Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Menno Versteeg from Hollerado: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1687

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

In this 1687th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Menno Versteeg about Hollerado, Anyway Gang, his solo efforts, and a benefit in memory of Dave Bookman. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Yes We Are Open, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1687 of Toronto Miked! Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Yes, we are open. An award-winning podcast from Monaris, hosted by FOTM Al Greggo.

Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Join me May 11th at Christie Pitts as Ayamy Saito becomes the first woman in our country to pitch against a professional men's team, 130 beyond the left field fence. Recyclemyelectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto's Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Ienies, sponsored by Fusion Corp Construction Management Inc. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Joining me today making his Toronto mic debut is Meno Verstieg. Welcome Meno, how you doing buddy? I'm great. I love this in here. What a setup. Yeah. Slow down there. I'm just going to do an in here. What a setup. Slow down there. I'm just going to do an hour with you telling me what you love about this. That's what we're doing today. You digging the vibes here? I really am. Yeah.

That's one of the great things about life and music is the fun adventures of, you know, you're seeing someone's basement and there's like a awesome, they're doing this awesome thing and just finding all this new stuff. Is it Top Secret Senior Basement? No, everybody knows this is the Toronto Mic to TMDS Basement Studio. But you're a younger man, but there are like legacy artists who when they're brought down here,

sometimes a PR person brings them down here. Sometimes they're just told, go to this place and then knock on the side door. But they have that look of like, where am am I and what the hell happened to my career like you know what I mean hey this is a boost for my career I said I spent my entire teenage hood in and 20s and some of my 30s like playing shows in places that look like this and then sleeping on the floor in the same place so that's the Canadian star system.

Yeah. Well, good to meet you, man. Do I call you Meno or Mav Carlo? Is that an alias? That was an alias for a minute. It's a minute. I knew I was going through a dark time. Didn't want to.

Didn't didn't. Wasn't quite myself. So can we shout out a former? I know you're wearing a sense hat there, but I'm going to shout out a former Toronto Maple Leaf. Chris Verstieg. Do you remember Chris Verstieg of the Toronto Maple Leafs? I mean, it was when I first moved to Toronto, I think, he was playing there. All my dad's side of the family, he grew up here in Toronto.

And he has seven brothers and sisters and they're all rabid Leafs fans and one of them in particular my uncle Eric He I think he went about 400 years back in the family history to see if we were related to Chris first dig when he got Traded over here. Okay. What did you find out nothing? We? Not one thing. Oh that story is supposed to end where you find out Yeah, you had like some common ancestor a lot I just found out yesterday snow was here and I found out Snow you remember Inform? Oh right you do. Okay I know.

You never know right? Come on I'm a child of the 90s. I know of course you know Snow but he was here and I found out he's related to Stephen Page of Bare Naked Ladies. No way I was just on tour with Stephen last week. Well and it goes better than that okay that's that's a mind blow. But then he tells me, Steven told him that one week, which went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This is ever.

For exactly one week, that Steven told his cousin Snow, AKA Darren O'Brien, that one week was bare naked ladies trying to emulate Informer. I mean. Because when you think about it, chickadee China, I mean, it checks completely out. It's a whole pile of, um, I'm just not even going to use any adjectives. What is your jaws on the floor right now? Yeah. I'm just going to love it all for what it is.

That's the only way you can roll with these kinds of fun facts here. But, uh, yeah. So you're not related to Chris Christie. Yeah, how's snow doing these days? dudes batshit crazy, yeah but So for 75 minutes It's like we're going back and he's telling me about He's banned from every bay in the country because he was stealing from the bay before he broke with him And he was in jail when the song played on rap city and much music and he's given me and it's the

Most amazing nostalgia trip and he's given me these details. We listened to Jim Carrey's imposter He did for in living color his parody fucking and he did a true carry show theme song moon over paramour He did a cover. It's amazing and then and then at the end he got a little political and I realized oh yeah He believes in a different reality. So it's like you just sort of have to like, I had a hunch. I had a hunch it was one of those, you know, one of those. Why does that always happen to that archetype? Yeah.

And it happened. And again, we had a great time. In fact, he might come to this Toronto Maple Leafs event with me on Thursday. That's how we're now buddies, me and Snow, even though we don't align politically. I think that's amazing and I think we need more of that in this world, you know, being buddies. One of my best friends in the world is a batshit libertarian, dare I say even Trump supporting lunatic. And he moved up to Dawson City, Yukon to live with his like minded individuals. in the city, Yukon, to live with his like-minded individuals. He still uses my address as his address for the CRA,

and I get his letters and he says, tell them where I am, tell them those little motherfuckers to come after me. It's good to keep yourself in touch with people who think like that, because otherwise you go into a bubble and you think everybody thinks like yourself. And you know, some of the things he says, some of them, I'm like, eh, you got a kind of a point.

Some of them. Well afterwards, I'll give you some of the snow stories I got and we'll see if you think he has a point. But because we only have an hour, okay, let's go. I need, I want to shout out two upcoming events that are literally within the next week. So we're going to do that off the top. And then I'm going to get the Colorado origin story. Oh, nice. I need that. And I got some jams loaded up and stuff.

One event I need to shout out right now is happening May 9th at the garrison. It is called the track. It's called let's get friendship, right? Of course, that's a great tragically hip lyric where I think over 30 artists are going to cover songs from the tragically hip. That's enough of my voice talking about this event. Why don't you tell me about this event at the Garrison? That's only three days from now. So that's a Friday night? Wow, Friday night. Tell me about this event at the Garrison. Well, it's a pretty great event from what I've been told. It's in honor of a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine who passed away, who was also one of the early supporters

of Colorado, Dave Bookman, who, you know, I'm sure your listeners know what a pillar of the Toronto music scene he was for many years. And he's one of the first people who believed in Colorado. And he booked us on his new music night at the Horseshoe as our first show in Toronto. And I remember lying through my teeth that we had, that not only did we play Toronto before that we lived here and would tell all our

friends and do posturing and we were you know living in Montreal at the time and he knew damn well what that we were lying he had the internet and I was like okay you guys can come anyway and has been a supporter and a sense fan ever since and so he tragically passed away and this is a benefit show for him And well, it's in his honor, but it raises money for the Toronto Food Bank Well, you're supposed to bring and this is key bring non-perishable food items Several non-perishable food items. I've got a whole bunch. I collect it upstairs for this event so it's a free event, but you bring non-perishable food items for the Daily Bread Food Bank.

And man, some of the artists, I'll tell you last week. Ton of great artists. Yeah. Brendan Canning was here on Friday to talk about this event. He's going to be playing that. Ian Blurden was here a couple of weeks ago. He's part of the house band or something. He is. And and some people I, some of my favorite artists today, Meg Remy from US Girls is playing and Sky Wallace is playing, a lot of good stuff.

Love Sky Wallace. Okay. So Be There, that's at, again, the DeGarrison and that's on Friday, but then Sunday, which is May 11th. I'm hosting an event at Christie Pitts. This is so we can all watch the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game. History is going to be made. It's the home opener.

Christie Pitts, May 11th. Meet me at like 1.30 PM beyond the left field fence. TMLX 18. Everyone's invited. Menno, you're invited. Sounds amazing. Christie Pitts. I'm around.

I have my first summer beer league hockey game on Sunday, but what time does this start? 1. Sounds amazing. Christy Pitts. I'm around, I have my first summer beer league hockey game on Sunday, but what time is this? 1.30 p.m. We'll collect. You know what? I can definitely maybe swing by for that and then I'll go to my hockey game after. Do you want some fresh craft beer for that hockey game?

I sure do. Okay. Great Lakes Brewery brewed that up not far from here, southern Etobicoke, and that's going with you buddy. Oh amazing. The team will be very excited. It's my first day on a new team so bringing some beers is a very good way to start. That's always nerve-racking when you break in a new team. Yeah, it's an offshoot of... I'm in that Musicians League where it's all kind of hard the GTHL good times hockey league of whatever and during the summer they they mix all the people on the different teams and it's called the mingle so so it's the middle

so I know a lot of the people from before but it's a new team so bring the beer. Who plays in this musician league that would be no one to the average listener like are we talking about Dave Badini? Who are we talking about? Jim Cuddy, who's in this thing? Dave, that's about it. I think Chris Murphy used to play. I mean on my team, Peter, Peter Gimenez from July Talk is on my team.

And he's got a deep voice. Yeah, we're all full of musicians. Oh, and he's at the Garrison event too. Bringing the beer, here's the funniest, I grew up in Manatee, Ontario and it's a it's an awesome place and My dad and neighbor were met reminiscing the other day about a guy in their beer league who he died and the wife of the guy Saw on the fridge that it was his turn to bring beer like two days later

Showed up at the game with the beer. Wow. Or him. Wow. That doesn't bring tears like maple leaf tears running down your face. What? Isn't that awesome? Wow. I mean, that's that's that's beautiful, man. That's beautiful. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. They did send you some measuring tape.

No joke. Is that an inappropriate? I mean that was a sweet story. Okay but this swag from a funeral home a measuring tape is just to see how long you are and get you ready? You know what their caskets are all made in Canada which I want to shout out because a lot of funeral homes they actually import like American caskets or made in China caskets and Ridley Funeral Home at 14th and Lakeshore they only sell Canadian made caskets. Wow, that's beautiful.

You can measure yourself, let me know. I'm on the fence about how I feel about the Funeral Home swag measuring tape. Do they have a sense of humor? Brad Jones has a very good sense of humor. Okay, you know what, then I'm into this, Brad Jones. I like where we're getting here. He's got a good sense of humor.

Okay, give me, if you don't mind, and I'll give you more gifts later, and I know you have a gift for me, but save that, because I have a song that'll kind of accompany that nicely. But how does Colorado come to be? I want the Colorado origin story. Oh, there's a lot of it.

I mean, I played in crappy punk bands since I was literally 13 years old and playing legions and stuff. And then I started one that was a little more serious in my teens and 20s, and we toured all around. We did the Warped Tour slog, awful opening band on the Warped Tour where you have to drive all night and then they make you set up the stage

and maybe you can play on it if you did a good job. They don't even drop you off water. Like, they drop off a pallet of Monster Energy drink and then like work motherfuckers And then and then like literally no joke for these baby bands like this fucking slave labor at that thing I mean they're like you want to be honest you got you got to earn it and like my chemical romance didn't have to do This right and then literally for lunchtime. You're like you get to eat their leftovers. I'm not even kidding. They're like, okay You can eat now. I'm like my chem already ate. So anyway, we did all that. It was a great fun. I loved it. I always rode with the truckers that night and it was, it was a blast. But, um, that band obviously,

um, didn't last that long and we were in a, uh, really bad label deal and blah, blah, blah. What was the name of that band? It was called the delegates. We were a terrible ska punk band. Um, I call it my checkered past. We're a terrible ska punk band. I call it my checkered past you know what I kind of have my ska shirt on here from lost in DC and It was great fun and I learned a lot and then it was time to get a real job and and I I Tried well, I kind of tried at the time. I thought I was trying but I guess I wasn't trying that hard and I

Went home to live with my parents and reconsider what I was doing with my life. Is home Ottawa, where's home? At Manateeck, yeah, that's where they were living. And just kind of with my tail between my legs after my big failure trying to be a musician in my mid-20s, and I was like, I gotta give this one more shot.

And my neighbors who I'd grown up with, and Nixon and Jake who were brothers, had lived down the street. And I'd literally given Nick guitar lessons as a kid well I gave him one guitar lesson he came back for the next guitar lesson and he taught me about minor chords anyway so he I convinced him to start a band with me and they were going back to Montreal they were in school Nick was three years into an engineering degree at McGill. And I knew how to be in a band and we had some good songs and we rehearsed for a year while he was in school and literally

every night that's all we did we had no money and we just like played and played and played and then after we played our first show we were actually a good band Which Wow, yeah, I know right and because my first band was so fucking shitty that I was like it would I just want to be good and so we just practiced until we were good and in within a like probably a month we had like a really shitty record deal offer on the table and Can I get into the details? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool So we had this shitty record deal offer on the table This the guy who produced the songs that we made that was Gus van Gogh

So Gus has gone on now He produces like the beaches and metric and he's one of the best producers literally in the world But Gus had produced our first songs and and they're good enough that we got this shitty record deal offer and I was like Gus we got a record deal offer and he's like you will not sign that record deal because another band that he produced was on that label and they got in this massive fight and it was awful and they got all screwed over and all this blah blah blah blah you don't need I don't need to name names but Gus was like when I introduced you to my manager friend and he's gonna find you a real record deal well he never did we ended up starting

our own record label but I'm jumping ahead no I'm going yeah you're doing great okay thank you I don't do this well I'm document listen I'm documenting the history of everything in this country and I need this origin story. I need to hear it from the horse's mouth here. Well I mean so basically we had enough like we have enough legs to convince the boys to drop drop out of school and I had already finished so it was a pretty shitty convince but we went on the road DIY touring you know we had enough of a foundation that it like we could get shows and we could live out of a van and

and and we're getting enough money to like live from show to show and I guess the real origin story is like those demos we called it demo in a bag and the way that we sold it was that we would go on tour and then we'd stop at a Best Buy and we had a laptop with us and we would go we'd buy a CD burner from Best Buy, a hundred blanks and a hundred ziplock bags and we'd take the burner and we'd sit in the parking lot in our van and we would burn a hundred CDs with the CD burner from Best Buy. We put them in the bag, we'd write demo in the bag on it, and then we'd return the burner back to Best Buy.

Of course, of course. And then we'd sell these, and then we'd go to the mall, and we'd stand outside Hot Topic, and we would have headphones, and we'd sell these demos to kids for like, anywhere from like $2 to like 10. Sometimes like a mom would be like, oh, you boys are so cute, you remind me of my kids,

and they'd give us like 30 bucks and buy us lunch or whatever. And, um, and it got us, it got us around. That was kind of the start. So like the demo in a bag leads to record in a bag. Yeah, you got it. Okay. Well, yeah, I got to give people a taste of what, so where does the name Colorado come

from? Oh, stupidness. Um, well, honestly, I've heard worse names. Like in this, this week, I think I've heard worse names. When we started, we were, we were trying to write a rock opera. Um, you know, I was smoking so much pot and, um, well, we all were. And, uh, and we were like, that would be cool. And like, you know, that's the worst idea ever, but I was like, well, imagine if it was good, like not like, like you ever listened to Tommy or

Something by the hood and you're like what the fuck are you even talking about? Like this makes no sense I don't like we could make it make sense So we started writing that and I think Colorado was supposed to be like the capital city Maybe or I don't know Colorado. Yeah, well in that song American Arama, which literally the lyrics make no fucking sense But but yeah that one there. Yeah which literally the lyrics make no fucking sense. But yeah, that one there, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. And no one's ever been like,

what the hell are you talking about? But like Denver, USA, you came down from the top of the mountain in this imaginary stoner ice world we invented that the seas have risen and then they all froze over. And the only thing left is Denver, because it's at the top, you know? And it's like the capital city and it's and it renames to Colorado. I don't know. I think that was one stoner idea we had. Anyway, whatever.

Everyone talked us out of that idea pretty quick. So, okay, let me give the listenership a taste of this and then I got to tell you like a fun story about I just had an experience at my audio dealer. I had to get a pair of headphones. I bought headphones like, when did I buy these fricking things? Maybe 12 years ago, I bought this pair of headphones for $19. Oh, that's a real long lost in pair. And then, yeah. And then the price went up pretty quickly to 35 and then they discontinued, Sennheiser or whatever, discontinued that kind of headphone and replaced it with $89 headphones. Okay? So this story is really boring myself even, except they broke and then I said,

I don't want to throw out this headphones I've had for 12 years. I kind of want to repair them. So I went to the audio guy and then someone did their magic and repaired these, like this place and everything. It's 33 bucks. For the repair. To repair my... Still cheaper than the new ones. But I actually had this moment of like, oh, this is an interesting amount, 33, because

I paid 19 a long time ago. The new, which are probably a little better, but still, the new, to replace it, it's 89. I paid 19. I can probably go on Amazon. I don't fucking want to do it, but I could probably find something for like 30 bucks on Amazon that would kind of replace it or whatever maybe what would you have done that's great I I'm really into repairing like I bring my clothes there's a great there's a great like an old-school like seamstress Taylor Maria in Washington

who lived down the street from where I live and they They were like they'll like him a like they'll fix it. They'll mend your pants for like five bucks I do that stuff all the time. I'm with you spiritually like I'd rather repair but then I figure oh But I just spent 33 bucks to repair like a pair of 19 dollar headphones Yeah, and I know but if they work and they're good I'm you know with my gear like I play old pieces shit guitars and and but they work they work great And I just keep preparing them because they work But once in a while you have a piece of gear and you like just just doesn't do it for me

And you got to move on I bike a lot. Okay, I bike every day a lot So I always have that moment of like oh, I can't put like $300 into this bike That's worth like 200 bucks now like I have to bury the bike and replace it. Like there's always a moment it happened this way. Have you buried a bike? I've buried multiple bikes, like literally dig a hole in the park and know one of them. I keep in the backyard like a monument because it was my favorite bike for many, many years. And then I like that when I buy a new bike from my bike guy, which is hello to Thomas on first.

Yeah, I bring him the old bike and he'll salvage what he can and see if he can fix it up and sell it. When I buy a new bike from my bike guy, which is hello to Thomas on first. Yeah. I bring him the old bike and he'll salvage what he can and see if he can fix it up and sell it. So I give them the old bike when I get my new bike, which just happened like a week ago. I do like making art out of things that, you know, turn it into a sculpture or something of a old piece of thing you can't bear to get rid of. Right. We actually, so Colorado had a famous, well, we had a bunch of vans that were quite infamous

because we had these shows where we got all our friends and fans to come out after and paint the van. Cool. And they made it hell crossing the border. That's for sure. Try it today. Oh, yeah. No, no.

Thank you. Are you going to the States now? Yeah, I just got back from there. I know I'm not supposed to say. Well, I had Andrew Scott on drummer for Sloan. Yeah. And he said not with this president. He's not crossing that border. Not for Sloan and not for anything. Yeah, I mean Sloan just doesn't make enough money there for him to change his team. They must in Buffalo or whatever. Like I know like the lowest of the low do all right when they go to Buffalo. Yeah, no. I mean Sloan does great in Buffalo. But like I'd take the stance like fuck America and you just lose playing in Buffalo.

I thought Chris, I said that. Yeah, you know, you showed Chris Murphy enough money. He'll play. He doesn't care. It's going to be the three. Listen, this guy, I mean, I don't know him as well as most people. I know he plays hockey every day to Andrew Scott, but I got the serious vibes that there's nothing no money, nothing Chris can do.

If Sloan wants to go to Buffalo in the next couple years, it'll be three of them. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Yeah, but I've been going, I'm not even going to say reluctantly because the thing I've been finding, like I actually toured Florida recently, you know, in March, you know, with a Trump president. I wanted to go there and the people there who are cool are so extra cool. And I don't want to I don't want to just lump everyone in as like kind of the enemy. I want to go and meet the cool people and be like, no, there's good stuff going on there and spend your money in like places where that's a red state. You know, it is.

But there's a lot of cool people doing things in a red state under pretty adverse conditions. So... I'm just... The reason I brought up the headphone thing was not to tell that boring story about spending 33 bucks on... But this is a great song and I was chatting with Bill. His name's Bill Cole.

He's also a musician. This was his wedding song and he was telling me about, you know, record in a bag and Juliet. So I just want to let this brew for a little bit here. For Bill. You got a great self-righteousness Smoking her like cigarettes Sweet as tea time She puts on Pat's Decline Cuts across all samsic Pat's Decline, Change of Heart. I don't know what that is. What's Pat's Decline, Change of Heart. I don't know what that is.

What's Pat's Decline? It's the first song I ever heard from Ian Blurden's band, Change of Heart. I don't really know that band as much as I should, but Pat's Decline. Okay, that's cool. Is that what people... I was saying Pat's Decline. I hear Pat's Decline. That's a Mondagreen. That's a Mondagreen.

That's called Mondagreen when you hear different lyrics. There's a bathroom on the right. What lyric is that? There's a bad moon on the rise. Okay. CCR. There's some famous Hendrix ones. Excuse me while I kiss this guy.

That's the one. That's the one from the meme. So you're the kind of guy I honestly would normally go 90 to 120 minutes with. So I'm going to really cook here, but I can come back. Well, you'll have to come back in a couple of hours. OK, you get a hockey game. But Jack White handpicked Colorado Colorado, Colorado. So let me just say this is the story of our life.

If we were to do a reunion, which we are gonna do and no one knows about that yet until this gets broadcast. But we were thinking of naming the, just changing our name to Colorado or naming the album with an H because the amount of times that that mistake was made is almost made is why we probably broke up. So anyway, so Jack White, yada yada yada yada.

Yeah, the dead weather. Yeah. Oh yeah. The story about how he hand picked us. Tell me the real talk. That's all a load of shit. Like, come on, you hear that about any band ever. And it's like a bunch of agents owed some other people and they tried to get some talking more and like, Jack White, like maybe he listened, who knows? Oh yeah, he hand picked this band open. And it was all the, and we were, you know, when you're 25 years, whatever we were, oh yeah, he hand picked this band to open and it was all that and we were you know when you're 25 You're whatever we were you go you go with it. You're like, oh, yeah, like you know, we met him He came is like nice to meet you guys. Thanks for opening for me and You know quiz them like what was your favorite song? What's your favorite Colorado song? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, oh Colorado's one my favorite bands like yeah

just like my buddy my buddy who ran into Chad Kroger at Side Stage and he was at a festival and he just wanted to watch Nickelback from Side Stage because that would be amazing. Well that's EdgeFest. I feel like that's EdgeFest. I saw Nickelback on the side stage of EdgeFest. So he goes up to Chad Kroger and he's like, dude I'm the biggest fan. I just want to watch you guys from Side Stage because they famously I guess didn't really don't let anybody in these days And all the pyro and everything and just like no problem, man. That's amazing. You're a fan He's like, I'd love that. Have you just named two of my soul? I'm that guy. I see someone wearing like a Ramone shirt

I'm like, can you name five Ramone songs for me? Cause they're like, they sell them at like H and M and stuff. I don't think I could name five Ramone songs, but you're not wearing a Ramone shirt. Yeah. That's the difference. It's not right. You got like the Nirvana shirts, right? You see a lot of Nirvana shirts. It's like, what's your favorite Nirvana song? Hey, anyway, so yeah, Jack White never bullshit. Yeah. But we didn't play with him and we did use that to like, you know Get other gigs and more success Wow. Yeah, I'm rich because of Jack White hand-picking

Well the way they that story has evolved. It's Jack White Basically is like I love this. Hollerado played his wedding. We played his third wedding to his right, it's like like yeah Jack White is to Colorado as Justin Rutledge is to Dave Hodge you could just run with that one later okay okay thank you who won the 2011 Juno Award for best new group and said the whale okay cuz you were nominated that was a big Juno nom yeah I'm a four-time Juno loser no wins yet, eh? No, but that's okay. It's not for people like me.

And we are gonna need a sequel for all the other stuff, but the main stuff is how did you get Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall? Can I tell a story about the Juno night? Yeah, of course. Because it was probably around the Jack White time, and we did pretty good at not drinking our own Kool-Aid, but we did a bit.

And it was like, we were really told, this is a sure shot, you guys are the new group of the year at the 2011 Canadian Juno Awards. Get ready for your life to go crazy. Anyway, our friends who literally played our first shows was said the way out of their butts, they won. We were very happy. Unfortunately, we had booked a big celebration party

at the Horseshoe, and we were supposed to play, and we even had a big celebration party at the horseshoe and we were supposed to play and we even had a party bus going from the thing to the other thing and we lost and we were like, you know, we'll show these guys what fucking losers look like. And we got so fucked up that we couldn't even stand before going on. No joke, we couldn't stand like no amount of drugs could get this fucking thing. But we tried, we tried and we got on stage and then those drugs wore off. Right. And then two of us passed out on the stage of Horseshoe. We got about three songs in. There's a photo somewhere of us all just like collapsed. The drum kit was everywhere. This is three songs in.

And we got, I got literally dragged off the stage by the like great horseshoe bouncers of old and the next morning we came to get our gear and Craig Lasky who is one of the one of my favorite people and and a real believer he handed me his personal copy of the replacements bio and he was like let this be a lesson to you anyway I don't think read it. I didn't read it till like 10 years later which was too late. Well it's never too late. Dave Foley? You just hired Dave Foley? Like from Kids in the Hall? No, no he came to a show of ours in LA on that very first tour. Three of the guys weren't old enough to get in the venue. No two of the guys, me and Nick were old enough and but Dean and Jake weren't old enough.

They were allowed to play, but we had a van. They sat outside in the van and drank beers that we just bought them illegally. And Dave Foley came to the show because his buddy John Kastner had told him about us. And so Dave pulls up and we see him. We're such big fans. And we're like, Dave, you want to come hang out in the van with us? And we, you know, fast friends drinking beers in the back of our van underage with Dave Foley.

And he's been a friend ever since. Do you know what you have in common with John Casner? Oh, I mean, no. By the way, shout out to the Doughboys, honestly. One of my favorites. John is such a friend and he's been such a supporter. He let us live in his jam space for like a month once on tour. Oh good to hear. And you know Rusty comes out of Scott Scott Scottie Mack leaves Doughboys to form

Rusty. Oh yeah oh I knew nothing about any of this. Well listen you're taking those right? Yeah. But you and John Castor have in common is you both coupled up with beautiful talented actresses. punch punching above our weight class that's it I wasn't gonna say that yeah without a doubt but yeah because he's he was with the woman from Mad Men whose name will come to me in a minute yes right yeah she's a dear friend also I and who are you coupled with oh Annie yeah Annie who Annie Murphy in how Annie Murphy from Schitt's Creek. That's the one. That's a big deal. I mean What about it is a big deal? I love her dealing and she's the best and I love that so much, but

You know, it's a it's no when you're in it. It's just your life man. You're just a happy guy in love Like you know, it's all the externals are like wow, that's a fun fact. It's a pretty wildlife We try to honestly we try to keep that whole thing, you know, it's all the externals are like, wow, that's a fun fact. It's a pretty wild life. We try to honestly, we try to keep that whole thing, you know, out of out of like the the the focus, because it can become the focus really quickly. And I've done a bunch of interviews. I've learned not to like they just want to 90 minutes on any. Well, I mean, they just want to like, you know, people are like, oh, I want to hear about your new record or whatever. And then they like, they just asked me questions

about Annie for an hour. And then they, and then I was like, I should have known when people magazine have no questions about Annie, by the way. So that's fine. That's fine. But I mean, people magazine, like we really are digging your new album. They were like, we're loving anyway. Can we talk to you about it? I was like, oh my God, people magazine. People love that. I guess I'll be in every doctor's office and dentist's office in the world. I'll be so huge among people with tooth decay. And then, uh, so I, uh, I, and I did the interview and it's like, they'd literally had one like any Murphy's Murphy's husband, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, so, well, you know, you talked about going over four at the Junos. So she's got like more trophies in the trophy case. I don't have a trophy case. Literally. We need trophies first. Not really. I mean, one day. Oh, fun fact about so we're going to get to Chris Murphy in a minute here. No, we'll spend too much time. We'll spend more time on Chris Murphy than than Annie. Okay. Chris Murphy is basically I call my other dad. Well, the fun fact dropped on me by Andrew Scott because I've had all four guys over but I only really only a couple weeks Go Andrew Scott came over so it's fresh in my mind But he says Sloan never won and they never won a single East Coast Music Award

You think they won all of them the like just By fucked up. It's just like the whole thing is fucked up giving awards for music, giving awards for music. That's what Andrew said. But like, okay, that's funny. I don't care. I never won a pop duo of the year. Well, Chuck D said it best. He said, who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy? Chuck D, I mean, there's a reason. He's one of the greatest of all time. He cares about the important things. Speaking of goats, okay, so you know, Dean and Jake are members of Colorado, right? Yes. Dean and Jake. Dean and Jake also the names of Mark Hebbscher's sons, Dean and Jake. So that's just like a useless fun

fact I'm throwing out for the listenership. Who's Mark Hebbscher? Sports Line, you remember with Jim Taddy? You're younger than me so you might have missed the core Jim Taddy, Mark Hebbshire years of sports. I seem to remember the name rang a slight bell way back. People call him Hebsy? Yeah, no. Yeah, you're too young. Okay and you also, I don't even know if Ottawa gets this thing or whatever like maybe it's a you had to be like raised here. Yeah. Maybe okay. I can't remember Mike Paluso. Okay so there's name. I'm not sure I know. So he was a he was a goon for the senators in the 90s.

Yeah. Great. You know, five series. So since the rebirth of the senators, there's been five series between the Leafs and Sen. Five and oh for the Leafs. Like five, five, nothing. Isn't that nuts? Is that crazy?

I think it's crazy. You know, the worst part about it for me? It's like what's happening right now is that I have to go tomorrow and cheer for the fucking maple leaves and be happy for my friends who don't have to. You can root against the leaves. I'm not that kind of person. You're a nice guy. Well, because I had my friend was a big Habs fan and leaves. I don't know.

Habs that I'm not. Leaves have but leaves are eliminated. Habs go on. I'm still rooting of the big Habs fan and Leafs, I don't know, Habs, not Leafs, but Leafs are eliminated, Habs go on. I'm still rooting against the Habs. Because you don't like them? Yeah, because I love to hate them. Well, get used to the next five years being very painful for you because you know who's at the top of the hill right now?

It's the Leafs and they're about to go down the other side. You know who's about to get to the top of it? The Habs and the Senators are going to be awesome in the next five years. So I live in the present, Mano. I want to play like what I think is the big Colorado jam and then we'll wrap up Colorado and then I have some more fun for you post. I'm curious to know what the big one is. I think this is the biggest one, but I could be wrong.

I listen to a lot of Edge 102. Okay. Oh, that one. could be wrong. I listen to see the frost just fly from the window in our kitchen Where I'm giving up our same, those drugs for my head All those things I couldn't think of, but I really wish I said angel I don't want no hopeless, hopeless, I don't want no hopeless love I don't want no hopeless, hopeless, I don't want no hope, it's hope, it's I don't want no hope, it's love I don't want no hope, it's hope, it's I don't want no hope, it's love If I fall back down

You'll take me up, yeah, you'll take me up If I fall back down You'll take me up, yeah, you'll take me up Pick me up. Yeah, you pick me up. Pick me up. Yeah, you know what? I don't hate it as much as I remember. That was on my, it's on my never play again list. It was.

We didn't play it last fall when we did those reunion shows. And it's all right. I think it's better than all right. I think people enjoy it. Like, what's the point of art if people enjoy your art? Well, it's just hard to sing too. It's so high. No one sings that high. It must've been auto-tuned or something. Well, it's just hard to sing too. It's so high. No one sings that high.

It must have been auto-tune or something. Well, it depends on what kind of high you're talking about. Well, it's probably both. Yeah. There's like, yeah, there's the North Pole Expedition Line. And I'll know what that's about. I have a very serious note for you, a lovely note that came in from Lieve Fumka, who is an FOTM Hall of Famer.

FOTM means friend of Toronto Mike Menno you're now an FOTM. Yes Toronto Mike this has been awesome so far and I'm always a little unsure about this kind of shit but... Has it gone south for you before? Because I'm aching for an episode that goes south so if you could do me a favor and storm out of here in anger. I always have fun when it goes south I like I enjoy watching and like I don't I don't care enough about what people like I don't care enough about how I come across really. Well, this is important. Leave a thumb cause words I'm going to read now.

I just want to thank him for his song and video. So it goes like I said before, so she's told me this before she hasn't told you before. My mom's family hid Jews and in 2005 we went to Amsterdam For the bad Vashem ceremony where we myself and two cousins who are all named after my OMA Accepted the award my OMA had died long ago The baby quote-unquote the baby that was hidden was at this ceremony.

He's the one who put her name forward. I got chills, man. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Yeah. What does that have to do with me? Not just not to bring it up. So it goes. Right. Right. Yeah.

Sorry. I didn't mean that to sound like that. I was like, that story is so much more important than anything. It feels bigger than anything we're talking about imagine you're there and you're at the ceremony and somebody an adult of course was the baby who was a Jewish baby unbelievable who was hid by a Fumka's mom's family successfully I know it's um it's unbelievable that this stuff that went on and it just was the 80th anniversary of the liberation last week. A bunch of my aunts went and they were living there when it got liberated.

My dad wasn't born yet, but my aunts were. And we got the tulip. You're from Ottawa area. You've seen these tulips every spring. They're so beautiful. Yeah. It's worth the drive. Yeah. I love seeing them in Holland too when we shot the music video for this song. Although we like timed it wrong and a lot of them were already sold to Canadians

in the supermarket but they were the ones that were left are very beautiful. So thank you. Thank you. And of course your name very Dutch. Thank you. Thank you. And of course your name very Dutch. It is. And Levi, Levi Fumka. That sounds very Dutch also because it means sweetie pie or something like that. No way. Yeah. See, I don't speak any Dutch, even though, when I crossed the border into the Netherlands, they, well, I actually, cause my dad's Dutch, I have a Dutch passport and I was like, I'm such an idiot. And I was like, I'll just cross with this, you know?

And, and I crossed and the guy started speaking to me in Dutch and I Couldn't even speak back to him and he looked at me like he just found like 40 Pounds of like Afghani heroin in my suitcase. He was so disappointed and I'm sorry You know, so I don't cross with it anymore. I think they took it away. Honestly. Oh my goodness. Okay Why does it come to an end? I know you said there's a reunion show coming up. Maybe give me this good. So, like, so, Colorado comes to an end. Yeah. We just needed to. It was a 24-hour fun train and we had the best time ever and it was exhausting. And we joke, we were like Apollo 13. We shot for the moon and we had the best time ever and it was exhausting. And we joke, we were like Apollo 13.

We shot for the moon and we never landed on it and we goddamn near died in the process. We have a problem. And we just needed a little break in to get on with our lives because music isn't everything, even though it's a massive part of all of our lives. And we just were never like huge enough to play those songs. We weren't making enough money to play songs we didn't really

believe in anymore for money um and we just all needed some time and we took that time over the last six years it's been really really nice to get a new perspective and everyone has like other careers that they're really happy with it with. And some are still in music and some of us are not. And last fall, am I getting into this reunion stuff? Yeah, well, please. Hopefully this is your Tokyo Police Club finale. Yeah, exactly. So when it ended, it was so amicable.

Like we all grew up together. We're best friends. We wanted to stay that way. And we just really walked into a Writing session one day and we're like should this be our last record? And not and we stopped we do one more tour and that's it And I was like, yep just fell right and we're like, okay and we did that and we honestly thought we would like that was it It just it really had to feel like it was really it in order to like move on with our lives

and that was a hard thing to do and we did that and took a break and We did this whole tour. It was so fun the one last time to one last time to her is ridiculous I don't think we slept for four months and then we played three shows at the Danforth music hall and then and then and an open mic at At the horseshoe to like end it all and we had all our friends play and it was it was amazing three shows at the Danforth Music Hall and then an open mic at Horseshoe to like end it all and we had all our friends play and it was it was amazing It was a great way to end like we're never doing this again. That was perfect. And then Tokyo Police Club played some of our last shows and so when they were doing their

Their last run they were like, hey you guys gotta come and play our last show and we can't say no So we did that and we did a couple of little warm up things in Ottawa. And we just had so much fun. And we just remembered, like, there's the pressure is off. And we were and it felt like we were kids in the garage. And that's amazing. It was so amazing. And so then we're like, should we do more of this?

And we're like, well, I don't want to just be that like that. I don't want to be that band that just is like a legacy band and playing Juliet and like when old and not feeling it. And we're like, so we've been talking over the last year and writing and stuff and we're like, you know what, if we have music that we truly believe in that is fresh and I know that sounds so cliche, but that we kind of want to start again. And we're like, should we just start a new band again? And we're like, well, no no because no one will come see it

unfortunate reality no one comes see my solo thing even I did some solo shows that was me and Nick from Colorado the two singers playing Colorado songs there's just two weird right and no one showed up well I remember when Gordownie had a solo material and Gord would be doing solo tours. There's a quote in the doc where I think it's Paul Langlois or somebody said they were nervous about his solo work until they realized, oh, he still needs his day job. I know. Yeah, I know. It's funny. Yeah. The hip could sell out. They could sell out Scotiabank Arena like four nights in a row, but Gord had trouble like filling up the horseshoe.

I know. Isn't that wild? I know. But whatever, that's the world. You can't change it. That's why Oasis is back together. I mean, so I'll let the cat out of the bag. Well, you want a drum roll? I don't know.

I have a drum roll. I never get to use it. Can I use it? Yeah, sure. Use the drum roll. We're doing one show in someone's backyard. Is it mine? No, I just wanted to make it very untriumphant. I know.

I know. Underwhelming. That reminds me. Underwhelmed, if that's a word. I know it's not because I looked it up. It sounds like it's made up by an absolute crazy person. Like someone who is not in touch with reality. Something I learned in my school.

So you know, we've been, I've been writing a lot and doing some stuff and we got something and I think that we're really proud of, we're going to start it off real, real slow and small and is if we're kind of starting again from new. It's like weed or something starts slow. Yeah, we're in our gummies phase. I mean, that's part of it too. Like we're just like, we're all in such better places. We're older, we're healthier.

We have like routine and lives and families and pets that we love. And it's really been amazing coming at it with a new perspective. And I guess the cat's out of the bag, Mike. I'm happy to hear this. So is there going to be a tour? No. no but you're gonna have a new studio album well I was trying to get the specifics here we're the next week we're announcing

three show two shows two shows at the horseshoe I think and you know kind of where we started and then we're doing a couple little festivals and then we're doing in Ottawa same thing like some small shows like at the place where I used to play in my punk band like the Saw Gallery when you know just a small. Do you want to play TMLX 19 on June 26th at Great Lakes Brewery? What is that? It's my 19th Toronto Mike listener experience.

No way. Palma Pasta is feeding everybody and I have some exciting news. I know you got to play hockey but it's frozen solid. It'll make it through the game. I have in my freezer delivered today from Palma Pasta a lasagna for you. Is such great news. I love lasagna. Okay, but the condition is Annie has to eat some.

Honestly, here's a fun fact. Annie hates lasagna. Sorry, Palma Pasta. Okay, I made that up. Well, is it actually lasagna? Yeah, yeah. That's not a joke. So this is empty. Obviously, I was in my freezer. You'll have it when we leave. We had data photo and I'm going to give you your lasagna. Yeah, I love lasagna. I, you know, I love a lot of layers. There's a lot of layers. It's still it's honestly delicious. Like Peter Gross tells me it's the best lasagna he's

ever had that wasn't made by like a Nona. Nonas make good lasagna. Palma pasta is the next best thing. It's delicious. But they are feeding us at TMLX 19 on June 26. And I can measure how high the lasagna is, how many layers there are with my Ripley funeral home measuring. Ripley, Ripley with a D. Ripley of the D here. So this is exciting because last time Colorado played together was in support of the Tokyo Police Club final shows, right? And that was like you said, November 2024. And it sounds like fans of Colorado are going to

get an opportunity to see Colorado again soon. It sounds like this is going to be November 2025. The dates are going to be November 22nd and 23rd, I believe. Wow. At the horseshoe. And, you know, we're just, we're starting slow, but with some new stuff and, you know, people, I don't, you know, I hate when a band comes out with new stuff generally.

But I wanna try and do some new stuff that represents where we're at now and that the people who liked us can get on board with and see if we want to keep going with it. So if there's new music, if there's new music, will it be on the Royal Mountain Records label? Yeah, no one else is stupid enough to sign, Colorado. Okay, we need to tell people what Royal Mountain Records is, but actually I'm going to play a song that like you said, nobody wants to see you solo. I'm sorry to hear this. This is a sad fact of this world we live

in. Nobody wants to see you. So they want to see holler at Oh, they want to see you now. It doesn't even matter what songs you're playing, but can I play a bit of a, like a Menojam? Yeah, sure. And then you can give me a gift because I've given you too many things. Yeah, you've got to even it out. This is it. This one I love.

I like it too. That's Doug Paisley on guitar and Nixon Boyd from Colorado on guitar. In verse I was eight years old when I got my nose first busted up all over my shirt But you learn the spots for swimming in the summer you learned to pass the puck And you learn sometimes it's best saying nothing when you don't want to test your luck There's a fish out of water. You can sing of yourself. Every place you go running, right? There's a fish out of water.

Everyone you know. Mendo, what do you got in your hands there? This is the album that this is off. Yeah. You know, it's also one of the reasons that it felt right to do, Colorado again. It's like I got, I got my folky side, like I, it didn't go well in Colorado. People like just shut up, you know? And it's, this is this music I grew up on and a lot of the music that I write, they never really got a place to put it. And it's nice to finally put this record out. Well, this is your first solo album. It is. I know at 44 years old, I put it out. I don't have first solo album. It is. I know at 44 years old I put it out.

I don't have any solo albums. Hey it's never too late. No it really is. Do I need to be able to sing or play an instrument? No no no this is clearly evidence. I am punk. Thank you so much. So thank you so much. This is I love I have vinyl there's some tragically hip some maestro there's a whole whack of vinyl that's gonna go in this studio. That's the record that has the song that I've been trying to learn. I'm so bad at cover cover. What are you playing on the garrison? I'm doing long time running but my wedding song. No 100% Yeah, that's wonderful. It's it was it's a really special song to me. I love it so so much, but I'm terrible It's like I'm not exactly a good musician or a good singer. You can see the air quotes for all you radio listeners It's just not how it is. It was a joke through all of Colorado how like numerous people's livelihoods depended on my singing ability.

And some say Neil Young can't sing. He's better at not being able to sing than I am. But I started singing lessons. Okay, good. What the hell? It's not too late. My nine year old just started singing lessons. Can you guys get maybe a Goop discount? Oh, God. I feel like that's a sitcom waiting to happen. Okay. Amazing. So, Why We Run is this solo release, and I've got vinyl now, and this is the song we got in the background. But can you tell me just in a nutshell, what the hell is Royal Mountain Records? It's basically a record label I started because no one wanted to sign in Colorado.

We had this idea to put out a record in Ziploc bags across the country. Everyone was like, you're an idiot. I was also in a really bad experience with my old band before with a record label. Something I always wanted to try, so we put out our album and that was record in a bag. Uh, it did well, not crazy well, but well enough to keep going. It actually did. The cold wedding song is a song from that album. Yeah, it did go gold, but we came out in 2009 and it went gold last summer. So whatever it took like 14 years or something to go.

It's a slow burn, long time running. Yeah. I mean And so we put that out and then along the way I Stumbled across some other really great bands way better than you know our bands ever what well not better different and definitely more successful a lot of them and We helped you know, we helped them I always like to think though that the great bands that we worked with like they would have done it

regardless I don't take any credit like they would have found some other label but right place and right time and believing in something maybe before someone did and yeah but we signed a couple Toronto bands like well East Coast Transplants, Always and Pup early on and these are big bands sure. Oh yeah amazing great great great great great great bands and as I said like if it wasn't us it would have been someone else but it was us and so that helped propel it and it's still going. I help out on the creative side now still and like I do stuff like One of the bands from Halifax there a bunch of like kids in their early 20s getting their first van

I'm going to go test drive a van for them in Toronto that they're like I like that kind of like the practical stuff I can help out with I don't do anything important like in terms of like I don't go anywhere near the money. I don't go they don't let me like I don't I don't like any of the industry parties or Any of that kind of thing? I don't do I don't let me like I don't I don't like any of the industry parties or any of that kind of thing I don't do I don't do any pitching. I just like it's it kind of drains my soul that part of it um, it uh, but there's people who work there who are Connor who works there and dina who works there paul who works there and hailey like they do such a great job at that and they love it and and the artists love working with them that I Can stick to

what I'm good at. So that's my role in that. And also it's worth noting that you got some attention when you co-founded this label for contributing to bands mental health funds. Oh yeah that was fun. Well you know after Colorado stopped, you know we were all in kind of rough shape and I was able to afford therapy for the first time my life and I went to It and it like really really helped and I was like wow if only I had had this like along the way

Maybe we would have been you know, our careers would have been different and you know We did some therapy as a band kind of thing But like never not the like personal like right like actual therapy. We all need it to work on our own shit And it helps so much it it really, really did. I feel like it would have made touring more sustainable and I wanted to share that. And it was crazy when I, it's not much, we give like $1,500 per band per album cycle

to like use what, if they need to get treatment and if they need counseling or people have used it for dental work or whatever you need that's just gonna make you, touring more comfortable and make your job easier. I think that should be part of our national healthcare system, but it's not. Also, I think all the labels and managers and ticket masters who make money off these artists and all sit at their day jobs at home making a shitload of money, they should be

contributing to a fund that pays for all this stuff, that's for sure, but it's not. So I do my thing. And God, I got flown around the world to talk about this. Like I went to talks in like all over the US, and Ireland, and the UK, and like talking about this new revolution thing, and everyone's like, oh my God, you're changing the game.

Way to go. I was like, yeah, we should all like kick in just like fractions of a penny towards, you know, our artists' health, and everyone's like, oh, you're crazy. You know, and so no one's really done much about that since and whatever it's not my problem I do what I can and artists who we work with at Royal Mountain really appreciate it and that means a

whole lot to me. No good on you man kudos to you for doing something you can laugh it up with 1,500 bucks a band isn't that much it's $1,500 more. Oh, it helps. Yeah. Yeah. And also like so many of the therapists and stuff that we work with, they're like, they get it. They're like, we'll do it for 50 bucks a session or whatever. You know, they give these discounts to bands and stuff. There's people who get it. There's people who are fighting the good fight. There really, really is. And I, I, Is that a triumph song? I don't think I've known one piece of music you've talked about. Okay, what's our piece of music we have in common that we both love? Tragically hip.

I mean, yeah, definitely. But if you're watching, you were watching Sends and Leaves on Sportsnet for the first round, and they had a song from Triumph that was played all the time. Yeah, so I mean, Triumph was all over it. But I'm actually too young myself. Like even though I got some years on you, I'm too young for Triumph myself. But I've had these guys on the program. So it's like, they're all fresh in my head. What's their big song? Okay, I'm going to name I'm going to play the biggest Triumph song according to YouTube

right now. I'm going to play it for you to see just if I know it. Because I think I think they got some big jams. I feel like don't stop don't stop going for it. Don't do that. Keep going. Yeah. Is those kind of songs. Break down the door. Oh yeah. The boys are coming home. I don't know. I don't know. Why don't you write a song like that? Okay. So here we I'm just searching triumph. We do. We have we wrote one for the new record. Oh, you know, the problem is that it's triumph gets you a bunch of motorcycle shit, so I actually have to add band to it here. So this is real time. I'm going to guess and we're going to see the fur.

OK, here is don't tell me. OK, so just listen, listen. Hold on. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. Here we go. Hold on. Listen, hold on, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, here we go, hold on. This is nothing like I expected Triumph to sound. So Rick Emmett is the vocals you're going to hear. Oh, that's Rick Emmett's band. Gil Moore is a founder of a guy named Mike Levine.

So this is Triumph. He's a good singer. I'm going to sound like that after singing lessons. Almost definitely. Why don't you just go get singing lessons from Rick Emmett? He'll help you. Yo, Rick, are you listening? Can I come for singing lessons?

I think that's a great story. I think he's in like Mr. Saga or something. Rick, I'll learn your man. Ah, these rules. So they've been playing the shit out of this thing during the NHL playoffs on the Sportsnet. Man, shows you what my ears do. Now when you hear it, you'll be like,

oh, that Toronto Mike guy played this for me, but oh, then I'm waiting for the chorus, because. So many chords in this. Maybe not. You got to listen to this before your hockey game. I love that guitar riff. Like I'm a big fan of those are some good. Before I say goodbye to you, you've been amazing.

This has been amazing Mike. You want to know what my favorite Chukachukas is? There's a lot of good ones. You know the one in Creep? Of course. Yeah, Radiohead. That's a great... That's a good Chukka.

It's my favorite Radiohead moment, which will probably get me in trouble with a lot of music songs. I'm with you, except that the real Radiohead heads, that's what they're called, Radiohead heads, they do look right down on you because that song was made as some kind of a parody of what Americans like or something. I know. It's sort of like Blur's song too. Yeah, I know.

Where it's like, oh, we're going to write some piece of shit for you stupid idiots. And then they write it and then we're going to use it as our goal song for the next 15 years in my stadium. I'm a creep. OK, here's where I want to close two places I want to go. One is because we've mentioned the name Chris Murphy. Yeah, I'm a big Sloan head. Yeah, love Chris. But he's been over here a couple of times.

You know who paid a visit last summer and I was honored to have him in the basement Sam Roberts. No way Sam My bud in my band. Yeah, this is so yeah, I'm building a story here. Come on. We're building this. Okay, so Who else will I? Want to tell you how I convinced him to be in a band with me? Of course, I literally I Sam was in the bathtub and I was friends with both of them, but not that good friends. And I called and I had this idea I wanted to, anyway, I was like, this could be fun. And then I called Sam and he was in the bathtub and I was like, Sam's in the bathtub.

If I call Chris and I was like, I got Chris to agree to do it. So I was like, Chris, I got this idea for a band, like Chris just agreed, Sam just agreed, but Sam was in the bathtub. So, um, and I both told him that the other one agreed and they both move. Yeah. And they both agreed without talking to each other. And they, and they finally called each other when Sam got out of the bathtub. He was like, uh, he's like, he's like, you agreed. I agreed. And we got to do this. He was like he's like he's like you agreed I agreed and we got to do this

So the four members of anyway gang are Sam Roberts Chris Murphy you and the only guy in the band who hasn't been in the basement yet And we got to rectify that at some point Dave monks from Tokyo police club you for anyway gang You know Chris Murphy's got 19 of these side projects. Yeah, I think he calls this one his plan L. If Trans Canada Highwayman doesn't work out or whatever, he's got the anyway gang. But just tell the people what the hell is anyway gang. Are you guys still a going concern? Is it still happening?

I think it'll come around again. Yeah, I wanna be a casino band in my old age with them. But by the time I'm in my old age, Chris and Sam will probably be in coffins. They'll be at the funeral home. That'll be it. Oh, thank you for reminding me here. Okay so I do have a couple more sponsors I just want to give love to. Recyclemyelectronics.ca that's where you go if you have old cables, old electronics, old devices you don't throw that in the garbage. Chris Murphy think they'd take his pacemaker You know Chris is the funny one But I said that to Patrick Pentland and he got his back up like he goes

I'm pretty funny like I don't know if he would agree but I find Chris to be very funny. Oh Chris would certainly agree with you. Oh Chris would agree but it's Patrick who didn't agree Well Patrick felt like I was cutting saying he wasn't funny But the fact is this is the funniest guy I know and I hate to admit it. Basically every Inuit gang show is like I just talk and then he just turns what I said into a roast of me and it's always funny and I love it. He's funny. He was here with Stephen Page because they're both in Trans-Canada Highwayman and they were down here and I was like, yeah, this guy really is funny. He's really fucking funny. Okay, so

If you have these old cables old devices old electronics, you don't throw it in the garbage The chemicals end up in our landfill you go to recycle my electronics dot CA You put in your poster code and find out where to drop it off to be properly recycled. Okay sense to me and last but not least Building Toronto skyline is a podcast from Nick Ienis Nick has another new podcast called building success and Nick is a proud supporter Literally, he stepped up to help fuel the real talk so I could have these deep dives of great artists in our community like you

This has been so fun I'm curious about something that hit the news in 2013. So we're going way back now. But your apartment burned down, your junction apartment burned down. Oh, it did, yeah. So what do you remember? Like, can you give me a little detail on our way out here?

What happened? Sure, I mean, it was my first experience with losing everything in a house fire. But you know what, it was kind of great. And you know, we were away at the, we were at my cottage and no joke, we- So you weren't there. We weren't there, we weren't there all weekend.

We were actually playing, no, we were playing the Tula Festival in Ottawa. It was that weekend. And we came back and we were working on the video for So It Goes. And we met the director across town and, excuse me, and we met him across town and we're looking at old footage of like Holland burning after being bombed and we're looking at it

and we're like, wow, imagine. And it was so crazy. And while we're looking at this footage and being like, that's wild to to think of your house being burned like that and I got a phone call from Nick from all around he's in he was like, I think your place is on fire. I was like, okay, like how bad he's like Well, I don't think you'll be sleeping there tonight. Wow. Well, we didn't sleep there for two years we went to live with my grandparents and That was an amazing experience in its own self, living in the attic in my 85 year old Polish immigrant grandparents house was really, really amazing. And honestly that fire was really weird and one of the best experiences of my life.

It's interesting how you can make lemonade out of a situation like that. That would be devastating. Like you lost everything. It didn't have that much. So that's your glass being half full again. Okay. Then the bright side, we didn't have much to lose. Okay.

Very interesting. So this is you and Annie Murphy who had your place burned down, but luckily you weren't home. Yes, we weren't home. Yeah. Has Colorado ever played Regina Saskatchewan? had your place burned down but luckily you weren't home. Yes we weren't home, yeah. Has Colorado ever played Regina, Saskatchewan? Way too many times. What do you think of Regina?

It's one of the worst places to play. It always isn't, it's never been good for us. I don't know, I know some people from there I really like. Honestly I don't like talking smack about a place and there's no, it's just like every time we go there is just like nobody shows up and that's our fault. Like, I guess we just don't play. I don't know. I feel like they do. You think like the already last like the Regina Alt Rock station isn't playing Colorado. Is that there an alt rock station in Regina? I don't know. It's thank I'm just glad right now.

Like this segment is not brought to you by the Regina tourism board. Yeah. I'd be how to repair that. But so I don't actually have Regina as a sponsor, but Minaris sent over this wireless speaker for you. And with that wireless speaker, when you're listening to your jams, you can also listen to season eight of Yes We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast from Minaris hosted by Al Grego. And this week, Al went to Regina, Saskatchewan to visit Gloria Walsh, manager of Creative Kids, a charitable organization dedicated to removing financial barriers for Saskatchewan children aged four to 19, so they can participate in arts and culture. I feel like you'd be way into what

they're up to at Creative Kids in Regina. So that inspiring story is a latest episode of Yes We Are Open and you can listen to that in your on your new wireless speaker, Mano. Thank you very much for that gift. I feel like this will come in a lot handy this summer. You know, and don't let that burn in a fire, okay? So no more fires for you, man. Knock on fake wood. On our way out, I'm gonna remind people that yes, you are coming to TMLX 18 on May 11th, 1.30 p.m.,

Christie Pitts, Beyond the Left Field Fence. Find me, say hi. We're gonna have a great time. We're gonna watch history being made. But I also would love you to go to the event at the Garrison on Friday night. Doors open at 7pm. There's a couple of sets of some great artists. Ben from Billy Talent is on the list here. My friend Annie Mays and of course his Skydiggers bandmate Josh Finlayson. They're on the bill here. I'm just looking at Hugh Brown, who's been over here. He's on the bill. Some great John Bora, Justin Rutledge,

and of course Menno, you're on the bill and you're gonna do long time running. I'm gonna try my best. No guarantees it's gonna- That's a big one, you know. Did you, you got a, that's a big- It was one of the first songs I ever tried to learn and I still haven't learned it.

I couldn't learn it when I was like, you know, 13 and I tried to learn it. His first show I ever saw to learn and I still haven't learned it. I couldn't learn it when I was like you know 13 and I tried to learn it. His first show I ever saw live was The Hip at another roadside attraction with a Night Oil and some other band I think, Iprah Wine, I didn't like them. But you're a time zone. But I was like you know what I'm gonna take a crack at that song and try and get it for once and Well onwards and here at Friday Friday night, we're gonna hear it you're gonna hear it either way Everybody brings a non perishable food item or two or three or four for the daily bread food bank The garrison Friday night man. Oh, I love this man. That was really nice Mike

I appreciate you having me on you're doing good stuff down here and Friday night. Man, I love this man. That was really nice, Mike. I appreciate you having me on. You're doing good stuff down here. Got to share the love with the peoples, you know, and shout out to Steven Stanley, an OG member of Lowest of the Low, and Elliot Lefkoe. Shout out to Elliot Lefkoe, who still says no to my polite invitations to come on this show. But he loves the show and that really is all that matters. And that is... Did I wreck it?

You wrecked it, man. You obviously haven't listened. No, I've never listened. You never listened. Listen to Brendan Cannon. He was on Friday. You'd love it. And that brings us to the end of our 1,686th show.

Do you think I have the right number? Man, are you paying attention over here? We're wrapping up. I'm taking notes. I'm saying seven. You know what? I did fuck it up. We'll do it again.

We'll do it again. Okay. And that brings us to the end of our 1687 show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. Don't leave without your lasagna.

I can't wait. Monaris, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, recyclemyelectronics.ca, Buildin' Toronto Skyline and Ridley Funeral Home. Brad Jones is here tomorrow. We're going to record a new episode of Life's Undertaking. Subscribe and enjoy Brad's excellent podcast, Life's Undertaking. See you all tomorrow. So So Music