Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mastermind: Toronto Mike'd #1049

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Mike chats with Mastermind about DJ Ron Nelson, his mixtapes, his career in music at Energy 108 and Flow 93.5, why he was fired and what the hell happened to Flow. 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.

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Learn more at canacabana.com. Joining me this week, making his Toronto mic debut, is Mastermind. What the intro? You know, I have wanted you as a guest on this program literally for years. So I'm just like that. I on this program for literally for years. So I'm just like, I apologize on the tardiness,

man. Hey, the one good thing about doing this for 10 years is that you can afford to like be super patient. Like, I'm just glad you're here. 10 years. That's a great run,

man. Is it over? No, I mean, I not based on the, uh, the type of advertising you have. So listen,

things are good here. And I'm excited. You're episode 1049 because you have. Listen, things are good here. And I'm excited you're episode 1049 because you're the man behind Mixtape 49, the setup. When I saw your tweet, I was like, oh, it's perfect. But you know what? 50 would have been good too. And then I realized you saved 1050 for the chum guys or whoever's coming.

Yeah, you would never be able to get 1050 because I've rigged the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, I don't know when 1049 like everything's pretty organic right 1048 is 1049 is after 1048 of course and that was steve pagan and then uh you know and then i don't know when that's gonna be i just know that the morning after i record 1049 i'm dropping 1050 like that's in the can and that's gonna be the second longest episode in the history of this podcast okay did you ever listen to 1050 chum when it was a top 40 station i did i did what do you remember about it uh what was his name tom rivers was yeah tom rivers

uh there was i think a mike cooper there yep tarzan dan was there or maybe that was that was later and that was never 10 50 that was uh cftr oh yes that's right because tom rivers and mike cooper both were on cftr as well like later oh yeah no i know you know and and again as a kid um you know top 40 radio was basically what we were force-fed if you will i guess because we didn't we because we didn't have, you know, if that's what you were into, I guess. But, yeah, I just, you know, remember after school or... And John Majors. Yep.

John Majors. The late great. Yeah, because he also had the TV show. Toronto Rocks. Yeah. So I remember quite a bit. But I was probably, you know, grade school and then maybe junior high years i guess because you're a scarborough guy not really so i'm trying to give you the scarborough credit well i do get i get scarborough

up to eight years old so we so we were downtown at some point when i was born we then ended up moving to midland and eglinton and that's kind of all i remember up to eight years old right and then at eight years old we went to north york which was um leslie finch area i guess okay okay and that's that's where it's been since well regardless uh yeah these we're going to talk a lot of radio in this episode so it's kind of fitting 10 50 tomorrow i was by the way i'm a cftr guy uh somewhere here i was a big CFTR guy. Evelyn Macco gave me the old, do you remember the old 680 CFTR?

I don't remember that logo. This was the logo for my youth. This is the CFTR logo. Does anybody interview you? No, you want to interview me? No, no, no, but my question, I know, listen, I know we're going to talk a lot but my question is what is your deal with the radio fascination right because i've i've i'm only

familiar with you from obviously in our interactions recently but more so when shifts would happen in the radio landscape and you know you'd be out here saying oh this happened that happened kind of like a i don't want to say a gossipy thing but like in that yeah i hear what you're saying right so did you work in radio never no okay i just listen you're just a fan just a fan and i have the you know i have the form i i talk about what i'm interested in and it's not just radio but like a lot of musicians come by and print journalists and a lot of sports media people because i love sports but yeah i i'm like the last guy who gives a shit about radio so if i don't i don't think you're the last guy but

you're one of the bit you know what you're the last guy writing about it right like like when there is a change and we're going to get into it but when flow flips formats like right who's really yeah this one did get picked up by a few like cbc there was some traction on this particular flip because it was kind of significant yeah but typically when this stuff happens like i'm the only guy writing about it right right hey but back to 10 49 i mean sorry back to the mixtape 49 yeah before i get to some nice comments from fotms who heard you were coming on uh i gotta tell you a couple of fotms like fotm is friend of toronto mike you are now an fotm thank you welcome to the club master thank you thank you do i gotta get a tattoo or something uh yeah temporary tattoo of FOTMs. FOTM is Friend of Toronto Mike. You are now an FOTM. Welcome to the Club Master, Mike.

Do I got to get a tattoo or something? Yeah, temporary tattoo from StickerU.com. They make great temporary tattoos. I want to shout out Danny O. Yeah. Danny O, he's on the setup. Mixtape 49. Yes, he is. The whole

concept of that was I had been doing my radio show. Well, I've been doing radio since 87 at that point. And I got approached by the record labels, EMI in particular, Virgin EMI. And I was making mixtapes. And the whole mixtape scene kind of had a bit of a crashing coming down kind of thing from the industry side. Is that because they're like, you have to license this music before you sell it? Well, here's what happens, right?

So it's not like hip-hop and R&B and reggae, for that matter, was getting any kind of mainstream you know, mainstream support in the 90s. It was all college radio. You know, I had one show, you know, one hour, two hour program on energy radio. And that's really the extent of it. So the mixtapes really were a promotion tool. And it was a bit of a contradictory thing that happened because the record label service you the music and tell you, hey, can you put this on my tape on your tapes and then the same record labels you know different departments send the rcmp to come in you know shut things down right so it was even worse in the states for a lot of those mixed tape djs and stuff so um the last tape i put out was 48 and so when i started having conversations with virgin EMI and, you know,

the guys that worked there were all my friends anyway. So it's not like, you know, I was dealing with some tight suit execs or whatever. We were all guys who grew up together. Right. So we started brainstorming and we were like, okay, this whole concept is going to be, you know, let's, let's make volume 50, the actual album that we put out. And then 49 will be like the teaser. So we called it, you know, volume 49, the setup. And basically we corralled as many high profile Toronto and Canadian artists as we could. Sure.

And got them to freestyle on this, you know, on this mixtape. And it was influenced by, Tony Touch had a mixtape called 50 mcs and basically that was like a catalyst it was like yo he got all these 50 mcs to to you know do freestyles for his mixtape it was really cool it was very popular tape and you know the concept wasn't lost on me and you know our idea was well we're going to do it but with our guys you know with canadian canadian artists love it yeah and so and so volume 49 came of that yes daniel was on it and i mean another fotm i want to shout out because he just made the most amazing appearance uh decisive okay derrick cristal yeah

yeah you know what derrick is such a cool dude and he suffered unfortunately from you know eminem kind of him and eminem doing the same kind of shtick at the same time and unfortunately em obviously a little more high profile yeah a little bit yeah but popped you know pop was a big song to me like i thought it was a brilliant record and you know decisive is a good dude man he has one of the you know better dope you know little songs or interludes if you you will, on my album. It's wicked. He can rap his ass off. Oh, no doubt.

And he's making a comeback now. He had a few rough years lately, and he's making his comeback. Nice. And just recently paid a visit, and people can check that out. But there's some big names on Mixtape 49, just before I get to these nice comments people left for you. But Socrates, Chauclair, Curdie, these are the biggest names in Canadian hip hop, that side of Drake. Right. At the time, for sure. They were the biggest ones. And, you know, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was, you know,

supporting these guys out the gate, like on the, on the ground floor. Right. So we're all friends. You know, Cardi is considered family. You know, we, you know, our kids grew up together. We go away together. We do things. So it's like those relationships, you know, some of them stayed more professional and then some of them grew into, you know, more personal types of relationships. But at the time, that was the concept. The concept was, you know, we want to get the biggest artists. I don't even know if something like that could work now like i mean i can't see anybody in this country getting you know drake and the weekend and you know pressa and tori lanes and all these guys to do something

like this like i don't even know if something like that would ever happen and whoever if it is possible kudos to whoever can make that happen and if it is possible it would take a guy like you to put it together right nah? Nah, my time has passed. Your past time? Those guys aren't trying to jump on nothing for me. Let's, you mentioned family. So I just want to like, let the listenership know that there's three of us

in this TMDS studio right now. Would you like to just let, and don't worry, you're not on camera. Okay, unless you want me to turn it. Do you want me to turn it so you can say hi? Okay. Here, let me just see here. So who do we have with us here, Mastermind?

That's my daughter, Nisha. Okay, so Nisha has joined you here. Are you on the camera? More over that way. Okay, there you go. I let her call herself my manager, so I bring her with me. She's here to make sure you don't say anything you're going to regret later. Right, she'll tap me.

She'll say, no, no, no, don't do that. When I had Chuck D on, he had a woman, a young lady who basically was there to tap her watch when I hit the 20-minute mark. It was like, oh, that's so Chuck D's the good cop and this lady's the bad cop. That's how it always is, man. The artist tries not to be the bad guy,

even though it's all coming from them. Very, very smart. Okay, so first comment comes from FOTM Nam. not to be the bad guy. You know what I mean? Even though it's all coming from them. Very, very smart. Yeah. Okay, so first comment comes from FOTM Nam. Nam says, how many records does he own? Also, he is one of the best people in the music industry. In an industry that's not always good to women,

he's a gem. Yeah, that's Nam. And that's such a sweet comment. And we've known each other for a very, very long time. You know, obviously Nam, you know, was a part of Rap City with Much Music. And, you know, now I know she's on TV.

TVO. Yeah, TVO. I just had Pekin here like two days ago. She works on the agenda. Right. I guess when Pekin's on, I don't know, vacation or summer holidays or something. And me and them we actually flew to new york to do a junket for mary j blige sometime

in the in the 90s mid 90s and it was on a like a two propeller six passenger like a sesna oh my god man and you know like the we all sat in the back i don't even remember if they felt like there was no seats it was just one of they're sitting on the floor in the back of this plane um you know, like the, we all sat in the back. I don't even remember if they felt like there was no seats. It was just one of their sitting on the floor, the back of this plane, you know, and the, there's a cooler between the pilot and the co-pilot. They pass back drinks from chips from the cooler. Wow. But it was a great day.

And, and so, yeah, so Nam's a sweetheart. So to answer her question, I don't, I don't have any more more records i sold all my records in 2004 and a lot of people ask why so here's the reason so i um at the time so in about 2002 i moved to calgary under the pretense of launching a hip-hop station in cal. So probably then I had, you know, upwards of seven to 10,000 records. I don't know how many they were just a lot of crates, right? There was a lot of boxes and crates of records. And in 04, we, um, we're moving, we built a new house and we were going to move from where we were to, and to the new house. And so I had to pack up, you know, everything was on shelves and organized and just beautiful. And then

you have to start packing things up. And so at the time I wasn't making mixtapes. I wasn't DJing out in clubs. I kind of retired that. Right. And I wasn't mixing on the radio anymore. I was just doing a regular show as a host and I was the music director. Right. Right. So I had all this vinyl and it was great, but it, when I started packing it all up and then lugging it up the stairs, I just got this, like, I don't, I don't want to do this again. I don't want to unpack all this. I don't want to, um, you know, break my back anymore. you know, break my back anymore. And so at the time, this was before Serato, but it was after CDJs came out. So vinyl was still a thing, but it was kind of, you know, getting phased out in terms of where the technology was going. Right. said you know what before that happens let me see let me see what i can get for this so i put them all up on ebay put a price that

was the the base price that i'm going to sell them for and just based off of you know my name and my history it was like if you want these this is what it's going for where i'm not going to negotiate with anybody right and. And they sold. Okay. Can you reveal that price? I feel like at this point, so many years have gone by. 2004, you said? That's like back when the Leafs could win a playoff series.

Okay. That's how long ago that was. Hold on. Hold on. They might do it tonight. They might do it tonight. You're right. But until, and I should point out, time stamp it. This is May 12 at 210.

So as of yet, we haven't won a playoff series since 2004. Right. You don't have to give me the price, but... It was more than 10 grand and less than 20. Okay, interesting. You're holding that number close to your chest. Okay, good. The only reason is because the person...

He was a tax man. No, no, no, no. I dealt with all that. The person that did end up buying them yeah is a friend of mine okay and you know i i just don't want to and and it's out some some people know it's kind of it's out there in the in the verse there somewhere okay we got a good range now yeah and i got another great comment this by the way as fotms go i love nam but it doesn't get much better than scott turner oh yes scotty scooter scott turner however he wants to

spell his name these days scot right now but uh tell everyone be honest a guilty pleasure maybe a little cheesy pop rock or dance non-hip-hop or r&b track that you admit to loving. So let me say this. I do have PTSD from my days at Energy because I hate Euro. Okay. Can't stand that stuff. And it's some of the worst music that's ever. Is that like too unlimited kind of thing? Yes, all of that. All of that shit.

I'm with you. All of it. However, I have a tremendous fondness for house, like real house music, the melodic house music, the, you know, the Nightcrawler and, you know, I can't tell you all the names, but like house music, which is obviously not hip hop or R&B. Right. But that is something that is something I've grown to enjoy. And not the guiltiest of pleasures, to be honest. Like a guilty pleasure is like, oh, you're madly in love with like ABBA, Waterloo or something. Okay, the Bee Gees.

Like disco. Like I like disco. Okay. And again, not the cheese disco, but the disco that had soul to it, right? Okay. And so to me, you know, it's funny, we actually watched recently, like last year, I think it was, we watched the Bee Gees documentary and it was brilliant. And, you know, as a kid in the seventies, you just played along with,

oh, disco sucks. And when you realize where that motivation came from, it really opens your eyes and changes your whole perspective on it and again as a guy who years years later you know is is a fan of hip-hop and r&b and sampling is a big component of that yeah you know even with house like when you think about lady or stardust or any of these other records like they sample so much disco and it's just it's full of soul like it's just so great okay uh speaking of great fotms stacy thompson stacy thompson yes ask him about daddy oki okay or about the time he was in calgary and became a cool tv star on a commercial so daddy oki first started out in calgary and it was called Lyrical Fitness.

So it was a game that when my children were young, young, and they had, you know, cute kiddie voices. How many kids do you have? Two. Two. And it started with my son first. And basically, I'd get them to recite lyrics to songs. Okay. And we would play the lyrics on the air.

The listener would have to call in and figure out what the song was. They won a prize, we played the record. That kind of thing. It was called Lyrical Fitness. Cool. So years later, we're at Flow and I actually presented the idea to our morning show. They didn't like it or they didn't want it or whatever.

JJ and Melanie? No, it was Blake and JJ, I think at the time. Okay. And the concept was use Blake's mom who, you know, is Jamaican and has a bit of an accent. And accents are cute. You know what I mean? Like they make you smile, you know, depending on how thick they are, they can make you laugh. So they didn't like the idea.

And I was like, okay, cool. You know what that means? I'll keep it. Now my kids were too old now. My son's voice is deeper than mine. My daughter, she doesn't have that cutesy voice anymore. You know what I mean? So I was like, what do I do?

So I went to my dad, who's got a super thick, to me it's not super thick, but apparently it is, but a super thick Indian accent. And I said, this is perfect. He doesn't know nothing about the songs. to me it's not super thick but apparently it is but a super thick indian accent and i said this is perfect he doesn't know nothing about the songs you know even when we're doing them together and you know i'm getting him to recite the lyrics he's just he says stuff he says stuff so so like straight faced and it's like he doesn't catch some of the innuendos and things and it's um it's quite funny so daddy oaky was created because i started getting my dad gotcha to um to do it and um and it became very popular it became a very popular item on my show and when you were in cal and we're gonna like literally we're just we're just warming up here

and we're gonna kind of walk through things but you were on a tv commercial in calgary actually a couple i had uh we did so my daughter actually started doing acting actually my son too they were doing some acting in in Calgary and uh she got called for an audition for Home Depot and the whole fam went obviously because she was young at the time right so we're all there we're in the um audition room and the director sees all of us and you know we're a mixed family you know my wife is is jamaican and you know the the kids are are you know obviously a combination of both of us and somewhat we're kind of a cool family and stuff so the director sees us and he's like i want that whole family you know in this commercial not just not just my daughter

and basically they gave us a screen test and obviously you know me being on camera so many times and being in radio like there was nothing uncomfortable a lot we just acted and did our thing and you know boom we were in the commercial and then there was another commercial where i think it was with a real estate agent and i was uh i got recognized a lot from that like they they aired it so much and i remember i would get tweets and calls and stuff and be like, you know, we saw mastermind on TV,

blah, blah, blah. Um, but those are the, the, the two big ones that kind of really did their thing. Will Menzies writes in,

uh, this should be good. I would send them on air demos of my show once a week. I was so annoying. I know mastermind will bring the real talk. Right. Now, I don't know if he was annoying. I can't remember if I was annoyed by anything.

But I tend to be very generous when it comes to helping, you know, up and coming talent. Like I've never been one to, um, Oh, I'm not gonna, you know, share how things work or teach, or I always feel it's, you know, if I give advice or help to somebody to become better and they end up getting a job or end up working for us or even taking my job, it's all meant to be, right? At the end of the day, I was given help by somebody at some point. And I remember when I wasn't given help. I remember there was guys who you would call and want to be an intern of or want advice from, and they would just treat you like crap. I want those names.

There was a guy at 640, and I can't remember his name, but he was a dick. And there's a bunch of guys like that. There's guys that just, you know, this industry is... Because they're threatened by you. Well, I'm a kid at that point, so you shouldn't be threatened. But here's the thing. The irony is I've been in this industry so long, and the people that deserve to have egos rarely do.

And the people that don't are the ones that think the highliest of themselves and just are dicks. And it's, it's quite ironic actually. Well, I like your method, helping those on the way up, like Will Menzies.

Cause one day Will Menzies will be a program director and we'll remember this and we'll pick up the phone and say, mastermind, we need you. Well, you know, and it's not even about that it's just if sure but that's all part of the right but if will if will then passes it on and

help somebody else then that's what matters right so right hopefully that's what sticks what will okay one more uh question came in from an fotm's take note this is the kareem so kareem is kind of a legendary figure uh particularly when it came to pandemic fridays and episodes of toast kareem is kind of a legendary figure, particularly when it came to Pandemic Fridays and episodes of Toast. Kareem writes in, I want to ask him why he didn't morph into a producer like many pioneering DJs. And then he has a follow up, which is can a 46 year old man intern for him? He goes, I realize carrying records is no longer a thing, but I just want to let people know Kareem is my neighbor. records is no longer a thing but i just want to let people know kareem is my neighbor okay kareem good guy loves dj mastermind and loves his can of cabana i'll just say i have a toque for you and i have a okay all right yeah i want to see a can of cabana ashtray so just shout out to can of cabana

they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories and kareem might be their uh their biggest client so shout out to Kareem and yeah let's answer Kareem's uh excellent question here so I guess this is ironic as well I was a producer before right so uh I would say I actually started producing when I was young you know you you learn I learned at an early age you know, and probably very early when I first got my radio show about sampling. Didn't know anything about it before. But when you go work at a radio station and the older people start pulling records out of the library

and showing you this is what they used for this. Right. And your brain, you know, I was was 14 or 15 and so my brain explodes and it's like holy smokes wait that that's how they do it and right and so you learn about sampling and then you get the bug and you know back in the day there was like the little casio keyboard you could sample something for like four seconds and you know you'd find a drum machine and you would start doing i remember in grade nine i made my, I got my ear pierced and he hated it. And so the deal, and I feel so bad about this story because in hindsight, it's like, I can't

believe I made him do this, but I wanted a drum machine and a drum machine was like 500 bucks. And this is like, this has to be like 86 or 87. Okay. That's real money in 86. Real money. It's not like my parents were loaded. Okay, that's real money in 86. Real money. It's not like my parents were loaded. They were just working class people, right?

Right. And he said he'd buy it for me as long as I took my earring out. So I was like, okay. So that was the deal. He got it for me. Didn't put the earring back in. At least not in front of him anyway. Right.

And again, as an adult now, I think back, I think, this guy spent that much money on his drum machine. And I spent hours on that thing, just making beats and seeing what was going on. And so, again, that was like 14 or 15. It continued on. I was in a group, a bunch of groups, actually. I was in a group with a kid named Logic. The group was called Exact Wisdom. We made a demo tape.

We almost got signed to Chrysalis, EMI in the States. I produced a record for Maestro that was supposed to be on a second album that didn't quite make it. There's been a lot of stuff. And, you know, there's a lot of history's been a lot of stuff and you know, there, there's, um, there's a lot of history in terms of me being a producer and a lot of people have asked me why I didn't continue. And the reason is at some point you have to figure out what direction you're going to

go. And radio is a full-time job, right? I actually went to school for radio, went to broadcast school. And that was what I was looking at as a career. And as much as I enjoy producing hip-hop, you know, being in Canada, it's like, eh, there's only so much that can happen from it or go anywhere.

And, like, you know, I wasn't planning on moving to the States or anything like that. So I said to myself, what's the one thing, you know, what are you going to focus on? Because it's either full-time producing or it's going to be full-time DJing and radio. Radio is your passion. I just, I just, actually, yeah. So to answer that question, yes.

But I also realized there was, you know, there's more viability in it, right? At least at that time. Well, here, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to crack open a burst from Great Lakes Brewery. So thank you, Great Lakes, for the fresh craft beer. Woo! By the way, if anyone's listening to this on May 12th or May 13th before 6 p.m., on Friday the 13th of May 2022, there's TMLX9 in the park, Marie Curtis Park, and we're all collecting at 6 p.m.

So if you come by and say hi and hang out with other FOTMs, be there or be square. I might just bring some sneaky cold fresh beverages for everybody. So that's May 13th, 6 p.m. All right, Mastermind, I'm hoping I can steer you into the direction. So I think this show, Pound for Pound, celebrates DJ Ron Nelson more than any other show. Okay. Right.

So DJ, luckily, has sat in the seat you're in right now. Okay. That was episode 271, by the way. And just to read the description if people want to go back to 271,

Mike chats with DJ Ron Nelson about his fantastic voyage show on CKLN, bringing the first hip- hop shows to Canada, the emergence of Maestro Fresh West and Mishy Mii, recording the Dream Warriors album in his home studio, Reggae Mania and What He Thinks of Drake. So we had a great conversation.

I was there for a lot of that. Tell me, what do you remember about DJ Ron Nelson and the fantastic voyage show on CKLN? Ron's a legend, first of all. I always considered him a mentor. So he's arguably, I mean, along with the guys we talked about at Chum FM and, it's not Chum FM, sorry, 1050 Chum and CFTR and all that. Those are all the guys that I would listen to that got me excited about radio. But Ron is when i got into hip-hop right so i discovered hip-hop in

mid 90s sorry mid 80s right i was uh down at the eaton center as a kid came outside saw a big group of people tried to see you know as a small kid you're trying to see what it is and eventually i found out it was um a group of breakdancing right you hear the music you're like oh my god and I was mesmerized by it and so I did everything in my power after that day to find out more about the music that culture how I can listen to it and I just so happened to be you know at my my public school on a weekend or something and somebody was walking around with their their giant boombox playing hip-hop I said, you know, where can I hear this? Like, where did you get this stuff? Right. And you know, my cousin who lived in Brampton at the time,

um, you know, he was obviously into hip hop and all that break dancing and all that stuff too. So I would get tapes of the music from him, but it still wasn't like I had easy access to it. And this guy told me about this radio show that was on Saturday afternoons, one to four on 88.1. And at the time, I think, you know, the station only had 50 Watts. It was, you know, Ryerson university's campus radio station, but obviously on the FM dial. Right. And, you know, I, I would have to be on my back porch with a coat hanger on. I'm going to say, dude, I should have kept these tapes. I used to record it, and yeah, it would kind of come in and out of frequency.

It was tough to get 88.1 from my West Toronto home. Yeah. I have a bunch of tapes, though. Okay. A bunch. If we digitize those, we could release them in the wild. That's what I do with this, uh, with this feed. Maybe one day, maybe one day. But, um, you know, I got introduced to his show, um, and became

infatuated with it. And, you know, eventually after who knows how long I grew enough balls to go down to, to the radio station on a Saturday to go get this guy's autograph. And, um, and yeah, like, you know, meeting, meeting like i guess he would have been considered an idol at the time right like you just you he was doing something that i was so in love with right and it's the music and he was the only one doing it right and um and you know eventually so he was also i i you know i also won a pair of tickets off his show to my very first concert, which was LL Cool J, I think in 85 or 86 at Concert Hall, Masonic Temple. Of course, 888 Young.

I just took a picture. Yes, I did. With your little bike. It came up because this is actually where you resurfaced in my universe because I just did a PPMM episode with Cam Gordon and Brother Bill on the history or I guess the origin of hip hop in Canada and I just put a tweet out there like who are

Canada's hip hop experts and subject matter experts and then I got a bunch of great responses and a bunch of people suggested you and I'm like no I got bigger plans for Mastermind okay I'm not burning them on a PPMM not that I burned Dalton higgins who was fantastic but i wanted i said i'm taking this opportunity now that mastermind is seeing these tweets and he's like oh yeah there's this toronto

mike guy who tried to get me on this show a few years ago i'm like i'm gonna i'm gonna get this guy on the show for a proper deep dive and that's what we're doing right now so interesting about you know concert hall aka masonic temple about about a decade ago maybe a bit over a decade ago um ctv bell media owned that building sure right and uh and we ended up doing an event there when i was with flow and just standing on the stage was kind of surreal because i also performed on that stage when it was concert hall right so not only was I a producer I was also a rapper and I you know I was in this rap group with DJ X and another guy named Thrust we had a group called World Domination and we performed at one of Ron's Monster Jams

wow and again as a you know probably a 16 year old or whatever I was um no maybe sorry I was probably younger because it was before I got my radio show. So I was probably like 13 or 14. Wow. And just being there, however many years later on the same stage, introducing whoever we were introducing. And I kind of, I think I mentioned that story. Well, not the whole story, but saying, Hey, I was here when I was a kid on this exact same stage. And so going to my first concert at concert hall going to numerous events um thereafter at concert hall it holds a very fond place in my memories of growing up and so just going back to ron like you know he he not only was this you know legend on the radio doing stuff that no one else was doing but he was also bringing concerts and creative stuff

like you know he had you know New York invades Toronto and they were doing battles and just amazing this guy was doing amazing stuff well before his time and doing it for in what a lot of cases felt like an unappreciated audience like there was a lot of people that hated this guy for no reason it was weird see that I don't I don't know this yeah you know it was weird but again for me it was an idolization like you know we you know just everything he was doing was cool and when he when he welcomed me in because because of these concerts and events that he was doing he had he had a street team so he had a bunch of us who you know when you think about it at time might seem weird but what he would do is he would pick us up late at night, you know, maybe like 10 at night.

And it's weird that my parents, I think about this, it's weird that my parents even let this happen. But he would pick us up and we would go and put posters up in all the intersections. So we would drive up Finch Ave, for example, both directions, right? And we would stop. So he had two groups of guys, two and two. And he would drop two guys off at Finch and Don Mills. And then we would start putting posters on each light post.

And while he dropped us off and we're doing that, he went to the next intersection, dropped those guys off. By the time he came back, we were done. We'd get in the car and we'd keep doing it. So we'd go from Young all the way up to McCowan and then go the other way all the way to islington right and then at the end of the night he'd feed us and then we would get free tickets to go to the show and that was the payoff rolling his own man this i love it this is grassroots organic uh this is how it all begins just so ahead of his time and the thinking and how to promote and again this is just that's

just one major street right like you probably did it everywhere. Right. And, um, you know, I feel for me as a young kid, it was like, Oh, I'm staying out late. I'm with the, I'm with the legend and blah, blah, blah. I get to go to the shows for free. And it was just cool. Right. And so a bit of a friendship was formed and, or I wouldn't call it friendship because he was more like a big brother. Right. So, um, you looked at him as a, as a bigger brother. And, um, again, you still idolize them because he was, he was more like a big brother, right? So you looked at him as a bigger brother and again, you still idolized him because he was still Ron doing all this cool shit, right? And yeah, I can't speak highly enough of this guy

for what he did. And sometimes it gets overshadowed. Some of these new people never heard of him or even understand what his contribution was, but it can't go untold. Listen, Mastermind, on my watch, we will not overlook the contributions of DJ Ron Nelson. This man's getting his

flowers on the reg here. Okay, I'm going to play a clip. Why not? 1990. This is just a clip from 1990, but I actually remember this, and this is a BBC show, so any UK listeners out there will know exactly what this is, but let's listen to this, and then we'll get the origin story on your name.

Hello and welcome to Mastermind. Tonight is the last of our 16 first round programs. And once again, we are in the first hall of the University of Sheffield. The university now has nearly 9,000 full-time students taking diploma and degree courses in the arts, sciences, medicine, engineering and law. And hoping to graduate to the semifinals of Mastermind by winning outright tonight are our four contenders, and they are a freelance writer from Cambridge, a civil servant from Harrogate,

a postgraduate student from Newcastle, and a local government accountant from Carlisle. And their chosen specialist subjects cover musical theatre, Christopher Isherwood, 20th century astronomy, and David Lloyd George. So may I have the first contender? Okay, so if you think Jeopardy is tough, you don't know anything. At Mastermind, that was tough.

Now, please, for the record, Paul, as I understand is your real name, where does the handle Mastermind come from? Did you say that clip was from the 80s? No, that's actually from 1990. But that show predates 1990. It does. And it's still on now because it's called Mastermind Quiz or something like that. Any UK listeners are like, yeah, we know this thing.

And most Canadian listeners are like, what the hell is that? So let me just say, because I'm officially Mastermind on Twitter, and UK people confuse me with the show daily. And it's just annoying as hell that they just assume that, because their tag, I think, is Mastermind Quiz or something like that, and people just tag me every day with the dumbest stuff. I'll bet. And so, anyhow, UK fans, I'm not the quiz show.

And so, when you follow me and you see me tweeting about Toronto stuff or whatever, or hip hop, like, you're surprised.

So, the handle, we have to go back to Ron. Okay. So, Ron is the guy who officially named me Mastermind.

And interestingly enough, so Ron, as a hip hop DJ, you know, at one point, expanded his repertoire to to play in the more housey and clubby nights but he couldn't play as ron nelson because he was so branded heavily as hip-hop and r&b right and uh i guess reggae as well so he came up with this this side name

called mastermind and he would call himself mastermind when he would dj and play house and whatever else right so that was and it didn't really stick it never you know never went anywhere so to speak but as we became friends you know he uh occasionally would put me on the air and i at the time you know as a young kid and i'm sure there's young kids like that now, who I was just a nerd about the music. I would get records. I would read the credits on the records. I would learn the real names of these artists by reading what the writers' names were. What is Chuck D's name?

Yeah, I know. I'm with you. Right. And so I would, you know, and again, you know, now I, you know, when my daughter went in, you in, Drake drops a new album, my daughter's got the whole album memorized in a day and a half. I think back, okay, I probably was like that too. And so super nerdy.

But he would quiz me on the air. We would do name that tune. He would just play a snippet of something or he'd say a line of a song. And it started from doing those postering nights, right? We would be in the car, and to pass the time, he would do this shit in the car before all the kids, and I would always win.

Right. And so he did it on the air one time. It lasted, you know, five or six minutes, just bang, bang, bang, getting everything right. And at the end of it, he's like, you know what? You're a mastermind. And so at the time, because he still used the name, I called myself Mastermind 2, which was funny. But when I got my radio show in 87, after I said it on the air, like I said, hey, it's Mastermind 2.

My PD, a gentleman named Con Yigit came to me and he said, you know what? We should get rid of the 2. Like Ron doesn't really use it and blah, blah, blah. So I asked Ron if it was okay. And Ron was like, yeah, no problem. it too like ron doesn't really use it and blah blah so i asked ron if it was okay and ron was like yeah no problem okay and so that's where mastermind came from and it's kind of stuck it's stuck for sure buddy and 1987 this is uh this is chry right that's right okay 105.5 yeah and just how did you get that like did ron put in a word or something no not at all ckln that's a whole

different university it's a whole different thing wasn't even a university back then ryerson wasn't no it was a polytechnical institute oh that's right yes absolutely um so uh now it's not even ryerson let's remember this is toronto metropolitan university so it's it's just like skydome it'll never be that um so there was a guy on my street who went to york university that's where uh chry is housed right and uh you know we're all friends obviously i'm only probably 14 at the time and he's whatever the hell call you know university age is right and you know he he says to me he actually had like a ska or a reggae show or something at that station. Like, you know, one night, hour long show kind of thing. And he said to me, hey, they're looking for somebody to do a hip hop show.

You should come. You should come. Come try and do it. And I'm like, dude, I'm 14. Like, ain't nobody giving me a radio show. And he's like, yeah, just come. And he coerced me to come. We took, you know, we took the Finch.

What's the other side? I know 39 is east. I forget what west is. But whatever it is, 36. Finch 36. So we took that all the way up to York. Sentinel, I think it was. And we went to the university.

Took me to the radio station. And this same gentleman, Con Yigit, met us. And, you know, my friend Steve, he introduced us. He said, hey, this is my friend Paul. He wants to talk to you about potentially doing a show. So I said, hey, Steve said that you're looking for someone to do a hip-hop show. He didn't even let me finish my sentence, and he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool, but do you know who Mastermind is?

Wow. Because he had heard the week before on Ron's show when i did this whole trivia thing right wow and there was a few other things that ron let me do then put and he put them on the air and and stuff you were becoming a character on ron show right i was in every hip-hop head in the city is listening to ron show correct so con heard and you know he says so do you know who mastermind is like that's me he's like no it's not i said yeah and then we talked a little bit he was blown away that it was me. And basically, like, on the spot, just offered me a show and kind of went from there.

And at the time, I don't believe, no, actually, I know for a fact that CHRY was still only closed circuit. They hadn't gotten their license yet. So this was the spring of 87. And they were on the verge of getting a license. They got their license. So they're not 105 or you can only hear it in the in the building in the camp in the campus on the campus right but they were getting their license in the fall gotcha and so um and so yeah so we

you know this was grade nine i think it was so um went on the air and i started learning how to do yeah that's incredible started learning how to do things. Yeah. That's incredible. Started learning how to do things and how it worked. And, you know, Khan was instrumental in teaching me as far as, you know, him being a program director and, you know, how I should be doing things and the way it should be done, what I was doing wrong. And so he was, he was very instrumental in that.

And it kind of just went from there. Okay. Amazing. And is this, are you making mixtapes at this time oh god no no when did the mixtapes come in uh not until the early 90s early 90s okay well you're not that far away okay uh because i mean if you ask around about you know mastermind mixtapes dj mastermind it was uh kind of like no one for music that you wouldn't find anywhere else at the time like you would get your music kind of early known for music that you wouldn't find anywhere else at the time

like you would get your music kind of early so is that because you'd leverage your uh 105.5 cred yeah with the labels to get the stuff early yeah we weren't getting anything from you know canadian labels they obviously didn't care about hip-hop and r&b and there wasn't any place for them to service this stuff anyway so they hadn't gotten into gotten into the DJ world for that type of music. And so, you know, we had to rely on whatever we could do with New York labels. And so, you know, letters would get sent out, you would push your show, people would start hearing about me. I ended up um involved with some trade magazines out of the u.s as soon as you get into trade magazine and you know you're putting your daily chart in there or whatever the record labels come find you at that point right so it's not it's not you having to um

you know beg for records anymore like you know stuff would start showing up my house like i'd have piles of stuff you know coming home from you know school at lunchtime and the mailbox would be full of records and stuff so it it went from there um but the mixtape started you know i would always make mixtapes in the sense of i'm gonna put shit together because i want to listen to it in my car or you know walking to school or whatever the case because i need to hear the music as well. Girlfriends at the time I would make stuff for, friends of mine I would make stuff for.

And it was probably like 93 or so, give or take, and places start asking you for tapes or you'd have a tape and they're like, yo, can I get a copy of it? And there was one place in particular, two black guys, a clothing store, which was at like Bloor and Bathurst-ish kind of. I think it was just, it was just. You're on the Steads. Yeah, but no, it was a bit north of there, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay. And an iconic store, you know what I mean? Like hip hop artists would always be going there. Very, you know, very exclusive type store. would always be going there um very you know very exclusive type store and they asked well actually they suggested one of the one of the owners suggested you know you should make like a bunch of tapes like make 10 tapes leave them here on consignment and we'll sell them and and we'll see how it goes just all you have to do is give me a copy for the store that's all they wanted right right right so i made 10 tapes they were gone in like the first two hours or something like that is give me a copy for the store. That's all they wanted. Right. Right? Right.

So I made 10 tapes. They were gone in like the first two hours or something like that. Sure. He called me back. He's like, yo, they're gone. I said, what? And he's like, they're gone. So that's where it started.

Okay. And off the top, we talked about number 49 was the setup because you were going to do a number 50. And 50 was going to be like a major release, I suppose. Yes. It actually was going to be a full, full on album.

So why is there no, I'm looking everywhere for 50. I can't find it. Oh, you can't? Well, I mean, it's not going to be yet.

I mean, you're not going to find it, you know, to purchase. I don't think. Tell me about 50. Um, 50 was a,

you know, it was a labor of love. Like the original idea was we were going to make the entire album, um, fully produced with the odd licensed track, right? Because I didn't want it to be like, uh, you know, one of those Chris Shepard or, or MC Mario types where you're just licensing a bunch of records and mixing everything together. or MC Mario types where you're just licensing a bunch of records and mixing everything together. So the concept in my, the original concept in my head was I was going to take Canadian artists and collaborate them with an American counterpart and we would get those songs produced. And for the most part, we were able to do some of that.

But budgets, availabilities, accessibilities, a lot of that hindered the project. And like, what's the story with universal? Like, uh, isn't there a story like universal wouldn't, wouldn't license their music because, uh,

they had a, they had their own mastermind project. Like, well, okay, so here's the deal. So, so,

so Virgin EMI, um, when the whole mixtape thing went down, they approached myself and they approached the baby blue sound crew, which was kind of like the R&B counterpart to me. They were a huge group of guys who DJed parties and did events and also made mixtapes. And arguably, they're the reason the whole raid went down because they decided to start doing CDs instead of just tapes. to start doing CDs instead of just tapes. And when people would start going into HMB requesting baby blue CDs,

the record labels, you know, the stores would hit up the record labels, go, hey, we don't have this baby blue CD. Can you sell it to us? And then the labels are like, what are you talking about? They do some investigating. They realize this is all bootleg stuff. And then that ball gets rolling on the whole, you know, piracy thing or whatever, right? So Virgin EMI approached both of us on the whole piracy thing or whatever, right? Right.

So Virgin EMI approached both of us when the mixtape thing got shut down. They were going to have me do all the hip hop, and they were going to have them do the more crossover R&B, poppier type stuff. Universal saw the play and made a chess move and went to baby blue and you know i guess offered them a sweeter deal or something and blue went and signed with them and in doing so became competing with what we were doing at virgin emi and universal being i mean they still are but at the time we're probably like the the biggest you know distributor of of hip-hop and R&B music you know what I mean so it was like Universal you had Sony you had

I don't know if Sony and BMG were merged at the time but you obviously had BMG and then you had you know Virgin EMI and Universal refused to license anything to us because obviously we were competing if you will right and so in turn that meant that we could basically only use stuff that you know could get licensed from virgin emi which limited what we could do um and and so the concept still became you know we want to create a lot of original stuff um but we weren't we weren't able again because of budgets and accessibility to artists we weren't able to 100 facilitate the idea of i'm going to take shot claire and put him on a record with whoever else like you know what i mean um but we did get

lucky you know we had a record cardi and rod digga did a song together nefarious and fife dog did a song together hey um there's i'm drawing a blank but obviously there's some other ones right so and i was very proud of that because i thought the concept the way we produced it i had you know my good friend russell peters i had him kind of play a host on the show on the on the on the album as a game show host um i think his name was his character's name was dick rider and um you know it was we we really i really put a lot of effort and and and time and and and uh and work into it to make sure that it at the very least that the the critical acclaim would be there well you know what i feel like i need to get you to energy 108 because i mean it sounds like what

you're trying to be there is kind of what you you know, Chris Shepard, for example. Like, he'd have his series of, like, you know, dance mixes and stuff. And it sounds like this was the attempt at a mastermind franchise. That was their idea. I never pursued a record deal, right? I was quite happy. Being a radio guy. Yeah, I was doing, you you know i was doing my my

my hip-hop show at energy right and then um okay because of you know my passion for it it morphed into doing weekends as well as a swing jock and eventually it turned into me doing the evening show okay so we so so last we left you in radio you were at york university but you make a stop i believe you make a stop at CKLN before you get. And you're doing that with X, right? Yeah. Okay. So I want to know, how do you get the gig at Energy 108?

Because then again, this is Scott Turner's there at the time, right? Right. Shout out to Scott Turner. How do you get that gig? So I left CHRY in 91. And me and X obviously were close. he's like you know he's like a brother to me now and right at the time uh he he asked me hey just come be a part of of uh the power move which was the show that he created after ron blessed him with the time slot right so he kind

of as well was a a mentee of ron nelson and right uh took over that time slot so he was doing the power move asked me to join him, which I did. And while I was doing that, I was going to school for broadcasting. And that whole time I would, you know, this is way before, I think it's way before email. I would either call or write letters. Yeah, this is before email. Yeah, I would either call or write letters to the quote unquote,

I guess he was the program director before Scott got there. He might have been the GM. But this guy named Con Chung, who was like one of the head honchos at Energy Radio. And they had, I think they had a reggae show, I think. And so I would hit this guy, and I'm like, listen, if you have a reggae show, and I know the reggae show was because that was what he enjoyed, right? But I said, if you have a reggae show, you should have a hip hop show. Right.

And I literally would call this guy, you know, every third day or something like that. So either he, you know, admired my persistence or he got so fed up with me that he was like, just give this guy a fucking show. with me he was like just give this guy a fucking show but what happened was at some point um and i this scott was there at the time but at some point uh they they put out the you know the the bat signal that they want they're looking for someone to do a hip-hop show for energy radio or energy went away at the time it was called right so i put a demo together again i was still in college i went to seneca and school of you know communication arts sure um i put a demo together again. I was still in college. Uh, I went to Seneca and school of, you know, communication arts. Um, I put my demo together and my resume and I put it in. And if, you know, years later I found out that X also, you know, him and Ron put a demo in and whatnot. And who knows who else did, I'm sure I'm not the only one that applied for this thing,

but thankfully and luckily I was the one that got selected. Wow. You know, I vividly remember when I got the call from Scott and hung up and start screaming and dancing because I was so excited. And, you know, the next day I drove to X's house to tell him, hey, you know, I got the gig and I'm going to be leaving, you know, leaving the show and blah blah blah and um you know the great thing at the time you know scott was super super supportive he really wanted this show to be successful and so we talked about it initially was going to be one hour and i said you know all the other shows are three hours like you can't you can't be a station with the most profile and then put the shortest hip-hop show and you got to at least make it two hours. And he agreed. And so it initially started on Saturday afternoons from 5 to 7. And the cool thing about that time was Saturdays was basically, if you were a fan of hip-hop, you were getting a full fix of it

because Adrian X and his crew, they were on from 1 to 4. Then I would be on from one to four then i would be on from five to seven and then we still had uh the master plan which was ciut's hip-hop show with power and dts and um and you know john bronski and those guys and their show was on i think from like 8 30 to 10 or something like that or maybe 8 8 to 11 or something i don't remember exactly right but basically if you like hip-hop on a Saturday, you could basically get it from 1 to at least 10 o'clock or something like that, which was amazing, right?

Okay, so, and again, Energy 108 based in Burlington, but we get it here. Like, that's a signal we get here, at least in the West End. I don't know what it's like in the East End. Oh, it went pretty far, yeah. Okay, I know they have a good signal. And I just got to ask about the late, great Don Burns.

He's there at the time? Or has he come later? No, absolutely. Dr. Trance. Dr. Trance, yeah. Yeah, no, he was there. Yeah, for sure. Okay, because I've done

a deep dive into the history of CFNY, and both Scott Turner and Don Burns are featured in that particular episode. That was 1021, where I get, you know,

1050 is tomorrow. Interestingly enough, with CFNY, I remember, you know, way before the, you know, high school and stuff, I remember listening to... Can I guess? Well, it would have been Deadly Headly. Deadly Headly, Jones.

But whatever, whoever it was, it was on a Saturday night, and every now and then, they would play The Odd. Like, I'm talking every now and then, they would play the odd. Like, I'm talking every now and then, you'd hear the odd, you know, hip-hop song. But, you know, like, they would play, you know, Boogie Boys, Fly Girl, you know, mixing it out of

whatever that other song that sampled the drum beat was, or I forget, you know, Let's Go All the Way, Sly Fox or whatever it was? Let's Go All the Way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Let's Go All the Way, Sly Fox. Yep, that's right. go all the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go all the way. Sly Fox. Yep. That's right.

So they sampled the Boogie Boys record. So that was an easy mix for whoever was mixing. And I would be babysitting and listening to them, you know, this one show, which was on Saturday nights or whatever. But, you know, it was another show. I think it was CKMW or something. It was like 790.

And they had like a hip hop show. Not really a hip hop show, but they would play like. But you had to know where to find all this right absolutely and i will say about deadly real quick for listeners is that i'm trying to get deadly headly on toronto mike kate wheeler who's an fotm long time newscaster at well she was at city tv then ctv long time but she used to work at the club at cn tower what was the club at cn tower called 360 maybe that was, but she used to work with all the DJs, like, you know, Chris Shepard and Deadly Headly and stuff,

and booked her for that. Anyway, she's trying, she is working with me to get Deadly Headly on the program. That's just a side note for the FOTMs paying attention, but you're at Energy 108. You did briefly mention the name Russell Peters, so can I ask just, like, maybe in a nutshell, how

do you become buds of Russell Peters, and can I ask just like, like maybe in a nutshell, how do you become buds of Russell Peters and how do you kind of connect with him and bring them into your Energy 108 show? So him and my cousin, the same one I was saying that's in Brampton, they went to high school together and my cousin and his buddies, a couple of his buddies started a clothing line, a hip hop clothing line. It was called DJ Joe or something something like that they opened a little kiosk in bramley city center and i had a girlfriend who worked for them at the kiosk so i went to go visit her one day we're bramley city center and at the time russell was already a fan of me for everything i was doing right because russell was a dj already hip-hop head oh absolutely i know it's because

starting from scratch was here yeah and he's do he does a lot of stuff with uh with russell peters yeah absolutely but he says russell peters big hip-hop head no for sure but russell's more than just a hip-hop head he's just a music you know connoisseur of all things but back then he was a dj and he would play um indian parties right and indian parties back then had to be during the day because parents wouldn't let their girls out at night so these guys would actually from and I've never went to them, but this is what I was told after, they would rent the clubs during the day and everybody would skip school, go to these parties during the day. Makes so much sense.

I have read about this, but yeah, it makes so much sense. And then they'd be home before school was up and no one was the wiser. So Russell would play a lot of those parties. So obviously him being a fan of mine from what i was doing because i was already on the radio at this point for at least because we met in like 88 or 89 so i was at least on the radio for one to two years already sure so um he just happened to be at bramley city center at the time my he rolled up to the kiosk. My cousin was there. He introduced us and, you know, we,

we hit it off and we kept talking and, um, you know, just, you know, I mean, how did two people become friends? We just became friends and,

uh, we've stayed friends and, you know, he's like one of my brothers now. And, uh, and so successful. Like there's,

I mean, you're successful. You're, you're a guy we look at, look at mastermind, but you know, Russell Peters. No, it's like, it's a different kind of success. That's a whole, that's a different level, right? That's a different T4, not even a T4 at that point, but a different tax bracket.

Absolutely. And he earned it, right? Like, you know, but it was funny. Like you, we were there when, you know, he couldn't rub two quarters together and we would tell him, we'd be like, dude, you're going to be a fucking star man. But you helped him out, man. You, you would put him on the air right at energy 108 so what happened was he he would come by once or twice and we would come by he'd jump you know i'd put him on right like i

throw a bit to him or we talk or whatever and he just we just had so much fun and it was obviously there was a chemistry because we're already buddies yeah and he And he just said, I'm going to keep coming. And it's not like I'm going to say, don't come, right? Like he's my boy. No, it's good content too, right? Yeah. He's good.

And we did the show together for easily like three or four years, if not longer. Wow. And. You know what this reminds me of? Like back in the day, Christopher Ward had a show

and he would put on a very young Mike Myers, speaking of Scarborough, Mike Myers would come on and do a wayne campbell character on this show okay like way before snl and it's sort of that deal you know you get your start kind of that's sort of like you were to russell peters as uh chris ward was to mike myers right i mean there are a lot of people who obviously remember russell from my show but I mean Russell you know was doing comedy you know from I think the late 80s or early 90s or something like that so he was doing his thing he just obviously didn't you know become who he is until a little while later but he was always doing that whole stand-up circuit and doing all those type of things right what would

be called that ethnic humor what is the nomenclature? Is this cultural humor? I don't know. I mean, sure, he's got a cultural aspect to his humor, but it's obviously bigger than that now. But yeah, he definitely was one of the pioneers of that kind of humor, I guess. Okay. And I know I'm jumping around a little bit here,

but I did mention DJ starting from scratch because he still does stuff with Russell Peters. And you did, what is it, the Wu-Tang Clan concert. Can you give me a little taste of what the heck you guys were doing? I guess you had, were you remixing a Wu-Tang Clan concert? No, so we got hired to DJ because anytime there's a concert, you got to play music before the show actually happens. Right. And promoters will try to, you know, hire the biggest name DJs they can because that helps with, you know, some of the

attraction. Of course, everybody's coming for the headline or whoever's performing. Right. But it doesn't hurt to have a pretty decent name, you know, DJ as an opener, if you will. Right. And these promoters said, hey, we're going to hire both you guys, and we're going to get you guys to spin on four turntables, play at the same time, and just DJ. And I don't remember a lot of it, but there is a tape of us playing that's floated around the interverse here. And I've yet to hear it but i've also heard

people who were there that night just say the most you know it was like one of the most incredible things they'd ever seen and again i don't you know it's not like me and and and mark or scratch it if you will you know practice anything we showed up that night and he's an incredible dj like in terms of blending and and just ideas and he's such an incredible dj it's it's really intimidating it doesn't matter how good you are like when you play with him it's super intimidating because you're like i don't want to be the guy who's blends off or you know does something wrong when you're you know regardless respect for him yeah regardless of of you know how good i am or how good people think i am it's like you know as a peer you're like yeah this guy's fucking dope you know what i mean so um a lot of people a lot of people talk about that

night and you know and half of it is for what me and and scratch did and obviously the bulk of it is because of you know the where was it it was uh it was in scarborough st claire and dan ford or something i forget the rotunda no it wasn't rotunda um i forget the name there's a flyer there's a flyer too that's that's out there the flyer vault somewhere i got that book somewhere i'll see if he's got it there yeah i know i know i have it somewhere um and people and people like every, you know, someone's either DMing me about getting my tapes or they're sending me some old flyer or something like that. Or their like great episode on the BBC last night.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a completely different fan base. Right. But yeah, that was a good time that Wu-Tang show. Oh, man, amazing. Okay, so again, before I get you out of energy when I wait, I know there's a Calgary, I'm just kidding, a trip to Calgary. It's it's eight fucking years okay so it's quite the trip but i gotta ask

you maybe because the new documentary's out and we're kind of looking back now but can you give some love if you don't mind uh to play the record oh wow play the eugene and his family it is um you know it is a a legacy business as far as djing and dj culture in in this city uh you know 357 a young street back of a little variety store um one of the greatest things to ever happen to this city on so many levels. And yeah, you did mention the documentary, which I don't think it's out yet, but I've seen that trailer has been teasing me for months now. It's like, where is this thing?

I want to see it. It's apparently they just got their distribution deal. So it is, it is coming. Um, and it's going to be really exciting for people. Are you in the dock? I am.

Okay. I mean, that's a lot of people are in, a lot of people are in the dock. Um, you know, a lot of the names that you mentioned are all in the dock and, um,

it's, uh, it's, it's,. And so much of it is super nostalgic for people who either shopped there or in some way had a relationship with any of the people that work there. And it's a good time. But I can't speak more highly of Eugene more so than anything, right? Like Eugene himself, he's such a sweet, kind soul. And it's great that he's getting his flowers in, in something like this documentary. And I'm,

I'm excited for it. Like I'm, I'm only involved in it from the fact that I was the first guy to say, yeah, I'll be involved in it. And everybody snowballed from there. But, and I think I was the first person they,

they actually interviewed, but I have no other involvement in terms of like you know behind the scenes producing you're not producing this thing you're just one of the talking heads yeah and i and um i i you know i'm excited for people to see it and and again get eugenia's flowers well it's exciting to know that it's got its distribution deal and we're all going to get to see this thing soon which is awesome all right my friend my friend, tough question here. I'll get your daughter to close her ears. I don't know what this will tell us, but why does Energy 108 fire the great mastermind? Ah, I'm going to say that it was because of a program director who was more in his own ego

than he cared about the station. And it wasn't Scott, right? I want the name here. I'm going to write it down here because I'm going to kick him in the shins. Oh, you want? It was Dean Sinclair. Dean Sinclair. Now I've got to put him on my shit list.

I really don't, you know, I mean, obviously he was on my shit list for a long time, but I don't care now because of. I really don't, you know, I mean, obviously he was on my shit list for a long time, but I don't care now because of what I've achieved beyond, you know, him. But, you know, it was funny when he came to the radio station, like, so Chorus ended up buying energy, right? And they brought him in because apparently, and again, this is just me basing it off of memory, he was known for coming in and not caring about firing half the staff and changing the place up, and they wanted a guy who would come in

and just clean house if need be and be a scary guy, if you will. That's a hit man. Right. So he came in. Like Silvio in The Pranos, you's here he came in with this vision of changing what energy was which was you know a yes it was a um a mainstream chr but it also had an edge to it in terms of they didn't just go full-on top 40 right like like scott in hindsight was super ahead of his time in terms of you know

the artist that he would find like you know he was playing spice girls before anybody even knew what it was and he was playing you know other artists and i'm not even talking about the clubby stuff right like i'm just talking about hey can i plug episode 703 so if people want to go back so scott turner came over here in the summer of 2020. It was August 10th, actually. Scott Turner came over. And all we did, no joke, my friend, we did, how long was this thing? We did a couple of hours on the history of Energy 108. And there's so, you mean it's an hour and 47 minutes.

Okay. So if you're curious about the deep, you know, if you're curious about the history of Energy 108, Scott Turner just lets it, he had great, like, imaging, what do you call those, imaging clips? Like sweepers and stuff? Yeah, all of that is in this hour and 47 minutes. So just let

you know, if anyone's curious about Energy 108, go to episode 703 of Toronto Mic'd. Alright. So, they brought in this guy and, you know, he's supposed to be this scary dude. And on one hand,

you want to say, oh, you know, he did some things cool. But on the other hand, it's like he had this vision like he was going to turn us into, you know, Chum FM's direct competitor. Right. And gonna turn us into you know chum fm's direct competitor right and

and in doing so um you know i think at the end of it all like even after i was gone when they they then i think moved the the studios to hamilton and and whatnot like they had they had the thing in the shitter like it was like a zero share or some stupid shit and when you know when when scott was in charge or before these guys took over you know it was like a zero share or some stupid shit. And when, you know, when, when Scott was in charge or before these guys took over, you know, it was a, a decent performing radio station. So frustrating,

man. Yeah. So, um, it happened that, you know, I got this, I got my record deal,

right. Which was in like 99 or something like that. I got my record deal. And I, I mean, as soon as, even before I signed the paper, I went to go talk to him.

I said, Hey, just so you know, uh, I'm about to sign a record deal. I'm still as soon as even before i signed the paper i went to go talk to him i said hey just so you know uh i'm about to sign a record deal i'm still gonna do my show i'm still gonna you know do that's gonna give you a higher profile which will make more people tune into your so the interesting thing about it was you know when you looked at a station like kiss yeah like they would do everything to make their jocks superstars right you know posters and billboards and and just on air make them sound bigger than life because they the programmers over there understood the concept make their jocks superstars, right? You know, posters and billboards and just on air, make them sound bigger than life because they, the programmers over there understood the concept of

the bigger stars you have, regardless of if eventually you have to pay them better, they're going to help your radio station perform better. Right. Right. And if you develop them, then hopefully there'll be some sort of, you know, relationship. And unless another radio station decides to try and poach them with more money right you should be able to retain them and have a good relationship right our guy you know goes under the concept of no one's bigger than the radio station which i understand but he also wasn't one to support his jocks and turn them into stars, right? It was like this weird, this weird thing. And, you know, this is at least my interpretation back then.

So you think he doesn't like the fact you're now making a number 50 there? Like he doesn't want you to be a, I, based on, you know, his poker face when I told him, you could tell that this kind of was bugging him that, Oh my God, this guy's about to, you know, in my mind I was like, so so this is going to help you like you're going to have a guy that's going to i'm going to shoot music videos i'm going to right i'm going to tour i'm going to do things that are going to raise the profile of me and i'm with you i'm on your team you know what i mean so i remember before it all happened though he took my show away away. Like I had a, I had a hip hop show.

It was on at midnight on a Monday and a Tuesday. Didn't bother anybody. And he yanked it away. It's at one point, took it off the air. And obviously they had a tremendous amount of negative feedback and stuff. And I think after a month or so, and I was still doing the evening show, but after a month or so, I came to him and I was like, I'm unhappy. Like, you know, you got, like, I barely like you know you got like i barely you know i did that show for free for the first year and and even in my sixth or seventh year it wasn't like i was getting rich off that i was everything you know it was just it was something that i did for passion right i loved it and i had a huge audience i believed you know

what i mean the fan base of that show told him i was unhappy you know i guess he caved and said okay no problem we'll bring it back and the show came back but i remember that you know emi wanted me to go tour with choclair to support the album and the single and the video and all that stuff and obviously i have vacation time with my job and so i went to my boss and I was like, here's the deal. You know, they want me to go on tour. You know, I'm going to be getting press across the country and rah, rah, rah. So is it cool if I can take three weeks off? And he got pissed.

He did not like that and only authorized two weeks. And so I had to miss the first leg of the tour and join them i think in calgary and then we did the rest of the west and then we came back and did the east and everything but i like literally the day i got back like when my vacation was up i was supposed to get back was the day they fired me and so i remember scott calling me while i was still the day before when i was still in you know on on tour or whatever yeah and he was like yeah they need to see you uh tomorrow morning or blah blah whatever it was you know that that one phone call you get actually you wouldn't know but the

phone call you get or the you know i've been fired just not from radio right well they give you the call and they ask you to come in at the most asinine time that has nothing to do with when you're supposed to be there. And you know that it's it's walking paper time. So, right. You know, like when I got fired from flow was like a text at, you know, eight o'clock at night is like, hey, can you come to the station at 10 in the morning? Right. And it's like, oh, shit, I know what this means.

And so they fired me like the day after i got back uh very unceremoniously and um and yeah and it just you know there's nothing that dean sinclair can ever say to me now to tell me that it had anything to do with performing badly not you know not doing well at my show you know fan base and he didn't go up to him and say hey i demand a raise i'm a big fucking deal now let's talk that i can remember i don't remember any of that you know what i mean like and i'm sure don't get me wrong i'm sure as a young guy i i had an ego and i did egotistical things and stuff but not to the point where like there was other people you know there that i did not get along with like we butted heads or whatever. And I mean, that happens everywhere. But I hope I've grown and learned from all that. But definitely if it was anything to do with that,

it was never made aware to me because it was just, hey, we're going in a different direction. It wasn't fired with cause kind of thing. So Mr. Mastermind, I'm calling you Mr. Mastermind now. What year are we looking at here? Because I'm trying to line up the times.

Okay, so here's the thing. So 87 and 91 was CHRY, 105.5. Okay. 91 to 94 was CKLN. Okay. Energy was 94 to 2001. Okay, so pause right there. Yeah.

Because I know my Toronto radio history, okay? I've had Farley Flex on the program. I've had Mishimi over here. We have talked about Canada's first black radio station. Flow 93.5. Right. That launches, what is that, 01? February of 2001.

2001, February. So actually it was the end of 2000 that I left energy. You left energy. Yeah. So if you think about it, the stars are aligning. I guess I'm curious, why do you have to go to Calgary for eight years if we've now got flow 93.5 and they should be begging you to come over? So that was supposed to happen.

So I had, so Milestone, the company that owned flow right they had been applying for a a signal for a decade right dude i know this history is wild because it's like they gave it to the country music they gave it to cbc they gave it to the country music station but if the crtc actually had any balls and gave gave a black music radio station a signal that's stronger than 1,000 watts, the landscape in this city would change overnight. Overnight. I don't care what anybody says. There's not a programmer that can tell me in 2022 that a properly programmed black music station wouldn't be top five in this city.

Okay, but Flow 93.5, it launches is a big fucking signal. It's an okay signal. Okay, this is the stuff I don't know as a non-radio guy. I felt like, I mean... It reaches places, but we're not talking CN Tower 100,000 watts. Yeah, we're not talking Q107 here.

Yeah, right. Right. But the two shittiest signals that have ever come out of this country, or sorry, out of this city, they went to Flo and they went to G. The two black stations. Yeah, the G, I have trouble getting G. Why? Why you ask me?

You know what I mean? Like someone explain that shit to me. Right. Like they can't, right? Every other station's got a pretty decent signal. And that 92.5, which I know that's what Milestone wanted there. I know that 92.5, they went to the country station, KISS. Yeah.

So the C-KISS. So no, it was a different company before Rogers Bar. Sure, but yeah, but C-KISS. And that's a monster fucking signal, but it was 93.5 that Flo ends up being. And people keep thinking that a country station will work in Toronto and it's like, are you stupid? Well, don't tell my heart.

Mike, you're breaking heart. Hey, my mom had the mug, okay? I just, you know, my mom had the hug. I remember their campaign. Mocha was giving out those mugs. Well, he was on the street team, but you got kissed and mugged, right? So they had mugs with kisses on it. Oh, yeah, mugs and kisses.

And they had Hershey's Kisses in the mug. That was a great campaign. They were dope. Like, they had great marketing, especially when Rogers took over. And they had Garth Brooks, and then Shania Twain shows up. They had a good timing. Not your cup of tea. Definitely not my cup of tea.

But shout out to my mom, who did enjoy her kiss for a while. Okay, so you go to Calgary for eight months. Hold on, hold on. So Milestone was trying to get this license. They could never get it. They finally team up with Standard Radio, so Gary Slate's company company right and i guess alan slate with the time and they became a minority stakeholder in milestone but they also brought with them the

radio experience i guess that the crtc needed to feel if you know that it was real i don't know what the reasoning was but anyway it wasn't until they joined that it was real i don't know what the reasoning was but anyway it wasn't until they joined that it became real and they got their license right right so they they hired um uh a program director from the states woman named michelle price okay keep going yeah i've heard this name and uh i believe farley was involved from day one with he was like on their board and he also uh at the time was the music director he was becoming the music director or something right and they were talking to me like i had gone in to go see gary slate and you know he wanted he pitched me writing a letter in

support because you know i had this high profile you know hip-hop show on on energy radio and my name would carry weight and blah blah and i you know for me it's more about the culture than it was about who i work for whatever it's like i i fought for you know black music right everywhere i went because i just loved the music and i supported the culture. And so I had no problem doing that. And, you know, those guys would always tell you, you know, if and when this happens, you know, we'll find, we'll find something for you. You'll be involved, blah, blah, blah. Nothing was ever promised, but there was always this, you know, you're going to get the right, you're going to get the right people for the job, if you will. Right. And when they got the license and uh it was you know everybody knew

that a station was coming they reached out to me if i'm not mistaken it either went through gary or went directly to michelle price and they reached out and i was still at energy at the time and so we started having these conversations about potential you know what would the potential be of me coming to where they are because that's a step up uh going from uh energy to flow 93.5 i don't know if it's a step up because i was already doing evenings i was doing you know i was a swing even it's not toronto station like it's kind of but not really like it's still that's all behind the scenes stuff right like nobody knows that it's a burlington station people just you know the same way you know nobody knows that z103 is an orangeville station right they just hear it in toronto and think it's a toronto yeah the their stick is in orangeville they're an

orangeville radio station right so you know nobody knows that type of shit so i mean cfny is a brampton station if we're going by the canadian can and whatever Clarence or whatever it is. So, um, I started having these conversations, you know, with Michelle press, she brings me in, shows me the space,

you know, unveils the name before anybody knows it shows me the name. And I didn't quite like the name and I don't have a good poker face. So I, I know she saw that, but, um, regardless,

we had a conversation. She said to me, just based off of my experience my value what i brought to the table she's like look if you want the morning show you got the morning show you want the afternoon show you got the afternoon show and i remember saying well who's and i had no music director experience right but and i quite actually didn't know what the hell music director actually did but you understood that you were the person that oversaw the music and so i said well who's the md and they said far then i'm like farley like you know why why farley and i know he didn't like that so who knows what happened

after our little conversation and stuff but we kept having dialogue like right you know she kept saying that she wants me there right and then the whole thing happened with energy where they're, you know, they're letting me go. Right. And so they're not launching until February of 2001. I think we parted ways with energy in November of 2000. Yeah. in November of 2000. And I called her before I signed my, whatever you call it, my severance package or whatever.

Severance, yeah. And I said, hey, look, I'm going to sign this thing, but there's a no compete clause that carries over until past when you guys are launching. And so I want to make sure that that's not going to be a problem because if you want me there

and you want me to be there when you launch, then I'm not going to sign this and we can sign the deal right now and I'll be part of your thing. Right. She was like, no, man, why would I ever stop you from getting your money or whatever? And I'm like, okay okay so i'm gonna sign

this thing and then she's like listen as soon as your your no compete clause is up you're on here you know you tell me what you want to do excuse me and you're on here yeah and i was like okay cool yeah so i signed my papers yeah you know november goes by december goes by january i'm like let me reach out it's been two months let me let me reach out and touch base because i know we're getting close to to launch time so i call her up and uh hey michelle what's going on it's uh it's paul it's mastermind who oh man literally that's what she i go i said what she goes who is this she who'd you yeah and i said mastermind we've been talking and blah blah like

i don't know why i had to reintroduce myself to this woman and she literally acted like we didn't know each other wow and um that phone call she basically said yeah you know what we've already hired everybody we don't uh we don't have space for you blah blah blah and so at that point i called up gary slade because i was i was understandably upset right and gary kind of was like i can't you know we don't really run the place we're partners but those guys call all the shots and i'm like really you don't fucking have no influence on on this radio station at all you you i mean i what I mean? I know who you are. I know how, I've heard about you

and I know how you operate. You're trying to tell me you have no influence? Yeah, speaking of Q107. That was his baby. That was his baby. No, no, no. It was 99.9.

Yeah, but I think Q, Q was Slate's baby. Really? I think so. Oh. I didn't even, I didn't know he, I didn't know he had anything

to do with Q107. No, I have, you keep telling your story and I'll go confirm this in the, the Google machine, but that's my memory of it. Because they own, they owned 1010 and mixed 99.9. Anyway, whatever. So I start having these conversations with Gary Slate and, you know, they're not going anywhere.

And obviously I'm not going to have, have any conversation with Michelle price cause she clearly doesn't know who I am. And so they launched this radio station. Um, you know, they, they hired some guys for their morning show. I forget who they were. Right. They literally fired them after two days or something. Cause just the feed, the, the, the, the public feedback was so bad or something. The show was so terrible. You don't remember the name of this show not at all wow no okay um and i know x left kiss to go there at some point so alan joins q107 this is important stuff here in 1977 uh

alan slate was president and ceo so yeah gary was like that. He was his, yeah, like kind of his baby. He was the PD at some point? Yeah. Yep. Before he became vice president and general manager in 1982, he was the account executive and program director. So yeah. Yeah.

I was following Ron around those days. I didn't care anything about Q107. Yeah. You were watching Sesame Street back in those days, man. By the way, you only got like i think maybe two years on me is what i'm older or younger you're two years older i know you look two years younger but i think you got you're two years older than me that's so nice of you i know you're full of shit but okay um so okay you have to go so so how do you end up in Calgary? Hold on. We're not finished though, right? So I am not a fan of how this radio station got put on the air in terms of how it was sounding and everything.

Like I'm such a radio nerd that I am listening the way I would. Like I'm such a fan of like Hot 97 in New York and other stations like that. It's like that's the type of station i wanted to sound like right in toronto that's what we've been waiting for and that's not what we got in my opinion right and so and my opinion is based strictly on being a radio nerd like so again if you're a fan of flow from back then and you thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened that i'm not contradicting your opinion i'm just saying well my well you were born blind.

You've been to New York. You've heard alternatives. Right. And so I went to see a guy by the name of JJ who was the program director at Mix99.9. And I was recommended to him from Karen Steele who, when we were at Energy, she was our promotions director.

And so we stayed friends, and she ended up going back to Mix to be like the APD, or maybe she became the PD, and JJ might have become the GM or something. But anyway, she suggested I go talk to him about Gary, because him and Gary obviously had to work closely together, because Gary owned Mix 99. Yeah. So I went to go see him. We're having a conversation. And his suggestion, he's like, do a monitor.

And I'm like, I don't know what a monitor is. He's like, you listen to the radio station for, you know, 6 to 12 hours. And you make notes on everything you hear. And you critique it. You criticize it. You say what you would do differently. It's called a monitor. critique it you criticize it you you say what you would do differently it's called a monitor so the next day me and a buddy of mine this guy named will strickland who were we were close friends

at the time um we're still friends but you know back then we were super close yeah and we did a monitor of of flow literally minute per minute monitor of everything that came out of speakers on this radio station yeah and you know, critiqued complimented, broke it all down and finished this thing and FedExed it to Gary. Soon as it was done. Yeah. FedEx dropped it off at 9. AM.

He called me at nine Oh two and said, I need you to come in. Yeah. And I was like, okay. And so it fucking worked. Click got come in. Yeah. And I was like, okay. And so it fucking worked, got his attention. Yeah. And clearly he saw that I'm not just some guy who spins records

or I actually know something, or at least there's something there. And I didn't know at the time, but he was sourcing a new license in Calgary. And they had been doing research that you know what was missing in that market and in 2001 I think it was you know Calgary probably had five radio stations right they it wasn't a lot in you know Toronto had and four country music stations right you know what I mean and and the other two were like like hard rock sure all rock yeah you know and one pop station oh yeah classic rock for sure yeah and a hot ac so right they did research

and the research came back telling them that you know there's a huge hunger for a hip-hop station in calgary wow it's like okay and so that's all he focused on like i fully believe now that if he really really wanted me at flow he could have made that call he could have made that happen but i honestly in calgary he wanted me to work for him in calgary and so between um the feb of 2001 yeah to probably the end of that year i just kept talking to him about about um flaws like why the fuck would I move to Calgary I don't want to move to Calgary you're a Toronto guy

yeah like I don't belong in Calgary I belong on Flo right and uh you know it would always fall on deaf ears and he would just keep pushing

Calgary Calgary Calgary and at some point it's like you know you gotta get a job because you have to take care of your family and stuff my kids are young you know

you know eventually your wife's going to be like dude you can't just fuck around you gotta start making money yeah get a job mastermind that's what she said and so basically it was all about um it all became about calgary and then it became about you know whatever the negotiations were going to be and meeting the uh the general manager and the program director, the program director, a gentleman named, uh, Bob Harris, who's one of the sweetest, nicest guys I ever, uh, ever had the opportunity to work for. The sad thing about it was, you know, he's, he was a Toronto guy who moved to Calgary for a long time. And, you know, before he hired everybody, you know, he had already put the plan in motion to move back,

before he hired everybody, you know, he had already put the plan in motion to move back, back over here to Toronto. And we didn't know about it until, you know, until after we moved and all that shit, I, that might've changed,

changed what I did, but, um, right. You know, it just, it just ended up that, you know,

we, and it was a hard sell to my wife too. Like I'm telling my wife, you know, she's Toronto gal too. Yeah. She's from here. She's from Saga. And, uh, you know, born toronto gal too yeah she's from here she's from saga and uh you know born and raised and it's like shout out to mississauga

home home of palma pasta do you guys eat do you guys eat lasagna absolutely do i get to go home with some yes you're going home with a frozen yeah i'm gonna fill up that box yeah nisha knows all right all right you're getting the lasagna i guess that's what we're having for dinner yeah uh yeah no joke. Make sure you don't leave without it here. And also, I did mention sticker you earlier, but there's a Toronto Mike sticker on top of the Palma pasta. All right.

I want to make sure you take that with you. And last but not least, again, I got to get you to flow. We're almost there. This is very exciting. See, I told you I could talk forever. No, it's okay. You were like, you're not going to fill the time. And I was like, listen, trust me, I can fill the time. Now you're cutting me short. I don't I could talk forever. No, it's okay. You were like, you're not going to fill the time. And I was like, listen, trust me.

I can fill the time. Now you're cutting me short. Don't think I said that. But I will tell you just, this is important. I'm going to ask Nisha. It's okay. I know it's your daughter, Nisha. Do you like this shirt on me?

Okay. She likes this shirt on me. Okay. This is Dewar. Okay. Dewar. Not only do they make the world's most comfortable pants and shorts. Okay.

I'm wearing Dewar pants right now. But they make amazing shirts. Like, it's to color and everything i want to know who your sales rep is because you have like 18 you have 18 sponsors dude six sponsors and i'm the sales guy in all six that's no joke it's quite the hustle man this is important fotms you can save 15 on doer pants and shorts and shirts and i swear i, this is no joke. I'm wearing all Dewar stuff, the TMLX9 tomorrow. So comfortable, so rugged, I can bike in this stuff. It's just amazing.

My style's been kicked up enough. This is real. Real deal. He's got Dewar clothes on. That's no joke. He's got a sticker on his forehead. He's got his beer right in his hand. I am drinking.

I practice what I preach. I can see the empty plate of pasta or lasagna on the other side. I was wolfing it down when you knocked on the door there. This guy, this guy has no... And he probably smoked a joint from, where is it again?

Canna Cabana, brother. Yeah, from Canna Cabana. Canna Cabana. Absolutely, you got your ashtray there. So the promo code to save 15% at Dewar, D-U-E-R. And you can do it online, Dewar.ca,

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and you can thank me later. It's just amazing. Okay, so you're in Calgary for eight years. Is this where all your kids are born? No, no, no. My kids are born here. Okay, my math skills are Calgary for eight years. Is this where all your kids are born? No, no, no. My kids are born here. Okay, my math skills are not my strongest here. Please.

Son was born in 95. My daughter was born in 99. We didn't move until the summer of 02. The irony of that is it was a hard sell to my wife, right? She's leaving her family. We're going to a city that we have no family in. And you got to have a pickup truck if you move there. Oh, man, listen.

My wife's from Edmonton, okay? And she tells me like the land of pickup trucks. I was not excited about going, but I knew I had no alternative if I wanted to stay in radio at the time, right? And the whole pitch to me was, you're going there to launch a hip hop station. And my ego said to me, okay, I'm going to go there and I'm going to put a, a show, a show on the, a station on the air. That's going to be heads and shoulders above the radio station that wouldn't hire me in my hometown flow. Yes. Right. Right. So I,

I'm going to go there and do, do it the way it should be done kind of thing. Right. Uh, and so the summer of Oh 2002, they came. We packed up our house. They took all of our stuff. I think we sold our house. And it's caravan a weekend that we're going to move, and it snows in Calgary. And my wife lost her shit. She said if they didn't take all our stuff already, the deal would have been off.

It even snows in the summer like that. When we got there, our stuff didn't even summer like that we we had to when we got there our stuff didn't even show up and we had to get all of their winter gear because of school still in fucking august wow and and it was just unbelievable and also felt like i you know i have a lot of close friends in calgary from my time there but I felt like I went back in time in terms of the music, the culture, just my first, you know, the racism was crazy too. The first, you know, the first week I was there, I went with my, my APD to a venue, a restaurant that was a sponsor of the radio stations. They, you know, and you know know we get there and they're like yeah you're good but he's not dressed what yeah he's like you know wrong shoes or whatever they're trained how to

you know avoid letting certain people in there you say if i were dressed in the exact same manner you think they would have let me in absolutely 1000 and so you know it was it was just this just this thing about the place that just didn't sit right with me but it so, you know, it was, it was just this, just this thing about the place that just didn't sit right with me, but it was whatever, you know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm there, I got to make it work, whatever. The thing that sucked is when, when we, okay, so a few things actually happened. So before we even moved, you know, the standard, um um had a rock station there so we our station is not even on the air yet they have a rock station cj92 and chorus has a radio station i think it was called power 107 or something okay and and it was like a monster like power 107 was like they're the top 40 station there and it was a monster in terms of its audience right okay so

they get word that um standard is launching no sorry was it was it rogers sorry it was rogers i think it was okay okay whoever it was it was another competing company and no i'm sorry it was chorus all right so instead of saying hey we're the biggest you know station in the market we're gonna hold our ground and who cares that a hip-hop station is coming they're gonna have to fight against us right before like i almost like a year before they flipped into a hot ac just said fuck it we're changing and lost all their their audience and that entire audience went over to cj92 because cj92 tweaked it a little bit and they were still playing rock but they were playing more crossover stuff that they went pop right and they just had now all of a sudden cj is the monster radio station

so standards got the strongest you know biggest station in in in the city their direct competitor was owned by rogers it was uh like it was 969 i think it was like a rock station or something yeah so rogers they decide to flip like uh so this is the summer of o2 our station wasn't supposed to launch until i think october that year they decide to flip 969 into kiss 969 and start playing hip-hop before we come because they know that in the city there's this giant buzz about a hip-hop station coming and they're like okay we're gonna fucking pull the rug from under the under standard and launch our station and catch all the you know all the the hype about it right so they they hired a morning guy

and the story so they hired a morning guy and started calling him Mastermind. Oh my goodness. Because there was, you know, the buzz around town was Mastermind's coming from Toronto to Calgary. So his,

I think it was like his name was Mike, so they start calling him Mastermind Mike or something. Right. I almost went by that name. So the rumor, right,

the rumor is, according to them, that Rogers told him to do that and he says Rogers, according to them, that Rodgers told him to do that. And he says Rodgers are no. Rodgers says that he did it on his own. And he says that Rodgers made him do it because we had to then send. We had to send a cease and desist to make them stop doing that. So I was walking downtown and my PD brought Bob Harris calls me.

Hey, hey, I got I got bad news. And then he tells me and I'm like, really, I'm that big of a deal that these guys stole my name, like whatever. Right. It was just, it was funny. And so they did the cease and desist. They had to change, but they still had this hip hop station on the air and they still got the jump on it. So then, you know, standard has to go into panic mode and they're like, okay, we got to get our station on in two months. Right. So if I got there in, okay, we got to get our station on in two months. Right. So if I got there in August, we're trying to get this station on, you know, by the end of September. And so at that point it became, you know, balls to the wall.

Let's get everything going. And they took away basically six months of us having that lead up time to do something. Right. Right. of us having that lead-up time to do something, right? Right. And so for the better part of a year, we had two hip-hop stations in Calgary, which was crazy.

That is crazy. We had a hip-hop station in Vancouver, which was the beat. We had a hip-hop station in Winnipeg, which I think was a station on a reservation, but it was still a hip-hop station. We had a station in Kitchener-Waterloo that was hip-hop, I think. And obviously we had Flow in Toronto, right? So in 2002, it was just this amazing thing across the country where hip-hop radio existed for a hot minute.

Wow. And then the thing that happened was Rogers hated the fact that, a hot minute wow and then the thing that happened was rogers hated the fact that you know we're like you go hard when you're battling another radio station and it's it's not it's not for the weak at heart and they just didn't want to do it after a while so by i think by april of the following year the kiss 969 flipped to Jack FM. So they flipped. They weren't hip hop anymore. You know, that's like playing what you want,

whatever we want or whatever the hell you need. And they ended up being quite successful in Calgary, like ridiculously successful. I don't think that translated that much anywhere else. I do remember 92.5 was Jack for a while. And it didn't do well at all. So it's like that format was only good like in Western Canada. It was an unprogramm while. And it didn't do well at all. So that format was only good in Western Canada. It was an unprogrammable iPod, as I recall. So after they flipped, the higher-ups at our station and company said,

okay, the lane is wide open. Now we can go top 40. And so not shortly after that, they decided start stop playing hip-hop and start playing top 40 they didn't change the name of the station they slowly you know were changing the jocks they wanted all the jocks to all of a sudden start you know doing top they hired everybody for hip-hop and they wanted everybody to start you know know, being top 40 jocks. And if you were able to adapt, you could. And if you weren't, then eventually you weren't there anymore.

But that's not what I signed up for. Right. Right. And. It's a bait and switch. Yeah. So before I left, a lot of my, you know, mentors and stuff that I talked to, they were like, this is a good move. You're going to go there. You're going to learn the stuff that you don't know, know in terms of being a an md or an apb or you're gonna you're gonna learn

and so they were like you know go there for two years and then come back and you know you'll be you'll be able to do whatever you want to do two years turned into eight because there were no opportunities like i couldn't and even you know the other thing that was funny is before i left as well rogers here at kiss like they were a top 40 station but in the last you know in the last legs before they they flipped to jack or whatever it was they went like overboard like hip-hop and r&b and you know you know, they had guys like Tarzan Dan front-selling all this hip-hop. Because X got poached by them from Flow, right? Because X was doing the evening show at Flow.

Right. And then he got poached and went over to Kiss. And I forget, it was 2001 or 2002 or something like that. And so they were basically, like, Kiss was basically a hip-hop station without, you know, cause they still had Mad Dog and Billy in the morning. So they were saying it was Darren was there. Yeah. And so they had all these, they had all these, the same way that in Calgary they had all these hip hop people front selling top 40 shit.

Right. It was the other way around at Kiss. And I think their audience fell off and, and you know they eventually ended up flipping to jack or whatever it was right but the irony was before i left they tried to keep me from going to calgary so this is before they okay this is before they flipped and all that okay um and before they named the guy mastermind or they they you know julie adam called me up and she was pitching me to stay you know it's like what is it gonna take for us to keep you and you know i was like i just signed with these guys like why didn't you call me a month ago you know and

she's like yeah you know when it rains it pours i get it blah blah blah i'm like listen if i had signed with you i wouldn't do this because you wanted to stay in toronto well yeah and i did right i'm like if you had called me a month ago would have been a done deal right but now like what i'm supposed to go to garyate and say, go fuck yourself after, you know, after he gave me a job when no one else was talking to me or whatever.

Right. And so I respectfully, you know, declined the offer and that's when they did all that, you know, making the guys change his name and blah,

blah, blah. Right. Okay. So eight years in Calgary, but you obviously end up at Flow. Like so, so,

and here's the interesting timing. So you show up at Flow. And here's the interesting timing. So you show up at Flow in March 2011. Yeah. But February 2011, February, March, the month before, that's the, I mean, you mentioned I write about TorontoMic.com. I write about a lot of radio stuff. I remember when everyone at Flow got fired. Well, not everyone, but yeah. So here's the thing with that.

So here's the thing with that. So 2010 or whatever, we find out, I guess, through the grapevines and stuff, that Milestone wants to sell Flow. I heard even before that, you know, NuCap was trying to get into the Toronto market because they were primarily an East Coast company, right? And they didn't have anywhere in Toronto. And they talked the milestone of buying the license but it was it was too pricey for them at the time and ctv which owned

um chum fm this is before bell bought them so it was ctv right right they only had one fm they had chum fm and then they had uh 10 50? Those are the two stations they had. Right. They wanted another FM. So they started talking to Milestone about buying them. And I guess everything was right. The price was right. And everybody, the negotiations went right. So apparently they sold Flow to CTV.

So they weren't going to officially get the keys until february of 2011 now i'm in calgary and i got fired from my astral media the station that i was with and ran my course me and the apd just just couldn't see eye to eye anymore and And eventually they fired me in June of 2010. Had a no compete clause. Came to Toronto to, because at this point you knew that CTV bought Flow. You knew that that already happened, but they didn't own it yet. Right. They just CRT regulations and all that type of stuff.

Right. CRTC. So I came in into Toronto to obviously visit and make the rounds and i went to visit the program director a chum guy named david cory who would eventually oversee flow as well talk to him um about you know hey you know when you guys take over i i think i should be there you know what i mean blah blah. We had some conversations. You know, he, David Corey was an interesting guy. He's like, you know, you know, hard-nosed kind of PD and just, you know, I've heard mixed things about him before I worked with him. And he just wasn't sold.

And at least I think actually to my face, he wasn't sold, but there was some chess moves they were doing behind the scenes because in Calgary, there was another radio station that was owned by CTV. And they immediately contacted me and said, Hey, we know you have a no compete clause. Um, it was like two months. I think, I can't remember. They're like, as soon as that's up, we want you, sorry, three months, I think. And they went went we want you at our station in calgary and so again with no opportunities in toronto because as soon as i like i we'd always had the plan where it's like if i ever quit or got fired from the calgary station we're immediately putting our shit in a u-haul and coming back home right and when that opportunity came up it was like

i didn't want to do it and the pitch that the general manager and the program director hit me with was like, look, we know you want to go home and we know you want to be at Flow and our company owns Flow. And if you work for us and you're in the company, it's a way easier transition to Flow. So a part of me believes that as much as David Corey was telling me to my face, yeah, no, I'm not sure, blah, blah, blah. I think he might've put the wheels in motion

to get that to happen so that when there was an opportunity that I'd be there. And I didn't press it beyond that because this guy, his poker face was pretty good. Like I would send him you know they would say hey so david wants you to send him demos and stuff and this guy would fire back like just the most asinine critiques about how not good i was and stuff and i was like dude you realize my afternoon drive show had a 16 share and the and the closest guy to me was like a seven is that that right? Yeah. And I'm like, and you're trying to tell me I'm not good.

What's that targeted demo? That's like young, young dude. I was 18, 18, 34, 18, 44. Yeah. That's amazing. Across the board. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean, obviously you factor some of it into the station itself and being

a heritage station. Cause at that point we were already eight years in, but still, if you suck, ain't nobody going to listen to you regardless. Right. Right. So i'm not so sure that's true but yes please continue i guess so i i like what i hear about being in the building yeah and potentially like a trojan horse man you're in there already right go and then the other the other cool thing about it is even though my my no compete clause was only two months, my severance was

seven months. And so I had, I had two paychecks for like house money. Yeah. For five, five months of that. So when I joined these guys in September, it was a weekend swing shift thing. Did it, you know, put my ego to side and just did my thing, bided my time, um, you know, made new friends at that radio station and um i had no idea that they were going to do what they did in february of 2011 when they yeah you had nothing to do with that nothing it was funny because my name got dragged into that mix and i was like i'm in calgary like well they're connecting dots right but again i didn't work for them and at that point i had no idea same parent company yeah but at that point i had no idea parent company yeah but at that point there had never been any conversation about right them saying yes guess what you're

you're going you know to flow or anything like that so that unfortunate day happened in february where you know a huge portion of the staff got fired and a big you know in in hindsight a big part of that to them to the bell guys or the ctv guys yeah was doing some housekeeping if you will like they just felt the station was too cluttered there were certain shows that they didn't like they didn't understand um you know the the programmers were both american guys right so david cory and and um scott morello who's the apd they they came from boston they were like american guys and they had their american vision of what this is supposed to sound like and they were the ones that were going to come and make flow the big successful station

because they came from rhythmic or or black music backgrounds right um and so you know that you know firing the morning show and and all the other shows what was the morning show and all the other shows. What was the morning show? That was Mark and Jem. Right. And then they got fired and they brought in J.J. and Melanie. F.O.T.M.'s J.J. and Melanie. If I'm not mistaken.

I think that's how it went. Yeah, I think so. And then, you know, they got rid of a bunch of specialty shows like the reggae show got chopped. Right. You know, the Soca show got chopped. OTA Live, which is a hugely popular show show got chopped right you know the soca show got chopped ota live which is a hugely popular show got chopped um some other jocks like devo brown and he's in such a better spot that he is now than he ever was right like he got he got chopped and so they they fired a bunch of people

and yeah and again nobody knew so this happened in february of 2011 right and then in in march out of nowhere i get the call david cory calls me he's like yeah i need you here next week and i was like what and he was like yep you're this is what the job is this is blah i'm sending the contract rah rah ray wow and are you good can you leave and i'm like uh yeah okay no problem so literally uh you know a month later is when they called me to come back. And so I joined. In March. Yeah, in March. I forget the date exactly, but it was March of 2011.

And I was there until January of 20, no, sorry, until March of 2020. Okay, a couple of fun. So I mentioned we're on the Pirate live stream at live.torontomike.com. And a couple of fun facts from YYZ Gord. One is that we were struggling to name that nightclub at the top of the CN Tower. It's called Sparkles. It was called Sparkles.

Yeah, I do remember that now. So that's where Kate Wheeler was working. It never went... No, you know what the interesting thing is? As much as it was called Sparkles, I know DJs who did events there and I don't ever recall it being called sparkles.

I remember there, they probably changed the name at some point and it wasn't three 60. That was the restaurant. Obviously. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. There was like,

like I know DJ Carlos was there like every, like all the time and had a great event there, but. Okay. And one more fun fact, cause you were talking about how a caravan was going on in Toronto and it was snowing in Calgary. And he says, fun fact, because you were talking about how, uh, Carabana was going on in Toronto and it was snowing in Calgary. And he says, fun fact, he says,

there's no month of the year that it hasn't, uh, at least snow. It hasn't snowed at least once in Calgary. Yeah. We actually, I remember there was one year where we, you know, it was, well, actually I can tell you two stories. When I went on a DJing tour way before ever any moving there was even thinking of it was like you know I just would always DJ in different cities right um you know me and a buddy of mine who now works at uh Universal Music he was a good friend of mine he would you know go with me to when I

would you know leave and he'd rock my mic and do things like that we went to calgary um in again probably the spring at some point right and you know we woke up in the morning from you know our hotel we look outside it's a blizzard it's a blizzard outside and we're like what the fuck and literally by one o'clock in the afternoon everything had melted and it was sunny again it's 20 degrees it literally was and we were just like this is the wildest shit we've ever seen but there was a time uh in calgary where you know we left the house it was sunny beautiful we leave the the windows open on you know in our our bonus room yeah and you know we go out for the day and you could be on the other side of the city and everything is great we came back and there

was snow and snow in our living room the carpet was soaking um it was it was just what the like and you know there was a christmas one year where it was it was like 20 degrees we went and played football on christmas right and they always say it's the chinooks and blah blah blah and i'm like yeah i don't care i don't like just make it normal you know i mean like consistent i had never i had never seen snow in october until i moved to calgary like we had to our kids would go trick-or-treating in snowsuits it's again my wife's from edmonton so i'll hear stories about how like they've got like oh we got they got 10 centimeters of snow last night and it's like i'm wearing shorts on my bike i hated the weather now don't get me wrong in the summer when it's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful. Okay. But you only get summer for like three months.

Right. Right. Okay. So this is exciting now that we've got you, finally got you to flow. Okay. Now I have questions for you. Are you ready for my flow questions? Did we hit all the timelines?

I'm trying to think. Yeah, I think we're good. Okay. So flow, which I have been monitoring this station because i'm naturally curious and interested in this station and how it evolved or devolved i guess we'll talk about that right now okay so you mentioned chum owns it they try to make it kind of more uh mainstream and then they're again i won't bore everybody the the details, but Bell has to, so Bell buys Chum, right? No, so CTV owns it.

And Bell bought CTV. Okay, so and then as you pointed out earlier, you're only allowed to own in this market, at least as of this recording date, because this might change. But right now you can only have 2 FM, 2 AM in this market. Correct. So they have to basically-

In Canada. In Canada. They have to, this is CRTC stuff. So they have to basically... In Canada. In Canada. This is CRTC stuff. So they have to divulge themselves. So Bell sells Flow and Boom to NuCap. Oh, you're way ahead of the curve. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You're jumping around.

So right now, Bell owns Chum and Flow, right? Chum and Flow, yeah. Right. And 1010. Right, on the AM dial and 10 50 and 10 50 right so bell in probably 2014 2013 or 2014 one of the two they say we want to buy astral media right and astral media was you know they don't they're they're the company that bought standard right that was just chum and virgin am i right no that would be boom and virgin boom and well

no actually back then it was mix 99.9 and and it wasn't boom either it was like easy rock or some shit like i love easy rock whatever it was and so that's that's astral media right right and astral media was a company that i worked for when i was in calgary before i went over to ctv right and you know beyond uh radio they also own like uh multimedia like billboards and all that outdoor marketing type stuff right sure um and if you really really really want to go back, they owned photography stores, Astral Photography. And I think, I don't want to be pretentious here, but I was told it's Astral.

I don't care. I'm not from Montreal. I did warn you it was pretentious. I'm not from Quebec. I'm not calling it Astral. Dude, I mispronounce every other word. They can kiss my Astral. So Bell's like, yeah, we want to buy astral so they go through this first pitch where they they basically what

they were trying to do yeah was get the crtc to relax their rules they were saying listen it's time if you compare us to the states you know companies in the states can own up to like five or six fms and same with their ams and you know it just makes for a more uh competitive marketplace and toronto's a big fucking city and yeah right and so that was their initial pitch the crtc apparently said go fuck yourself that's never happening or whatever it was right and so then at that point they had to redo whatever their pitch was and so the pitch then became they looked at all the stations between both companies,

between Astral and Bell, and looked at the less successful performing radio stations. Because they have six at this point, in theory. Am I crazy here? No, if they do the steal for Astral, they're going to end up with six.

They can only have four. So two have to go. They have to choose the two to go. At least from the FM side, absolutely. On the FM fm side i mean yeah so so then that has to happen in every market that both astral and bell have properties so that same thing happened in calgary same thing happened in edmonton same thing happened in vancouver like across the country right they looked at all their properties between the two companies and said these are the least successful ones and so those are the ones that are going to get put into divestment. Right. Right. So they weren't sold, but they also weren't part of

Bell anymore. So this is probably 2014 or 2015 or something like that. I can't remember the exact timeline. Right. But on the on the Bell side, Flow and it became Boom at that point. Yeah. Were both the ones that they felt weren't going to be the strong ones to hold on to. They wanted to keep Chum for obvious reasons. Yep. And they wanted to keep Virgin for whatever, you know, whatever their reason, which is weird because to me,

Virgin is just Chum light or kind of just like Chum. So it's, you know, it's a weird thing, but whatever. I'm not a, you know, I'm not a GM. It's Sophie's choice. They're like two of these have to go right so you know boom and as far as toronto's concerned boom and flow get put into divestment um and they actually you know pick and choose who they want to hang on to in terms of employees so they kept the music director that

was at flow a guy named justin and they kept starting from scratch and brought him virgin right and brought them both over to virgin right and um and it was kind of like you know when when uh you know you're on the the the field and you know they're picking teams and you get picked last or whatever it kind of felt like oh so we suck eh like why wouldn't you bring me right with you over to the to the cool squad or whatever it was to the bell media you know and they were like you know blah blah blah so when i actually when i joined flow yeah um my title was assistant md and uh swing jock so weekends and swing right so the minute that the divestment was about to get finalized david corey comes in while i'm working and he says i'm making you the apd before and that's assistant program director

okay yeah and um a lot of people thought that's what i was actually gonna the title i was gonna get when i first joined but they you know but david corey had his his guy scott morello as the apd who actually ends up being a a really super dude you know after we get to know each other and stuff and and david actually you know bucked a lot of the rumors that i heard i mean as as much as he's a you know an acquired taste me and him never had any real issues you know what i mean like we got along fairly well um you know i think we mutually respected each other for you know whatever we did and stuff and so he comes to me and says you know i'm gonna make you the apd and i was like okay um you know let's let's go let's let's make it happen or whatever right and then um at some point we were in divestment for at least six to six months to a year like i don't remember how long but then

least six to six months to a year like i don't remember how long but then new cap obviously now they're like this is our way in to toronto we're talking about newfoundland capital which is primarily you know an east coast broadcast company with uh you know they also own a bunch of car dealerships and some other stuff right so they're like hey we can buy two frequencies in toronto right um and finally you know fulfill our portfolio of getting out of you know the east coast and and being sent in the biggest market in the country right and i guess you know the money worked out or whatever they did all whatever they you know the agreements were going to be and nucap ends up buying boom and flow and um you know we we we were we were housed in in the much music building the chum fm building down at queen and duncan or whatever it was and virgin and them guys were all up at two st claire and basically they just swapped they said okay you

guys you're going to two st cla. Them guys are coming up over here. And, you know, and Bell had, Bell built all new studios for 10, 10, like spent dough just turning their shit into like the space shuttle over there. And we had great studios to begin with, but they really took it up a notch. And we inherited the old Virgin Studios, which were like just a fucking shithole and terrible like

we went from you know we're in terms of broadcasting systems we went from you know selector rcs to a program called maestro which was something i used a decade earlier it was just so old and outdated it was just like we really felt like right like we were last we got picked last and just got the shit like Like Red's headed stepchild. Oh my God. So that's how that whole shit went down. Okay, so I'm, because my friend Scott Turner comes back.

He, well, comes back. He ends up with the move. Okay, so Flo becomes move 93.5. Is it fair to say move 93.5 with all due respect to Scott Turner, who was kind of the captain of that ship this is a disaster of sorts right yeah pretty much was so here's the deal so it's like 2015 20 2016 ish and i felt that in my opinion and i you know whether i'm wrong or right

i felt like hip-hop was in this kind of weird space It wasn't as good as it had been. And again, you know, when you deal with a bunch of guys who don't come from, you know, the hip hop and black music background, all they care about is numbers. Right. And all they want is to see something perform. So they're going to try to figure out ways to make something perform better right right and so i had visited somewhere i forget what city i went to and while i was there i heard a station that was heavily focused on on throwbacks and old school and it just stuck with me i was like holy shit man these are like fucking classic records and you barely hear them. Because when you think of a current Top 40 station, their balance is probably like 85% current and maybe 10% to 15% old gold records, right? Right, right.

Which means, in layman's terms, like every hour you're hearing maybe one older record compared to all the new stuff and so they were doing it different there's again a lot of records that you weren't hearing regular but they were classic there were massive hits and stuff and so i came back and kind of pitched this idea to my ops manager and i said let's start by doing you know an all school long week or a throwback long weekend. Right. And we did a throwback and the feedback was unbelievable. Like it just blew.

Like it was crazy. The traction we got from social media and the phones and just everything. It was just an incredible reaction to it. So we did that a couple of times. And then, you know, obviously the higher ups said, well, this is something to talk about. So how do we do this, you know obviously the the higher ups said well this is something to talk about so how do we do this you know all the time and my pitch to them was if we do it it's still a hip hop and r&b station we don't change that we just flip the formats or flip the formula so instead of playing 85 new shit we play 85 old stuff and then that way you can still play

the can con and and if if you can still play the drake basically right drake and the weekend and whoever else that was decent and we also were going through this phase where it's like you know can con wasn't that great either so it was like a bit of a bit of a you had to figure shit out right we had to figure it out and so i said, we flip it, but the good news is when the music starts to pick back, the cycle happens and it starts to get better again, it's just a super easy transition going back the other way. And then you can still keep doing our throwback long weekends and people will still get their fix of that,

but you're not changing the format. The actual genre doesn't change. They then started saying okay this is great but how do we start playing other stuff like you know what how can we you know we want to play britney and in sync and all those other records that aren't you know that aren't getting played anywhere and i you know reluctantly was like well yeah i mean some of those records have you know nostalgia factors but it's not they're not flow it's not flow records and shit right so it's not hip-hop

it's definitely not hip-hop and r&b and you know i i wasn't involved in in any way whatsoever with their discussions of hiring scott it was like i was asked about scott and what my relationship with him was but it wasn't said to me hey Hey, we're talking to him because, you know, we want to, we want to bring him in or whatever. Right. And my relationship, like me and Scott have obviously been friends, um, you know, since energy, um, we just haven't worked together since. And, you know, Scott came in and his idea was, um, instead of just because it's just because the positioning statement was all the best throwbacks. And his take on it was, well, we're not really playing all the best throwbacks. We're playing some of the best throwbacks.

We should be playing all of them. And so his vision was more of bringing in the, I remember his pitch. He went in and pitched it to the GM, and he brought in a block of cheese, and he brought in a thing of sugar, a bag of sugar. And he said, we need to play more cheese, and we need to play more sugar. And so that was his pitch. He brought props to that meeting. Yeah, he brought props.

And he basically wanted to turn the radio station back into what energy was, which obviously is a fond place for Scott. It was a very successful thing that he did, right? Yeah. It just didn't translate on this particular frequency. Well, it's funny when you say sugar. And then when they wanted to, when they agreed that this was the way we were going to go,

they said, well, we can't play this stuff, you know, Venga Boys and whoever the fuck else it was we can't play that on flow and so they did some brainstorming the the higher-ups you know did their thing and their research and their blah blah blah and came up with 93.5 the move and so they changed the name yeah rebranded changed you know some of the on-air staff fired a bunch of people and um you know and it became 93.5 the move and and and very similar unfortunately you know to what dean sinclair did to energy basically it it put flow into the toilet like the the ratings were zero at one point right so um back to hip-hop so yeah that didn't happen until um the end of 2017 or 28 i think it was why do you think paul why do you think uh sorry

mastermind mastermind paul's fine i don't yeah um why do you think move was a mistake like was it like what why did it fail meet the music it didn't like too much sugar jones i like that jam listen it it just i don't believe you know and and again this is just my opinion yeah i don't believe that that euro shit had recall value, right? Like, again, you'll hear, you know, the odd record in a sports arena, you know, primarily hockey. Yeah, they love their two unlimited at a hockey arena.

Yeah, they love their Cotton Eye Joe in Calgary. Cotton Eye Joe is a staple at the fucking Saddle Dome in Calgary. Until very recently, it was a staple here. I'm glad I never heard it. I would fight people with fucking Cotton Eye Joe. But I don't believe that any of that stuff... Rednecks.

...has value in, well, at that time, 2017, 2018. Oh, my goodness. Okay. And so that's my opinion again. But I can argue that the ratings kind of prove that shit, right? Because if it was the greatest thing ever, then we would have not changed. It wouldn't have been a bad thing. So Scott's bosses knew it wasn't working strictly based off of numbers. Numbers don't lie.

And so they started doing research secretly right the the boss their bosses were like they wanted to flip it to country and you know the the vp and the ops manager they were like no that's not the way to go let's do the research the research came back overwhelmingly that we need to be hip-hop again so at the end of 2017 again i, I didn't know anything about it. I was very unhappy. Right. You know, during this whole period because the station went beyond what I said.

I said, don't change the format. Right. Like keep it hip hop and R&B. Right. And it didn't. Right. They didn't do that. And at this time,

your afternoon drive, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So basically back to hip hop. And this is a time when there's lots of,

lots of, you know, I'm thinking of like, you know, Kendrick Lamar and there's a lot of big hip hop acts. Well, hip hop, like hip hop really started to take off during that period, that year and a half ish that we, that, you know, we were the move or whatever it was. Right. And not only hip hop in general, but also there was this weird thing that started happening in our city where um kids started actually supporting local hip-hop groups that weren't getting support anywhere like i've been in this in this country long enough to know that it's only one artist that gets a high profile push at a time and you know you're never playing them in the in

the clubs you're never you know reciting their songs you know again like a year and a half earlier we were going through this phase we're like our testing our research all the can cons at the bottom of the tester and you know none of it's none of it's resonating even the weekend i'll never forget as big as the weekend is now when he first came out people didn't give a shit his he every song he put out was at the bottom of weekly call-out at Flow. Right. And regardless of whatever his fan base was, the research was similar to what he said.

Numbers don't lie. The research was saying no one liked it or whatever. Whether they were right or wrong, it doesn't matter. The point is that now I'm seeing when I go to a venue in an event, they can play an hour, just a Toronto music back to back to back. And the kids are all singing the songs. I'm like this, I've never seen this before in my life. And so there was something, there was a shift happening, right?

And shifting back to hip hop and then also figuring out how do we capitalize on this new found appreciation and love for local music and how do we support it and help nurture it. And that's where, you know, the Made in Toronto Takeover was born out of. And that became a very successful and popular part of what the last little while of flow was. You know, we did the historic all day, made in Toronto takeover. We were from 6am until midnight. We played nothing but Toronto artists. We did that for two years, but we were getting ready to do it in our third year, but the boss is like, because it happened, just everything worked. We decided to do it on March 6th every year because March 6th happened to be Toronto's

birthday. And because we're celebrating Toronto artists, we're like, hey, this is perfect. Right. But also because March 6th starts off spring ratings, they were like, we're not getting the bang that we need, so we're not doing it. And I'm like, you guys have to understand that there's two genres of music that completely come from culture. One is black music and one is country music. And I would never be arrogant enough to say,

just because I believe I'm a good programmer that I could go program a country station. I'd be an idiot to think that. And so again, if you don't come from black music or black culture, like from the beginning, you should not, you should not say to yourself that I know don't come from black music or black culture like from the beginning you should not you should not say to yourself that i know how to program a black music station just because i programmed a rock station right okay and they refuse to acknowledge the culture part and the

community part of black music and by the in the proof of it is like yeah we're not going to do this this thing was very popular with the community, it didn't translate to one day of ratings, but it was hugely popular with the connection of a radio station with the community. And for them to say, yeah, we're not doing it, it shows you that lack of appreciation for that community. So, Paul, can I get real with you here? Because you're talking about, you know,

black culture and black music, but you yourself are not a black man. No, and I consider myself a guest in that house, right? I've never said that I am the spokesperson for it. I've never tried to discredit anybody that I've found that influenced me with it. I just know that I appreciate it, I love it, and I try to represent it to the best of my ability

with the utmost of respect. Because I'm curious to the racial politics of Flo. Because in terms of actual on-air presence, it wasn't particularly black, as I recall. It was up until, I guess, that February 2011 thing, right? But even like, I think Blake Carter's not black. She's half black. Her mom's Jamaican. She's black?

Her mom's black. She's just one of those, what do you call it, when you can pass? Yeah, she's a passer. I honestly had no idea Blake Carter was black. And, you know, JJ, he... JJ's black for sure because he sat right there. He's a proud black man.

But Melanie wasn't. No. And Peter Cash is not. He's a proud black man. But Melanie wasn't. No. And Peter Cash is not. He's not. I am not. Ricochet is not. But I just found, and I'm only bringing, I'm not trying to, no, you know, and now we'll talk about what happened to Flo.

But right after we talk about what happened in March 2020. But was this something, though, that was like inside the Flo that there's an awareness that for a black station playing black music uh not particularly those guys though yeah you know what like i believe that there's definitely some systemic blake carter's black i honestly today i learned black okay well i think half black is black. Is your daughter black? Absolutely. There you go. But if someone looked at her, they'd think she's Indian, right? Sure. Yeah. So it's, you know, it is what it is, right?

And that was another part. Like when I was pitching, going back, when I was pitching the whole mommy-yokey thing to them, it was intentional because Blake's mom has a Jamaican accent. And people who listen will not only like her from her personality standpoint, but they'll be able to associate the fact that Blake has a black background, right?

Right, because I follow this pretty damn... Blake sat there and we did a deep dive. Today I learned, as they say on Reddit, like I had no idea Blake Carter was black. Yeah. Well, you know, so today, you know, I don't think she was keeping it a secret, but again, you know, a lot of people didn't know Mariah Carey's half black either. Right. So there's that. Okay. So let's talk about March, 2020. In fact, you, at the very beginning of this conversation, you talked about, you know, what torontomike.com, how you knew this Toronto Mike guys, I'm just

going to read what I wrote, okay, in March 2020. Okay. Big changes. This is me. I hope I wrote it okay. I'm nervous. I haven't read it in a long time. Big changes at Flow 93.5 this week.

Paul Parhar. That's the first time we've said your name, Paul Parhar. Yeah. That's Mastermind, by the way. Better known as Mastermind, was relieved of his duties yesterday. I've been in touch with Mastermind, and once the business side of his departure is taken care of, he will be my guest on Toronto Mic'd. And here you are, man of your word. But it worked out good that we let it go for

so long because we wouldn't have got to 1049. Right. No, we planned this well, as always. I'm also told Alicia West has been removed from the schedule. And that schedule itself is currently serving up a 404 error. By the way, in my world, like when I see a 404 error,

that's like, I might as well just say in big red marks, we fired this person or whatever. Okay. Oh, right. So things are in quite the state of flux with Mastermind no longer on afternoons at flow 93.5.

That slot is being filled by Blake Carter and Peter Cash. That's right. I forgot about that. Blake and Peter have left mornings for the afternoon drive. You'll hear them weekdays two to seven. The morning show on Flow 93.5 now originates out of Power 105 in New York City. It's a syndicated American show called The Breakfast Club and featuring Charlamagne

the God, DJ Envy, and Angela Yee. Their first airing is going to be scheduled for by the way the first airing was scheduled for march 16 well we know this is march 16 2020 we know what happens that week yeah yeah so it didn't happen if i'm not mistaken so interestingly enough we uh we did run their syndicated weekend programming it was like a you know the uh breakfast club top 30 countdown or whatever it was. So we ran that on our weekends. Um, and when you look at the breakfast club and you know, their, their, uh, popularity with social media and their interviews and how

certain things would go viral common, you know, the common sense aspect of it, you would think that, Hey, this is something that you know the hip-hop audience would want to hear right and so the programmers there you know they were like a well a few things we're going to save money because we're not actually paying a full morning show or afternoon drive salary or whatever the case may be right we're you know we're going to pay a syndication fee which is not going to be nearly the same as paying a human being to do a show and so they're going to save money there they move uh blake and peter to afternoons because because you're not there anymore i'm not there anymore but um but what's that about like like i don't want to like bury the lead here like like what um you know i i actually felt rumblings

well before that but i thought they were going to flip the format, right? I thought they were actually going to flip everything, and I didn't think it was just going to be me and Alicia, and I think they fired two or three sales reps or something like that. So they did a bit of house cleaning. And, you know, a lot of it had to do with, in my opinion, because we haven't had any conversations, and maybe they'll say something differently. you don't come from black music and the culture. You should not be programming this radio station because you, just because you think you can follow a chart and you think you have a good

ear on something that sounds good. Doesn't mean you understand the intricacies of how that culture works. Right. And so, um, we would fight. We would like when i would argue because they would put certain records in and i'm like this is not a hip-hop record this is not an r&b record uh this is this has nothing to do with you know with what this format is and we already did this we did this

dumb shit when we were the move and even before that when you would have us playing house like not even house but like like chr pop dancey records because you know you thought our can you know urban can con wasn't good enough black music can't come wasn't good enough we did all this bullshit already and so i would fight you know i'd be the only person of color in a boardroom with you know a bunch of rock dudes and research guys who don't have any background in any of the culture other than looking at numbers and data. And these guys are trying to run a black music station and they don't know what they're doing. And I don't care what anybody says.

They can try and argue. Because one of the conversations I had with my ops manager when we first inherited the station from David Corey was, he's like, I don't know anything about this. I don't know nothing about this. I don't know nothing about this. And I think it took him a couple weeks and he finally came. He's like, I figured it out.

I keep looking at this wrong. I shouldn't be looking at this like it's a black music station. I should just look at it like it's a station that plays black music. And I can program it like it's a Top 40 station or like it's a rock station. Or Katy Perry.

And so, well, yeah. So it's like they say you know we'll play a taylor swift record because it has kendrick lamar on it right and i'm like well why the fuck would we do that like that makes like that's not what this is supposed to be right we're not we're not a a chr that plays the odd you know the odd record that has a 16 bar hip-hop version we're a fucking hip-hop station so we should be doing hip-hop and so my my humble opinion is that they got sick and tired of the guy who is just keeps not towing the line and fighting with them and arguing with them and who knows if there's something else i don't know if there's anything else because it wasn't

made aware to me, right? Right. But I knew it was going to happen because, again, as I mentioned earlier, I got that text at the end of my show at, you know, 8 o'clock at night or whatever. And I got that from... And the other thing, they did so much dumb shit.

They hired a program director. So instead of giving... They said to flip back to hip-hop, instead of making me the PD, which we thought is what they would have done my ops manager was still mad at me because when when i was the apd and we were going through that move shit and i was very unhappy i resigned that position i said i i don't agree with what we're doing right and i i have no say in what we're doing so why am i even the apd i'll keep

scheduling music and i'll do my afternoon show, but I don't want to come to music meetings or whatever. I don't even remember what it was, but I don't want to be in your programming meetings. I don't want to be in any of that shit. I'll come in and I'll do my show and that'll be it.

He was still in his feelings about that because when they decided to flip back, instead of putting a programmer in that knows the music, they went and hired um the program director from their ottawa station which is a i don't know a medium market a small medium market top 40 knows nothing about the music or the culture but you know programs a successful station in a diary market right you know what i mean right not the ppm device not the ppm and also

who admitted to me later that that person believed that if that market ottawa decided to turn ppm overnight that they would not be number one anymore they would be in the toilet and so they hired this person to program flow in toronto and this person was only in our building once a week they would come in on a monday or something they rest of the time they were in Ottawa. Again, you're having somebody, you know, two people, um, arguably three people in a music meeting that have nothing to do with hip hop and R and B in terms of like on a lifestyle type of basis. You know, I think one of the people in the meeting um their favorite artist was lady gaga right and they're they're trying to program you know a hip-hop station and so again you know like i i kind of get a little emotional about it because it's it's so well you gave a shit that's why i gave a shit but it's also

it shows you the arrogance of the programmers in this country they think they know what they're fucking doing and clearly they don't and so you know if you jump if you fast forward now to what flow has become and they're they're super comfortable you know playing a station with finger 11 and nickelback and all this fucking rock shit because you know what they they're more comfortable with that music and they could probably sell that music a little more easily to advertisers or whatever so it's a cop-out as far as i'm concerned because i don't believe that station is going to be any more successful ratings wise unless unless something is changing and they're doing tremendously well

i don't see that station doing any better than flo did right you're just playing music that you're more comfortable today radio whatever the fuck it's called. Hold on. Paul, hold on here. Back it up here. Yeah. Okay. So if I'm hearing right, this is Toronto, which is Canada's most multicultural, one of the most multicultural, maybe the most multicultural city on the planet Earth. Yeah, of course. Okay.

The hip hop station, the black station, had one person of color in that boardroom, and that was you. Yeah. And then you were cast away in march 2020 so i'm guessing at that point there's no people of color in that boardroom no none so they're all white people because if you're not a person of color you're you're like you're like me yeah which is no fun okay so a bunch of white but here's the thing though here's the thing though right like starting from scratch as a white guy however that's true he comes from this culture from the very beginning like that's what he did at the very beginning

right and so as much as from a a race standpoint yes he's a guest in that house as well but he has the credibility to be in that in that space but still, it is gross to think about the meetings of the music and Toronto's hip-hop station and it's all white people in that room. That is gross to consider. I will just speak as a white man. I find it gross. It's pretty disrespectful.

Very disrespectful. So they say, goodbye, Mastermind. This is March 2020. Yeah. The station can't live long without you because, and again, I'm'm gonna try to remember this and you'll tell me maybe you don't even care but they give the they give the branding like they say to to g97 recently you're talking about recent now now recent yeah they say to g that was

previously known as g987 uh here's the branding you can now use the flow this is didn't mean anything else you just here's a logo for you and the name Flow. I believe that that was a way for them to, I guess, kind of save face. And I don't know the real motivation behind it. Because they were going to flip regard. And actually, here's what I believe. I believe that they would have flipped. Because when I left in March of 2020, I said to my friends that were still there,

I said, if you guys make it to september i'll be surprised because they're gonna they're gonna see what this does over the summer and then they'll flip before the fall ratings to do whatever they're gonna do and because of the pandemic i believe all those plans got put on hold and so what they intentionally wanted to do was see whatever would happen through the summer. Right. If it started to do okay, then maybe. Or they would just put the plan in motion like they did in February of this past year.

So the pandemic happens. We can't flip. People are not even coming into the station. There's nobody. You know, we're all broadcasting from home. We can't flip a fucking radio station now. God damn it. What are we going to do, right? So what was that? That was was 2020 so then 2021 rolls along and i said to my friend i go

they're gonna flip the station in in in the spring like they're gonna do it in february because um because uh this is not working for them right but right but the pandemic was still happening it was still i think that was the second wave happened and it's it just fucking the timelines weren't working for these guys right so everything got delayed and then in the summer of 2021 when shit started to open up again and things then you had a fucking thing started to relax and everyone okay so now we're gonna get the ball in motion and shit's gonna happen um in the either the fall or the spring it just so happened that whatever happened in you know september october of last year was still pandemic related and they ended up doing it in february so going back to them giving the name to g

yeah they had they had conversations with them and so I believe, and I don't know anything to be fact at all, what I believe is this was a way for them to say, hey, look, we're white guys who don't know nothing about black music and we're not doing it right. So we're going to give it to a black-owned radio station or a people of color radio station and let them do it right. Because regardless if they gave the name or not, because G could have said, go fuck yourself, we don't want that right regardless of whatever that however that

transaction played out they were going to flip regardless right this was just them saying hey guess what flow is still around it's just on a different frequency and you know and and now it's it's it's more black which you know i don't know at face value i don't know how that was you know, I don't know at face value, I don't know how that was, you know, accepted or responded to. You know what I mean? Like, is it... Well, the frequency itself is far weaker, first of all. Far weaker. And it's just literally just a logo switch.

There's no personnel or any people from the old Flow that moved over to the new Flow. Right. Zero change that record. the old Flow that moved over to the new Flow. Right. Zero. Zero changed that record.

But now the station formerly known as Flow 93.5, of course, it is. I know you don't care, but this is now called Today Radio, and basically it's like phony baloney, like talking stories, and then kind of a jack kind of a play. Is it like Boom Light? Kind of like Boom,

but you don't know what, they're going to play whatever. Mark Weisblot comes on this show once a month, and that's when we do on this show. That's when we do most of our radio talking. At the beginning, he was kind of reporting back, but he's fallen out of favor with this new station. Oh, he was there? I don't even know who this person is.

No, he wasn't there. He wasn't there. He was listening. He might have been the only guy listening. So I needed somebody to listen and tell me what the fuck is going on at 925. Anyway, we'll move on from that i want to know master so first of all i do want to know like as a as a lover of hip-hop in and in the city yeah uh how do you feel about what's happened to flow like forget the fact that you were there and they said goodbye to you in march 2020 like it's a loss for

this city right it is well you know what, it is an embarrassment for this industry. It's an embarrassment for this country that the biggest genre of music on the planet, we don't even have a station that plays it in the biggest market, and we never had one playing it across the country. Like how, like here's the thing that i believe as well if flow was more successful and i believe there's a bunch of reasons that you know if if i decided to get into them there would be a lot of conspiracy talk we'd probably be here for another two hours and i got a piece so that's not gonna happen but well your daughter could take over if you wanted

to run over there i believe i honestly believe that there's a lot of factors as to why a black music station that plays the biggest music on the planet was not a top five radio station in Toronto, let alone anywhere else. But I believe that if it was a top five radio station, that all of these companies would then be like okay we need to have one in calgary we need to have one in you know vancouver we need to have one in so is it is it steeped in racism like i'm always uh wondering i believe that you know there's a there's some there's definitely some systemic aspects to it the the advertising aspect that

you know is not the same as it is in the U S where, you know, companies allocate a certain percentage of their budgets to black audiences and black clientele. Um, I don't know if they do that here in Canada, probably not. And, you know, when you, when you listen to, or even watch, uh, a primarily, you know, black skewing station in the states all of their advertising is created for black clientele you can hear the difference in their commercials you can see the difference in their commercials they don't do that here right and so um i believe that that's a big part because again let's imagine this let's imagine that flow you know was only a three share right but they were bringing in 15 million million in advertising a year.

They wouldn't give a fuck. They wouldn't say, we're only a three-share because the dollars is what would dictate what they do. But unfortunately, if you're a three-share and you're not getting the agency money coming your way that you should be, you're not getting, you know, your sales team's not able to sell the local uh clientele and get and bring the dollars in then obviously you're struggling on on everything you're struggling in ratings you're struggling in advertising and that's going to be a factor and that's why i say they flip to this format because it's a lot easier to sell nickelback and Finger Eleven and whoever the fuck else, you know, they're playing and shit, than it is to sell, you know, YG, you know, and fucking whoever else.

Right. Future. Now, before your bladder bursts, because we don't want that, what the hell since since march 2020 what have you been up to where's mastermind at you know the interesting thing was i had some people reach out right away and this was the first time like i'm very i'm very passionate when i work for someone you know and i learned a valuable lesson um with stingray it's like it doesn't matter how invested you are and how loyal you are and how strong your work ethic is when they're ready to tell you to go fuck yourself they don't give a shit right you know none of that stuff means anything when it's time for them you're

just a number man when it's time for them to make their changes or whatever so i learned a valuable lesson and i always said to myself, I'm never going to allow myself to invest myself that same way. I also was fortunate enough that, you know, I was able to negotiate a pretty significant severance package based on my tenure at Flow. And so for the very first time, I had a significant amount of time off and my plan

was to travel right because i got i got fired right march 2020 but it was march like 10th or something like that right and then you know it was like fucking amazing like i've never been able to you know the last time actually the last time where I lost my job and I had time off was, um, that time between, um, Astral and, and CTV. Right. And instead of taking advantage, especially back then when I knew a, I had already lined up a job and I got my severance instead of going, you know, and travel and do the things that I should have did. I was more concerned about okay we got to sell the house we got to do this we got to do that blah blah blah and so this

time i was like you know what i'm actually gonna well i was also forced to do it because of the pandemic but i was gonna travel couldn't do that so then it was like fuck it i am literally not gonna do anything until i have figured out what i want to do. Cause I didn't even know it. Like I was so like, I don't, I'm not saying bitter. I wasn't bitter, but I was definitely disappointed in how that whole situation went, especially because of my loyalty and my, my work ethic. And, you know, again, learning the hard way that none of that shit matters, right. Really leaves a bad taste in your mouth, regardless if you don't want it to, or you, you know, you don't care as much. So it was, I'm not going to do anything. So I didn't literally

for all of 2020, all the way until probably the beginning, mid to 2021, I just fucking sat on my deck. I walked my dog. I did yard work. I built shit around the house. 2021, I just fucking sat on my deck. I walked my dog. I did yard work. I built shit around the house. I saw the people that I wanted to see and spent time with whoever I wanted to spend time with. And it was actually very relaxing. Dude, it sounds amazing.

Yeah. I want to join you. Well, listen, you got a pretty cushy self-employed gig over here, so I don't think you do. That's true. I don't have to worry about caring too much and then being told your services are no longer required they can't take this from me no and any every now and then if you gotta if you gotta change your sponsors that's on you right so right right now it's pretty cushy and you're good and and you do something that

you love doing and that's what i've always taught my kids you know find that thing that you would do for free and and figure out how to get paid doing it and you'll never get any niche on the mic like would you if i open up the mic would you uh pop on just to say hello just because since you've been sitting there and i can't believe how long you've had to sit there yeah you got to kind of roll it onto the uh the rug there this is her time to pay dues i paid enough dues and i know you don't have a headset but you're taking care of them you gotta be right in front of that thing there so just say hello to the universe and maybe any words you want to say about your uh your dad oh god hello hi hello i'm nisha i've been mentioned a couple times um how did we do by the way was that as boring as fuck or would you uh what what what time what time are we i can't believe someone's

gonna sit and listen to this whole thing. That's the part that kills me. It's 4.35. When did we start? Two. Oh, my God. See? Yeah, listen. Just before two.

Okay. No one's listening to this. I've gone longer. Don't worry. 10.50 is going to be longer than this. Okay. No, this wasn't boring. I've sat through a bunch of things.

Is 10.50 one person? No, I got a few people on that. Yeah, see? This is a one-man show. Well, I mean, I mentioned Wiseblood because once a month he comes over, we go three hours each time. So we're going to be under that. But Nisha, what was it like having your dad around the last couple of years?

That's unusual, right? I wouldn't say unusual, but just, I mean, everybody was around because of the pandemic. That's true. That's true. Yeah, it wasn't strange or anything he's my dad what kind of music do you listen to hip-hop r&b but then some other stuff kind of thrown in okay so as a listener in your where do you live brampton where do you live yeah okay what is it like as a listener with uh what's happened with flow like like does it does like what is that like to you as a listener with uh what's happened with flow like like does it does like what is that like to you as a listener or is radio something you're so young i have a 20 year

old and radio is not on his radar at all like he's just not listening to radio i think it's the same thing do you listen to radio on occasion i mean the radio in my car is really crappy so i'm i listen to title really i'm a i'm a streamer that's a jay-z one right yeah okay i really. I'm a streamer. That's a Jay-Z one, right? Yeah. I'm a streamer. Streamer. She's nothing but a streamer. When I'm in the car with my parents, I listen to whatever they're listening to.

What is that normally? Typically, it's either the news or the station that I work at. Do either of you give a rat's ass about NHL playoffs? I mean, I watch my team. So will you watch tonight? Absolutely. Okay. Do you want to make a prediction?

Because this is being recorded and we can look back and say, oh, look, they nailed it. So interestingly enough, I've been through that losing to Boston, that one game where they came back from fucking 5-0 or whatever. 4-1. Whatever it was, we were supposed to win that game. And we didn't, right?

And then last year being up 4-1 in the series and losing to Montreal. 3-1, yeah. Sorry, 3-1. I think we've seen the worst that it could ever be. So the fact that they're up 3-2 right now, it's almost a victory in and of itself. And if they do end up winning,

then it's almost like winning the Stanley Cup because now they're officially into the second round, right? Like the last time we got jerked out with a Wayne Gretzky penalty that didn't get called and that stopped huh aren't the flames going into the second round I don't know not yet and I think they're three two but if they lose I always say and revert back to the worst things that we saw which was you know the Montreal collapse the Boston collapse and said listen we've seen some terrible shit this is this is the part

of being a Toronto sports fan and you can be mad you can be This is the part of being a Toronto sports fan. And you can be mad, you can be sad, but at the end of the day, there's going to be another season and hopefully we do it again. And every year, they kind of give us the glimmer of hope. They play fucking amazing throughout the season and it's just the playoffs is a different world. So here's hoping tonight,

we do something we haven't done since 2004. We escape the first round. And I'm glad you'll be watching. Nisha, are you proud of your dad? Are you aware of his legacy as a DJ in this market? I'm very proud of my dad. There's a lot of stuff I don't know still. He should come back for another three hours to get the rest i don't

know i don't know if i have another three hours i'm sure you guys could talk for three hours i'm sure it would have to be some real minutiae type stuff i don't know there's just a lot of stuff that like even at like family gatherings and stuff my uncles and other family members will they talk about um just some stories that i've just never heard before from DJing or clubs or whatever. So it's cool. And I think. Well, it's exciting. You're interested in your dad's history.

Like not every daughter is, you know, interested in their dad's, you know. It's mandatory. They get quizzed every night. Well, because you're mastermind. Yeah, there you go. It all comes back to that. Okay. Do you have a handle, Nisha?

Like, do you have a cool DJ name or anything? No. No, there you go. It all comes back to that. Okay, do you have a handle, Nisha? Like, do you have a cool DJ name or anything? No. No, I don't. I, when I was a kid, my brother was into producing

and I was small but I wanted to try it and I was kind of shooed out of the room and so I kind of hang it over his head because I could have been the next big producer.

Well, it's not too late. Well, never know now. You're still very young. It's too late for that now what is your like what i mean uh here my song is going so i'm gonna wrap up here but like what is it you'd like to do with your uh your life so i am also in the music industry just in different um more on the management side i did management and i was also an executive assistant for two music execs um but wow um yeah right now i'm kind of just coasting see what exactly i'm she's been she's been surrounded by this industry from the beginning and so she's she's immersed in it and so

you know she's got friends that are in it she's got uncles that are in it. She's got uncles that are in it. She's got aunts that are in it. So she, you know, whatever she decides to do, she'll probably be good. Well, good luck to you, Nisha. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of our 1049th show. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Now, we know the legendary mastermind is at Mastermind, but is N me on Twitter I'm at Toronto Mike now we know the legendary mastermind is at mastermind but is Nisha on Twitter yeah we don't need to talk about that I didn't ask for the Instagram handle I know how that works our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta

make sure you get your lasagna before you leave. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. Tomorrow morning I'm dropping episode

1050 and tomorrow night I'm in Marie Curtis Park for TMLX 9. Drop by say hi and enjoy a cold beverage. 50 and tomorrow night I'm in Marie Curtis Park for TMLX 9 drop by say hi and enjoy a cold beverage see you then me today And your smile is fine It's just like mine It won't go away Cause everything is

rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun places I better not name. And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour. But I like it much better going down on you.

Yeah, you know that's true. Because everything is coming up rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms us today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is

rosy now everything is rosy yeah everything is rosy and everything is rosy and great yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah