Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Hollett: Toronto Mike'd #1031

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

In this 1031st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Michael Hollett, co-founder of NOW Magazine, they they discuss the history of the Toronto alt-weekly, his founding of the North by Northeast (NXNE) music festival, why he left NOW and why he started NEXT. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

Welcome to episode 1031 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta.

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Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com Joining me this week making his Torontoonto mike debut is michael call it welcome michael thanks great to be here and it's michael right not mike or do you care it's usually michael it's mike on the ice michael everywhere Okay, I'm glad you brought up the ice. Hebsey, Mark Hebbshire, co-hosts a show with me every Friday morning.

It's called Hebsey on Sports, and we've become good friends. And when he heard you were coming on, he said, Michael is an enthusiastic, this is you because I'm Mike, you're Michael. Michael is an enthusiastic yet long-suffering Leafs fan. You two should get along just fine. So my condolences to you. Yes, thank you. It's very required.

So I did a little like digging around, you know, excited you're coming on. And I learned about, what is the term? The Black Stokes. Tell me, what is the Black Stokes? Well, as of Saturday night, they are the Division C Men's League champions for this year. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. We just wrapped it up this year. It's been 17 years

since our last championship, so we were due. You were due, and the Leafs are far more due. So, the Black Stokes, this is like a men's hockey league that you participate in. That's right. That's our team. You have some musicians on this team or like any musicians involved?

Yeah. A bunch. Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo. Wow. John Gallant from Billy Talent. Hey. Devin Cuddy from Sign Up. Sign Up.

And it's his own career. He's great. What a talented musician's his own career. He's great. What a talented musician in his own right. He sure is. Sam Pauly, who's also one of Jim's sons and also a talented musician. Wow. Cosmo Ferraro from the Ferraro Brothers.

He's on our team. We've had a bunch over the years, and I think, yeah, we've had Cowboy Junkies. Gord Downie was one of our backups for a while. Wow. Okay, listen, my friend. We're going to play a bit of a song because I just want to start by talking about this video.

So I know you can name this tune. I still love this song. By the way, yes, he also skates with us occasionally. Okay, so when you say he, who specifically in the band? Well, actually, Andy and Josh. They were part of a pickup game that sort of predates the Black Stokes, which continues to this

day. I love hearing about all these musicians and their hockey playing and everything, and it all comes around, circulates around the Black Stokes. So, do you know why i'm why specifically did i decide to open our chat up with this particular skydigger song do you know do you have a guess because it's awesome that's good enough i guess okay when you when i remind you of this you'll be like oh yeah do you know what the drummer's wearing in the video?

I will give you everything. Yes. He's wearing a now my now magazine t-shirt. So, okay. So just like you were, you know, we were scheduled for two o'clock and I had like one 30 or one 40 or

something. I'm just setting things up. And then I remember I'm thinking to myself, I remember a few like nineties alt-rock videos that I would watch that had somebody in the band wearing a Now Magazine t-shirt. And I actually texted my buddy Cam Gordon from Twitter. And I'm like, do you remember? And he's like, yeah, I will give you everything by the Sky Diggers.

So I loaded that. Do you remember any other videos where somebody was wearing a Now tee? I mean, Wayne Stokes. There's the real symmetry. Wayne Stokes. That's where the name of our team came from. Wow.

There's the origin story. And he always wore a Now tee shirt, so he shows up in a lot of videos in it. We think, is it possible there's a Watchmen video with... Yes. Okay, do you know which song by any chance? I don't, I'm afraid. And is there a Change of Heart video?

Yes, there is there too. And we are, I mean, I was pretty shameless about getting swag, Merge Life to people, and also to the Leafs, and so there's some cool shots of Felix Potman and Doug Gilmore in now baseball caps. And there's a cool Paul Coffey skating in now hockey jerseys. Amazing.

Yeah. So there's a lot of links there. Okay, so we're going to have a lot of ground to cover here. What position do you play when you're playing for the Black Stokes? Left wing, consistent with me. How appropriate. Okay. I am going to my first Leaf game

in several years tomorrow. Nice. I scored tickets to see the Leafs tomorrow night against the Sabres, and I'll be there, and it's been a long time since I've been... Do you go to games often? I mean, not lately, of course,

but I used to go all the time. I had seasons tickets for quite a while. You gave those up? Gave them up after a while. Yeah, gave them up when I gave up now. Gare Joyce, do you know this name, Gare Joyce? Sure, yeah. Okay, he's so much like Hebsey and Cam Gordon, who I just mentioned.

And by the way, Andy Mays, shout out to Andy Mays. These are all FOTMs, Friends of Toronto Mike. You, Michael, are now an FOTM yourself. Awesome. So I should be getting my, I should be getting FOTM t-shirts made and getting them out to people. Same way that you got the Now Magazine

tease out. But, Gare Joyce wants me to ask you, and I'm dying to know why. Ask Hallett how he made our babysitter famous. Yes, we shared a nanny, and we all lived in Riverdale and we her image was used on the box on the side of the now news box yeah okay bury me in these fun facts so you shared a nanny who's on the side of the now boxes

okay cuz he oh I see he so Gare doesn't remember, but two different time periods he asked me questions, and it turns out they're kind of the same question. Because at a later date, he says, ask him about the girl who used to be in the high-contrast graphic on the side of Now newsstand drop boxes. So like Gare, this is your buddy Mike talking to you, FOTM Gare. You've got to keep track of these questions, because that's the same question.

So that's your nanny that you shared. That's right. By the way, I have a Next Magazine t-shirt for you in my car. Do you? Okay, because I'll wear it in those photos and then they'll be famous and then finally it'll happen for you. In your video.

Well, you never know what comes next. All right. So before we leave the hockey stuff and we get into, you know, now and, and next, you brought me some copies of next. I got it.

And, and I'm, I'm dying to know what you think of what's happening with now, now, but hold on to that. I want to know what's this. It's called friends of Maple Leaf Gardens. You,

uh, you are a, uh, an active member of this organization that was dedicated to the preservation, that's an easy word to say, of the historic hockey arena, Maple Leaf Gardens. Is that right? Yes. John Sewell and I were on a panel.

I don't even know what it was. It must have been about the gardens. And sort of out of that, we decided to work together to try to keep the ice in maple leaf gardens which was a success okay i would give us all the credit by any means we were just one of many voices advocating that it not just be leveled or not just a grocery store exactly and we tried we tried many things i i had a strange little run with eugene melnick and when he was trying to buy it. He somehow decided I was his champion. I will forever enjoy this moment when I was at a

Leaf game and Eugene Melnick had drawings for his version of the new Maple Leaf Gardens and Dalton McGinty came by when he was premier and he blew them off and said, I'm busy with Michael. We just lost Eugene. Yes.

Very recently. But yeah, you know, I will say, my daughter goes to, where does she go? Humberside Collegiate. And they had their hockey final. I guess it was the Toronto hockey final. I don't know. I get confused on how these are all broken down now.

But her high school was in the final in hockey. And she went to the game and it was at Maple Leaf Gardens. They did a good job on that. Kudos to you if you had anything to do with it. But I think they did a really nice job having the arena at the third floor of MLG. It's brilliant. It's as good as you could hope for. I don't think there's any other way to repurpose that building in a sustainable way that would still leave the essence of that ice and that wonderful ceiling

absolutely no so good job it's funny today is the anniversary of the death of harold ballard did you ever meet harold ballard i feel like i must have i mean i i was quite a fixed sort of a fixture there for a while i know his yolanda sat beside me behind me for years when they moved to the acc her seats were behind me there you had better seats in yolanda ballard i had at the gardens i had better first row behind the visiting team wow yes that was pretty sweet that is pretty freaking freaking sweet. But yeah, today's the anniversary. He died in 1990 on this day. And for those listeners, I use that opportunity on Twitter to promote the Mike Umentary on Harold Ballard that's in the feed.

So go dig up the Harold Ballard Mike Umentary. We actually just dropped a new Mike Umentary on Friday, last Friday. It was on Joe Carter's walk-off in 93. Were you at that game at the Dome? I had broken my neck playing hockey two weeks before, and I had to give up my seats. Well, that's terrible luck for you, my friend. Yes.

What a great game to have attended. Yeah, it was amazing. The person who had my seats was very happy. It was my daughter, so that's good. Well, there you go. Well, I did get a note from Jerry Hauer through listening to this Mikeumentary on the Joe Carter walk-off

and told me he loved it. You can't beat that. That's as good as it gets. And I think Jerry's a big fan of Toronto Mike. I get the nicest notes from him whenever I do anything related to, you know, Blue Jays baseball or whatever. So my friend, Michael, before we move too far off,

I just want to know, have you ever listened to any episodes of Toronto Mike before we get into it? I need to know your experience with this program. See this live here, Michael. I can't edit, fix that in post. You've been exposed, but that's okay. Little bits. That's okay.

I appreciate the honesty. Ben Rayner told me it's an experience I must have, so I'm very happy to be having it. You're not just here for the Palma Pasta lasagna like Ben. He literally has me bike him over a new lasagna. Oh, yeah, so shout out to Ben Rayner. Every time I do a lot of bike rides to Ontario Place, and they have that beach there,

and I always think I'm going to see them there. Like every time I ride that stretch of Ontario Place there, I'm looking for Ben. Like somewhere Ben's going to be beaching here. But I've yet to bump into him there. But Ben, if you're listening, you got to come back to the backyard this summer for more Great Lakes beer and Palma Pasta.

And Michael, I really do have in my freezer before you walk, before you leave today, I have a large meat lasagna for you to bring home with you. Spectacular. And do you drink beer? Yes. Craft beer? Yes.

Great Lakes. Wonderful. You're going home with some GLB, buddy. Thank you. And speaking of the East End, because you mentioned Riverdale, there's a new great lakes brewery pub opening up very soon they're just getting some permits lined up but uh lower jarvis so just where jarvis meets uh what is that lakeshore i guess yeah right at the bottom

of jarvis there there's going to be a new glb uh brew pub for you east enders awesome so that's awesome all right my, bring us back. I really want to get you, you know, starting up now, but like, what's your background? Like, tell us, I know you went to, I know you grew up in Oakville, but give me the origin story that led to you and Alice founding, you know, now. Well, I mean, I come from a newspaper family, so that's sort of, that's the big part of it, really. I mean, I kind of, my grandfather, so that's sort of, that's the big part of it, really. I mean, I kind of, my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother and father all worked in newspapers,

so I kind of got, you know, the first Christmas party I remember was at the Toronto Press Club. The Christmas present I remember best was a big, first was a big 18-wheeler Toronto Star truck that my dad got with his job. So that was where I come from. So my background was always in newspaper. My mother begged me not to go into it.

She said, it'll break your heart. It's funny. So tell me, you were working with the university newspaper at uh newspaper at york excalibur that's right i edited that and then after that i edited uh small town papers in orangeville and georgetown the orangeville citizen yes yeah is that still around today it is yeah it is i was worried i think it's even still independent okay? It is. Hey, good. Yeah, it is. I was worried. I think it's even still independent.

Okay, good. Which is even better. And the Caledon Citizen. They're all called Citizen, apparently. Yeah, it was one company. He had Orangeville, and I helped him launch the Caledon one. And it's still around, too. And the Holton Hills Herald.

Yes, that's when I got scooped by Thompson, and they had a paper. They had seen my Orangeville, for better or worse, and decided to give me a shot. As they told me, this is our least successful paper in Canada, so you can be editor. Because you couldn't really do any worse, right?

Exactly. It's all up from there. And you brought that little paper to number one in the market. Kind of. Okay. All right. That's the stories people love. Yeah. And you brought that little paper to number one in the market. I don't know. Kind of. Okay. All right. All right. That's the stories people love.

The best part of that gig, well, there was many, but one of them was that Orson Welles made a movie there while I was working there. So I actually got to follow Orson Welles around as a young newspaper guy. I would just want him to read the phone book. No kidding. He has a fantastic voice. Those famous viral videos you'll see on YouTube now and then where I guess he's getting hammered as he does ads for,

and I can't remember what the ads are for, but he's doing commercials in the 70s or whatever, and he's progressive. I guess he's getting hammered, and he kind of has these outbursts and these Orson Welles moments. He was pretty amazing. I just remember that his trailer would pull up and then a carpenter would show up and build steps

before he would leave the trailer every time. It was a big deal, literally. Okay, Now Magazine. Yes. What leads you to co-found what was basically our longest-running free alternative? It still is, but we'll get into that. But you co-found what was basically our longest-running free alternative. It still is, but we'll get into that. But you co-founded Now Magazine, which is amazing.

Thank you. Well, it was fun, and it was a wonderful thing to do, and I'm very, very lucky to be able to have a ringside seat to the amazing creativity in Toronto for all this time because it's truly inspiring. And this is what are we, I guess 1981 is that when? Yeah.

And do you have any details on sort of those early days getting this thing started? It's not every day a newspaper is started up in the city. Sure. I mean, for me, I had, I felt that i had a a bunch of cool friends that i thought would

be great great resource to start a newspaper with it was sort of kind of as simple as that and there was and i wanted to work for a paper like now and there wasn't one so we had to make it it was kind of that kind of an evolution in a way. I totally get that mindset. Like sometimes you're personally hungry for something that doesn't exist and you come to the conclusion that I better build it myself. Like we need this. I can't be the only one who thinks like me. And if it doesn't exist, we'll make it. Exactly. That's exactly it. It's just one of those ones. Let's turn this barn into a theater kind of thing and do it. Amazing.

So, uh, for those who are maybe too young to appreciate, uh, you know, give us a, give us a, uh,

and I have some specific questions coming up, but now magazine was, I always thought this, this was the cool paper. Like this was the cool alternative paper when you took your trips, cause I lived in the West end, but when you took your trips, because I lived in the West End, but when you took your trips downtown, you know, part of that adventure downtown,

you'd go see Sam the Record Man, buy some discs or whatnot, but you'd pick up your Now magazine. Like this is all part of the adventure to downtown Toronto. Yeah, it was supposed to be sort of your guidebook, you know, your handy reference for the, to make that trip sweeter when you came into the city. Or even if you weren't coming, but you could, your handy reference for the, to make that trip sweeter when you came into the city. Or even if you weren't coming,

but you could sort of imagine coming to the city and sort of, you could kind of, yeah, visualize a lifestyle you might not be leading, but it was,

would be a cool one to sort of observe. And I think that was kind of the, that's what we did. We sort of, our goal was to create an authentic connection with a core audience

that the rest of the city would want to see what the hell they were into, which is what I'm sort of trying to do again. Right. No, yeah. That's what's next for you. Pun fully intended. But okay. So you start this in 81 and we'll talk more about, you know, you leave it in 2016. Remind me, because my mind thinks it's early nineties,

but you'll tell me the truth here. When does I weekly show up on the scene? Like when does I weekly? I think it was early nineties. Like the first, the TAR, the stars first attempt to reclaim their monopoly was to create a thing called what's on a Thursday section and that failed.

So then their next attempt was I. And, you know, while there was lovely people there and all kinds of, you know, they had a function and all that, but to me they were simply the monster tour star beast trying to steal our independent voice. Well, here's the parallels I see. So, you know, I'm very close with a truly independent craft brewery like i can meet the family who owns it the bullet family and i can go to the retail and the brewery it's not far

from here actually great lakes brewery but you have a lot of these like molson and coors or whatever their names are now i mean there's one in bev i guess that's the old abbas but they all kind of they sell these like craft beers, but they're just like labels. It's a big conglomerate who slaps a label on this beer and pretends it's like an independent craft beer to compete with all the Great Lakes of the world and stuff, but it's like bullshit. Exactly.

Exactly the same idea. We were alternative media. Well, guess what? We were alternative to them. You can't be an alternative to yourself. It doesn't make any sense. What was it like when iWeekly is starting up and Tourstar is going to try to

go at you guys? What's going on in the now offices? Are you guys getting pumped? I'm just trying to get a vibe for are you guys ready for war? We were licking our chops. I mean this is we had a competitor before but it was an independent

and whatever. What was the name of that? It was called Metropolis. Okay. But basically, when the Star was launching their paper, Alice and I went to Boston, I was in Boston for an alternative newspaper conference, and we were hanging out at the Boston Phoenix,

which was hugely successful at that moment in time, and they were trying to sell us something. So we were getting audiences with their publisher, who usually didn't waste time. You know, he would sort of, at the editor, handle these inter-business sort of chats. But because he was selling us something, they would meet with us. So I thought, I've got to get something. So I said, we're getting a competitor. What's your advice?

I said, you know, previous publishers had told me, well, you know, you were doing your thing and you shouldn't lose your vision because somebody else shows up coming after you. And that seemed to be cool to me. So I mentioned this to the Boston Phoenix people. I said, look, they said, well, what are you doing? I said, well, we're going to do blah, blah, blah. And you could see the publisher,

he was Stephen Mindish, and slowly his head was starting to explode. And the other guy was talking, but he just couldn't take it. He got up behind his desk. He goes, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you? He goes, you know what we do when we have a competitor?

We call everybody in for a meeting and we show them the Godfather. Because you know where they go to the mattresses? That's what you do. We're going to the mattresses. That's what you got. You got to be making this pot of spaghetti sauce in your office. And everybody's focused on eliminating these people.

I'm going, oh, okay. What else you got for me? He says, you got to get a lawsuit against them no matter what. I said, like on anything? He goes, yes. You got to find a way to sue them for something. I went, okay. Make my checklist.

So we left that meeting pretty excited and also like, whoa, that was a little different approach than we, let's try that one out. And of course, it kind of worked for me because of my family's background in newspaper. I'm used to the, you know, daily newspaper wars. My dad was an editor. It's a cutthroat business, right? Yeah. Well, it's like you're all fighting for stories, audience, you know.

It's like someone wins and someone loses. Like this sort of, you know, the way it kind of goes. And like I i said my granddad was an editor at the telly and my dad was at the star so we had you know the battles right at the kitchen table so sure enough when the star launched was getting ready to launch i they gave us this great opening because they were stupid enough to actually make a dummy issue of theirWeekly using our ads. Oh! So that, thank you very much checklist, sue them. So we sued them, and we successfully got an injunction

so that they were unable to show that fake issue to anyone except at their office. One copy, they had to come in person, they had to sign a document that they'd seen it and they had to be told that it was from NOW Magazine. So, right on Boston Phoenix. Thank you. Amazing. Amazing. Wow. Like, okay.

And any stories that come to mind during this conversation, you just spit them into that microphone because I'm all about capturing these great stories in Toronto history. And NOW Magazine, a key part of history, like, I'm trying to keep it chronological and easier said than done. So you jumped ahead then, yeah.

You know what? Like a good Tarantino movie, sometimes you've got to jump ahead and then bring it back. It's all good here, buddy. And it's funny. I have some more audio clips I want to play that help tell the story.

But I just want to point out something that came up. I think it's on your Wikipedia page, actually. But Alice Klein and yourself, founders of NOW magazine uh you guys were members of the socialist league so this explains yes you had no choice you had to play left wing for the uh stokes there that's right no no no no choice in that matter and the decision was it an instant easy decision to give away the paper for free like i think free? I think obviously the model is such that you give free distribution of Now Magazine, and then you sell ads. Was that always going to be the plan when you launched Now?

No. Okay, tell me. We had a – because I wanted to be like the village voice. In my mind, I wanted the ego of uh of a sale like i thought yeah that's that's important for the connection so that was very much the plan but we were giving away we were going to give away magazines at uh tiff festival of festivals as it was called then and uh so that was our only giving away free. But a man I met through a letter taped to the bottom of a toilet seat lid

convinced me to go to free. Well, we'll back up the truck there for a minute. There's a lid. Of course, every toilet has that lid in the back. But how did you know to look under there? The lid was up because I was taking a piss. Right. And there was a letter

an insane letter on the bottom of this toilet seat i was at someone's house and oh okay you're not at like a restaurant or a bar or something okay that's a key part a photographer's house so i was used to sort of eccentric things in that setting right and i read this crazy letter and i said what the hell is that like who is that goes, that's a guy named Buzz Berza, also a great name. Yeah. And he used to do circulation for something called the Toronto Clarion,

which briefly existed. And I said, well, Jesus, you're not going to tell me about that. You know someone who knows about circulation? And he said, yeah, well, there is this guy. He's in New York now. And so he connected me and I phonedoned the guy and he was to us ancient because we were in the early 20s and he was in his 40s right and he had an awesome american accent

and he said he would come to toronto if he could sleep on if we could find him a couch to sleep on and he would consult for six weeks and then whatever right okay buzz person and he showed up and he had a union station like in a trench coat and he had this gigantic cardboard box that we use as soon as he said come get this and then it was like he brought us racks and he convinced me and us to go completely free and he and and a few other circumstances, like there was a few conversations, but it's actually very expensive to do paid circulation, you know, and to handle the cash. And the whole concept, I mean,

it was actually wrongheaded in my, but there you go, right? The idea that was at the core of what we did, there was a very flawed part of the concept because part of what made Now get so successful so fast was the circulation people could see it you know you put in someone's store and then the next week people are there saying can i get a copy and this suddenly this retailer goes wait a sec i should probably try

to get in that magazine and that was the key dude you had me at buzz burza like are you kidding me like when they make the movie or whatever. Buzz Berza in a trench coat at Union Station. And the fact that this whole toilet angle here. Do you hear yourself, Mr. Hallett? This is unbelievable.

It's unbelievable. And this is why you check your ego and say, okay, no fee for now. It's going to be free. Yeah, yeah. And it was amazing. I remember I was walking down the street and I saw a car with a trunk open

and there was a NowRack in it with papers. And I thought, oh my God. And he was on delivery. But even when he was on delivery, he had it set up so you could pick up the mag. And he got us, we were in speakeasies and places like, you know, that were just cooler than cool. Absolutely.

I got, again, some more audio coming on this, but wow, okay, so where do I go now? I'm going to read a question that comes in from Mark Weisblatt, and I know you know that name, right? Okay, so, and he wrote for iWeekly, right? Okay. And he wrote for iWeekly, Speaking of the Devils over there at iWeekly. Then The Grid and then Gone. Okay.

So, and by the way, I would pick up both. I just want to point out. I wouldn't do. I mean, I certainly would have. There was some good stuff in i as well. So shout out to iWeekly. Mark Weisblatt wanted me to ask you, did you really believe

Men Without Hats made the best album of 87, 89 and 91 I didn't pick it all those years he's wrong, I didn't I picked it I did pick it twice I think, yes so I know you only heard

bits and pieces here, shout out again to Ben Rayner who's a great FOTM by the way and I love Ben Rayner so Ben let me know when you're going to be at that uh Ontario Place beach and that's when I'm going to make my bike ride over there okay so uh why am I bringing up oh yeah so because I just recently had Ivan from Men Without Hats on the program like he just made his Toronto Mike debut a couple of weeks ago so you know I just went down the rabbit hole and listened to you know different iterations of men without hats including new stuff and then i got the note from from mark about that so i had to

had to ask but you're a big fan of men without hats well that was a really seminal experience for me because we had the record that had safety dance on it i i would get stacks of records every week you know and i'd listen you know and i'd listen to them dutifully but it would take a while so that one i'd gotten to later and i just thought oh my god this is incredible and i uh happened now i said yep you know this is yeah this is pretty cool so anyway i phoned the label the next day and i said when this band comes to toronto next time i want to put them on the cover and they went what i said yeah i'm into this one they go man we're not working that record anymore we've moved on right and they said i said i don't care that's the record i want they said the last

time they were in toronto they had 50 people at their show are you serious i said i don't care that's who i want so they got us the interview they played a place called um heaven i think or rock and roll heaven but it was bj cuddles but it was also in that complex anyway gotcha they were that was our first cover with color and i went to the show and there was a lineup of about 600 people outside of the club to get in the club was filled to capacity two days in a row they sold sold 3,000 copies of the album in Toronto that weekend. The label in America heard about it. They said, okay, we want to release that record. They flew Ivan to London.

He made the safety dance video, and the rest is history. Okay, that's wild. Because there's another phenomenon I'm going to point out shortly that you could take a partial credit on, by the way. But yeah, that's amazing, that story. phenomenon i'm gonna point out shortly that you could take a partial credit on by the way but yeah that's amazing that story so 50 people were at the show prior to the the now coverage and then and then then it breaks i think they made a 12 inch single of safety dance that was really big in the states as i recall yeah definitely uh because the rate or the video edit is uh is

different but amazing yeah and they're still making music, so they owe you a beer or two. Okay, another band I'm going to play. In fact, I pulled a bit of music from this one. So... This is my favorite Blue Rodeo song. Like a diamond mine This is my favorite Blue Rodeo song. That's why I keep pulling the same damn song.

But I do love this band. I saw them at the Budweiser stage, I want to say, I don't know, August? Nice. Maybe September? August, yeah. Maybe August. Okay. Love this band. have their keyboardist their current keyboardist went to my high school and i had him in the backyard playing diamond

mine last summer to mike babuski he's awesome wow okay so you mentioned you play with uh jimdy Hockey. But tell me, is that the origin of your closeness with the band? Because you provided the liner notes for their Greatest Hits release. You must be awfully tight with a band to get tapped on the shoulder to do that. Yeah, I mean, we kind of grew up together. They were sort of, Jim and I are particularly quite close friends. And sort of as Blue Rodeo was growing, now it was growing. I mean, it used to be that on Queen Street, bands would do sets.

So they played two or three times in a night. So one of the things that was cool was that Blue Rodeo would always be the last to finish so you could go everywhere else and then you'd boot to the horseshoe and they'd play past one so you could count on that and so we just sort of they were just, again

one of the many great things about my gig has been sort of, you know, you write about these people that are playing to 12 people in a club, and eventually they become, they're selling out huge amphitheaters and arenas, and that's what happened with Blue Rodeo, and we were sort of, I guess, telling their story from day one. So we were sort of along for that ride, and, you know, they are, the funny thing about all of this is that it, them being so great reflected well on us.

That people that went and saw that took a chance and saw them because of something that I may have written or one of us wrote. And then they got, they see blue rodeo at playing at the Cameron. They're pretty happy. They're going to pick up your magazine. And, and so we are very fortunate to have such amazing talent to cover for,

for decades and sort of to have that experience, you know? And yeah, so that really creates a connection and some trust between you and the readers. No, great point. And yeah, Blue Rodeo became a big fucking deal, as we say on this show. I was at my grade school dance,

the DJ, this old dude, I can't, I don't know his name anymore, but he just pulled, goes, this is a new single, he has a 45, he plays it, it's Blue Rodeo's Try from Outs 45 he plays it it's blue rodeo's try from uh outskirts and it's like that was like my the first time i heard any blue rodeo was that that day when he pulled out the 45 for try but it sounded fucking great yeah no kidding well imagine when he's doing that when it wasn't even recorded it was just a guy playing in the bar you

know like that and you heard try it'd be like okay yeah but i mean it was fun i mean they're a great like when blue rodeo went from playing on queen street to the what's now the phoenix the diamond there was a stir like oh they're they're abandoning the scene and then when they went from there to maple leaf gardens there was like blowback like what's going on you know it's like it was very funny how we were really holding each other very accountable and very high i feel like we like to eat our young you know what i mean oh absolutely absolutely which really does suck actually i mean you know ask the bare naked ladies about that like it's like uh the bare naked ladies are example of a band i think of where they're like you could

see them busking or whatever uh you know on queen street or whatever all right so we used to have to step over them like flyers they get into the office in the morning they'd be busking or whatever, you know, on Queen Street or whatever. We used to have to step over them like flyers. They'd get into the office in the morning. They'd be busking out front. And then look at their projectory. And if you could imagine, because this is something even Blue Rodeo can't relate to, but imagine, and although Ivan from Men Without Hats can relate to this, but having a massive U.S. hit, like this puts you in a whole different stratosphere in terms of what you can do uh to

make money for the rest of your life it's uh unbelievable i just i just dig those guys okay so uh great guys uh yeah so any other any other bands that you can think of where you kind of like were there you know touting them on the onset and then they became a BFD. Big fucking deal. I mean, Pursuit of Happiness would be an example. You know, again, you know, I mean, I think Ivan got me to go see them at a club once where there was like, you know, again, there was like five people at the dance cave at Lee's. And it's like, okay, let's put these guys on the cover.

And then I remember putting them on the cover and then Ivan and I were standing outside of Lee's Palace as every agent and every label in the country poured in to check out this band. So let me ask you this for timelines. So famously, if you will, because Moe Berg's been over here, and he tells the story of they filmed that video in a parking lot at Queen and Spadina,

where the Mecca is now. Yeah. They should put up a plaque, by the way. I'm kidding. To commemorate. Yeah, I've been on that train for a while now, and I'm serious. So then they literally, I think Moe tells the story, he walksate. Yeah, I've been on that train for a while now and I'm serious. So then they,

literally, I think Mo tells a story. He walks into 299 Queen Street in his VHS cassette or whatever and says, play my video or whatever

and then they do and he's like, it's on high rotation and then the rest is history. So are they on Now's cover before they hand that VHS? Yes. Okay,

before I'm an adult now gets on much music. Amazing. They did, because they re Okay, before I'm an adult now, it gets on much music. Amazing. They did, because they re-recorded I'm an adult now for, oh my God, what's the big breakthrough album

for Pursuit of Happiness? Love Junk. Love Junk. Yes. Okay, so they had the, yes, so amazing. Moberg,

and then a bunch of nice guys to the Pursuit of Happiness. You know, and the international artists would be like Suzanne Vega and 10,000 Maniacs and people like that. So all that sort of people of that time. And basically we kind of were there on their way up. And you, Michael, you got to speak with, you got to interview Neil Young, right? Yes. I've been hanging out a few times. So can you share anything like having dinner with Neil Young? You don't, pre-COVID guests used to come in the front door

and then I have a Neil Young picture in the hallway up there. Now you got to come to the side door like some commoner. What's up with that? But what can you share with us normies who never get to have dinner with Neil Young? How about Neil? I'm sorry, excuse me. Oh, no problem.

That's okay, I'm just going to make you take a rapid test really quick before we complete this interview. Yes. So Neil, I mean, I got to... I'm friends with Jonathan Demme. Well, I was friends with Jonathan Demme. And so Jonathan was having dinner with Neil at South by Southwest and I was invited to

crash that dinner so that was kind of fun and we had a good hangout there and I, you know, and then when he made the Heart of Gold video in Nashville at the Ryman, I got invited down to that so that was kind of, again, a fun hangout

that was a good party because the after party for that, when I found myself talking with Meryl Streep and Emmylou Harris for about 20 minutes of that, I should just go home now because there's no way to top that. That's a George Costanza move. You've got to quit when you're in top. That's it for me!

And Meryl Streep was talking about being in a movie with Blue Rodeo to keep this completely symmetrical. What movie is this? Oh my god, someone going blank. And Meryl Streep was talking about being in a movie with Blue Rodeo to keep this completely symmetrical, this conversation. What movie is this? Oh, my God. Someone going blank. It's someone about...

Join the club. I couldn't remember the name. Love Junk. I think I had the cassette, and I think I played that cassette until it ran out, and I couldn't remember the name of it for a moment, but then I got it. Sorry. No, you go ahead. But I interviewed Neil once, formally, only once.

I mean, for a variety of reasons. I was friends with Elliot Roberts, his manager. We almost had Neil going to come to North by Northeast before he had his aneurysm. I'm going to get there next. But when I interviewed him, it was pretty intense because the funny thing was I had gone on a rant at the office. I was like, I'm not interviewing any more musicians for some reason.

I'm just going to take a break from interviewing musicians. But Neil had always been my great white whale. So the next day, I get someone say, I can get you in person with Neil Young. It's like, OK, I'm doing music. I'm doing that interview for sure. So it involved going to uh to um detroit to interview him so the night before i was having dinner at ron mclean's house with jim cuddy wow and jim was playing playing uh heartless heart heart yeah heartless yeah yeah

yeah in no case on on the piano at ron's to sort of send me off on my because they all had this sense of this i was going off on my mission so you know what now that you drop in all these names uh and i know i won't even ask about neil because how could you make that happen but you got to get jim cuddy on toronto mic'd because ron mcclain's come over only mo berg's been over you know uh andy mays has been over all these a bunch of bare naked ladies have been over you got to get Jim Cuddy on this program. You make those calls. I'll make it.

That's your homework. Okay. Okay, very cool of Neil Young. I mean, do you get, like when you have that, yeah. So sorry, so with Neil, so I was supposed to be at the hotel in Detroit

at a certain time, so I got there, needless to say, plenty of time. And then they said, oh, he got in late on the tour bus so you have to wait okay okay i'm waiting i'm waiting i'm totally exhausted because i got up early to drive right so i'm literally sort of sleeping in my car at a certain point okay no so i checked into the hotel because this kept getting pushed back and pushed back right and then the phone rings and the guy

goes okay you can interview neil in 20 minutes so and so is going to come look at you first i went okay so like i literally kind of got my dusted myself off and it's a knock at the door and this guy just looks at me and goes okay and then he goes away and then the phone rings again they say yeah meet him in the bar so i mean what do you think that's about like if you don't if you looky, you don't get the invite? Or if you don't look sketchy, you don't get the invite? Which one is that? That's a tough question.

He looks too clean cut. If you were looking like Don Draper, you wouldn't get the call or whatever. So do you have, because, okay, I can't relate to any of this because you're dealing in the big leagues here, but I did have 20 minutes with Chuck D at the C&E Banshell. Okay. And I should point out that I'm a huge Public Enemy fan still. And that's like if I told some boomer

they were going to meet Paul McCartney for 20 minutes or whatever. But I still remember thinking to myself when I set up in the back room at the Banshell pre-COVID and I'm all set up and chatting with mishy me and there's some stuff going on and i'm waiting for chuck and i had this moment thought to myself can i've done hundreds of these things but i was thinking oh i only have 20 minutes normally i get an hour or so i have 20 minutes and i actually give a shit about this and this might well this will never happen again therefore i had this moment of anxiety of like don't fuck it up like and this

never happened you know ron mclean's at the door i don't have this don't fuck it up i'm like i'm just gonna chat with ron mclean it's gonna be a good time michael holland's here you know it's gonna be a good time but i had this moment of like don't fuck it up and i remember thinking oh man i'm actually nervous and i only got the damn 20 minutes and it all worked out because fucking he's amazing but that's the closest i was wondering did you feel any of that anxiety with neil or did you already have a rapport with him total no this is before we'd hung out okay this is before any of that so no i was totally nervous i mean i oh i've been nervous for a few of them and it's like you know what i find comforting is artists tell me when you stop

get when we stop getting nervous that's when we should quit. So I say, don't let it freak you out. And that's actually been very comforting to me. So you're telling me I should be nervous about you right now. Not me. You're going to have to be a little more intimidating. Okay, Michael? Come on. Hey, you mentioned South by Southwest, and then you mentioned North by Northeast.

You, my friend, I'm going to tell you something you know about yourself. You're a founder of North by Northeast. Can you tell us, I'm going to tell you something you know about yourself. You're a founder of North by Northeast. Can you tell us that story of founding that music festival? Sure. I started with, I feel like I'm name dropping, but it's... No, I love it. Honestly, drop every name you know. My daughter on this day in 2016, my daughter met Will Smith and Jaden Smith. I just want to put that out there because it came up on my Facebook memories today. There's a name drop and I didn't even meet that guy. That's a good one.

Not quite as good as it was. It's tainted a little now, but still it happened. Well, the people that started South by Southwest actually had the alternate Alt Weekly in Austin, the Austin Chronicle. And so we met through that world. And now was the through that, that world.

And so, and they, we were actually, now was the bigger paper. So I was sort of, you know, encouraging them and, you know, and, and so, but we became quite good friends. And then they told me they're going to start a music festival. And I just thought, oh, that's adorable. You know, good luck with that. And, and I didn't even go to the first one. And so, and then it became

south by southwest and you know and i think i can respectfully say they're as surprised as anybody i mean they you know they were making a regional music festival and they didn't realize how brilliant their idea was which is sometimes the case so basically they were very familiar with Toronto and they felt, and as, as did I, that Toronto and Austin both shared incredibly unique live music scenes. Like we take it for granted, but it's not every city is like Toronto,

not every city is like Austin, but Toronto and Austin have a lot in common that way. And that there's real, you know, authentic live music. And there's, it's not, you know, there's some cities where it's cover bands and,

you know, and all that. And we have people creating original music. And there's some cities where it's cover bands and all that. And we have people creating original music. So we had the feeling, as South By grew, that perhaps Toronto could be another place to do it. And so basically we made the decision. South By started in 87. We started North By in 95.

I guess in the early 90s, we decided, okay, let's do it in Toronto. Yeah. So what, so I would shadow them. So they would do South by and I would drive around with them

and just literally follow them. Right. Like, yeah, shadow them. As they would run into clubs and this and that, I'd be at all the staff meetings

and we'd see what they did. And then we decided to pull the, you know, to do it, to launch in 95 and for the first five years a team from south by southwest would come up and actually do our admin with us like and sort of we increasingly took that responsibility over in toronto and then eventually we didn't need them anymore and we could do it on our own and you know you know we continue to

consult with them but we know how to do the practical stuff amazing again so there's uh there's north by northeast and there's uh next which we're going to get to i know you're excited to get there and i'm excited to get there too next mag.ca but a few more uh lingering threads here in the now era. One is my buddy, FOTM, Norm Willner. Just wondering if you could, he recently, just recently announced he was no longer with the magazine. And, you know, we have, like, again, we have some ground to cover with you leaving in 2016

and then the current state. But what could you say about Norm? Just curious your thoughts on Norm Willner. In the movie, Jack Lemmon will play Norm, obviously. I can see that. I can see that. And Norm is a great guy. And basically, I had two great film writers now.

One of them, maybe before Norm, one of them was John Harkness, who is a legend, who I would say is the greatest film writer ever in Canada. Even better than Jay Scott. And then when we grew, the second writer we hired was Cameron Bailey, who went on to be

head of TIFF. And so, I can remember well, there was a point where I was having meetings with both of them saying, okay, we are actually talking about expanding the music, the film section and giving them more space to do longer pieces and muse. And tragically, John died.

Right. And then the same within the week, Cameron got the offer from TIFF. So literally, it was John's obituary and Cameron's hiring announcement. We were like, I remember seeing these spread in the Toronto Star. I was like, oh dear. And I had been admiring Norm's writing in the Toronto Star. He wrote a video column in the TV Guide,

the only thing worth reading in that TV Guide. But I really liked what he did there. So when the opening suddenly appeared, it's like, there's my guy. Jim Baldwin. Baldwin? What's the... John Bowden. Bowden. That's the man. I know he's no longer with us, but I did enjoy his

TV talk back as well, since we're talking that Toronto Star TV guide there. But Norm, yeah. Oh, you're talking about the real TV guide. Are we talking about the Toronto Star? The Toronto Star. Okay, the Toronto Star. Yeah, sorry.

Yes, I got you. It was Bill Brio. I'm confusing my guys. Anyway. Okay, so Norm Wilner comes over to NOW and again, only left, only announced his leaving earlier, like very recently.

But there's another gentleman I just want to shout out, Hebsey again. So Hebsey, when he learned what was going down of Now Now with Norm, and a bunch of stuff we're going to get to in a minute, but he says he was a sports columnist for Now in the early 90s, and he always felt a special bond with that publication. And he said that you and Susan Cole were wonderful and passionate leaders

during his tenure and he would love people to support local journalism. So do you ever play hockey with Hebsey? No, I haven't played hockey with Mark. Okay, you're missing out. He's all elbows. I had a feeling you were going to... I saw how I knew that even before you said it.

It just made sense. He's a feisty guy. Yeah, he was fun to work with and it was a very cool experiment. Okay. Now we're going to burn a lot of things I want to talk about here

but I'm going to play a little bit of this. The Green Day version from the movie. I'm surprised they didn't make another movie. I'm actually legit surprised because it was pretty successful and it was pretty good and they never made a second Simpsons movie. But I want

you now, Michael Hollett, as you sit here in the TMDS studio, take some credit. Take some credit for the success of The Simpsons movie. But I want you now, Michael Hollett, as you sit here in the TMDS studio, take some credit. Take some credit for the success of The Simpsons. Do you know where I'm going here? Yes. That's being incredibly generous. But I did know Matt

Groening before The Simpsons, so that was kind of a crazy thing because he had a comic strip called Life in Hell. The bunny rabbits there. Yeah. So when we were making the magazine, obviously, I looked at a lot of American Alt Weeklys to get ideas. And there was a few comic strips I liked and his was one of them.

And he was in the LA Weekly. So I phoned the LA Weekly and I said, how do I get hold of this guy? And they go, well, he delivers the paper so he's not here all the time but we can put a message in his box, I guess. Like they were so begrudgingly

sort of going to deal with this sort of circulation bomb. You know, they really, their lack of regard was very apparent. And so,

got in touch with Matt and he was like, yeah. He was all excited because it made him an international cartoonist if he could be published in Canada too. Right, because he's in Canada now. and he was like, yeah. He was all excited because it made him an international cartoonist. If he could be published in Canada too. Right, because he's in Canada now.

So you, in a nutshell, you gave Matt one of his first major comic strip exposures by running Life in Hell in now. You could say that. You just did, so thanks. Well, okay, so a couple of fun facts here is i believe in the famous story i've always heard i'm very passionate about my simpsons trivia knowledge

that are uh that like matt's in a meeting i don't know a fox or whatever and he doesn't want them to steal life in hell so he like on the spot he pitches this thing that's not life in hell because i guess he he was you know his passion not life in hell. Because I guess he was, you know, his passion was life in hell, these rabbits. And he kind of drops names from his family and describes this. And they buy this idea, which is the Simpsons. Like it sounds like he only pitched the Simpsons so he could keep ownership and control over life in hell, which is interesting. But the other fun fact, I think, is that Marge Simpson has this very tall blue hair. other fun fact i think is that marge simpson has this very tall blue hair and that the original concept was that she was she had the ears of the life and hell rabbits underneath that hair like i

believe this was the original concept is that marge underneath that very tall blue hair was a rabbit ears like the life and hell characters i don't know if you heard that one i haven't heard that but i mean they they kind of looked they looked they looked like she's the most life and hellish character for sure oh for sure and the other thing and i dropped this in a previous episode but i think the original concept was that crusty was homer like uh because bart simpson didn't respect his dad but respected crusty the clown and homer was just was crusty like in makeup like i think very early on this was the idea. And that's why Krusty and Homer, if you look at the artwork for those two characters, are near identical.

So there you go. Same voiceover actor too. Okay, all that's great. Now here I'm going to play a little clip of... This is what I want to talk about before we get you out of now. It's worth the wait, Michael. Let's hear this.

You know those sexy ads in the personal columns? Well, they've got the cops reading the riot act to some newspaper editors. Crystal, hot, sensuous body. You can find almost anything in the classified, but now police are taking a red pen to these blue notes, and there's a bizarre twist. I never expected to be charged as a prostitute,

as in being a newspaper editor classified blue also where they go after dark in hollywood city of angels dancing with the devil that's tomorrow on a current affair and that's it for this edition thanks for joining us everyone until next time america so mauryury Povich teasing a segment on that show. What was it? Inside Edition. You, that was your voice. People didn't recognize it, Michael Hall. You had prostitution charges because of ads that were placed in Now Magazine.

Could you tell us what happened there? Well, yes. We believe that it was the cops trying to censor us, basically. Like, what we had heard was that they had been shopping those charges against us. And basically, we were very critical of the police force, you know, and legitimately and justifiably so. And, you know, to this day, I mean, they deserve it. Defiably so, and to this day, I mean, they deserve it.

But we had incredibly actually found out that the police chief at the time, McCormick, whose son was discouraged of the police union for the last decades. The family has not a great history, from my point of view, in this city. Anyway, we had identified, our criticism was, among other things, that the police was being run in a paramilitary way.

We thought this was really insidious and really led to, you know, them as a force against us kind of thing, obviously. And so to heighten that, he was wearing military medals, you know, which made no sense, you know. So what we found out was he was wearing medals that he actually wasn't entitled to wear. Right. Because it's not even that hard,

because Lloyd's of London insures all the battleships and such. So we could follow the logs, and he simply hadn't been in a zone to qualify to get this. It was like a merchant marine medal. But the point is, we had gone after this, and it freaked him out. And the police would routinely harass us.

We stopped putting our logo on Now Cars because we just kept getting towed and ticketed and surrounded by the police. So they had shopped these charges, basically, that... Because the prostitution law was written

that it was not illegal to have sex for money. It was illegal to ask someone to have sex for money. So the solicitation was criminalized. Basically, to get people off the street was the idea. So they were using this to go after us, to treat us as, that we were engaging in the act of soliciting. And in many ways,

it was critical to the success of Now Magazine, this attack on us. many ways, it was critical to the success of Now Magazine, this attack on us. You know, it was, you know, at the time it was scary because they weren't just charging me, they were charging Alice and they were charging her mom who was on the board of directors

who was our babysitter too. Like, so we had a kid, so it was like, uh-oh. So that was all scary. But it really kind of drew a line and it really made us made it clear to people i guess that we were prepared to sort of fight for what we believed and you know and the whole notion of now was you know we didn't make a newspaper to make a have a business we had a business to have a newspaper the goal was to have the paper we were very you know

we we really believed in what we were doing and we felt that it was important to create a sound financial basis so we could weather these attacks that would inevitably happen. And that's exactly what happened. We had the money to protect ourselves. So we had, Clayton Ruby was our lawyer, you know, and we really went for it. And we didn't, you know, we didn't back down.

They said to us if we stopped running the ads or they'd withdraw the charges. And we said, no way. Because, to us if we stopped running the ads, they'd withdraw the charges. And we said, no way. Because, you know, we believed, you know, it's funny people think we got rich on those ads. Those ads cost us tons of money because people wouldn't advertise because of them or wouldn't distribute it.

But we believed that as a principle, we actually felt that it was the safest way for sex workers to advertise their services. And it allowed them to operate without pimps and it also was a freedom of speech issue, you know, and we also felt, you know, the Global Mail was running ads talking about, you know, so-and-so seeks, you know,

European gentlemen or something. Like they had all these coded languages and we were all about honesty. So we felt this was being honest and so we weren't going to back down, but, you know, of course what often happens, you know, and it has served us many times, but when you attempt to silence somebody by stamping it out,

there is a reaction. And the reaction is often bigger than whatever you hope to achieve by quieting it. That's the Streisand effect. Okay, now, is it surreal? And again, we should point out those charges those prostitution charges that were levied against you uh they were dropped pretty quickly right like a couple couple days later no no three three or four weeks like okay three or four weeks okay it was enough that it

was on every front page in canada well it got to inside it i mean i remember in these these tabloid shows that would air in the afternoon whatever maury Povich doing this stuff like is that surreal when you're on the US tabloid television there you are oh yeah Cesar Lee told me he was in Hong Kong and he saw me on the news in Hong Kong at the time prostitution charges against Michael Holland now magazine that's very

sensational stuff that's flying around there but okay so eventually though they do drop these charges very publicly too like in a cool way, like they sort of called us into a courtroom to make the announcement in Old City Hall. And then we come out on the steps and there's cameras and it was all, you know,

and we were standing, the prostitutes rights associations were coming out with us too. So we were there with, you know, prostitutes, there was sex workers were standing with us. Okay, we're going to get you out of now here. But firstly, years later, there was some noise, though. Feminists were protesting sexist advertisements in Now magazine.

And at some point, these ads disappear from Now, right? Not on my watch. Not on your watch. Okay, so let's get this watch thing sorted out. What happens in 2016 that you leave as editor and publisher of Now? I am, many reasons. I mean, I was going to focus on North by Northeast.

I was, you know, I wanted to, well, I did. I wanted to focus on North by. I wanted to explore some other writing projects. And, you know, I i mean i imagine my partner and i were probably ready to not be in business together you know let's face it and this is alice yeah because i noticed you're hesitant to uh you know she's so you and alice are the two co-founders of now right right okay just to make sure we were a couple of the time, which we stopped being at some point. And we continued to work together for a long time.

I hear you. So one way to kind of cleanly be out of business is to sell the business to someone else. Correct. To her. To her, okay. She bought me out. She buys you out. Is that 2016?

She buys you out. Okay, all right. Okay, so now I got to ask you because, and maybe you'll know better than me but currently i know norm's gone because he said they stopped paying him in january or something but there's some the current owners of now are in some it's in some kind of bankruptcy and they're publishing once a month now so it's no longer a weekly it's like an old monthly i guess although wiseblood tells me he has trouble finding these copies. So if they're printing it once a week, he goes,

he went to several TTC stations trying to find a copy and he couldn't find one. But let's assume they're once. So what is your thoughts on the current status of your baby now, magazine? You know, I only want, uh, wish the best for it. And,

um, it's a different magazine than I'd be publishing, you know? I mean, that's makes this make sense, right? I mean, it's like I have my sort of vision and they have their,

the current folks have theirs, I guess. Uh, you know, I think, I guess if i thought it was totally doing the job i wouldn't necessarily be starting my own new magazine right i mean that's part of what's part of what's going on there and that's next that's right literally capitals all caps right you get next has to be all cabs right oh yeah see i'm catching on here thanks okay so we're gonna dive in next now uh did now ever run cannabis ads or would that be that's a that that I can't remember seeing any but were there ever

cannabis ads and now no no no okay can I do one right now so what I have here for you Michael great this is a toque from the good people at Canna Cabana. So that'll keep you toasty. You bring that home with you. Brand new toque from Canna Cabana. Canna Cabana are more than just weed. They've got bongs and pipes and vapes and dab rigs and grinders and anything else a smoker could want.

There's over 100 locations across the country. You can sign up for the Cabana Club at canacabana.com. You'll be first in the know. They will not be undersold on cannabis and smoking accessories. So help me, Canacabana. That's where you go for your weed, Michael. Excellent. And I mentioned I have the lasagna for you.

I have the beer for you. I have a Toronto mic here. Let me get this. This is courtesy of StickerU.com. This is a really good business. They're in Liberty Village, but they're online. So anywhere you got an internet connection. That's your Toronto mic sticker from StickerU.com.

Great partners of the program. And last but not least, a wonderful partner of this program for years is Ridley Funeral Home. They've been pillars of this community since 1921. Brad Jones, the funeral director there has a great podcast here at TMDS. It's called Life's Undertaking. He's got a new episode he's recording this week and it's really wonderful. So shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Okay, next. See what I did there? Okay, tell me the, so what inspired you to start next?

I certainly, I saw an opening in the market, and the markets are three, because we publish in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. And it's not, it's a different magazine than now. It's sort of, I think, I mean, what we're trying to do is very much... Well, it's glossy, first of all.

It's not newspaper. No, it's glossy. We think it's the most digitally connected print magazine in the world. It's all filled with QR codes and links. So you create the sort of, it's got the interactivity of a digital experience, but the interactivity of a digital experience

but the coolness of being printed and uh yeah and so and it's it's um i mean it it has a different role it's very much it's a cultural mag it's about culture it's it's not news and paul and news and culture it's culture and you got gary slade on that board of directors i saw yes gary's a key partner i've got amazing partners on this. Michael Cole. Michael Cole, yeah. There's one of the guys from Billy Talent. It's a good bunch.

No conflict there. I noticed lots of Billy Talent content. There's no conflict there. And I hear there's a, and this is a different member of Billy Talent than you play hockey with? Yes. Okay, because Ian Dessau. It's Ian. Yeah, Ian's is a different member of Billy Talent than you have, you play hockey with? Yes. Okay.

Because Ian, Ian Desaul. It's Ian. Yeah. Ian's one of the owners. He's one of the. One of my partners. Right. One of the partnership, one of the partners in the ownership group.

But who's the member of Billy Talent you play hockey with? John, John Gallant, the, the bass player. I got to get Ben on the show. Are you friendly with Ben? Sure. Ben's great. Ben is. Because Ben worked at CFNY, like doing.

Oh yeah. Production stuff for like Strombo and stuff. on the show. Are you friendly with Ben? Sure. Ben's great. Because Ben worked at CFNY like doing production stuff for like Strombo and stuff and I've been talking to him like through Twitter DM now and then. I just think he'd really dig the vibe of this show because we do a lot of

CFNY stuff on this show and it would be great to get him on. Oh, and he hosted one of the Juno dinners. It was like just through the roof. He was so good.

You know, I saw, where did I see them? At the Downsview Park I saw Billy Talent and they them at the Downsview Park, I saw Billy Talent, and they were headlining an Edge Fest, actually. And, yeah, they were loud and great and just fucking rocked. Oh, yeah, they're awesome. Streetsville represent.

Okay, so next, who else did I see on there? But, oh, yeah, you have, okay, this is a fun fact that was shared with me here. And his name pops up now and then. But, and I hope I say his last name right. You'll tell me if I mispronounce it. Mike Levine of Triumph? Yes. Okay.

So he'd always show up, right? He would be showing up at all these NOW events, right? Because he was Rosie's wife, right? This is the connect there? Yes. And he's also, Rosie and Mike are also partners in Next. That's where I the connect there. Yes, and he's also, Rosie and Mike are also partners in Next. That's where I'm going here.

Yeah, they are. A lot of people saw the wisdom of, you know, I really believe people gave up on print too fast. You know, I mean, the inevitable comparison with vinyl is just, you know, you can't resist it.

I mean, there's a desire for tactile experiences, you know, stuff you can hold in your hand. I mean, there's a desire for tactile experiences, you know, stuff you can hold in your hand. I mean, it's really interesting for us is that, you know, we're targeting a young audience, similar to what I was talking about with Now, which we're creating an authentic connection with a young audience so that other people will, you know, people like you and me will want to read it

to see what's happening next. And that's what we, think have achieved and you know the writers you know are all very young i mean one of our stars she just turned 20 and she was musing about that i said i can't be that sympathetic her name's rain fisher kwan and she is kind of a perfect example of what next is all about and that she is as digitally connected as you can be. Oh, she's a TikTok-er. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, like I remember the conversations,

like, yeah, I'm going to go on TikTok, and the next time I looked, she had 800,000 followers. But the trick was for you is I'm sure this is the trick that everyone's dealing with in your space there is how do you get these TikTok-ers to pick up a magazine, right? The TikTok kids, you got to get them to pick up a magazine because they they don't they don't read you know these tiktokers i don't know is that a generalization i yes a little bit of a broad stroke but flip that you'll see like yes they they like beautiful things they like tactile things they

like you know there's people are crafting and coloring and all that sort of interactivity. And this is very much about that. You know, I mean, what I like is we'll get like a 21-year-old artist and she'll post it on her social. This is the first time, my first appearance in physical media. They call us physical media. I will say there's definitely something about physical media that it's,

you don't, I recently was on the front page of a section of the toronto star yes okay so the digital it's like oh you get you know oh yeah this is cool you can link whatever but once you're on that in that paper and you're on people's like when people are having their like morning coffee and you're spread out on their table it's a whole different like wow right yeah yeah of course and you can mean, I'm looking at this and I remember one day I was going, I've just been looking at this picture. That's cool.

Like you can't, you know, but you see this? Like when you read our music articles, we link to Spotify and Apple Music. QR codes. So you can hear it. You can hear the music we're talking about in real time. Amazing. And that's the critical piece about this.

Like what we're, a lot of publishers do digital shaming and it's like every generation picks on the young it's like it seems like it's just built in the bone i guess it's just old people's resentment of people having their lives ahead of them or something but it's you know the publishers will love to berate the the youth for being put your they always like put your phone away and come read our magazine. Well, who's going to do that? That sounds like punishment. You know, it's like, we're saying,

bring your phone along. You know, it's part of the ride. You actually have a better experience reading next if you have your phone out. Because, you know, when we have, we'll talk about a,

you know, a new sandwich or something. Yeah. Well, you can wave your phone over that page and it shows you, you'll see a video on how to make it. Don't fight the future. Exactly.

As Fox Mulder would say. I feel like it's one of those X-Files movies, I think it was called Fight the Future. I don't know why that stuck in my head. Okay, so the... We say the future is next. Future is next, with all caps, N-E-X-T. By the way, if I haven't been clear, nextmag.ca. So, and let me ask you, what's the distribution methodology

here for Next Magazine? Is this you subscribe and have it delivered? How do you get this into people's hands? Next. Well, in the pandemic, we had it delivered with food. Great Lakes Brewery delivered with a case of beer and people like that. Amazing.

So that's how we got introduced to tens of thousands of people. And now as the world has opened up, I'm pretty familiar with that distribution model. So we have Next Racks all over Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Also, it wasn't lost on me, the clever nature of the word next, considering the first one was called now

and the second one's called the next. So the third one will be called even more. Exactly. All right. So now is Toronto thing, of course. Next is Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. So let me ask you, since you've been doing this for, I guess, what, since December 2020?

Is it that fresh? Yeah. Wow. Good for you. Okay. What have you found is the difference being in Vancouver and Calgary now in addition to Toronto? Like, are they cool cities too?

What's going on? I thought we were the center of the universe over here. What's going on? They're also cool cities. And there's lots of cool stuff going on there. And it's fun to find out about it. I mean, that's the thing. So we have a lot of national stories, but then we have local sections.

So there's a Toronto section of Vancouver and a Calgary. So even if you're not of those cities, it's fun to see what's going on in Vancouver, even if you're not living there. Hey, before I forget, we lost somebody who wrote for newspapers in the city, not Alt Weeklys, but I think his style was such that he was

like an alt-weekly type writer, even though he was in, you know, quote unquote, the big leagues. I know you won't like that term. But what did you think of Peter Goddard? He was, I mean, he was great. He was incredibly knowledgeable. He's very highly regarded. incredibly knowledgeable.

He's very highly regarded. I mean, he sort of, he preceded us. He sort of owned that space before Now came along, in a sense, and he had a particular style and a particular approach. I mean, what people forget is, it's funny,

one of the radical things that we did with Now was we did features, like in advance. But basically,, but basically what, you know, and I'm not saying this critically, but a big, what Peter did was he reviewed shows largely and there was some, you know, and some features, but mostly it was that. So one of our radical ideas was let's write about stuff before it happens so

that people know who's coming to the city rather than just comment on what happened. So we actually didn't have reviews in the first eight years, I don't think, of concerts. Wow. So fantastic. Your legacy with Now, you know, I've wanted you on the show for a long time. I can't remember how I finally thought to ask you.

Okay, we're actually wrapping. Watch your head. Do you want to... I was going to wrap now. Oh, okay. It's okay. I didn't mean to. Yeah, Okay, we're actually wrapping. Watch your head. Do you want to... I was going to wrap now. Oh, okay. It's okay. I didn't mean to. Yeah, yeah, no worries here.

But Michael, I guess I want to thank you so much for coming by and talking now and telling us about Next. And I do have several copies of Next here and beautiful, glossy magazine.

And good on you, man. You know, you build something great and then you just go build something else great. That's freaking awesome. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that. And congrats on winning. What did you win again? The Black Stokes won...

Downtown Men's Hockey League Championship, C Division. Thank you very much. And your first win in what, 17 years? First win in 17 years. Any predictions for the local hockey team known as the Toronto Maple Leafs? How will they do in the playoffs this year? We all,

you know, ask me after it happens, right? I mean, we all want them to win the cup and we all want it, but we're all traumatized. We all have PTSD, you know,

it's sort of. Do they finally win a round for the first time since 2004? Even that, right? It's so, you know, I mean, they have... Yes, of course. I want them to.

I have to believe they will. And last question. Will Austin Matthews score 65 goals this year? Yes. 66. Shout out to FOTM Rick Vive. But we're destroying that record. Michael Hollett, thanks so much for doing this, buddy.

Thanks a lot, Mike. Great to be here. And that... brings us to the end of our 1031st show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike. Are you at mHallett with two Ts? On Twitter, I'm m__Hallett. Okay, m__Hallett with two t's? On Twitter, I'm m underline hollet. Okay, m underscore hollet with two t's. And again, the

website for Next, I just want people to know they can go there right now. Nextmag.ca .ca And NXNE is nxne.com and our dates are June 14th to 19th. We'll have to get you back on the program, Michael,

when you're ready for more lasagna. Yum. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. A Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH in Canna Cabana. They're at canna cabana underscore.

See you all next week. Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who, yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah, I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? Oh, they're picking up trash and they're putting down rogues

And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow