Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Martha and the Muffins: Toronto Mike'd #1055

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

In this 1055th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Martha Johnson and Mark Gane from Martha and the Muffins about Echo Beach, their influences, the name change, Tears Are Not Enough, living with Parkinson's, their new projects and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

Welcome to episode 1055 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta.

Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Dewar. The world's most comfortable pants and shorts. Save 15% with the promo code TMDS. Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis.

Guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Today, making their Toronto Mike debuts from Martha and the Muffins, Martha Johnson and Mark Gain. Welcome. Hi there.

Hi, how are you doing? What an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for making the trek here to Southern Etobicoke, but this is your old stomping grounds, right, Mark? Pretty close, yeah. Both of us grew up in the West End, and I originally

around Islington, just north of here, and then a bit further east around Bloor and Royal York. Yeah, shout out to Etobicoke, and whereabouts do you call home these days? We crossed into the dark

world and went to Riverdale in the East End many years ago. The Danforth area. Danforth and Peyton. And what's better, east of Yonge or west of Yonge, or are they both got their own pros and cons? I think they both have their pros and cons, but I think getting

across town is what really bothers me. No, so you did it today. So again, I appreciate it. It's not for nothing because, yeah, we're going to have a great chat, and I got some great jams, and I can't wait to talk about the new project. But you're going to leave here with... Wait, it's a personal question.

Do you live together? Yes. You never know these days. We have a child and a grandchild together. I think it's a personal question. Do you live together? Yes. You never know these days. We have a child and a grandchild together. I think it's pretty solid. Well, you'd be surprised, Mark. You'd be surprised. You're taking home a frozen lasagna. So this box, which is

empty right now, when you leave today, it'll be full of delicious Palma pasta they sent over lasagna for you. That's great. Wow, okay, thank you. I don't know what to think about dinner. Seriously, we all have leftovers. I know for the whole family.

And just since I'm giving you gifts, and then we'll, you know, shout out more sponsors later, but Great Lakes Brewery, you know, they sent over some fresh craft beer for you. And I just want to shout out Great Lakes because yesterday I made my first appearance

at their new GLB brew pub, which is at Lower Jarvis and Queens Quay. And it's amazing. I was there last night having drinks with a couple of friends and it was fantastic. So thank you, Great Lakes. Wonderful. All right. Let's start with this name, Martha and the Muffins. Who wants to tackle the origin of the band in particular? I want to know where that name comes from. Where does Martha and the Muffins. Who wants to tackle the origin of the band in particular? I want to know where that name comes from. Where does Martha and the Muffins come from? Okay, Martha's

looking at me. Mark was in the band officially before me. Is that right? So give me the origin story then, Mark. How does, and I mean, there's multiple Marthas at some point, but please tell me how this band comes to be. Okay, well we have to go

back to 1825. Just about. That's an old wave, not new wave. Yeah, yeah. Well, back in the day I was going to the Ontario College of Art down to... Yeah, sorry, I... I...

Okay, we're back. Yeah, that's a very rare technical mishap here. Obviously, very nervous. I got Martha and the Muffins here, but you repeat that whole sentence again. Okay, let's go back again. So back in the early 70s, I was going to the Ontario College of Art

in downtown Toronto, and a fellow student of mine asked me if I would join a band and at that time there were all these bands joining and it was a you know very much centered in some respects around the art college and the Beverly Tavern was on Queen Street East and there was a whole scene kind of being born there West actually uh what you said yeah queen west oh yeah sorry queen street west yeah okay she's gonna keep you in line that's right yeah um and uh so we got together and uh david miller who was this uh student friend of mine knew martha johnson because he had played in bands with her and And so Martha joined shortly thereafter.

And over the summer of 77, we got my brother on drums. Tim. Yeah, Tim. And Carl Finkel was another Thornhill person who emigrated down and was playing in bands. And that was the beginning of the band. And we did our first gig October 77 at the Ontario College of Art Halloween dance.

So all that summer, that previous summer, we'd been arguing about names. And I have a list of the names. And everybody came in and nobody liked anyone else's names. Because it was Mark and the Muffins. No, that didn't come up. Yeah, it was like, here's a great one, guys. The wee-wees from Paris was one of them.

Yeah, wee-wees from Paris. What would you say to that? Yeah, what would you say to that? That didn't make the cut. And so this poster had to be made for this Halloween dance. And we went, okay, how about, I think it was actually David Clarkson, who was in the diodes, who briefly jammed with us. Said, well, why don't you call it the muffins?

Because he said there's sort of like a feminist thing going on here. And we went, ah, you know, it was sort of like the antithesis of all the hardcore punk names, which we kind of enjoyed working against that. And it was decided that Martha's name should go in front of that. And so that went on the poster and we went, okay, well, we'll change it. And it never happened. It stuck with us for various reasons. Do you know how many bands have this story where it's, okay,

let's use this name for now and then we'll come up with something better. And no, it just sticks. Yeah. We got some publicity and we said, we can't change it now. We've been in the newspaper. Yeah, we got a write-up from the Toronto Star. Who wrote it? Okay, I was going to say, the late, great Peter Goddard.

Do you have any words to say about Peter, who we lost earlier this year? Well, he was a cornerstone of, you know, the music scene as a writer. And, you know, he certainly promoted a lot of that stuff early on. And, of course, the Toronto Star was a big paper. So if you got an article written by Peter, you know, you knew a lot of people were going to hear about it. And probably because of people like him, the scene kind of expanded fairly rapidly from this, like, nobody knew about it. Right. To all these people starting to come down to Queen Street West and checking out these bands.

Now, time-wise, okay, so from the start of the band to the release of Echo Beach, how much time are we talking about there? A couple of years, right? A couple couple years. Yeah, because we did another Halloween dance a year later in 78 and we actually have footage on our YouTube site of that. And then I think it was something like 78.

I don't know. We were in the studio in 79 in England. Less than a year. Throughout this conversation, I have questions from FOTMs. FOTMs I had a studio in 79 in England. Okay. Less than a year. Less than a year for sure. So throughout this conversation, I have questions from FOTMs. FOTMs are friends of Toronto Mic'd and they very excitedly send in questions.

So Lisa's question about your name origin is blueberry or bran? Because Lisa wants to know what's your favorite muffin? Blueberry. Yeah, I'd have to go for blueberry. They're good for you too. Yeah, blueberry is better for you than my favorite,

which is raisin bran, which is probably just like eating a cupcake. There's probably no nutritional value probably. You could get it tested, Mike. Oh, do you know a scientist I could talk to? Craig M. says, they had a very unique style of music. Where did that come from and who were some of their influences?

So maybe at this point, as we got your band started up in 1977, what are the bands that are influencing your sound? Well, I think everybody in the band had different influences, which was the reason we had a unique sound, because everybody brought something to the table. But I think generally, I think Mark and I particularly were into Roxy Music, who we ended up opening for in England. Wow.

In Scotland. And the B-52s, but there was also sorts of jazz and avant-garde kind of influences. There's Motown. Some of us were really into Motown. What else, Mark? Well, we grew up in that great era when there was so many fantastic things happening. But particular to that time, yeah, Roxy Music was a big one for me. King Crimson.

Right. to that time yeah Roxy Music was a big one for me King Crimson right um and you know we were like Toronto was like at the intersection of London and New York right so we were getting you know all the bands like from the Beatles onwards from London and then that whole scene was happening in New York and uh the art college had a trip every March down to New York. So you'd get on the bus, and it'd be, I don't know, like an eight-hour drive, maybe longer. You'd get there, and you would see, you know, all these early punk new wave bands,

Laurie Anderson, all the, like, avant-garde, you know, video artists. And you'd come back to Toronto with all these ideas and everything. So New York had a huge influence because there were so many bands that were centered around OCA. And that was a big deal. And then, as Martha said, like our original bass player, Carl, he was like into, I think, Motown and country music. And Andy, our sax player, was, you know,

completely into freeform jazz and Wernat Coleman and all those people. So when the band expanded to six people with another Martha and... You can never have enough Marthas in a band. Indeed. So there was another Martha and Andy joined about eight months after the band started. So those six people had very, very eclectic tastes. And, you know, you would bring in a song and maybe you would have some arrangement ideas, but basically everybody brought their influences.

So, you know, that was definitely the early Muffins sound with six people with very widely dispersed influences. Now, Adrian says, what were their feelings toward the local record companies when they first started out? By the way, he chimes in, you just alluded to this, but they signed their deal in England. So let's talk about that. I mean, you're the first Canadian band to sign to a UK label and you record your debut in England. So let's talk about that. I mean, you're the first Canadian band to sign to a UK

label and you record your debut in England. So like, what is it like, how did that come to be? I don't think we were really looking for a deal at that point. It fell in our laps because our sax player sent a cassette that we had made, a demo cassette, to an interview magazine in New York to Glenn O'Brien, who had a music column. And he wrote it up, wrote us up, and Virgin became aware of us, and we ended up signing with Virgin in the UK. It was very, it was very,

one of those complete, you know, luck things where Andy sent this cassette and Glenn O'Brien and Interview Magazine was Andy Warhol's magazine, right? So it was like super groovy. Sure. And Glenn O'Brien was the guy. And he wrote back, he sent a postcard and said, love this tape. Robert Fripp does too because he was there. And at the time he was listening to it uh an A&R guy from Virgin UK Dave Fudger was there and so Glenn O'Brien helped us arrange our first out of

Toronto gig at Hurrah in New York City and these people showed up and so you know Robert Fripp was one of my and continues to be one of my guitar heroes. And he's sitting there 20 feet off the stage, you know, with his Robert Grimace hands folded. And I'm going, I'm dying up here, man. This is scary. But that led to, yes, getting signed to Virgin within a short period of time and being flown over to the Manor.

The Manor Studio in England. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And I have to say, you know, like I was a big Mike Oldfield fan and he did an album, I think the second one after Tubular Bells called Hergest Ridge. And on that album, somewhere on the album cover artwork was a picture of the Manor with the three Russian wolfhounds. And when we arrived there, there they were.

And I can't remember all their names. It was Lightning. Lightning was the dad, the mother, and the kid. And the manor had this huge pond in front of it, like farmland. And these dogs would go galloping around that field like horses. It was great. Unlike the pool that had the go-karts that the sex pistols had driven into the pool. Yeah, that's right.

We couldn't use the pool that year. It was so rock and roll. See, you know, now this is punk right here. Wow. Okay, riding the golf carts into the pool is as punk as it gets. Okay, I got to play a song. So, like, we're going to play a bit and then I'll fade it down because we have questions about this jam. I don't know if you've heard this song before, but if I don't play it now, the people listening are going to be like, where is it?

So I've heard it. You've heard it. You know this one, right? Rings the bell. Still sounds great in the cans, by the way. I know it's out of fashion And a trifle uncool But I can't help it I'm a romantic fool

It's a habit of mine to watch the sun go down On Echo Beach I watch the sun go down From nine to five I have to spend my time at work My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk The only thing that helps me pass the time away

Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach someday Okay, straight up, I'm looking in your eyes, Martha, Mark. When you hear this right now in the headphones, what are your feelings? Like from the heart, what are you thinking when you listen to yourselves here? heart what do you what are you thinking when you listen to your songs here i think about the circumstances that were happening when we recorded it takes me back to recording it and and how everything changed after that song came out in so many ways well it's so iconic i'll just say as a mere listener and a pop of music and a pop culture absorber, on one note, you're back, and it's magic. It's a time machine, and it's so beautiful.

And this song means so much to so many people. And I just wonder if you're self-aware of what this song means to the universe. Yeah, I mean, it changed our lives, and I think it impacted a lot of people's lives, too. Because that summer, summer of 1980, people were really really uh having fun you know they were having it's carefree and you know that's what the song represents and it and it um it's kind of like and i don't mean this in a bad way but it's kind of like the wallpaper of our lives right because it's always there it's always there it's always there, like in the background. It's always there. And, you know, every, I mean, we have like Google alerts for the song and stuff. And, you know, literally at least once a week and sometimes several times a week,

there's something that always comes up about it. And we have a list of like things that the name attached itself to over the years. It's astounding. It's kind of become a cultural meme. And I mean, you're ours. This is Toronto Mic'd, so this is a very Toronto-centric program, but you're ours. This is sort of the pride we feel that, yeah,

this is Martha and the Muffins, Toronto band, representing us. How was this song received outside of Canada? It did really well, and I think it had the same emotional impact in other countries like in Australia and England and around the world. The only place it didn't impact was the States, but that was because record company bullshit.

Okay, so would you elaborate a little on that because uh i i'm i've only ever lived in this city so i don't know like what's hitting in the u.s until i go to wiki and then look at chart things and stuff but like what is it that happened that this wasn't a big you know u.s hit What happened was Virgin had an office in New York City at the time that we were signed and we did the album and then for some reason Richard Branson decided to pull out

briefly like they came back but just when our album was being released in the States Virgin closed down that office, handed the catalog over to Atlantic Records. Atlantic's looking at this going, I don't know who this is, we don't know who these people are,

and it died. It died. Now, if that had happened the way it happened everywhere else, you know... Things would be different. But not necessarily, you know, we wouldn't be here. We would have probably never met Dan Lanois. Everything happened after that, right?

Because that could be taken two ways. Because if this thing hits big in the States, you wouldn't be here in some guy's basement in South Etobicoke. No, we might be. Would you? Yeah, we would. I think he meant more so to me. I know.

I know. I'm having fun. I'm having fun with him. You'd have a bigger basement. We would have met you and given you some money. Well, maybe you'd lower the, I got to lower the floor or whatever. Yeah, you'd go, can you give me some money to lower the, yeah. I got to dig.

You know how expensive it is to lower a basement? Yeah, we looked into that ourselves. No, that's real. No, just duck. I'll just put a sticker. By the way, shout out to StickerU. Okay, that's another Toronto institution, but they're available everywhere online at StickerU.com

for providing the Check Your Head sticker, which has saved many people from concussions. I think they're doing important work there. It worked for us. Yeah, well, sometimes I tell people several times, like down the stairs, now, be careful when you turn. And I'll say it over and over again. And I don't know if people think I'm talking about the bottom of the stairs.

So sometimes I'll be like, I know you think I'm talking about the bottom of the stairs, but no, when you turn right, there's a lower ceiling and everyone over 5' hits it and then people are like yeah yeah don't worry smash yeah you should have a um toronto mike's compilation video of everybody's just have a camera up there right and yeah a super cut of everybody hitting their head on the that's funny okay so i have echo beach uh martha you said you think about that period of time. Do you want to share some of those memories of this time in your life when you're recording Echo Beach and releasing it into the wild? Well, I remember flying over to England and seeing the manor for the first time.

It was amazing to be working in this historical building and everybody's there for you. And you learn later that you're paying for it all. So you are paying for it all. So it's like what you get, like this is X dollars and then they extract the cost of the promotion and marketing? Like how does it work? It's very ugly.

It's very ugly. It's very corrupt. Do you have two days, Mike, that we can tell you about the sordid underside of the music? We uncover big stories on Toronto, Mike. This is what we do. I think what people don't realize is that the band or the artist ends up paying for just about everything, and they pay for it out of their tiny 10% or 15% or whatever they've signed.

The game is rigged. Yeah. For the labels. And when you sign as a young artist, probably in your teens or 20s, in these days, those days actually, you would not really understand the ramifications of what you're signing. And you have a lawyer, but they hold all the cards. You know, you have no name yet or anything. You have no leverage either because in that period,

pre-internet particularly, you know, you really had to align yourself or somehow with some distribution of a major label, right? Like there weren't, you couldn't really be indie. Oh, no, no, indie didn't exist. And what they do is they had a thing called cross-collateralization of the royalties. So because

there was virgin records and virgin music, which was the publishing. So they take all the publishing revenue, which is the majority of it, and they put it to your record debt. So they take everything. So again, part of my ignorance on all this,

I recently spoke to Ivan from Men Without Hats and he wrote the safety dance, okay? So a very different song, but similarly takes you right back in like a time machine when you hear it. And I was trying to kind of ask him, like, how lucrative was it? Like, how lucrative was it?

Like, so how lucrative was echo beach to you too like are you still are checks still showing up in the mail oh yeah that's it's it's paid on most bills over the years you know but yes but for the first 10 years the only money that was coming in were my song writer royalties which record companies don't control so in other words so can which is the canadian performing rights organization collects your songwriting royalties worldwide there was no other money coming in and so we did three albums with virgin um which and you know so we were in debt to them according to their accounting it took a decade before we actually paid that off and then started seeing other kinds of royalties but that cross-collateralization thing that martha mentions

is considered like absolute thievery yes and nobody would uh you know ever do that now hopefully but and if we were to show you our contract it's buried buried let me see that contract you know, ever do that now, hopefully. And if we were to show you our contract, it's buried, buried in like... Let me see that contract, Mark. You know, I should have brought it because we do consider publishing it on the internet and going, you know, here's what... Sunlight is the best antiseptic.

Yes. Like I've had... We experienced this on the weekend, actually, in Toronto radio circles. So, yes, shine a light on that because I may swear, Martha, are you okay? Bullshit. This is bullshit what I'm hearing.

You're the artists. You're the content creators. You're the driving force behind Echo Beach. That's your song. You're performing it, Martha's vocals. It's fantastic. It's iconic. We all think I got questions right now

for you about Echo Beach. And to hear you tell me how the record labels are making off with all the dough. And they still are because Spotify pays most of the money to the record companies still, the people who own the copyright.

They shouldn't really own the copyright forever. Do you ever get a check from Spotify in the mail? Oh yeah. Well, we published one on our Facebook page. I don't know about, I'm going to say, it feels like two years ago, but it's probably five years ago. Is it pre-pandemic?

Yeah, it was pre-pandemic. Then you're, yeah, that's how I gauge everything now. Yeah. So it was at least two years ago. And we got a check from the Harry Fox Agency in New York City. So the postage on the envelope was something like $1.50, and we opened up the check, and it was for two cents. Wow!

So that tells you. And basically, there are people with literally hundreds of thousands of hits on Spotify that are getting checks for like $100. Wow! Now, you've talked to a lot of people, Mike, and some people have probably shared similar stories to this, but basically it doesn't change. And I think if you're an artist or a band that's been around for a long time,

like us and many other people, they will all say the same thing. They will all have stories like this. The stories are even more dire when I get the story of bands that are famous in Canada only. I'm thinking now of one of my favorite bands of all time, Sloan. I love Sloan. Yeah, good. Again, I'm a Toronto guy, so to me, Sloan are on much music all the time, many, many hits you'd hear on the radio. I would listen to CFNY. You hear your Sloan.

We're going to talk about CFNY in a minute, actually. But when you actually have a private conversation with the members of Sloan about money and you realize, wow, like if Sloan has that type of financial situation,

like that to me is a big, big rock band. Like it's, uh, no, it's completely backwards. Completely backwards. Um,

some people did it right. You go back to the Beatles era, the Dave Clark five, Dave Clark kept his publishing. I don't know how he did it, but he made a lot of money. So that's the key right there. Keep your publishing.

Yeah. Never give that up. Never give that up. But I think Carol Pope had a quote about being, you know, exposed enough and famous enough to not be able to take the subway and not enough money to take cabs. Too famous to take the TTC and too poor to take a taxi. Great quote, but Margaret Atwood takes the TTC.

Just throwing that out there for sure. She has no shortage of money, I don't think. No, right. Maybe she likes being recognized. Wow, I bike everywhere for what it's worth, but I've never written a song. No song at all, let alone a song as iconic as Echo Beach. So here's a few questions here.

Matthew Milligan, here's a question. Where is Echo Beach? Well, that question comes up a lot, Matthew, and basically it was an idea in my head. So to go back a bit, at about 75, I was working in a wallpaper factory, probably a half mile from here. It was a Color Your World factory, and it's long gone now. And my job was to, these huge printing presses would be rolling off this wallpaper,

but every so often something would go wrong. So they'd stop the press, they'd cut off the damaged stuff, they'd give it to me, I would put it on a smaller roller and separate what was good in there from the bad stuff. That was my job that summer. And that's where the germ of the song came from. I thought I'd rather be anywhere but here. And then the second part of the song came from a few years later,

a nighttime trip down to the lakeshore. But basically... But what part of the song came from a few years later a night time trip down to the lakeshore but basically but what part of lakeshore? these details matter to me because lakeshore could be anywhere, is that harbor front? no, no, you know where the dinosaurs playground is? yes, it's that

I almost said Peter Zosky but it's not Peter Zosky no, it's Kazmir Zosky 100% like last night when I went to the new GLB boot pub, I'm on the Martin Goodman trail I almost said Peter Zosky, but it's not Peter Zosky. No, it's... Kazmir Zosky. That's right. A hundred percent. Because I, like last night, when I went to the new GLB Brew Pub, I'm on the Martin Goodman Trail every single day. I know that park with the dinosaurs. Okay. So I was there with a friend looking out back at the city, which I'm not even sure if you

can look back at the city. But anyway, the surrealistic sight verse came from there. So Echo Beach was a state of mind okay interesting so i had again i was at great lakes beer pub yesterday with two women uh we were talking and i mentioned martha and the muffins are coming over mark are you okay that it's martha and the muffins you're just the muffins i've accepted i can live with that okay good there's worse things to be called but really and we were talking about echo beach because uh they love echo beach and and i said, where is Echo Beach?

That's what I said. I guess you hear that a lot. And they both, although one might have been leading the other, but they both were, sure, Echo Beach was an Ontario place. Like the Ontario Place Beach. And I go there all the time on my bike through the new park there. And, yeah, hearing you tell me that's not a specific beach,

it's a state of mind. They're wrong, but they've been living their whole lives thinking that it was in Ontario Place. No, well, they're not necessarily wrong because when the song became famous back in the day when people wrote letters and continuing now via email, etc.,

people all over the world would go, you must mean the one in Australia, you must mean the one here. And so everybody, and I think there is an Echo Beach in Northern Ontario, but I didn't know any of that. And that only came after the song came out. Interesting.

And there is a venue at Ontario Place called Echo Beach, which Live Nation started a few years ago. And we had to go after them to get some recognition because they didn't acknowledge that it was us, even though everybody was saying so. That's the origin of their... Yes, so they're not wrong.

There is a venue called Echo Beach. I think it started in 2011. Okay, okay. It's been around is a venue called Echo Beach. I think it started in 2011. Okay, okay. It's been around for a while now. Gotcha. So yeah, a good 30 plus years after they heard Echo Beach on the radio. Who was playing?

I guess I should just not disclose in a bad way, but in a good way that we do a lot of talk on this program about CFNY. And there's a very special episode, 1021, see what I did there, where people like David Marsden and Ivor Hamilton and Scott Turner and May Potts and Alan Cross and so many people from CFNY joined

me to talk about the history of the station. You guys should check it out. But what role did CFNY play in terms of the Toronto success of Echo Beach? Well, they played us. I think they were the first to play us.

Well, there's an argument about that. It was either Chum FM when Chum FM was a real FM station or CFNY. But we got a lot of support from radio early in our existence. I think they even played a demo.

Well, they were unbelievably important in the history of Toronto music. I mean, they almost single-handedly promoted bands that no other radio station would have played until or unless they got bigger. And we used to go out to the Little House. In Brampton. In Brampton to do the interviews.

And, you know, they were just fantastic. Like, I hope, I mean, they are getting recognition, but I think among bands and artists, we owe them such a debt of gratitude for doing what they did. And besides them, the Garry, between CFNY and the Garys, there should be a bloody monument somewhere, like an Arc de Triomphe, like on Yonge Street or somewhere,

with those people, you know, because they single-handedly, or together, you know, just did so much to bring music to people's attention that might have never been heard. I'm glad you're shouting out the Garys because I've been long advocating for some type of, I always say like given the order of Canada, but more than that, even some kind of monument or something. And they're both, I'll say they're both FOTM.

So shout out to Gary Cormier and Gary Topp who are good friends of the program. yeah they deserve all the all this by the way yesterday this is on a sad note uh yesterday was the the date for the uh joy division show at the edge in 1980 that never happened because ian curtis took his life uh before that that that tour but that the tickets were printed and Gary Topp was sharing, I guess bass outlets or something, but was sharing the tickets for the event that tragically never happened.

We saw it. We went to their must have been one of their last concerts in London. That was May actually. It might have been their last concert in London. It was cut short wasn't it? No. Oh no, that was New Order. It was cut short, wasn't it? No.

Oh no, that was New Order. That was New Order here. That's how it goes. It all becomes a blur. It's all a blur. Okay, so more Echo Beach. I won't give you the treatment unless you want it, but when I had Gino Vanelli here,

I kept harping on Black Cars because it hit me at the right time when I was listening to CFTR in the mid-80s. And at some point, Gino stopped down and Gino went, can we get off Black Cars already? So it's like I've been hesitant to harp on one song too much. But here are some more questions for you.

If Echo Beach was far away in time in 1980, are we almost there? So think on that one. Okay, that's got to me. That's deep thoughts. I said something recently in an interview, I think it was. I said, we've done a 30th anniversary we did of Echo Beach. That's a very reflective

version and quieter version. And I said it's looking back at looking back. Right. So we're still looking back, because people do. People look to the past to see what their future is going to be. But that's a very clever question.

My guess is that's a particle physicist asking that question. That broke my brain when I started to think. I think it helps you find that zen. Yeah, it's great. You just think on that one for a minute. I love that. So it's a that question. That broke my brain when I started to think. I think it helps you find that zen. Yeah, it's great. You just think on that one for a minute. So it's a great question. Okay, you mentioned a second Martha here. Who is the other Martha?

Martha Ladley was somebody I knew from high, well, actually we went back to public school together, but we were students at Etobicoke Collegiate and she arrived after having lived in England for a while, back in Toronto around 78. And so we asked her to join the band because we were looking for, I think we were looking for a second guitarist, and she tried out and she was not a good guitarist so she ended up doing keyboards and backing vocals.

We thought it would be cute to have two Marthas. Well, that is amazing because they're few and far between these days. I did just see Martha Plimpton in a really good movie actually just on the weekend. It's Martha Wainwright. But you can count them on one hand and then at some point there's Martha Washington.

Yeah, that's what they used to call me in grade school. Oh no! I hated it. Actually, Steve Paikin and I had a game this morning where we were emailing each other back and forth to name as many Marthas as we could. At some point I did win that contest. How many did you get? Not that many.

It's a short list. There's Martha Stewart. Right. There's Martha Graham, the choreographer. Oh, I don't even think I knew that Martha. I'm running out of... We need more Marthas. We need more Marthas.

Okay. But Will's question specifically is, why did Martha Ladley leave the band? Okay. Well, that's a very delicate question because she... I don't know whether we should get into it. Yeah. Did you sign an NDA about this one?

No, but it's never really... Both parties have politely ignored why she isn't in the band. What was it? And it wasn't... Let's just say that we had different ideas about what, okay, here's what happened. Okay, so there were six people, let's go back. Everybody had different personalities.

And some were way more into the stardom part of it than others. And there was a range. But Andy and I were probably on the anti-star end of it, and then Martha Ladley might have been on the other end. And the sudden fame and attention started fracturing the band. Let's leave it at that. And it got fractured.

I also think that an element that came into it a lot was that Mark and Martha Ladley were a couple. Oh yeah, okay. And I think they weren't getting along too well. That was a relationship that was like a Fleetwood Mac situation here.

Yeah, one day we'll write the book. Okay, so Mark has a thing for Martha's. Is that what I'm saying? Yeah, like Martha... Oh, he's been with me for over 40 years. Yeah, but if Martha Stewart came around, I don't know. Oh, yeah, she's looking great. Sure, okay, but yeah, you're going to fight Snoop Dogg for that one.

Okay. Wow, okay, so I won't pry. You know, you've shared what you're willing to share, but that will complicate relations in a band. Yeah, it was, you know, that year was amazing because so much was happening, but it was also, as I said, it affected everybody differently. It's interesting how when I see people that are on that mega level of fame, I don't think half of the band would ever have wanted that.

And there have been moments in our travel through this whole thing where we've been, especially when videos came out, where you'd be walking up the street with a roll of toilet paper and you'd be surrounded by high school girls and you're going, yeah, this isn't really what I'm... By the way, we're live on the Pirate Stream, which is

live.torontomic.com, so I just checked in and there is a quick question for you that we passed this topic earlier, but just quickly, did RBC give you any money at all to call their venue RBC Echo? Oh, man. That's Canada Cav. Yeah, we're digging into... We dealt with the Live Nation.

Okay. And there was an understanding. Oh, and their point, he also, so there, okay, so you've reached some kind of, we're all happy. But here's the answer to that. The banks have never acknowledged it. We went through Live Nation, and we did get some compensation, and we can't tell you what that was because there's an nda there but but it took a bit of work um what am i going to say about this we were always

cheated well though i think yeah no they they were pretty good about it um but they would not allow part of the deal was to put a that we wanted was a plaque at least acknowledging that Echo Beach was named after the song. At the very least, yeah. And then I believe probably their lawyers, for whatever reason, refused to do that, which I think is pretty shameful. Probably like the lawyer, if I channel my inner lawyer, like that somehow is accepting the truth, which is that it's your Echo Beach, you own Echo Beach somehow, this name anyways, and then it would open them up to some further... Yes, that's probably the logic.

Lawyers ruin everything. Well, you know, when that venue got bigger and bigger, and the original bank, I think, was TD, and then it was the Royal, and we got increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that everybody seemed to be, you know, using this name and making money from it except us. Right. Right? It didn't feel right.

It just felt really gross. Because that name only resonates with Torontonians because of you. Yeah, they wouldn't have named. I mean, no, there's no alternative universe where they call it Echo Beach without your song being such a staple. Yeah. Such a Toronto jam.

It is a definitive, way before I met you guys, if I'm putting together, cooking together my 10 definitive Toronto jams, Echo Beach is on

the list every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Wow. That's me. That's a damn, that's true. By the way,

Canada Kev, who asked that great question, also points out Martha and the Vandells. So let's shout out Martha and the Vandells. Yeah, that's right. Martha Reeves. Right. Yeah, there's another one. Let's not forget. Okay. Martha Graham. Martha Graham did The Dancer.

Right. The Dancer. The Choreographer. Now, Diamond Dog, though, says when Martha Ladley was in the band, did you ever consider changing the name to Muffin and the Marthas? That never came up. No. Okay. Scott Foster says,

This is the Ice Age is definitely one of my favorite all-time albums. How did Daniel Lanois get involved in that project? Well, when the band had personnel changes, we were looking for a bass player, and Jocelyn Lanois, who's Dan's sister, had personnel changes, we were looking for a bass player. And Jocelyn Lanois, who's Dan's sister, came in and auditioned for the gig.

And we hired her. She joined the band. And she said that she had some brothers, because it was Bob and Dan, in Hamilton who had a studio, and we could probably make our demo at Grant Avenue. So that's how we met Dan and Bob. But it was another total chance thing, because I think an art student friend of mine was working at a cafe,

and Jocelyn was there. And when I mentioned to my friend that we were looking for bass players, she said, Oh, there's a waitress, you know, at this place I'm working with that plays bass. And we went,

Oh, great. And that's how that came about. And yes, as Martha says, we went and demoed the Ice Age album at Grand Avenue and we got on really well with Dan and ended up doing three albums with him. Amazing.

What a legend. Okay, by the way, I have so many Echo Beach questions. Trev wants to know, Martha, were you actually an office clerk? Yes, I was. I didn't write the song, but I was an office clerk. I worked for OHIP. I worked for the OMB.

And that's that lyric. So, Mark, you wrote that lyric. Yes, but... That was because he didn't want to say, I'm a wallpaper sorter. That wasn't going to work, so I thought... It didn't roll off the tongue. I don't think I could have done that.

It wasn't as catchy. No. From nine to five. But that's become one of the lyrics. Like, if you just were to write down or just say lyrics with no music attached to it, that would kind of bring you back to the 80s.'s one of those lyrics and the the english thought it was really funny because they pronounce clerk as clark an office clock an office clock it all comes back

to dave clark see it's a full circle here you guys are now experiencing the full circle toronto mike experience here mike moniz says my 11 year, oh, okay, am I missing a word? Okay, to my 11-year-old son, Echo Beach, okay, this is about his 11-year-old son. Echo Beach is one of his all-time favorite songs and one of the first riffs he insisted I teach him on guitar.

How do you feel hearing that? And did you think that when you wrote that song that you would have the influence it still has here in 2022? I mean, we're talking 2022 and Mike Moniz's 11-year-old son, his favorite jam is Echo Beach. It's the first song he learned on guitar. Think about that.

Yeah, well, first of all, I love that. I love that. So thank you for telling us that. And I think the thing about the climate of the band or the climate of the time we were in, none of us expected to be professional about this. We just, you know, it was art college. Hey, everybody's forming a band. I don't know how to play, but let's start a band.

That was going on in Toronto, London, New York and all those other cities. And nobody expected it to go on. Like, I think most of us thought, okay, it'll go for two years, we'll do some gigs around Toronto, then we'll get on with our real lives. And because we were signed with Virgin and because they made Echo Beach a hit, we managed to do this. So, you know, the fact that we're still doing it is astounding, but I think Martha would agree, we never take any of it for granted.

Like, we're still as flabbergasted and amazed and happy about the fact that we can still do this, something we would have never dreamed of back in 1977. Who were your local, I'm thinking Toronto now, GTA anyways, like who were your contemporaries going back to the the late 70s early 80s well i played in a band called oh those pants and that was a band that some of the members came from uh from thornhill that i'd gone to high school with what high school thornley no no thornley it was thornhill secondary school okay only because

that comes up on the show, Thornley, because shout out to Cam Gordon and Stu Stone. My brother David Johnson went to Thornley. But I think Thornley opened the year I left. I gotcha, gotcha. And so I was in these bands, and a lot of bands were being formed out of the friends that I had, like The Dishes,

let's see, who else? The Tads. Johnny and the G-Rays. Johnny and the G-Rays. There was a whole Thornhill contingent that came down to live in, you know, around Queen Street West, and there's actually a professor of sociology at Vassar College in upstate New

York, Leonard Nevarez, who's been, he's actually in the middle of writing a book on the muffins, but as a side thing, he researched all the people in Thornhill that had bands that were going, and some of them, as you've said to me, only lasted a weekend. Then there'd be some other band, and the center of that was a guy named Stephen Davey, who at one point did write music columns for The Star, and then he became Now Magazine's food critic. But he was a central person in that whole thing.

So The Dishes were a big influence on us, even though nobody's probably ever heard of them. It's funny how the band's called The Dishes and we have a Spoons. Yes. The Spoons were part of that scene too, but a little bit later. Do they ever do like a show together? The Dishes and the Spoons? No, they, I think

the dishes were long gone before the Spoons. Isn't there a band called Spoon now? Yeah, that's, well, just to confuse to make good depth. We have all the edible band names play a concert together. Is there a fork? I've got to look into this. Cranberries?

Yeah, for sure. Wow. Okay, so I'm going to play another of your jams. Actually, let me kick it up. Because I was chatting, there's a top secret uh fotm dm group on twitter and we were chatting yesterday about echo beach and how you know boom it's still playing that thing on the reg like i'm sure they're playing it right now But now I'm blue I was fine when you met me But now I'm blue

Oh yeah When you put your arms around me And tell me that you care I don't wanna be there I was fine when you met me But now I'm blue. Oh yeah. I never needed you to come along. You'll sing a different tune when I am gone. and go home There's a song in my head going round and round

Cause there's something in my heart that I've never found There's a song in my head going round and round Cause there's something in my heart that I've never found Then there's this song, which is, again,

a song that was seen to me as a young man to be everywhere on the radio. Like this song just seemed everywhere. And you hear it and it's taking you right back. Yeah, it was played a lot. And we got the royalties to prove it. And we got the royalties when we moved to England to Bath. And it helped a lot. But I thought this song was going to be and helped a lot. But I thought this song was going to be big in the States.

What's catchy is, you know, catchy AF, as the kids might say. Like this song, there's a song in my head that goes round and round. Like that's a super catchy chorus, like a bit of an earworm. I thought so too. Okay, well. But again, it was record company bullshit. Yeah, man, okay. If you go onto our YouTube

site with this video, there's a lot of people going, how on earth was this never a huge hit? And basically, the American record companies just didn't care. You know, if you were from somewhere else and you weren't a hard rock band or

something it was uh they just weren't that interested we also signed to one executive board who were fired and a whole new executive board came along when our album was released right and the single and they didn't they didn't know who we are or care about us at all. So, I mean, we sound like real whiners, though. No, we're not whining because we're here. This is real talk, right? If that happened, we should talk about it. Yeah, it did really well in Canada. Very well.

Oh, yeah, well, that's it. Again, from my Toronto perspective, this song was everywhere. Yeah. It's still in my head. It got tons of exposure. And, of course course Much Music was great at that time. To get on there,

you knew that you were going to get a lot of people. Like earlier with CFNY, Much Music in its early days was a really good promoter of Canadian talent as well. I think a lot of these songs could be updated too. They could be done today because

lyrically, I think they're still interesting and relevant, you know. And they have very hooky melodies and guitar lines. And that seems to be the way of the world now is you get a hook from an older song

and you kind of wrap your rhymes and stuff around that and modernize it with a new style. And then that would be more checks in the mail. Yeah. Well, hopefully, you know. That's never been a big motivation, though, the money. You know, we've been lucky.

But that's not why we started. You're sitting on all that wallpaper money. Oh, that's right. Yeah, there's a ton of that. Let me tell you. So I'm sorry to interrupt there with my terrible joke, but is it,

so you're telling me money's not your motivation here. You're an artist. Well, I know, and that can sound really pretentious, you know, like it can, and I acknowledge that, but commercial stuff,

even the, okay, here's the thing, like the band loves pop music and we like writing pop music, but we have another whole other side to us, and particularly me, because Echo Beach was about the third song I ever wrote, and I didn't really know how to write pop music, because I was coming out of an experimental music background. So freeform, improvised music, and that part of the band is there as well

so you know the stuff you've heard on the radio is like the tip of the iceberg and then there's a whole other world of marth and the muffins that diehard fans know all about you know and and and you'll get these comments about well i hated echo hated Echo Beach, but I really like this song. You know, like one of the weird ones or something. So we have like a very wide range, ranging slew of fans. And some are very opinionated about what they don't like and what they do. the issues that kept us from reaching higher levels of success commercially was that we never expressed a desire that way that we you know we were more interested in the process of making the music rather than getting its rewards right financially and that on every album there's a

lot of other stuff besides the radio singles that probably put record companies off. They went, you know, what are we going to do with this band? Like, okay, there's this one song and then everything else is weird. Right. Okay, so you came of an age, we're talking late 70s, early 80s, when you could be sort of a starving artist

and live in the city of Toronto. Like, I am just now thinking, you were talking about the record, the record label bullshit, and Kim Mitchell was on this program telling a story about, basically, like, the label stopped pushing his, Go For Soda was the song they were pushing in the States,

and they abandoned it because they decided they would push Twisted Sister instead, which was on the same label. Like, this is literally a decision in a boardroom, and that was it. After that,

Kim Mitchell is a Canadian star. Yeah. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but's more people in california than there are in canada but i'm thinking of kim because when max webster shout out to max webster they were living he was telling me they were they had no money and they all lived in a house together in the east end of toronto and they he was telling me like it was like a hundred bucks each a month or something to live in this house where they could be starving artists and hone their craft and get better. And I mean, where the heck do you do that in 2022?

This small house where you guys are ducking to get into the seats here probably sells for a million and a half dollars today. Like, how do you even live in Toronto as an artist without money at this point? I think a lot of people are leaving. A lot of people are going to Barrie.

Even that's got pricey now. I have a friend in Barrie. It's changed there too. Soon, where you go, I don't know where you go now. How far do you got to go to find a place where you can live and be a servant artist?

And you know, from a sociological point of view, that is not a healthy future for a city where the young people or anybody who's below a certain income level cannot buy property.

I mean, it's a middle class thing. Or rent. I've read articles about, for instance, San Francisco, how after World War II, that was a huge cultural hub. There were writers and musicians in the 60s where all these bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead. Is this Haight-Ashbury?

Is that the neck of the woods we're talking about? Yes. That's a whole big magic scene. Yeah. And so, but it's dead now apparently there's descriptions of san francisco where you know you walk down like what used to be major avenues full of life and culture and it's all like you know stores for rich people yeah um and it's a huge problem and i don't know you know i certainly don't know what the solutions

are but i see it as very dangerous and you, we bought our house 30 years ago almost, and like everybody else in Toronto has a house. If you bought it back then, you know, Mike, that area of expensive houses is spreading to Barrie and Dundas and Hamilton. Yeah, Burlington, right? Burlington is a place I think of like 10 years ago. It's like, oh, we get a lot more space in Burlington for a lot less money. Not today. No. Gone. And I will just say the future of your Toronto musicians, the future is kids with rich parents.

Like this is, your parents are able to finance your, you know, ability to live in this city without making a large income. Like it's just going to be people who come from money. Yeah. It's going to be interesting when the parents' savings are gone, though. And, you know, they're 80s and 90s. And who's going to take care of them? Well, we did a podcast about, I don't know, two months ago

with these younger guys that were musicians. And I asked them, I said, where do you, because we talked about that, because this is a big issue. Well, exactly, because I have four kids, and it's always on my mind, where do they go after university? Yeah. And I asked these guys, I said, so you've got a band, that's great. But I said, where do you rehearse?

In the old days on Queen Street, there were all those, just south of Queen, there were all those early manufacturing buildings that were all like either people. Yeah, they're all condos, right? Yeah, they're all condos. And he said, we practice in my parents' basement, you know, and that's how it works. It's a problem.

It's a problem. Okay, so I want to talk about a name change, and then I want to talk about current stuff. But Martha, you mentioned a band you were in before Martha and the Muffins, and it had the word pants in it. What was the name of the band? Oh, Those Pants. Oh, Those Pants.

And it was like 10 guys and me. Okay. And I came into the band later in their career. Short-lived. And it was an OCA band, Ontario College of Art, based there. And we played shows, very few shows, but usually at the college. Oh, Those Pants.

Oh, Those Pants. It's amazing to me that the band's called Oh, Those Pants because I've been hearing that phrase from people for the last couple of weeks because I've been rocking the doer pants, the world's most comfortable pants. Well, you want a song to go with that? Yes.

I'm sure my frienden would be happy to put we'll do a song together so straight up though these pants not only do i look great but i can i affect that after our recording i have a podcast consultation gig at a real business and i'm going to be wearing my doer pants because i can bike in them so i'm going to bike in these pants and then i'm going to walk into the boardroom wearing these pants and it's like it's amazing to have such comfortable stretchy pants that i can wear in the bike lane and then wear in the boardroom so i just want to let everyone know they have a retail store on queen west here in toronto and doer.ca d-u-e-r.ca and you can save 15 if you use the promo code tmds it really helps the show and great pants

most comfortable pants in the world. So shout out to Dewar. And just one more before I play, not Martha and the Muffins, but we'll talk about it. I'm all choked up talking about the name change here. Okay. But I just want to shout out Canna Cabana. Do either of you guys smoke weed? Not anymore.

No. No more. Okay. No more. You can consume it other ways, of course. Yes, you can. And regardless of how you consume cannabis, the place to go is Canna Cabana, cannacabana.com.

They won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. And I just want to let you know, there's a few gifts for you real quick here. Stickeru.com has a Toronto Mike sticker for you. I mentioned the beer. I mentioned the lasagna. Ridley Funeral Home. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.

Brad's podcast there is Life's Undertaking. You never know when you have to measure something, so you stick this in your purse or whatever. Is that for a dead person to measure? To measure the corpse, see what kind of, you know, what size you need for the body. That's a good size tape measure. Yeah, and

yes, and there's a toque for you from Canada Cabana as well. And there's a cozy here on one of the Great Lakes beers you're taking home with you. So a whole bunch of great stuff for you guys to take home. And we have something for you, Mike. Whoa! We brought something. We brought you a classic reissue Marathon Muffins T-shirt.

I love that. With Toronto Harbor and Echo Beach on it. Okay. I love T-shirts, first of all, and I'm wearing my Fred Penner Fredhead T-shirt. And I'm going to, in fact, I'm for the photo. So I'm going to, as soon as I take my headphones off, I'm going to stick this on.

Thank you so much. And I'm going to wear it for our photo because we got to take a photo before you drive away. I'm going to, I have questions about this. I have questions about this song. guitar solo A voice inside my car told me today There was a song of love they would not play Play, play, play She was one

He was one, he was one A voice inside of my car told me to take Black stations, white stations, break down the doors Stand up and face the music, this is 1984 Black stations, white stations, beat on the floor How come this song is not credited to Martha and the Muffins? We, I, I have to take full responsibility for this. Confess your sins, please. Okay, so I guess somewhere between 83 and 84, I decided that I was tired of being called a muffin.

And I went, let's shorten, let's get a new name. We'll just shorten it to M plus M. Right. So it'd be like Mark and Martha. And I don't know if you remember, years ago Coke came out with some new Coke. There was Coke Classic. Was it 85? Yep, I remember it well.

Okay, so, and it was a disaster, right? Like nobody liked the new Coke or whatever. Right, and they had to bring back Coca-Cola Classic. That's right. So that's exactly what we did. So this is all by design. I'm going to change the name and make people beg for the muffins to come back. We weren't that clever about it. But it didn't represent Mark and Martha.

Huh? It didn't represent Mark and Martha. What did M&M stand for then? It was just a logo kind of thing for Martha and the Muffins. Oh, Martha and the Muffins. And the first time we used it on an album, we had both names. Oh, yeah, that's right, on Dan's part. Yeah, it had Martha and the Muffins and M plus M.

That's right. As a transition. Okay. So, yes. Okay. So that was like a logo for Martha and the Muffins. And then it just became the moniker. Because this song, which by the way, I always appreciated you dropping the year in the lyrics.

Because I can never forget what year this song came out. So 1984. Yeah. I don't know whether that was a wise thing to do. Because for every place is a song in 1984. I don't know whether that was a wise thing to do because for every place is a song in 1984. Right, so that's true. If you want to get it on

in a movie or a TV show or something like that. Yeah, well if Netflix has a show based in 1984, the easiest way to let people know what year you're in is to put this on. Or we could do an update. This is 2024. Oh, yes. So I will say I loved

this song and I love the video and I love hearing the song. I dig it. I still dig it. But this is 84 and I'm trying to get my timelines right, but were both of you involved with Tears Are Not Enough? No.

It was just Martha. So I will disclose to you that we are also with Tears Are Not Enough? No. Or just Martha? It was just Martha. It was just me. So Martha, okay, so I will disclose to you that we are also mildly infatuated with Tears Are Not Enough on this program. Cam Gordon joined me for a two and a half hour

deep dive into it. So whenever I have someone on who is involved, I have very specific questions. Who invited you to participate? Well, I guess it came through our manager, Jerry Young, at the time, right? Yeah, and the record company, I think. Do you have a back story?

No, not for you guys. I mean, I can tell you they were very upset when, I guess it was Bruce Allen, Jim Valance, and Terry David Mulligan. Shout out to Terry David Mulligan. When Buffy St. Marie bailed, I think Bruce got the call, and then he put down the phone, and he said, Buffy bailed. This was the line, and that's become an iconic catchphrase on this show of somebody, you know, yesterday, Ian Thomas, Buffy bailed. Okay.

So, any stories at all? Like, any stories you remember about recording Tears Are Not Enough? Well, one of the things I do remember is uh i was standing well i think there was a clear view of me and in the group on in the group stuff you could see me and then for some reason they moved um burton cummings right in front of me he was a very tall man right and you don't really see me in the in. I think it was one quick shot. Right. And I don't know whether Blackstations, Whitestations was happening yet.

But I don't think they considered me to be... Even though Echo Beach was a big hit years before. No, I don't think... Whoever was running that thing, I think... That was Bruce Allen. Well, David Foster was the... Yeah. David Foster and Bruce Allen. He probably just didn't like the way I sang.

So it's 85. So I think they recorded and dropped this thing in 1985. Yeah, so that'd be a year. I mean, I'm not your kind of Celine Dion kind of singer. I never would have been. I have a style of singing that's unique, and it's my style. I don't think I sound like anybody else. And like David Foster, there's that famous scene

where he tells Neil Young. I love this scene. He's out of tune a little bit. He says, man, that's just my style. You know what? That just tells me how David Foster is totally out of it. Like when you tell Neil. No, but I mean, that's a whole other.

He's not. That's a whole other, that's a whole other like musical sensibility. That's what I think happened in my own mind is that he's like yacht rocking over there with the,

I'm thinking, yeah, he's yacht rocking on the West Coast. Yeah, but that line by Neil Young, that's like my sound,

man. Yeah, exactly. But that Neil even had to explain that to him. Just, you know yeah he just david didn't get you eclectic uh they were not like those people were not out of the new wave era you know like i mean you know the fact that you got asked was a miracle really because it wasn't really

that those groups of people were not oriented towards, you know, the more indie, punky, new wave, art pop end of things. Right. Well, I'm glad you were there representing. It was a good cause and everything. Sure. Absolutely. And it was a good song. Yeah.

I guess the lyrics, I think, are Jim Ballant's, some Brian Adams peppering it up. And David Foster did the music. But I always thought that was a good song. I always thought it was better than the USA for Africa song. Shout out to Tears Are Not Enough. Now I can add

Martha Johnson to my list of Tears Are Not Enough people on the show. By the way, just to give him credit, DJ Dream Doctor did write in and he said he wanted to know why you rebranded yourself as Eminem in the show okay uh oh by the way we just to give him credit dj dream doctor did write in and he said uh he wanted to know why you rebranded yourself as eminem in the 80s but we covered that and then he said he he wants you to know that he can't get that song that song uh song in my head out of his head many decades later it really is an earworm i had uh blair packham here last week

and he wrote uh last of the red hot fools when he was with the jitters and i actually that song is another song where it burrows deep into my head and that song i must have been you know crazy playing it dumb should have played it cool use my head but not my heart and then it's hard to stop actually so i'm gonna move on keep going martha before i play a new song oh yeah quick uh sorry uh cab wants me to... Do you remember making the video about the Queen in Spadina? It's Queen in Spadina with Martha Johnson for CBC in 1984. Yeah, I do.

And I actually watched it sometime in the last year. It's on YouTube. Came across it. And I was surprised at how well I did it. Good job. Okay, that's called Toronto Neighborhoods, I think. So people can find that on YouTube. Queen and Spadina with Martha Johnson from 1984.

Yeah. There you go. It's back to before. Martha, may I ask about how you're doing? Because you have Parkinson's disease. Like, you look great. Thank you. How are things going?

Well, it's an up and down kind of disease and it's a progressive degenerative disease as well. And I don't know if you noticed my head going back and forth. I don't have a tremor, but I have the drugs that I take cause a condition called dyskinesia. So I'm trying to stay on the mic. Oh, no, listen.

You should go on an omnidirectional. You're doing fantastic. If anybody hears a kind of waver in the volume of my voice. And if you didn't tell me, I would just think, you're hearing the jams in your headphones. It's all hip movement. But I'm doing okay. I was diagnosed in 2000, so

21 years later, I'm doing pretty well for that. In 2013, you did record an album for that. And you did, I just, you know, in 2013, you did record an album for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Okay, let's... Is that true? No, you were here to set the record straight

because that's lying out there. I think it was a GoFundMe kind of thing. Okay, okay. And then we did some of the profit we went to. Solo one, right, in some portion. Oh, yeah, okay. Now we, yeah. Solo one, yeah.

That was my solo album, which I think had really good songs on it. I wrote three songs with Ron Sexsmith. Love Ron Sexsmith. Love that guy. Yeah, he's a good songwriter, that's for sure. He's another guy. He had to leave the city.

He's in Stratford now. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's's for sure. He's another guy. He had to leave the city. He's in Stratford now. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right, yeah. Wow, shout out to FOT and Ron. By the way, I should let you know, you can set records straight here, so if there's been something sitting on the Wikipedia page that's simply not true,

this is the show to clarify it because there is a Wikipedia editor named Rosie Gray Teo. And Rosie Gray Teo will actually listen to this program, capture these facts, and then will add them to the Wikipedia page and correct things and cite this as the source. So this is really like if there's, I think I had a woman on the show last summer

who on her Wikipedia page, it said she was in Friends. She did a guest appearance on Friends. And her name's Christine Simpson. She's with Sportsnet covering hockey. She did a guest appearance on Friends. Her name's Christine Simpson. She's with Sportsnet covering hockey. But she's never been on Friends. And forever, this just sat on the Wiki page. So everybody's like, oh, I didn't know you were on Friends. I didn't know you were on Friends.

It's on your Wikipedia page. And she used this opportunity to set the record straight. She should leave it on. Yeah, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah, I was on Friends. That's how I roll. Okay, I want to play a song from Marthology, In and Out Takes. But YYZ Gord wants me to ask you,

each of you, what is your favorite song in your catalog to play? Oh, geez. Good question, YYZ Gord. That's 40 years long. If you could only bring one with you. I know what I would say. Okay, let's hear it.

I would say Love Began With Eve, which is a song that Mark sings. And the title I came up with, our daughter's name is Eve. Oh, yeah. And it's just a beautiful song. Okay, so you mentioned that one, so I can't say that one. You need a unique one, yeah. I don't know. That's like when you're asked your top 10 favorite songs of all time.

You know what, though? I want to say this. I know there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line where you were going to come here and do that because people do that on their second visit. So the first visit, we do what we're just doing now. We kind of cover the whole career, and we're going to talk about the new, the Marthology in and out takes but at some point when enough time passes

that you're missing me and you want more lasagna or whatever we would kicking out the jams is great fun i actually we got the list already so we can do that okay so i'm on the spot now uh i have to grab a song because we don't want any dead air while i go because you know i'm not going to edit a stitch of this no i know Even though I tried to mute you earlier in the show. Yes. You're more avant-garde songs. Which one of those though?

Crosswalk? Oh my god, okay. I'll say crosswalk because it's... There's no wrong answers, Mark. Yeah, okay. Crosswalk, please? You fail. Yeah, I'll just say crosswalk. Tell me about

Marthology in and out takes. It was our manager, Graham Stairs, who runs Pop Guru, who suggested that we might want to look at some of our past songs that didn't make it to an album

or were demos. We have a lot of stuff that has never been heard or is a limited exposure. So he suggested it. So we went into our archives and put the album together. Amazing. Now, I have a song here, Save It For Later. Is that it?

Okay, that's not on mythology that is because that's on coverama okay which is uh an album that just right was just released last week i believe and it's uh that pop guru put out okay well let me listen since that just came out last week here let me play a bit is that okay if if I play a bit? Yeah, yeah. And then we'll get back to it. So many things to discuss here happening in 2022. Bye. Save it for later Don't run away and let me down Sooner or later You'll hit the deck, you'll get found out Save it for later

Don't run away and let me down Don't let me down Black hair and seven seas on run Okay, so I just, okay, now I'm all sorted here. So remind us again, which project is this from? Coverama. Coverama. And it was, again, with our manager, Graham Stairs,

who, we did this song for a trailer for Sex Education, the British TV show. Oh, it's with Gillian Anderson? Yeah, yeah. So we were asked to do a pitch. They wanted this song. It's the beat, the English beat. Right.

Yeah, yeah, here it's the English beat, okay? Over there is the beat. Yeah, that's the beat or the English beat. And they said, we want somebody to do a new cover of it. So we took it on. We did it in three days over a weekend. And it turned out really well.

And we were happy with it. We didn't get the gig. Well, the music supervisor apparently loved it. But the producers of the show decided not to use any version of the song at all. So it never got used. And we were going, well, so we did this. And we went to Graham and said, well, why don't you get all the people on your label to do a cover?

And then we can at least use it for something. So he just has released... Sounds great. Yeah, yeah. We were happy with it. And some of the other songs are like... There's Waddy covers. Yeah, When Doves Cry.

When Doves Cry. It's quite interesting. Prince did what you did, changed his name. Yes. Yeah. When he wrote Slave on his cheek, everybody in the business who was an artist knew exactly what he was talking about.

Wow. Okay, so what I'm going to roll into, and I'm going to YouTube for this because as prepared as I was, I didn't have the right song loaded up. Thank you. I can't help it No, I can't help it I know it's out of fashion To watch the sun go down It's a habit of mine To watch the sun go down Go down To watch the sun go down.

Pass the time away. I pass the time away I spend my time at work But I'll go back someday To watch the sun go down It's a habit of mine To watch the sun go down On a silent summer evening. Echo Beach version.

Yeah. All right. Sounds good in headphones. No, I'm telling you, it's trippy. Like, I don't even want to bring it down, to be quite honest. So this project, this release is Marthology In and Out Takes. And this is available now. Yes.

If you were king and queen for a day, and you are actually, because you're here on Toronto Mic making your debut, how would you like people, where would you like people to go if they want to buy and consume this new material?

I think the best site is actually YouTube because there's probably like 40 or 50 videos that have links to where you can buy stuff. And our official website has been swimming around lifeless for a few years, and I keep going, oh, God, I really got to get this back together. So the YouTube site's good. We're on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, and sooner or later we'll get our official site back happening.

I'm not making any promises but it's on the list. So that's what I would say. Go to YouTube. Yeah, by the way, go ahead. We still have tons of CDs in our basement. Yeah, if you want CDs like... Can they reach out to you? Somebody right now wants to reach out to you

directly and buy direct from the artist. Okay, so you can get us at the best email is Somebody right now wants to reach out to you directly and buy direct from the artist. Okay. So you can get us at the best email is muffinmusic, all one word, at simpatico.ca. Oh, that's a throwback. I like that. It's really old like we are. I was going to say, you got to know your audience. I was going to say, you've got to know your audience.

Muffetmusic at simpatico.ca Wow, I thoroughly enjoyed this. So, Martha, Mark, thanks so much for visiting. Is there anything you wanted to share before I play a little Lois of the Low and then say goodbye to the listeners? Just thank you, Mike. It was a great conversation. I wanted to add that

everybody who was in the band, who were players in the band and contributed, and they made up our careers. Everybody contributed in their own way, and they're to be recognized as well. Yeah, shout out to all those people, for sure. Look at me fading out of Martha and the Muffins into lowest of the

low. That is as Toronto as it gets, I think. I love crossfades. So do I. That's why I like to do them live. I do it live. Oh my goodness. What a pleasure. Thank you for the t-shirt. Before you drive away, we are going to take a photo by the tree. And I got

my t-shirt. That's awesome. And I got your lasagna in the freezer before you go. Thanks again for being my guest today. Thank you. Enjoyed it. And that brings us to the end of our 1055th show. You can follow me

on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. You guys mentioned go to YouTube and find Marth and the Muffins, but are you on Twitter or Instagram? Yes, all those two. And Facebook as well. Okay, so follow these good people, Marth and the Muffins. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery

are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. D-U-E-R. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana, they're at Canna Cabana, sorry, they're at Canna Cabana underscore. And just a reminder, on May 31st, Andy from Canna Cabana is joining Stew Stone.

And there might be special visits from Canada Kev and Kareem. And we're going to kick out some stoner jams at 8 p.m. that night, live on the same channels, and it's going to be awesome. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Danny Gallagher, and we're going to dive deep into the history of the Montreal Expos. do for me and you but I'm a much better man for having known you, oh you know that's true because everything is coming up

rosy and green yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't speed a day and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rolling in gray