Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Campbell: Toronto Mike'd #1243

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

In this 1243rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with former MuchMusic personality Mike Campbell about his vital role in getting Much's license from the CRTC, his many gigs at MuchMusic, Mike & Mike's Excellent X-Canada Adventures, MuchEast, his years at Attic Records, the Halifax music scene and his current role as programming director of The Carleton. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, the Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1243 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. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Season 4 of Yes, We Are Open. The award-winning podcast from Moneris.

Hosted by FOTM Al Grego. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Moment Lab, brand marketing and strategy, PR, advertising, and production. You need The Moment Lab and Ridley Funeral Home,

pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto Mike debut is Mike Campbell. Mike, can you hear me? I can. Nice to meet you. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. to meet you. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Absolutely.

What am I looking at here? Is this the Carlton? No, this is my garage. Okay. Slash office. Known throughout the Canadian music industry as the Tiki Lounge. The Tiki Lounge. Okay, man.

I wish I was there. I wish I had the expense account to get my butt over there and talk to you in person. Well, it's seen a lot of faces over its 23 years existence, I guess, at this point. So geographically, where exactly or whereabouts would the Tiki Lounge be located here in the country? It would be in my backyard of my house on Yonge Street in Halifax, which is on the Halifax Peninsula. It's about two songs on the radio to directly downtown. I've been here for damn close to 30 years.

Wow. Okay, we're going to get into it. Do you ever bump into John Gallagher? Is he wandering the streets of Halifax? I haven't seen Gallagher since he relocated to the Halifax, although I have, he's been in here many times, and God knows I've gone out to see him on many occasions, the freak. As long as you don't run out of wine, John will keep coming back. As long as I don't run out of white wine, yeah.

Oh, I know the drill. I mean, John used to come here all the time with Peter Gross because I was producing their podcast, Gallagher and Gross Save the World, and I miss the guy. I mean, I get the odd call from him, but I miss John's visits. I think he's made a point of doing some recording at my friend Jody Morgan's home studio, or I think he's still a point of doing some recording at my friend Jordy Morgan's home studio. I think he's still doing voice work and stuff, so he does it from Jordy's place.

He's got a sweet, sweet setup. But yeah, I haven't seen him since he's been back. I expect I probably will over the course of the summer. He usually turns up at some point. Well, here's hoping. Shout out to John Gallagher. But I mentioned the Carleton. I thought maybe you were live from the Carleton.

But tell us Torontonians, us ignorant Torontonians, what is the Carleton? Well, the Carleton was like my plan C, I think, after I rapped 18 years working for Much Music, and I had an idea about doing a whole bunch of different things, and at the very bottom of the idea barrel was, well, I was just opening up a bar or restaurant. I mean, how difficult is that to do?

So I also figured it would be a breeze to raise money to afford such an enterprise, which, of course, turned out to be completely wrong. I did everything humanly possible. Every mistake you could make, like signing a lease on a space without investors, all of that shit. Everything eventually came together at the last minute, and we wound up opening what I thought was just going to be a nice, cool bar-restaurant place in May of 2008.

And because of my background in the music business, everybody expected me to do live performances in the place. So I made an area that could be used as a stage. Although having worked in the live business and worked in booking bands and various venues, not being insane i wasn't trying to open a live music venue it was just something that i thought i would do maybe once a month you know like an acoustic performance on off nights for restaurants like a sunday or a monday or something right with artists i knew could perform solo and sell out.

So I started the first performer at my place was in May of 2008. It was Joel Plaskett. Wow. And then in July I had Jill Barber. And in August I had, wait a minute, in June I had Jill. In July I had Steve Pultz, who's an artist that some people in Toronto may be familiar with, but he's now played my venue, Summer in the Neighborhood, of 70, seven zero plus times over the course of our existence.

Most of that, William, is based in San Diego. And then in the fall of 2008, as some might remember, the bottom fell out of the world, economic order, and we went into a massive recession, in which case most people just quit going out, spending money, especially entertainment and eating out were the first things people cut from their budgets. But my investors at the time realized that whenever I booked somebody into the place,

we could fill it. So they eventually pressured me to start booking entertainment on a regular basis. And we know how that goes. You just eventually get the reputation as a venue. People forget about it. It was a restaurant, bar thing still kind of happening. So against my will and better judgment, we morphed into a small but well-respected venue in the city of Halifax, operating what most people had never been in before, which was, for all intents and purposes, a listening room.

It's only small, like it only holds about 100 people, but we trained people. I used to get on stage and tell people that if they talked through the performance, I'd throw them out. And I did on several occasions, famously, but artists loved that approach, and eventually people got used to the idea that you could come into a room, have a beautiful meal, have people bring drinks to your table, and listen quietly to some of the best artists in the country. And that's kind of what we've morphed into over the years. and that's kind of what we've morphed into over the years.

Awesome. I've got to get my butt back to Halifax and go to the Carleton for no other reason than to meet Mike Campbell. But you dropped a big name. You talked about great Canadian singer-songwriters. You dropped the name Joel Plaskett. Yes. You managed Joel at some point, right? I did.

After I finished with Much, I did a bunch of contract work. did after i finished with much i did a bunch of contract work so i was in charge of booking all the pop and rock entertainment for the atlantic scenes for the nac's atlantic scene festival which they kind of carried on through various other places in the country and i also produced juno fest which was the live music component of the Junos when they were in Halifax in 2006. And during most of that time, my partner Sherry Jones and I were managing Joel Plaskett, somebody who I discovered through my years at Much Music. Sherry Jones was at the time probably the most successful manager in Halifax, managing Ashley McIsaac and Gordy Sampson and a bunch of other people. And it took me a long time to get her to pay any attention to Joel,

but once I managed to convince her to come out and see him, we got together one day and started a management company called Soapbox Racer Entertainment, so named because it was very much like building a soapbox racer car, pushing it off the top of the hill and hoped that you got to the bottom in one piece. So we formed the company to manage Joel specifically before we'd even talked to Joel. Wow. And we met with him a couple of times.

Joel was one of those artists that really didn't have any need for management except on the organizational front, and he's not the kind of person that needed help deciding what kind of records he wanted to make or where he wanted to make them or how he wanted to make them he was just having trouble keeping up with you know running the band booking the band getting merch together all the things that management would eventually take over for him so it allowed him to kind of concentrate on his um creative side of his uh very very intelligent self so i did that until until such time as i decided that i needed to open the carlton and i had no time for anything after that and basically on the on the management side of things sherry was the business head because she'd been doing it for

years and my job was mostly as cheerleader so sh Sherry would go to bed at 8 o'clock and then I'd drag people out to shows and schmooze them and do all the rest of those things and rah, rah, rah. So, you know. Well, we're going to go back because I need to talk to you about much music.

So much ground to cover with you, Mike. But I have to ask you, did you have any involvement in getting Joel Plaskett in the movie One Week? Because he's my favorite part of One Week. No, I had nothing to do with that. That question probably would have come to Sherry and then passed on to Joel, and Joel would never have passed on that opportunity.

Although he doesn't consider himself a thespian, he has made a great number of videos where he's generally the star and he does a great job. He's a natural at it. Oh, he's great, he's great. Now, Mike, have you always been a Mike? Like at some point were you a Michael and then you said, hey, I don't feel like a Michael,

I'm a Mike. I'm naturally curious as a Mike myself. No, I mean, Mike just sort of, you know, Michael would be, I'm sure, just much like you when your mother was pissed at you. Right. You were Michael. On occasion in school, in the early days, you were Michael. Right.

But once I got into, you know, a certain grade in school and started playing sports and stuff, that immediately gets shortened to Mike. So I was just happy my parents didn't call me Mickey because I was very, very small as a kid. So that would have, yeah, there would have been too many Mickey Mouse illusions. So Mike, it's been for the most part, I will answer to pretty much anything, but generally speaking, my friends call me Mike.

Well, forget the fact that there's so many Mikes out there because there's too many Mikes in the world, but there are too many Mike Campbells. I mean, when I tweeted you were coming on the show, I got all these questions about, I don't know, you playing with Tom Petty. You know, it's like, I don't know where you rank on the fame scale of Mike Campbells,

but you've got a lot of competition. Well, even in Halifax, if you look in the phone book, there's probably about 150 Mike Campbell's. Yeah, I can imagine. This being New Scotland, of course. Yeah, there's tons and tons of those. Usually the joke is, I remember calling, because I run a festival out here called the Halifax Urban Folk Festival.

So one day I called Dwight Twilley in Oklahoma and his wife answered the phone. She got all excited because she was yelling at Dwight going, Mike Campbell's on the phone, Mike Campbell's on the phone. And everyone assumes that it was Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who I have met on occasion. But, you know, like, hey, here's my driver's license. Look, I'm Mike Campbell. He just kind of laughs. Like, yeah, there's a million of us, but I just happen to be one of them. Like Mike's met.

Here's a fun fact. You probably know this, but I don't think the listenership knows this. Michael Che, of course, who does the weekend updates on Saturday Night Live. Michael Che is actually a Michael Campbell. Really? Yeah. There's a fun fact for you. Really? Well, that's interesting because

I know a Mike Campbell in St. John's who's been working on radio for a million years as Mike Campbell was not on Facebook. So I would constantly get friend requests from Newfoundland for Mike Campbell. And he is, in fact, Mike Critch, who is the brother of Mark Critch. Wow.

22 minutes. Son of a Critch. Yeah, he's a Critch. He's a son of a Critch. So he's actually Mike Critch. Okay, that is an even better fun fact, I think. Hey, I need to shout out an FOTM, so let me educate you quickly here, Mike.

FOTM means Friend of Toronto Mike. You, Mike Campbell, are now an FOTM, so thank you for doing this. I appreciate that very much, and it's an honor that I will hold in high regard. And if I ever meet you, it comes with free beer and free lasagna. Like I'm not messing around over here.

I got a wireless speaker for you, but I digress. I don't want to get you excited about what I can't give you. But the OG, sorry, the FOTM I want to say thank you to, he goes by the name OG Thor. OG Thor, and I copied it. Do you know OG Thor? Yes, I do. In fact, I've known him for years and recently ran into him um i was i got myself downtown early um during what was going to be a moose heads game because

moose heads are in the playoffs these days doing very well but the game happened on the same night as july talk playing at the lighthouse which is in basically the same complex, the Scotiabank complex. It used to be the old World Trade and Convention Center. So thinking that I would get down, snag a parking space, and kill some time at the Carlton, I wound up at the bar talking to a couple of dudes, one of them whose name was Thor, and the other guy's name was Ernie, who I both used to run into at Victor's Cyprick Shoe Shop, one of the more famous bars in Halifax from back in the day. And they were both involved in film.

And I got to talking to them and realized who they were because I hadn't seen them in a million years. Ernie was living out of town these days, I think. And Thor started talking about your show. Oh, okay. He said, you've got to appear on Mike's show. And I was like, I've heard of it, but I haven't actually listened to it because I can't listen to shit and do other shit at the same time.

So, which is why I'm not a great podcast guy because I'll realize I've been listening to a podcast for an hour while I'm working and didn't hear a goddamn thing anybody said. So he told me that he was going to write to you, email you, and suggest that you get me on this show, which I, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure thing, Stuart. No sweat. And then I heard from you, which was quite a surprise, but I'm happy that you got in touch, and we have a chance to chat. Well, I copied the note I got, so this is OG Thor,

and he writes, he goes, I just heard a story about how Mike Campbell was the only citizen to testify at the CRTC hearing that approved the MuchMusic license because he did a favor for Erica M., who was a switchboard operator. Then this note goes, blah, blah, blah, like literally says, blah, blah, blah.

Then Moses met him and offered him a job. Oh, dude, he is such a part of the history of Much Music. Please get in touch with him and get him on your show. And I wrote back and I said, you had me at hello. And then the rest is history. But I don't know. I want to find out who was Mike Campbell before this moment that he's alluding to. And then tell me about how you played a role in getting MuchMusic approved for that license.

Well, I'll see if I can condense this story properly. I was going to Carleton University. I went to Acadia for a year. Took a year off school. Went back to Carletonton i was majoring in english and journalism and then uh during one summer i got a job working at uh the local record store chain called treble clap in ottawa and uh i quickly rose through the ranks to run my own store and then um during that time i uh i played softball in the summertime and at one point one of my friends brought a girl out who was working at records on wheels

who just finished graduating from ottawa u whose name was erica mykowski. And we were very, very happy to have Erica play softball. She was a terrible softball player, had a very, very difficult time, no grip on the bat, no nothing. But generally speaking, if she put the ball in play, we would react very slowly because we enjoyed watching her run up the first baseline because Erica, of course is you know fairly well endowed young woman in those days and uh we all appreciated that and uh at the end of the summer she moved to toronto to work at city tv as a switchboard operator and i didn't hear from her

for months and in the winter she sent me a letter or she phoned me actually and said i know that you used to work in the music business because before i was in ottawa i worked uh um well i worked in my treble clef store in ottawa then i moved to toronto and started working at a and a records in on young street downtown toronto in like the late 70s early 80s got laid off because it was bad news happening there, and then went to Ottawa, started a shrink wrap framing business, as well as an independent promotion company, where I hired myself out to work for record labels, because Ottawa fell in that weird territory between Toronto and Montreal.

So when she moved back to Toronto, I was still working in Ottawa, and she asked me, because I had a background in the music industry and had worked for Attic Records, the label and shit, and she knew all of this stuff, asked me to write a letter of what they called intervention on behalf of CHUM, which is our parent group, who owned a million radio stations at the time, as well as City TV, write a letter of intervention on behalf of their application for a music

television license. And I was like, okay, yeah, I can do that. I really appreciated City TV. They used to do simulcasts from the Olmec Combo. They featured a lot of the acts we had on Attic. They were hugely supportive of Canadian music. In fact, the whole label was founded or predicated on the fact that CanCon regulations had come in. So I had no trouble with the idea of writing the letter because I believed it.

I'd been spending time in some clubs in Ottawa that had satellite dishes. So I've been watching MTV for a while and I could see more and more of that happening and maybe taking over the country so I had so but I asked her like when does the letter have to be in she's like oh in two days I'm like two days I'm running a business over here and we don't have computers this is the this is the you know this is 1984 i needed a typewriter with with carbon paper because i had to make three copies and i wrote a big long letter and i sent a copy off to the crtc and i sent one to city tv so that they knew that i sent one they kept one for myself and then uh uh i got a call from the CRTC saying, hey, you wrote a letter.

Would you like to appear at the hearings, which happened to be in Hull, right across the river from Ottawa, so not that difficult for me. But it was January. I had to get this letter. In fact, I had to hand deliver the letter to the CRTC at Hull because it wasn't time to mail it. Wow. So I had to get the postmark stamped the COTC at Hull because it wasn't time to mail it. Wow.

So I had to get the postmark stamped on so that I had it in time. Anyway, they phoned me and asked me if I wanted to appear at the hearings, and I'm like, the people I wrote the letter for don't know me. I have no idea whether they'd want me to appear at the hearings or not. So I called City TV, finally got a hold of somebody who said, So I called City TV, finally got a hold of somebody who said, well, we're going to come to Hull in the next month for some CRTC hearings stuff. And why don't we take you out to dinner? We'll meet you, talk to you, and then we can decide whether we want you at the hearings. And at the dinner was Moses Neimerimer who was running the whole operation dennis fitzgerald who was the general manager of city tv at the time and ron waters who was the son

of uh alan the son of alan waters who owned chum right so i had dinner with the three of them turned in with three hour dinner they decided yes we would love for you to appear at the hearings. So I wound up going two days in a row. I think this was in April and didn't get called the first day, went back the next day, waited the entire day. I think I was the last person called or the last entity called. or the last entity called. Most of the other people were, you know, broadcasts, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, advertisers, all kinds of people.

But I was the only private citizen, so I got up in front of the CRTC, read my letter, and then they asked me questions for like 20 minutes, and then at the end of it, wished me luck getting a job back in the music business, thanked me very much, and that was the end of it, wish me luck getting a job back in the music business. Thank me very much. And that was the end of the hearing. At which point, every single other person that had an application came running at me, including Rogers and all these other people with all of their stuff. And I'm like, hey, I already did my thing and all of this stuff. So I wound up in Toronto during Canada Music Week,

and I was at a session uh flogging my promotion business which was called fire for hire i thought that was very clever i had business cards that were matchbooks of course because i thought that way and uh during the break they announced who was going to win the uh, and it turned out to be Moses and Chum. Wow. So I found Moses at the break. It was lunch, and I found him in the hallway with Ron and Dennis Fitzgerald. I came up and introduced myself.

I said, I don't know if you remember me, but I appeared at the CRTC hearings, and Moses said, not only do we remember you, but don't think you had a small part in us getting that license. You did very well at the hearings. And I noticed by your badge that it says fire for hire. Does that mean man for hire? I was like, what? He said, well, I appreciate that you're working for yourself, but I think you'll go much farther if you come and work for me ron give mike your card figure out what you'd like to do and uh you know

get in touch with us we'll see if you can get you a job and i went back to my seat with all my other music industry friends i was white as a ghost they were like what's wrong with you and i said i think i just got off your job much music which is what everybody dreamt of at the time so you know that's how it started i didn't know what i wanted to do i sent in an application i didn't even know what it's like i don't know vj or something but the only picture eight by ten i had to send in was a picture a friend of mine had done for a photography class where he was trying to ape diane arbis's um uh method of photography which is like super close-up right and i'd had a spill a couple of weeks earlier where i slipped on the ice with both hands in the pocket of my jacket landed on my face so i had all these like scabs and i had a black eye and he insisted

i put a smoke in my mouth and stuff it got really tight and took a photograph and gave me an eight by ten and that was the only one i had so that's what i sent him the application obviously i didn't get the vj job but i did get a call a month and a half later from run water saying they needed somebody in the cable affiliate or affiliate relations department. And would I come and work for him? Asked me if I knew anything about cable television. And I was like, yeah, I hate it. I know that much.

And he said, well, come to Toronto. I'll give you this much money, which was like way more money than I would have suggested. And flew to Toronto. Got there on a Monday. On Wednesday, I was on a plane to Vancouver for the Canadian Cable Television Association convention, and on Friday that afternoon, I was in the biggest ballroom of the Hotel Vancouver telling people what much music was going to be and why they should carry it on their service. Wow. Okay, first of all, that's a hell of a story.

carry it on their service. Wow. Okay, first of all, that's a hell of a story. Do you tell that story in the documentary that's coming out, 299 Queen Street West? No. No. I did not get a chance to tell the story in there.

I actually just heard from Sean Menard, the director. Yeah. I was at the premiere in Austin at South by Southwest Film Festival in March. And so I got a chance to see the film already at its world premiere. And I really have to hand it to Sean. He went through all the archives. He managed to pull together a two-hour cut that kind of gives you an idea of how much started. And then our move into the new building at 299 queen street west right so he had an awful lot of ground to cover and he didn't do any talking heads interviews there's no

interviews with there's there's no sit down talking with anybody okay he didn't but i did like three different zoom calls for him so it's all all voiceover. So, you know, most of the VJs are in it in some fashion or another. David Kynes is in it. I'm in it quite a bit, actually, because I connect a lot of dots from the early days. Right. Because I did about seven different jobs when I was at Mudge, starting with that cable relations job. Right.

But it's a great film. I highly encourage people to buy tickets. I think they're on sale tomorrow to the general public for the Roy Thompson Hall premiere on September 22nd. So earlier, wait, we were Tuesday. Okay, last week, see, it's all a blur to me now, Mike, but last week Rick Campanelli was here, and we were kicking out the jams here.

And Rick, he also involved. But what I found interesting. And I know, uh, I'm just curious when you said it's only, you know, only a couple hours, you can't talk to everybody, but I did notice that FOTM master T was not a part of this. And I just thought that was curious. Cause when I think of key figures, there's yourself, there's certain people you, you associate with, especially at the move from 99 to two 99 master T is is one of those guys, I would think. Yeah, T is one of the guys who's hard to get to do anything. Okay, gotcha. And I've learned that from everybody else.

You know, there's a bunch of segments that I thought that they could have introduced. Certainly, Terry David Mulligan should have been part of it because, because he was much West was part of the original launch. Right. He talked himself into it, you know, at that point. Right. But they didn't talk to Terry and I don't know whether that's the tried.

And he said, no, T would probably just would have said no. Well, I got T down here. I got him down here for two hours to talk my ear off about much music stuff. and Terry David Mulligan, although he's, he zoomed in like yourself cause you're much East, he's much West. So, right. got him down here for two hours to talk my ear off about much music stuff so and terry david mulligan although he's he zoomed in like yourself because you're much east he's much west so right

but you know you know i i can't wait to see this thing regardless and uh you know i have a lot of nostalgia for uh the much music that i grew up with so well it's um i can tell you that you will be entertained uh you won't even notice the two hours went by you'll wish that uh and i already talked to sean the director about it said you've got to talk to crave let them into the archives let them into the archives for good and start and make this like a limited series of some kind that they can run on air they can run on craves they can run on much they can take all of the shows that they've done and do specials on them easily. They could do Rap City,

they could do The Power Hour, they could do Mike and Mike's Excellent Cross-Cadet Adventures, all of these things. There's so much content that they have and they spent, God knows they spent fortunes getting it. I can't believe they haven't got it all digitized yet.

That astonishes me. I will shout out my buddy, Retro Ontario. His name's Ed Conroy. He goes by the name Retro Ontario. I know he and Joel Goldberg, who are now working for Moses at the Zoomerplex, they work for Zoomerplex. But I know they did want access to the Much archives to do this before the Sean Menard project, which obviously happened.

But they kind of hit some barriers with regards to expense. They wanted some music used, and it was going to get very expensive, and it never happened. But I'm looking forward to watching this. I'm glad you're a part of it, but I can't believe I got that story. And I know others have had this story,

Erica M., for example, but I got that story, and the doc is missing that story. I love that story and i know you know others have had this story erica m for example but i got that story and the doc is missing that story i love that story you just shared it's well it was a life-changing moment you know i was busy doing my little art attack which is what we shrink wrap framing company was called right and uh you know there was only two of us doing it and it took up all my time and I was also traveling back and forth to Toronto because my girlfriend was modeling in Toronto and I had a place in Toronto

and I was staying with my brother in Ottawa when I could get there and I really honestly didn't have a hell of a lot of time to pull this together thanks to Erica calling me without a hell of a lot of notice and but you know I mean i talk to students all the time and one of the things i try and tell them is you never know an opportunity you know like it's not going to come up and say hey this is going to

change your life i did it because a i believe that much music should get the license because they already had a TV station. They already worked in music. They'd done the new music show. They had the satellite dishes. They could get this thing up and running in a hurry, which I thought was necessary. In fact, I thought it was critical. And plus, I'd never dealt with a CRTC before, so I had no idea how it worked or how they made decisions or anything else.

So for me, it was just a new experience. Changed your life, yeah. Why not spend some of my time doing it? And it turned into something, like I said, that changed my life. And if I hadn't responded to that letter, who knows? I might be rich now. I love it. Hey, you dropped the name Attic Records.

So I got to ask you because last year we lost FOTM Alexander Mayer, sadly, passed away. So I'm going to ask you about Alex, but also a couple of guys who came over just to tell me Attic Records story. Kevin Shea and Steve Waxman. So what can you share with us about your time at Attic and Alex Mayer? Well, when I was there before Kevin and before Waxman, there was like six people in the office when I started.

And I think I started in 1979 or maybe early 80s. I think it was late 1979. I've been working at Attic, and a friend of mine said that there was an opening for a shipper at Attic Records. And I've been working at A&A. And in my mind, you know, you did the retail thing. You did it well. Somebody noticed you. You got hired at a record company.

You moved up the ranks. Next thing you know, you're the A&R hired in a record company you moved up the ranks next thing you know you're the A&R guy which is what I wanted to be because I spent all my time going to see live music that's what I did and a friend of mine went and interviewed for the job and that for some reason still unknown to me he told me about it because I hadn't even heard about heard about it and then told me to go to Attic and interview for the job. So I went in and saw Tom Williams, who was the vice president. Attic was an old company at that point, but they were Canada's largest independent record label, one of the few. So he sat me down in his office and he said, look, how old are you? And I said, well, you know, I just turned 26. And he and he goes look here's the thing

we need a shipper that's what we need i don't need somebody with ambitions who wants to do whatever the hell you're thinking but i'm hiring a shipper and i'm like i'll be the best shipper you ever had i shipped and received at record stores i know how to do this. It's like, no problem. I can alphabetize everything. I can spell. I can type. I'm an English major. I can write. I can do all this stuff. And so he said, well, go in to see Ralph Alfonso, who was the current shipper when I was there. Right. F-O-T-M, Ralph Alfonso. Love it. Keep going. This is great. So Ralphie and I talked for about 15 minutes, and he said, all right, you've got the job. So then I became the shipper, and I applied myself diligently to the job, which included, you know, making coffee, going to get cookies,

refilling the stamp machine, go to the post office, mail packages, haul albums from the plant up the stairs with a dolly because it was Attic Records and it was in the attic but it had no elevator, and started sending singles and albums out to university radio stations, which had just really started. And I, of course, experienced one in Ottawa with CKCU, which was probably the first serious college radio station in the country. And not only did they send the records, but they sent a little newsletter out called College Corner,

spelled with Ks, and just shot my mouth off and tried to be funny and talked about the new releases, even included like a little postage paid postcard with it, with the albums and the singles I'd sent them, that they could check off and tell me if they'd played them. But university radio stations were so unorganized, they're fairly good, I need traction on it. But I'm the one who started it.

And after a year of working there, I decided I'd sit down at my typewriter and i would write a report so i wrote a report called a year in shipping an unsolicited report by mike campbell and my bosses al and tom both laughed their holes off and realized that you know i did have ambitions and they were not going to thwart them. And the company was starting to grow at that point. So I was promoted out of the shippers department and moved to the production department.

So it was up to me to decide or to work with the pressing plants and decide how many copies of the new release to press, you know, how many, which ones we should bother with all of that kind of stuff and it was also up to me to hire the new shipper who turned out to be dave mcmillan who went on with a very you know went on with attic and then a long career with emi records and stomping tom's personal dude at the label wow. What's the most copies of anything you had pressed in your time with that responsibility? Well, probably, you know, I mean, the biggest selling records that we were making at the time because Triumph was hitting was probably Triumph.

Right. But I would be remiss if I did not mention the Irish Rovers. Wasn't that a party, which was massive massive big jam yeah and uh katrina and the waves of course walking on the sunshine right which attic was the first uh territory anywhere in the world to release that record and we were and as the shipper i was the uh telex operator if anybody knows what that is, and Twix. So I would get the deal, and then I would type it out on the tape and then run it through the telex machine, and we'd go over to Europe.

And the deal for Katrina, I think Al, I wrote about this in my Carlton newsletter once, but I think Al corrected me. And I said, but I think the advance was like 300 you know 13 royalty rate and you guys supply film and uh and uh the master tapes and we didn't have any film for cover because it wasn't any and we spent about 10 bucks on it was white with katrina and the waves there was no liner notes there was no fuck all-all. It was just absolutely that. And then all of a sudden, Walking on Sunshine became a hit. But the reason that we even got that tape in the first place

was Kimberly Rue sent it to Ralph Alfonso, who was sort of our de facto A&R guy at the time, and we'd released the Soft Boys' soft boys underwater moonlight record kim was part of that band and when they split or when he left uh the new project was katrina and the waves so he sent it to ralph first so we had first shot at it and it was a hit in canada and then the americans took it added a bunch of horns and it turned into a mega hit, and I still hear it every day. And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door Now every time I go for the mailbox I gotta hold myself down Cause I just can't wait till you write me you're coming around

Now I'm walking on sunshine, whoa I'm walking on sunshine, whoa I'm walking on sunshine, whoa And it's time to feel good, hey All right now, and it's time to feel good Hey All right now It's time to feel good Hey Yeah

I used to think maybe you love me Now I know that it's true Alternative title for this episode, Mike and Mike's Excellent Cross-Canada Adventure. We'll get back to Mike Campbell in a moment. I want to thank Great Lakes Brewery. They brew fresh craft beer right here in Southern Etobicoke. You can get it across this fine province of Ontario.

While you're in Ontario, visit Palma Pasta, four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. Delicious, authentic Italian food. RecycleMyElectronics.ca is where you go if you need to know where you can drop off your old tech, your old devices, your old printer, your old telex machine. Don't throw it in the garbage. Go to RecycleMymyelectronics.ca.

If you want to give your business a boost, don't wait any longer. Contact my friends Matt and Jared at The Moment Lab and learn more about how they can help you achieve your public relations goals. I'm more than happy to make the intro. to achieve your public relations goals. I'm more than happy to make the intro. I'd also like to introduce you to the Yes, We Are Open podcast, a Moneris podcast production. This thing's won awards because it's good,

and it's hosted by FOTM Al Grego. He'll be back on Toronto Mike soon to talk more about season four. Get inspired. Get, yes, we are open. And last but not least, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Life's Undertaking is Brad Jones' excellent podcast. I get to co-host. We're recording a new episode tomorrow.

Pillars of this community since 1921 now back to mike Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, give me And I feel good It's everywhere. If you go back, especially the movies in the mid to late 80s, you're watching a movie and it just kind of shows up. It's all over the place. That's, you know, love that record, love that band, got a chance to meet them, got a chance to work with them. And the other reason I liked Attic was that they were looking at,

you know know up and coming levels of bands and when i first got to toronto i was lucky enough to be there i moved there from ottawa in like late 78 i was like right on the cusp of you know the punk explosion everything happened i was there to see the clash play the o'keefe center and the fans trashed the place and uh it was also the last gasp of the music industry when i was working a and a so i was on the permanent guest list of the oma combo so i used to you know saw joe jackson's first shows there so blondie saw the cars saw saw everybody that played that venue at the time and uh you know to treat it basically like royalty because

i was in those days music uh uh record store clerks were the people on the ground selling records to people you know so it was um that was really what gave me the impetus to to to just like follow up on i was such a freak about it. And Attic, I used to go out and see Teenage Head all the time, and I used to go out and see Johnny and the G-Rays and the Vile Tones and the B-Girls and all of these other bands. And Teenage Head was my favorite, and Attic signed them.

And then Johnny and the G-Rays was my second favorite band, and Attic signed them too. So it was a great thrill to work with guys I'd been fans of and was pulling for really, really hard. All right, Mike, I've got to get you back to much music here. Now, you mentioned, I think you said six different jobs. How many different responsibilities did you have during your tenure? Well, I started out as Affiliate Relations Rep for Western Canada,

which meant I visited every little cable company uh west of ontario for the better part of i don't know six months or something my first trip was was epic and then i hit on the idea of why not drag a vj along with me on these trips because uh we would get like the front page of the major newspaper, every major city in color with a full interview and a big picture. And the first VJ I did that with was J.D. Roberts. So I did that for a while. And then I became what was known as a special appearances coordinator, which I did this with all the VJs.

I took all of them as they arrived, Mike, well, Eric, Mike Williams, eventually even Christopher Ward, Steve Anthony. I took them all across the country on press and publicity trips. So special appearance coordinator, and then because of my knowledge of the country they decided to make me a national field reporter which was my job to travel the country and ferret out news and i needed a well i didn't need a producer because effectively when i was on the road with the vjs we took a camera and i became a field producer but when they asked me to do it one of my friends at the station mike rhodes who was working for rock flash who was like completely fed up with being stuck in

the station was looking for a way out so i just kind of put my finger to my cheek and just went jeez i don't know if i could work without a producer maybe mike rhodes so they sent the two of us on the road for a year just traveling around looking for news stories which in those days you know first you had to shoot the story then you had to get the tape then you had to get the tape to the airport in an early morning or late night or early morning flight then it had to fly to toronto and land on an editor's desk at like six in the morning then they had to edit it by the time they did all of that shit a there was no time to promote it was happening and b it was already old news really so they wound up dragging mike and i into uh the general manager's office one day we thought we were going to get

fired because it's costing a lot of money and they said but we've heard about your adventures most of them off camera so we think that what we should do is give youtube bozos a show where you just travel across the country and just do stuff and go down and see john martin in the programming department and tell him or ask him what he wants you to do so i went down with this great idea it was like you know i think it should be like a rock and roll fucking survival guide to canada you know if you're in lethbridge where do you buy guitar strings after hours where's the best late night burger what are the clubs what are the cool bands all of this stuff and john was just shaking his head go no i don't want that i was like well if

it isn't that what is it he said well i want it to be a combination of real people and that's incredible or something and i'm like what is that and give me an example he says well go to some high school tell the whole high school tell the principal you want the entire high school out in the athletic field put the camera on the roof tell the students to spell much music with their bodies that was our only advice and then he said go off and have a nice time so that show morphed into we had no idea what we're doing to doing it for six years still not having any idea what we were doing but it turned into more of a just two bozos with curiosity wandering around the country and it i they kept changing the time of it and all the rest of it,

but it developed a cult following. And there was nothing funnier than running into people that we would just show up in some place. And, like, I remember once we drove from Edmonton all the way to this place called Glendon, Alberta, in the north. It was about a two-and-a-half, three-hour drive just to see this new big thing they built which was the world's largest parochia on a fork um if anyone knew what we

were doing anyway we drove and it was the winter by the time we got there it was dark thank god the thing was lit it was literally there was a elevator, there was a couple of small houses, there was like a general store, and there was this giant pierogi on a fork. So we shot that. We walked into the general store thinking maybe there was a lapel pin or some souvenir that we could buy. And I swear to God, this is true. There was a kid working behind the counter. There was nobody in the store. It was like 7 o'clock at night, and he's reading a newspaper,

and he heard the door open, opened it up, saw us walk in, put his paper down, and went, Mike and Mike, I was wondering when you were going to get here. And that's kind of the way it worked out for us. So it was a great job, and from there I decided the show was, well, I knew the show was ending so i had the opportunity to move to halifax and i started much east okay pause pause pause because i want to play a little just a little bit of the final episode of mike and mike's excellent

adventure why does it and just ran its course just uh why does it end mike and mike's excellent well it ends because it was expensive and much music at the time uh if you know the history of it was doing all manner of shit that i thought was egregious they stopped producing their own programming they started buying programming from much music or from much much or from mtv which was ostensibly our competitor, they started airing cartoons and movies and stuff, and they got rid of their most expensive things. In some cases, it was people, on-air people making too much money, programming which cost too much to do.

Plus, with Mike & Mike, we've been doing it for six years. We've been pretty much everywhere there was to be in this country at that point, including the far north and places that no one has ever been. So it had run its course, yeah. Okay, let's listen to a couple of minutes just to take us back here. This is the final episode. I did it! You ready? Yeah.

Chip, could you get out of the shot please? Sorry. Clear the shot. Clear the shot, yeah. You're in the shot. Please. Right out of the shot, please. Clear the shot. You're in the shot. Please. Right out of the shot, please. Thank you. Today? Today would be nice.

Hi, I'm Mike. And I'm Mike Olson. Welcome to Mike and Mike's Excellent Cross-Canada Adventures. The last one. The last one. This is it. This is it. This is the last show. This is the last time we're ever going to say that. It's kind of a last one. The last one. This is it. This is it. This is the last show.

This is the last time we're ever going to say that. It's kind of a special one. This is the last adventure. This is it. It's over. This is the last show. We're going to start off in Edmonton

because that's where we started five years ago. And we're finishing here in Halifax because we felt like it. That takes you back. Do you want to hear how you finished things up?

So that was the very beginning, obviously. We heard the theme, but I did pull the very last words you said on this show. You want to hear that? Sure. Good, because I want to hear it. Here we go. I swore I wasn't going to get camped and felt. I knew just at this moment. I'm not going to get camped and felt.

And there was that day. It was almost six years ago, five and a half, six years ago. Sitting around in the office minding our own business. Not doing anything, which we got very good at. And we got called upstairs in the office. Today we thought we were going to get fired. We thought they'd caught on to our act and we were going to fire our butts out of there. And they didn't.

No, they gave us this show. How long did you think it was going to last? When they gave us the show, what did you think? I mean, seriously. What? Two buttheads traveling across the country talking to more buttheads. And I'd give that show a week. Maybe a week.

Especially with us. I'm going to miss this part. It's come six years to to find us For a bit. It's a good run. What did you think we went across Canada? Oh? Hazardous guess 20 times probably It's a great land great land Which we like to say bound by a ribbon of steel

Overseas of waving wheat through majestic mountains. Oh Canada you must be a excellent land They have to six years we got the timing down on that right But I don't know Guess I'm gonna just head off over there somewhere Right over there. I'm gonna go that way. Yeah, okay. Well, take care. See you. See you later.

That was great. Wow. Takes you back. Wow. Yeah, great stuff. And then you mentioned, is it much east? So tell me, is it because you had a much west, you you need a much east and then i do have a little clip of much

east and then i have a question about much each but tell east but tell me how much i mean much east was something that they always wanted to do and there was a lot of um uh folks that had sent in you know ideas for it but i always had the feeling that they wouldn't do it unless someone that they knew was actually going to host the show. So when I got to Halifax, and I knew the Mike and Mike show was ending, I did it from Halifax for about a year, and then when it ended, as it was no surprise to me, they wanted to start Much East, and Denise Donilon said,

the good news is we're starting Much East, and you're going to host it. And the bad news is you're also going to be the cameraman, the producer, and the editor. But at the time, and again, my luck held perfectly because when I got to Halifax, everything was about to happen. The Halifax Pop Explosion had just started. There were bands everywhere. Sub Pop was coming to the region and signing everybody that moved.

It was a perfect time to start that show, and I think if it had started any earlier, it would have been premature and it wouldn't have worked but my timing worked out again so there was a lot of stuff to cover and i had an entire ride four provinces to deal with so there was an awful lot of traveling still involved but um you know it was a great opportunity to discover new music which i did a lot of well i'm hoping this little clip of a much east episodes we can hear that theme and get the It was a great opportunity to discover new music, which I did a lot of. Well, I'm hoping this little clip of Much East episodes, we can hear that theme and get the nostalgia,

the more nostalgic feelings, and then we can talk a little bit about that scene in The Maritimes because it was like Seattle of the North, I suppose. But here, let's listen to a bit of this, and then we'll talk about that. Sure. I suppose, but here, let's listen to a bit of this and then we'll talk about that. Sure. Every second that goes by brings us closer to the end of not only the decade and the

century, but the millennium. Don't overuse that word just one more time. And as such, the last show of 1999, the last show of the millennium here for Much East, we've got our best of, our annual best of the year's videos. So don't go away. All right, we've got a big show packed with lots and lots of videos, because 1999 was a good year for videos from the East Coast, so we're going to get right to it. The first three bands we've got a big show packed with lots and lots of videos, because 1999 was a good year for videos from the East Coast,

so we're going to get right to it. The first three bands we've got up for you have all had impressive years. We're going to be playing Steal My Sunshine from Len. Just one of those catchy tunes. Probably a huge surprise for a lot of people, but not to us, because we always knew they had it in them. Flashing Lights High School, Matt Murphy's band. They were just back here in town, and they had a great year,

and they're looking forward to another one. But first, our perennial faves here on Much East, and I think perennial faves for plenty of folks around the country, Sloan, who, astonishingly, and I still can't believe this, were not nominated for a single East Coast Music Award this year. Now, I know that they probably didn't submit anything for awards, but you know what? It's just wrong not to have them on the list. There'll be plenty more about that at some future point.

You can bet your boots on it. So, this is Sloan, losing California here on the Best of 99 on Much East. Alright, a couple of questions. One is, at least two members of Sloan are FOTMs, because they're Toronto guys now.

They've moved west to Toronto, if you will. Do you have any Sloan stories for me? Because, man, I love Sloan. I still love Sloan. Let me hear a Sloan story. Sloan, when I first saw them and I first got down and keeping in mind that the stuff I was running into on the road that was hip and happening was like the hip and Tom Cochran and all these other people. So when I arrived in Halifax, my ears were not attuned to the indie production, et cetera, et cetera.

I had an awful lot of education ahead of me, which I dove headfirst into. And the very first time I saw Sloan, I was like, these guys aren't very good. Like their harmonies aren't very good. They're kind of hacks as musicians and all of that kind of stuff. But they played all the time. So the more they played, the better they got, obviously.

And their songwriting their songwriting was always good but their live performance was kind of sketchy off the top and then i got to meet them all and they all have incredibly distinct personalities they're all completely fucking different right um when i did interviews with them i always wanted to do something a little different or something special i can still remember the look on Chris Murphy's face when he came in to do an interview with me at the shoe shop in Toronto and realized that I'd been sitting at a table with my microphone out interviewing his mother and Patrick Pentland's mother because I hadn't told them so I got all kinds of dirt on those guys from their moms,

especially after a couple of glasses of wine. I had bronchitis once so bad when I was shooting a show at the McGinnis Room at Dow. I just handed the microphone to Chris and gave the show to him, which he should have had anyway. I mean, he's a born host right and uh for a guy who doesn't drink smoke or do anything he's one of the loopiest guys i know and also one of the smartest and the other thing that i'm afraid and i just saw them a couple of months ago here in halifax

and the one thing that i'm afraid that people are not aware of is that, A, not only are they still making records, they're making better records than they've ever made. Like I've had to send them personal notes. Like when I got a copy of Never Hear the End of It, I had to send something to everybody saying, I don't care what anybody thinks. This is a masterpiece. This is fantastic.

And I love the fact that they're still together after all these years and they're still doing it. I agree with you, but I think it's a tougher band like Sloan, which is thought of as like some kind of a heritage nineties nostalgia band. Cause everybody wants to hear, everybody wants to hear like underwhelmed, right?

It doesn't matter that the new album might be fucking great. And I agree with you about the new Sloan. It's great. That lead single was as good as anything Sloan's put out. But it almost doesn't matter. I have this talk of Lois DeLow all the time because they're good friends of the show. Oh, John and the boys.

Fuck, I love them. Like, they're new stuff, Lois DeLow. They keep putting out new music. It's fucking great. And some of it does stick because I see them. Like, they're new stuff, Lowest to Low. They keep putting out new music. It's fucking great. And some of it does stick because I see them live a lot. I got COVID at the Lowest to Lowest show

at the Lee's Palace in December. But the fact is we all want to hear Shakespeare My Butt. In fact, I always close every episode of Toronto Mic

with a song from Shakespeare My Butt. But tough to be a band like Sloan with the great new music because everybody wants to hear the earlier stuff. But I have to ask you something about that clip from Much East. Can you tell me what provinces was Much East supposed to be focused on?

Well, Much East, I mean, strictly through strength of numbers, it was focused on Nova Scotia because it had the biggest had the biggest population yeah um but certainly when i was starting out there was enough stuff happening in monkton and there was enough stuff happening in cape breton and there was enough stuff happening at pei and there was enough stuff happening in newfoundland for me to you know like yeah i didn't i didn't need an excuse to go over to those places

to find the bands that were up and coming. New Brunswick was a bit of a problem just because they didn't really have that much of a scene there. Right. Outside of Moncton, like, I'm talking Frederick to St. John. I had a tough time wrangling enough talent for a show. But I made a point of going to every single major city in Atlanta, Canada, at least once a year, and sometimes twice a year.

And I would always go to the East Coast Music Awards, which rotated around. So I would generally get to see everybody. rotate it around so I would generally get to see everybody. So I did not want it to be a Halifax-centric place any more than I wanted Much Music to be a Toronto-centric place. We build ourselves as the nation's music station, and unless you're out in the country, you've got no clue. David Kine sent me a box full of goodies,

and this is one of the items in the I've got all kinds of that shit. I've got jackets. But the reason I'm asking is because in that clip we just played from the best of 1999, you're throwing to Lens Steal My Sunshine.

I need education here because firstly, I always thought Lens as a Toronto band. This is a Toronto band. I know he's from Quebec, I think, Montreal or something. thought Len as a Toronto band. This is a Toronto band. I know he's from, like, Quebec, I think, Montreal or something. But this is a Toronto band. How do you get them on Much East? Well, because a couple of the members of them were from the East Coast. See, that's what I'm missing here.

Okay. The Drunkness Monster is from the East Coast. Okay. And they were all associated with, like, Cory Bowles and Hip Club Groove, who were all happening and lived in a trailer park in Truro. Oh, that qualifies you for sure. Okay, because I always think of Lena's Toronto Band. I just think, hey, that's a Toronto Band.

Well, I haven't run into Mark Costanzo in years. And last time I did, he was in the Feldman Age. It seemed we just happened to run into each other. All the interviews I did with them were in Halifax, and there was more than three of them at the time. I think there was four, and half of them were from the East Coast, and they loved the East Coast, spent a lot of time here, so we adopted them. I'm going to allow it.

So I was going to say, like, what are you doing taking that band from us and from Much East? But it sounds like they're worthy of Much East focus, so I apologize. Well, you know, I think a lot of people consider Sloan a Toronto band. I still consider them a Halifax band. Do people consider Sarah McLachlan a Maritimes artist, like a Halifax artist anymore? Not anymore.

I don't think so. I mean, we acknowledge the fact she was born here. She got her start here. She was the Kocek girl in the flamingo and indie rock club she had a band here called the october game that she was in before a network scooped her up and took her out to the west coast best thing that ever happened to her she's somebody that was born from here and feels like the west coast is where she belongs i was born in vancouver and i feel like the east coast is where i belong okay before we say goodbye this has been so amazing but i need

to find out how why does it end for you at much music like give me the uh the exit of much music for mike campbell well the exit of much music was one of those things that you know just like a train coming down a tunnel you could just see it you know as as somebody who was on much east who had my own program i was in the enviable place of nobody ever telling me what to do what to cover what songs to play none of that stuff i didn't have to pay any attention to the hit parade i didn't have to pay any attention to anything it was just what i wanted to do and then again that's another cost-cutting thing they decide that they're going to take the one hour much west and the one hour much east and then ram it together into a one-hour program called going coastal which is like that's the death now but i was still willing to do stuff and when they they just

decided i was too old for television at that point but at least i got to pick my own successor they actually had a cattle call at a hotel here for people to replace me which i thought was ignorant and i told them i already had the guy and he was not going to the cattle call and uh that you know he used to play in a band and uh from newfoundland and all of those things so you know i eventually got the people that i wanted hired to do the thing but it was the end of the road for me they had a gigantic party for me at the marquee club uh that every single artist that i could think of played plaskett played maize played lenny galant played jimmy plant and jimmy rankin played and the one band that i asked

for and i said if i have one choice if there's only one band I can have play this, my big final hurrah, I want it to be Blackpool, which was the first Nova Scotian band to be signed to a label outside of Nova Scotia. That band, Chris Murphy played bass in, as a for instance. Wow. And what the fuck's his name now?

The drummer, Chip Sutherland, heads the Star Maker Fund. He also manages Feist. And Sloan, still, titularly, he's an entertainment lawyer. And John Wesley Chisholm was a guitar player who won a Juno with Johnny Favorite and Phil Sidor was the other guitar player so it was a four-piece band. They had two records out to this day.

I think they're two of the best Canadian records ever released. Wow. Chip hadn't played drums in so long. Chris flew in from Toronto to do the gig. Chip hadn't played drums in so long. Chris flew in from Toronto to do the gig. Chip hadn't played drums in so long that went into the music shop to buy drumsticks. Everybody laughed at him. And they played a full set,

and that was like the highlight of my much-music-de-nu-mom. And I also actually started doing hosting stuff even before I got my first camera gig as a host on indie street way back in the toronto days back in like way way back when i was still doing my other jobs so i think that's six jobs i had at one point i also have mic flashes for star tv movie television bravo and all of those things because i covered events on the East Coast for all of those networks while I was in town and not on the road. So it was a great gig, the best gig anybody could have, actually,

what it turned into. I still don't know what it turned into. I haven't watched much music in so long. I don't even know what it is. It might be Simpsons reruns i'm not sure but uh it's something that it isn't it's something that it was never intended to be and uh when we sold it then i knew the shit was coming to an end actually i knew stuff was coming to an end when i was told that we weren't playing certain stuff that I thought was fantastic because it wasn't being reported at retail and radio wasn't on it.

And back in the olden days when we were the tail wagging the dog, we didn't give a rat's ass if it was on the radio or if anybody was buying it. We made radio play stuff. Where would Moeg be if you guys didn't play i'm an adult now that first cheap in adult i'm an adult video that they shot in the parking lot outside the bamboo yeah where would they be who knows who knows they certainly probably wouldn't have gotten signed to em to emi todd rungren would produce their first record right i even had mo out here as one of my headliners for my halifax urban folk festival

which i do every year of which i will plug uh this year will be the 14th year my genius idea about that is i can't afford to do anything so I would just fly in the songwriter, the singer, and then in order to get the full rock experience, I put together an Halifax All-Star band made up of the best players in Halifax to do their stuff for them. And I've had people like David Perner from Soul Asylum and Dwight Twilley and Norman Blake from Teenage Fan Club and Matthew Sweet and Tiff Merritt and every Canadian you can think of from Moe Berg to Neil Osborne to John K. Sampson. of these folks have flown in for virtually no money to come and play in my tiny little club

for this urban folk festival so named because it takes place in the city instead of a field with porta potties and mosquitoes and bullshit like that mike you're living your best life man this has been amazing for me i hope you enjoyed this i know i did i had a great time i would talk to you anytime you want. And that brings us to the end of our 1,243rd show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Moneris is at Moneris. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore

Canada. The Moment Lab are at The Moment Lab. And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. See you soon when my next guest is Alan Frew from Glass Tiger. Read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in

Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold but the sky is snow Everything is kind of rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow wants me to dance. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because 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 will 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 Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't stay today

And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green 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 it's true How about you? While they're picking up trash and they're putting down ropes 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 warms me today And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you

Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away

Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy, yeah Everything is rosy and gray, yeah, yeah