Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Lowest of the Low: Toronto Mike'd #923

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

Mike catches up with Ron Hawkins and Lawrence Nichols of Lowest of the Low, spinning a few jams and talking Art Bergmann, Don Smith, Taverns and Palaces and more.

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and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski of Remax Specialists Majeski Group who's ripping up the GTA real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. Hi, Mike.

From torontomike.com. And joining me this week is Ron Hawkins and Lawrence Nichols from Lowest of the Low. Welcome back, guys. Well, I think I have an applause button here somewhere. Hi, Mike. So, Ron, I saw you last summer. Yes. But, Lawrence, it's been a long time, buddy.

It has been a whole pandemic, hasn't it? Yeah, just stay on that mic. But, yeah, that's right. The pandemic interfered with our plans. So, how are you doing, Lawrence? Oh, you know, like everyone else, I'm half tired of this stuff. But, you know, I have no complaints and we're ready to make a comeback. So he has complaints. I have complaints, but let's hear your grievances, area grievances. Oh, my grievances are no different

from anyone else's grievances. You know, I've, I've stayed home too much and I've, I've refrained from going places and doing things and seeing people and, you know, just like everyone else, you know, but you are coming out of it now. I mean, there's a lot going on and we'll dive in deeper, but just like I saw, I don't know if you'd call it a press release or some statement. And it was like, okay, Lee's Palace is 35. Like that's a round number. But the Horseshoe Tavern is 74. I'm not sure that's a round number.

Big 74. The 74. And Shakespeare, My Butt is 30, which is hard to believe. How is that possible? Because that means we're all getting older. But I mean, just to touch on this at the beginning and then we'll revisit later but you've got tickets on sale now

for Lee's Palace shows. Do we still have a December 14, December 15 and December 16 Lee's Palace show? I believe they are currently sold out. And there is a possibility between now and then that the capacity limit might be increased, at which time we could make more seats available. But I mean, they're very sparsely sold, but I think they're at capacity right now.

Because you're not a sporting event. We're not a sporting event. If we were at Skydome or whatever. Yeah, yeah. They got like 30,000 in there now. We could have 30,000, but we can only have... We could put 10,000 in Lee's Palace, couldn't we? Well, I think so.

I'm sure we have. Just don't tell the fire department if you do that. I wonder if you add up all the audiences we've had at Lee's Palace would it be 10,000? Because we've played there

enough times, right? But are you counting duplicates? Yeah. Because a lot of people will come to every single show. Yeah, we count them over and over again of course.

But okay, so back to Horseshoe Tavern is any tickets available for September 17? No, yeah, September 17, that's past. December. Oh is any tickets available for September 17? No, yeah, September 17. That's past. Oh, tickets go on sale September 17. Yeah.

The concerts are December 17 and December 18. That's a Friday and Saturday at the Horseshoe. Are those tickets gone? Yeah. Currently sold out, Mike. Okay. Again, with the sparseness, but yeah. Do you have a number?

I'm curious. Do you know how many are allowed into Horseshoe Tavern right now? Like what that number is? 110. 110, I think, yeah. It's to do with, all the tables have to be six feet apart.

Right. So it's all, you can fit as many people as you can fit into the club while maintaining the proper distancing. So that was the formula that they came up with. I think it's 18% or something capacity. It sounds like a random 18%.

Yeah. And again, the sporting events have increased it. It's strange to me that you can increase like Scotiabank Arena, but you can't increase Lee's Palace. Like it is a strange thing. I'm hoping that will be corrected. So stay tuned. Okay.

Stay tuned. There might be some tickets opening up here. So much ground I want to cover with you guys. I'm glad you're here. But again, Lawrence, it's been so long since I've seen you. And so I just want to say hi.

Like I had a warm feeling when I saw you. Yeah. It's nice to see you too. But I had your, I had your, maybe your ex-brother-in-law, I don't know what the proper handle is. You did, you had Craig Lozon was here on your show.

Which was like literally like a day or two, maybe? It was like the last one you had before the lockdown. Second last, I just remember. David Ryder from The Star was the Friday, that's the 13th of March, 2020. And I believe Craig came on like the Thursday, like literally the day before Craig came on and it's funny earlier today I did an episode of Greg Brady and we did a lot of talking

we both missed the rugby team we had in town called the Wolfpack it was just a great Saturday afternoon watch I didn't understand the rules necessarily but it was a great time and Craig as I recall massive rugby fan big rugby fan I think he's I think he's playing on a rugby team right now according to Facebook. I couldn't tell you what they're called, but there seem to be a bunch of men

with sort of graying beards who are playing rugby together and he's on that team. I can't think of a less COVID-friendly game than rugby. But you are outdoors. Yeah, it's outdoors.

Right. Yeah. On that note, because I got a song I want to play for Lawrence here before we catch up with Ron Hawkins here. But my comfort level is so different.

And I would totally go to Lee's Palace or Horseshoe Tavern to see Lois to the Low because everyone has to be vaccinated to get in there. But these outdoor events, I got to admit, from what I've read and understand, the transmission of this virus, it's not very transmissible outdoors because of this ventilation. Like my comfort level outdoors, I happily do anything outdoors, essentially. How's that? Yeah. That seems about right. Maybe we should spit into each other's mouths

before we leave. As long as we're outdoors. As long as, yeah. If you make out, do it outdoors is what we're saying here. All right. I have a few songs I want to play and topics I want to discuss with you gentlemen. So then again, this is for Lawrence, but I'm going to play this.

And then I don't know if we've ever talked about this before, but let me tell me if you recognize what song I'm playing? No idea, right? Okay. The Danforth Stomp. Oh, this is a pale criminal. That's the pale criminal. I might be on this record. He's on it, but he doesn't recognize it.

Yeah. You get nervous, right? When you're playing something you think will jog a memory or whatever, and then you can tell in the eyes. It did sound a bit familiar. I was thinking at first it was a Grievous Angels tune, but then, of course, no, it wasn't. But, yeah, that's the Danforth stomp.

It's been... Yeah, talk to me, because pale criminal, I don't know if we've ever really, because usually we talk low when you come on, but what can you share with us about Pale Criminal? What I can tell you about the Pale Criminal was it's a band that was formed by my old high school friend, James Paul.

He is also the proprietor of the Rogue Recording Studios in Toronto. And I played with him for a couple of years. My first tour across Canada was with James. And in 1990, the Pale Criminal shared a bill at Lee's Palace with Popular Front, I believe, which is where I actually met Ron and Dave.

And they also met our bass player, the Pale Criminals bass player, John Arnott. Right. And poached him. And poached him shortly thereafter. But yeah, we did that show together. And then I think early in the following year, Dave talked to somebody

and we did a show together at sneaky d's again and we just started we started doing some nights at the cabana room um along with some other bands uh lazy grace 49 acres uh maybe sour landslide was in there somewhere and um yeah we just started playing together a lot and hanging out and then ron started talking about me on stage and then i realized that we might become friends or something. And the talking hasn't stopped. And now here we are talking. We were almost roommates for a while, but that didn't work. That didn't pan out.

It's probably a good thing because we're still talking. And Kismet, I don't know if this falls into the Kismet category, the synchronicity category, but the last thing I saw before I left my house, one of the very last things I saw was a picture of James Paul, the rogue, sitting at the board with his pants down around his

ankles. On the internet. Oh, you saw that on the internet. I thought you had a frame in your living room. It wasn't like on your fridge or something. Like the creamer or whatever. Wild, okay, so pale criminal, so what happened to pale criminal? Well, the pale criminal, James is the pale criminal, so what happened to Pale Criminal? Well, the Pale Criminal,

James is the Pale Criminal, and he kept going with different bands and iterations. They had a bit of a rotating lineup. Yeah, we had a few spinoff bands. I was in a band called Orphan Lake afterwards with a couple of people that I'd met through James, and that's the other band. That's the world of Lawrence that I remember more so than Pale Criminal

because that might have been, I guess, Popular Front. We were so shell-shocked by the end of Popular Front that I probably wasn't looking over the parapet very often. I was probably a bit dazed. So, yeah.

And jog my memory here. Recently, I was in Pete Fowler. Do you guys remember Pete Fowler? I was in his backyard. He had, who did he have? Blair Packham from the Jitters and Stephen Stanley were playing in his backyard. It was a beautiful night.

He's got this big... Stephen Stanley from Lowest of the Low? That guy, yeah. And the Stephen Stanley band. Yeah, and the Stephen Stanley band. That's true. Was Stephen Stanley, he was in Popular Front, right?

Yeah. Okay, so just remind us, I know we've covered this a hundred times, but remind us in Popular Front, right? Yeah. Okay, so just remind us, I know we've covered this a hundred times, but remind us how Popular Front or how Lowest to the Low emerges from the ashes of Popular Front or however you want to phrase it. Yeah, so Popular Front, I would have met,

David and I had already been playing in a band called Social Insecurity. So I've been playing with David Alexander since 1983, late 1983. And about 85, Social Insecurity was done, and I think David introduced me to Steve. Somehow we met Steve, and he became the third stooge, as it were. At 85, we started Popular Front,

and then we worked that band for four or five years, and it was just, by the end of the 80s, we were kind of spinning our wheels. So strangely enough, by 89 or so, we had a couple of songs that wound up on Shakespeare in My Butt that we were already playing in Popular Front, but they weren't flying in that capacity for some reason. And then, you know, that little period of time

between 89 and 90 and then through 1990, when I met Lawrence, we would have been retooling and just sort of, you know, a bit lost at sea, but then kind of finding our feet again as low as low. And Dave calls it a brand. We were the first people to just make a brand change. Rebranding, they called it.

Yeah, rebranding. But there was more to it than that. But I mean, as I say, you know, like Bloodline and Taming of Carolyn were popular front songs. Right. And as since on Agitpop, our last record, When She Falls and Night of a Thousand Guns were also popular front songs.

So clearly there was something to it that we just couldn't find the mojo in because those things didn't change that much. Right. And they're now very popular in this setting. I remember when you told us you were changing your name and you'd come up with Lowest of the Low. I think everybody was like, really?

I think come up with maybe Saddledon was maybe more the appropriate. Yeah. Yeah, everybody to a person. You were in a big crew of people going, you can't call your band that. That's stupid. Yeah.

And we were like, well, here's the other names that we came up with. And they're like, oh, I guess you're Lowest of the Low. And the 90s thing to do would be to call your band Low. Just Low. Yeah. That would be like the 90s thing to do would be to call your band low, just low. Yeah. That would be like the 90s thing. Yeah, but I think there was already a band called low,

so they got there first, you know. Right, right. What was some of the reject? Was there actually a suggestion like, men shall know none of this? Was that? Yeah. That was actually just... Men shall know nothing of this.

That's awful. Yeah. So low to the low, it wasn't that bad. Yeah, it seems so boring. The thing about names is I would love to, you know, too bad we don't have a time machine

and gone back and had named the band Men Shall Know Nothing of This and we'd be sitting here going, you know, 30 years later, Men Shall Know Nothing of This. And people would go,

oh, it's a great name. You know, like, those things that, it's a classic. Those things that happen because it wasn't too long after that that people were going,

oh, Lois to the Lord is an awesome name. It's like, okay, I guess it is now because there seems to be some momentum behind the band, but... And I'm sure when, you know, people first started hearing about the Tragically Hip,

there was a lot of people like, oh, that's a terrible name, the Tragically Hip. I'm sure that it's like one of those things where, you know, and then it's like, oh, you can't imagine them as any other name. I can't imagine Lowest Low by any other name at this point,

but interesting. I'm going to...is of the Lobe by any other name at this point. But interesting. I'm going to, a lot of ground I want to cover. So you're my hostages for several hours here. But there's a jam I want to play because I want to ask you about a recent guest of Toronto. Mike, we're going back to Halusa Jania. I always had trouble pronouncing that word. Halusa Jania?

Sure. Will that work? We'll accept that. See the generation. It knows about life. Life. Well, I saw him today. I can't. Chasing ghosts and drinking. The prices.

Oh, it's hard to pay. And we felt pretty stunned. Watching them hit. Highway one. Life Imitates Art. Life imitates art. Okay, recently on this program, I got to speak with Art Bergman. And you guys came up. Art tells a story about a tour he was on. And nobody would drive him to the next town or something. And he was hitchhiking.

I can't remember the details now. But perhaps you might know that story and talk to me a little bit about your relationships with Art Bergman. Yeah, well, you know, that's a story that we of course come in heavily on the art side of that story, which is that he was on the, I think it was the Big Bad and Groovy

Tour. And at a certain point nobody would let him travel on their bus or in their van or... And is this, I'm trying to remember, but there was a band on that bill that... I've had Brother Bill on the program. He's going to come up later. He has a question for you. But he was telling me how this was a very difficult band to work with at like

Edge Fests or Canada Day Festivals with CFNY. Was it Bootsauce? Yes. Yeah, Bootsauce and I think Sons of Freedom. Because Bootsauce is on this tour we're talking about. Bootsauce or Twats, yeah. Yeah, that's what Brother tells me. And it sounds like Art would agree and you guys would agree.

But the thing about Art is I say we come down heavily on the Art side of this equation. But Art could be a beautiful train wreck as well. Yes. And I can totally imagine a week in which everyone had had enough of Art and wouldn't let him on the bus. I say this because I've been in, you know, I've been the same type of person at times. But yeah, we saw him driving.

We were driving the other way. I was quick to, you know, to mention during Lawrence's tweet that, you know, we were going the opposite direction, so we couldn't have picked up Art and driven him to where he was going. Where are we here? I can't even remember. Regina. Regina, yeah. Okay, okay. We were hurtling down the Trans-Canada as we were wont to do, and he was going. Where are we here? I can't even remember. Regina. Regina, yeah.

Okay, okay. We were hurtling down the Trans-Canada as we were wont to do, and he was on the other side. And I think it was like we were, you know, whipping by, and then I whipped my, you know, rubber neck and was like,

I said, that's Art Bergman. And everybody was like, get out of here, that's not Art Bergman. I was like, yeah, that is Art Bergman. And he's standing at the side of the road with a guitar, right? And so we started to imagine what could possibly have happened. And we didn't know know him that way we didn't know him at all at

that point we hadn't met him so um I was just a huge fan and we were all kind of um inspired by him but uh you know and then later we heard the story that he had he had sort of pissed off enough people that he couldn't get a ride on the bus and right he'd been manipulated I think into being the only guy who was playing solo. And, you know, Art can certainly pull that off, but his band at the time was fantastic. It's too bad. And that song we just played, Life Imitates Art,

that song is about Art Bergman. Yeah, so it came up around exactly that time that we were writing songs for the second record. And, you know, I don't know if I'd already had the idea that I should write a song about Art Bergman because I would do that every now and then. People had inspired me, like, why not? We'll write a song about that person.

And then this was a nice little verse we could throw in there about how, you know, I feel like watching Art standing on the side of the road with his guitar sort of summed up so much about Art and so much about the music industry and so much about the Canadian music industry and what they can handle and what they can't stomach. And, you know, so it was all that kind of thing is like looking at art as a, as one of those examples of like, yes, he's a very

difficult, uh, he can be a very difficult guy, but he represents such so much freedom, you know, the kind of freedom that the music industry is supposed to be built on, you know? Yeah. Uh, I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with art, but, but you're supposed to be built on you know yeah uh i thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with art but but you're almost nervous talking to art bergman like this is like i called him earlier like an like an aging punker make me a little nervous like uh it's you know it's intimidating i don't know we can't punch you through the screen so that's the thing that's true i was safe on zoom uh good i finally fixed the camera well he also just won that he also just get one i guess he also just got the order of canada right which shocked i don't think

shocked anybody more than art himself but right i sent him a message and said well i i said you know congratulations with the question mark and then i was like you know i know you'll wear that crown you know sort of difficultly but you know but with grace and that's you know that's the thing about art too is he's of an old enough generation as you say aging punker like when I met art I

really thought he was going to be like just aggressive and difficult and a little scary and stuff like that and art has a lot of the old school kind of gentleman about him like there's as

much David Bowie as there is Johnny Rotten and in art so he's that kind of punk the old school kind of gentleman about him like there's as much david bowie as there is johnny rotten and in art so he's that kind of punk the very first wave where you know yes that all that punk is in there but they also he also would always want to make a real record in quotes and on a label and all you know like some some old school stuff was very important to art you know back then anyway and that stuff kind of shocked me and and then what a gentleman he was because i started to hang out and me and my my partner would go and hang out and stay with him and sherry and they would stay with us when they came in town and i was just shocked about what an

old school sort of you know he wants to make sure you've got a drink and that you're everybody's comfortable and you know he's a real like bogart or something i don't know cool cool and it's funny because uh fairly recently uh leonaona Boyd was on the program. Did you guys ever cross paths with Leona Boyd? I have not, no. So Leona was telling me she was Prince Philip's pen pal for like 35 years. They were pen pals.

They would write back and forth. And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. You're Prince Philip's pen pal. But I think what would be cool, it would be being Art Bergman's pen pal. And Ron, you were Art Bergman's pen pal? Yeah, pal yeah well I mean there was a period of time in the 90s where uh you know the internet wasn't or like uh social media and and having email addresses and stuff like that was there but it wasn't really common and Art and I particularly you know me not having a cell phone

I'm sure Art doesn't Art's living in the field somewhere so you know we're not exactly we're not on the cutting edge of that anyway so we were kind of doing it old school you know which i kind of i love you know because there's a certain amount of lack of instant gratification about it that i enjoy it's the writing writing to somebody when you have something to say and compiling it and then waiting for them to have something to say and you know and the anticipation of them responding is as part of the whole journey of it and what i would what i would do to get the uh access to read the art bergman letters the chorus can you imagine i'm just i'm just kind of imagining if art bergman had been prince philip's pen pal like just what what what a different world this would be and i don't want to rock your boat too much wrong but art is very active on twitter i gotta say oh no i know he's

so i mean he's he's up to date. We're telling you to get on there. You're missing out. Well, yeah, I think I have some news for you, though. I think Sherry's active on Twitter and Art. Yeah? Because when I talk to him on Facebook, it's through Sherry's account.

Well, he's got his own Twitter account. Okay. And, you know, it's the sort of cranky political stuff that you'd expect from him. He's very in your face. Of course, you know, he's an ever-evolving man, so I'm not suggesting. I'm just saying back in the 90s, that was how it was. Yes, of course, yes.

You're right. I was maintaining a pen pal relationship with art and with Chris Hanna from Propagandhi and with Johnny Two Bags from the Cadillac Tramps, and there was quite a few people that I would write to. I think it's the only way to get in touch with John Sampson now, right? Yeah, maybe the only way to get in touch with Johnny.

Wow. If you guys don't mind, if I crack open a fresh can of craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. You go crazy. It's very colorful. I myself am enjoying a coffee from Hillary at Cherry Bomb Coffee in Parkdale. Don't mind our new Toronto wasps.

Yeah, it just landed right on the mic. They're annoying. I know, I heard it. Like, I heard it in the headphones. I'm like, what's going on? I think they're, like, pretty weak at this point. I doubt you'll... I doubt...

If you get stung, are you allergic? Let us know. I think I'm okay. I'll press nine. He seems to like me. We'll find out. I'll press nine and one, and then I can press the other one if you get stung are you allergic let us know I think I'm okay I'll press nine this guy seems to like me we'll find out I'll press nine and one and then if

I can press the other one if I have to there but okay Art Bergman recent guest there's a couple others I want to talk to you about one gentleman I spoke to

for the first time yesterday and you guys came up what do you guys remember about Paul Myers Paul Myers from the Gravel Berries from the Gravelberries. He's also very active on Twitter. He's a very funny guy, gotta say.

I don't really know Paul. I've met him once or twice at the Horseshoe at gigs back in the day. Seemed very nice. Wrote some decent songs, I thought. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it's like almost landed on Lawrence's eyeball. I know, it was Right for my eye there.

It's those beautiful blue eyes. Yeah. The wasps are attractive. Ron's wearing camouflage, so they can't see me. The wasps can't see you. Geez. Paul co-wrote a couple of songs, I think, on the Waltons album. Oh, the second, the Cox Crowe album.

And they were very, very good. I can't remember. Was it Something Wrong? I think he wrote that one with Jason. Anyway. Yeah, so. And he seems, I don't even know if you're still with this woman. But maybe you are.

But Ron, he remembers your girlfriend working at a coffee shop. Like maybe like Young and Wellesley. He's got these, he's got a pretty good memory. Does this ring a bell at all? Yes, yes. Was that that Cookies place? Cookies. Cookies. He's got a pretty good memory. Does this ring a bell at all? Was that that Cookies place? Cookies. Cookies. Which is not there anymore.

I think it's a condo now. That would make sense. An anonymously named Cookies. So, yeah, shout out to Paul Myers. And another gentleman who was here last week to kick out more jams, Tim Thompson. Never heard of him. Who?

As you can imagine, you guys came up in that convo uh because uh you guys well i guess tim put together a video for every song on agit pop is that right that is yes yeah we had a little uh idea that might be nice to have little bumpers like little teasers trailers and um tim is the kind of guy um where you suggest something like that like and i sort of thought well maybe maybe they'll all be sort of one that will just tweak but of course tim wasn't having that tim made you know 14 little movies 14 yeah yeah which was amazing and and totally uh you know it was exactly what we wanted i think like little stories i i phoned and interviewed the guys in the band and david bot on the phone. And then we use that for little audio bumps, you know, that he would cut the videos around. Just, you know, just talking

about the songs. What do these songs mean to you or, you know, anything that would come up? Yeah, he's great. And I think the last time I saw him prior to, you know, him showing up in the backyard last week was at the record release party of Agitpop. It's hard to believe, like pre-pandemic, we could all like get together and have parties like that too. It was quite something. And not just that we could do it, but how quickly those muscles atrophy. Because anytime I've been now in a group of people, it's just a little weird and sort of unsettling. been now in a group of people,

it's just a little weird and sort of unsettling. And not in an unsettling, like you said, I don't feel nervous about getting COVID. Now I'm double vaxxed. You know, everybody I hang out with is double vaxxed, but it's still just a weird, unquantifiable unsettlingness about it that, you know, I'm just not used to this anymore. Not used to being the life of the party anymore, Mike.

Like, I'm guessing you all got fully vaxxed and then the band actually decided to get together again. What was it like the first time you guys were all in the same space again? It was outdoors. Well, no, actually, I guess... Do you mean to rehearse or to hang out? Either or.

Just the fact that you guys could get together and... We had a couple of hangs before we were vaxxed, didn't we? At a distance? Yeah, we did. Outside? Outside, yeah. We had a couple hangs before we were vaxxed didn't we at a distance yeah we did outside yeah we had a couple of outdoor hangs but they were you know they were you know the when we didn't do that in winter obviously so you know i'm trying i i remember that being kind of an emotional event for me like just to see these guys again and and it hadn't been that long i mean it had been long longer than it had ever been before that. But there was a big pause.

Like the last show we played, we did a live stream from Lee's Palace. And then we didn't see each other again. I think, I don't even, it was months and months and months before we were all together again. I have no concept of time anymore. I think everyone's like this. I'm trying to remember what year that happened. And that would have been this year. But like, yeah, we didn't get together for months.

We would talk on the phone, I guess, or email or something. Yeah, because there's always some kind of business to maintain a band, no matter even if you're not playing live or making records. Also, in our first rehearsal, it was kind of, I felt like it was a collective sigh, like a collective ah, you know,

sort of a stretch. And it was great to be in a room and remember how fucking loud it is in there. And go home with my ears ringing again.

And it hadn't been ringing. My ears hadn't been ringing for hours. Right. We brought a badger pop because I brought up Tim Thompson. So I'm going to play

a little of this song and talk to you about it again. The weak is the hangman The lump is the rope In the ear the barricade Some vote with their heads And some vote with their hearts And some vote with the end of their dicks

You can vote with a ballot You can vote with their hearts and some vote with the end of their dicks. You can vote with a ballot, you can vote with your wallet, but it's always a vote for the pricks. So let me tell you this for free, my next vote's with a brick. Don't fall somewhere behind the barricade Beyond the lies and the rarities If I see you on the bed Okay, so. That sounds better than the Hallucigenia song in headphones, I gotta say. Yes. Yes, that's a better sound.

I think the Hallucigenia is like a bad YouTube rip or something. One thing this made me realize, though, when you played this specific part of the song, was like, I guess every record, I'm going to have to go back and do some research, but it seems like every record, it'll be like, okay, here's the part where the band breaks down and Ron says some dirty stuff. Well, that's why I'm going to address this question to Lawrence, because Ron, you came in, you visited my backyard last summer and I wanted to talk mainly, I wanted to talk about the barricade, the song we just played. summer and i wanted to talk mainly i wanted to talk about the barricade the song we just played i really enjoy i'm still enjoying agitpop and the barricade has emerged for me personally as like a standout track with like uh like like that's really resonated with me and particularly last summer but still and there's that line of course about voting with a brick so lawrence what was

your reaction when you uh yeah oh the one where we all listened to that and sort of went, some of us were like, I don't know, man, is that too far? Is that too far? And David Bottrell was like, maybe that's too far, but maybe it's not too far. And I mean, now that we're on the other side of the pandemic and everything,

I'm like, oh, Bricks, give me all the Bricks. Bricks not big enough. Bricks not big enough. You know, I remember thinking like, you know, that's casting a, you know, it's, you know, the line where you say it's always a vote for the pricks and everything like that. And I was like, well, you know, I've met Charlie Angus a bunch of times and he's a good dude and he's running for parliament and everything. And then I was like, maybe he'd get offended by that.

And then it just came up. I was able to play that song for Charlie Angus on Facebook and he went, wow, what a great song. I love it. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, we were, I mean... Well, yeah, I would think that Charlie would, I mean, Charlie probably even more than us because he's been involved inside it probably. Yeah, probably. Plus also singing, you know,

it's almost always a vote for the Pricks. Didn't quite fit. It was just, you know... Pretty much always a... Pretty much always, most of the time, a vote for the Pricks. Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah, so we had a few discussions about it, but no. I mean, I'm glad

it went. I don't know. Did we really talk about it that much? We had a couple of discussions. I think we didn't talk about it much, but we talked about it enough that I remember saying, you know, I don't want to have something on a record that everybody but me feels is you know against what

they believe and they have to play it every night so we had that conversation and i think it was sort of like i cared enough about the line yeah more than other people were you know had trouble with it and i don't you know when we talked about it i think what it was was like what you what you thought i was suggesting before we actually talked about wasn't exactly what i was suggesting and what i was suggesting is that it's just a metaphor for how frustrated i am with the sort of classic bourgeois democracy you know and then there's that winston churchill quote about you know like democracy is the worst system in the world except for all the others so and having come from a you know from a communist and a leftist background since i was young i'm now 56 years old and i'm still struggling with where i fall on the how much reform so and having come from a you know from a communist and a leftist background since i was young

i'm now 56 years old i'm still struggling with where i fall on the how much reform how much reform can you depend on to change things because it's the peaceful way to do it and it's the most democratic way to do it and that's what i that's how i would love it to go but having seen enough times where that gets bought off and that there needs to be a more strident way to change things. So I'm still there. I still don't have a real clear... I have a feeling that's pretty much exactly what you said to me at the time. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Besides, I was totally on board with all the other parts of the song. So it was just maybe the... And then we just had another great example of it right now. We all had to vote last week. And Lawrence said to me, so what are you doing doing this year are you going back to your default setting of like who gives a shit you know does it really matter and i was like well no i voted but at the same time i felt incredibly enraged at my choices you know like i enraged at my choices and enraged at the if i voted with my heart and the people who who said things and i went yes check check check

go like they are never going to be, you know, that best thing, I could maybe vote for them to make them a strong, what am I trying to say? A strong opposition. Like if they get a certain percentage of the vote,

you get a certain funding as a party. I think it's number of seats, isn't it though? I thought it was, there's two things going on. One is number of seats because that's what messed up the provincial liberals last election.

But there's something with, if you get a certain percentage of the popular vote across the country, there's some access to some funds or something that the PCC party was trying to attain or something. There's something there. I need to do a little more homework here. But I think what you're saying, which I agree with,

is that our system, this first-past-the-post system, it doesn't work to me because I find almost every single election, be it municipal, federal, or provincial, that I'm strategically voting to block a certain party from attaining power. And it's essentially, I'll be honest, in this riding, federally, well, let's go provincially because Doug Ford got a majority, as you might have heard. But I'm literally like, okay, which is the stronger number two to defeat the PC party in this riding? Is it the NDP candidate or is it the Liberal candidate? And as I recall, a few, what, four years ago,

that this province seemed to have decided it was really mad at Kathleen Wynne and they were going to punish the Liberals, I guess for being in power too long or something to that effect. So it was, okay, this NDP candidate is actually our best bet. So it didn't matter. I was supporting a party to

defeat another party and that seems to always be the way it is. And I feel like that's a result of this first-past-the-post system where the number one thing most votes wins instead of some kind of a ranked balloting system. It's wrong. And forget about dreaming. If you look at this performer, Cadence Weapon, who just won the Polaris Prize. So he's talking about, you look at, well, Justin Trudeau's record on COVID. I think he handled that well. And you're looking at things like this, and you're looking at the PC party and

everything. And it's like, Justin Trudeau can't remember how many times he was in blackface. So for somebody like cadence weapon, it's like, really? Is that, is that one of our leading lights? Is that who we're voting for?

And then I'm listening to anime Paul about, about, uh, you know, the biggest existential crisis in our lives. And I have a 15 year old daughter thinking like, you know, nobody is remotely addressing that. No major party in North America is remotely addressing that,

that issue in a way that they need to do it. You know, you mean climate change, right? Climate change. Yeah. Yeah. The environment. Yeah. No, absolutely. I, and that's, you know, and that's going to shut down. I mean, there's no point bourgeois elections revolution. None of it's going to matter if we don't deal with that. So it's just insane. It's like, I just feel left. Like, like the whole thing is a joke and you're sitting here kind of going like, you know, but you do vote.

So I do, I don't, I don't know is my default has for years and years had been not, no, because there's no dog in the race for me. And what brought you, what brought you actually in to actually vote was to try to stop Doug Ford from becoming a president. Yeah, just stopping people. Yeah, which is how I vote every time. Which party will defeat the conservative party? How demoralizing.

How demoralizing and how underwhelming is it that we live in a so-called democracy where the democracy means I don't want this person in because it'll be living hell if they're in. Well, two municipal elections. I think it was two or three. I lost track now, but I distinctly remember wanting to vote for Olivia Chow.

And when I got in the damn polling booth, I realized that she was going to finish third and I need to vote to keep Doug Ford out of the mayoral office. And I ended up voting. I remember voting for John Tory, a man I didn't want to be my mayor because I would prefer John Tory to Doug Ford. It's that type

of strategic voting that makes this whole process kind of gross. It doesn't encourage people to get out and vote. I live in Chrystia Freeland's writing. I didn't receive any campaign literature from her. She never showed up. There was no campaign.

I got leaflets from the Communist Party. They were at least trying. They've got some good platforms. I just went and voted for the NDP, but I knew it wasn't going to make any difference. But then if you look farther afield in the world, it's just a declining nightmare from there. So it's like, if you're not wired in a certain way,

that could be an incredibly demoralizing, you know, depressing thing to live with and to process. You know, thank God, as you say, last year we saw a lot of energy and a lot of excitement about these issues. And what scares me is how possibly it's been co-opted and bought off, you know, by now. Well, how quickly it leaves the front page of the news.

Well, and Biden gets in and, you know, Biden gets into power and everybody's like, oh good, we have a really old white boring guy back. We don't have to, you know, a diplomat, you know, whatever it is. And it's like, so nothing will change, but it's not going to be crazy time every day, you know? Yeah, I don't miss crazy time every day. Honestly, that's not good for your health. It's be crazy time every day you know I don't miss crazy time every day honestly that's not good for your health crazy time every day you can't sustain that

so I will say it's better for my health that we're not in crazy time but I want to talk taverns and palaces and I have a jam I want to play for that but first I want to give you guys something I won't tell you I have my sources but I want to give you something because you've come all this way so a couple of things I want't tell you. I have my sources. But I want to give you something because you've come all this way.

So a couple of things I want to give you. One is, this is really cool, and it only started in September here. I will email you a $75 gift, virtual gift card that you can spend at chefdrop.ca. Like one for each of you. That's $150 right there. Yeah. So you go to chefdrop.ca. You pick prepared meal kits from like fantastic chefs and restaurants and stuff.

And you pick what you want. And you can spend $75 just because you visited my backyard today. $75 each. Thanks, Mike. You don't have to share that meal either. Thanks. That's very nice. And listeners can save 20% right now if you use the promo code FOTM20 at chefdrop.ca.

So do that. They've been great new partners of Toronto Mike's. And if that's not enough, like that's a meal. But, you know, I have in my freezer now. Make sure you grab it before you leave. No joke. Large meat lasagna from Palma Pasta. So you're coming home with lasagna.

Have you guys had lasagna in the past? Oh, yes. Is that why you're here today? Yes. Because you knew it was coming back? Okay. So thank you, Paul Moposta, for sending that over. Just a couple of times I forgot to get out of the freezer,

and then I ended up biking it to people. But just remind me. I'll make sure I remember. There should be a sticker somewhere there. Yeah, I don't know where you... Where did your last Toronto Mike sticker end up? And I do have one for you too, Lawrence. You don't want to know.

Blew away. I don't want to know. But thank away. I don't want to know. But thank you to StickerU.com for the fantastic stickers. Mike Majeski, if you guys are looking to buy and or sell in the next six months, have a conversation with Mike Majeski.

Go to realestatelove.ca and reach out and let Mike know that you heard about him on Toronto Mike. I would appreciate it. And last but not least, well, actually a couple more. I want to thank... Does he know how expensive houses are?

Yeah. This conversation, like I have a couple of teenage, well, one's 19. He's renting a place in Waterloo right now with his buddies because he's at Laurier University. And then my daughter's 17.

And I honestly don't know, like, I guess they just rent. Like, I guess you just rent. And I mean, I rented for many, many, many years, but then I'm old't know, like, I guess they just rent. Like, I guess you just rent and I mean, I rented for many, many, many years but then I'm old enough that I could,

like, I don't just, I was able to buy a house believe it or not. Like, I don't know how people, I don't know how you buy a house now if you don't have a house already.

You probably have to become a drug dealer and make a lot of money, I guess. That would be my guess. That's a good idea. Hey, wait a minute.

Keep all your options open. Yeah, always keep your options open. Mike Majewski, if you can figure it out, he's your man for sure. I was going to just mention, thank you to Ridley Funeral Home. They're pillars of this community since 1921.

RidleyFuneralHome.com. And last but not least, McKay CEO Forums. They have a new podcast called the CEO Edge Podcast. I post new episodes every week. In fact, I got to post one later today. I urge you to subscribe and listen to Nancy McKay fireside chats with CEOs and executives, and they're always inspiring.

So you guys do that. Here is a great jam, and I want to talk about this project. Here we go. This one's called New Wave Action Plan. One, two, three, four You were a child about the perspiration You'd never break a sweat unless you tried If you never choose a destination Then you're gonna spin your wheels until you die Oh, you never get to stay at the original palace

You never get to see the great new world I'm strangled up inside You're better till you die You're never gonna join the party Yeah, you never get to burn the... All right, who wants to tell me about Taverns and Palaces? Taverns and Palaces was a double live record. It's a double live record that we recorded two years ago December 13th, 14th?

December, anyway One night at Lee's Palace, one night at the Horseshoe So there's a, it's, if you've got vinyl, it's a double vinyl One is Lee's, one is the Horseshoe CD, same I was at that Lee's Palace show Same deal Oh, great

Oh, nice Yeah, and there were great shows, and we had our pals in the Sky Wallace band opening for us, and it became one of those things, you know, I can tell you that in 30 years, the lowest of the low crowd has been fairly unsavory to some opening bands

and then nicer to other ones, and to the point where back in the day, sometimes we have to come out and chastise them a little bit and say, look, we picked these people to come out. An agency didn't throw them on the bill. And we think you'll love them, so you should check them out. You should not talk and you should not yell for the low while it's happening.

But the Skywalls Band is one of a handful of bands in our history who there were instantly a love affair between our crowd and and them and uh so it became kind of a big family you know a rolling family review and uh and they we kind of mixed the bands together for a couple songs couple covers and and stuff like that and uh so sky and the band are on the record as well lauren you introduced me to sky wallace and I had her over and she was here and performed live and honestly, she's fantastic I've now seen her in concert a few times

I'm just realizing that ironically it was an agency that put her she got those shows because we're on the same booking agency but it turned out really well she's absolutely fantastic it doesn't make what I said wrong, it just makes it wrong in that one instance.

In that one instance, yes. It's been great. All of the people in her band were just fabulous as well. Well, here's another connection. This is actually you again, Lawrence, and that's mainly because Ron's not on Twitter, so... But you... No, actually, I can't give you credit for this, except it turned out... Jane's Party

came over here, and then it turns out, Jane's Party came over here and then it turns out that Jane's Party was doing some live by the Humber River. We're doing live performances with Sky Wallace and it was a real nice blend. They did a Somebody to Love and a Jefferson Airplane song together.

Yeah, it was really good. Jim Carrey covered that. Didn't he cover that Jim Carrey covered Somebody to Love for maybe C cable guy or something like that i'm going way back here you're not uh you're not up to date on your jim carrey no i don't think i am but i i believe you i believe you wholeheartedly seek that out if you will but uh shout out to jane's party and sky wallace if uh she's listening so i was gonna ask you before you let it slip there that uh the agency helped get sky on the bill but i wondered like do you always cherry pick your opening acts like is it a band you have to really believe in we often do i think how this went might have been like i sort of found sky just

from trolling around on the internet and finding this video called swing batter which was from right yeah from her last record i think and i was just i'd never heard of her and i was blown away by just the uh impact and like the song and i i facebook messaged her and just said uh you know i often find people whose music i like but the lyrics are left wanting or you know there's a great idea in the lyric but it's kind of a dull song. And I said, this was kind of a one, two punch and I couldn't believe how powerful it was. And then when I found out, uh, the story behind it,

it's based on a true story. Um, so I contacted her and then she in very sky, uh, in a very sky manner said, uh, something like geez, Ron,

thanks. G like G E Z. And it was like, that was not what I expected to come out of her. Like, um, there's been some golly G's and some uh you know there's a gosh or two gosh yeah yeah so she's also very uh you know very humble person for one so talented and so she's got it all together like she's she's the full meal deal there like in terms of uh putting out fantastic music and you know

she's committed and stuff like that so I so I saw that and I contacted her and I had some, one of those runs of shows at the only cafe and asked her to open those. And she came out and we met and, uh, you know, my partner, Jill said, she said,

wow, she's really, you know, she said, how old is she? She's really composed and, and really has a, like a thing,

like it really has her mojo going, you know, like it's really, uh, like a swagger maybe. Yeah. She just really is thejo going. It's really... Like a swagger maybe? She really is the real deal. She really is a powerful performer. So it was great to have her and then to meet her band and then to fall in love

with every other person in her band. Because they're all fantastic people and great players. Who's on the bill for these upcoming shows? Like at the Lees Palace in Horseshoe? Well, at Lee's Palace we have resurrected a band that we played with a lot and

toured Canada with a few times in the magical decade of the 1990s. So for the three nights at Lee's Palace, we will be joined by Sour Landslide. Hey! And you guys have kicked out the jams on Toronto, Mike, there was some Sour Landslide. Yeah, we had them frozen in carbonite. Yes. Like Han Solo. Yeah. We had them frozen in carbonite. Yes.

96. Like Han Solo. Yeah. And just had them unfrozen. And then the two nights at the Horseshoe will be joined by the band Beams. Okay. And again, we picked them.

There was no agency there. We asked them if they would do the shows because they're awesome. They're very good. They have an album out this last year called Ego Death. Ego Death. E death ego death it's a terrific record and an accompanying film which is really great i hope people will check it out

seek it out on the interweaves ego death and it's uh they shot it during the pandemic and one of the reasons it's so fantastic is because they shoot a song a live song in a whole handful of venues some of them that closed during covid like the boat in the market so i think they're the last thing to ever happen there and uh you know there's a whole b plot where um one of the band members had to go back to the west coast at the beginning of the pandemic and so he so they're talking to him during during the movie about whether he's still in the band or whether he's going to come back and record with them. And then there's talk about are they even going to be a band.

And there's a whole other thing about they have a rehearsal space called B Space, which was started by Scott B. I didn't know how long ago, but something like 1983 or something. Scott B. Symphony? Symphony. Yeah, he came up yesterday with Paul Myers. Yeah, yeah.

So he has had the lease on that since the 80s, and it's been a rehearsal space. Scott's a fantastic guy, and so a bunch of bands have come through there, and Beams is one of the bands that's in there, and apparently the lease came due during COVID, and I can't imagine in my wildest dreams that it will get renewed just because of the way of toronto is becoming and how all of those rehearsal spaces all the

old factory spaces that we used to go to after hours clubs in or you know five artists would get together and pay no rent and i don't know how it's like kim mitchell of old people uh i had this conversation with because he was talking about when max webster was a thing and he was living like he said it was costing him nothing to live in this house with the band and this is i don't know the east end of toronto like i don't know how you do it now like like like i don't know i don't know how a band especially because it's well you guys know the economics of everything like uh i don't i don't know how our artists can afford to live in this city i don't know well they can It's like, I remember having the same conversation.

Like I moved into a house with five guys. We all, we all paid like 200 bucks a month and we, you know, and I tell my daughter, like, you know, there were lots of stories about we would make a giant kiln of soup and we

would eat that soup all week, you know? Sure. And so, you know, there was some hardship. I mean, there was that kind of hardship,

you know, but that's not hardship at all compared to now. And I think, well, you know, we was some hardship. I mean, there was that kind of hardship, you know, but that's not hardship at all compared to now. And I think, well, you know, we paid $200 to live in that place. So I didn't have to think about a day gig that much. I didn't have to think about how am I going to make ends meet. You know, a writer friend of mine said, you know, Ron, when we came up, he was like, somebody might say to you, you know, wow, you know, there's a good chance you're going to starve.

You know, you really want to go there? And he's like, no, it's like, you're going to starve. Like, unless you're subsidized by somebody or you can live in your parents house or something like how the hell no that's it exactly you need uh your parents to help out and that's so not rock and roll i know like how and that basically eliminates a good chunk of us like you don't have you know from from like you know how long i'm gonna make this lasagna let's be honest because i well at peak, when my boy's in town, we're six people here,

and there's, it's still, everybody's full at the end of the meal. Like, there's a lot of them. And have they started a band? Yeah.

Well, yeah, can they afford to? Because even the cell phone, except for Ron's, for regular people, your cell phone bill is a hundred bucks

or whatever. So it's like, that's just for your phone. Ron's got the flip phone. I have a special plan. How much do you pay for that flip phone plan? If you don't mind disclosing.

I don't know. I don't even have a flip phone. I'm flip phone adjacent. Jill has a flip phone? Yeah. How come I don't have the number? Oh, yeah. That's right.

Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't have Jill's flip phone number. Maybe it's a burner. Maybe she is a drug dealer. I don't know. Wow. I've never really talked to anybody.

Well, Stringer Bell says you got to take the SIM card out and throw it out, and you got to keep switching up the SIM card. Shout out to Stringer Bell. Of course, Stringer Bell isn't saying anything anymore. Spoiler alert. Neither is Omar. Oh, come on. We lost two in a row that really hit me particularly because

Michael K. Williams who plays Omar, that's my favorite character on The Wire. Of course. He was fantastic. But then, like not shortly thereafter,

we lost Norm Macdonald who was like, he had like my funny bone. He just struck it hard, man, consistently. He was like the one-two punch man. That clip that Tim

played of him reading, I guess, from his biography was really something. It's almost like he's reading an obituary of sorts, like a farewell. So, okay, you listened to Tim Thompson, so you heard all... Oh, I forgot. Yeah, Lawrence is the guy who listens

to the prologue. Yeah, you guys should listen to that, Tim Thompson. Here's the bridge to Norm MacDonald to Sky Wallace. I was watching Norm MacDonald on Comedians Getting Cars, or Comedians Norm Macdonald on Comedians Getting Cars, or Comedians Getting Coffee in Cars. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee? Getting Coffee. And so he,

at some point, he and Jerry Seinfeld are walking down the street and Seinfeld says something and Norm Macdonald says, holy crow. And Jerry Seinfeld says, you're the only person left

on the planet that says holy crow. It's funny, because Paul Myers' brother is, of course, Mike Myers. And Mike Myers was on Saturday Night Live. Who's funny because I was, cause Paul Myers, his brother is of course, Mike Myers and Mike Myers was on Saturday night live. Who's Mike Myers. And the, uh, the last couple of years,

I guess Mike Myers is on Saturday night live are the first couple of years, Norm McDonald. So I was asking him about Norm yesterday and, uh, yeah, he was sharing, uh, Paul Myers was sharing stories of, uh, of, of Norm. And I honestly, now that I get to this part of the story, I can't remember where I was going with that, but, uh, yeah, he was just talking about,

uh, Holy crow. Yeah. Something. Well, you know, we have lost, we have lost some notable people,

Michael K. Williams and Norm and Charlie Watts and everything. Hey, to tie Charlie Watts to Art Bergman, um, when we were, we were in Vancouver Studios, we were recording Art Bergman's part for Beard Graffiti Walls. I remember I was sitting up by the mixing desk,

and the phone rang, and I answered the phone, and on the other end of the phone was Charlie Watts, because Don Smith, the producer of Hallucigenia, I've got a question about him coming up. to the phone wall and on the other end of the phone was charlie watts because wow because don smith the producer of hallucinogenia i got a question about him coming up okay well just just his next project after hallucinogenia was going to be a rolling stones album so um yeah we were he was in contact with them but but yeah yeah while art was doing the bit for uh beer graffiti walls charlie watts phoned the studio looking for a producer and I talked to Charlie Watts and he could hear Art Bergman in the background and he said, what's going on?

That's wild. And I just said, it's Art. Very good. And now I remember where I was going with that story. I'm not as young as I used to be but it was okay. Paul was talking about, oh yeah, I guess I'm the guy who, he had no idea. Paul

Myers had no idea that Norm MacDonald's brother was Neil MacDonald, of course, longtime CBC reporter. I don't know if you guys know that Neil MacDonald. I didn't know that either. Longtime CBC guy was Norm's brother. So there's your, I guess I just told you guys as well. I'm here to blow minds. I'm here to blow minds with the fun facts here.

Hey, and I don't know if I brought this up with you last summer, Ron, but I had Elephants and Stars in the backyard, which is really, his name's Manfred. Did I bring it up?

I was going to call in and say, you've got to talk about the band and stop talking about Lost of the Low. Yeah, I'm wearing my Elephants and Stars t-shirt. I love it.

Manfred did talk a lot about Lost of the Low. Did he? I missed that. I missed Manfred's episode. I'm so sorry. I would say Manfred's become kind of a buddy. He loves the program.

He loves you guys, of course. He's a really good guy. He sought after Ron Hawkins for production and stuff. And yeah, we definitely did talk about Elephants and Stars. And I have that same T-shirt. I had to choose. Do I wear my Elephants and Stars T-shirt or do I wear my Tommy Douglas Tuesday shirt?

We're all covered now. When we take that photo by the tree, you've got to rip open that shirt. I've got a Jimmy Cliff t-shirt on here. That's the trifecta right there. Tommy Douglas, Elephants and Stars, and Jimmy Cliff. This is where they intersect.

We've got some stuff coming down the pike too. I'm not at liberty to tell you about. You should tell me because this is the time. Elephants and Stars. Oh, Elephants and Stars. Me and Elephants and Stars, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, he's a great guy.

He's a great guy. Can you tell us if somebody wants to get Taverns and Palaces today, can you buy it today? No. When can you buy it? I think its release date is December 11th. You can't pre-order it for those chomping at the bit?

That's a good question. That's a very reasonable question, Mike. Okay, well, Lois and Lois, which was just redesigned, right? I feel like, is that a redesign or did I just, maybe not. Our website? Yeah, no. You may have visited it since I last visited it. So, maybe. I want to say definitely

maybe. Well, someone's maintaining it. It's got the taverns and palaces on there. Oh, does it? Okay. Yeah. It's been tweaked. Okay. But keep your eye on that and then follow Lowest of the Low on Twitter too because of course it'll be there. And that's not Ron. Ron's not tweeting from Lowest of the Low.

That's Lawrence. Yeah. And I should point out that also Shakespeare My Buddy is now available again on vinyl, just as a standalone. Any record store can order that now. And it's 30 years old. And it's almost 30. Almost 30. Almost 30.

December 11th. Wow. The date of our Ironically. Nothing's a coincidence. Nothing's a coincidence. All right, I got questions for you from your from your fans our mutual fans okay okay uh this one i'll ask it anyways because he's a he's a good good fan of the show here a good fotm dan jeffrey writes uh how often does ron still get asked if he's related to ronnie hawkins has it happened any time in the last couple of years? No, I would say no.

And it never happened regularly, but it did happen every so often. And more than that, it would be like, I remember in the late 90s, early 2000s, I would get a phone call sometimes in the middle of the night. So clearly from a different time zone, by a drunken older lady looking for Ron Hawkins. You know what's going to happen, and I'm not trying to be grim here, but everybody dies. This is a reality. So eventually,

I don't know, maybe you'll be 100 years old, but Ron Hawkins is going to pass away at some point. I feel like there's going to be some confusion among some people, possibly, when you hear Ron Hawkins died. Just be prepared to have to explain it you're still alive there's a there's a great story about mark hansen who played with lawrence and i in a band called the rusty nails yeah he was the drummer he was at some

some work thing like a work gig and uh they were in a bar and some guy said so what have you been up to and he said oh i do this and he said know, and I also play drums for Ron Hawkins. And he says, I thought he was dead. He said, no, no, not Ronnie Hawkins. Ron Hawkins from Los Angeles. And he goes, yeah, I know. I thought he was dead. So that rumor may be going around already.

Wow. I hope that doesn't happen for a very, very long time. Okay, so Dan, there you go. You got your answer. Josh Goodell, can you, oh, actually we just got the answer, but I'll ask it anyways. I should have changed up the order. But he says, can you find out when their upcoming double live album comes out?

I can't wait to hear it. But the answer is December 11th. That is the answer, yes. As we just learned here on Toronto Mike. Oh, here's Brother Bill. Okay. And here's the Don Smith. Good. Brother Bill, who's become a great friend of this program. He pops on all the time. We got some stuff up our, who's become a great friend of this program, like he pops on all the time.

We got some stuff up our sleeve. A great, great friend of the program. What did you think, it's for you guys, what did you think about Don Smith's efforts producing Hallucigenia? Okay. Real talk. Here we go.

Deep breath. Well, you know, the reason we worked with Don Smith in the first place was because we were huge fans of the Cracker album, Kerosene Hat, which he had produced. Yeah. Speaking of low. Yeah, and the logic in our mind was like, we love that band. We love their sound.

We're not, you know, we're not to diametrically. You've left us. Hold on here. Who, me? Oh, it's my headphones, we're not to diametrically. You've left us. Hold on here. Oh, who, me? Oh, it's my headphones, actually. Please continue. My apologies. Yeah, we're not diametrically opposed in the way we write songs.

And, you know, they were kind of mixing that sort of rootsy thing with the punk thing. And so we thought, well, that's the perfect person. I mean, you know, we want those sounds. We want to sound like that Kerosene Hat record. You know, if Shakespeare in My Butt Head sounded like that record, we would have been sick and gone crazy. So we hired Don Smith, and I guess we got him through Universal, and Frank Weypert, who was managing us, knew a lot of people down the West Coast. So that was what we expected was going to happen.

And then we got a combination of things that were a problem, which was Don Smith, as Lawrence said, the Stones were calling him while he was making our record. So that was a little disorienting and unmotivating for him, I think. And there was a lot of times where he would be on the second floor. There was a little conference room upstairs from the control room, and he would be up there on the phone with people talking about his next work with the Stones. And then we would lay out a track or whatever and the symbols would still be

sizzling and then we'd hear this big pause and we'd wonder where dom was and then we'd just hear do it again from upstairs so he was you know he was not there a lot of the time and then when he was there it may have been a bigger problem because i remember very early in the process having a conversation he had worked with a whole bunch of people that you know that we thought were awesome and so he was telling us you know some great stories like Tom Waits and Keith Richards recording the backup vocals on a on a song on Mule Variations called no it was it was it was that feel from that feel on Bow Machine so that feel so there's a drunken choir of of Tom Waits and Keith Richards in the background and they were you know apparently hammered doing it but he said they were recording

on something like the eighth floor of this building or whatever they came in and the elevator wasn't working so he said to watch tom waits and keith richards try to make it up eight flights of stairs in that state or in any state chain smoking and doing what they do was was fun so all these kind of stories were great but then he started telling us stories about working for stacks and uh it was like wow that's amazing i can't believe that you're old enough to have worked for stacks and he was just you know really starting out and everything but he started using all these slurs and he said what i learned was uh never use an n-word crew and so the record scratched and the air went out of the room and i said what did you say and he said and then i guess he took he took that i was confused whatever he said oh don't worry he said

even n words won't work with an n word crew wow and so everything yeah the air just left the room and uh i i went out and actually got on the phone with our manager i said what happens if i punch the producer in the face and he said uh he said well you just paid him 45 000 usd to make this record um and you're going to be working with him for the next 30 days so you better find a way to do that and so that was a major obviously that was a major stumbling block because i i was shooting daggers and out of my eyes out of him the whole time and hated his guts and uh and then you have to do a very intimate thing like make a record with somebody and uh you know i mean to do a very intimate thing like make a record with somebody and uh you know i mean probably luckily he was not very involved and he was not in the room very

often because it probably would have went south pretty quickly and then once he was done um you know he spent maybe a day on a day each or maybe a day on the first two singles which were gamble and pistol and those songs uh sound very well uh mixed and very punchy and everything and then i think he spent a day on the whole rest of the record you know and he also did something in the middle he told us one time he's like i'm going down back to la for a weekend and i'm taking all the tracks and i'm you know uh the drummer for tom petty's band is going to put hand percussion on it and we said no he's not and he said yeah i do what he said i did on the hip record i did on the cracker record and it was like this whole thing so he and we you know you find yourself in that position on a label and when you've hired somebody like that that you don't

look at the fine print and you don't really have control of him not doing that right so he took them down there and came back uh which would be you know like all due respect you know i'm sure that drummer is fantastic and the hamper you know we weren't against hand percussion per se but it came back and and one thing that stuck in my craw was that Dave, we had a song where in the bridge of the song, Dave started playing a cowbell. So the bridge comes up, there's a cowbell in it. So when it came back from Don in L.A., there was cowbell all the way through the song. And then when it got to the bridge, there was two cowbells.

And I was like, okay, so clearly nobody's listening to what they're doing. This is just a thing he does, carpet bombs the record with hand percussion so when he left we actually said to uh our engineer i'm not going to name him just in case this is a legal problem but uh we said to our engineer uh so hey can we recall all these mixes and just take all the shit that we didn't like that don did take it out and he's like don's not alive anymore he's like yeah i think we're okay yeah and then you know it out. And he's like, Don's not alive anymore. He's like, yeah, I think we're okay. Yeah. And then, you know,

the other thing, so that's Don in a nutshell. And then I remember playing, uh, this is not going to be very, very generous on my part, but we played graffiti, Steve Stanley and I were playing graffitis and Steve,

one thing that Steve does, which I think is adorable, but at the same time, I think sometimes unrealistic is he will often go through a traumatic experience with the band and later it somehow gets romanticized in his head and we all do this i do it as well but he does it on a on a different level and he and john smith had just died and steve was sort of lamenting and talking about our session at the show and i was on the other mic and this was a very classic me and ste thing because Steve would say something and I said

I said you know fucking good riddance man and he's like you can't say that and I said I just did and we started getting this thing about how you know I was like you know that we fucking hated that experience and that he was a horrible guy and you know yes I don't wish I don't wish death on people but you know I'm not exactly shedding tears

you know that that Don is not wrecking other people's records and, you know. So I'm wondering, this experience of Don Smith, like how much did, what kind of a role did that play? Like in the 1994, like breakup of the band? I would say that it's kind of like the cherry, you know, it's the cherry on top because I think some things that were happening during that is that, you know, because of his indifference, I think, uh, the record doesn't sound the way I

would want it to sound. There's some, I have some massive problems and I can't listen to the record because all I can think of is his face and how much I want to punch it. And so, you know, it's, it really, it really does sort of spoil the experience because you're, you're trying to, you know, you're, you're making something with people like I short of being intimate with your partner or whatever. I can't think of a more intimate thing to do than to be in a studio for 30 days with somebody, hopefully people you love making a thing that you want to be proud of. Right. And it's like, so I came out of that hating it. And I've since, you know, revised that and time has dulled some of the problems.

But I mean, it really spoiled that record for me. Interesting, fun fact that maybe people won't realize is I don't think Don Smith ever heard Black Monday. He was not involved. Which might be my favorite song. I don't know if he was only contracted to do 12 songs and we had 14. So there was some stuff that we did just with Right. And then, so there was, uh,

there was some stuff that we did just with the engineer. No, plus that's another, that's another scene. If I'm producing somebody's record and I'm contracted to do 12 songs and they go, we actually got 14, you know, I figured like you should be in a mention enough to go,

yeah, let's do it. Except I'm not really sure that's what happened. It could be that you said, no way we're getting, Oh yeah, maybe. You might've just said,

no way. That's two less songs we have to hang out with. Yeah. So yeah, he never, I'm sure he never heard that song.'s two less songs we have to hang out with. Yeah. So yeah, he never, I'm sure he never heard that song. And the other thing we did was there was one of those, uh,

wooden, wooden dolls that you, you know, art dolls that you used to pose for drawing with that are very nondescript or just, it's just wood, uh, you know, movable arms and legs and stuff like that.

And all during the process, uh, Don was very famous for having, he had a sort of a big kind of fro and he wore a headband and he wore leather pants and sometimes a leather jacket. Yeah, he was kind of a sunglasses indoors sort of dude as well. Yeah, he was a very LA in a weird sort of old school LA way that you, everyone's probably picturing.

So in the studio, like John Arnott, I remember John Arnott started with some black gaff tape, taping up the legs and making leather pants on it and we basically made a Don Smith voodoo doll we took a bunch of

Q-tips and phased them out and glued them onto the head and we made a voodoo doll of him that wound up in the collage which is in the Hallucigenia package I don't think he ever

saw that either to exercise these demons if you will like have you considered just remaking this album like now like let's let's make it i mean i would totally do that but except that you know the thing with the lowest of the low

is that you know i i still at the age i'm at now seem to be pretty excited and pretty prolific to move forward and the band is always gung-ho and and it's always an exciting place to be in lowest of the low so no i know was amazing honestly and I know some of those jams were from way back in the day or whatever but it was a great great like so is there another album coming that you could tease in some regard yeah oh sure

sure there is I mean we haven't done any work on it because of the pandemic or anything but there's stuff we got it more than a handful I mean we've got I would say we've got almost an album's worth of stuff that we're ready to kind of dig into and get working on. Yeah. We just have to get through all this organized nostalgia first. All these, you know, 74th anniversary.

I laugh at that only because 74, it's like, you know, 75 is the milestone. I kind of hope we're invited. To the untrained eye, Mike. Yeah. To the untrained eye. Shout out to McPherson. Oh my God.

David. David, thank you. I was going to say Don McPherson. That's somebody else. But David's got a book on the Massey Hall. I'm going to have him back to talk Massey Hall next, but he did a horseshoe episode. Okay.

So another question. I feel like I ate up all of that. Did you have a good time? You know what? I'm actually going to name the engineer. Rod Michaels was the engineer, and I think that's the gasp. I'm excited to edit this. You're telling me now? No, this is a good part of the story. I thought Rod was amazing.

I thought he was a really good guy. He was fantastic. I think he was the house... He'd never worked with Don before either, and he was fantastic. He created a great environment, was a really good guy. He was fantastic. I think he was the house... Yeah. Like, he'd never worked with Don before either, and he was fantastic. He created a great environment, was like a total pro. He constantly had Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz,

just playing on a loop, and every time there was a dull moan in the studio, he'd flip a switch, and we'd suddenly hear... Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da That's right. There was some... That song was everywhere. Good stuff. Yeah, he was really great. And shout out to Brother Bill, who I feel knew that would prompt the... Oh, I think Bill knew exactly what he was asking. Bill knows, and Bill's in White Rock, B.C. right now,

but I will just tease the listeners that there is something... Me and Cam have an idea with Brother Bill that's coming soon. Is he coming to town? Is that what you're saying? No, but he is always threatening to come to town. If he came to town and emceed all our 30th anniversary Shakespeare shows,

that would be kind of perfect. Well, you know, that big Sloan song where it's like, ladies and gentlemen, Sloan. That's Brother Bill. Yeah, that's Brother Bill. He could do that for us. That would get us all moving. Shout out to Sloloan yeah i think brother bill was at the ultrasound tavern 30 years ago for the

shakespeare my butt release i'm pretty sure he was there well he'll let me know he'll let you know he'll he'll 74 years ago yeah i really like that dude he's a he's a great guy great guy uh michael lang who uh michael lang i gotta shout out michael lang he's a listener but. Michael Lang, who... Michael Lang, I got to shout out Michael Lang. He's a listener, but he's one of three human beings, other than myself, who have been to all eight Toronto Mic listener experiences. We had another one on August 27. And I guess I should thank you again.

I know I've thanked you many times, but you guys, you two played the third TMLX, and honestly, it was my birthday. You two played it? That's awesome. You two. Bonoo The Edge that was fun you both played and it was fantastic

and I just want to thank you again for that that was a memory I'll never forget it was very sunny wasn't it we had that nice deck that great patio and we were back on that patio for the Pandemic Friday finale I know Ron has no idea what I'm talking about but the Pandemic Friday finale that great patio. And we were back on that patio, uh, for the pandemic Friday, uh, finale.

I know Ron has no idea what I'm talking about, but the pandemic Friday finale, our 74th and final pandemic Friday, we recorded it August 27. And it was great. Like 75 people came out, Palma pasta fed us, Great Lakes hosted,

bought everyone a beer. And then Mike Majewski, the aforementioned real estate guy just drives in and his like, uh, in the know and Mimico real estate guy, just drives in in his like, in the know and mimico real estate van. And he buys 40 beers for like the crowd. Like he just walks in, buys 40 beers. And then he just drives away.

But it was a fantastic night for everybody. It was great. Okay. So Michael Lang, who's been to all eight of them. I'm curious what their thoughts are on the whole Napster file sharing situation was it as bad as Metallica made it out to be personally

I kept buying CDs I bought two copies of Shakespeare My Butt in case one broke but I resented spending $20 to buy a CD for one song that's Michael Lange he's not speaking about obviously not speaking about,

obviously not talking about Shakespeare in my book. They were all good on that jam. Thank you. Well, I mean,

I guess Napster sort of led to the current model. It's like the current model. Streaming. Yeah, it's just

they figured out a way to make somebody make a lot of money and that somebody was not a musician. Yeah.

And so, yeah, that's sort of led to musicians not really making money on people listening to their music anymore. But that sucks, right? People just don't buy music anymore. They just subscribe and they make Spotify multi-billionaire rich. Like, unless you're an Ed Sheeran or a Taylor Swift or a Drake,

like, you're not going to get the quantity of streams to make real money. No. Right. But I always find it a little disingenuous or maybe just people are forgetting when I say it as well, is that it's not music. It's the entire culture we live in. Like, you know, we all have Netflix and everything

and we're doing the exact same thing to filmmakers. Like disposable almost? Like it's almost like you rent things? Well, I mean, it's that thing about, you know, you're making content. It's like, I'm not making content. I was making art until a while ago, and now it seems like I'm making content.

Right. And I just hate, I hate, hate, hate. You know, for anybody who's seen the Bo Burnham Inside. Oh my God, I loved it so much. I watched my daughter three times. I love that line. You know, I'm sorry I was gone, but daddy's made you some content.

It's your favorite content, open wide or whatever. Here comes the content. It's like just, you know, when we start looking at films and music and literature as content, then it just, I guess we're just all now like internet influencers and that's what we're supposed to be now. Like, you know, it's what we're supposed to be now like you know it's it's just saddening to me it's saddening and it's uh but it's not uh it's the wave of the of the present

you know it's like it's not uh it's not going away so we have to either you know i feel like you either have to be somebody like i am sometimes with the idea of cell phone or whatever is to say i i recognize how convenient it is. And I recognize how much it makes me look like I just got off a Viking ship or something, but you know, but sometimes you got to stand up and say, I won't do that.

Or, or it doesn't fit into my, I like, I think what it is is like, there's a Lawrence and I've been talking about this and the whole band's been talking about this in general and not as dire ways as's going to sound like when I say this but it's like you know if you can't make records anymore because nobody buys records or listens in that way anymore if you can't you know do all of these things at what point does it become you know

this isn't why I do this this isn't I don't do this to be a content provider you know and if I start to feel if there's a day I wake up and all I feel like is a content provider, then that will be the last day you ever see me make any of this stuff. Or I'll make it, you know, as a hermit somewhere and the squirrels and owls will enjoy it. You know, because it's just so saddening to me that this is where we are. But like I said, you know, I do it to filmmakers every time I watch something on Netflix.

I mean, it's exactly the same thing as music. You're streaming stuff and you're paying $8.99 a month. But Martin Scorsese will make The Irishman, right? And yeah, the distribution platform will be Netflix, but he's like duly compensated for that. It's a bit different in that he decided to sell it to Netflix, which might have been the highest bidder, I have no idea,

rather than the conventional movie theater method or whatever. But I think he's the same guy, Martin Scorsese, who went off on content, similar to your vibe, where he feels that... I think I'm contradicting...

Maybe he's contradicting himself. I don't know. But I mean, he was duly compensated for this Netflix exclusivity of the irishman for example and uh he considers himself like a like he's a true filmmaker who's creating but i guess i guess what i'm saying though is like back in the day you would go to the varsity cinema or whatever and see the irishman and then you would go somewhere else and see something else uh and each time that would be 15 bucks or whatever it's going

to be now you're going to pay 8.99 a. Now you're going to pay $8.99 a month and you're going to see whatever you want at any point of the day. Like somebody must be getting screwed the way musicians are getting screwed. I mean, there's just not enough money. Oh yeah, no, it's not Martin Scorsese. You're right.

Yeah, right, you're right. He would be like the Ed Sheeran, I suppose, of filmmakers. Yeah, and it's just like so many other things. Like I feel like, I still feel as maudlin and as mockable as it may be when I say this, that when I have a bunch of songs and the band has learned them and everything, we're about to make a record, I always feel, I still felt on Agipop,

we're going to change the world with this record. We're going to go in there, we're going to make a piece of art that's going to mean a lot to people, and it's going to change the world in whatever way it does. And that's how I felt when I was 16, that's how I feel now. But I do worry about the day when I don't feel like that and I feel like I'm a content provider. I really feel like that's going to be a massive deflating problem.

You're okay with being on a podcast though, right? Yeah. For now. I am fiercely independent how am I working how am I missing that how is that connected just you know podcast is content right

no I know obviously it's just semantics but I'm just saying like the difference between you know what I'm saying. Yes, I absolutely know what you're saying. Approaching it as a... I just find that the platform is the problem

because I remember talking about it when somebody was talking to us about getting a better social media presence. This was a while ago, like a decade ago or something like that. And I said, you know, the thing that bugs me as i said in 1955 and she said i'm gonna stop you right there she said you just said in 1955 and i said well you know hear me out i said like in 1955 if you were if you wrote a novel you know you would have traveled around for two or three years and accumulated experiences and some of that might have gone into the book and you know you

think a lot and you didn't, you know, and then when you were ready, boom, this curated thing would come out. That was a statement of all of the things that you had processed. And I said, now there's a such,

you know, a situation in which you're supposed to be profound at 10 o'clock and three o'clock every day. You know, you're supposed to be making content constantly. And I just feel like somewhere, something has to give. Something has to suffer from that, that you're either an entertainer or you're an artist.

But artists don't make money, right? Have artists ever made money? See, that's the problem. I don't have a problem with making money. After they die, they make a lot of money. Yeah, that's the thing. The biggest part, not making money, is not the biggest problem for me.

It's the sense of the profundity of making art or the place it holds in our society. That's what bothers me. I feel like it's withering. Interesting. Okay, very interesting. Now, just to revisit what we spoke of off the top okay so you guys are back in action which is exciting to me but you're back at lee's palace again december

14 15 16 due to covid restrictions uh you'll have a limited number of tickets and they're gone right now but keep your eyes open in case they they might expand that by december we can add another date to that we'll Saturday, December 11th, we will be at the Town Ballroom in Buffalo, New York. Okay, yeah. Ron mentioned that earlier because my guest earlier today, Greg Brady, his wife, Rachel Brady, who writes for the Globe and Mail,

and she's actually far more talented than Greg, truth be known. But she's also got great taste in music because she adores you guys. And yeah, they want to see you in Buffalo. For some reason, it can't be Lee's Palace. but she's also got great taste in music because she adores you guys and yeah they want to see you in Buffalo for some reason it can't be Lee's Palace or they got to go to Buffalo for this so December 11th that's the actual 30th anniversary of Shakespeare in My Butt

so we will be playing the complete work Shakespeare in My Butt at Town Ballroom so that's our Buffalo crowd the actual 30th anniversary playing the record in sequence like the hole might open up in the floor and suck us all in too. Yeah.

So Rachel Brady is listening. So yeah, tickets should go on sale for that soon. I don't, I don't, I'm afraid I don't know when exactly, but our Buffalo friends, they go on sale Friday. Thanks, Ron. And it's still cool that I close every episode

of Rosie and Gray. Sure. Still no concerns. Just make sure you hand over the check. How about lasagna? Can I give you a lasagna instead? Or a chef drop? Some money from chef drop.

Of course. But I mean, this is, I mean, I'm about to do my closing here, but I just want to say like, from episode one had this song closing. Like this is episode one. Before I ever had, I thought there might be a moment

where I'd meet Lawrence and Ron. And I said, this was the song. This was the Toronto jam I wanted to close my podcast with. And I love hearing it. Like, it's now when I hear it, though, in the wild, if I hear it in the wild or whatever, it's like, I feel like I got to wrap up. Like, it's Pavlov's dog.

The first time I listened to your podcast, I didn't know this was coming. I was just suddenly like, oh, I know this tune. Do you, by any miracle, do you remember the episode you first listened to? It was the episode with Down Goes Brown. Sean McIndoe. Sean McIndoe. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that guy.

Okay, yeah. Because, I mean, he's still funny, but he used to be funnier. I like to remind him. Like, there was a time where he was just... I've lost track of him. What's he do now? The Athletic. I don't have a subscription.

No, neither do I. That's where you go to disappear from my world or whatever. But the funny thing is, I don't know if either of you guys ever listened to sports radio or whatever, but they announced like a reshuffle of the Fan 590 morning show. This happened like in the last, like between Greg Brady's episode and yours. This all went down and it just caught a little wind of it. And Jeff Merrick's got a show on Fan 590 now and VP of Sales

Tyler Campbell, shout out to Tyler, but he was reminiscing that the very first Toronto Mic'd episode he ever listened to was Jeff Merrick on Toronto Mic'd episode 74. So I'd love to find out what was your gateway to this. I've heard that one too because when I heard Down Goes

Brown's episode, I actually went back and started listening to the old ones. I've heard that one too, because when I heard Down Goes Brown's episode, I actually went back and started listening to the old ones. I remember the Jeff one. You got him to tell the Harold, digging Harold Ballard's grave story.

Which is not far from here, by the way. You're in the West End here. Stop. Park Lawn Cemetery. You can visit Harold Ballard's grave. Good, I need to take a pee.

Okay, I got to wrap up. Yeah, absolutely. This song's only five minutes, Mike. I've got lots of time on this one. And that brings us to the end of our 923rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike.

And lowest of the low, or at lowest of the low, Ron doesn't have an account on Twitter, but Lawrence does. Lawrence, remind us how we follow you on Twitter. Got your handle? I'm looking it up right now. It's at LRNichols. LRNichols, yes.

Okay, fine, Lawrence. Good one. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Chef Drop is at GetChefDrop. McKay CEO Forums are at McKayCEOForums. Palma Pasta, I'm going to get your lasagna guys. Is that Palma pasta sticker? You is that sticker?

You Ridley funeral home. They're at Ridley FH and Mike Majeski. He's not on Twitter either. Ron, he's on Instagram at Majeski group homes. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls.

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