Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1989

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

In this 1989th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with authors Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider about the 25th anniversary of Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-95.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, 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]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, I'm Jason Schneider. And I'm Michael Barkley. And we're thrilled to be back here on Toronto Mike to talk about the 25th anniversary of the first edition of our book. Have not been the same, the Can Rock Renaissance, 1985 to 1995. The Bible. I'm going to call it the Bible. Welcome to episode 1,989 of Toronto Mike, 19. That number.

Another summer. Sound of the funky drummer. I'll stop there. An award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great LakesBeer.com 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. Visit Palma Pasta.com for Fusion Corpso, Nick Aienis. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. Safe, secure recycling for residents, businesses, and the environment. Ready to recycle?

Bring it. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And yes, joining me today, returning to... Toronto mic, but visiting for the first time together as a couple. Tank team. It's the authors of have not being the same. Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider, welcome back to both of you.

Hey, thank you for having us. Our other co-author, Ian Jack, could not join us today. He's teaching children the future of music. Well, I believe the children are the future. So does Ian. Okay. So Ian will miss him. Yeah, there are three authors.

I see on the Bible here have not been the same, but you two are here. And Jason, I'm going to play a little song here off the top. Well, first, let me just say, Mr. Barclay, you could not wait to pop your can of Great Lakes beer on the mic. You had to get into it right away. So you're already enjoying your light logger. Let's hear you, Jason.

Yes. Okay, let me know how that goes. I love your Neil Young shirt. That night in Toronto, you got your, that's a tragically hip shirt. Oh, no, that's a tragically hip shirt. Oh, no, that's his substack. But the lyric. Okay, well, it's a tragically hip lyric.

Absolutely. So, cheers to you gentlemen. Thank you to Great Lakes for sending over some fresh craft beer. Now everybody will listen to a slurp and drink. But I have a little song that I got from you, Jason, that I just thought I'd open with here. Such a sad story for such a good man. He can help. He was dealt up at hand.

Such a sad story for such a command He was never knocked down Out, Canadian heavyweight crown And in 66 Shuvallu far for his life Sent Ali to the hospital Went to dance with his wife Jason

Yes Do you know what we're listening to? I certainly do and thank you for playing that That's a new recent track by a new group from Montreal called Felicity Hamer and Black Leather Rose. It's a single called Heavy Hitter, which they wrote as a tribute to the great George Savallo, who of course just passed away recently.

And yeah, the song came out in the summer. So appropriate, though. Yeah. Timing is everything. But did either of you two gentlemen ever had the pleasure of meeting George? George Chivalvo. No, and I never sung karaoke with him either, because apparently that was the thing. Okay. Yeah. I bet you John Gallagher did that a few times. In karaoke? Yeah, no, I wish I could have had the opportunity to meet him, but it's, it's, you know, looking back at his life.

Well, just just seeing how he, you know, obviously he's famous for fighting Muhammad Ali twice and going the distance without being knocked down. and just seeing all footage of him hanging out with Ali is just tremendous. You could tell that they just had such a deep friendship and respect for each other. Never knocked down in the ring, or really outside the ring, had the saddest, most tragic personal life. And I had a long chat with his son. Sadly, his son told me years ago that George didn't really recognize him anymore and hadn't really been aware of what was going on.

for several years, sadly. But he passed away, and I had this great song he sent over, Jason. I thought I'd give it a spin. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, if anyone's interested, yeah, you can find it on Band Camp, Felicity Hamer and Black Leather Rose. Great song, heavy hitter.

I'm going to ask you a question, Michael, and you can chime in to Jason, but the Polaris, and we will get to this Bible. We wrote a book. I know, you wrote a book, 25 years ago. We're going to get to it. I love that book. We're going to get to it. But anjean de Poitrine.

Can you say that for me? You do it, Michael. Jean de Poitrine. Okay, I have trouble with the P-word there. Like, I have trouble coming out of Poitrine. I got to work on it. But what are your thoughts? Polaris champs.

Love it. I'm excited. I enjoy the band. I enjoy the record. I'm excited by everything they've done. I'm excited by the ways in which they do it, the way they run their business. Very DIY, very local Quebec-Based.

Not from Montreal. They're from Saginae. Shikudomi Shikudomi I managed to see them twice in one week this summer once opening for Jack White and once at Hillside

I saw them the same week but at neither of those events. Oh really? I saw at the World Cup yeah. So the Jack White thing because this is a Toronto podcast

I rarely enjoy going to the amphitheater and if I do I usually go right before the headliner because anytime I see an opening act there it's terrible and nobody cares. Everyone's walking around. The sound is bad. It's just like I'd rather see these people,

you know, headline their own gig. But for Anjean de Poitrine, the place was packed before they went on and the entire place was on their feet the entire time and people in cosplay and all kinds of, you know, I just, I had never seen that before

at the amphitheater and it was so thrilling. And thank God Jack White was great as well because otherwise... And do you care at all about Jack's policy, no phones allowed? Yeah, I love it. Except you definitely have to remember remember where your seat is.

Right. Because your phone is your ticket. So if you go to the bathroom, you're like, oh, shit, what section am I? Right. What about you? What are your thoughts on ADP, Mr. Schneider? Well, I'm glad that it's, you know, seems to be ushering in a new air of Canadian weirdness, hopefully.

That's, uh, popular Canadian weirdness. Popular Canadian weirdness. So that's, I think that's always been one of our country's strengths. And, uh, you know, we, we could always use. use more of it. Do you think maybe this band, maybe for the next chapter of their musical career here,

that they add, like, I don't know, a guest vocalist to a track and they have a song with vocals? Well, they did meet Tagak at the Polaris, so we'll see what happens there. But my son thinks

they should add a trombone player because they could play the microtones, like between the notes. Okay. Yeah. I wonder if this, I just wonder if they have legs. I mean,

I was really, like, blown away by what I saw, but I don't know if this is like a flash in the paint. Well, they're going to have to eventually do something different, but, you know, that's... Or not. Or not. I mean, you know, they could be like ACDC and make the same record for the next 20 years.

I'm not sure people will be happy. Yeah, but ACDC had hits. They're making the hits over and over again. Hey, speaking of hits in this country and your book, which we'll get to 85 to 95, but in that block, although it was, I always say that the bands, like at this period of time late 80s into the 90s, Like they're either like, sometimes they overlap like the hip, but they're either a Q107 band or a CFNY band. Like, what are they? But Sass Jordan was a Q107 artist and she had that bluesy rock, but so many CanCon hits.

Any thoughts about the passing of Sass Jordan at the young age of 65? Well, yeah, it's certainly sad. 65 is too soon. I think she actually. Too, uh, too, uh, yeah, she just appeared at the, uh, the blues fest in Kitchener this summer. If I'm not mistaken. No, she actually sounds, and I don't know anything, so I won't even speculate, except that there was an abrupt moment of like,

we got to cancel the rest of our tours because Sass has a battle on her hands. Because she played through the summer, like into August. She was playing gigs. And then there was a moment of like, all the rest of the shows are canceled. Sass has a bigger fish to fry here. Well, yeah, well, that's really sad if that's the case. But yeah, she was, yeah, I guess in that era, that late 80s era when, you know, bands like, you know, guns and roses and the black crows were kind of bringing the old

rock and roll swagger back to things. Right. She was part of that. And the hip. Yeah. Yeah, she was kind of part of that scene. And, yeah. I will say two other things is that reading about her this week, everybody is so effusive

about how lovely she was on every level. and just very professional, just like a great boss and everything like that. And the other thing, to link it into what we're talking about, is she started her career as a backup singer for the box out of Quebec. Yes, which I believe probably gives her a mention in the book.

Yeah, so she, but I didn't realize until recently that a lot of people first saw her in the video of her closer together, but she doesn't sing on that. Correct. But she does sing on Lafer de Muccié. and gentlemen, October 14th is coming up soon. And on the 14th of October, very early in the morning. All right.

Now back to closer together, though, great jam, much music, great gateway into your book. But it caused a lot of confusion in this country, okay? Haven't Sass Jordan lip syncing to another artist's backing vocals. See, that's very confusing. All right. I'm going to stop you here because that's a chapter that Ian wrote. So you should be asking him about this.

Can we zoom them in? Also, nobody knew her cared. Nobody knew her character. No, she was not known. She was unknown. She explained it to me. She came over here. You mentioned everybody at, I had the, like, I had the best time with Sass.

Like, she had this like spirit, this, like, this, this, this aura about her where it was just like, it was like, after the recording with Sass, I felt like I was on some wonderful drug. Like, it was like, this is wild. Like, she was just incredible. But she said that the, the actual singer whose name eluz me right now, French woman, who St. Clair, somebody's St. Clair, I think. But rather popular in Quebec. And for some reason, they didn't, it was beneath her to be singing backgrounds in the video.

So they had, you know, she stepped in because she's on other cuts on that album. But that is the first time we all saw Sass Jordan. Much music. Okay. Last note here. Lots of preamble here. But this is episode 1989.

So two significant things, I think, of interest happened in 1989. One is the Skydome opened. So Skydome opens in 1989 and the Tragically Hip release up to here whatever became of that band, Michael. So the Berlin Wall doesn't register. Toronto events.

Tiananmen Square. Toronto events. Come on, Michael. Where are you? Where are you? I'm all around the world. Nope, skydome opens up to here. That's about it for 1989.

Oh yeah, nothing else. In the Toronto, in the Toronto landscape here. your first visit here, Michael, was April 20 and high. What would you do if I called you Mike? Like, would you be indifferent to it? You are the Toronto Mike. But you don't, no one calls you Mike in your personal life? My high school friends do.

Oh. Okay, so you got to be in like in the exclusive click there and then you can call you Mike Barclay. Correct. Okay. Just for the record here. April 2019, this is well before the pandemic. Believe it or not.

Episode 456. Mike chats with author Michael Barclay about his career and the never-ending present, the story of Gore Downey and the Tragically Hip. We had a very long conversation in your Toronto Mike debut. You were in this basement because you came back July 1st, 2020. What was happening? Oh yeah, we were in this COVID. We were in the backyard.

Yeah, we were in COVID. He brought your own mic. That's right. You're the only guest, almost 2,000 episodes. You're the only guest to bring their own microphone. Yeah, my ex was a bit of a hyperchondriac and insisted I bring my own microphone. You never know. You can never be too careful.

Okay. But that was episode 677 and we actually kicked out 10 Toronto jams and I'll just say to you that I still go back to that episode. I loved those 10 songs you brought that day. Because they were great. Yeah. It helps when they're great. And you brought some great context and a couple of them I didn't know. It was fantastic.

Okay. And then one more visit. chatted with me about Hearts on Fire, six years that changed Canadian music. 2000 to 2005. We kicked out some jams related to this book and that was May

2022 and over to you and you'll tell me I'm missing some, Jason, because sometimes you'd come on with a guest. But I remember you were here to talk about the longest suicide, which was your authorized Art Bergman biography. Yes, I was here. I had brought art with me.

So were you, can I ask you, were you here once we zoomed art in and then once when art was here in the flesh. Yeah, I believe, yeah, you did do a Zoom call with Art the first time. And then, yeah, the second time for the book, he was luckily in town. So, you know, that was an amazing time with art in the basement. He was incredible. He was, yeah. Well, I could tell you were trying to get him to, you were trying to rile him up a little bit.

I think it was Buffy St. Marie. Yeah, it was something like that. did not like me disparaging the good name of Buffy. I don't know how that aged for him. We got to check in with art. Yeah, we'll see. Sometimes it takes a while to accept things and realize, oh,

I was duped for my life. I don't accept it. We just had that conversation. Yeah, we did. Yeah, that's a whole other story. Well,

now I need to know what, like, no, on topic. Well, well, I mean, I mean,

if we want to stay on the topic of art, I mean, that, that's, I can pivot to Buffy. No, but it's it's it's it's a good way to kind of lead into talking about having up been the same because he was actually that was the first interview that I personally did for the book oh right I forgot about that was

that was that was the first time I met him that's right it was sometime I can't remember what year it was and that's one of my favorite in the mid 90s that's one of my favorite chapter openings in the book is you going to see art at a low point in his career yeah that was when he was he was living here in in in Toronto um he was well I guess I didn't know it at the time but he was was doing a methadone treatment and the person who was kind of taken care of him was a guy named Donnie Blaze. I don't know if that name rings a bell. He ran some clubs on Queen Street in the 90s.

And that's where I met art, the club called The Generator, which I didn't, I don't think lasted very long. But Donnie actually, yeah, he had art working there during the days, just kind of cleaning up the place just to keep himself busy. and that was when I managed to meet him and did the interview for the book, which was, it was pretty terrifying experience. Well, how so?

Well, it was, you know. Tough times for art. It was tough times for art, but, you know, we're kind of launching into this huge project that we weren't sure, you know, would happen. And you walk into one of your toughest interviews. Yeah. And, yeah, to me, art at that time was, you know, someone I really admired.

And I had no idea if he was even interested in talking to me. But, you know, after a few, you know, anxious moments right off the bat, he got into it. I think the first thing he asked me, he asked me who my favorite writers were. And I, yeah. And I think I. But you passed. Yeah, I think I babbled. I mean, you earned his trust, obviously.

I mean, yeah, for sure. This is an authorized. This is not unauthorized like Barclays, Gordony. Those guys don't trust me at all. Yeah, no, it was, it was a, it was a very eye-opening afternoon for sure. I think we were, I think we talked for at least a couple hours. And yeah, I left there. I think that, you know, after I left that interview, I was kind of convinced that we could, we could, we could do the,

book and it would work. So when, but prior to that, like, when did you realize that have not being the same was going to become a book? Like, when did you realize you were going to take on this big project? Well, I guess I sort of had the original germ of the idea because I, even going back to when I was in high school and first wanting to write about music, I wanted to. The heavy book, by the way. Yeah, we call it a brick.

It's a brick. It's a brick. Cinder block. Yeah, it's a cinder block. But yeah, I always had this dream of writing a book about my favorite Canadian artists. And, you know, after I met Michael and we started working together and we were just, you know, we were working at a little magazine based in Guelph and all weekly. And we were interviewing these musicians like all the time.

And I think, you know, it just dawned on us that, you know, we should do something with all this material. we've been gathering. So you can take up the story there, I guess. Well, so Jason had a job at Ed Magazine. It was called. And Ian was a music freelancer. He was in Hamilton at the time. And Jason and Ian didn't know each other,

but I knew both of them. And they had both mentioned this idea. And I was like, we should do this together, the three of us. Which, you know, a lot of people find weird or like it would be super unwieldy,

but it worked out really well. as soon as we decided what the structure of the book would be, and then we just divvied it up, and everybody wrote their own chapters with some exceptions. There were some chapters where there's been a crossover with a couple of writers, but generally we were kind of given our lanes to stick in, and we did. And then we just kind of edited each other and worked on it together. And, you know, there are things that Jason wrote that I can ever write

and things that Ian wrote that I can ever write and vice versa. So I think the combination of the three of us made it a much better book. but when you you published this 25 years ago 2001 like did you have any idea that oh you'll be talking about this book in 25 years yes yeah yeah no yeah i yeah i i yeah it's it's it's it's it's it's it's true well just because at the time well we knew that no one no one had even you know attempted to try to write a book like this before and there were reason yeah and and and and and and and and there were only maybe like a handful of of Canadian music history books

that were, you know, at that time, kind of worth reading. Do you want to name check the good ones? Yeah, Nick Jennings. Yeah. Before the Gold Rush. Bedini had just put out on a cold road, which I really loved,

but was a very different kind of book. And they were both at that West and Phoenix event, right? Well, apparently Nick was there. I didn't see him. We were talking later. But so there were those two. Well, going back even for, further, you know, there were books kind of in the early 70s.

Richie York's book on the... Axis chops and pop-chops and hot licks. Yeah. I mean, you know, it hasn't aged well, but I mean, you know, that was... That was really the first book to, you know, about Canadian music. And that was like 71 or 72 or something. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, they're really, you know, we didn't really have much.

to, you know, compare what we were doing against. I think we knew that nobody else would do it. And it took a long time. And there's still not a lot as superseded it. I mean, I wrote a tragically hip book. Jason wrote an Art Bergman book. There's a lot of people in that book who have not had books written about them.

Actually, cowboy junkies had a book. Some guy in Britain wrote a cowboy junkies book. There's a Joel Plaskett book. Although that's more, anyway, the Thresharmid is in our book. But, yeah, so there's been very little. There is finally a blue rodeo book coming out. I can't believe it took that long for that to happen, right?

So when we wrote it, we were like, yeah, no one's stupid enough to do this. But is it stupid enough or that maybe people didn't really appreciate that Canadian alt-rock deserved like a historical document of this nature? It deserves it, but it's mostly left to academics to do it because it was not seen as a commercially viable thing. and with good reason. Like it took a long time to sell out its print run and eventually it did. And that's why it was reprinted in 2011.

But it's not a money-making project. And also because of the size of it, it's clearly not a money-making project. Like the physical costs to print that alone. You know, like the base cost. You sell it by the pound. I think it costs $18 to print one of those. And then so you sell it for 30.

And then everybody's piece of that is pretty small. Yeah. And I don't even think for that. for the photos too. I don't think we even really paid that much for the photos. Oh, I can guarantee you we didn't. And I'd like to apologize to everybody who's... Oh, the other big, big, uh, misfire is in the original edition,

there's color plates in the middle. It's like, oh, look at these great color photos in the middle. And someone at the publisher forgot to put the photo credits in for those. Oh, my goodness. So some photographers had these beautiful photographs in the middle that were not credited anywhere. Well, the very last page, it's randomly opened the last page here. And it says a million vacations. McCracken who just passed away

and then it says McCracken and Dubois both just passed away in the past month right on the same day Jason was that yeah from what I saw yeah September 18th I think they lost their keyboard player earlier in the year like the Max Webster year couldn't be well hope but Kim's okay hang in there Kim yeah yeah seriously

geez he is a wild party after all but just the loss okay so yeah so what exactly like in the 1980s I kind of I remember the 1980s. I'm almost as old as you guys. Maybe I'm older. I have no idea.

I feel like you're one high school generation younger than us. Is that correct? Are you in 1976? 74. Okay. Okay. We're older. We're both hitting the double nickels this year.

That's right. 55 saves lives. We can drive 55. Well, yeah. I can't try 55. Sass Jordan auditioned to replace Sammy Hagar as lead singer of Van Halen. That is a classic Toronto mic pivot. There you go.

But that is absolutely true, according to her. And I just re-listened to that conversation. So unless you lied to me. What exactly was alt music, alternative music in Canada in the 80s? Because that whole, what is alt music? That definition keeps changing. I think it was very clearly delineated in the 80s. Like, there was two totally separate industries, I think.

No, I'm going to take that back. Because, like, Martha the Muffins won Junos, Carol Pope, one Junos. It was like there was some, there was some crossover, but I really, I do feel like it was most things were on a different level entirely. Yeah, well, I guess if you look at the people who were sort of, you know, running the industry back then, you know, there were some people with some, you know, some vision and some, some good taste.

And, you know, they, they managed to start little labels that put this music out. So, yeah, I mean, you know, obviously there was. the punk movements in Toronto and Vancouver. But that, you know, I think that there was more of kind of maybe a more seamless transition here in Canada from that to the alternative music than there maybe were in other countries. It just seemed like, you know, to take a band. Well, I mean, you know, to look at, you know, like a example in Toronto to take a band,

know, to take a band like the vile tones, and then, you know, a few years later, you get a band like, I don't know, name somebody. It's a descends from the vial tones? Yeah. Or like, you know, a neon rome, who I wrote about, you know, the inspiration for Bruce McDonald's first film, Roadkill. I mean, that's, you know, you can kind of compare that to sort of, you know, the transition from British first wave punk to post-punk.

but you know these were all in in in in Toronto the scene was so small that all these people knew each other so it's it just all kind of you know evolved you know I'm going to use the word that we tried to avoid in the book organically but yeah it's a good word though yeah yeah overused overused but you know I but it's used is rather organic in my opinion but yeah I think that's you know to me that's how it feels I I think What was super interesting, though, is that we were talking about much music earlier. And because they were so desperate for videos to play, a lot of really weird shit got on the air. And so you'd have shadowy men's videos that they shot for literally $50 would pop up as little interstitials. Or people like Deja Vood would be on there.

Or like early Katie Lang just got the Governor General's award. Apparently that was a fabulous ceremony. her early videos were just like things that the new music went out and shot her playing live and that was the video for hanky-panky whatever that they would play all the time Pursuit of Happiness is the most famous story of like just walking in there with the tape that they shot on Queen Street Corner. It's now a mountain equipment co-op. Yeah.

So I feel like much music was so important because they were doing a job that radio would not do because I think radio was very siloed and it was very difficult for any bands to get on any kind of mainstream radio. I mean, even CF and Y for all its strengths, and it did do a lot for a lot of Canadian artists, like it was still very anglphilic. And so I just, I feel like much music was so, uh, free of a lot of those boundaries.

And they were, they were so excited to about new Canadian talent. And they put it on it. And that's where, you know, that's where Jason first heard slow that have not, the song have not been the same, you know. And then then you'd have like Voivod next to the. Rankin family or something. Like, they're just being the most random juxtaposition on much music. And then, well, yeah, then you look to Vancouver. I mean,

a lot of that music kind of grew out of the whole artistic community there. You know, visual arts, you know, the great Vancouver visual artists at that time. Jeff Wall. Yeah. And, you know, that's sort of, you know, spawn bands like, what was the, you jerks? Yeah, you, you jerks. I'm trying to think of that, the new wave band, the preceded skinny puppy. Oh. Oh,

well, images in vogue. Images in vogue, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, that begat skinny puppy and, you know, all, it's, it's. And 5440. And 5440.

Yeah. There's an amazing scene in Vancouver. There's an incredible compilation, which of course is now to print called Last Call, Vancouver Independent Music, like 81 to 86 or something. And it's amazing.

And it's, you know, Vancouver and Toronto have such a stupid rivalry about who's cooler who's better or whatever but Vancouver did have better bands

Spirit of the West would be in that bucket right? Well not from yeah that's a different bit of a different genre and a bit later sure

I saw Spirit of the West in 1986 at Expo 86 which is ironic because one of the greatest songs is criticizing Expo 86 it's called Proffeteers

but my family I was 15 was with my family at X-Y-86, and they were playing this crappy little side stage, and it was just the three of them. And John Mann was really, frankly, kind of funny-looking when he's younger. He grew into a much more handsome man, and I thought they're incredible.

My parents were also really intrigued, which was unusual. We were talking to them later, and then, yeah, a month later, I think I heard something from the first record on nine lines or something. But, yeah, that was exciting. Maybe, is that so political or something like that? No, it was even way before that. It was something off tripping up.

That's the first, okay, maybe before I caught on to, which, but for the longest time, I thought they were a East Coast band. Fair. Fair enough. Despite the name. Spirit of the West Coast of Newfoundland. Nobody said I was the sharpest knife in the, in the drawer. But they had a Celtic sound.

Straight from the western coast of Nova Scotia. On the Bay of Fundy. On the note, just. because it's fresh in my, it's top of mind because I just had over here,

Dave Rosencrantz, who was at subpop from 1991 to 95, and he was basically here, this might blow your mind considering

the subject matter of today's conversation. This is the actual cassette from 1993, never mind the mollusks. Okay? And he was talking

about, you know, Eric's trip and jail and Sloan, which, you know, wasn't a subpop band, but they wanted him. But, and a band I actually had to

catch up on ID Dynord, who he erroneously said was from Montreal, but they're from Moncton. I wondered about that because I heard that episode. He's already, okay, which is a great episode. I highly recommend it because the man goes into details, which I appreciate, and he was there. And yeah, he was very wrong. In fact, he just wrote a comment on the Toronto mic.com permalink for that episode in which he clarified the things he was wrong about. We'll do that as well later.

Not a bad idea. Like, you can, yeah, show notes. But I just thought it was fascinating that, you know, you're talking about Vancouver now. And Michael's trying to cause a... He's suggesting the music was better out of Vancouver than Toronto. I always thought, and maybe it's my Toronto-centric idealism here shining through. But I always thought Toronto was the center of the Canadian alt-rock universe. You would.

I would. But then there's the other two cities. We should shut out. We kind of alluded to one briefly. but there's Montreal and there's Halifax. And I was curious whether, uh, how important geography was to all these scenes,

right? You're talking about Vancouver. There's a lot of talk about Toronto and then you need to talk about Halifax and Montreal. Well, I always, I always said that the, the Montreal chapter was,

it's one of my favorites in the book. That's one Ian mostly wrote. Um, too, because I, I, I didn't really know much about it and, um,

the connections. Yeah, the connections. And Ian, Ian did some amazing research for that. And, yeah, just to think of, you know, the cross-pollination between men without hats and Voivod. It's like, you know, where else in the world would something like that happen? And, you know.

The story of Montreal is that so Men Without Hats made a shitload of money off one of the biggest hits in the world. Right. And they spent it on Voivod, on 3 o'clock train, on like, you know, the doughboys on Mitsu. like they basically gave a leg up to wildly diverse group of friends in Montreal who all hung out together at the Biftec on Saint Laurent. So yeah, I'm really glad we told that story in the book. But to answer your question about what the cities had in common was like they definitely didn't have anything in common with each other because it was very siloed and Vancouver bands

were ignored in Toronto and Toronto bands were ignored in Vancouver and nobody even knew where Halifax was and Montreal is always an island onto itself. like, but over the course of the time period we're writing about, I think there was way more of a national dialogue. And the touring circuit started to get cemented. And then suddenly, you know, 54 and 40 in Grapes of Wrath were huge in Toronto. And maybe Vancouver didn't hate a couple of Toronto bands. Maybe.

And there's just much more of a dialogue happening. You know, and by the 90s, that's in full bloom completely. Well, you've given some credit to much music. There's another, I want to give credit to a place where you worked. Mr. Barclay. But real quick on the Doe Boys, of course, is no Doe Boys, no, no Rusty. So let's make sure we. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Doe Boys were a very, very important band. Yeah. And touring the rest. And talking about setting up that touring circuit, I think they were really one of the big ones. And they were all about all ages shows. And they would like play every town across Canada.

They were the stomping tom of 80s punk. Yeah. And the man married, you know, Don Draper's second wife. There you go. Let's not bury the lead here. Right? I don't know if that's the lead. Well, it should be.

It should be. Jessica Paray. It should be, absolutely. Jessica Paray. The Brave New Waves. Brent Bamberi has announced he is retiring from CBC Radio. Yeah. Good run.

Yeah. But what, so, because I'm going to, obviously, you're on Toronto, Mike. I'm going to dive into CF and Y. And we're going to remember someone else who passed away over. the last couple of weeks. Dark month. Yeah. It bugs me.

You guys are healthy. Okay, Mike, one of the first times I was on the show, you were like, nobody who's ever been on Toronto, Mike, has died. It was true. And now,

I feel cursed coming here. The floodgates are open. No. I'm worried about the drive home. Well, the gentleman, we're going to remember in a moment, David Marston is the first time,

that's the first time somebody passed away who had multiple visits to this basement studio. That's the first time. And I will say, 2,000 episodes, okay? So you guys are still good for us? You guys are absolutely fine, but I was going to ask you before we get into CF

and why, the role of Brave New Waves, because much music, we should talk more about much music in a moment, but much music, the tie that binds, right? We're all watching the same damn station across this country, the music lovers, and we're all seeing, I'm an adult now on much music. But Brave New Waves was a big deal too. It was. I mean, for more of a niche audience, people who stay up in the middle of the night and know where CBC is on their dial, which at that point in history was not,

especially because it was CBC stereo, which was also a new thing. Like it was the FM CBC signal, not the news station. But this was also a time when campus radio was slowly rolling out across the country. Like not every campus, not every university town had a campus station. Oh, they had like closed circuit, right, where you could get it on campus. I've never understood that, not being of that generation. Did anybody listen to that? Like, how did that even work?

Oh, I don't know, but I have people come over. and they're like, oh, yeah, who, like, maybe Blair Packham or something. Yeah, I was at UFT radio. It was close circuit. So if you're not on campus, you can't pull this in or whatever. I don't get it either. Anyway, so that's for someone else to answer. Exactly.

So at a time when campus radio is still becoming a thing, you had this national show on CBC in the middle of the night that really played the weirdest stuff. And then it got progressively weird, as slightly weird stuff got mainstream, Brave New Wave's got even weirder. And I can't imagine the CBC of 2026 doing anything remotely resembling that.

Like, it's just such a much more musically conservative place. And that show was on the air for like 22 years, I think. 84 to 06, 07. And for me, I mean, that show changed my life. Like, I remember being at my parents' cottage, to North of Peterborough, and there's not many radio stations there and flipping around. And then I heard this like wild woman singing over this crazy beat and saxophone. And it was a band from Montreal called Condition.

And yeah, you talk about lots of people of, you know, you see a video changes your life. You hear a random song somewhere. It changes your life. That totally was like, oh my God, what is this? And then I kept listening to the show and that just opened my mind wide open. And then it changed my life again when I actually got to work there because that was a huge, huge deal. And people should listen to Michael Barclays,

Toronto might debut for more on your time spent there. Oh, sorry, have I told that story already here? Is that? You can do it. Listen, I like, you got to play the hits, right? You got to play the hits. There you go. Condition.

Play me that rhythm. I should pull it up. Any Brave New Waves thoughts, Mr. Schneider? Well, not to the extent of Michael's, but no, I was more of an early much guy. Well, even actually before that, the all-night video show. City limits.

City limits, yes, with Christopher Ward. There's another Christopher Ward on the live stream right now. Oh, hello. Different Christopher Ward. But yeah, I mean, you know, that was, you know, just kind of getting into the days when, you know, you'd stay up all night and, you know, you'd come rolling in at three in the morning and you'd turn on the TV

and see some really cool stuff that you never heard before. And yeah, that's where, you know, My introduction to alternative rock, I guess, kind of took place. And, yeah, as I've told many times, that's where the inspiration for the book came, was seeing the video for Slows have not been the same. Did you have a favorite VJ by any chance? Well, I don't know. That's, I might have had a soft spot for Steve Anthony sometimes because he could be a little, you know,

caustic and cutting from. No, no, no, no. I don't know. I'm not... Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and plus he used to work at... Before he became a VJ.

No, well, he worked at Chime and Kitchener, too. Okay, because I know he was on... Well, he became a VJ then, went to CFNY. Yeah. It didn't work out because Fred Patterson was his co-host and before Humble was recruited from Montreal. But he was... He tells me a story about Corey Hart

coming into the Chom Studio. show and Steve Anthony was in this box, a glass box. And Steve Anthony is... Was he a boy in a box? Steve Anthony is convinced he's the boy in the box. Oh. Pull up your socks, Steve Anthony. We need Robert Lawson to fact check that one. But that is definitely the story.

And where is he now? Where are you, Steve Anthony? I actually think he's having some tough times right now. Oh, I'm sorry. I think of him. Yeah, I think he had a... a bed and breakfast in the Prince Edward County that the COVID pandemic really screwed over.

And I'm just thinking about Mr. Steve Anthony, a great guest. I don't think he's having his best time right now. That's interesting because Augusta LePay, the original Brave New Waves host, went on to open a bed and breakfast. That was her second career. See, that's very can-con when you open up the bed and breakfast,

without a doubt here. So let's talk CFMY for a bit here. Now, were you able to pull in CFMY, where you were living, Mr. Schneider? No, not really, yeah. That was the problem. Kitchener always seemed to be kind of like a black hole as far as FM radio reception.

And, like, we could barely get Q107. And, yeah, on a clear night, you could get CFNY. But yeah, yeah, that's, maybe that's why I kind of favored videos a bit more. Well, you had no choice. Had no choice. That's the thing. That's why I want to bring up Brave New Wave is because at least that's an accessible, you're right, it was niche maybe.

Like, you had to know where it wasn't. the dial and be up all night or whatever, but at least, you know, it could be anywhere in this country theoretically and be able to, you know, pull it out of the airwaves. In the middle of the woods. Yeah. Whereas CF and Y, you know, now you're talking about a geographical limitation, pre-internet, of course. So what would you say is the importance of, I'll talk to you, Michael, since you actually listen to CF&Y, but what importance, like, how important was CFNY to everything that happened

in Canadian alternative music? I think it was huge because it was, again, kind of before campus radio takes hold. And campus radio also being a niche thing that most people don't listen to. So here you had a station that eventually had a much better signal once they got on the CN Tower. But it was free-form radio and it comes out of like 70s Prague Rock. And what I'm learning, one thing I didn't know about Dave Marston, I knew about his 50s and 60s personality. Dave Mickey, who apparently talked 700 words a minute.

But I didn't understand the middle period before C. But he was a big Prague rock guy, and apparently he was the first guy to play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on the air and stuff. So, and listening to a lot of like the early new wave stuff, it occurred to me how much of that comes out of Prague, you know, a lot of rocks and music and ultra box and stuff. But in terms of what it meant for Toronto, he was playing stuff that no one else in North America did

with the possible exception of K-Rock in L.A. So when you talk about Canadians being ahead of the curve, CFMY absolutely was. And the idea that I was also reminded in Nicholas Jennings' excellent obit that they had a no-repeat, a no-repeat policy. And if you caught them playing the same song twice and 48 hours, they would give you $102. Can you imagine that today? Like, what the hell?

So just like musically very broad. more open-minded than I think it's being remembered as, because as you say, there was a CFOI Q and O7 rivalry, but there's also a lot of crossover. CFNY played a lot more rock acts than I remembered. Well, like Blue Rodeo.

Yeah, very early Blue Radio fan or supporters, and tragically hip, for that matter. Pursuit of Happiness. Those are all Capital R. Rock Axe, you know. So, and they had And, you know, they had their streets of Ontario program where they'd play like indie tapes. And so you have like Le Tranget, the band that Andrew Cash and Charlie Angus came out of, were big on CFNY. And obviously the Spoons became superstars in Toronto because of CFOI when they were still basically teenagers.

Well, yeah. I happen to know one of the spoons. I know you do. I'm going to promote a future episode of Toronto. I'm going to promote a future episode of Toronto, Mike, will be Sandy and Gord to get. So I've had them on separately, but not together. They're going to come on together. Like, that's going to happen, I believe, before Halloween, I think, or maybe early November.

I can't quite remember. I think they've got a gig in Wyrilloo on October 16th. And they're playing December 5th of the concert hall with rough trade and images involved. Yes, it is with rough trade. Yeah, yeah. They are playing with rough trade. So, yeah. It's nice to see this getting her flowers while she's still with us and still vibrant.

Brenton still active. Carol Pope. I saw Rough Trade last year and they were amazing. It was billed as kind of like a wake for Kevin Staples and there was some guest vocalists like a sate was there and a V. Stun from Vajalan and Moberg

did a grade B movie. It was amazing and ridiculous. Was this at the Elmo? Is that the Phoenix? But the band was great. Her longtime guitarist is a guy from National Velvet. Kevin Hearn was playing keyboards. But yeah, she's had the same band for a long time. But yeah, I guess, yeah, you bring up rough trade.

I mean, yeah, early 80s, again, Canadian weirdness. Yeah. You hear high school confidential on AM radio. Like, that's where I first heard it. And, you know, I was young enough. I didn't understand what that stuff meant. Why is she creaming her dream? That was a bit of a sexual awakening.

Yeah. I don't understand. What's going on in those genes? But, you know, I guess that's something we can credit CanCon. for was sexual weirdness on the radio. Yeah. Yeah. No, what I mean in the documentary?

Like many queer people talk about that as a big moment. But even as a non-queer person, it was very like, what is going on? Like crimes of passion, that song? Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. Jane Sibri is another artist. I want to shout out in this segment.

And the cows, Jane, obsessed of cows. I guess you might know this. But yeah. She has a cow thing. And it comes up to a point where because it's in the videos and she talked about it when I talked to her, but also then I was watching the documentary and they made about the making of tears are not enough. And you can literally there's some footage.

She's chatting. I think Del Bellow's there. There's some people there. And she's talking about cows. Like she's just talking about cows. Like this is top of mind. Well, she'd go to school in Guelph. There's some cows in Guelph, I hear.

There aren't actually, but that's the stereotype. Well, I live there for 12 years. I never saw a cow. I've been lied to. Not once did I see a cow. all these years. All right, back to CFNY. So I think we got to pay some respect to David Marston here.

So how important was David Marston? I mean, he is the man who coined the phrase, Spirit of Radio. So I think that he played music than no other radio station with touch. He played music for all the freaks and geeks and weirdos in Toronto who, populated Queen Street West at the Cameron and the horseshoe and the Beverly. And, you know, I think without C.F.M. Y, you know, would there be, you know, would there be Martha the Muffins? Would there be change of heart? Would there be all kinds of people?

The whole Daniel Enwre sphere. And also, another big thing for C.F&Y for me personally, what was their picnics? Like the first time I saw the tragically hip, they were. were like first on the bill at like one in the afternoon and just blew everybody else away. They were just so compelling. This was like around the time the EP came out, I think. But those kind of all day, 100% CanCon indie music picnics. Like those were amazing.

Like these were Canada Day events. Yeah. And they were super formative for me as in high school. And we would all, I don't even know how we got up to Barry because none of us drove. Were there buses running out of shopping? I can't remember now. That seems like a weird detail. And this is before they were rebranded as EdgeFest,

because I went to many in EdgeFest, but before they were rebranded, I was probably too. Yeah, so if you want to talk about Mars, then he leaves in, what, 88? And then C.F. Hawaii has kind of a, what's the Latin word for a terrible year? Anyway. And that's horillibus?

Yeah, and where they're like playing a lot of George Michael, and no disrespect, but it's like totally different vibe. And, and then, I think in the early 90s, they course correct and then are tapped into old sculpture. They call that the mistake of 88 when they brought in the playlist and had a bunch of top 40 stuff like Madonna, et cetera, et cetera. And Ryan or Schwartz, I think, is the guy who comes in to help bring it back to Alt Rock. You would know, you've talked to them all.

Yeah. Although the late great Reiner Schwartz missed out on him. Well, I'm thinking, okay, if we want to bring it back to 1989. Of course I do. Which I think that, yeah, that was a very big year for, for, a lot of reasons, I think personally for us. I mean, that was... Is this about the Berlin Wall coming down?

Well, sort of, but... Well, that was... Okay, if you want to talk about, you know, the hips up to here being released. Of course I do. Do you want to hear my story? Yeah, I want to hear it because that's the first hip. My introduction to the hip is a blow at high dough on Q107.

Okay. That album's coming out. Okay, so 1989. I was in grade 13, I guess. And I wanted to get into radio. That was my goal. And luckily my high school did work placements. And I ended up working at a little station in Waterloo called CKWR.

And one day the hip were playing at University of Warilu. And I heard that one of the DJs had scheduled Gordoni to come in for an interview. So I had just, I was just become. becoming a rabid fan of the band. I had the first two releases. So I made sure I was there that day when Gord came in to do his interview. And I sat there and took it all in. And he was very nice. He autographed my albums. And afterwards, I mentioned to him that I was doing a little show on the air. And he said, well, let me cut a promo for you. So, sure. So we went up to the little studio upstairs. He had a promo for my show.

And as he was leaving, that was back when he had, he wore kind of a Jim Morrison, sheepskin coat. And I had a very similar one. So all the coats were hung up on one coat rack. And as he was leaving, he grabbed my coat and was on his way out the door when I realized it. And I told him, oh, no, that's mine here. So I could have had Gord's coat if I was, if I was, if I was. That's a great story.

about it. That was back when he did interviews too. That was back when he did interviews. Yeah. At a little, you know, crappy little, you know, Warrulieu FM station. But that, yeah, so that was the first. So that's after up to here was released.

It was just when it came out. So fall of, before and after. Fall of 89. So yeah, yeah, that was the first time I met him. It was, it was wonderful. Nice.

And his poem is the foreword of your book, have not been the same. Yeah. Word by Gore Downey. Well, that's the other, well, to kind of, you know, bring it full circle. Um, yeah, we were, uh, you know, we were getting close to, to, to deadline. We needed to kind of finish the first draft. And, uh, we still hadn't interviewed members of the hip yet. We were kind of getting stonewalled by Jake Gold a little bit. I'd, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I'd placed many calls to him saying, you know, we, you know, we got to make this happen. And, uh, finally, um, so this would have been the fall of 2000s, summer.

Anyway, it was right when music at work came out. And I finally kind of gave Jake an ultimatum. It's like, we got to make this happen. He said, okay, well, they're kicking off their tour in Syracuse. So if you guys can make your way down there, I'll, you know, I'll set it up. You can have some time with them. This was on a day's notice, I think, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was very short notice. But luckily, we were young, young enough to be flexible. So, yeah, we, Michael, you know, we drove down to Syracuse and spent, well, first we spent an afternoon with Gordon's hotel room and then got to spend some time with the rest of the band on their bus. Just Sinclair. Oh, yeah, okay, I guess it was. Yeah, yeah, the other guys weren't that talkative or they didn't seem interested in. I don't remember them being there. I just remember talking to Sinclair.

Oh, okay. Well, he was, yeah. Okay, well, we'll do the Roshamon thing. But anyway, yeah, but that was that, you know, somehow that was, it all magically worked out in the end that we got the interviews and then Gord was nice enough to, to, well, we, we didn't really have an idea for a forward, but, you know, we thought if Gord could write anything, that would be great. Because the other thing is that we were nobodies.

Yeah. So I think the publisher was hoping that someone famous. could write a foreword that would help sell it. I have two funny memories about that day. One is that we're asking all these detailed questions about his lyrics in the song. And the interviews, and the interview is going really well.

At one point he's like, this is so great. You know, nobody ever asked me about my lyrics. I'm like, are you kidding me? Maybe if you do interviews, but like, because we had all these questions about what is this and what is nautical disaster movie. And then the other funny thing was,

So we kind of spend the afternoon with them And then we we just go to dinner by ourselves And we go to the show And halfway through the show Was it? It was ahead by century, wasn't it? He goes, this next song is called Hevna Up in the same Which is like, there's only two people in the audience who is Yeah

Yeah, yeah I felt like the golden, you know, the golden light was beaming down on us at that moment And then of course that show showed up on YouTube later or something Or the audio of it Yeah, no, I do have a recording of it. Yeah, yeah. I have a question for you two gentlemen. You probably don't have the answer to,

but I'm going to ask it anyways, because it's my show, damn it. Okay, a couple of weekends ago, I'm at Massey Hall. They're inducting the tragically hip into the Canadian songwriters' Hall of Fame. Two decades too late, at least. Right.

Now, there are three members of the tragically hip on that stage to accept the award, okay? Noticably absent is... Court Downey. Well, but I was formulating the question I'm like

well I'm not even going to go there okay Mr. Berkeley Gord was not he was there It's a dark month

it's a dark month but Johnny Faye was absent but what was what I because I also saw the lover boy guys got inducted

and you know what's his name McGrino Paul yeah Paul Dean commented that Mike wanted to be there he's sorry

he couldn't be there but he says thank you whatever but they never nobody in that speech at no point did they mention the fact that there was a missing member?

And I just found it strange because it's not like, oh, he couldn't be here, whatever, whatever. Like, they never acknowledged it at all. They just, the three guys were up there doing their speech, never mentioned his name, never mentioned the fact that he was missing. So then, of course, I was curious, if you had any idea, where was Johnny Fay? Fucking drummers, eh? Fucking drummers, man.

Don't get any credit. Nobody even notices they're missing except you. Nature of pores a vacuum. Now I need to wonder aloud for ask everybody, comes in the basement. Maybe he got locked in the vault. Locked in the trunk of a car, maybe. No, but my understanding is he's the major archivist

behind, like all those stuff that's being coming out now, I think he's kind of shepherding that. Okay, but he could have made his way to Massey Hall unless something serious is happening in which I hope everything's okay. Look, we're all of the age. We have serious things happening in our family. You never, like, whenever somebody

ghosts me, I'm just like, are the parents okay? Oh, geez. Yeah. Geez, okay. Okay, a lot of bands. We've covered a lot of them, but there's a lot of bands covered, but is there a Canadian band that you two guys felt deserved to be so much bigger than they became? A whole of them. Yeah. Can you be more specific with your feedback? Let me see the book for a second. Yeah. Um, well, I was, I was, I was very fortunate to, to work with, uh, Junior Gone Wilde, um, a few years ago when they made their, uh, reunion album. And, um, yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about, you know,

Alt country, the Americana movement. I mean, those guys were doing it like at least 10 years before Uncle Tupelo was. You know, they were real kind of trailblazers in terms of, you know, doing, you know, blending country and punk. Well, I mean, there were a lot of bands kind of doing the country punk thing then, but they, you know, Junior Gone Wild had, you know, Mike McDonald's a great songwriter. they made a lot of really great albums and I think if they would

Maybe would have come around Maybe 10 years later They would have been a lot more famous Oh and a shout out to Speaking of Junior Gone Wild There's a documentary on them That just got finished Eden Monroe out in Edmonton

Was it screened? I know it was done I'm not sure if it's screened yet I know he was going to screen it in Edmonton He's trying to bring it to Toronto at some point. But yeah, yeah, that would, I guess, yeah, that's the first band that kind of pops into my head. I 100% agree. And it's funny, you know, people from everywhere, but Toronto complained that there's too much

Toronto in the book. And then people in Toronto are like, who the hell is Junior Gone Wild? And why do they get almost a full chapter? It's like, well, hey, because they're great. And they're from Alberta, and it's not my fault. You've never heard of them. Okay, I haven't caught off guard by this question. so I'm flipping through.

I'm a big reostatics fan, as you know, but I think there's a bunch of reasons why they weren't huge because they're too weird. Yeah. But in terms of other underrated bands, I think super friends. It's got to be on that list. I mean, Matt Murphy is just

one of the great rock stars of this country whenever I see them live. I couldn't make the flashing lights reunion. I regrettably had to miss that. but even seeing him somewhat recently in tons, the band with Mike O'Neill and Chris Murphy. And yeah, there's some amazing Super Friend songs. And when everybody talks about the East Coast,

it's like, that's a band that should have got a lot more attention. I saw him at a Sloan garage sale recently. No doubt. He was a biked over. By the way, you don't have to do it now, but you two are going to need to autograph that book to Cam Gordon. Okay. Uh-huh.

Before you disappear here, okay? For sure. Okay. And quick thought that just struck my mind. Because early we talked about Art Bergman and how he kind of kickstarted this whole thing. And then I remembered, isn't Alan Zweig making a movie? Do we know anything more than,

because he came over and I asked him your question. Where the hell is it, right? And he gave his answer, whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's in, in progress. Does he think he's Martin Scorsese? Free footage, Alan. Scorsese finally gave up, eh? Yeah, well, now we're going to see that on October 30th.

Yeah. That's CTV for people who don't understand what we're talking about. If they're listening to this, they know exactly what we're talking. But yeah, no, I really do hope that Allen's finishing is his art documentary. I mean, he is listening right now. You can give him, like, specific. Well, no, no, I was. And I know he is because he listened to the complete three hours and 30 minutes of FOTM cast,

which Cam and Tyler and are recorded. And that's for the real heads only. So he's definitely listening. Can you track, like, how long each of your listeners, have listened to one of your shows? Oh, a million listeners, Michael? This seems like heavy surveillance. No, because I put a secret word at the end,

and if you sent me the word, it meant you got to the end. That's why he had the magic word. That's why Mr. Barclay. But so we don't have an update on, uh, as far as I know. I mean, it was I, I, he interviewed me for it. And I'm, I think I said a few, you know, fairly profound things. So I, the first time for everything.

True. True enough. Yeah, yeah. So I hope they make it into the movie if it eventually comes out. I have, you know, all, you know, complete respect for Alan. He's made, you know, his whole style of filmmaking, I think is unique. And, you know, I think it's a perfect match. And whatever the final product will be, it'll be both. Are you reading this from like a prepared statement? No, no, I just, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I just think it'll be, uh, you know,

laughter and tears. It's, uh, you know, that's a long time. It is. I feel like, well, that was made, it wasn't he living in Alberta? These things, you know, well, these, tragedy struck for one thing. Yeah, these, these, these things take, take, take, take money as well. I mean, I just saw, have, have you seen the Nash to slash document? Yeah, I was at the screening. That took at least 10 years, didn't it?

That's true. There was a financial. Colin Brunton tells me he came on Toronto Mike and talked about it and someone sent him 10K. Wow. I know. Oh, wow. So maybe someone will say, you might, do you need any money for any project? Okay. Well, well, well, well, speaking of documentaries, I mean, after the, after the book came out,

we were approached by at least a couple people about potentially, you know, turning the book into some kind of time. No, no, no, have not been the same. So what happened there? Well, a lot of times. A lot of talk and... Me in the bathroom. It was a doc?

Yeah, a lot of talk and no action. So if there are any documentarians out there, you know, we're still open to discussing something. But here's the problem with a book like this, though, is that number one, it's obviously a mini-series. Yeah. But it's... Documentaries about books like this are rare for a reason right now because Hearts on Fire got optioned as well. it's the music licensing and also the control,

artists want control. So everybody wants to make their own documentary. So having some kind of like composite documentary is very unlikely to be made in 2016. But if anybody wants to. No, I hear exactly you mean. I did recently watch the broken social scene documentary and it's made by their buddy who was with them and everything.

Great fly on the wall stuff. But they have some kind of editorial, say, at some point in that. I don't think they did with that one. I think they... But it was a friend, a friendly person there.

Can I just say something about Alan's Vig? Anything. Alan's Vig? I know you love tangents. I love Alan's Wagon. I love tangents. I love them both.

It's Terry Fox Week or whatever. Right now. The run is, I think, tomorrow. Or anyway. That's for kids. Alan's Weig has made two phenomenal films

about Steve Fonio, a name that almost nobody remembers now. And Steve Fonio is a guy who actually finished what Terry Fox started out to do. But Steve Fonio had a ton of personal trouble and it's a very tragic story. And it's criminal to me that Alan's two films about Fanyo are not available. I wrote to Alan a few years ago. I was like, oh, when Fonio passed, I was like, hey, I heard you made these great, where can I say, are they streaming anywhere? Can I buy a copy from you? And I think they're wrapped up in some, whoever

commissioned them, long story short, they're unavailable. So he sent me a private copy. But like, those are incredible films. If you find them anywhere, any means to watch them, they're great.

I'm glad you, glad you shed. Anything, where I thought you were going for a moment when you mentioned Terry Fox was the fact that Sean Menard made a movie that was at Tiff.

I thought a few years ago, run Terry run. With a bunch of new footage of Terry that we've never seen, which blew my mind, actually. But he's the same guy who made the 299 Queen Street West talk about much music.

And that has never been seen in public, except for the viewings, which I got to see one at Roy Thompson Hall, but if you went to one of the viewing, sure. But it never streamed on Crave like it was supposed to because of the different licensing. So it speaks to that point you made. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. And that's why, yeah, I don't really have high hopes for a project with this book. But I always kind of pictured there was a, I think it was a four-part documentary.

on punk rock that came out about maybe five years ago. It was produced by Iggy Pop and John Varvados. But they covered, it was four episodes covering four different scenes. So Detroit, New York, London, and Los Angeles. And, you know, after seeing that, I always thought, well, we could probably do something like that with our book. You know, we could do Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. just, you know, focusing on the scenes.

So, you know, again, if anyone's listening, has some ambition, get in touch. I love these, as you know, I hook these docks to my veins, but I guess you can't make these docs without the music. Well, you can't really. I mean, to be legitimate, yeah, like I've seen enough docs where, you know, it's on a specific band or something, and they obviously couldn't get the licensing for the music. so it's all just, you know, bad, you know, bootleg footage and, you know, tapes and stuff. And it really kind of ruins the whole experience.

So, yeah, yeah, if, you know. Money ruins everything. It is, yeah. But, you know, if there's someone at Bell Media or whoever. Good luck with that one. Good luck with that one. Okay, but the 299 Queen Street West, I feel like one day bootleg will be leaked and will be, enjoying it in back alleys or something

or in dimly lit, like living rooms or something like that. But anyway, so that, I did get told once by a good source at an industry party. Sometimes I attend these things, and somebody did tell me, the one edit that would save that movie, 299 Queen Street West, would be to edit out the Lorne Hill performance. Somebody, a good authority who seemed to know what they were talking about.

Apparently, when you have an artist's music, it's not enough to just, you have to clear it, but the artist has to bless it. Is this, I don't even know. You guys would know better than I do it. How important is Long Hill to the history of much music? I just think he's, I think, I don't know him that well. I had a couple of long conversations of the man,

but I think maybe he's so hyper-focused with Run-Terry Run that he's just not like there. They do a big project and then you move on to the next. Right. Like Martin Scorsese. That's right. And I will say, I did just have Jane Eastwood down here. Amazing. At that reunion of the SCTV.

The Godspell movie is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that was the main reason. And I've wanted that movie to be made for a long time. Because I've always been fascinated by that. And for all the reasons the filmmaker was. And I'm just so happy that story is now captured.

I know, it's quite a moment. 1972 Toronto, quite a moment. And at the time, by the way, Jane Iswell was the most famous person in the cast. Oh, really? Because of going down the road. And no one else was a known entity there. But where the hell was like, oh, the SCTV? dog in the trailer for this thing that we can see on October 30th,

they don't have any footage of the reunion. Like, I wonder if the reunion even makes it into this. Yeah, I was, I was wondering that too when I saw the trailer. Yeah, we were actually just talking about this on the drive. Why don't you just tell me all the things you were talking about on the drive here? Because that's the episode. Well, no, because.

You talk about all the good stuff. No, no, I was, I was just complaining because someone actually had offered me a ticket to, to that event. The SCTV doc? No, the reunion? Okay. Where was it? The princess?

Elgin. Elgin. Yeah. Yeah. And I very foolishly didn't take them up. What's wrong with you? I don't know. Even Rick Moranus was there.

Even Rick Moranus was there. And at the time, he wasn't doing anything. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm not, yeah, I guess Scorsese is going to put that footage. Well, he gave it away. Someone else finished it. Someone else.

I don't know where it's going on the footage. But there are two people who were at that reunion who have passed on. Shout out to Ridley funeral home. Joe Flaherty and Catherine O'Hara. So, you know, let's breathe this thing. Okay. I'm going to quickly thank just a couple of sponsors here. How is the Great Lakes beer that you're enjoying? Delicious.

Okay. He's nodding. That's not good for a podcast, Michael. Come on, we need verbal. I think I like their other brands. I haven't had this. What do you have? That's a light logger, you drink. Yeah, I'm not a fan of light log. I'm a huge fan of the Canuck Pell Ale. I'll tell you that. You're taking some home with you. So they sent over some cans of GLB.

There will be some Canuck. Canuck is like the signature. What do you call that? That's great. I love it. And you're taking that home with you. Thank you, Great Lakes.

I also want to just tell everybody, including you two fine gentlemen with cool t-shirts, I want to tell you that we're all collecting. We, who's we, the TMI, the Toronto Mike's universe, the FOTMs. Everybody who can hear my voice right now is going to be at Palma's Kitchen

on November 28. that's a Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. We're going to do a live recording from Palma's Kitchen and Palma pasta will feed everybody and I will bring fresh beer for everybody and RetroFestive has a special gift for everybody and I don't know if Ridley Funeral Home will be given out their...

This is like the loaves and fishes. This is for you. One each. What's that? It's a can open. It is a bottle of, It is a flashlight. It is a measuring tape. It is a level.

It is all you need in life. It's a drone. Courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Their podcast is called Life's Undertaking. And I want to shout out Nick Aini's because he's recording a live episode of Building Toronto Skyline tomorrow 7 p.m. at Old Mill. It is a free event. And his special guest for that event is former Toronto City counselor Karen Stints.

So Karen and Nick at the Old Mill tomorrow. I'll be there recording everything. Be there. And last but not least, gentlemen, before we get right back to it. Safe, secure recycling for residents, businesses, and the environment. Recycling electronics and appliances

with local Recycle My Electronics programs is free, fast, and easy, ready to recycle. Bring it. Find out what and where to recycle. Bring it. Bring it. Recycle My Electronics.

That's like the best. That's the best tagline I think I've ever heard. Bring it. You know, that's a new, it's a new, it's a new, it's a new messaging. I am adapting. People at home can't see this, but the words bring it are in like 32 point. It's an image. It's an image.

Well, it's new because I had the other one memorized and I said it for three years in a row. It's like just off the top of lid and now I got to memorize new copy here. But bring it, Mike. Bring it, Mike. Bring it. It's a big green font. I can't screw that up. Is there anybody in your fine book, which used to be sitting right here,

have not being the same. Is there anybody that you deliberately left out because you thought that including them might open a whole can of worms? Yep. Names. Um, no, that would open a can of worms

like legally or morally or something? Yeah, like there's, well, who did you deliberately leave out and why? There's tons of people we left out because you can't, there's way too many. Because it was already too heavy.

Yeah. Winnipeg has never forgiven us. No, they never will. What Winnipeg band did you? would you have included The Watchmen are still angry. The Watchmen are in the original version.

And they're in the second version too, just not as much. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess... Watchmen is a great fucking band. Yeah. Well, they are, yeah. And good, good dudes too. I think this, you know, this was before, you know, the weaker than Zara, but...

I'm trying to think of... Yeah, you're 85 to 95. But there are definitely Winnipeg bands that, I guess could have made it in somehow. The only one I can think of is personality crisis are a huge deal on the prairies in terms of the history of prairie punk. And then, but yeah, honestly,

I'm hard pressed to think of many in this period that would like made a national impact other than chocolate bunnies from hell. Yeah, I think it was, it was just a case of, you know, we just couldn't figure out a way to sort of fit Winnipeg into the narrative. Because a lot of the chapters are scene-based.

Yeah, so the Northern Pikes definitely got sacrificed because we were all fans too. Yeah. And we were like, where do we fit the Northern Pikes in here? And that was, so I definitely feel bad about that one. Yeah, that was, yeah, I think it just came down to the narrative. Well, plus, you know, there's three of us working on it. We're all trying to, you know, maintain some kind of consistency with the, with the pacing and the voice and all this.

And we all made compromises. in terms of things that one of us individually loved but couldn't really sell the other two on it or something like that. Yeah. How many people attended the launch party for this book? More than 600. Yeah.

Because Lee's capacity, Lee's palace capacity is six and I think a lot of people came in right. Yeah, we had to turn people away. But I think the crowd also turned over. So I think that as people left, like they left more people. That's true. Yeah.

That's amazing. It was, yeah. Yeah. It totally was. That's like, I've been to other big, there are semi-big book launches, and I hear the publishers go, this is the best book launch I've ever seen.

I'm like, let me tell you something. Sit down, son. I read the details in this wonderful substack. I highly recommend to everybody listening right now, that night in Toronto. Did you hear of the substack? Heard of it. Bitter?

Bid him too. I started a substack called That Night in Toronto. It's coming up on four years next month. And it's Toronto Live Music Listings and... The best listings available in this city. Well, thanks. Yeah. It's very thorough.

Thank you. Well, it's geared toward people like you. And you'd let us know which book it correlates to. Like this is the never been, never saying, this is from this book. This is have not been the same band.

This is a... I use this substack to shamelessly promote my books because as any writer in Canada will tell you, nobody remembers you wrote a book six months after you wrote it. if that. So yeah, every time like a band from having not been the same

plays in Toronto, I'll be like, hey, that's what I'm trying to say. 5040 are coming, hashtag, have not been the same. And that's,

even at the beginning when I was shouting out all of your previous visits, I skipped a great book written by Jason Schneider that he came over and it was the most recent visits. I'm just going to catch up

and do that real quick, which is December 2025. Yeah. You dropped by because we had the most amazing conversation about the strange saga of

Hey Joe. Yeah. In popular music's history of violence, your book is called That Gun in Your Hand. Thank you. It was cool, man. No, that you did an amazing job just. Because I had the audio. You had the audio of this episode because it's much like these docs were trying to get made.

My life is difficult. My, well, similar. YouTube will block it and then Spotify will boot it. It's like, yeah, it's just become like no fun. Oh, I didn't realize that. Sometimes I don't care. You don't have Rick Beato's lawyers? No, I just.

did hear about him fighting this. No, but that's exactly what I think I might. I'm sorry to hear that. No, I don't have an artist on. Like, I don't, Faber Drive, okay? Dave Faber's son had a huge hit in the last five years. His son is named Paifu Fu, and he had this massive hit, uh, yeah, where he sampled this Bia Badooby song and I learned she's in town this week, Bia Badooby, okay, it's called coffee for your head, okay. But anyway, it's a pain in the ass. I should play more music on the show and not give a which is probably where I'm, where I'm heading. But that was a good chat because I enjoyed the book and then I had all that audio that kind of matched up. Well, I'm actually kind of surprised that you haven't brought up lowest of the low yet.

We're going to close with a cover of a low to low song. But it hasn't come up. But I did mention Rusty. You did mention Rusty. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, yeah.

Okay, talking about bands that deserved more praise. Yeah. I would, I would. Lowest to the low. Well, no. Well, yes. I would second. I would second Rusty for sure.

Are they still together? I guess they are. Well, the guy Jim Moore lives in England and is no longer in the band. But I think Scotty Mac with Ken, I think there is a version of Rusty still going that has Ken and Scotty Mac in it. Okay. Well, that makes me happy. Yeah, they're still doing stuff. Great, great band.

Great band for sure. Yeah, well, I'm with you. That's one of my favorite. And Lois-Low, I feel like they were so against like, what their corporate rock sucks shirts and everything. They were too punk, their mentality that they refused to make, like why is it,

here's the question. They were contrarians. Right. And why is it that young Mike who watched so much, much music and so many, I would love watching the bands. I love it. You'd see the rusty videos and you mentioned,

Pursuit of Happiness and Sloan all over much music. Where was lowest of the low? No presence on much music. Did they have a video? No. They were too cool for it. But there were two, like, Oh, that'll make us too big.

That'll make us too popular. They were called Popular Front, right? Before Lois Laneway, they kind of shot themselves on the foot. Although it was good to see Stephen Stanley. When he did that, the year was 17th, 7th. Five years. Stan Rogers.

Stan Rogers. When he did that, he was right beside me, and I saw some Instagram footage of that performance, and I was standing. Mike was talking about the West End Phoenix. I'm now back to the West End Phoenix. Yes. Can I be your audience translator?

We're Tara Sloan. creamed her jeans and then I also creamed my jeans so that's how that went down there. What was the first Canadian alternative song that made each of you think, holy shit, this is ours. You each can name check one Canadian alternative song.

Well, I mean, for me, it's the title of the book, but yeah, I'll throw that to Michael. One? Yeah. You know, if you did more than one, I'm not going to kick you out. Did I give you guys a lasagna?

yet. Don't leave about your lasagna. Okay, Michael, one. I'm going to say don't walk past by Blue Peter. Don't walk past. I was a huge fan. My cousin, Jim Jackson,

gave me that cassette because he liked it, but he realized that I loved it more. He's like, you should have this. So thank you, cousin Jim. And, yeah, I love that record. I love the video, the Rob Cortley video.

Yeah, he directed everything back then. And yeah, and then you said you're going to talk about Jane Siri, you never did. But I would also say Mimi on the Beach was pretty like, what the hell is this? It was so, the fact that that got played on radio as well, it's such a long, interesting song that shifts. There's the time signature things happening. That, to me, sums up the 80s in many ways. Something that improbable and interesting and unique made it onto radio and became a much music video. and became a much music video hit

and talk about CFNY's influence, obviously she was one of the biggest Canadian artists on CFMY because after Mars and passed, I don't know why that really affected me so much, but I started looking at a lot of old CFNY stuff and like their top 100s of the year and me being who I am,

I'm counting how many Canadians are on the top 100 because, like I said, the only thing that ever bothered me about CFNY was that it was so British. Like there weren't even a lot of American things like replacements or whatever, pixies. but in terms of the number of Canadians on CFO-Wi,

like Jane Serby was always one of the top ones there for sure. You might know the fun fact about the Mimi on the Beach video. Do you know who directed it? I don't. Directed by the father of Penny Alexiak, famous Canadian Olympic swimmer. Did not know that. And I dropped that fun fact on Jane and she literally stopped down and said,

I don't think that's a fun fact. Like she, she, she, she, I don't find that very fun, Michael. Basically. And I was so heartbroken. Like, I thought it was the, the funnest of facts, but she did not. I saw her play last week. Did you? That's Sellers and New Old Bookstore.

Do you know what place? Yes. Yeah. Cool. No, I think, I think she's a wonderful talent, a big fan. I can't, I think, Blair Packham introduced me to her, I think. I'm trying to remember how I got to. And she won the Polar's Heritage Prize last year, her speculous sky.

And to watchmen this year, right? Yes, that is correct. And they still, okay. didn't get enough love. Okay, what's going on of you guys here? I've heard from Sammy about that personally. Well, he would be, he'd be the one to reach out. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, you know, he was, he's drumming up results.

Okay, good, good real estate agent now. When people look back at Canadian music 50 years from now, what do you think they'll say was the most important thing that happened between 1980 and 2000? 1980 and 2000, so you're expanding our parameters. Yeah, okay, 1980 and 1995 to 95 if you want to keep it in the spirit. define important. Important to Canadians, important internationally. You define important.

Like, important to Canadians. Who cares about the rest of this damn world? Well, it's hard to avoid the tragically hip when you're talking about that. Yeah. Well, I think, the biggest impact on Canadians. Yeah.

Well, I think just in general, you know, now that I've, you know, become, I guess. You've become, where's this? No, no, no. I think, you know, as I've kind of become part of the music industry, you know, with my work, you know, I've, I've, I've been surprised that how, you know, so many of the people who kind of established the music business in Canada originally came from England. So, you know, I don't want to, you know, paint them all as kind of like, you know, what's the term,

carpet baggers or something like that. But, you know, they came over with the, you know, mentality of the British music industry. And that's, that's sort of the way it kind of unfolded in the 1970s. Like the Frank Davies of the world?

Yeah. Yeah. But by, you know, by the 80s and the mid 80s, there were more, you know, people born and raised in Canada who, you know, kind of brought. The Don Cameron's? Yeah. Yeah. They kind of brought, uh, brought more of a homegrown aesthetic to things. And, you know, that translated into the songwriting.

And, yeah, it is kind of funny how it kind of took that long to really sort of have the business mature in that way. And I think it's something very interesting off that point. Like when I was writing Hearts on Fire and learning more about all the characters in my book, people like Leslie Feist or other members of Broken Social, scene or members of Black Mountain or members of various bands, how many of them came from immigrant parents, from Britain, from Ireland, from wherever. Obviously, all the hip-hop people, a lot of Caribbean, but a lot of American, a lot of American parents, like Feist's,

father's American, for example. And it really made me think, like, so what is it about, like, It's like definitely they're homegrown Canadians who become successful. But the fact that so many of our biggest movers and shakers were people who kind of grew up with a different notion of Canada of Canada as somewhere in the world, as opposed to just Canada within Canada. You know, I thought that was really interesting. But so I think your question was about an artist, maybe. Was it about the most impact or what are they going to remember? I think part of the reason we wanted to write this book was this was a time when Canadian music really felt Canadian that there was a domestic scene. So even though before we had all these great bands that the world knows,

you know, like Rush or the Guess Who and all the solo people, Joni and Neil and Leonard, whatever, I don't mean to say whatever, because Jason has an excellent book about all those people, and I love them dearly. But the point is, is like this is a point where you have, you know, for better and worse,

bands like the Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo that are, like, worshipped in Canada, and for a whole bunch of reasons due to circumstance and luck, didn't make it outside of Canada, but that doesn't matter to Canadians. because for a long time, Canadians would be ashamed or they'd be like, I guess our bands aren't good enough because they don't make it anywhere else.

And the period of time in our book have not been the same is about when Canada, Canadians just felt like these are our bands and we love them unequivocally. Yeah, and I think, well, that's, I guess the one thing I was thinking I wanted to mention during our chat too is, you know, I think now is the perfect time for us to be, you know, to have this anniversary and to kind of celebrate the book again

because, you know, just given everything that's been going on this year, um, this is an elbows up book. Is that what you're saying? It is an elbows up book. It's, it's a total elbows up book. And,

and, you know, I've, I've been feeling, I've, I've been surprised, you know, just how I've felt in the past year of just how,

you know, we need to start celebrating our, our culture again, you know, it's, and, and, and,

um, you know, for people who, who are interested in that, I think, you know, this book is, is a great entry point just to kind of discover a lot of things that, you know, maybe they're too young to know about or just,

you know, just missed it the first time around. So, yeah, it's, I feel really good that we, you know, did this in the first place and now can, celebrate it again. I'm glad you did it. Go ahead, Michael.

100%. I've developed a bit of a man crush on Jay Berershell lately. And while he was promoting his latest movie, he said something to this effect. He's like, for all the reasons why, you know, Canadians are very pragmatic people and that's great, but we also don't romanticize ourselves, and we don't kind of focus on these kind of weird, interesting stories, or they get quickly forgotten if you weren't there at the time you forget about them.

And I think that's part of what this, but what all of our books have done is make sure this is all on the record and these stories get told and this art gets celebrated. And yeah, absolutely. When something you take for granted

your entire life, the existence of a country called Canada is threatened, you really have a renewed appreciation. Not that I ever lost it, but you have a renewed appreciation for things that comprise our culture in all its past. And there's absolutely something to be said about these bands we love.

Like jail, The Pursuit of Happiness, Blue Rodeo, The Box, Skinny Puppy, Real Statics, Do Boys, Cowboy Junkies, Lois through the Low, Sloan. Like, and the fact that I really do not give a fuck if the Americans are listening. Like, I actually do not care. And I know how some of those bands I just mentioned are huge in Buffalo because they were listening to CFNY. And, you know, the Airways went over and, you know, not right now, but Lois of the Lowell, sell out a nice little place in Buffalo and Sloan is another band

that's not going there right now because... Well, and I think... I think the other side of that coin, the other side of that coin is that... I think there is a kind of a, you know, growing interest in Canadian music and other parts of the world. You know, that's something I...

Well, before we started talking about the anniversary, I mentioned to Michael, this video came up at my YouTube feed of a guy in the UK who did... he was doing one of those reaction videos of like the top 20 Canadian artists and the only ones he, well, Rush was his favorite band and he knew about Neil and Joni and Leonard, but, you know, all the other bands that he mentioned, he, like he admitted he knew nothing about any of them. So I'm watching this video, seeing this guy's first reaction to a lot of this stuff and it's,

it's kind of mind-blowing. So I couldn't resist. I had to leave a comment saying, well, Have I got a book for you? Yeah. Seriously. No, yeah, I said, if you're interested in all this stuff, you should, you know, read our books. And he responded right away, like very enthusiasticly.

He's like, yes, I want to get these books. If you can lift it, yeah. If you can lift it. So what is the plan here 25 years? You're here now talking about it? Is this going to, like, spark a little, like, I don't know, you're going to have some events or something? Like, what is the plan here to celebrate? Right now.

We have a promotion on at ECWpress.com where you can get 35% off. digital copies of the trilogy. Original hits by original arts. We haven't talked about the trilogy. So we haven't really talked about Jason's other book called Whispering Pines. Tell me everything I should know before I play us out here with a cover of a Lois Lois. Okay.

So here's the push. So Jason wrote an amazing book in 2009 called Whispering Pines, which I don't think he conceived it this way, but I perceived it as being a prequel to have not been the same. You've convinced me. Okay, great. So it's about Neil, Joni, Leonard, Lightfoot. Ian and Sylvia, going back to Wolf Carter, Hank Snow. And it concludes with the band, right?

So the band is the culmination of this Canadian development of what is the misnomerate Americana. Right. So that's Jason's book, Whispering Pines. That's the prequel. I wrote Hearts on Fire, which is the sequel, which is about arcade fire. It's about Feist. It's about new pornographers. It's about, you know, Wolfbraith.

It's about that whole time and place. 2000 to 05. So there you have it. That's the trilogy. So we wrote DCW. We're like, hey, guess what? Our book's during 25. So if you go to ECW Press, you can order digital copies because you're now too old to lift a book as heavy as these.

For 35% off, there's a promo code. You can find it on my substack, which is Michaelbarkley. com or that night in Toronto. And I think it's Berkeley, 2026 is the code. And then, but physical books, you got to come to us. So we'll be happy to sell you the trilogy physically. And the details are on my substack as well. Are you working on any new books?

We've got to make money. No, you're always working on a book. Yeah, I've got something close to finished. Well, it's on a completely different topic. So I don't know if it's... It's about curling. Close. Yes.

How did you know? No, it's, yeah. Let's just say it's about... about... Why don't you tell us what it's... Motorcycles, movies, and madness. Is that the title? That's a great title.

It's part of the title. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just kind of leave it at that for now. Okay. And I know this was car discussion and you didn't want to talk about it,

but can you give me a little hint of what was the Buffy St. Marie chat about? It comes up a lot this show. I didn't find anything convincing in the Fifth of State Report. Interesting. But do you believe she, do you believe she knowingly misled us with regards to her Canadian indigenous roots? Do you believe everything your parents told you about how you were born and when and to whom?

You're answering a question of a question. I'm just telling you. I'm just saying, and if you know anything about how indigenous birth records were faked in the case of adoptions and everything else. She has removed her bio and pretty much gone underground since his revelation. Like she's not saying peep now. Did you ask John Cleese about this? Oh dear.

I'm fine to ask. I only had 20 minutes of John Cleese. I saw him at the Winter Garden Theater just last week. But I do want to say tangentially related to Buffy Samarie, rest in peace, Andrea Warner, who wrote an excellent biography of her. Andrew Warner was a music writer in Vancouver who died of cancer in her late 40s. Last week, so. Yeah, I talked to Nico Stratis about her just last week.

Sad loss for, yeah. And she wrote a book about, you ought to know, I believe, about the Alanis Morissette and that whole scene too. So it's all adjacent to your books, absolutely. Remember Andrea Warner. And this is great, but. But? There's no but. But if you were going to reissue this in 2026,

and you could add something that you didn't add. Look at the size of that thing. Well, it's digital now. I feel like, you know, it's digital now. What would I add? I would add Del Bello. Okay. It was also in that footage with Jane Sibri of...

Yeah. And, no, I have a few regrets. I'm going to be writing about that soon as part of our month-long promotion. So you'll have to read that night in Toronto. Jason, do you have any specific regrets of what was left on the cutting room floor? Oh, boy. regrets regrets

more watchmen actually yeah we probably could have could have done with a bit more watchman for sure and yeah maybe some more kind of like southern Ontario stuff

people more Ontario stuff more Gandarvas more southern Ontario stuff oh not northern so yeah freezing the Sioux out there yeah I Um, I actually also, uh, we nod to like Bruce Coburn and Neil Young as like, uh, elders who kind of had renaissance in the 80s.

And I, I, we, we left Leonard out of that conversation. That's true. Yeah. And he should be there. And stomping Tom too. No, Stomp Tom's in there. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of the renaissance of the, uh, oh, sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were much music hits and it's like, oh, they had a past. What the heck?

These new artists. Okay. Margo's got the cargo. Reg. It's got the rig. Gentlemen, love this very much. Thanks so much. really do have a lasagna for you in my freezer.

Have I got a lasagna for you? Always a pleasure, Mike. Always a pleasure. And we'll meet again. I promise. And that brings us to the end of our 1,989th show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike

needs and much love to all who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery. You've got your fresh beer here. Palma pasta. I've got the lasagna in the freezer. Nick Iini's. He's at the Old Mill tomorrow with me, recycle my electronics.ca and of course, Redley Funeral Home.

See you all tomorrow. Doubleheader tomorrow. Diane Sacks in the morning. I'll find out why she switched wards. What's going on? Ward 14 now. He used to be Ward 11. And then at 11 a.m.

Ron James drops by. I love talking to Ron James. Lots of Toronto Mike tomorrow. You'll have SCTV stories.