Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Barclay: Toronto Mike'd #456

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Mike chats with author Michael Barclay about his career and The Never-ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip.

Welcome to episode 456 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Alma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Camp Turnasol, and our newest sponsor, Sticker U. I'm Mike from torontomike.com, and joining me this week is author of the never-ending present, The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip, a band I'm quite fond of.

I don't know if you know about that, Michael, but I'm a big fan. Michael Barclay. Welcome, Michael. I guess I'm, can I be Scarborough Mike? That's where I grew up. I have to talk to my lawyer before I grant you consent on that one. And you're a Michael.

I am. Does anyone call you Mike? People I grew up with do. So you have to be in this exclusive. You grandfather a Michael. I am. Does anyone call you Mike? People I grew up with do. So you have to be in this exclusive grandfathered in. When I left, when I went to university, I would introduce myself to people as Michael. So everyone who met me age 18 onwards calls me Michael. I always feel like sometimes in a business environment,

I go by Michael and I feel like I'm a phony. Like who am I to pass as a Michael like Michael's are like mature professional yeah like you're an author like you wrote a very good a very dense and thorough book and if anybody's watching on Periscope this is the book I'm pointing to it right now and those in the podcast you're like I want to see the book get the book if you love the hip or if you're just interested in Canadian music it's fantastic but i mean you're kind of a like an academic of sorts you get a thousand people watching you in your pajamas in your basement tell me there's no prestige in that no that's why i'm mike trono trono michael doesn't

have the same ring to it but uh we're gonna again because I'm a big fan of the hip and because you wrote this fantastic book that I thoroughly enjoyed, we're going to talk a lot of hip in this episode. But off the top, let's talk about like non-hip stuff. Sure. Right off the top. I want to ask you about the Waterloo record. Sure. I want to read your tweet, but why? I have you in the flesh right here, but this is what you wrote. You wrote, After almost 20 years and more than 5,000 album reviews, my weekly column for the Waterloo record just got canned. I just lost a job I should have lost a long time ago. Writing a weekly album review column for a newspaper for 20 years felt like it was

i was running the last video rental store some reflections on an archaic profession in the streaming era that's a long tweet did i fit all that in one tweet yeah did you maybe i got anyway sorry go on so now let's hear from you sure tell us about tell us about uh like your how you were uh set up providing these it was an interesting story like how it was set up that you could have this gig for 20 years and then what happened that you no longer have it with the waterloo record so uh after university i started working at a magazine called id magazine which was in guelph kw hamilton london saint catherine's all the university towns west of toronto and i was music editor there very small staff so everybody does

a lot of everything long story short that ended in in 99 and uh the shoestring ran out of string and uh um the editor arts editor at the waterloo record was a guy named Philip Bast, lovely, lovely beloved man who left us about 10 years ago. He really liked Id and liked my writing and offered me the column there because someone else was vacating it. So that was, I actually don't remember if it was 99 or 2000. I think it might've been 2000. And yeah, I did it and he trusted me to do whatever i wanted um and you know i kept him in mind and the readers of waterloo in mind and and a lay audience in mind um and uh so after he retired

i still did it and after he died i still did it and i i would hear increasingly less and less from i would just keep filing and invoicing and it would all work well that's the key here like because you work remotely and you just literally i guess you when you file it like is that like do you send it via email or is there some cms that you have to put publish it in or i actually had a pigeon come to my house every week and uh yeah i'd buy that what do i know but i'm curious how so you literally kind of press a button on your computer and that's you filing it and then you got got paid. That's how it works these days. Right. I'm told.

And they would never tell me what to write. So they'd never say, hey, how come you haven't reviewed the new Taylor Swift or Kanye or whatever it is? And why are you writing about this psychedelic band from Japan? Right. Nobody cares. Like I would never get any of that.

Like zero interference. About once or twice a year, I might get a copy editing question. Actually, there were some good catches. Like there was like an African name where I mixed up two vowels or something. Okay, so somebody was reading this. Somebody actually was reading it,

but it didn't feel like it most of the time. Yeah. And again, like you've seen Office Space, right? Well, I referenced that in the post and I felt like that guy who... Milton. Yeah, I actually had to rewatch that scene. I had to find it on YouTube

to make sure the reference was accurate. But in that movie, there's a guy who's been laid off years ago, but keeps showing up for work and keeps getting paid and nobody catches onto this till someone comes in to downsize the company. So, and then I remember he says like, you're letting me go.

And I'm like, no, we corrected the corrected the error like the payroll it was a payroll error where he kept getting paid so of course i felt like that guy however i also realized that that movie ends with that character torching the place yeah he burns it down and he's got the stapler which no the stapler is burning and i believe the ron livingston's character is working construction on the like burned remains or something and he finds the staon livingston's character is working construction on the like burned remains or something and he finds the stapler really i don't remember it's a great movie steven root is great as melton too yeah he was from news radio he was great on that show anyway i i felt a bit like that guy because i really felt like nobody's reading this nobody

could and it would rarely even go online that this is the irony is i was told it was canned because it doesn't get enough hits. But I searched for it. You know, I'm not so egotistical that I search for my own things all the time or whatever. But it's like, oh, I wonder if that ran. And they hadn't posted it since Christmas. I got canned in mid-March. And through the years, I tried to look for it online. I wouldn't find it.

So that's part of the reason why I maintain my own blog, just for own archival purposes to put up which is smart like i always tell people yeah control your you can't rely on a third party to host your stuff never one day it just disappears so many writers discover this like major uh i'm trying to think of examples of um sites you know that are as large as buzzfeed or whatever uh i guess while gawker went down i don't know if that stuff still exists anywhere but you know if if you write for even if you write for the huffFeed or whatever, I guess while Gawker went down. I don't know if that stuff still exists anywhere. But, you know, if you write for, even if you write for the Huffington Post or whatever, like things just disappear off the web.

If you can't, if you're not backing it up, you can't rely on anybody else on the planet to be backing up your hardware. And you can't go to the library and find it. I mean, when, you know, researching this book is great because, you know, with a Toronto Public Library card, you have access to more than 100 years of Globe and Mail and Toronto Star archives and periodicals, all kinds of things.

But as a historian, I'm super curious what that means in this era when so much stuff is ephemeral. So you were wise enough to create your own piece of digital real estate where you could archive your writings. And now you can quickly search it and find things that you've written at least.

It's like your own library, but it's public, of course. So remind us where we could find this. It's called Radio Free Kanakistan, which is based on a joke about 15 years ago that nobody understands anymore. And yeah, I started in 06 so so all every review i wrote since 06 is on there and i'd occasionally post full transcripts of interviews i did with

people you know for a smaller article if i thought they were interesting i'd post them and uh like 06 i remember 06 that's a that's prime time for like the blogs of you know well 04 i think it's like your apex or whatever but in 06 they're still going strong and I'm glad you kept yours going. I was late to the game and you know it's like that old Junior Gone Wild album too dumb to quit you and me both brother

couple of Michaels logging away 2019 it's like you know Portlandia or whatever and they're like keeping the spirit of the 90s. It's like, you know, Portlandia or whatever, and they're like keeping the spirit of the 90s alive. That's like me and my blog. We're keeping 2004 going, torontomic.com. You also, well, you used to write for iWeekly, right?

Can you talk a little bit about that? Speaking of articles that disappear. Yeah, right. And I don't know if that stuff exists in the reference library or not. Every so often, one of my former colleagues is like, I'm trying to find something I wrote in 2001. Okay, every month Mark Weisblatt comes on this show. Right, so he was day one-er, wasn't he, at iWeekly?

I don't know for sure. I'll ask him. He was very early. I don't know if he was day one, but he was among the first. But he's always, like, for example, let's pretend I'm having Gino Vanelli on, and I don't think this is true, but let's pretend that Mark Weisblatt interviewed Gino Vanelli for iWeekly back in 94 or something like that.

If that were the case, you know, I might want to see what Mark wrote. It's good, you know, he's very thorough. He was probably the first person to interview Estero or somebody. Right, right. You know, he was probably the first person to take some Toronto pop star very seriously. Exactly. exactly but you're right it's not easy to find uh you have to go to like

cash caches and way back machine way back machine it's a pain in the ass but radio free kanakistan for michael barclay stuff uh at i weekly uh oh did you when did you write for i weekly exactly uh so after id magazine went under i i started working for the waterloo record uh when did you write for iWeekly? Exactly. So after Id Magazine went under, I started working for the Waterloo Record, Exclaim Magazine, and iWeekly. Those were my three main gigs before I went to the CBC. And you worked on Brand New Waves. Brave New Waves.

I know. I meant Brave New Waves, of course. And tell me about that experience at CBC. That was a dream gig. That show changed my life several times. So it changed my life as a teenager, just blowing my mind open to all kinds of music and social and political thought and everything, independent music, hip-hop, punk,

you know, Laurie Anderson-style art music, everything. And then it changed my life again when I got cold called by the host and producer, Patty Schmidt, to invite me to go work for them. And I did that for three years. Unfortunately, it was at the tail end of the show when the show was very much an island on the CBC. Everything else was moving in a different direction. It was kind of this, they knew they still had this cool thing, but nobody knew what to do with it. And it was just, you know, death by a thousand cuts kind of thing. So I actually quit the show shortly before it was canned

because everybody there could see writing on the wall. So I still think that was a huge loss and there's nothing on the CBC remotely like it. But yeah, it was a thrill and living in Montreal and working for the show that meant so much to me. Even though it was on in the middle of the night, I'd be writing these hour-long biographies and profiles of people that would air at one in the morning. But it meant the world to me. Sure. And a cool gig, if I do say so. Like that's pretty awesome. It was. It was the best gig yeah dream job speaking

of uh cool gigs now I've been trying for a long time to get Mr. Dave Bedini to come on this show I don't know if you have any if you have an in with him and you can poke him a little bit I do have an in with him he's very busy because he's got this crazy idea well tell me about the idea and and how you're involved with this. So just over two years ago, I'm trying to remember when the first issue was, was it in September it launched? Anyway, he started a print only magazine called the West End Phoenix, inspired by his, he spent a period of time in Yellowknife working for a print newspaper there. Got a great book out of that experience.

It's called Midnight Light. Excuse me. The cough button is way over here. Oh, is it? Can I reach it? I need a sign. I'll flag you. It's morning. So he came back to Toronto and thought he would

start this. I mean, Bedini is in many ways an old school guy. He likes physical objects. And so he started this paper and it's a huge broad sheet. Like it's really, you know, the Globe and Mail, everybody else shrinks the size of their paper and the West End Phoenix takes up your entire kitchen table. And Bedini, of course, being who he is, has a lot of extremely talented friends, very connected guy. You can say a lot of things about David Bedini of course being who he is has a lot of extremely talented friends

very connected guy you can say a lot of things about David Bedini but one of them is that from day one he's a great hustler like he's really you know he's a great self promoter he's excited to to launch new projects

that may or may not work he's excited to lift up other people around him he's a great supporter of young writers and young musicians. And he's someone who wants to see things happen. And so that's what this newspaper is. So there's a lot of names you might be familiar with. And then there's a lot of new writers as well.

And it's very much a neighborhood paper. So it's kind of like to stand apart from, you know, the star of the globe, the sun, and be a neighborhood paper, because that's also of like to stand apart from, you know, the star of the globe, the sun and be a neighborhood paper, because that's also being lost in the media landscape as people who cover the hyperlocal. Now, so it's called the West End Phoenix because it covers the West End, but where I live is far to West End for that paper. I don't think it makes it this far West. A lot of Mimico coverage. No, it's not making its way to New Toronto or Mimico.

I just discovered you live in New Toronto. I know. People would just call it Mimico. It looks very old. New Toronto looks very old. I think this is like the old cottage country when old Toronto was like all of Toronto. This would be like where the cottages were by the lake. I think that's how it worked.

But I think it's ironic a little bit that I'm too west here for badini because the real statics were such an etobicoke thing yeah so anyway my answer is to why he probably hasn't answered your emails is he's he's really invested his life into this project and it's it's all in the line so um and uh you, maybe it's this, uh, chaotic, um, as in Don Quixote kind of, uh, pursuits. Um, but it's a beautiful thing. And I mean, this is also what I'm a huge rheostatics fan and they were, they were, you know, my

band in the nineties, like that was who I was all in for. And, um, you know, that would happen with that band on stage. It's like, Hey, let's segue out of that and do this crazy thing. And sometimes it would work and sometimes it would fail. But the act of trying, or the fearlessness and the adventurousness and also that band's approach to their audience

and that band's approach to lifting up younger bands, all of that has always appealed to me. And I think that's what he's doing with his newspaper. So to answer your question, I am, I'm their only online columnist. Counterintuitively, he started this print thing and then hired me to be an online columnist. That's interesting too. Now, two things come to mind with the whole West End Phoenix and getting Bedini on the show. One is this is actually a good way to like promote the West End Phoenix. I mean, we're doing it now. They have a big fundraiser,

May 31st at the Junction Brewery. It's a night of duets and it features people like Sloan and Tara Lightfoot and Alex Lifeson of Rush and the Rios and Tom Wilson and all my friends.

Matt Mays just got added. Mishimi. It's Mishimi. There you go. Yeah. And she is, she has an amazing comic strip in the paper every month.

And she's an amazing person. I have a mad crush on Mishimi. Who doesn't? I'm not afraid to say it. Great crew there. Mark Hebbshire, who is quoted in your book,

early. He's a delivery man for the West End Phoenix. He's a delivery man, yes. So he'll come in on like, I see him Monday mornings and he'll come in and be like, yeah, I was delivering

the West End Phoenix on the weekend or whatever. So yeah, he's another reason for Bedini to get in here. But anyway, that's between Bedini and I. We'll have to take that uh take that up offline as they say but um you're writing the column for west end phoenix and uh you're doing are you writing like freelance for other publications or what's the current i'm looking for work actually so i might just put my resume

on my blog at this point. It's been a year since the book came out, and I did a lot of promo for it. And now I have that post-project depression, middle age, what the heck do I do? What's next? I don't know. I was there like a year ago. I was in that like one year ago. I was in that like what next?

Yeah. So it doesn't last too long because eventually you realize what's next and then you're all in on that. And people just assume you're working unless you say otherwise. So I'm coming on your podcast to announce that I am widely available for work. Right. And yes, and the price you pay is I'm going to pummel you with hip questions and music for about 60 to 90 minutes. That'll be the price you pay. But first, before we get to some hip music, I'm going to do a little Nana Muscuri.

How's that? As one does. Right, right. Nana Muscuri, who has played Massey Hall, I think she's the fifth most frequent guest at Massey Hall. I know number one, but I would love to know, do you happen to know two, because number one, of course,

would be Gordon Lightfoot, I would guess. Correct. Can you do two, three, four? We're excluding the Toronto Symphony here, because number one, of course, would be Gordon Lightfoot, I would guess. Correct. Can you do two before? We're excluding the Toronto Symphony here because that's, they were the house band for a long time. Sharon Lowe's and Bram. Oh my goodness. Because they would play for like two weeks at a time for most of the 80s.

And I never would have guessed them. That's a good one. Is that two? Okay. I believe they're number two. I did a lot of work for Massey Hall a couple years ago. Blue Rodeo, I think, is in the top five. I've seen them there. Yeah. Yeah. And they also do multi-night runs.

Right. Yeah. Nana Muscuri. Kind of blanking now. It's okay. If it comes to you later, you can spit it out. I think she's the most frequent non-Canadian act to play there the most. Right.

Because she's Greek, I believe. The gentleman who wrote the Horseshoe Tavern book, David McPherson, who's been on the show, is writing a Massey Hall book. Yep. Yeah, so listeners, look out for that coming soon. And I'm sure I'll get him in here to talk about the book when it comes out, for sure.

A lot of great Toronto stories there, Toronto Mike. Yeah, I love Toronto stories. I love it. I was going to spend, I had one of the Gary's on and I was like, I just, now I need the other Gary, but I could do like with the horseshoe episode, I could just talk about the one year or so that the Gary's were running the promotions for the horseshoe tavern. I could just do that.

Okay, so why am I playing Nana Muscari? Because this is Le Tournesol and it's a great song to play when you're talking about Camp Tournesol. Camp Tournesol is the largest French camps in the GTA, and tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14 attend Camp Tournesol. They've been doing so since 2001, and if you want to watch your child's French skills blossom through the summer, you need to send them to Camp Turnstile. Now, there's a promo code I want you to use. Mike, M-I-K-E

2019. Go to campt.ca to see all their day camps and overnight programs. But don't forget to use the promo code Mike 2019 when you register your child for Camp Turnstile. You can feel free to sing along to Nana Miscarie

if you want, Michael. Let's play something that was a big hit 40 years ago. So this is pre-hip. I like the authentic nature of a cough. It's actually, I'm not going to mute out your cough. Did you catch my flag there? I did see it. I'm like, oh, I need more time.

The cough is coming. But let's play the song that was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 40 years ago this week. Here we go. Klemberg. heart of glass blondie which is the i think the previous week it was the doobie Brothers. So this was a nice little. Thank you.

Change them. Holds up, you know, you can stick on like a Blondie greatest hits album for like a teenager now. And it's pretty, it'll be well received. Well, it's one thing or another. I was listening to a podcast about the origins of rap or whatever. And Blondie gets a lot of credit for bringing rap music to the mainstream. Sadly, you always need the white folks to do that, don't you? Yeah.

I just finished the Beastie Boys book. Right, and they were the first rap album to go number one, right? Yeah. Licensed to ill. Yeah, it's true. They say Elvis took black music and brought it to white radio. But I love Blondie. And I particularly love Clem Burke, the drummer.

And why am I playing a song 40 years ago? We're going to play a lot of old tunes because we're going to play a lot of tragically hip. But this was the number one song 40 years ago and it is courtesy of Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years, but I'm told by Milan it's closer to 40 years.

So I might rewrite that. But if you want 15% off any regular priced watch battery installation, visit fasttimewatchrepair.com for a location near you. They have a new location in Richmond Hill. And I'm told if you go to the Richmond Hill location, you can get a selfie with Milan,

who is a little bit of a celebrity in the Toronto Mike universe because he appears on those sports media panels with Mark Hebbshire. So it all comes full circle. So thank you, Fast Time. And Michael, while we're thanking sponsors, you have a six pack of Great Lakes Brewery

in front of you. Courtesy of great, great lakes beer. Who calls it great lakes brewery, great lakes brewery, great lakes beer. I looked outside, it's raining all day.

And today they're launching their, uh, patio. They should, don't they see the future? They should have launched yesterday when it was a beautiful sunny day, but so it be it. Michael,

I, uh, don't know if you're a fan of the lowest of the low are you i'm a neighbor of ron hawkins so so that makes you like a east york guy right am i do i get is he no that's where he grew up oh are you okay no well ron hawkins will be at great lakes brewery on juneth, performing for TMLX3, which is the Toronto Mic Listener Experience. And from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Great Lakes will buy you your first beer, and then it's $5 pints.

Like I said, the Royal Pains are going to play, but also Lowest of the Low, so it's going to be a good time. So if you're doing nothing on June 27th, you should come to Great Lakes Brewery. I actually drink Great Lakes Brewery. Do you have a favorite beer? I think the Pale Ale.

I should also mention that, I don't know if this conflicts or if I'm allowed to do this. No, they know other breweries exist. Ace Hill Brewery sponsored my book launch at the Horseshoe last year. So I wanted to shout out to them. A beer I also actually enjoy, I'm not just saying that cause they gave me some money to pay the people who played. Um,

and, uh, they do this thing where like 1% of their profits goes toward like, uh, Lake Ontario waterkeeper, which is one of Gord Downie's preferred charities, uh, who do a lot of great work,

Mark Madsen and company. Um, yeah, I just thought while we're mentioning sponsors, I should, I know now I have to go back, uh, to my lawyer and see if that was okay to do. I will allow it because I don't want to be, no,

I would never, I would never, but your brewery is a great, a great legs brewery. They're great. They're near Royal York and Queensway. You should go to the retail retail store and pick up some electric circus, a new England pale ale while you can can because it's going to go quickly,

but they're great people. Palma Pasta, that's a fantastic family-run business as well. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. They would like you to take home that frozen meat lasagna. Don't have to cook tonight. That's great. You know, people say that and I always wonder, I always put mine in the fridge for 24 hours before I cook it up, but the instructions are in there., I always put mine in the fridge for 24 hours before I cook it up. But the instructions are in there. But I know that sometimes you kind of have to have it. Instructions?

Yeah. Like people don't understand. Because it's frozen. Like you can't just slap. You got to, they recommend. I'm sure you don't have to, but you're supposed to let it thaw in the fridge for 24 hours. And then you stick it in the oven at like 375 for like 40 minutes or so. And that's perfect.

So I always wonder like can you have that tonight like in my mind you gotta have it tomorrow night but you know i'll leave that between you and the good people at palma pasta who will probably answer the phone and help you out if you have any questions so go to palmapasta.com consider palma if you're catering an event they catered my wedding true, before they were a sponsor, so I had to pay for that. And they catered my recent hockey pool draft, which I actually did not pay for. Thank you. Thank you, Palma Pasta. All right, let's talk about the tragically hip. And I know I don't want to make you, like, there's a lot in this book. Honestly, it's really dense and fascinating

for people like me who love the details. Like, there's a lot in this book. Honestly, it's really dense and fascinating for people like me who, who love the details. Like there's a lot in this book. Um, but early in the book, there's a quote, uh, I'm going to read from the book where it's, it reads, uh, the main reason why there hasn't been, or there has been no book about the tragically hip is because the band didn't want one. I think that's the second paragraph of the book. Right, right. Like the, yeah, right. So right off the top though, let's just, my initial question is, maybe share with everybody, so why didn't the band want a book

and did they have any involvement in your fantastic book? They had less than zero involvement in this book. Is that possible? No. Why didn't they want one? I don't know. You'd have to ask them.

But they're private, right? They seem to be, it's probably, they're probably very private and they didn't want to, probably. But I need to ask. That's part of it.

Part of me thinks that, part of me thinks that they, you know, enjoy being a popular band. They enjoy the fact that people come to their shows and buy their records, but that's kind of where they wanted to stop,

to quote Gino Vanelli. They don't want anybody peeking behind the curtain. They would rather just maintain that mystique and be very anonymous, excuse me, in a very Canadian way. But I'll tell you another funny story. Yeah, of course. That a writer of some renown

who's been a guest on your show told me about another guest on your show, Jake Gold, been a guest on your show told me uh about another guest on your show jake gold which was that uh sometime around maybe 2000 or so uh he thought hey you know what there's never been a book on the hip and there should totally be a book on the hip like look this is the biggest rock band this is a huge phenomenon um and he said uh he said he went to jake and he, you know, I'd love to do this. I think I'm the right person to do it for reasons X, Y, and Z. And what do you think? Can I interview the band and I'll write this book?

And Jake said, no. Here's how it's going to work. We'll get the book deal. We'll hire you to write it. And we'll make all the money. Sounds like Jake. Yeah. Which is, you know, from a business point of view, more power to him.

So I think that they like to control their narrative and they like to they only want, you know, like the official version to come out. So, I mean, and this is a band that's also been very stingy with

like they have never done all these like deluxe reissues and everything else like they did one for fully completely um i think their arm was really twisted to put out a greatest hits record oh your favorites in 2004 um they're not a band who likes to look back and to celebrate these milestones and everything else. And there's something Rob Baker was asked directly while I was writing this book. Jane Stevenson at the Toronto Sun said, hey, what about Michael Barkley's book?

And he's like, you know, anybody can write whatever they want. He's like, I'm not, Rob Baker said, I'm not interested in talking about our influences or how we influence people or like a narrative story. I was like, well, I'm very interested in that because I influences or how we influence people or like a narrative story i was like well i'm i'm very interested in that because i think this is important but it banned and i think that particularly in this country um these books don't get written the fact that there

had never been one before now a proper biography uh speaks volumes and i think that um the alternative to not the alternative to me not writing this book is there being no book existing and I thought this was really important history particularly with with the rather unfortunate end of the band it was a huge moment in Canadian history and you can't not write about that I thought this this story had to be told. If this was an American story with a big American band, there'd be a hundred books out about the band probably, right? Is this a uniquely Canadian phenomenon? And maybe I'm wrong here, but it just seems like

you could make a very strong argument this might be the most important band in Canadian modern rock history. Yeah, you could make that argument. I mean, there's more of everything in America and there's a bigger market in America. So there'd be a lot of like quick make a buck kind of books,

you know, for sale. Well, like Nirvana, there's a million books and only a couple of good ones, but there's a lot of people trying to make a quick buck on it. Yeah, so you won't find a million books about the Tragically Hip

and maybe you'll find a couple. But here's the other thing is that I, you know, I encountered other other not just the writer i just spoke about but others who like yeah i pitched a hip book years ago and publishers wouldn't touch it because they didn't think it would sell um can i guess the author am i allowed to guess the author that you're referring to uh in your story there can i guess it well this is something they told me off the record. Okay, okay, I know. You can guess. I'm not going to confirm or deny. I'm going to guess Stephen Brunt is a guess.

You don't have to confirm or deny. I've never met Stephen Brunt. So it's not Stephen Brunt. So I guess I just did deny it. Well, you mentioned the name Jane Stevenson, and then I thought, well, maybe it's Jane. But we won't. I'll stop speculating here. You can keep that secret.

So let's do this let's just chat a little bit about how the hip form as a band and i'm going to play some songs that uh like would influence the sound of the hip and we can talk about like uh early influences on the tragically hip is that cool sure So 1984 they form. The end. And it's funny, Mike Hogan was on this show and he was talking about going to high school with these guys.

Who is that? Oh, sorry, Mike Hogan. Yeah, I assume everyone's a big sports media guy. So right now I think he covers the Toronto Argonauts, but he was a long-time Toronto sports radio personality.

And he's a Kingston guy? Kingston guy, absolutely. KCVI guy? I guess so. I forget the specific names of these schools and stuff, but yes, I assume so. So he went a Kingston guy? Kingston guy. Absolutely. KCVI guy? I guess so. Like I forget the specific names of these schools and stuff, but yes, I assume so. So he went to school with these guys. He was, so he went on, if people listen to the Mike Hogan, there's a lot of interesting talk about those guys in high school and stuff, but tell us a little bit, just, just give us a,

just a little more detail. Maybe I'll start playing one of the songs that we'll talk about that influenced the hip while you tell me a little bit more about what went down in 1984 to form the Tragically Hip. I'm waiting to hear what you're going to say. Oh, okay. I'm going to play. Because I'll be thrown off once it comes on. I'll bring it down lower than this. We'll start a bit lower. So what are we listening to? This is everything you need to know about the Tragically Hip in 1984. This is the Rolling Stones. This is an early 70s track.

I don't know the year. I'm not actually a huge Stones fan. But it's Dance Little Sister. And I found one interview with Rob Baker where he said the guitar solo in this in particular, Mick Taylor's guitar solo, is what kind of made him want to play guitar, which is interesting because Rob Baker has a unique way of playing guitar and he's not kind of, as Jay Gold put it, he's not a jerk off guitar player. You know,

he's not like a pyrotechnic guy. So he's more textural and kind of like rides over the rhythm. But yeah, I mean, you hear a lot of the Stones in the hip. You hear a lot of it in, you hear a lot of Charlie Watts and Johnny Faye. You hear a lot of Bill Wyman in Gord Sinclair. And you certainly hear a lot of Keith Richards and Paul Langlois' rhythm playing. So this was a very important song

for Rob Baker in particular. But early hip was not necessarily Stones covers. They thought, because they didn't want to be obvious, because that's not what the hip do. So they would cover the songs that the Stones covered. So they would go back to a lot of American R&B, Don Covey and Marvin Gaye, which I'm blanking now on other early songs the Stones covered,

but kind of obscure songs that most North American white people only know because of the Rolling Stones, that weird irony where those records were not well-known outside their small regional communities and states, but these British people soaked them all up and then packaged them back and sold them to North Americans. Now what's Mike playing?

He's playing... He's playing the amazing band Them, featuring vocalist Van Morrison. I always liked Them. I knew the hits, like this one, Baby Please Don't Go. But there's some

career there's a greatest, like a thorough compilation a couple years ago and this band is amazing have you ever gone deep into them? No. This is the band I've always wanted the Rolling Stones to be so if you've ever been lukewarm on the Stones, you like the idea of the Stones

but you don't like the Stones because Mick Jagger's terrible, go listen to them. Like, you know, they have the chutzpah to cover James Brown and pull it off. The entire band is amazing. Anyway. But even as a non-Rolling Stones guy, you'll admit, Gimme Shelter's a cool jam, right? Gimme Shelter's okay.

Yes. Okay. Just checking. There are things I like about the Stones, but, you know, Undercover of the Night is the only good song. So, Baby Please Don't Go of the Night is the only good song. So, but so baby, please don't go.

The hip would cover this and this is the beginning of New Orleans is Sinking. Right. That guitar riff, my understanding is the guitar riff to New Orleans is Sinking

came out of jamming on this song. Yeah, you can hear it. It's got that Yeah. I think I could do the whole episode about influences on the Tragically Hip. We'll skip the whole career.

Little Abyss, and I'm going to play another one. And I'll cry. Baby, please don't go. Baby, please don't go. Baby, please don't go down to New Orleans. Great song, man. That's a great jam. We're getting closer to home. Man, teenage head. Yep.

So, I am, I am a bit too... This sentence will sound awful. I'm a bit too young for teenage head. Yeah, me too. So I think you are... I think you're about five years younger than I am. Maybe less. I'm going to say three years younger than you.

I'm 1971. I'm 74. Okay. So I feel like teenage head is like the high school generation above me so people five years older than me love this band this band was everything um and uh they didn't mean anything to me they sounded like kind of a for the most part like a more of a rockabilly band than a punk band and um but i read jeff pavier's uh book on coach house press uh about teenage head and it's a great book and it's very convincing and a common theme but I read Jeff Pevere's book on Coach House Press

about Teenage Head and it's a great book and it's very convincing and a common theme throughout that book is how bad the records were how disappointed the band was in their own records

and you know just what an incredible live act they were how Frankie Venom was like the greatest frontman anyone had ever seen and that the records kind of sold them short

I didn't even really know this song until I saw the Sadies cover it many years ago and I was like what is that song? And I realized it was Teenage Head. This is a great song. So this, I think, was on very, I don't know if the hip did it,

but the precursors to the hip would have done this. So the bands, these guys were in before they formed the Tragically Hip. So Teenage Head would have been huge for that generation. People born in the early to mid 60s. If you're 20 years old in 1981,

Teenage Head is godlike. Right. And people talk about the great front men in Canadian music history, and Frankie Venom is always at the top of that list. And I think that Gord Downie took a lot from him, and his friend Hugh Dillon took a lot from him as well. Hugh Dillon, from what I understand,

comes directly from vintage, prime Frankie Venom. Speaking of Kingston bands. Yeah, well, in KCBI, same high school. Right. Well, Hugh Dillon. The band is not all Kingston, but Hugh Dillon is. Right, right, right. So the hip, though, these are just, they're all in high school together and they sort of just organically find each other uh yeah there were two bands so there's a band called the slinks um that gordon joined it was pre-existing bands and um uh and then there was a band uh called uh rick and the oh wait a minute now i'm blanking r Rick and the Rodents? Oh my God, I'm blanking on it. We'll fix it in post. And that's Robbie Baker and Gord Sinclair. And then, yeah, Paul Linguat is at the same high school. He doesn't actually start even playing guitar

until later in life. And then, and Johnny Fay is about four or five years younger than all of them. And he actually plays with some of the people, like when he's 12 years old, he's playing with guys like seven years older than him. Uh, I think he played in a Rush cover band called Anthem with some guys who were in the slinks. Anyway, um, they're all there.

They're all, they're all around. And then after high school, the slinks break up. The rodents, am I getting that name right? I'm blanking. And then... Do you want to check your book? No, that's cheating. That's cheating.

And then there's a band called The Filters, which Finney McConnell and the Hones forms. And that puts Rob Baker and Sinclair and Downey together. And after The Filters break up, that's when they start the Tragically Hip. Baker, Downey, Sinclair, and then they get this young kid, Johnny Fay, on drums, who's still in high school when he joins the hip.

And you mentioned earlier that they're mainly covers, right? They're doing covers? Primarily covers, but from what I understand, from all accounts, the goal is always original music, and back in those was, you know, back in those days, you'd do three or four sets a night. And they'd always have to try

and have like a couple of original songs in each set. Now, a lot of them are probably quite derivative. A lot of songs would come out of jamming on these old kind of R&B songs. I don't know if you've ever listened to early hip bootlegs from that era. This is something

I had never done before researching this book, but it's totally revelatory, like completely different band. Like they sound like the band them. They sound like early Rolling Stones. They sound like a Stax Records rhythm section. Just very, very different. And they're burning through all

these songs really quickly. And one guy who went to a lot of early shows in like 85, 86, told me that, you know, Gordani would like probably only knew the words to like half the songs he was singing. And then he just kind of make up his own lyrics on the spot over the structure of the song, the rest of the band had learned. And let me play a, like an early hip jam here that we all know so basically up to here is the first uh lp but uh there was an ep before up to here which had uh

i guess the point i would like to hear about now i guess is when uh when Alan Gregg and Jake Gold enter the picture. Can you tell us a little bit about, and it's great in the book, and maybe it's because I now have a relationship of some sorts with Jake Gold, and that he's been here, and we chat via Twitter DM and this and that. In fact, this

morning we were going back and forth about how to live stream this, because he's a big Facebook live guy, and I want to do YouTube Live. And he's given some... You're pivoting the video. That hasn't worked out for a lot of media organizations. No, because audio first video is a bonus. I consider it a bonus.

And if the video, it crashed yesterday. And if the Periscope crashes, I don't even worry about fixing it because it's all about recording this audio. So that's the difference. So no pivot to video. I don't know. But tell me a little bit about Alan Gregg and Jake Gould entering the Tragically Hips life and how that

changes things. It's rather circuitous. I need another coffee before I can pronounce that. There's a guy who hangs around the hip a lot. He's kind of like a bit of a roadie, kind of hanger-on,

super wants to help him out. And he is, again, I have to reread my own book now. His girlfriend's uncle is Hugh Siegel, I think that's how it worked. So Hugh Siegel later became a Canadian senator. At the time, he was very tight in progressive conservative circles, kind of a political operative kind of guy.

And anyway, long story short, Hugh Siegel is worried that his niece or his wife's niece is, you know, hanging out with this guy who's doing nothing with his life. They want to know if this band is any good. So Hugh Siegel knows that Alan Gregg, who's also very connected in Tory circles, says, hey Alan, tell me if this band is any good. And then

Alan kind of throws it on randomly one day and he loves it. Now, Alan Gregg is best known as a political guy, but he brought Led Zeppelin to Edmonton in 1969. He was not a musician, but he loved promoting shows, and he made a lot of money from politics, and this was his hobby.

He liked to invest in musicians, and most of them didn't work out until now, until he discovered the Tragically Hip, playing a tape blindly at his desk he had recently started this business with Jake Gold, Jake Gold had really impressed him Jake Gold is a young hungry guy and he had helped

Alan with something and then they decided to go into business together so Jake is just as impressed and he's like we gotta see these guys so they book a gig like the next week immediately after hearing the tape they say hey you guys come down to Toronto. We'll find you a slot somewhere. They call around.

They get an opening slot for a Stones cover band at Larry's Hideaway. And the hip come on. And both Jake and Alan told me like within 30 seconds, they're like, done. This is the band. Like, that's it. And apparently, I only found this out from your show. Yeah. One of my favorite songs by them uh them the band them featuring van morrison is uh i will only give you everything

and i titled the chapter in the book i will only give you everything on your show i learned that jake claims that was the first song they played in the set that night wow see so they opened their set for jake gold now and greg by playing I Will Only Give You Everything. In the sequel, will I be in the footy call, the end index or whatever? Will Toronto Mike make it? Sure.

Well, the paperback is just about to come out. So I've already made a couple of minor. Okay. I just love to be in there. And Jake and Alan are a good team, right?

Because Jake does all the things Alan doesn't want to do. And Jake, so Jake, my vibe with Jake and having read your book and meeting Jake is that he likes to be the tough deal maker guy. Like he likes to, he likes to kind of work with the venues and get the best deal for his client. And then,

and I think you wrote it very well that, you know, he'll be that guy, vicious and, and tough negotiator. And then right after the deal sign, like, Hey,

put it, he'll put his arm around you and say, let's go get a beer. And he's a different guy like it's just the two jakes and that's uh wasn't that a chinatown sequel yeah that's true thanks yeah um but that's what a manager should be like that's exactly what a manager should be and um uh jake gold gets a bit of a bad rap. Um, not so much these days, these days, he's totally cuddly, cuddly teddy bear. Um, but I mean, back in the day he was very dogged and he was very, uh, determined and you know, this is Canada. So that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Um, and I'm sure he burned some bridges, uh, along the way, but if you look at the trajectory of the hips career and what he did did for them that's what they needed

because when you uh get very successful very quickly you need somebody there to draw the line in the sand you need someone to be you know dr no to be like like nope we're not doing that nope nope no otherwise you easily get sucked into the sea of mediocrity that can be the canadian music business and you're suddenly your your face is everywhere and people are already sick of you. And it's like, Jake was like, no, this is a great band. This is how it should be done. There should be a mystique. This, you know, we should do things very selectively.

And that totally worked for this band in Canada. Clearly. Yeah, absolutely. Now let's introduce a new character to the story here. Bruce Dickinson. So introduce, he's with MCA character to the story here. Uh, Bruce Dickinson. So introduce, uh, he's with MCA.

Tell me, uh, he signed them to their first American deal. Um, and he, he's like an old school record guy. He was one of my favorite interviews. Lovely,

lovely man to talk to. Um, and, uh, yeah, he has a lot of crazy record company stories. Some of which I put in the book. We spent 45 minutes

talking about men at work. Oh yeah, yeah. Our interview was more than two hours. Safety dance, right? No. No, who is that? Who's the safety dance? Safety dance is men without hats.

Oh my God, yeah. So I apologize. I'll edit that out of the podcast. I could actually talk about men with hats for quite a while. Safety dance. Men at work, right? The Australian band. Men without hats also are indirectly responsible for quite a while. Oh, safety band. Men that wear gray. The Australian band.

Men without hats also are indirectly responsible for Voivod. Anyway, that's a whole other story. I'm going to talk to Ben Rayner about Voivod. He took me to see Voivod. Is he better yet? Because he took the lasagna and he hasn't been on yet. He's not scamming me. Because that lasagna has been

devoured by him and his kid. While listening to Voivod. Anyway, Voivod is literally queued up for Ben, who was supposed to be here a couple Because that lasagna has been devoured by him and his kid. While listening to Boy Body. Right. Anyway, Boy Body is literally queued up for Ben, who was supposed to be here a couple weeks ago. Well, now he's in Calaway. What was your question? So Men at Work, that's the Australian band, right?

So I actually used that as an example for like, here's a band from literally the other side of the world. How did they break America? And you realize it's really complete luck. Sorry, Bruce Dickinson hears the band on a sampler at a music conference in New York. And he hears Small Town Bringdown. And immediately he loves the sound of the band. He loves Gord Downie's voice.

And he calls the number on the back of the sampler. And he gets Jake Gold on the phone. He's like, I want to see your band. i'm coming to toronto when's your next gig and jake says actually their next gig believe it or not is massey hall uh and bruce is like great i love massey hall uh when is it uh i'll be up there and jake's like well actually it's like a this toronto music awards thing that q107 is doing they're only doing like two songs and bruce is like i don't care i'll come and here's where it gets a bit sticky because yeah uh bruce tells me this great story bruce like you know recreates conversations while he's talking to you and i'm just writing all down like this is great and i put that in the book and then after the first interview i did for

the book after it came out was with your friend, who's normally here at this time of day, Mark Hemsher. That's right. On his old podcast. And Mark says, do you mind if Jake comes on the podcast as well? Wow. And so truth be told, because of his reputation, I had been a bit intimidated by Jake. And I'm like, well, I'm going to find out sooner or later

whether or not Jake likes this book. So I might as well get this over with. And at least you have witnesses there in case Jake wants to rough you up or whatever. Which I did not think that was going to happen. I've heard stories. So I go to Hepshire's podcast and Jake is there. And we have a lovely chat, the three of us.

And I let Jake do most of the talking because Jake was there. we have a lovely chat, the three of us. And you know, I let Jake do most of the talking because Jake was there. I just wrote a book about it. And Jake likes to talk. So this is good. Yeah. And then after the mic is off, he's like,

he's like, I got to tell you that story Bruce told you in the book, total bullshit. What are you talking about? He's like, because the story in the book is that like how Jake like strong-armed Bruce into canceling a flight to stay and see the hip at the horseshoe. Because, you know, the two songs might not have been enough. Anyway, I won't get into the weeds of the story, but Jake's like, that thing Bruce told you is total bullshit.

I'm like, oh, that's weird because that's exactly what Bruce told me. So then I go back to Bruce. Bruce says, hey, can I get a copy of the book? Can you sign it for me? I'm like, Oh yeah, of course. And I mail it to him.

I said, Oh, by the way, Jake told me that this whole Massey, Massey Hall story is, is bullshit. And Bruce is like, Jake doesn't know what he's talking about.

That's awesome. And it's like, so, you know, and people be, because the band wasn't involved in this book, people say, you know,

well, how do you know, uh, how do you know that's true or whatever? And it's like, you know what? Here's a classic story with two guys. Right.

Who could not be more intimately involved with this band story. Right. And they both have like diametrically opposed versions of the same event. So that's, which is a reminder. There's like three sides to every story. Your side, my side and the truth. And,

oh yeah i mean you ever been in a a marriage or a family like twice actually twice people have very different memories of the exact same okay back to my buddy hebsey uh having you on his uh now defunct podcast but it was with liz west and i don't know which what was it called when you went on it she wasn't there that day oh she wasn't there that day okay now uh were you aware of hebsey's relationship with jake gold when you were told that no i didn't know they they only said this since they were two years old right so they're really tight i'm like wow i'm really walking to a wolf's den here it's but no they're both lovely so well yeah like you said uh jake gold's big i mean i mean one of the bands he's managing now is Splashin' Boots, which my three-year-old and my five-year-old dig the most.

So that's how soft and cuddly Jake has become. Maybe he always was. I only met him recently. And you're not negotiating a deal with the man. That is what you want. If I ever had lucky enough to get a manager, I don't have a manager, but I'd want my manager to be like, uh,

to get me the best deal and don't worry about people liking you. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? That's not your job to be liked. Your job is to get the best deal for your client. Right. And if people hate you for it,

then you're doing your job well. I mean, as long as you're not crooked and rippy, I'm not saying like the ends always justify the minds. Yeah. Don't, don't steal from your clients or anything like that. But,

uh, good on Jake. So, um, let's, so MCA signs the Tragically Hip, Bruce Dickinson. And let's play the first big jam from the first album here, and then we'll talk about it. I still get chills hearing the opening to this song.

Me too. And this is the first song of the hip I ever heard. There are so many huge hip hits that I'm so sick of and I never need to hear again, but not this one. Agreed. And I find Up To Here holds up really well because it's kind of got a raw kind of... I don't know how to describe it. Grime-ier sound, you know what I mean?

I think the production is a huge part of this album's success. Don Smith. And they record this in Memphis, right? Yeah. Give Gord a little more before I bring him down. And that is the...

Sorry. No, please. Talk. Rob Baker has said that was always his favorite part of any show, is when they would play that song and that moment right before the band kicks in. And, you know, you can picture it. If you've ever been to a hip show, that's when the crowd just, it's like seeing Springsteen do Born to Run.

It's just like, you know, it's just like that moment. It's true. Like, I've been to many hip, like, probably 13 or something hip shows, and there are moments that are consistent. That's true. Like I've been to many hip, like, uh, probably 13 or something, uh, hip shows. And, uh, there are moments that are consistent. Uh, that's one of the moments there's,

there's of course, when, uh, I love the live version of at the hundredth Meridian and I can't stand the studio version of, Oh, me too. I love the studio version.

You know why? Cause it's, cause you're used to the live version. I think that's what ruined the studio version. And you're like, why is he singing this so slowly? And yeah, but the other one, of course, ever since Bob Cajun came out, uh, version. I think that's what ruined the studio version. And you're like, why is he singing this so slowly? But the other one, of course, ever since Bob Cajun came out, the line

that night in Toronto, and usually the house lights go on or whatever, and then the whole city goes crazy. Total pandering. We learned that from The Simpsons when Spinal Tap came on. I was on Route 401 today, and then you've got to drop those local references,

and then he calls them Springdon instead of Springfield at the end. That's a great episode of The Simpsons, by the way, the Spinal Tap appearance. But okay, I digress. So, tell me, share with me a little bit,

obviously I can't make this a six-hour episode. Yeah, this could go a while. Early, no, I'm going... There's 12 records or 13 records. I've made a decision to go a little denser early, and then, zoom, fast forward to the end. Not uncommon with a hip. Right.

That's right. I want to talk about World Container. Okay, go on. Yeah, that's the one with In View on it, right? Yeah. Probably their poppiest hit ever. It's the only one with a toy piano on it. It really does sound like written to be a hit,

I always, you know, which Gino Vanelli did with Black Cars, as he told me the other day. They sat down to write a hit i always you know which uh gino vanelli did with black cars as they told me the other day they sat down to write a hit and black cars came out so it all comes back to gino so great jam i'm at it i'm super biased because at this point because i got the three years younger than you so i'm actually like uh 15 i want to say when i first hear this song on q107 because i used to listen to top 10 of 10 all the time by the way i need i don't know where Shirley McQueen is at. I think she's in Calgary, but I need Shirley McQueen

on this show. Just throwing that out there because I listen to so much Shirley McQueen. She was like the only woman on FM rock radio at that point. Yeah, English Schumacher was on Chum FM, but they had already gone to Top 40. They had left album stuff for Top 40. I remember the first time I heard a woman on FM radio, I was like, what?

But she was doing traffic, right? Probably. It was always traffic. That's great. They're not much better now, I don't think. No, I don't think they are. Maureen Holloway's in next week.

Oh no, she postponed two weeks. She's in the middle of May. There's a lot of women on that kind of music, like Chum FM and CHFI, but not the rock stuff.

All right. Lana Gay, you should have Lana Gay in here. You kidding me? First of music, like Chum FM and CHFI, but not the rock stuff. All right. Lana Gay. You should have Lana Gay in here. You kidding me? First of all, Lana Gay is apparently super tight with my good friend Bob Willett, who is Bingo Bob on Humble and Pretty Girl. This is a total tangent. It's okay.

I love tangents. But I've asked Lana Gay twice, and she doesn't want to come on, so I'm not asking Lana Gay anymore. But I would love to have Lana Gay. And I loved her on CBC. She's lovely. Agreed. All right,

what are we talking about? Up to here. So obviously, up to here, maybe share a little bit about recording it in Memphis and just a little bit

about... I wasn't there. You weren't there, but you've talked to people who were there. Is that right? Actually, it was hard

because Don Smith died in the... The producer, Don Smith, died in the... the producer Don Smith died in the, sometime around 2010 maybe, I think. He, yeah, he went on, he did those great records for Cracker in the 90s. Low.

Oh, Kerosene Hat was called, right? Yeah. Well, and the first one too. And Teen X with World Needs Now. Oh, that's a great song. Did you do Euro Trash Girl? Probably. Always liked Euro Trash Girl.

It's hidden, you know. It's not like it's like 67. And he worked with it quite a bit after this. Like he mixed some stuff on Phantom Power, and I'm trying to remember what else he was involved in. But his name popped up, and they always claimed they were going to be working with him again. he's like oh let's go back to Don Smith and then they do a left turn and go somewhere else but I think the production is really huge because you think

about stuff that's coming out in the 80s very few records sounded like this like this this is this sounds like a rock band playing in a room and very few bands did that I think with the exception of the other Don, Gaiman, who made Life's First Pageant for R.E.M. and made Scarecrow and other John Mellencamp records, those records sound similar to this to me. You really hear the crackle of the amplifiers and the snare

doesn't sound like it's buried under, it doesn't sound like black cars. So it's it really, really stood out. And on a rock radio playlist, you know, you got Poison and Motley Crue and then this comes on. You're like, whoa. It's so true. And that's what you had back to back, back then. You would have like Dr. Feelgood and then New Orleans is sinking.

That's how we rolled in the late 80s. Orleans is sinking. That's how we rolled in the late 80s. That's right. Man, the whole album up to here, like we just said, I think it still sounds great today. But I never need to hear this song again.

This one does get played a lot. Can you fade it out? Listen, it's all about you today, my friend. I can fade it out here. I feel sacrilegious. But maybe share, this is what I find find interesting when bands decide how they're going to divvy up royalties you got some bands

I heard about it on 60 Minutes and I was fascinated when Bon Jovi was on and he's like yeah John Bon Jovi owns Bon Jovi and he hires Richie Sambora and these guys are like employees he doesn't hire him anymore does he? I don't know what the status is Bon Jovi and he hires like Richie Sambora and these guys are like employees of like, he doesn't hire him anymore.

Does he? I don't know what the status is. I think he's gone anyway. Not that I care. So Bon Jovi Inc is like, I am the, he's the, I don't know.

He owns that. And, uh, he pays out salary to the rest of the guys. I'm like, well, that's, I never thought of a band like that,

but the name of the band is Bon Jovi. That's true. But, oh man. And that explains why Van Halen can burn through lead singers, I guess, because they named it after the guitarist. So the decision made by the Tragically Hip, right, all songs would be credited to the Tragically Hip, right?

So they split the royalties five ways. Starting with Up to Here. The EP, there actually is individual song credits. And you can see that Gord Sinclair wrote all the best songs. And, yeah, so for Up up to here they decided to split it because uh the only and which was unusual then it's more common now but uh I think REM was the only other I remember reading a lot of articles about REM where it was made to sound very unusual that REM did that that you know drummer Bill Barry got as much of a cut of every song. Right. And the reason for doing that is that if, you know, if, whatever, if Rob Baker wrote 100% of New Orleans is sinking

and that becomes the biggest hit, then suddenly he's buying a bigger house than everybody else in the band. And, you know, that's when resentments come in and everything else. Of course, resentments can also come in if you're the freeloader in the band who never does anything and you're still getting an equal cut. I mean, I've actually seen that happen in other bands. So, but yeah, they decided to split everything

and Downey said, sure, the deal is though that I need to write all the lyrics. Like if I'm going to be the front man, I need to write everything because Gord Sinclair wrote the lyrics to small town, bring down and last American exit and other songs he's credited with. So,

so they decided everything gets split five ways. Very Canadian equalization. Sloan does it. Low does it federal transfer transfer payments. Yeah, that's right. It is. It seems like a very Canadian thing and very cool.

Now I have a great question, but so this is up to here. That's like that breaks them in Canada, I guess. It's like they're on the verge of, you know, these songs are getting lots of radio playing. You can see the videos on MuchMusic. But speaking of videos, which one am I playing here? Here you go. We'll bring you one. what's the story behind mca uh not paying for a video for little bones

oh which i got from your book so I hope you remember the story. Yeah. I'm also remembering that there's a brand new Bob Mould song that uses the same guitar riff. I think they didn't want to throw good money after bad, and I think they really hated the videos from up to here, and were just like, eh, no. And then, so that's when I think Alan Gregg reached into his pocket

and paid for it. I don't even remember the video for this. I mean, obviously I watched when I think Alan Gregg reached into his pocket and paid for it. I don't even remember the video for this. I mean, obviously I watched it while I was writing the book, but I don't even remember if this is a good video or not. Yeah, I'm trying to remember because I was watching a lot of much music at the time when Road Apples comes out. So I'm trying to, you're right, it's not a memorable video, that's for sure. I mean, New Orleans is Sinking is an awful

video. Yeah. Blow It High Doe is good only because it's kitschy. Right. I'm trying to remember any other early videos of theirs. I'm not a big video guy. Also, I was leaving high school and going to university, so I'm not watching videos anymore.

Right. That's the key three years. I'm going to see real bands at i'm the losers still tuning into uh oh by the way master t's coming over in a couple of weeks that'll be fun but i'm the one who's still watching much music but so uh yeah but we'll get to this later i'm gonna obviously later we'll talk about the hip in the usa which is sort of like i I think it's a mandatory subject and it's covered quite well in your book. And I talked to Jake Old about it too, but we'll get to that.

But this is the album, of course, recorded in, this is New Orleans where they recorded this, right? So the album with New Orleans is sinking on it is recorded in Memphis. And then the Road Apples, they actually do that one in New Orleans. And they did this at Daniel Lanois' place

before it was officially a studio. Like, he just bought the building and things were kind of, like, set up, kind of ramshackle-wise on the main floor there. Three, four, one, two, three. Might be my favorite Tragically Hip song. Of course, it depends on the day, but... Depends how sad you are that day.

Right, right. Well, the morning I learned Gord had passed, this was the first song I played. Right. Yeah. But, um... Let me hear a little bit of the September

17 for a girl I know it's Mother's Day her son is gonna leave And that's where he will stay Wind on the weather vane Tear and blue eyes sail on me

As Falstaff sings a sorrowful refrain For a boy in Fiddler's Green You don't mind, Michael, if I cry a little bit here, that's okay. People do. When he dedicated the song to his sister at the final show, that was a pretty heavy moment. For sure. Now, so here in Canada, again, we'll focus on Canada

and then later we'll talk about, you know, breaking in the state. Maybe with the SNL part, we'll kind of discuss that briefly. But so up to here and then Road Apples uh did how did they sell in this country that can give me a little context about how this band is doing here uh great I'm huge and did Road Apples I know did Road Apples outsell Up To Here uh it certainly sold quicker because they were a known name both albums have now sold more than a million copies as has fully completely

very few Canadian records have sold more than a million copies but the first three hip albums are three of them and all the rest is Celine Dion six of them are Celine Dion three of them are the hip and you know the rest are Shania, Linus, Brian Adams oh yeah the yeah and they're all Barenaked Ladies so which Barenaked Ladies you know, the rest are Shania, Linus, Brian Adams. Oh yeah, the big...

Bare Naked Ladies. So which Bare Naked Ladies... There's only one that could possibly sell that many. Gordon? Yeah. Yeah. Tyler Stewart was in here fairly recently. I heard that, yeah. He was good. Now, you don't want to hear any more New Orleans

is sinking, but I just want to talk briefly here. I'll just put it on the background. Can you just tell us a little bit about the story of the Killer Whale Tank version of New Orleans is Sinking? These are all questions for Jake Gould. A live version of this song became quite famous.

It got played a lot on radio stations. It was on a radio-only promo. So back in those days, people stopped using vinyl at radio stations and people used CDs, and you would get these promo CDs that would have the key track they want you to play as well as a couple of the bonus things that you can do whatever you want with. So there's a live version of New Orleans recorded in LA. I think Don Smith was working the mobile there.

And Downey went into this long story in the middle of it during the jam. And the song was always a jam, as Toronto Mike likes to say. That's the wire's fault. People get on me. Why do you keep calling songs jam? Because Chris Partlow in The Wire, who was a killing machine, he was a sociopathic killing machine, he was muscle for the drug dealers. And you felt a lot of affinity with this character.

Right, I could relate to this man. There's this moment where he smiles because there's a song playing in the car, and he goes, that's my jam right there. And it was like the only moment where Chris Partlow smiled in the entire series. So ever since then, I've been calling songs jam. The softness at the heart of a killer has endeared me to the word jam. Precisely. Thank you for understanding me.

Strawberry, that's my jam. So anyway, he has this kind of... What's the word I'm looking for? Anyway, this extended story about a killer... Monologue? Is that the word? Monologue? Shaggy dog story? Is that the correct term I was trying toaggy dog story. Is that the correct term? I was trying to think of.

Anyway. So, and people love it. And it becomes this thing. And Jake knew this. It's such an unusual story. It's such a funny story. And it's weird. And it's unlike anything else on the radio.

And it starts like this. I had a job before this. Ultimately, it was that job that drove me into this. And, I mean, it was played on radio. Like, you would tune in to, I don't know, 97.7 or something, hits FM, and you'd be hearing the Killer Whale Tank version. Yeah, so he would often do this kind of stuff live all the time, have these little dramas in his mind that he would enact, and maybe you could follow what was going on,

maybe not, and maybe you were just like, oh, he's being so weird. Right. But this was actually a very coherent story. Now, the myth about this song is that he just did it once, and I think he told people that

because he never wanted to do it again, because it became this thing. People during this song would bring inflatable killer whales and crowd surf these. It happened at the final show in Kingston. Right, they'd want him to do this. This is something, he could just do it on demand and do his killer whales and like crowd surf these. It happened at the final show in Kingston. Right. They'd want him to like do this.

Like this is something you could just do it on demand and do his killer whales thing. It's like going to see a comedian and like you want to hear that one routine from the one record. Right. Right. And Gordani being Gordani, he didn't want to do that. So he never did it again. But at the time he recorded this, he had been doing it that summer. So because there's references to it they did a big outdoor show in kingston that summer and a review of that show mentions that he went on this

tangent about a killer whale and that's like a month later after this la show so there were multiple killer whale tank diatribes in new orleans well he was workshopping it right like you know and that's that's what comedians do. That's what any performer does. You try something out and if it works, you push it a little further and then you shape something.

So he's a performer. He's not being disingenuous or whatever. He's being disingenuous when he's telling you he only did it once. Right. But anyway,

so it became this thing that people would like and, you know, it's very hard to understand today when you can stream every rare track from a box set on spotify or whatever but he uh people would tape it off the radio right they would sit there with their boombox and and wait wait to see if the dj would play it and then press record so they would have a copy of it and jake gold knew this because people were like well you got to put that out you that out. Even when they put out a

live record a couple years later, this wasn't on it. That live record was all taken from one show from that year. And so Jake wanted this to be a rarity because true fans want those things. They want to feel special. Right? Right. If you have something,

if you have a copy of Up to Here, well, great. So do a million other people. Who cares? But if you have a, if you have something if you have a copy of up to here well great so do a million other people who cares but if you have a if you manage to record convince the DJ to play at a certain time and you have a set copy of that then you are you know you're King B with all your friends no I had coincidentally I'm wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt today and it was sort of like yellow lead better like for forever like Pearl Jam fans the Yellow Leadbetter wasn't on anything like it wasn't on any studio album but it would be played live and there'd be bootlegs flying around I remember scoring bootlegs of Yellow Leadbetter and it was like I was like like I had gold in my hands

no pun there for Jake but uh like yeah so it's sort of kind of like that for hip fans but that kind of investment in in fandom really really pays off and the bands the bands that mean enough to you that you will want to invest that in are the bands that still mean something to you years later. And I think there's something really to be said for that ephemeral thing. And this actually extends to a lot of things about the Tragically Hips approach

to performance in general. Like every night, Gord Downie wanted to see what would happen on stage tonight. What's going to be different about tonight? Like he once said, I consider the stage a question that I just keep throwing answers at to see what works. And that's part of the reason for the title of the book as well.

Like living in the never-ending present. Every show is what's going to happen tonight. The other live version that was kind of everywhere at the same time, although never as big as this one, was the double suicide version of Highway Girl. Yeah, that always creeped me out. This is a better story. I don't like, I'm not into woman-killing songs in general.

Oh, yeah, avoid NWA's post-XQ album. That's a pro tip for you. Now. Or Down by the River by Neil Young, same thing. Right. I just wanted to play the loons here because I loved reading in your book about the loons in this song.

That's a great little tale. So, of course, this is Wee Kings from the Fully Completely album. What can you share about that loon we just heard there? I thought it was a great little tidbit. No, but it's chilly in this basement. I need a little campfire to curl up beside here. Because you notice the headphones.

I think when you listen to music in headphones, it's a whole different experience. And too often we just have it because it's immersed around us on the speaker or whatever. But the headphones to me, that music always sounds better in headphones. I don't know. I'm appreciating the panning right now, actually,

between Rob and Paul on either side. Right. Because of the headphones. I don't know. I'm appreciating the panning right now, actually, between Rob and Paul on either side. Right. Because of the headphones. Yeah. So the Loon. So the Loon. So they have this song, and the British producer loves it. He's like, this is such a Canadian song.

They tell him the story about what it's about. And mentions of Cc and prime ministers and all this stuff guys like this is so obviously a canadian song like we should make it even more canadian so this british guy thought we should put like the sound of a loon on it because to him that's what canada sounds like right so um did you not ask jake this this is another jake story i don't did i i honestly can't remember the jake. I don't assume people will have heard that, so I'll tell it. And I apologize if there's any duplicates here. So Jake is in Toronto.

They're recording the record in London, England, and he's coming over to check out how it's going. So they say, Jake, can you bring us a Loon sound from Canada? Because, you know, just trip over them in the street over there in Toronto. So he goes to Pearson Airport. The gift shop, of course, there's a little Sounds of Canada thing. Right. And he brings it to London and they sample it and they put it on the truck.

Comes out. You know, the loons are apparently this very universal thing, but the guy who recorded that one recognized it immediately. Wow. And that's because that guy was Dan Gibson, a filmmaker, documentary filmmaker, a guy who I later learned invented the parabolic microphone that sports use and documentary filming. And so he had sold millions of copies of a series of CDs called Solitudes. So, you know, your grandparents probably have a few Solitudes albums that they like to play in the bathroom.

so your grandparents probably have a few Solitudes albums that they like to play in the bath. Anyway, so he recognizes his loon call and calls them out on it and threatens to sue, and they're thoroughly embarrassed. I mean, hip-hop was just beginning to get into trouble for this kind of thing, right? That was kind of the same year as the Bismarck-y suit that put a big chill on everybody,

but it would never occur to a rock band, especially, like, it wasn't even music. It was not a human sound. So anyway, they apologized and they sent Downey to apologize in person and they made a big donation to Dan Gibson's favorite charity, which is? WWF.

I don't know. Docs Unlimited. Docs Unlimited. I should have known that. And I wasn't talking about the wrestling either, WWF. I got my Andre the Giant mug behind me, which still has the old WWF logo on it, though. But that's a great story because you would never think,

yeah, like uncredited sampling on a tragically hip album. And it's a loon of all things. So I don't think everybody knows that story. And I don't know. Did I ask Jake about that? I can't remember if I asked Jake about The Loon because when I read it in your book, I felt like I was reading about it for the first time.

So maybe I've forgotten some of the Jake episode. Here's a former guest of the show I just want to touch on briefly because he's all over the book in this section here. It's Kevin Shea. Kevin Shea came on because I just wanted to do an episode about Bill Barocco. Oh, he's the man. Yes, definitely. He literally wrote the book about it yeah he is he's the uh he's the man uh

absolutely and but tell me a little bit about uh Kevin Shea and and because we did touch on his music because now I wish I need to have him back because we did talk about Weird Al Yankovic and Motley Crue and all he's got great stories yeah i need to just talk yeah uh i i reached out to kevin shea because uh i think somebody else i know from universal music told me that he would be good to talk to and i knew i obviously knew him through promo stuff in the 90s um but i hadn't talked to him in 20 years uh and then i realized that he was also a huge hockey guy that he works at the hockey hall of fame and then i find out he wrote a book about bill rogo i'm like well obviously i have to talk to kevin shay also i uh know nothing

about hockey i i feel uh uncomfortable sitting in a chair where mark hebbshire normally sits well give me your passport, sir. I can't let you keep that. I've said this in front of live audiences before, and a gasp, like I said at the horseshoe at my book launch, I have never watched an entire NHL game. Wow. Yeah. So take my passport, please.

Not even game seven, Kings versus Leafs. Wayne Gretzky versus the Leafs. I don't even know what you're talking about. Did the Kings play the Leafs once? Was that a thing? In 1993, when you were still young enough to maybe even care about. I know the names of the teams. I have kind of a broad general knowledge, but, you know,

because I worked at McLean's, these are things you have to know when you're. All right. But, no, I really. I've watched entire Olympic hockey games. Okay. So did you see Sidney Crosby's Golden Goal? Yeah, who do you think I am?

Come on. Then you would definitely need my password. You can have it back, man. So this is the part of writing this book that really terrified me. Because it's totally my Achilles heel. I'm completely out of my element. I know nothing about hockey. So that's why I wanted to interview

Hebsher and Kevin Shea and Dave Hodge. Well, those are three of the greatest storytellers you could have talked to. The funny thing is Dave Hodge refused to talk about hockey. Interesting. Yeah, he's like... He just wants to talk music now.

That's absolutely true. Yeah. He's like, I've spent my entire life talking about hockey. I go to bars to see bands and people come up to me and they just want to talk about hockey. I'm like, I'm here to see music. And you know, I

don't know how familiar I am with his appearances here but he kicked out his top 100 songs of all time and then he came back at the end of last year. How long was that episode? I only played the top 10, I think. So he just names them and I play top 10. But then he came back in December of 2018 to do his

top 100 songs of 2018. So just, I didn't listen to 100 new songs in 2018. You should. I know I should. It's good news. But anyways, so Hodge is a music fanatic. Oh yeah. Just if people don't know that.

Yeah, but it was funny. So I went to him seeking help and he refused to talk about hockey. Oh, good. But Hempshire and Kevin Shea were very helpful. So you are not allowed to ask me any questions about hockey. I won't ask you any questions, but I will share a quick anecdote, which is when Dave Hodge visited here the first time, because he's been here three times now,

but the first time he told me before we started recording, he said, I don't want to talk about the pen flip. Now the pen flip is this great moment in sports media or whatever. Anyways, Dave Hodge never works again for H night in canada after he flips that pen and i was thinking to myself like dave hodge is here he doesn't want to talk about the one thing i want to talk about the most like and he spent his whole life talking about i know but i asked him about it anyway and he gave me the best longest answer like he he was amazing and he didn't leave like, oh, that asshole Toronto Mike. I don't want anything to do with him again.

Because he came back twice more. And he'll be back at the end of 2019. I think interviewer to interviewer here, as long as that's not your first question, you can probably get away with it. I usually warm him up a little. We talked music first and then I slipped him. There you go. You won him over and then he felt comfortable enough.

So there will be no sports questions here except to say that you, Kevin Shea is a great storyteller and a wonderful man. So you did yourself a service by talking to him. Yeah. Oh, okay. An inelegant fade out there. I apologize.

So, uh, okay. So this is the big one, right? Uh, 50 mission, sorry,

uh, fully completely is the album that uh sells the most units in this country this is their biggest this is the apex of the tragically hip is that fair to say never got bigger never got bigger and day for night's coming out and is this about the time that dan akroyd gets uh the tragically hip on saturday night live is my time are my timelines correct is the day for night's coming out and it's just came out. Maybe I think it had just come out in the States cause it came out in Canada first and they actually toured the States without a record deal and sold it

off the stage like any indie band would. Um, so, uh, again, I'd have to think about this. I'm pretty sure day for night came out in the fall of 94 here and came out in February 95 in the States.

Is that correct? Sounds about right. If Jake Gold's listening, he'll shoot me. He'll tweet at us if we've gotten the detail wrong. I hope Jake Gold's listening. He's a good man. So Day for Night, around the time,

I mean, shortly thereafter, I guess, they're on Saturday Night Live. And it's funny. Somebody tweeted a clip of this appearance very recently. People are obsessed with this appearance, and I don't really get it. I think it's because the hip were so big in Canada and so... I know.

I realize it's the expectation. People wanted them to go in there and hit it out of the park. We wanted them to see what we see. Don't you think that there's a whole like, hey, big brother, I want you to see how good we are now. I get that.

But I really feel like Canadians love failure. And they perceive this performance as a failure or maybe not a failure, but they perceive it as not living up

to expectations. They perceive the whole thing as like this wet fart that went nowhere. And like, it becomes this like sticking point like people love to talk about this. But I think it's more pride

than that like I don't think it's that we love that it was like a wet fart that didn't go anywhere. I'm going to start using that line it's terrible. My five year old will like it though. A wet underwater fart. Right. Which all things underwater are wet. At least speaking for me who is like at this time I'm like a 20

year old big hip fan. I would say that there was a great amount of I felt pride that our band our best kept secret or whatever

was now going to have what I thought at the time because it was a big Saturday Night Live guy the thing was going to have like the biggest like stage

for music in North America. So I was just very proud. Here's the other thing. You can absolutely kill on Saturday Night Live and it won't make a difference. Like I was a huge stage for music in north america like i was just very proud here's the other thing you can absolutely kill on saturday night live and it won't make a difference like i was a huge fan of

uh remember the band lone justice no maria mckee oh i do know her because she's on the pulp fiction soundtrack oh yeah that's right but yeah um okay go listen to lone justice's first record okay uh it's it's mind-blowingly great and they played saturday night live and like i don't think i've ever seen anything more explosive on television like she's a total firecracker you you literally think she's going to explode and uh it's so great but here we go you've never heard of lone justice most people have never heard of lone justice that amazing performance did so it didn't move the needle at all like there's no because in the book somebody talks about how there's often a uptick after an snl and that there wasn't one for the hip right and i guess there wasn't one

for lone justice either so it's too bad justice did okay in the states but they certainly never broke yeah and again uh i asked jake about this he, part of his answer was that the hip weren't willing to play the game. Well, they weren't going to play an old song. I think that's what it was. They're like, we got a new record. We're going to play songs from the new record. Our new record happens to be weird and murky. So that's what you're going to get.

And the irony of this, as I think you actually said in that episode, is that they played two of people's favorite songs. Yeah. People love Grace 2. People love Nautical Disaster. You know, I did the Kick Out of the Jam thing, and those two jams come up, especially Nautical Disaster. Sure, so where's the failure?

But, and I think I said this to Jake too, that you'd think they'd probably do New Orleans is Sinking. Why? That song was three years old. No, I know. I know. But you'd think they would treat it more like they were a new band to the States.

I mean, again, it doesn't matter. They were being too cool for school, basically, right? I know. But you'd think they would treat it more like they were a new band to the States. I mean, again, it doesn't matter. They were being too cool for school, basically, right? But your book... They went back to the dressing room and listened to an Eric Strip record and thought they did okay. Yes, Eric Strip. Now, in your book, though, there's lots of instances where the band's kind of like, if that's the price of success, and I can't remember whose quote this is, but if that's the price of success, then we don't want it.

I think both Downey and Baker are quoted as saying that. So they did they didn't play the game. A band like Barenaked Ladies played the game. They played every backyard barbecue in America. And they're on 90210. Sarah McLachlan, same thing.

Right. And the hip didn't. And if you're not the not that it really matters because i don't care i'm like here's the thing so they were very successful in canada so they didn't have the hunger that people had to make it in the states right now the irony of me saying that is that we just cited two cases of people who were very successful in canada but still really wanted to break the states right uh? Sarah and the ladies. Right. But the hip were proud people.

They, you know, they're comfortable middle-class family people. They didn't feel the need to, like... Drive Bentleys. To which? Drive, like, drive over those ways. Or to bend over backwards to please someone else. If their entire music career went south, they're probably going to be okay. And so, yeah, they just didn't want to do anything

that made them feel uncomfortable. I mean, they did play the game. You have to play the game to make it to their level of success. You're going to play a show sponsored by a brewery. You're going to do a couple of meet and greets here and there. But they tried to avoid as much of that as possible. And there were stories in the book about early morning interviews. And they just, I'll send one member or two members of the band, but we're not all going to go to this.

We'll choose sleep over that. And there's a lot of signs that they weren't eager to sell out to that extent just to sell more records. Yeah, that's right. I think so. But I mean, the thing is they never gave up on the States. They kept going back and they kept getting more popular. They're more popular in the States at the end of the career than they probably were in the early nineties. Just through word of mouth. I mean, and what happened with them is they never had a radio hit in several markets at once. Right. They certainly had radio hits in certain markets, Texas in particular, but they didn't have one unifying hit.

Like I can't pull a clip of Casey Kasem introing a Tragically Hip song. No. That's a fact. So they didn't have that. And they got next to no press like i you know i don't think they're ever mentioned in rolling stone or spin other than like the smallest capsule things uh you know or or they'd only be in billboard because there'd be a letter from canada by larry leblanc talking about the tragedy of the hip you know but

right here let's move move along here move along along here. Trouble at the Hen House. That's the one after Day for Night if I got my chronological order correct. And then here's the big jam. I was at that 99 New Year's Eve show at the Air Canada Centre and this was the song they played right after the countdown.

Right. Yeah, it was a great show. And there was no Y2K worries. No lights went out or anything. We were okay from the Y2K worries. No lights went out or anything. We were okay from the Y2K panic. But can we touch on some opening acts for the hips? Like the hip, maybe if you don't mind doing a little name drop here,

but some of the more common or popular opening acts for tragically hip tours in this country. I just want to drop some. Oh, you want me to drop them? Oh, okay. Yeah. Let's see. Sons of Freedom, Crash Vegas, Daniel Lanois, The Odds, Spirit of the West,

Rheostatics, By Divine Rights, Sam Roberts, Buck 65, Weaker Thans, Constantine's, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Arkell's. I don't know. Do you want me to keep going? That's a good list, man. I think there was a period of time. That's just off the top of my head. I think I saw Sam Roberts in concert like four times just because he opened for the hip and I was going to hip shows.

He believes he might be their most frequent opening act he might be right uh the other thing i was like one i remember a great show with the watchman opening for the hip this is at uh lonesome amphitheater on canada day i think and i can't remember the year now but like i don't know oh four or something like that but uh jake gold managed both bands and i was always surprised they didn't, and I believe this, maybe it was from Jake, or maybe it was from Sam, their drummer, who was on here a few weeks ago, who said that was intentional,

like to distance themselves from the hip, because I, yeah, it was great to see, you know, kind of, this is just a personal memory, but see the Watchmen open up for the Tragically Hip, but you were going to say something there? No. Okay, so let's talk about Steve Berlin for a moment. So he's the Phantom Power in Music at Work guy.

He produces those albums, right? Yes. He's also an amazing sax player in Los Lobos. And actually has produced a lot of Canadian records over the years. Crash Nice Dummies, first record. Stephen Fearing, Lava Hay, I think Great Big Sea did one. So he's been up here quite a bit. He was a great interviewer.

He's a very frank guy, if anybody who knows anything about Steve Berlin knows. And yeah, he had some great quotes. And Phantom Power is a very interesting record because they're kind of entering mid-career. And it just really sounds fresh. I mean, I'm in somewhat of a minority here. I do not like Trouble at the Hen House as a record. It's a generational thing.

People love it. Obviously, A Head by Century is amazing and there's a couple other great songs but as a overall record it kind of sounds like a band running out of ideas to me and then phantom power comes and it's like kind of like new slate entirely um there's like a new energy there's a new approach to writing songs um and uh yeah and i think steve villain really helped shepherd them into the next stage of their career. Can you tell me, because this is something I learned from the book too, but Song Corp.

That was the name of Song Corp. Yep. Can you tell us what's Song Corp? That's a bit of a long story, but that's Alan Gregg making a big play in the music industry. He wanted to start kind of a mega indie in a way. He wanted to get a bunch of independent labels under one umbrella, including Attic Records, which had been around for a long time and had been very successful. So he wanted to create an alternative to the major labels,

and it ended up kind of failing spectacularly. He spent a lot of money. He had a lot of big investors. And so when it went south, a lot of people lost money, including the Tragically Hip. And some people like lost their records, including Teenage Head, including your friend Molly Johnson, including a lot of people whose records fell under this umbrella.

And then their albums were were locked in a warehouse and they no longer had access. You're talking about the master recordings, right? These are the master... Both masters and physical copies that you would love to be selling at your shows. Right. So it was kind of a big kerfuffle at the time.

That was around 2000, 2001. And you had... There's stories about musicians breaking in to warehouses to try to get their music back. Right. Well, I'll try and do that. Yeah. And that was a tough, tough chapter to write.

I mean, that's when suddenly I switched from being a music reporter to being a business reporter and fact checking stuff with Alan. And, you know, having him respond to some serious allegations people made and trying to figure out where the hip play into all of this as shareholders and they like they they uh they sued uh the company so they're basically suing their former manager uh for royalties they felt they were owed and they didn't win that um but you know it all came out in the end like they in the end they have retained ownership of all their masters. And, and again, this is a band who always played everything very close to their chest, right? Uh,

not very trusting of outside entities. So they, uh, they won in the end. They came out of that quite well. I mean, I think they personally lost some money if they, if they had invested it in the company,

but, uh, in terms of their catalog and everything else and their publishing deal, uh, all that kind of landed safely. There's no John Fogerty story there. John Fogerty was famously sued for ripping off himself. But he also owns nothing of Credence.

Like anytime you buy a Credence record, John Fogerty sees nothing. So anyway, there's nothing that terrible that happened to him. Good, good, good. Because it's a good life if you don't weaken. So I mentioned we'd go heavy at the beginning and then I'd kind of skip about. There's a lot of great stuff that comes out

after the Steve Berlin, after the Music at Work. Although Music at Work is the album I don't love. Maybe I need to revisit Music at Work. Its highs are very high and its lows are very low. But even as the song Music at work, which was the big, Bruce McAuliffe directed that video, right? That's a great video. I think that's their first good video.

The video's okay. Which some fan really took me to task for. I'm trying to think of the hip-hop. Courage is kind of a neat video. Okay. Maybe it's my bias showing here. I'm also not a video guy. Right, right, right, right. Locked in the trunk of a car.

Thugs is a good video. Have you ever seen the video for Thugs? Yeah. It's the black and white one, right? Yeah. You're not a video guy. Well, it's a song called Thugs, and it's the only one of their videos

where there's a black man as a central character, and I just don't really get what they're trying to do there. I find it problematic. You might be right. I, uh, yeah, you might be right. There's a, of course there's the, uh, what's the video with, uh, Actually, I think Grace 2 is a great video and people think that's terrible because it's all, Bob Landwala made it and it's like using so-called video feedback.

It looks totally trippy. It's like super weird psychedelic video and it got played all the time i watch music um uh i love i love the grace to video just because it's so effed up let's talk about let's let's let's get a little sad i just man this you can't tell the story of the tragically hip and gordowny without talking talking about the diagnosis and then Man Machine poem coming out and then the final tour. You really are skipping to the end. Yeah, well, because I...

You're playing a sad song. We're already 95 minutes in. Are we? Yeah, so I don't... Grab it on my... I'm doing you a favor here. And again, if I haven't been clear, the book is called The Never Ending Present,

The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip. And when I say... This is not light. This is a dense, very detailed, fascinating book with like a million stories. So in this 95 minutes, we're literally touching on like a sliver of what's going on in the book. But if you're a fan of The Hip, and a lot of people listening are, you've got to score yourself a copy. Like, how do you want people... Do you care what weight... Because Hepsi has a book out,

and he'd rather you bought it directly from him. Oh, sure. Everybody would. So this is your chance to tell people how you want them to buy this book if they're going to buy your book here. If you live in the Toronto area, I'll hand deliver it. The paperback comes out May 7th. But I'll tell you one thing.

What I'm most proud of about this book is that I knew that hip fans or most hip fans or at least some hip fans would be interested in it um but what's been really interesting is that non-hip fans love this book I've had so many people tell me that they didn't like the band for whatever reason either that's just not their kind of music or they had this huge prejudice about who hip fans were or something like that. Or they're just a different generation, like my

parents' generation, all these 75-year-olds. So I've had a lot of non-hip fans tell me how much they love the book and that means the world to me. I know exactly what you're talking about because two little stories here. There's a line in Coax me by this

by sloan yeah and the line i think you probably know but the line uh is uh it's not the band i hate it's their fans that's a song written about the band consolidated from san francisco i did not know that it's actually in the lyric okay i should pay more attention to the rest of the lyrics that's what you're telling me and that i think is a great to... I think it's a great way to describe that mid-90s tragically hip shows. And I always, when I would go to a... Let's say I went to Molson Park

to see the Tragically Hip. I would say, okay, where's the beer tent? And then I'd go on the opposite side. And I would do that intentionally because... You and me both.

There was a lot of frat boy, drunken frat boys who loved the hip and they wanted to hear Courage or whatever. Sure. And they were obnoxious. And there were a lot of hip fans I disliked.

And I think that persona of the hip, I don't know how that band of all bands, the poet, you know, Canada's national poet, became the frat boy band or whatever. Good Rush. Yeah. That's a good point too those lyrics are even more out there the rush lyrics but um so mike what are you talking about uh that i could see why people would dislike the hip because of their fan base yeah i know a lot of people who have that prejudice um i mean for me i never cared because i love the music. And if I love the music, that's why I go to the show.

But it could be very obnoxious at times. It could be very unsafe, particularly for women. I've heard that story a lot. Yeah. And I find it particularly notable that on the last tour, you know, Gord Downie did not say much for obvious reasons between songs on that tour one thing he said pretty much every night on that tour was thank you to the women for coming back um which is incredible because that was obviously something that he took very personally

like he i think he had a very generous view of his fans and he was very happy that anybody liked his music and he was very defensive of his fans but at the same time um that in particular i i believe he found quite embarrassing that that women did not feel comfortable at a tragically hip show speaking of the final tour uh which which shows did you get to on the final tour um i'm actually forgetting which Toronto one. Because I was at the middle one. I was at the first or second. I was at the...

They added the third one later. Well, you know how Every Night had a post-Phantom Power record they would feature? Right. Because they would play something... Right, I had In Violet Light. Okay, I had Music at Work. Okay, so I was the,

I thought I was the last show because they originally announced two shows in Toronto and I got the second one to see the last show. And I got a single ticket because I couldn't get, I wanted to bring my teenagers so they could see their daddy's favorite band and I struck out on that one. But they ended up adding the third show,

so I ended up in the middle show, which, yeah, In Violet Light was the feature. So did you go alone? Who did you go with? I went with my lady. And can I ask you, as a music fan and a fan very close to the hip, like no one else maybe,

what was it like for you to kind of know in your heart of hearts that you're watching this band for the final time it actually wasn't because i got to go to kingston as well so that was a whole other lucky which i wasn't which i wasn't expecting i found that out like two days before so um right uh because i was covering it for the new york times that's a whole other story uh what was going through my mind um it's it was it's weird it jim cregan has a great quote in the book jim cregan of the bare naked ladies um he's also a neighbor uh he said uh i think we all

went to those shows to figure out how we felt about it you know um because as i point out and you know people think about that final tour as this great moment in Canadian history and all this stuff and rah, rah, rah, Canada, Canada's band, Canada, Canada, Canada. It's like, no, no, stop for a second. That had never happened before in showbiz history. I mean, this book has been out for, I make that claim in the book. I've been saying it on stage and in interviews for two years. No one has corrected me. If please, if anyone listening to this can think of, uh, some, somebody at this level. Um, now there's certainly people who, who did farewell tours or whatever, but it's like a, a rock star or any genre of music at that level, the arena level. Because as I also point

the book out, point out in the book, uh, Sharon Jones was going through a very similar thing. I love Sharon Jones. Sharon Jones is not a huge star. And Sharon Jones, you know, her music doesn't affect people the way that Gord's music affected so many people. She's not arena level. She doesn't touch every strata of society,

much as I believe she should, because I love her. But so Gord and the band doing this at that level was a huge cultural thing. And that's why it made headlines. I mean, here's a band that never made headlines anywhere else in the world. They certainly had fans around the world, and they played around the world,

and people in the music biz probably were aware of who they were. But, you know, there's a reason why the BBC was writing about this, you know, and the New York Times giving a major play and, you know, Washington Post and like all the large media outlets paid a lot of attention because it was so unusual. And even now, the other analogs were like Glenn Campbell, uh, battling with Alzheimer's. Uh, I mean, there's a musical legend, but again, he's not at that point he's playing to a very, uh,

devoted core audience. Um, and John Mann, spirit of the West, uh, similar thing. Uh, not that that translated outside Canada,

but I found it very odd that that was happening to a friend of Gord's. Um, so it was very unusual that this was happening at all. So, I mean, I went to that show as someone who had been a fan of the band for a long time. I'm not a super fan of the band. I feel like you are probably a bigger fan of the band than I am. Um, I've certainly met people who live and breathe this band and listen to those records every single day. Um, and that's a level of fandom I've never had for anybody. So, you know, respect to that.

I just, I'm not that person. And so I went there as a fan and as a critic and as like someone like Jim Cregan said, just to figure out how I felt about it, you know. And what did you learn? I learned again what a great band they were. I had not seen them in eight years. We Are The Same was the last time I'd seen them at Massey Hall.

And there were a lot of moments, and maybe because Gord was physically restrained and not as expressive and kind of leaping all around as he used to, maybe that's why I was also focusing more not as expressive and kind of leaping all around as he, as he used to. Maybe that's why I was also focusing more in on the musical interplay between everybody else. But I was also just in complete awe of considering his physical restraints, which were not all related to the cancer, by the way, he had also had some hip issues ironically enough a couple of years before

that. But, but I was just in awe of his command of, okay, here, you're not what you once were physically. You're very constrained. You're using very limited movement. And this is a man who had been very interested in studied dance for the last at least 16 years, at least 16 years of his career. And what he would do with the tiniest gesture,

uh, just with his hand or with his face, or at some point he would be like clowning. He would like be like mock weeping. I don't know if he was doing that at the show you saw, you know, like kind of like silent film style, like, you know, rubbing the temples kind of thing. And it's like, wow, like he's, he knows why we're here and what we're expecting. And we're trying to process this grief at this moment of celebration and he's like you know pretending like doing this exaggerated crying thing i was like oh my god this is crazy and then i write about this in the book the show i saw the band was jamming i forget what the song was and suddenly he stares down into one of the cameras at the foot of the stage and he's staring right into it.

And, and I don't know what he's doing. I had to kind of like a side stage seat. Like I have more of a horizontal view of the band and I'm like, okay, well I don't know what Gord's doing. So I'm going to focus in on Robin, Paul and Gord and Sinclair and figure out what they're doing.

Kind of zone in on that. And then the next day I show up at work at McLean's and my friend, Nick Taylor Vasey says, he says, Oh yeah, I was there too. I was like, Oh yeah,

where were you sitting? And he's like, Oh, I was like, I was literally touching the back wall. Like I was like way up at the rafters. Like, did you see that thing with the camera he did?

I'm like, actually, no, I didn't. Cause I wasn't watching and I wasn't watching video screens most of the night. Right. He's like,

well, he leaned down and he in complete slow motion mouthed the words i love you and i'm like what master like you are purposely like playing to the very back like you know like you you are you understand the dynamics of the arena you understand what people can see and what they can't see and you're uh it was just amazing to to now that's something i didn't see i I was there present in the same building, but that's something my friend saw. I thought that was a great example of what he was doing.

And in the final show, there were things he was doing as the band was jamming out on the head by century at the end that were just these amazing dance moves that, that metaphorically represented so much that I get into heavily in the book. So yeah, for sure. Did we ever learn the specific symbolism of the Jaws t-shirt? Well, he wasn't talking, so no.

And I mean, I read your book and I was searching for that specific, only because I'd love to know the specific symbolism of the Jaws t-shirt. I have my theories, but I would love to. The most obvious theory is his entire career has had songs about death by water like starting with new orleans is sinking through to nautical disaster uh through to whatever the drop off or like there's all these songs about death in the water um so that's one thing uh what i saw the first time i saw him in that shirt was look at that image there's the swimming innocent on top and the beast comes out of nowhere to swallow her whole right and this is a man with

cancer terminal cancer wearing this shirt and that's what that shirt meant to me it's it's funny and it's it's to me that's very Gord Downie as well like there's you know he's a very serious man he's a very humorous man he has a very canadian sense of humor and uh you know i feel like if i had terminal cancer that's the shirt i would i wouldn't wear it now but uh i would be attracted to it for the same reasons that he was i think it's i think it's that that's how i took it to uh like essentially the the the great white shark is sort of symbolizing this cancer. And I actually had to have a Jaws t-shirt after seeing the second show in Toronto

that I was at. And I scored myself. In fact, I wore it for the Jake Gould episode. I was like, should I wear it now? And I'm like, no, it's too on the nose. Do you have cancer? No, I do. Not that I know of.

Hopefully not. So I'm like, no. In fact, I'll wear a Pearl Jam t-shirt just to not wear a hip t-shirt. It's just too on the nose. But not that I'm afraid of being too on the nose, as you might know. But okay, so the final show in Kingston, I'm going to play a little clip from it and then talk briefly about the secret path here before I dismiss you because you've done a fantastic job in fielding all my,

hopefully not too annoying, tragically hip questions. But I want to thank a couple of partners I haven't thanked yet. Brian Gerstein is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. He's at propertyinthesix.com. Call Brian at 416-873-0292 if you're going to buy and or sell in the next six months. He's a good, honest man, a friend of the show, and I just have a conversation. You have to commit to anything, but have a conversation with Brian.

Sticker You is our newest sponsor. If you need anything that sticks, like stickers, labels, decals, magnets, if you want one or many, you can get customized stickers at stickeru.com. They were actually the first website in the world to offer people the ability to customize their own stickers. And you're

here a bit too early, Michael, but I'm going to get a bunch of stickers to give to guests. So maybe I'll have to bike one over to you when I get them. How would you customize them? Those won't be customized. No, those you can't customize, but you can go to sticker... I want the ones with my phone number in it that I can put in all my kids' clothes, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can do that at StickerU.com. Great idea. And here, I'm going to play just a little bit here. This is from The Kingston Show. Thank you. You're wonderful. Thank you. You're wonderful.

Thank you for that. That roar. That roar did not let up through the entire show. It was amazing to witness. Quite the night. I was in Inganish, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and the night of this show, August 20, I believe. Yep.

And I watched it in one of the Airbnb places we rented. I watched it there with my oldest daughter. And actually, even thinking about watching it with her, I actually will cry. So now my brain has to kind of go away because I openly wept during watching the show and she openly wept because her dad was weeping. But this was one of those moments

where it felt like we were kind of all unified and saying goodbye to our national band, was how it felt like we were kind of all unified and saying goodbye to our national band was how it felt anyway. Every single interview I did with this book, I asked people where they were because it was a where were you kind of moment, right? Yes. And some people were actually at the show

and they had great stories. Other people, like I think it was Hepsher actually, and you know some people were actually at the show and they had great stories other people um like uh i think it was hebcher actually and uh some other people were like i i couldn't watch the show oh dave hodge for sure because i was reading those stories and dave hodge said he never watched it yeah uh colin crypts same thing he's like i i saw two of the shows and they were great and i stood next to billy ray the soundboard but to go back and watch it he's like no i'm not gonna do that but then there's other people who like were on the other side of the world like this choreographer you worked with uh in the early 2000s she lives in berlin and she's like you know the show started

at whatever two in the morning there and i stayed up all night and danced in front of my television in Berlin. Stories like that are amazing. Absolutely. Now, let's just touch briefly on The Secret Path. I bought the, I'm pointing to it there, but the Chani Wenjack. Jeff Lemire drawing? Right, right. That's Gord's legacy of sorts that's uh tell me a little bit about like how he got involved with uh this uh endeavor and his contributions to uh indigenous uh

indigenous rights and uh chenny wenjack foundation have you got another hour no you're absolutely right i'll play a little bit from that Gord Downie solo album, but obviously you can't do it justice. There's a lot of it in the book and people should look it up. The short story is one thing that a lot of people don't know about that project is that it started a long time ago. I think part of the narrative about

this is from Coke Machine Glow, isn't it? Oh yeah, sorry. It's a beautiful song. Feel free to leave this on. You know what I see in the square? It just says Gord and Downie. I'm apologizing. I love Coke Machine Glow, isn't it? Oh, yeah, sorry. It's a beautiful song. You can feel free to leave this on. You know what I see in the square? It just says Gordon Downey. I love Coke Machine Glow. Another favorite thing about the reaction to the book is people have said,

I've had huge hip fans who have never heard Coke Machine Glow. And then they're like, hey, I just listened to it for the first time. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. And also, what? Why did you wait? Anyway, and people who still don't like the Hips music, but who love this record, so.

Well, we mentioned Brunt earlier, but Brunt, I was going to, this ties in actually perfectly, I was going to do a series where each, an episode on each Hip album, and I was going to have a guest on, like a celebrity guest to talk about it, like Ron McLean or Hebsey or whatever.

And I had, Stephen Brunt was going to come on, but only if he could talk about Coke Machine Glow. That's Stephen Brunt. In fact, he might have kicked out this jam, Trick Rider. So the way this comes full circle is I didn't end up doing this series because someone else was doing it. Someone in East York was doing it. His name is Jamie Du.

I was on that show. You were on that show. Okay, so let me just, I promised Jamie I'd do this and I want to do this. So Jamie Du is, he's helping to raise funds for CAMH and mental health initiatives. And it's called Crazy Funny, The One Brave

Night Extravaganza. And it's an evening of laughter, magic, music, and giving back. And it features Elvira Kurt and a number of other people. Sorry, he's organizing that? He's helping to organize this. Yes. I knew about the event.

I didn't realize that was him. That's great. So the event is Friday, May 10th, 8.30 PM at the Social Capital Theatre. Tickets start at 20 bucks and you can go to ashowofstrength.com to pick up tickets and learn more. And Jamie's a friend of the show because on the one year anniversary of Gord's passing, Jamie came over here and we and Tyler Campbell us three we just kind of talked about what the hit meant to us and played

hip song so Jamie's event is a key one for CAMH and see it all came full circle that you mentioned that podcast remind me the name of the podcast it's called Fully and Completely as opposed to Fully Completely right okay yeah Fully and Completely and it's. As opposed to Fully Completely. Right. Okay. Yeah. Fully and Completely.

And it's a great tragically hip concert. But yeah, please. Yes. So Trick Rider from Coke Machine Glow. Julie Doral. Right. But the Cheney Wenjack Foundation. Was it his?

So Secret Path. What a lot of people don't know is that he started making that in, I believe, 2012. Or no, the Genesis was 2012 when they they first when his brother first heard the story and then uh long story short they made the record in 2013 early 2014 um they wanted jeff lemire to do a book to go with it but he wasn't available right away so but the narrative of that album and that story is that people think that he did it post-diagnosis and that you know he confronting his own mortality he wanted to anyway and right uh that's not true it had begun a long time ago and he had always intended for it to come out on the 50th anniversary of the wenjack

uh story um and also uh you know the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was still working. They hadn't put out the report yet when he was making the record. So he wanted to make a splash. And he also and he did it brilliantly. He didn't tell anybody about it until after the tour was over.

So he's got the entire country's attention. Everybody's dying to find out what he's thinking, how he's doing, what's going on. And like, what, two or three weeks after that last show, he's like, Canada is not the country we think it is. Here's what I'm doing. And that was such a gut punch. It was so powerful.

And everybody listened because everybody suddenly cared. Again, people cared about that tour who didn't care about the Tragically Hip at all. People watched that because they have someone in their family with cancer or whatever. People watched that show for so many reasons. So he's no longer just talking to his fan base. He is talking to Canada. And he comes out and he says that.

And by the way, the record's coming out in a couple of weeks. And it's also a feature length animated film. And it's this whole thing. So that's huge. And I think he did change the conversation um i think that uh a lot of people take umbrage with that and they have every right to because people have been raising this issue for 30 years and um many people read the TRC summary. Uh, many people have been following this issue for a long time. Um, and I think the extremely sad truth about this and many other issues in this country is that, um, uh, so-called white Canadians, or at the very least non-Indigenous Canadians, uh, will not listen to, uh, many Indigenous voices.

It could be the biggest chorus of Indigenous voices and so many white Canadians will not listen. And so you can be angry about that and you should be, or we can celebrate the fact that this man at this point in his life decided to make this a huge thing and in effect turned a lot of people onto the conversation that would never have given at the time of day before. So the net reason, and you can talk about whether he had the right to tell the story and all this

other stuff, but the end net result is that children are studying in school. Um, and, uh, uh, there's a net positive there. I think that overshadows any other concerns about the work itself. Cause I have concerns about the work itself. And I interviewed some people who had concerns about the work. That's another benefit of an unauthorized biography is you're not writing a hagiography. You can like invite critical voices in to examine really what does it all mean? Which I think is really important to do in a case like this. Again, fantastic book, The Never Ending Present, The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip and fantastic conversation. Two hours. Really? But it didn't feel like two hours. Well, it's my book, so it didn't feel like two hours. Well, it's my book

so it didn't feel like that to me. Is anybody still listening? You'd be surprised. This is where the hip fans come for in-depth hip coverage. But thanks so much, Michael.

Great to meet you. Enjoy your lasagna and your beer. And again, thank you for writing this book. Thank you. I'm very glad

you enjoyed it and thank you so much for having me. And that brings us to the end of our 456th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Michael is at MMM Barclay. So three Ms.

And a bar of clay. And a bar of clay, right. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptor's Devotee. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Camp Ternasol is at Camp Ternasol.

And Sticker U is at Sticker U. See you all next week. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and green. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years. It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green.