Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Nathan: Toronto Mike'd #1384

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

In this 1384th episode of Toronto Mike'd, a Toronto Micro-cast, Mike speaks with Marc Nathan about Kon Kan, Meryn Cadell, introducing the Barenaked Ladies to Seymour Stein and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

And now a different Toronto Mic'd podcast created for those of us with limited attention span. People who prefer small bites instead of a massive buffet. Here it is. Let's call it Micro Mic'd, Mini Mic'd, Honey, I Shrunk the Podcast. Here is Toronto Microcast. Mark, how you doing? I'm doing well, thank you. And yourself?

I'm good, thanks. So whereabouts do we find you today? I am in Nashville, Tennessee, where I've lived for almost 11 years. Okay, so this is, again, this is a Toronto microcast, so it's something a little different, but I'm curious, how did I come on your radar? Like, how did you, Mark Nathan, discover Toronto Mike exists?

I discovered your podcast through Stephen Page, a very good friend of mine and a friend of Toronto Mike. An FOTM, and you're now an FOTM too, so you got that in common. I'm going to see Stephen Page

next week. He's in the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, and I'll be checking them out. Absolutely, with Craig Northey and Moe Berg and Chris Murphy. I'm stumped.

Chris Murphy. Exactly, from Sloan. That's right. So, you know, you live in Nashville. Is it safe to say, not that there's anything wrong with it, but is it safe to say you're an American? I am. I was born and raised in New York City.

So how did you, I mean, there's a few things I want to touch on here, but how did you become good friends with Stephen Page? Well, let's see i um i grew up in new york i was in the music industry by the time i was 16 years old um i was a huge guess who fan we'll start start there. Bought 45s by Andy Kim, the Poppy Family, albums by Kensington Market, the Collectors. So I had this bit of Canadian music infused in my system. My first label gig was at a label called Ampex Records, and Ampex distributed an American label called Big Tree,

who had April Wine, You Could Have Been a Lady. We just lost Miles, of course. And also a 45-byte Thundermug called Africa. And so I learned about Canadian radio a little bit. I grew up DXing the AM dial and found CKLW, and of course all my radio stations started with W, so when I heard a C, I knew it was Canadian. Also a huge hockey fan.

So that's the backstory. My label gigs took me through Mushroom Records, where I worked Doucette and Chilliwack, then RCA, where I worked Triumph, Doug and the Slugs, and Bruce Coburn. And what happened was a radio friend named Don Burns, and Don, the late Don Burns, worked at CFNY and I started going up to Toronto to visit my friend Don and he introduced me to David Marsden. I really became an avid CFNY listener and now we're getting to the part of the story where i worked for atlantic records

and i tried to get a job working at wea with kim cook and bob roper but to hire a uh an american uh, an American, a U S guy, you had to prove that a Canadian couldn't do the job as well as the U S guy. And so I never got the gig, but at Atlantic, we had frozen ghost and I became very close friends with Rob Lanny. And, uh, we also had Blue Rodeo. We put out a Gowan record, I think. Now we're getting to, we're almost getting to the Stephen Page part.

I'm a little long-winded. I'm loving this because you're more Canadian than most Canadians, I think. This is tremendous. Well, I appreciate you saying that. I've always felt that if I believed in reincarnation, I was a goalpost at Maple Leaf Gardens in my last life. So I continue on, and it's 1988, and I'm visiting Don in Toronto, and I'm at a club, and I hear a record I've never heard before. Now, I've been a radio promo guy for 17 years at that point, right?

Right? So I hear this song, and it hits me like a hit record hits me, and I've never heard it. And I yell up to the DJ booth, what is that? And he yells down, con can. And I'm like, con can? Con can. There we go. There once was a time and there once was a way We had something going and to my dismay Attention to me seemed to drift though I don't know where

And when we're alone seems there's nothing to say I bring up the topic, you push it away. You say that you do, but I think it's just you don't care. Why do I feel you're using me? Are we an item or are we just two? I need some commitment, all I ask of you

Your lifestyle can change, don't be afraid What you think's in store I know what's on your mind You've got lots to lose Your shallow acquaintance Is what's there to choose You won't get too deep Even though I'm worth so much more

So think about it carefully Smile for a while Let's be just A little bit more Let's be just Think about it carefully Smile for a while, let the speed drive The sun's shining, we're so madly in love Come along and share the good times while we can Do you want to hustle? That's right! Do you want to salsa? That's right!

Do you want to hustle? That's right! Do you want to hustle? That's right! Do you want to sell? If that's how you want it, that's how it'll be There's no use in trying or making you see That love don't come easy, you don't know what it's about To get things together won't take anything Need to see it from you never again

From this day on lesson, but no more hands down We out, and you know what I'm talking about Smile for a while, let's be a job I'm shining, bitter, I'm never gonna die For a while, let's be just Such an invisible, never-ending story Come along and share the good times while we can I know now's the time that I went to find something new You know it's your crime that I'm not to find someone to. So I go out to a vinyl record store on Queen Street and I buy five copies of this record called I Beg Your Pardon on a little independent label out of Hamilton and I bring it back to the States. I give one copy to my boss. I keep one

copy and I send three copies to radio stations in Houston, Texas, and they had the record. And my boss is like, what do you mean they added the record? We haven't signed it yet. And I said, well, you better sign it. So they signed it. It became a huge international single we did an album was less of a huge hit but we sold in in excess of a hundred thousand records and um i was on the map as an anr guy after being a promo guy so they moved me into an and r well by 1991 i had had a bunch of success with con can and then with another pop band called linear um they made me the dance music guy for groups like camouflage and the beloved who were not Canadian. But I tried to sign a group called the Cow Sills. Now, I don't know how far back you go, but the

Cow Sills had had big pop records in the 60s, and they were the precursor to the partridge family so here we are in 1991 and i've seen the 40 some odd year old cow sills and i think they're amazing and i want to sign them and my boss freaks out you can't sign these old you know has beens even though the he loved the music but when i told him who it was he got indignant and i got indignant and he fired me so now i'm out of a job for the first time since i'm 16 years old. I'm 36, and Atlantic has kicked me on my ass, and it's a new music seminar. And, well, I'll back it up a little bit. I had recently been to Toronto,

and I heard a song on the radio called The Sweater by Maren Caddell. And I flipped out. You know, I just thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. Girls, I know you will understand this and feel the intrinsic and incredible emotion. You have just pulled over your head the worn warm sweater belonging to a boy now you haven't had a passionate kissing session or anything but you got to go on a camping trip with him and eight other people from school and you practically slept together your sleeping bag right next to his and you woke in the night to watch him as he slept but you

couldn't see anything because it was dark so you just lay there and listen to his breathing and wondered if your heart might burst the sweater has that slightly goat-like smell which all teenage boys possess and that smell will lovingly transfer to all your other clothes if you get to keep it for a few days you can sleep with it but don't let your mom see because she'll say what is that filthy thing and who does it belong besides the trash man so you have to keep it under the covers with you you can kind of lie it beside you wrap it around your waist or touch it on your legs or whatever, but that's your business. Now, if the sweater has, like, reindeer on it or is a funny color like yellow, I'm sorry, you can't get away with a sweater like that.

Look for brown or gray or blue. Anything other than that and you know you're dealing with someone who's different. And different is not what you're looking for. who's different. And different is not what you're looking for. You're looking for those teenage alpine ski chiseled features and that sort of blank look which passes for deep thought or at least the notion that someone's home.

You're looking for the boy of your dreams who is the same boy in the dreams of all of your friends. Now the sweater isn't going to pick you, of course. You have to kind of roll up the sleeves in a jaunty way that says this is the sweater belonging to a boy and the boy is a genuine hunk, a hunk of burning love, and this is not just some hand-me-down from your brother or your father. Monday, wear the sweater to school.

Be calm, look cute. Don't tell a dreamy head about the place the two of you would share when you get older. Just be yourself. The best, cutest, quietest version of yourself. Definitely look nice. He looks at you, and he looks away, and then he walks away, and the smell of the sweater hits you again, suddenly like ape-scented Gloriola, and you get a note passed to you by a girl in history that says he needs his sweater back.

You forgot that you put it on in the tent on Saturday, and he's been looking for it. And you don't have to die of humiliation. You are a strong person, and this is a learning experience. You can still hold your head up high as you run from the classroom, tearing the stinking sweater from your body. You look at that sweater, carefully, and you realize that love made you temporarily blind. You got a secret now, honey, and though you would never sink as low as him you could blab it all over the school if you wanted the label in that sweater

said 100% acrylic and I go to the new music seminar, and there is a Canadian music panel, and I'm in the Canadian music panel listening to people talk. And they said, all right, we're going to take questions from the audience. I raised my hand and I said, I've recently been to Toronto and I bought this album, Angel Food for Thought by Maren Cadell. I think it's fantastic what else is big in canada that i should know about that the states doesn't know yet and one by one they went down the panel and they said bare naked ladies bare naked ladies bare naked ladies, bare naked ladies. And I'm like, okay.

Then this chubby guy in shorts and like a Charlie Brown t-shirt is in the room. And I look at him and I'm like, who the hell is this guy? Like, who the hell is this guy? And I get tapped on the shoulder after the session. And a guy says, I'm Stuart Ravenhill. And I have a label called Intrepid Records in Canada. I manage Maren Cadell. I'd like you to meet her.

And all of a sudden, I'm face-to-face face with Marin Cadell at the end of the panel. And she says, we're going to the Canadian Music Showcase tonight. Would you like to go? I said, great, I would love to. So I'm with Marin marin we're talking and marin and stewart and i are talking about my possibly representing marin us and chopping the album in the states and i'm thrilled at that idea and the lights go down and this band comes on the stage and there's that chubby guy in the charlie brown shirt and he has the voice of an angel i think stephen page is up there with burton cummings tom jones my favorite singers of all time and this this kid is singing Brian Wilson, Be My Yoko Ono, If I Had a Million Dollars. I flipped out.

And it was at that point in the summer of 1991 that I realized that I was grateful to have been fired by Atlantic because the way I brought the cow sills and ended up getting fired, if I had brought bare naked ladies to Atlantic, they would have laughed me out of the room. And in fact, a lot of labels laughed me out of the room. But one label, Sire, a guy named Seymour Stein, said to me,

Mark, they're like Simon and Garfunkel for the 90s. And that was a man with great vision. he signed talking heads he signed the ramones he signed madonna i mean the list goes on um and he signed both bare naked ladies and marin caddell now i was managing marin caddell I was not managing Bare Naked Ladies. And I ended up being an honorary Gordon without participation, but I made lifelong friends with Stephen and Ed and later Kevin Hearn and of course Tyler and Jim but when Stephen and the ladies split my allegiance kind of moved more towards Stephen and um the rest of you know Kevin and I are still in, but the rest of the guys and I are a bit estranged. Though everybody does remember that I brought Bare Naked Ladies to Sire Records in 1991. Much to the chagrin of their manager, Nigel Best, at the time.

But that's a whole nother story. Nigel Best at the time, stop It's a matter of instincts, a matter of conditioning And a matter of fact You can go where Pavlov's dark Ring a bell and I'll salivate How'd you like that? Dr. Landy, tell me You're not just a pentagon

Cause right now I'm Lying in bed Just like Brian Wilson did Well, I'm Lying in bed Just like Brian Wilson did So all I have here is staring at the ceiling tiles And I'm thinking about

Oh, what's up, I got a bad Just listening, I am really listening Just finally smiling And I'm wondering if this is some kind of creative job Because I'm lying in bed Just like the Brian Wilson in there Well, I'm lying in bed just like the Brian Wilson did Well, I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did And if you want to find me, I'll be out in the sandbox

Swimming away to hell, the love is gone Playing my guitar in the middle of the castle in December Oh, oh, oh, and singing fun, fun, fun Lying there, just like Brian Wilson did Well, I'm lyin' there just like Brian Wilson did I had a dream That I was three hundred pounds And oh I was very heavy I flowed until I couldn't see the ground

I flowed until I could not see the ground Somebody help me I couldn't see the ground Somebody help me I couldn't see the ground, somebody help me I could be on the ground, somebody help me I could be on the ground, somebody help me Cause I'm lying in bed just like Brian was some day Yeah, I'm lying in bed just like Brian Fussellini Just downtown life

Night burning on a Tuesday night Just to check out the late night Record shop, late night record shop Cut out and pause it Cut out and pause it Cut out and sing Oh, when I'm surrounded I just can't stop We'll be right back. Mark, this is all wild stuff. Mind blow after mind blow. When Seymour Stein passed away,

I did jump on a Zoom with Stephen Page to get the full story. Yes. And I guess you've heard that probably. That was the first time I was turned on to your podcast. Wow. That was the first time I was turned on to your podcast. Wow. So you brought Bare Naked Ladies to Seymour Stein at Sire.

Absolutely. You signed Con Can, which is already quite a mind blow. I Beg Your Pardon was a huge, huge jam. Marin Cadell, his sweater, all over Much much music all over the radio huge jam am i right that you managed carol pope for a moment or two i managed carol pope i managed john james and i'd heard you reference john james in a podcast which was why i finally said, I've got to contact this guy and, you know, let him know my intersection because, you know, it just, there were a lot of things. When I was at Universal, I signed a group out of the UK called London Bus Stop

and they covered We Ain't Seen Nothen Nothing Yet. So I had a Randy Backman connection. Dave Bedini and I are very close friends. So I have that connection. I'm all over the map with you. So I figured micro or not, I needed to get myself in here i'm glad you did i'm i'm very glad you did now john james came up if i remember correctly uh cam gordon was kicking out forgotten jams like he was basically he'd play the song and ask me if i remember and i had i had no memory of john james and that's on me probably uh i've had a few glaring omissions for some reason. Well, it wasn't a huge hit. It was kind of a secret weapon record, if you will.

Okay. Do you know how John is doing these days? I haven't talked to John in quite a while, and I was looking for an email address or a phone number because it has been at least 15 years but i hope he's doing well he was a very talented guy he did two albums for attic um the first one had i want to know and that was called big fat soul and then the second one was Mothers of Hope, which did a little less. And that was the end of our relationship. But he was a great guy. I loved him. And how are you holding up? How are

you doing these days? Well, I'm 68. I've got kidney failure or diabetes. I'm on dialysis. I broke my ankle. I screwed up the recovery, and they had to do a fusion, so I have a steel rod in my foot. You know, I'm a Jewish mess, but, you know, I'm still alive, and my brain is fine. It's just the rest of me is failing terribly. Okay, I'm sorry to hear all this,

but I'm glad the mind is sharp and I'm very glad we connected and I could capture these stories. I'm so glad we did this. Thank you, Mark. You're more than welcome. As always, Toronto Mic'd is brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery,

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