeah. With the hair, right? The muscles. Oh, yeah. He. I know this guy. You know, I know this guy. Good rocking tonight, Stu Jeffries. Well, yeah. With a hair, right? The muscles. Oh yeah.

He's got the best hair. You and I have great hair. Right. Stu's jealous of us. Yeah, no, go to- That's why he's overcompensating with the muscles. Well, no, go to his Facebook page. It was like he's wearing, you know, like a tank top to show off his guns. Oh yeah, you know, he's one of those guys,

he buys shirts that are intentionally too small. Oh, for sure. He's wearing small. No. Get yourself a medium, Stu. No, that's one of those guys who he buys shirts that are intentionally too small. Oh, for sure. He's wearing small. No, get yourself a medium. No, what are you doing? No, it's ridiculous. He takes he takes like boom, muddy seven, three T-shirts and he cuts the sleeves off. Any chance you'll cry in this episode because Stu cried in his Toronto Mike debut. Stu cried. Stu cries all the time.

And I'll just if I can just interject, I cried last night on the air. Oh, how come? And we'll get to the thing. Well, very briefly, you're talking about Stu. Stu is very emotional. He's very in touch with his feelings. It's beautiful. But it was it was Candle Day yesterday obviously and we were playing some we played some Lightfoot, you know, Wayne Webster, our legendary music director. FOTM Wayne Webster. This guy's incredible. And the guy he's been around for a zillion years, 1513. He programs the music on Boom 97 3 as he does for the Stingray brand across the country.

Anyway, we played Joni Mitchell, both sides now. Right? So, the song that Judy Collins made famous and it's been done by different people over the years. But to hear Joni's version of the song on Canada Day, on my show, I was on the air yesterday, and listening to it with, you know, when you're listening to FM radio with the headphones on,

man, it sounds good. And hearing this song and the words and the way she delivered it, Right. It just, That'll do it. It just, it did it for me. Canada.

Kind of like that. If you go to, little bit, it's a little bit kind of Sue Jeffries, we had a, so it was really, it was really cool. So that was, that was a, that, that affects you. And that's the thing, right? Let yourself, let yourself be you. You're very, you. But you couldn't have done that in the seventies. Like this is a new phenomenon where jocks can be emotional

on the air. Am I right? Yeah. You have to, this is, this is the whole thing, right? Be you, be yourself. That's well, you know, yeah. Like if I could be someone else, I would be that person. So I'm stuck with this guy and I have to be authentic because I didn't go through the

radio training that you did. Well I didn't have a lot of radio training. Just did you ever take that course? Scott Carpenter? No, I never took the course because I called, I called Paul Godfrey and I met Chris Brooks. I was, I was, I was pushing buttons. The greaser gives you an or, you do it buddy. It was incredible to work at CFTR.

And then it was, it was like, okay, we want to get on the air and what's the trick. So putting together a tape in the studio. And at the time, you know, at the, at the time, I mean songs like Barracuda by Heart were current songs. That was on my audition tape. Barracuda by Heart. I mean, it's still, we play it today.

It sounds amazing. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure that qualifies as Can Con. That's definitely that's all the way. So we got force-fed that one. Mushroom Records, man. It was fantastic. Thanks to the Vietnam War and the Draft Dodger Boyfriends.

Yeah, exactly. fantastic. But the Vietnam War and the Draft Dodger boyfriend put a yeah exactly to Vancouver and amazing band great band yeah but yeah so I got a tape together horrible tape and sent it out to Oshawa. George Grant who was the George Grant George Grant was the sales manager at Rogers at CHFI and he arranged to purchase from Lakeland broadcasting the property in Oshawa which was 1350CKAR and its FM side as well which was CKQT, he was playing beautiful music and George took this traditional AM station and flipped the format to CHR and I got a job doing evenings at 1350 1350 CKAR in Oshawa,

which was close enough to never to pack up. I was about to tell you, Jeff, a lot of people come on that yeah, I had to go to Thunder Bay or whatever, right? Oshawa was pretty sweet deal. You're still in the GTA. I'm living at home still, right? It's fantastic. So you're CFTR, but all pain, you're not on the air,

but you want to get on the air. So you go put in some reps in Oshawa, which is like a little drive, and then your next stop's going to be the mighty Q. Well, Q107 in 1981. That's right. Okay, so with all due respect to CKAR, I'm very interested in how do you get on the air at Q107?

Then I have like a bunch of questions for you. Well, I knew a lot of guys at the station. You know, Lee Echley and I grew up together. I've known Lee's. Love that guy. Yeah, great guy, Lee Beef. We just had lunch together a month ago out there. He's really a sweetheart.

He's great. I've known Lee since 1966. Wow. We were in grade two. We went to the same schools. What? This is a line blow. No, we're from Guildwood.

We're from Guildwood Village, man. This is where, this is what we did. I just went to a wedding last summer at the Guildwood Inn. At the Guildwood Inn, yes. Yeah, legendary legendary place where Lee and I worked as bus boys there back in 73 74 Fantastic place to work on the Bluffs. I saw I knew Lee Eckley, but you and Lee You're you know each other in grade two and you both end up on our airwaves Quite delivering the rock and roll. Quite coincidentally. It was quite...

So that's not like you're not in cahoots here. No, no, we both ended up in broadcasting and ended up working together at Q107. Lee was doing the evening show, I believe, when I got there in 80. He left shortly thereafter for Chill My Family, I think in 84 or something. But so I'd met, I knew a couple of people at Q107.

I'd met Gary Slade, I'd met Scruff before, I'd met, I'd gone to a couple of events, I guess, shows, and so I knew a couple of people. So I wasn't a complete stranger when I applied for a job there. And I got a job there doing weekend all nights at Q107, which at the time was at 2 Bloor Street East, 30th floor of the Hudson's Bay Center.

The sign came down recently, but that's a 35 story building on the, uh, north east corner of young and Bloor, which is now dwarfed by the way, by one Bloor street East, which is 76 stories, and dwarfs Q107 or at least the husband's base center, which was, which was at the time, this beautiful perch from which to broadcast because 35 story building, he was on the 30th floor and the control room,

the studio looked south. So little askew, but looking south down Yonge street. So can you imagine 1981, I'm 22 years old, we're playing vinyl, it's Q107, right? The station's five years old and I'm doing the all night show. And it was a mind blower because it was a huge station. It was a massive station at the time. It was where it was at. Well shout out to FOTM Dave Charles. Dave Charles, yeah, great consultant. Big part of the launch of that.

Joint communications, yeah. John Perricall. Yeah, now I need you. So you're there as I said, three tours of duty at Q107. This is 1981, the first time you arrive, you're a young man like you said there. So Lee Ackley you said was there, but who else was there at Q107 in This is 1981, the first time you arrive, you're a young man, like you said there. So Lee Ackley, you said was there, but who else was there at Q107 in 1981 when you get there? Keith Alshaw was doing Afternoon Drive. Keith was incredible. You talk about communicating.

I got there about three and a half weeks after John Lennon was shot. And Keith Alshaw, I'll never forget it, he was talking about it. And he made me cry as a listener. And that's a very, very, to do that, to make someone, to evoke that emotion in someone with your, by using words is very powerful. And he was really good at that. And he was a very talented voiceover guy

and a great communicator. Really a big fan of Keith Alsha on the radio. He was doing a drive. Jim Bauer, who was doing, came from Chum FM. Chum FM was a rock station years ago. Was doing middays, I believe. Lee was doing evenings. Bobby Gale, whom we lost a few years ago, was, had just left, I believe. Lee was doing evenings. Bobby Gale, whom we lost a few years ago, was, had

just left, I believe, the Gale Force. He did evenings on Q before Lee actually did. Samantha Taylor. From video hits. Yeah, was there doing weekends. Let me show you something. Tasha Sims. This is an audio presentation, but have you seen this? This was gifted to me by Joel Goldberg, AKA Jay Gold back then. He had a show on CFN2 back then,

but this is like the early video jocks and John Major, John Majors there. Christopher Chris Ward. Yeah. I can't see what you see, but let me see here. Okay. So JD Roberts Roberts so Shirley McQueen yeah shout out to Shirley McQueen Katherine McClenahan who was the first woman DJ on much married to Gene Volitis for a while 100 god damn it these connections are unbelievable but yeah Samantha Taylor's in this pick Erica M's in this pick JD Roberts like you said Michael Williams is in this pick as well that's a cool poster there you go get that plaque before you create you're right I better get this plaque before I crease it well said man you're a sage

wise man okay okay so so was Shirley McQueen there not an 81 yeah not so she came later she came later but there you know it's John Donahue there John Donahue was there at the time he came back a couple of times himself. He was doing- Love that guy too. He's great. What a voice. What a beautiful voice he has. Just what a legend.

Okay. All these legends we're talking about here. And is Scruff Connors there? Scruff Connors was doing the morning show, the Q Morning Zoo in 1980. When I got there in 81, he was still there. And Gene Velitas is on that show? Gene was co-hosting with Scruff the Q morning zoo,

which you would never get away with today. The features that were on that show beat the baloney. I mean, it was just ridiculous. Um, between the sheets whereby, you know, female callers would, would dial in the radio station and 8709152 would be seduced by the morning host, making all kinds of suggestive statements and the music's playing.

Oh my goodness. Double entendres. All of it, all of the above. Right. I'm loving these stories, Jeff. This is unbelievable. Okay, So why do you leave Q107 after this first tour of duty? I wanted to do other things. I, I, I want

to talk about the midnight metal hour on Q107. Okay. And just, well, yeah, actually I got questions about the midnight. So W beach says a midnight metal hour memories would be awesome. So we're okay do W Beach. Okay, we can talk about that now. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, well, so in the early 80s, there was this resurgence of metal and from Great Britain was what was called

the new wave of British heavy metal. So you had bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and you had Rainbow, you had a lot of bands that were doing this format. Shout out to Martin Popoff, are you kidding me? He covers this all the time, absolutely loving this. And so Bob Makkowitz, who was music director at the time, great guy, we just lost Bob recently, great guy, had a lot of fun working with him, a lot of respect for that broadcaster, Rochelle,

and anyway, or Rochdale, he, the decision was made to do this show that would run on I guess Saturdays at midnight and they said Jeff you're gonna host it and I didn't really grew up with heavy metal you know I was more into you know I grew up with AM radio and I love that and you know my parents had you know Peter Paul and Mary and the Beatles and Trinity Lopez in the local collection we played on the electro home with the Ampex cassette deck. And so I said, okay. And of course there's no internet.

And so there was Kerrang magazine, which was a metal magazine. And so I was tapped to do the show and it was very excited because it was it was new and it was the music was really aggressive Yeah, and we were playing these bands on the radio anyone q107. So We sat down did Bob and I one afternoon and we formatted the show What features are we gonna have what contests and I will tell you and I should have brought something in but I? Saved all the mail from that show because it meant so much to me that people would respond the way they did.

And I have been in touch with people in recent times. And that was, think about that, that's 40 years ago, or more than that, it's 43 years ago we did that show. And people still remember it. But, um, it was, it was a show that, um, reached a lot of young men and we used to do, I used to solicit a lot of,

a lot of contests through mail because there was no internet. So you'd mail things in and, and, and these young guys would, would decorate their envelopes with artwork. So there'd be Eddie on the envelope in pencil crayon. And you'd get these great big, I'd have them at home. They'd come in these brown envelopes, posters. These people would devise. And the other thing about the show was,

when the bands came through, Jeff, you're doing the interviews. Right, because you're the metal guy. You're the original Q107 metal guy. I'm not the metal queen. That's LeAaron. I was the metal king. Shout out to FOTM Karen. She's amazing. Yeah, she's great. Attic Records. Anyway, so all these bands came through. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home on the Attic Records. We've lost them both now. Right, right.

Elmer and Williams. So all these bands came through. And I guess that was, you think about it today, do bands still come through and do these tours anymore? I don't know if they do that. But all the major acts were signed to the major labels, everybody came through. So I was-

I'm just not sure there's anywhere to go except my basement. Like these guys are coming through town and just like, hey, yeah, we can drop by. I just had honeymoon suite here and I was thinking, Oh, that's amazing. Honeymoon suites here. I'm like, Oh yeah. Back in the day, all these radio stations would probably want them or much music and all that. And it's all dried up.

Yeah. So I mean bands like Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden came through. Um, Joe Elliott from deaf leprechaun came through and we're around the same age. I'm thinking, here's this guy, and they're only like, this was like maybe two, three albums in and they're still new. Are you at Pyromania yet? Yeah, we're at, well there's the first big one.

Yeah, that was the first big one following up, I guess, High and Dry. Or On Through the Night was first, then High and Dry I guess. And then, but these guys were in their early 20s and they're doing this music and they're signed to major labels and they're doing these world tours Klaus Mein and Rudolf Schenker of the Scorpions came through and they were incredible together you know and they're sitting and the studio

at q107 at the time the interview studio was this really dark everything was brown man it was this this dark brown wall covering. That's left over from the 70s. Oh, it's really beige, completely beige, with the beautiful Neumann microphones, the U87s, right, and the Ampex 440 reel-to-reel decks. And you've got the interview going on, and you're in this, you're cocooned in this,

you know, dead space in terms of the acoustics to interview these guys. And the level of professionalism that I witnessed through these people who came through, Brian May from Queen came through as a mind blower, Ozzy, right? All these bands came through and it was an opportunity to sit there and talk about the new album.

Rob Halford from Judas Priest and of course, the big album back then was the album that broke them was Screaming for Vengeance and they were touring the record and Rob came through and unlike a lot of other bands who came through radio stations for interviews on these promo tours, Rob was decked out in leather. He had the leather pants on, he had the civil war boots going on. He had the kind of like a leather mesh, um, you know, tank top going on. And at the time he had really short dyed blonde hair and he was still in the

closet. And I'll never forget it was really, it was kind of a compliment actually. When I walked out and he said, Rob, this is Jeff Chalmers. He was going to be doing the interview with you. And it was the CBS rep, I guess. And Rob gave me the, Rob gave me the one over. It's like, uh, he said, Rob, this is Jeff Chalmers, he's gonna be doing an interview with you and it was the CBS rep, I guess. And Rob gave me the one over. It's like, I thought, wow, Rob Halford, this metal god is checking me out, man, it's fantastic. And so we had a great conversation in the studio.

But it was a great opportunity to meet a lot of really cool bands who, you know, they're still legit today. There's still music being played and still respected. It's really cool. And to go to the show, you know, that's the quintessential thing. The bands come through the studio, you interview them, then you go to the show, whether it's a club, whether it's a C&E grandstand or whatever it is.

So that was a really big part of that experience that Q107 for me was connecting with these listeners who still bring it up today. Well, you know, metalheads are passionate fans, you know. We have one on the live stream, so I'm going to... We mentioned him already, but MidtownGourd points out he listened all the time. So he was listening to you, you know, on the midnight metal hour and he's loving these, these memories. And as am I, and I'm thinking all of us, those, you saved all that stuff sent to you. We should digitize that and save it with the universe, man. Like I could, I could work with you on that.

Like I'm all about now, like I just want to archive shit so it could put it somewhere so it can be easily found and consumed by the, you you know the next kid who wants to catch up on what he missed exactly very quickly you know is it I was at CMW. You don't have to do it quickly buddy. Go take your time. CMW and we had a theme there was a series of themes over the over the years that show ran the intro of the of the show and at one point I used an Anvil song. And we were huge fans of Anvil, Attic Records again. And they were great guys.

And- A Tobacco band, right? Yeah. And there was Lips and Steve. And we saw them at the Emma Combo or Larry's. And it was, I wanted to do to showcase them so we used an anvil song on the intro and years later about 10 years ago is at CMW at some at some event and and Lips was there and I saw him I said dude hey

man he said Jeff marks are the crabs. That was the song you use his instrumental song from maybe it was on metal on metal. I forget. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So, uh, so that was, it was really to remind people as if we need to remind this audience about the pre internet days. But really if you were a metalhead and you wanted to consume new metal music, right? Like there weren't a lot of outlets. Like at some point, much music introduced the Pepsi Power Hour or something like that.

But like, I can't imagine on the Toronto Airwaves, there was anywhere else to go to get like a metal hour. No, there was nowhere to go. No, you were it, man. It was incredible. And it was an hour show and it required a lot of prep. There were different features, heavy metal favorites. We did music news, like any

radio show would go in an hour long format, but it was a really gratifying experience and I'll never forget how passionate the listenership was and that's why I continue to, you know, I've got those things, man, all those envelopes, all that mail, I kept all that stuff, that means a lot to me. We got to digitize that, share that with you. That's amazing. Eddie lives. Eddie lives now. Yeah, right. Now there are two names you dropped, which I find interesting as I listened to you dropped, of course, Bob McAwitz senior and Scruff Connors and neither of whom ever appeared on

Toronto mic'd, but no longer, both are no longer with us, but both of their, they have sons who have appeared. So shout out to Bob McAvoy's junior who's an FOTM like you, Jeff. Welcome to the club and TJ Connors, who does a great scruff impression. TJ Connors is the one that broke. Yeah, I know. I know Tyler. Yep. Nice guy. You're selling a real estate now. He is. He's in Winnipeg. Does very well. He's, he's married.

He's got two beautiful kids. He's close with his mother and he's done well. Yeah. Beautiful stuff. Okay, so your first tour of duty at Q and O seven comes to an end and you end up at CBC radio. I love CBC radio. I love listening to CBC radio. I love CBC radio. I mean, you talk about you talk about talk radio and this is really in depth stuff and really intelligent programming. And and I mean a lot of people don't like CBC radio I happen to be a big fan of CBC radio so I... But the people who don't like it have politicized it somehow. Exactly.

So they see it as like I'm a card-carrying conservative I'm not allowed to like this voice box for liberal points of view and this is primarily ignorance from people who just don't tune in. These are people who don't like bike lanes. Okay. Right. Listen, you're a boater. Are you a biker too? I love cycling. I just, on the way here, I stopped at the corner over here and sold a guy a telephone mount for handlebars. Seriously, before I got here. So just randomly? I don't understand. You were just, who needs it?

No, no, no. It was arranged beforehand. I said, listen, I don't understand. You were, you were just a, who needs it? No, no, no. It was arranged beforehand. I said, listen, I've got, I've got an appointment with, with Toronto Mike. I met him at the corner of X and Y 15 minutes before I met you. Amazing. And sold him this phone mount, Topeak phone mount. So I love cycling. I'm into cycling. I have a couple of nice bikes and, okay. I'm coming off my most cycled month of my life, June 20, 24. Well, what's your bike? What are you riding? It's a single speed, right behind you. It's a single speed, Fuji feather one, one speed. And I go everywhere on that thing. Beautiful. Yeah. Single speed.

And I swear, I love it. Well, I love it. I've been riding it for a few years now. Love it so much, but it's funny cause I track every ride and I don't know what the number was 1377 or something. Why am I not following you on Strava? Well, you should Toronto Mike follow me and I'll follow you back. Do you follow Scott Turner? I do follow Scott Turner. He's listening right now. He is excited about your episode. He neck guy bikes a shit. Really good broadcaster, great voice, good delivery. He's retired now. Yeah.

I don't know how he did it. You know, I don't know radio. How do you do it? You make it, you make it nothing. Well, you know, shout out one of the greats. I feel like he's a good broadcaster. We were together in Hamilton years ago. He's going to do a podcast with Iver Hamilton. This is the rumor now where who will produce it? I don't know. I pitched my production services, but my phone never rang.

So, uh, who knows? I'm going to listen to it regardless. I want to hear, uh, Scott Turner and Iver Hamilton and their new podcast whenever it arrives. Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay. So you like CBC as I do,

but how do you end up at CBC radio? I applied for a job. I went down there and I forget what the process was. Obviously pre-unit, it was 85 pre-internet. And I got a job as a technician, which is pretty well on operator. You're pushing buttons in the studio. At the time, this is pretty well an operator. You're pushing buttons in the studio at the time.

This is before the big CFC, CBC rather broadcast location. This is 740, right? You're on a, is that where you'd listen to CBC radio? Yeah, I guess so. AM. Yeah. Before they moved to a 99.1. Sure.

So yeah, 740, not a great signal, but they were there. Not great in the city anyway. Shout out to Peter's house. Yeah. Peter is great. Morningside, Wayne Gretzky. But I have, I bought a, a Peter Zosky mug, also off Facebook marketplace, not today. But I've got this, I wanted to have this Peter Zosky Morningside mug that I paid $20 for, which is so beautiful.

It's the time CBC had buildings scattered through the downtown core because the big broadcast center hadn't been established yet. So there was a studio, the morning show, it was Joe Cote doing the morning show, I forget now. There is an old theater on Parliament Street. That's where the morning show came out of. I was working at a couple of tenures there at CBC working for radio sports. They were on Church Street, but the main headquarters really was at Carleton and Jarvis, just sort of on the track, if you will, on the west side of Jarvis, north of Carleton near the

Harbys. There's a great NFB film. I see it on the archives. You can watch it online. From this era about CBC radio and you see all these these buildings you're talking about on Jarvis and everything and it's wild. This building on Jarvis was an old girl school back in the day and I was down to Edna Garrett. Oh it's fantastic what a gorgeous building this beautiful red brick building you know Jarvis these are

all these are all these stately homes back in the day right on Jarvis Street with the trees it it's beautiful. Anyway, this was an old girl's school and CBC had been in there for many, many years. And I was downstairs in the basement. I was working at one point in something called radio stores, and you are responsible for distributing gear to go on live broadcasts. They would mic a church to record an orchestra. So you'd hand out the gear, the board, the mic,

the cables, whatever, the snakes. And I was in the basement one day and this was in 85 and the straw targets, the archery targets for the girls' school were still there, tucked away in a dark, dingy corner. Reminded me of CFTR in 76, that smell of the city in the morning. You paint a nice picture. You should be on the radio. Wow. Fun. So CBC radio was great. Met a lot of really talented people.

It's really different because you're working in a studio and you're feeding the master control room. So before a broadcast, you, you, you test it and you feed a tone down to master. It all checks out and they come in and do their thing. A lot of times you're sitting in the studio producing reports or clips or stories or something. But don't you have that itch to get your voice back on the air? Well I did and I got back at Q107 and I was doing both.

But aren't we skipping something? Are we missing something? Okay, so CBC Real, quick aside here, because we do that on this little tangents here. We have the time to roll them a little bit. Is that Neil Herland, who now reads news for CBC Radio in here in 2024, does a great job. Lots of times before I go to bed, I listen to CBC Radio news update, like the quick cap, see what's going on.

And it's often his voice when I'm going to sleep there. But Neil Herland was not allowed to accept any gifts when he came on Toronto Mike, which was very recently, I'd say a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. No gifts. I found that interesting. Like I'm going to give you something right now, Jeff. And I, because you don't work for CBC, you'll be able to accept it. Some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery.

Wow. That pairs nicely with your Palma pasta lasagna and a measuring tape from Ridley funeral home. You can measure whatever you like. Can I measure how much time I have left? I don't think that works that way, but you can, you can try. Time is not a linear. And last but not least a piece of advice, which is if you have any

old devices, old cables, old electronics, don't throw that in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to recycle my electronics dot C a and then punch in your postal code and then they'll come back and say, Hey, Jeff, there's a depot near a location right near you where you can drop that off and it will be properly recycled. Yeah. I've got like a 1973 cassette deck from Radio Shack. It doesn't function anymore?

The heads are shot, but it still plays. Well, when it breaks down, don't throw it out. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. Okay, so the Neil Hurlain thing, which I found interesting that CBC radio person told basically don't accept any gifts. And then I had Bob Ray on like last week. Bob Ray took everything, you know, he's in he's literally Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and he's got his Great Lakes beer, he's got his

Palma pasta lasagna, he's got his Toronto May Believes baseball history book, he's got his measuring tape. And here's a gift for you, Bruce Dobigan, who worked for the CBC for many years. Bruce Dobigan and his son wrote a book and they self-published it. Yeah, Bruce Breitgei, he was, you know, what is it, indoctrinated when he moved out west. His politics became modified, I would call it. But bless his heart. He's a great writer. Steve Paikin wrote the foreword on this book, but this is called Deal With It, the trades that stunned the NHL and changed hockey. And you can take that with you too, Jeff. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you. Self-published by Bruce and his son,

Evan. Nice, nice big fan of those. Because Evan I think lives in either Long Branch or Alderwood, but somewhere near here. I watched Bruce on TV at CBC for many years. He was great. He helped bring down Alan Eagleson. I was watching, I was working the night in radio sports, the night that Gretzky got traded. That's in that book. It's the big one. Yeah. And I believe Rod Smith was on the air that night and we were working together. Okay. Great voice.

And he said, great voice. Great effort to you. And he, I remember he said to me, he said, Jeff, I'm really sorry. We're working late tonight. I said, dude, this is huge. I mean, of course. It was massive. This is a huge deal. He's being traded. Peter Paul, yeah.

So, but those were some really talented people I work with and you're working with great gear. I love anything, audio gear and these Niagara tape decks and these fancy boards and the great microphones. Was there ever an opportunity for Jeff Chalmers to be on the air at CBC Radio? I did give a tape to somebody at one time who I had expressed interest with

in getting on the air at CBC. And I don't think it really went anywhere. I wasn't too serious about it, but I got back onto Q and I was doing both for quite a while, CBC radio and Q107. I don't think either knew about it. What year are we talking about that? Cause now that CBC is finding out.

86ish. Okay, so I didn't know you snuck back into Q Yeah, then you have like four tours of duty because I'm doing some math here because I do want to play a clip I want to shout out captain Phil Evans Okay, you know captain Phil captain. I know the name. Yes. Okay. Yeah captain Phil. He's been archiving some stuff I'm gonna play this and then I'll get a couple more clips to, but here's the one I want you. Hey Toronto, this is Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and we'd be backstage at CNE

Stadium. Get ready to rock your hoosies off and what's this? I hear there's a new hog in town. I'm six forty. The AM 640. You look like a lady. Good afternoon Toronto, this is what Rock and Roll Radio is all about. Randy Taylor. 506. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor.

I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor.

I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. I'm Randy Taylor. Good afternoon Toronto, this is what rock and roll radio is all about. Randy Taylor. 506 in the drive home.

It's a long weekend. This is Heart from the Hog. So that is the official launch of the Hog 640. Yeah, 10254 Yonge Street was in a building on the east side, west side of young street, beg your pardon in a above a drug store. Uh, the quintessential 1940s, you know, cinder block very boring building metal fire escape. And it was a,

it was CF GM for a long time and the sales department, the offices were downstairs and the studios were upstairs. And I was hired in June of 1990 by Gary Obey, the magic Christian, who was a great program director. I was hired as a swing jock and that was a really interesting experiment. I know that the station wanted to come down to Yonge and Bloor and I think it was, I think Don Schaeffer was the general manager at the time and that station, I believe, CHOG AM was licensed to sort of serve the York region up that way and the CRTC wouldn't allow the station to come down to Young and Bloor, to Bloor Street East. So ultimately, Q moved north and the Hog moved south and they built a

station at 5255 Young Street. Is that Young and Norton? Young Norton Center. Because there's still a Jessie and Jean wave. Yes, there is right there. Yes, I worked with Jesse and Jean at that particular, it was a beautiful station, two story, two floors. I mean, it was beautifully, they hired this firm to come in and to design the station and it was just, the aesthetic was gorgeous, beautiful gear, state of the art stuff, a lot of debt machines, um, whatever happened to that format. But, um, it was really cool. That was a really good experience. Yeah. So I was working at, uh,

cause AM six 40, the hog became AM six 40, the new beat of Toronto, which was sort of the C.R. Dan and Jeanne again, Jesse and Gina love doing the morning show. Because CFTR went all news and they literally that day, I think, uh, signed on with, uh, six 40. Yeah. So, but it was, it news and they literally that day, I think, signed on with 640. Yeah. So, but it was, it was interesting because, you know, I guess the whole philosophy was

as Gary Obey once quoted, you know, it was sort of go to hog high and graduate to QU. And unfortunately, the format just didn't resonate with a lot of people. And you know, in 1990, music on AM, it's sort of, you know, it's sort of. Is the end of times for music. Yeah, it really was. Except for gold, maybe greatest hits, like Golden Oldies. But it was interesting because it was, you know,

they had Al Kingdon was doing news and he had this beautiful, you know, commanding voice and it was sort of reminiscent of CKLW back in the radio heyday with this sensational you know yellow journalism. That's the big eight right? Yeah yeah and so it was interesting that way. Oh but now that you mention the big eight I'm actually contractually obligated to play

this right here. The following program contains adult themes, nudity in coarse language, viewer and parental discretion is advised. Mark Daly. Mark Daly the voice. I work with Mark Daly there was a restaurant tour I worked with a name of Mike Quinn and Mike Quinn was had a successful restaurant a family business at Danforth and Jones back in the 80s and they sold a lot of beer and

a lot of wings I got a job in 85 while I was working at Q and CBC radio DJing at this place and Years later Mike Quinn got hurt in Mexico and didn't have insurance and they had to raise money to fly him back We actually flown back and they had to raise money to cover the cost the exorbitant cost of him flying back to Toronto and so they held a charity event at the Abami Beach Club in Toronto and I was contacted by somebody and he said, we want you to cohost this, this fundraiser. I said, Mike is a great guy. He was really fair with me.

And I big fan of the guy personally. And I said, by the way, who's, who's the other host? He said, Oh, it's, it's, it's Mark Daly. Oh my God. I'm going to be cohosting with this guy, you know, this beautiful, big voice, and this is really tall. He was so cool. He was so beautiful. What a beautiful soul. I didn't, you know, I just met the guy.

I just met him and we had this job to do, but he cut through all that. You talk about connections. I connected with the guy immediately. He had that quality about him. And then he had this talent. I mean, we all think of City TV, Channel 79. We think of Mark Daly. It was great.

The intros and the movie intros and the news intros and the news, you know, hosting. Oh my God, 100%. When I think of City TV, I also think of, I think of John Gallagher doing sports. So is now an appropriate time. So your, your Q and O seven visits, I didn't even know there was one like between your, uh, your, your, your, your rack case. So you're at Q and O seven,

just trying to get all my Q and O sevens, right? You come back in 93. So do you leave the hog to come back to Q and O? Yes. I was at the new beta Trimano. I was at AM six 40. So I was in the same building now see cuz Q Now they'd come that wick. Yeah, I was still wick Western International Communications, right? So it was it was Q and 640 together at five to five five young and I was doing you know swing at at AM 640 and and then and scruff had come into and you know,

the Scruff comeback. TJ Connery still alluded to that. He didn't know the dates. I know the dates. Okay, I'm listening. He was unsure of the dates because he was a kid at the time. I've known TJ most of his life.

And we, Scruff had been on the air for a couple of months, I guess. And now I was in the building. I'd known Scruff from years past at Q and, uh, they had scruff during the morning show as host John Gallagher doing sports, Donna Saker doing traffic. This is the crew. This is the, this is the classic lineup.

Although Mark Hatcher came in later and Mark's amazing. And that was a different time with Jake later. We'll talk about that. Anyway, so I guess they said, the guy they had producing the morning show, they wanted to make a change. And they said, do you want to come on and do it? I said, I will come on and do it,

but I want to be part of the show. I've been on the air now for a while. All respect, but I want to be on part of the show. I want to be on, I want to be part of the show. Right. I've been on the air now for a while. I, you know, all respect, but I want to, I want to be on part of the show. I want to talk. So they agreed to that. And so that was, that was fine. And Danny Kingsbury, who, who just made his Toronto, I just saw Danny out in Renfrew out in the Ottawa Valley. Amazing. Danny's great. Right. And he was at the man who's responsible for putting humble and Fred together. Yeah. Danny was at my wedding. He was great. Um, we still have,

I still have the candlesticks, Danny. Thank you very much. Just saw them. I just cleaned out my cabinet and saw them and thought of you. Shout out to Jeff Lumbee too. Yeah, just great. And a really funny guy. Good, good broadcaster. One 85 voices in Hamilton for a while. We'll talk about that. But Scruff was, okay, this was sort of, you know, think about this now, Scruff was really successful in Winnipeg. He had come to CFTR in 77. He was hired to do a swing at TR in 77.

He, there was talk about him taking over the morning show. And when Brady left, that never happened. And Scruff ended up at Q107 doing the morning show. Was making pretty good money. In fact, he was one of the, I think he was one of the higher paid broadcasters at that time in 1980 in excess of 100,000, which was quite a bit of money back then.

It certainly elevated since then. But you know, he was sort of, I want to say past his prime, but he was, he didn't have the same, the same work ethic, I'll say, as he might have had in his earlier years. And that kind of showed on the air. He wasn't as, we've lost Scruff, I don't want to speak ill of the man, he was-

No, but he, you might have to start the show without Scruff Connors, right? He was living, he ultimately lived, moved to St. Catharines, because he worked at Hits for a while, but Scruff had been to WISP in Philadelphia, he'd been to another American FM station, and then came back to Q after he left in the early 80s.

So he'd been around a bit, and he was just a little, little tired, I think, at that point. And it wasn't really working on the morning show. It just wasn't happening for him. And thankfully with Donna and Gallagher, who, you know, they didn't carry the show, but they were a big part of the show.

They picked up the slack. They picked up the, exactly, Mike, exactly. So it was, and they were a big part of the show. They picked up the slack. They picked up the slack. Exactly, Mike. Exactly. So it was, and I was producing, it was very exciting. We're in this beautiful new facility, great view of the city. You know, we're in pre-emalgamation in North York. My last one was the mayor.

And it was a time that, it was time for him to go. So Danny, I guess orchestrated Jake to come back. Brother Jake Edwards. Who is a legend, also had worked with Jake in 85 at Q107, he was doing the morning show. There was a while at Q107, there were three morning people. It was Scruff Connors, Jesse and Gene, and Jake Edwards. Take a turn.

Forever, okay? So after, is it Bob Say before Scruff, I think Wollishan did the morning show, Ted Wollishan. Yeah, Ted Wollishan, sure. Great guy, great guy. Ted Wollishan, Bob Say, then Scruff. But then it was just Jesse and Gene, Scruff or Jake until Stern.

And then things changed from there. But that was a long tenure. So Jake came in in 94. So Scruff was there for was a long tenure. So Jake came in in 94. So Scruff was there for about a year and then Jake came in at 94 and we were doing the radio show. I became very, very close with, uh, with Jake Edwards. We, uh, we hung out a lot together. He had a place in a condo in the city because it was just too far to, uh, commute from Collingwood where his wife and young children at the time were

living. And so during the weeks, uh, Jake would be in the city and we, I had a house in Scarborough and Guildwood very close to, to Wired City Cable. And, and we hung out a lot. We hung out a lot together. He and I personally outside of work and we had a great time. And you hit him in the solar plexus. Oh, he was so fun. And he went for it. No, we, we laughed. We, we laughed a lot and we're still in touch today. So it's good.

That's the thing about radio. You pick up people along the way. It's like any, well, maybe not like any job, but you pick people up along the way. I'm gonna just shout out three people. Yeah. You pick up, not only do you pick up staff, people you work with, but also listeners.

It's all about the listener. That's why you're there is for the listener. And I want to shout out, I won't use your last names, but Steve and Libby and Sue are three listeners with whom I'm still in touch in 2024. These listeners are from 1979. Wow. You used to call me in Oshawa when I was doing evenings at CKAR. Wow. And they're still in touch. And they're calling you on Boone now.

Dude, that's 45 years ago. And they're Facebook friends, they're social media friends, they call the radio station. Wow. I was playing April Wine, it was our Canada Day thing last night, or yesterday on Boone 97.3. And played April Wine.

And there's Steve, his favorite band. Amazing. And so there's a guy from 45 years ago. This is what it's all about, okay? This is what it's all about. You're there to make the connection with listeners. And when you make that connection with somebody, it's magic.

And that's- And you made that connection with Brother Jake Edwards. I know Brother Jake close with Gene Valaitis as well. They have a show in Vancouver until fairly recently. But now I need to play the John Gallagher clip, which is the really the reason I reached out to you. I'm like, why haven't I had Jeff Chalmers on the show? And then I heard him drop your name in this clip,

which you're gonna hear in the headphones right now. And then at the end of this, we're gonna find out is John Gallagher full of shit or humble and Fred wrong. I need look me in the eyes. You got beautiful eyes. You're going to be a hundred percent honest with me after this clip. You're going to be a hundred percent honest.

I know what the clip is. I know what the answer is. Here we go. And I'm okay. So it's 1990 and I'm having lunch at the Molson Indy with a story about the most entity and how the bats paid everyone a key one oh seven twenty thousand dollars. Paola lives Paola lives and I'll tell you another story about the Molson's and how the Bats paid everyone a key 107, $20,000. Paola lives, Paola lives, and I'll tell you the story real quick.

$20,000 not to mention Molson for an entire year. Toronto Indy? No! Wait, wait, wait, John, John, John. Molson. LeBats gave you personally $20,000 Canadian dollars if you promise not to say the word Molson's for one calendar year. Yes.

Wow. Keep going. And one with Jeff Connors and Donna Saker and Jeff Chalmers on the $20,000 on the barrel's head. Oh no. All right, Jeff. I've been waiting months for this here. I don't know, man.

Okay. What do you have to say about that clip I just played from John Gallagher? I wasn't at, man. Okay, what do you have to say about that clip I just played from John Gallagher? I wasn't at Q in 1990. I was there in the mid-90s on the morning show with John. 93 to 96 was my tenure at that time. And it seems to me that was the Molson Indy back then. Yeah, it was definitely the Molson Indy. And we used to go down there.

We had some boxes at times. We'd go down there and have a little, little, little, you know, race action and enjoy the day and, and stuff. But, um, that's, you're calling bullshit on that. I, I, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, just like humble and Fred did just, I'll just say, I never see, I didn't receive any money. Okay. Cause he named, he's specific. That's why you're on the show. I mean, I, now I got to reach out to find Donna Saker. I think she's in Ottawa. I got to track

her down. Montreal, I believe Montreal. Okay. I got to track her down. But he, he started name checks. Obviously I can't check with scruff if he got $20,000, but John claims he got $20,000 for one year. They wouldn't even call it the most in Indy. They'd have to call it the Toronto Indy because they couldn't say the word Molson on the air, but you, this didn't, no one approached you with this and no one gave you a penny. No one from the bats approached you to make some kind of a payola deal that John describes. The stuff that John talks about,

that's not the way I remember it. Okay, that's, thank you, Jeff, for coming by. I'll play you out now. All right, okay, no, because when I, because I didn't, my mind was blown by this and I was chatting. So after I'm, I go in the humble and Fred show for like five, 10 minutes once a week. And then we have a private zoom where we talk about all the stuff as producer or whatever. And I told them the story and they said basically bullshit

never happened. Right. And I'm like, well, uh, he dropped names of people who also received the 20,000 and I can track a one more down you were my first thought I think I went on like I said I went to LinkedIn I found you I said hey Jeff we gotta get you over here so thank you okay I think you were clear that this didn't happen to you so if it happened it was yeah John's a great guy sorry I've been flying with my camera yeah my are you doing over there? No, I'm sorry, my SD card's full. It's ridiculous. And so I want to record some nice.

Luckily, I did record this for you if you want the five years. Oh really, this is crazy. I don't know why I'd be so ill prepared. I should have cleared the card beforehand. But anyway, not to, I mean, John's a great guy. I've known John since he's 87. But how do you misremember $20,000? I don't know, man.

Okay, I'll work this out with John. All right. He's in Bellashev. You should hear the number of women he claims he has bedded. I did the math and he would have no time to be on the radio, let alone on City TV, because at nights he's doing sports on City TV and then he's on the morning show. Isn't that enough time to bed all these women? Right.

I did the math, okay? Who is he? Dr. J here? Okay, all right. I need to get, so you, so just so people know, Q107, 93, but you do go off to Ottawa for a little bit, but then you come back to Q107. Yes, it was crazy. Ottawa, Rob Farina, who's a great guy.

Who's an FOTM. Yeah, nice guy, really talented guy. He was, he found great success. He'd gone, I believe, CFTR to Winnipeg and really made a name for himself, became a successful programmer and subsequently ended up or ultimately ended up in Ottawa working for Rogers. And we all got let go did the morning show at Q107 in August of 96. Wait, is this the Howard Stern? No, this is before that. Before Howard Stern. I believe that he brought Jesse and Gene back.

I mean, it was just a circle. It was crazy. If I am correct, Mike, it's funny that I mentioned everything connects, right? But Mike Richards will be my co-host on Sunday live from Christie Pitts. And I'm pretty sure Jeff Lumbee and Mike Richards were part of a morning show that were going to be the Q107 morning show and then Jesse and Gene struck some deal. I'm pretty sure there's a story that I was told

by Mike Richards and Jeff Lumbee, I'll confirm this on Sunday, where they're literally at like a barbecue to celebrate that they're the new Q107 morning show and they get a phone call from whoever's in charge of WIC, basically saying like, no, Jesse and Jean are coming back like the deal's off. Danny was Danny of course had an association with Jeff Lummi from Hamilton from 195.

And from way before that from Moose Jaw. Right anyway I heard the same thing that this was going to be the new morning show and so anyway we all got let go. This is what radio is all about. We all got fired. You know I've been from radio I've been fired for most of my radio jobs right this is part of Dr. Johnny fever right it's incredible up and down the dial although you get most of your stuff is in the same market which is this is a really this is a really fortunate thing for me that I

haven't had to stray too far but you went all the way to Ottawa all the way to what I was born in Ottawa so it wasn't really that much of a stretch I knew the I have you know family on way to Ottawa. I was born in Ottawa, so it wasn't really that much of a stretch. I knew I have a family on both sides in Ottawa. I was born there. I hadn't ever worked in Ottawa, but Farina called me and said, well, we have this opportunity to do afternoon drive in Ottawa for this Rogers property. I said, wow, cool. I need some work.

What's the format? So it's country. I thought, oh, cool. I need some work. What's the format? So it's country. I thought, Oh, country. But you know what? At the time, I mean, it was, it was, and this was a station CKBY in Ottawa, which had traditionally been a country in Western twanger serving the Ottawa Valley, very conservative market. Langer, serving the Ottawa Valley, very conservative market. And now it was 1996 and it was all about Garth and Shania and Clint black and Dwight Yocum and all these hat acts

who were producing really contemporary upbeats, slick country music. And the station had jingles and music beds and was really tight and was number one in the market in Ottawa. It was huge. And so I stepped into this role doing our fitting and drive two to seven, moved there and quickly found out I didn't, I don't know why it was so lost on me that the Ottawa Valley is really conservative and they didn't like my shtick at all.

That might work in the big smoke. Exactly. People used to call them and say, you can't say that on the radio. I thought, what's wrong with you people? And so, and they had a comment line where people could call in, listeners could call into the radio station and leave their comments. And it got to the point where I would open my show

with these comments, because they were so hysterical. I hope Jeff takes a long walk off a short pier. Why doesn't Jeff Chalmers go back to that rock station he came from? All these comments were coming in. It was crappy. It was lousy. Freena had left for the Chum station.

I was sitting there doing drive. We had no PD. The music director was the program director. They brought a guy in from Victoria. He didn't like me. I ended up getting fired on the Monday in early January. And I called Pat Cardinal at Q107 and I was on the air on Saturday.

He said, how many shifts do you want? I said, I'll take five. So I three all-nighters and two weekends. And so 98 I'm back at Q 107 and it was great. I was getting married in six months. I missed Toronto greatly. I mean, Ottawa, once you're in Toronto, there's such a buzz.

There's so much happening in Tio. I'm from here. I grew up here. I worked in radio here. I know the city intimately. I know the market. Ottawa was sleepy. It was small.

It was dull. It was conservative. It was really conservative. And so coming back to Toronto, I'll do all nights. All nights is great. All nights is amazing. So I was at Q107 from 98 until 2000 under Pat Cardinal, who was a great program director and all the people have a lot of respect for Pat. He was a great guy. We've lost Pat as well, but he was really, he was really, he was really good to me.

And he used to come in, it was really weird how he used to come in to the control room, it's unusual really for the program director to sit with you during your show. It was kind of intimidating, here's your boss, and he's like, what are you, you're checking me? Are you, you? All right, that's why I stumbled on the intro.

I had Jeff Chalmers beside me. Right, right. 1513 buddy. I mean, so it was great. So that was really cool. And then of course, you know, that as it would go in 2000, then fired, they made some changes and they were saving some money. So I got fired.

So that was, you got fired from the new country station, which was like their kiss, I guess, C I S S. So we had this, right? Shout out to Sharon Taylor, by the way, who was the last PD at six 80 CFTR before it went all news. And then she did work at the, as well. All right. Now I need to ask you about a, uh, former morning show host at key one Oh seven

and, uh, what your relationship was like with John Derringer. Yeah, John, I met John in 80, the fall of 86, I believe. He came to Q107 for the first time. He was also an operator at CFTR. Right. And it was really interesting because when he- Well, his brother was at CFTR. I used to opt for his brother.

Bill Hayes, FOTM Bill Hayes. I operated Bill Hayes' first- Your sweetheart, by the way. Yeah, nice guy. I operated Bill Hayes' first radio show at the way. Yeah, nice guy. I operated Bill Hayes first radio show at CFTR. Yeah, it was his very first show. And a lot of people came through CFTR. It was fun, but Bill was the older brother I believe.

So John Hayes is like an op at CFTR and becomes John Deringer on Q107. Yeah, and when he first got to Q I thought, wow, this guy's good man. I think he came from Edmonton. And a lot of to Q, I thought, wow, this guy's good, man. He's, you know, he came, I think he came from Edmonton and a lot of us were thinking sort of, wow, this guy's really good. He's, you know, he's got this really interesting way of, of communicating. He's, he's quite slick and he's, he's really confident. And he was, he was, um, I guess ultimately he did the afternoon drive show at Q107 when I was there. the afternoon drive show at Q107 when I was there. Yeah. Cause when does Stern exit Q107? Is that?

Oh, um, you show up, you're there. It gets, it's late nineties. No late nineties. You were there for that. I left in, in, in January of 2000 and I think, and I believe Stern was doing the morning show on the morning show. He was still there. Okay. All right. Very interesting. So did I, I got to ask you, like, did you, uh, did you know about John's reputation with the female co-hosts? I think it was a, I think it was a sort of a, a known thing. I think people knew humble and Fred knew, and they were down the hall,

I guess that whenever a CF and why and Q and 07, uh, join, right there, right there at the Eaton center together, I believe. Right. They were at the Eaton Center together I believe. Right. So I know, I know, and I know, you know, Colleen Rochholm, who recently retired, was eventually a co-host. Speaking of Stu Jeffries, Colleen Stewart co-host and then Humble Howard and Colleen. And Colleen is one of the many people who had been, I guess guess harassed verbally, I don't know what the terminology is because nothing criminal happened as far as I know. This is like verbal assault of some non-criminal nature.

I never know how to describe it. It's like verbal abuse. But you know, no one said anything. That's the thing, no one. Well, he was the cash cow, right? So I feel like there was a sense, at least Humble and Fred feel there was a sense of like, don't fuck with the golden goose because he, he, he generated revenue. Yeah. I mean, he had a huge numbers, right? He was popular.

So like, if it's going to be, you know, Jackie Delaney goes or John Derringer goes, Jackie's going because John Derringer, you know, generated revenue. But then, yeah. So now, obviously now he obviously now he's off the air, I guess, but it took Jennifer Valentine's video before there was any change. Isn't that interesting how that worked? You know, she, she, she had the, uh, the, uh, confidence to just to post a video without naming anybody. And, and it certainly got the desired result. And then Maureen Holloway came out and started, you know,

talking about what she experienced, kind of like have sort of Jennifer's back on that. And Andrea Ruse and you know, the list goes on. That's five women right there we've talked about. I know all these women. All right, so you haven't heard from John in a while. I asked Gallagher, who was pretty tight with John, and he says, no, John doesn't return his texts or anything.

But John Deringer seems to have disappeared. Like there's no sightings of John Derringer. Yeah, I don't know what he's doing. I mean, he wasn't a personal friend of mine. I just work with him professionally, but. All right, so there you go. Now you've, let's see now, you've satisfied all the John Derringer questions

that came pummeling in when they heard Jeff Chalmers was coming on, but you end up at Hamilton. So a Y95 and then it becomes Y108. You know, this is how, do you want to know how cool Pat Cardinal was? Yeah. He, he got the word. Okay, we got it. We got to cut some whatever the edict was, get rid of Chalmers. So Pat said, Jeff, we have to, we have to meet.

And so I was living at the time in Mississauga, uh, with my wife and our first house and we met at a local coffee shop. And of course Pat showed up with the envelope. There's always the envelope, right? There's always that envelope. You know what's in it. I've seen a lot of these envelopes, we all have, right? But nowadays it's gonna be him plus an HR person.

Yeah, well I've seen that too. And Hamilton will talk about that with the WIC chorus. Oh, because that's another great Mike Richards story. Oh my God. It's Lumbee. No, it was unbelievable. They had a cop in the cafeteria after the exodus with the WIC people getting let go. Anyway.

Okay, we got to get that story. By the way, you've been amazing. So I see here we've gone like 90 minutes or whatever. So we're, yeah. So please, yeah, please. No, it's not that I have to, it's not that I have to go because I would never want to rush greatness like this, Jeff, please. But okay. So we tell me a little bit about why 95 slash why not one away, but particularly the firing. Uh, well just quickly to finish up the pack cardinal. He shows up, he shows up and he said, you know, do you want anything?

Do you want like cigarettes? He bought me a pack of cigarettes, which I thought was, I mean, odd. He bought me a pack of cigarettes and he drove to Mississauga to hand me my walking papers. But then he made calls for me to try and find me a gig and he called Mark Foreman, who was the program director at the time for WIC at 195 in Hamilton before it changed to Y108. And I got a gig doing swing there. And that was really cool.

So, and again, just down the highway, not far, just to stay. Yeah, Hamilton, sure. And great people, excellent people in Hamilton, wonderful radio market, saw some really cool bands, great art scene, James Street North, you know, Tom Wilson, Teenage Head, I mean just a great market. By the way, these drumsticks I've been picking up and I find them fun to just pick them up. They're teenage head drumsticks, a Jean Champagne game to me. Wow, those are cool. And there's the the Junkhouse final.

That's the anniversary edition, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I can't play it, but I like having it in the studio. I met Tom Wilson at Larry's Hideaway back in the early 80s when he was still a little Tom Wilson in the Florida Razors and he gave me a 45 and years later when he was with Junkhouse with Sony, I believe, was the label at the time and I had a meet interview with them.

I took that that single with me and he autographed it for me. Love that man. He's great. And I had a birthday, a milestone birthday back in December of 2023. And Junkhouse was playing at the Horseshoe. I was there that night. And I said, I'm going. It was incredible. It was amazing. You know, a member of the band passed away since then. I didn't know that. Rusty Wilson.

I didn't know that. Rusty Wilson. I didn't know that. Yeah. But I was at that show. I took the GoPro to that show and there it is. Okay. Right? Tom Wilson.

Wow. Amazing. So Hamilton was a great experience. It was really... And this is, I have the... Because, you know, I didn't... This is the station of Lumbee and Mike Richards working together in the mornings, right? They had left by then.

They had left by then. They had left by then. It was Scott Thompson and Lori Love doing the morning show. Oh, okay, who just retired herself. Right, everybody's retiring except for other people. Sometimes you retire and sometimes you're retired. Yes, true, but it was Jeremy Smith was doing mid days, it was Todd Lewis who was the general manager's son was doing the afternoon drive show. general manager's son was doing the

afternoon drive show and I forgot who was doing the evening show at the time but it was a good experience. So why does this Hamilton experience come to an end? I wanted to get back into Toronto. I wanted to get back into Toronto and I had heard that 92.5 Jack FM, which had at the time been an announcer-less, was gonna bring announcers back to the end of the mix. So I called the radio station, talked to the music director, and found out who the PD was gonna be.

And I contacted the PD who was in Calgary, because Jack FM had found great success in Calgary with that sort of mixed genre format. We play what we want kind of deal, right? Which worked there. And ultimately did not work in Toronto, oddly. But, you know, because, yeah, it doesn't always translate. Well, it's funny, you know, it's what was interesting is, is it boom 97?

Three also plays a mix of genres, but it's so cleverly programmed. It's very scientific. Right. You're going to get a rock song, a new wave song, a disco song, a classic song. It's very scientifically programmed. The songs are very researched. It's got a very Toronto sound is boom. 97 three. I found Jack. Yeah. Echo beach. Don't Walk, Walk, Walk on Pass. Well that too, Dionne Warwick. I'm thinking of doing a Blue Peter.

I'm butchering my Blue Peter song. Don't Walk, Walk, Walk on Pass. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But anyway, so what? Marth and the Muffins. Yeah, yeah, those great bands, of course. Anyway, so it was a matter of applying to this radio station and I got a gig. The program director was Steve Kennedy came into Toronto. We met in Brampton where I was living at the time and still live as a matter of fact, 19 years and um, and he,

and he offered me a job doing mid days. So I'm in, so I left after six years at seven years at, uh, at, um, you know, Hamilton. I'm at, uh, I'm back in Toronto for, with Rogers, my third tenure at Rogers. And it's, um, it's mid days at Jack FM. Okay. Now I know there's a stop before you get, I want to get you to boom here and spend a little time on boom before we say goodbye. Now, before you get to boom, there's a, the Canadian traffic network.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That was, that was Traffic Network. Oh yeah, yeah. That was really interesting. Cause you're working, it's really weird. It's really weird. You know, because traditionally in a radio station, like your gorgeous little studio down there, you're sitting there, isolated by yourself.

And you have full control. This is why I love what I do. Because I can go to the studio today, and there's no one there. I have full control. This is why I love what I do. Because I can go to the studio today and there's no one there. I have full control. I can control the volume of the music. I have the door closed. No one comes in and bothers me. The phones are there. This is a text platform. I choose when to access all these things. I have full control. At the Canadian traffic network, I got a gig and its facility is in the old aircraft control

tower at Buttonville airport, right? At a 404 and major Mac, I guess it is. It's gone now, right? Is it? I feel like buttonville's gone. I, my only time in a little plane in my life was a humble Howard co-owned a Cessna, like a little, little airplane that was at Buddenville. And I went to Buddenville and flew with him. That was my one and only time.

Yeah, no, it's, it's terrifying, isn't it? Especially when your life is in the hands of humble Howard, you're like, you're a radio guy. Don't cry. Bruce Dickinson. We had, uh, we had an opportunity to, to, to, to, I had this opportunity to work in this, in this facility, but you had workstations in the tower whereby there were six, eight, nine people. Yeah. And they're all broadcasting at the same time and you had these little

dividers. Any other names we might know who would be in this facility, uh, giving traffic. So, so stations with what? Would subscribe. Yeah, you'd feeds. They'd subscribe to the service. What stations would you appear on as a part of the Canadian traffic? I was on a CFRB in Toronto, 1010. Yeah. I'm trying to think of, I think Q107 was a client for a long time, 640. So it was chorus. There was a station in Ottawa that was,

that was subscribing. So here we are doing traffic. And you're figuring out by looking at Google Maps traffic. Right. And talking about- But luckily you speak Ottawa because you were there. Okay, so please tell me how you get to Boom. I think Boom is a very cool station

and I know it does very well. In fact, I've noticed myself just anecdotally the Q107 playlist has changed because of the success of boom. Like Duran Duran for example. Like I feel like Duran Duran would never be played on Q107 but boom would play Duran Duran. Oh yeah.

And then the success of boom, I call it the boomification of Q where they need to kind of modify their playlist to appeal to boom listeners. But how did you end up at boom? I was, um, I had a food truck. After I left the Canadian traffic network, I heard about the food truck. I heard that you had a food truck business. I had a food truck, Chrome on the range. Okay. Chrome on the range was, uh, was,

was plying the streets of peel and I had a lot of corporate contracts. This is when the food trucks were big and popular. And what I found really gratifying about operating a food truck, which is a lot of work by the way, and oftentimes not a lot of money, which is fine, but it's the social interaction. It's not unlike radio,

because you're providing a service and people are coming to you, right? And they're excited people are excited about street food and it's up to you as the boss to to figure out the you know What's the venue who's coming to the venue? What are you going to be serving? What's the weather forecast like? What's your what's your what are your food costs? What are your other costs? You know, are your inspections up to date? Are your licenses up to date? There's a lot of things to talk,

there are a lot of things to consider. It's a lot of fun, it's very social, and you have these really cool interactions with people that could last for 30 seconds while they order a pop, or maybe six, eight, 10 minutes while they order a burger. And you have this thing with them, and they're sitting there, standing in front of you. That's cool.

Either playing with their phone or talking to you. And so I really, really enjoyed that. But there was an ad somewhere, I guess my wife saw it on milk matter or something and said, hey, Booms looking for somebody. I was rushing out of the house one day. This is how it happens sometimes. You can sit there and pour over your old air checks

and doctor them and get everything all fancy. I said, Oh, for crying out loud. Okay, fine. Threw a tape together. Threw it together. Send it off. And I'm serving drinks at Lakeside garden gallery in the food truck set up one spring 10 years ago. And it was the radio station calling and said, we got your tape. Would you like to come in and talk about it? Who called you? Troy McCollum was the assistant program director at the time.

Steve Parsons was my boss in Oshawa, my program director, I'm sorry, in Hamilton. And so when you've been as many places as you, you're going to confuse a few spots. I am confused right now as a matter of fact, but I do know this is episode 15. You were confused by the way of where Buddenville was. I just need to clarify. So Hey ref on the live stream says it was 404 and 16th, not major max.

Okay. Sure. No cigar. All right. And absolutely confirmed. And I did read about this that they're currently bulldozing it. It is gone. Buddenville is gone.

Well, it was ancient. I mean, it was this sort of these turquoise 1950s, you know, towers with this angle glass. It was crazy. And there were like nine people talking at the same time. Wow. So I think I asked you, was there anyone else of those nine people here?

And then we're going to talk boom for the rest of the run here. Lisa Edwards, who was there. Does anyone change their name for different stations? Like I heard of this move. I want to say calling Russia. Maybe you're somebody, somebody Maureen Holloway. Someone was telling me a story like on one station,

they had one name and on the other station, they had a different name. None of that. Yeah. You're always yourself. I never did that. I always your Jeff Chalmers. He's my real name.

Always. Yeah. Okay. But very cool. So you get the call and it, and it's who you know, of course, Jeff Chalmers, and you made all these great connections, like you said, and they've seemed to come in handy here.

You get back to Boom, and this is about 10 years ago, and when can we hear you on Boom? Weekends, three o'clock. Or Canada Day. Or on Canada Day, do all the legal holidays. I filled in, I'm working tonight, for example, and I'm working, filling in a couple of days this week. Who are you filling in for tonight? I'm filling in for Matt Storrie tonight, seven o'clock.

Okay, one of the few boomers who hasn't been on boomers, who hasn't been on, because I want to shout out KJ from your CFTR days, right? Chris James is amazing. And you talk about the art of disjockeying, of being a radio on air host. That guy, that guy, right? This guy, this guy's-

He's good on the air, but not a great podcast guest because he doesn't really like talking about himself. He's very humble, but he's a throwback. If I come across a cool air check from somebody from the 70s on AM radio in the US somewhere, I'll play it for him and he'll get it. He loves the art of broadcasting, and he still has that old school,

if you listen to him, the way he, this is the whole thing about radio broadcasting. When you're talking over music, you have this opportunity to fill the gap over the intro of a song. What are you gonna put in there? What are you gonna say, and how are you gonna say it? You might have four seconds, you might have 40 seconds.

That's your job is to fill that void. And there's no safety net, right? Like you're live to air. There is no, you're not going to fix it in post. This is happening live and if you screw up, you screw up. And that's exciting. It's really exciting. And it's, I, I'm so excited about it.

You know, after all these years, it's been, uh, you know, I was first on the air in 79. It's now 2024. I still get excited to go to work. I can hear it in your voice. Well, you love radio. It's great. I mean, the music sounds when you're sitting there with the Sony 7506 is on listening to the stereo feed from the, from the on air feed from the, from the board and you're hearing these classic songs in your cans, nothing sounds better. Something that's really slickly produced like Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones.

Oh sure, it's like a yacht rock there, yeah. And you're about to talk over the intro, oh man. It's your responsibility, it's a huge responsibility. You are the last part of this equation. It's a huge responsibility that you're given and you better not mess it up. You better be prepared. Don't mess it up, Jeff Chalmers.

I'm thinking now Toto, like you're kicking out a Toto song or something, but do you have a favorite song that you get to talk up and listen to when you're on the air too? That's a good one. I'm not sure about that. A favorite song.

Like this is my favorite boom song. Wow, that's a really tough one. You gotta think on that one. Well, you know, I would, you know, it's a mix of 70s, 80s, 90s, so it's interesting. There's a lot of these songs. Any ultra vox? You gonna kick out any ultra vox?

Majeure, Sleep Walk. Yeah. Or Vienna maybe. I bet you Vienna gets played on. I'll tell you something though. Anytime I get to play Blue Peter on Boom Peter on 97.3, I get excited. OK, Chris Wardman again, FOTM Chris Wardman, Maypots. I just want to share with Maypots and early guests on this program was it

because I listened to her on CFNY and I loved Maypots. I still love Maypots voice and she's great on here. Yeah. So I'm thinking, you know, boom, you have your Stu Jeffries. We showed it earlier. Got your Maypots. You got your KJ. You got your Jeff Chalmers. This is where it's at, buddy. This is it. It's all these are all veteran announcers. you know, boom, you have your Stu Jeffries we showed out earlier, you got your Maypods, you got your KJ, you got your Jeff Chalmers, this is where it's at buddy, this is it. It's all, these are all veteran announcers,

these are all people and it's interesting because all these jocks are in their 50s or 60s and I had a conversation with Steve Parsons, the general manager who's now the president I believe, president, no I might get that wrong, we should check that. Anyway. I'll fix that in post. Right, can you? No. Can I is a different question We should check that. Anyway. I'll fix that in post. Right. Can you? No. Can I is a different question than will I. Right. Right. Anyway, I was in his office recently and I said, I can't believe we're

still doing this. I can't believe we still have live radio DJs in 2024. You know, it's quite something. Because on the Simpsons, we saw the DJ 2000 was coming right and how about those clowns in congress? So that is now my next question I want to close with you is uh like how long will you run? What is the future? Like will you hang on as long as there's a terrestrial signal that will air a live local voice like yours? Because that is what I want to point out when you have a live and local voice it's like oh yeah that's radio but it's not as common as it used to be. Like there's fewer and fewer live and local voices on the radio. This is just a love it all you want, but it is a, uh, I won't call it a sunsetting industry like Alan Cross, but you could argue that it is a shrinking industry and eventually

will morph into something else. How long will you run Jeff Chalmers? As long as they'll have me, as long as they'll have me. As long as they'll have you. As long as they'll have me. It's, I was talking to Mae Potts about this and she was talking about her voice. And now she still has her voice. And that's the thing, right?

How's your voice? You can't, she doesn't sound old. No. I mean, she's not old, but she doesn't sound old. So for me personally, I'll go as long as I can, man. As long as they'll have me, I'm there. And how was this Toronto Mic debut? This was fantastic.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to come in and meet you and see the studio and the lovely parting gifts. You play any lowest of the low on Boom? Another favorite band. Not a lot, but good can come. I feel like Bleed a Little Wild Tonight would be a- One of my favorite songs.

Love the local reference. Oh yeah, well. Kissing on Bathory Street. Absolutely. I mean, you've got a song called Under the Karla Bridge. You've got a lot of local references. The Only Cafe has a song about it. And this song right here,

we'll take the streetcar downtown, read Henry Miller. It's a great tune. Dude, this was a great conversation. I love talking. I think I'm the last guy left who wants to give somebody 90 minutes plus to talk radio and I loved it so much. Thank you so much, Mike. And shout out to Chalk Circle. Every April 1st, I gotta go on Twitter and share the link to the video for April Fool. Love those guys. Love FOTM Jeff Chalmers. We'll take a picture by the tree, but don't leave without your lasagna. Make sure you get your beer, you got your books, you got your measuring tape. And that brings us to the end of our 1,513th show.

Wow. How can we follow you on social? Like, which social media presence do you maintain? I'm on Facebook at Jeff Chalmers, I'm on Instagram at Positive Alacrity. And I've launched a new project whereby I'm recording seniors. I'm recording legacies. I'm recording family stories for the future, for future listens for families. And that is... I'm right in on that.

A littleaboutme.ca on Instagram. A little about me. I love that idea. I love it. Yeah, how many people... I wish I had a conversation with my grandfather I could listen to right now. Nobody wants Granny's hutch. Nobody wants Granny's silverware. What we do want are the stories before it's too late. I can capture those stories. What was that website again? A littleaboutme.ca A littleaboutme.ca My website is torontomike.com. You can follow me all over the place at Toronto Mike.

Much love to all who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta. If you came out to TMLX15 last week, thank you. That was the best night and it was a big crowd and we all had great food and great drink and great cheer. And I got a great kayak. So much love to everyone who came out. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, they're at Christie Pitts on there on Sunday night. And Ridley Funeral Home.

See you all tomorrow where my guest is Midge Year. And you know Midge is just Jim backwards. Did you know that, Jim? Never thought about that. Never thought about that. You take the sounds of Jim, because his name is James, and it becomes Midge. And that's why he goes by the name Midge.

How clever. See you all then! And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am