Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Moe Berg: Toronto Mike'd #1230

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

In this 1230th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Moe about a recurring memory he has involving the opening of I'm An Adult Now. 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 1230 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. 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.

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Pillars of this community since 1921. I loved the Pursuit of Happiness's I'm an Adult Now from the and I adored the entire album. Moe Berg has been over and we did a great deep dive, but that was years ago. And I'm still kind of haunted by a bait and switch I would experience on 102.1 The Edge. Moe was decent enough to jump on a Zoom with me so I could scratch that itch. Here's that conversation. How are you doing? How are things? Everything's okay.

That would be a good way to put it. Okay, well, I'm sorry that they're not fantastic. Okay is good. Okay is better than bad. That's for sure. Better than bad, it's good. At some point, we got to get you back to the TMDS studio here to kick out the jams with me. All right. Does that a commitment?

This summer, the return of Moe, because it's been a while. You, you last visited in October, 2018. And if listeners are looking for like a deep dive with Moe Berg, there's a,

that episode is a episode 384. And there's kind of an amazing ongoing history of Moe Berg and the pursuit of happiness. So people can find 90 minutes of us chatting in episode 384. So what brings us together today, Moe? Moe, I was on a, like a bike ride, which I'm apt to do. I'm on a bike ride. And my mind started hearing the opening of I'm an Adult Now. So I'm going to ask you some questions, just a few questions about I'm an Adult Now

and play short clips of the song and just roll with me and give me what you can. But there's a 1986 version. So in 1986, that's the first time you record i'm an adult now right that's right where did you record that first version like give me just give me a little like bio on where and why and all that jazz for the original version of i'm an adult now right so um so when the band first started we were looking for gigs on Queen Street and we needed some sort of demo tape. And so we had a friend, this guy named Scott DeSmit, and he was a friend of mine. Well, we knew him from back in Edmonton and he'd moved to Toronto and he had a little studio set up like a 16 track Fostex kind of studio in his basement.

And so we went in and recorded in his basement and those are like electronic drums on there. And, you know, we just kind of put it together there and it was just like on a demo tape. So we had, we recorded four songs probably over like a day or two. And, and then we used it as a demo. So that's, and then many things happened after that in order for it to get to where it got to but that was the origins of the song okay i'm gonna play like the first 20 or so seconds of that

original version okay mo that's the first 20 seconds or so of the original recording of i'm an adult now what can you share with me about how that opening came together? Like, get as deep in the weeds as you can, but like, how did that 20 seconds come together? Yeah, so, I mean, I wrote this song when I still lived in Edmonton, and so it was, and I guess I sort of figured out an arrangement, sort of, even back then, and I used to play of figured out an arrangement sort of, but even back then, and I used to play it just by myself,

but when you, back when I wrote that song, there was no cell phones or, or I didn't have any like recording equipment at home. So basically you'd, you'd most of the song ideas I had, I would be walking around somewhere. I'd be somewhere and something would come my head.

So you'd have to sit there and think about it and think about it and ruminate and ruminate over it so that you didn't forget it. When you get home and you play it on your guitar, right? Be somewhere. And it's something that come to my head. So you'd have to sit there and think about it and think about it and ruminate and ruminate over it so that you didn't forget it. When you get home and you play on your guitar like a hundred times, so you didn't forget it. And that's kind of how you wrote songs back then. Now people, you know, people say, well, I used to, you know, call into my, my answering machine and I would sing it into my answering machine. And then people got cell phones and they could sing it into their phone. But back then I didn't have any of that stuff. So, so then when we put the band together, it was just kind of a, that beat sort of came.

And I don't know if I came up with it or Dave Gilby or a drummer came up with it, that sort of beat. And it just seemed like it was kind of a, it sort of established the sort of energy of the song, that drum beat. And so we did that. And then why we came in sort of on the sort of energy of the song, that drum beat. And so we did that. And then why we came in sort of on that anticipated beat, like we don't come right in on the beat. It's kind of a rush thing. Why we did that, I honestly can't remember, but it's kind of,

it's very, it turned out to be a very effective thing because it's kind of a little bit unexpected. And I think that also created a bit of energy. So yeah, it was just kind of that natural jamming process when you have a song and you start working it out with your fellow musicians. It's sort of that's kind of how it turned out. Okay, so did all four of those songs in that demo you referenced there,

did all four of those songs make it to Love Junk? No, only two did. Okay, so I'm an adult now, now obviously what was the other song that made it there uh i think she's so young was was one also one of the songs that we put on that yeah and then there was two other songs there was one called if you feel that way which ended up on our love junk um deluxe edition and then another song called the revolutionary which i don't think we ever did anything with okay and again for listeners because this is like a mini episode people are used to uh when they tune into an episode of toronto mic they're like okay this is

gonna be like 80 90 minutes but no no not this one this is a shorter one on a very specific uh itch i need to scratch my wife who's from edmonton mo just passed me a uh coffee uh what neighborhood are you from say it again oh she's from millwoods oh yeah i know i know that mo's from edmonton too i remember when millwoods became a thing it wasn't always there oh so it wasn't always there millwoods it became a thing at some point uh yeah oh she's looking like she doesn't know this okay well she's only 41 years old so maybe she doesn't know pre-millwoods but okay all right that's enough edmond that's for edmonton mike and that's enough edmonton 10 talk okay all right so i'm gonna play the first again

the first 20 seconds of the love junk version of i'm an adult now i don't hate my parents Okay, Mo, what are the, I mean, I can hear differences, but what are the primary differences between the original version of I'm an Adult Now and the Love Junk version of I'm an Adult Now? The first thing you can hear is the drums. So the drums, as I said on the original version, were electronic drums. And back then, electronic drums were terrible. They're pretty good now. But back then they were terrible.

And so it was all when you listen to that snare drum, it sounds very unnatural. And also back then, which would have been the 80s, there was a sort of a sound in 80s music, which was like a sort of a gated reverb on the snare. So the snare, if you listen to music from the 80s, the snare always sounds absolutely crazy. And everybody sort of bought into this this and it kind of dates music a bit i feel like it i don't know what what it does to our song but you can definitely hear that also so the drums sound 100 times better on the todd rungan produced version so and that's no shade on scott it's just like we didn't have the ability to record live drums in his basement.

So and then and then, you know, just the sort of fuller sounding, you know, guitars and bass and a better mix. I mean, Todd Rundgren is one of the greatest producers of all time. So I would have a certain expectation that his his recording of it might be a little bit better than what we could. You'd hope so, right, Mo? Like, come on, this is Todd Rundgren. Well, you know what I think of Love Junk, I told you when you visited. Loved it and still love it, actually. And I just will tease that if people haven't heard that original episode with Mo,

just go back and hear the story of how you ended up with Todd Rundgren producing your debut album, Love Junk. It's just, it's a great story unto itself. But, and the other story I love, just before I get to the crux of this chat, we're almost there, Mo, but I love this story. Maybe you can share it again. I don't say greatest hits of Mo Berg, but the recording of the video for I'm an Adult Now and walking over to whatever, 299 Queen Street

and how it ends up in high rotation. If you don't mind like i feel like you're a jukebox i'm just going to press the button but if you give us that and then i'll play the first 20 seconds of another song and then we'll get to the heart of this yeah so yeah so as i said we recorded this four song demo in order to try and get some some uh gigs and whatnot and so i i had a friend who was a film director who worked at the national film board which i don't even know he even exists anymore um and so they i'm assuming it does um and so he and we were friends and we were you know he was a fan of our

band and whatnot and so we we um he said we should do a video and videos were kind of in their infancy back then it was you know this was like the mid 80s 86 87 right and so I said sure let's do this and so we we he had a friend who had a camera and had some film stock and we just kind of wandered around Toronto and he they just filmed me you know so I I walked you know they filmed me from from my apartment on you know Bathurst and St. Clair and then we went downtown to Yonge Street and just filming there. And then on, we had a one sort of major shoot where we set up right in front of that

corner where the bamboo used to be that sort of Queen and Soho or something like that. And we just got a bunch of our friends to just sort of walk through the shot as we pretended we were busking. And so we just kind of did that for an afternoon. You know, when i think about video shoots that we did later they were all like 16 hours long but this was not and so anyway so we we did the video and he we you know they got got Nell who edited it together i believe he was the

one who did edit the editing and we just kind of had a video and was like cool and we were really struggling as a band trying to get gigs and, you know, just trying to work things out for ourselves in Toronto. And then, you know, but we had a friend who worked at Much Music and a woman named Joni Daniels. And she encouraged us to take the video and see if you could get some play on like City Limits, which was an alternative music show on Much Music when it started. And so, you know, I literally wandered in the front door and said, I've got a video. And I think maybe Joni greased the wheels for us a little bit. So the woman took the video and we figured, oh, let's hopefully this weekend on City Limits, because I think it was like Sunday night. I said, maybe they'll throw the video on. And so we kind

of sat there in anticipation thinking. And then all of a sudden the next day, this woman calls me and says, we're going to put it it into rotation and so it wasn't like heavy rotation but they were gonna play it and so this is crazy like uh you know so it was obviously very exciting for us like we went from having nothing going on absolutely nothing to our video possibly being played on much music and so at that that we sort of set up a little tour for ourselves going out to western canada because all of us had sort of set up a little tour for ourselves going out to western canada because all of us had sort of these contacts in western canada because we all grew up there right and we went and did this tour and it was you know we the tour was just average and we were

driving all together with our gear in one van and the shows were kind of not amazing shows and every time we got somewhere we'd go sit at the bar and ask them if they put on much music to see if we see the video and all of a sudden we saw the video and it was you know thrilling obviously and um and then when we i what i had um i've been trying to get us a gig at the rivoli for people who from toronto would know the rivoli it's a you know a legendary music club slash restaurant on queen street and i've been begging the guy begging the guy please let us play there and he really didn't want to to do this show and then he of said, well, if you can find another artist and do a double bill, then, you know, we'll, we'll do it, you know? And so we went on

this tour and then when we got back, we were going to do the show on the Rivoli. So I, you know, go to the show on the Rivoli and it's lined up down Queen Street to get in. And so, so that video completely exploded our career, like completely. Well, it worked for me. I was watching a lot of much music back then and I loved the video. It was very Toronto, which I loved,

but I loved the video and I loved the song. And again, that opening of the song always caught me. It just grabbed a hold of me, the opening chords of that song. So I'm going to elaborate on that in a moment, but I just want to ask. So the mech, the mountain equipment co-op that went up at Queen of Spadina,

that's the location of that parking lot. You guys are playing in, in that video, right? Yeah. I mean, yes, it's,

it's, I was pretty close to the Spadina. There used to be a bamboo used to be, there used to be a clothing store called fab. I think it was called, was that right? It was kind of like a a clothing store called fab i think it was called was that right it was kind of like a cool uh clothing store and so that was the stuff that was around there that and then lush came and put their store in there that was much later but um i'm advocating for like a plaque of

some sorts there to commemorate the location where i'm an adult now was filmed, like some kind of Toronto heritage thing. Wow. Yeah. I mean, one of the things about the video that's been nice for me is that a lot of people associate me and our band with Toronto. And so that's, so I think it's because we sort of like showcased a moment in time in Toronto in that video. So a lot of people look back fondly when Queen Street used to look like that and Yonge Street used to look like that.

And it's kind of nostalgic for a lot of people. And because it's like I was asked to throw the first pitch at a Blue Jays game, which was, you know, one of the biggest thrills of my life. And it was because it was Toronto night. And so they were looking for a musician that would, you know, that, you know, people would think of when they think of Toronto. So again, that turned into a really nice thing for me. And so that's one of the things I'm grateful about that video for so many things. But one of the things is that, you know,

is that it sort of gave us a sense of being ambassadors to Toronto, I guess. Well, I'll bet there's still many Pursuit of Happiness fans who are surprised if they learn that Moe Berg's from Edmonton. I think that's a mind blow for some people because really, you've been here more than half your life, obviously, but you're Toronto. It's hard to believe

you weren't always here. I have been here more than half my life and I do consider Toronto my home now. I love Toronto. I'm a huge supporter of it as a city. I don't want to live anywhere else. So I, you know, so being associated with Toronto to me is very, it's an honor to, I, I love the city and, and, and I, I've really,

you know, when I think about the way the city was then've really, you know, when I think about the way the city was then and how, you know, welcoming it was to me and how exciting it was to me when I first got to Toronto, it's still, you know, it still was one of the greatest times in my life. Beautiful. Now, I was on this aforementioned bike ride and I'm thinking about I'm an adult now, like I'm singing it in my head and I hear the chords and everything. But then I get this memory and it was a recurring happening. It was a memory of something that would happen all the time when I would tune into 102.1. I'm just going to play the first 20 seconds of a song that is not by The Pursuit of Happiness. So let's listen to this for a moment. So that is The Offspring with their big hit, Gotta Get Away.

Now, Mo, I would hear that. And again, just a quick compare. Bear with me here. So this is I'm an Adult Now from Love Junk. In just the opening few seconds. So I would often hear the opening of Gotta Get Away because it was in high rotation when it was a big hit in the mid-90s, I guess. And I would always think they were playing I'm an Adult Now and then, of course, it was Gotta Get Away.

So I'm just curious how you feel about that opening to the Offspring's Gotta Get Away. This was a thing, actually. I was contacted by multiple people who said you should you should take legal action um and so like people in the industry and said i'll represent you if you want to take legal action against them and i think that somebody had actually even reached out to the band and said you know do you know that it sounds a lot like this song you know i'm an adult now by the pursuit of happiness and And, and also what's

what made it go even deeper is if you listen to the riff that they play, it actually sounds a lot like another song on that record called hard to laugh. And so it's almost like a combination of I'm an adult now and hard to laugh. If you combine those together will probably sound a little bit like Gotta Get Away. Happy April, FOTMs. I want to introduce you to a brand new sponsor of the program. I'm very excited about this. They're called The Moment Lab. This is a company that can take your business to the next level. If you've been struggling to get your message out to the world,

or if you're looking for a way to increase your brand's visibility and reach your target audience, The Moment Lab specializes in public relations and has a team of experienced professionals who know how to craft stories that resonate with your audience to generate positive media coverage. Whether you're launching a new product, building your reputation, or managing a crisis, they've got you covered. So if you want to give your business a boost, don't wait any longer. Contact my friends Matt and Jared at the Moment Lab today to learn how they can help you achieve your public relations goals. And I'd like to welcome back Moneris and their award-winning podcast, Yes, We Are Open, hosted by FOTM Al Grego. The fourth season starts today. Go to yesweareOpenPodcast.com, subscribe, be inspired. I know I was. And Al, I'll see you at TMLX 12 on May 11th.

being perfectly honest, I don't think it sounds enough like it to be actionable. I mean, you know, you hear music and you get, you know, and you know, the band claims they never heard the song and maybe, you know, I mean, it used to go, it got played like crazy in Los Angeles and maybe, you know, they heard it kind of incidentally, they're driving in their car and listening to K-Rock and it came on, you know, and, but, you know, I, there's all kinds of music out there that, you know, you get inspired by, you listen to it and there's, you know, you sort of do your own version of it, I guess. And so I don't see anything really wrong with it. And I didn't I felt like we're going to get, you know, ankle deep into this legal and, you know, lawyers bills and stuff like that. And it's going to we're going to lose.

And so it's just like I don't I don't want to punish them just because maybe they heard their song and it inspired. Maybe they heard our song and it inspired them. And they did something that is vaguely similar to it. Well, that's very decent of you. Now, Smash sold a lot of copies. That was a big selling album by The Offspring. And again, who am I? Just a fan. And I actually like The Offspring.

I even like that album, Smash. Actually, it's an album I owned and I enjoyed, but that is too close for comfort in my expert legal opinion, which is not worth much because I'm not a lawyer. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say. The drum beat isn't even exactly the same drum beat, and it's like, are we going to

sue anybody who opens a song with drums? I don't know. The whole suing thing people like that whole blurred line things and stuff like that i thought that whole thing was crazy whenever i hear about someone suing something because it sounds vaguely i mean people used to outright rip off songs all the time you know and you know it's part of the tradition of popular music you know no absolutely but again later in the career of the offspring they released a song uh why don't you get a job which was basically the same melody as

life goes on so they they basically borrowed if you will from the two great bands two great bands the pursuit of happiness and the beatles right well there's a long tradition of that. I mean, all, all the Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones used to do is take old songs and just put their own name on it. And off they went, like they, they plundered traditional music for, you know, the greater part of their career, especially Led Zeppelin. Well, I don't hate my parents I don't get drunk just to spite them I got my own reasons to drink now I think I'll call my dad up and invite him

I can sleep until noon anytime I want But there's not many days that I do Gotta get up and take on that world When you're an idol it's no cliche, it's the truth Cause I'm an adult now I'm an adult now truth why don't we look at young girls anymore? People will think I'm some kind of pervert Adult sex is either boring or dirty Young people, they can get away with murder

I don't write songs about girls anymore I have to write songs about women No more boy meets girl, boy loses girl More like man tries to understand what the hell went wrong Cause I'm on a dole now I'm on a dole now I got the problems of an adult on my head I'm on a dole now

I'm on a dole now Yeah, I'm on a dole now Yeah, I'm on a dole now I can't take any more illicit drugs I can't afford any artificial joy I'd sure look like a fool Dead in a dish somewhere With a mind full of chemicals Like some cheese-eating high school boy

Cause I'm on a dole now I'm on adult now I'm an adult now I've got the problems of an adult On my head, on my shoulders I'm an adult now guitar solo Sometimes my head hurts and sometimes my stomach hurts And I guess that it won't be long Before I'm sitting in a room with a bunch of people Whose necks and backs are aching

Whose sight and hearing is fading But just can't seem to get it up Speaking of hearing, I can't take too much loud music I mean, I like to play it, but I sure don't like the racket. Noise, but I can't hear anything, just guitars screaming, screaming, screaming. Some guy's screaming in a leather jacket. Wow, I'm an adult now. I'm an adult now. I've got the problems of an adult On my head, on my shoulders I'm on a dole now

I'm on a dole now I'm on a dole now I've got the problems of an adult On my head, my libido I'm on a dole now I'm on a dole now I'm on a dole now I love this. Can you give us an update? What is the current status of the Pursuit of Happiness?

Will you do any shows this summer? Give us a little P of happiness update well the pursuit of happiness is still a going concern we we did a run of shows just before christmas and so there's you know it's you have to be judicious about it um and so we're we're you know we put together like a Shopify store. We got our Spotify account together and we're working on maybe doing a little bit of recording. And so that's kind of our focus right now. We're thinking about doing some recording and then sort of looking at what that might bring us. If, you know, something comes up in the summer, it looks like a good idea. We'll do it,

but everything has to be a good idea before we do it. We're not just out there just flailing around and you're uh you're busy with uh with production work and working with other bands other artists yes so right now i'm just finishing the mix on a record by a guy named james clark he has a group called the james clark institute and i've worked with him before and the record is sounding amazing and i'm just about to start work on a group with a group called the James Clark Institute, and I've worked with him before, and the record is sounding amazing. And I'm just about to start work on a group with a group called the Conscious Pilot, who are a big Toronto band in the late 80s, early 90s, and they've just decided to reunite. And so I'm going to start recording that in about a few weeks. Okay, that's amazing. This was amazing. So thanks so much for doing this. It's like, again, I'm tickled pink that,

you know, a rock star like Moe Bird will jump on a zoom just because I would hear this opening to an offspring song. And every single time I felt like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, I thought I was going to hear I'm an adult now. And my brain always anticipates. So it starts to kind of hear your voice. And it's like, I start to sing it. And then of course, I realized, oh, this is the offspring. And I'm like, I just want to chat with the songwriter and singer about this and what he thinks. So I appreciate this. Oh, no, it's my pleasure. Anytime.

And that brings us to the end of our 1230th show. You can follow me. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mo is at MoTPOH. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. I'll be there Thursday night recording with the AM640 crew.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Moneris is at Moneris. Season four of Yes We Are Open is here now. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. The Moment Lab is at The Moment Lab. Welcome to the family. And Ridley Funeral Home.

They're at Ridley FH. See you all later this week when my special guest is Ed Keenan from the Toronto Star. 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 snow wants 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 you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you but I'm a much better man for having known you, oh you know that's

true because everything is coming up rosy and green yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't stay today and your smile Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Wants me to date And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well, I've been told That there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who 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, yeah I know it's true How about you? 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 gray 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 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 everything is rosy and gray. Thank you.