Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Paul Myers: Toronto Mike'd #921

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Mike chats with Paul Myers about growing up in Scarborough with his brothers Mike and Peter, The Gravelberrys, Barenaked Ladies, Kids in the Hall, and so much more.

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Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me this week is author, journalist, musician, and songwriter, Paul Myers. Paul, nice to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you too. And you're on the left coast, right? Whereabouts do we find you today? It's closest to Berkeley, California, which is East Bay. So if you know San Francisco and you know Oakland and just go a little bit north. Do you ever find yourself right off the top here? I'll hit you with the big tough questions, but do you ever find yourself missing the big smoke here?

Missing Toronto? Yes. Quite a lot actually. And in the, the lockdown really underscored the, you know, when I, I think I can travel now,

but for the last two, almost two years, right. It's been like, even if I wanted to go home, I couldn years, right. It's been like, even if I wanted to go home, I couldn't go home. But, uh, you know, yeah, we used to go about twice a year and it's always, I have a lot of friends from the old days and, uh, several of my family members, my brother, Peter and his family still up there. My parents passed away, but, um, my wife's family

are all up there and, you know, it's, yeah, it's great. And Toronto informed me and raised me. Toronto is where I learned everything, you know. Well, no doubt your brother, Mike, for example, has been very vocal and upfront about his love of Scarborough and the Toronto Maple Leafs and such. So I would imagine you grew up with with similar love for the blue and white? Yeah, I was, Peter Myers, my older brother, and Mike Myers and I, we were all Hockey Night in Canada

fans and we used to go swimming at George Vanier Collegiate in Don Mills. We used to go to, on Saturday nights, we'd go swimming early and then come back for Hockey Night in Canada. And, you used to go to, on Saturday nights, we'd go swimming early and then come back for hockey night in Canada. And, you know, I never played hockey. I played street hockey.

In fact, we lived in a bunch of apartment buildings. And it was called the Peanut. It's an area of Don Mills Road. I don't know if they still call it the Peanut, where there's kind of the two schools are in the middle, George Vanier Collegiate and Woodbine Junior High. And I think what's used to be called Woodbine Arena, and I think it's been called the Oriole Arena or something. Anyway, I haven't been up in a while in North York. And we used to live on this. There was

like hundreds of apartment buildings that were built in the 60s. And my first paper route, my brother Peter's paper route, were in those apartment buildings. So that was, you know, all of that hockey night in Canada, the Leafs, the Argos. I used to watch the Argos all the time. I used to love watching the Argos. The Grey Cup was one of my favorite things. The fact that there was almost all the snow on the field in those days. All those memories are when you mention that.

Yeah, for sure. Now, when you're playing ball hockey, was there a particular Maple Leaf you would be when you played ball hockey? Well, this is how old I am. I, I think I was Daryl Sittler, uh, even though I, you know, obviously not that good. Um, and, uh, you know, we used to like the, the Leafs of my particular youth were like Ron Ellis and Dave and dave keon and norm allman and uh you know and then i i sort of i actually to be honest i became an artsy musician guy and i stopped being as much into the hockey as uh my two brothers so they peter and we also

played uh soccer for north york spartans all of us So it was a minor soccer league in Yorkdale, or I mean, Willowdale. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with the music. But first, a couple of quick notes from fans of yours. So of course, I always go on Twitter and I announce, okay, Paul Myers is coming up on Toronto Mic'd, and then you get a bunch of comments and stuff. Elephants and Stars is the twitter handle here says this will be

excellent i don't know how you know that elephants and stars it just started we don't know it's going to be excellent but let's find out uh back to elephants and stars uh he was the person who introduced me to the music of dylan fence it's true i gotta plead a little ignorance i'm almost embarrassed to say this uh tell me uh who's dylan fence well dylan fence is this band from the uh from the 90s they were like in the same breath as uh you know around the time of bob mold's band sugar or something like that but they were from the fort apache scene which is a scene around the studio in in uh in the east coast of the united states and they were just an alt rock band with kind of a big star kind of jangle but lots of fuzz tones sound a little in the East Coast of the United States. And they were just an alt-rock band

with kind of a big star kind of jangle, but lots of fuzz tones, sounded a little bit like Husker Du. And I just really loved this record called Outside In. And I was working with these people at Impact Magazine. And I remember just saying, you got to hear this record. And all these other staffers were there

and we all, I guess I was an advocate for this band that nobody even heard of. I mean, I know some people are listening who have heard of them, but they were, you're not expected to know them.

I mean, I feel better though because sometimes, you know, I miss the obvious and then it's like, you know, I'm haunted by this.

It's like, how did I not, how did I miss Dylan Fence? But you're telling me it's probably typical. Yeah, I think that that was a very esoteric reference Elephants and Stars was making as a way of saying, hi, it's me. Because I probably only turned it on to four people

and then Elephants and Stars was one of them. So there you go. Brian Dunn wrote in to say, oh, this will be a great one. See, there's high expectations, Paul, and no pressure here. So much pressure. It's actually making me a little upset. Go ahead.

Hey, guess what? And I know the answer to this one, but I'm going to just tell you what he wrote. Hey, guess what famous Toronto band he wrote a book about? Now, I know what Brian is fishing for there. He wants to talk about Barenaked Ladies. And I know that because I've met Brian at a couple of TMLX events.

Those are Toronto Mike listener experience events. And Brian is like the world's biggest Barenaked Ladies fanatic, I would say. Like he's on the cruises and everything. He's just a diehard. And there will be some BNL talk in this episode for sure. Yeah, I see Brian popping up on my Twitter all the time, especially when there's the subject of my longstanding relationship

with all five of the original Barenaked Ladies, and that includes Stephen Page. And yeah, what do you want to know? Well, I'm going to save it for later, but we will do a little chatter. There's a lot of ground to cover here, I'll point out. There is, yeah. I can't even imagine where to start. I know where I want to start because it's the

gravel berries. But here's a gateway in is Chris Ward. Now, when I saw this tweet from Chris Ward, I had that moment where I'm thinking, oh, it's Christopher Ward. He's been on the show a couple of times, but this is actually another Chris Ward. He just has the same name. I saw that too. So you have that moment where it's like, oh, Chris Ward's chiming in. And I do know Christopher Ward, so that's even more confusing. Yes. Right. Actually, you would know Chris Ward of course because the character

that would be Wayne Campbell, your brother's character from Wayne's World, debuts on Christopher Ward's show. That's right. My brother Mike, let's just get that out of the way, Mike Myers, you know the guy When he was at Second City's touring company

He was in a cast with Christopher Ward Who had been a pop songwriter And was currently at the time Establishing Atlanta Miles' career And they were writing all the songs That would later become Black Velvet And Atlanta Miles' big hit right and then but but just before that mike was in the second city touring

company with christopher ward and and you know chris being a musician and being one of the nicest guys on the planet um we we always got talking and i always had a good time with him in fact i went on when i was in the gravel berries i went on christopher ward show when he was a much music vj In fact, I went on, when I was in the Gravel Berries, I went on Christopher Ward's show when he was a MuchMusicVJ. And I'm sure the only reason I was on was because I knew Christopher, you know. So, and he was always a gentleman. And, you know, I remember spending some time with him. But, yeah, so Mike, I guess, was Christopher hosting City Lights or something?

One of those shows or one of those. Yeah, exactly. The All Night Show. City Limits? Was it City Limits? City Limits, yeah Limits? That was the precursor to Much Music. Him and J.D. Roberts were the first VJs on Much Music. That's awesome Toronto stuff.

Mike came on as his character Wayne Campbell, which was based on people that we grew up with. No one specifically, but there is a Wayne Campbell, but it's not really based on him. Mike would do that. And Christopher and him are supposed to be, I think, like his cousin or something like that.

Right. Something like that. I don't know. This is a Mike question, not a Paul question. But I remember watching it and thinking, that was probably the first time I'd seen Mike on TV as an adult. And it's funny how we got to this because Chris Ward asked a question. And it's a different Chris Ward, but anyway,

so thank you for having the name Chris Ward. It led to that, that chat there, but Chris Ward wrote a bowl of globes was such a great disc. I still listen to it, whatever happened to the band. So let's start with this. Tell us if you can. And again, I could do a whole episode on this probably, but you're going to have to be a little more succinct, but tell us about the gravel berries. I will play a little bit of a one jam people will recognize from the gravel berries but uh just tell us about like the origin story of the gravel berries and uh okay well i i am a musician and

when i was you know all my life i wanted to be uh the only thing i wanted to do was be a recording musician uh writing songs and i had several different bands over the years. I way back in the post-punk days, I was in a thing called space invaders. And then with Michael Filippo Vota, who is actually a Toronto producer of many other artists, including Barenaked Ladies, but that's, we're getting ahead of ourselves. But Michael and I were in this band and then I started,

and then I started the, I went solo for a few years. and I had a thing called Lifetimes Nine with another member of the Space Invaders. And then, you know, that morphed into the Paul Myers band as a solo project. And then we changed the name to the Gravelberries. And here we are, got the name from the Flintstones. There's an episode where Fred Flintstone's wife, Wilma, makes a gravelberry pie. I thought gravelberries sounds like the kind of music I play, which was melodic. So it was like berries, but it was a little bit rough with guitars. So it was a little gravelly. So I thought that was a good name for a band. The gravelberries, you know, recorded this record called Bowl of Globes. And the name comes from

a bowl that our good friend Linda made for us. And we filled it with these patio lights that look like little globes, uh, the earth, you know, and, uh, the name comes from influenced by Robin Hitchcock's album, globe of frogs. And I just thought if you can use a name like globe of frogs, you might as well call this one bowl of globes. And so that's how that happened. This record though, we made with Michael Foyavoda producing. It got airplay on CFNY and got airplay on CBC and even on, at the time, CFTR, which was at the time a Top 40 station, similar to what Chum AM was doing.

And Dan Freeman, who is Tarzan Dan, had me on the show, on his CFTR show, and we've been friends ever since, actually, and there you go. And I remember CFTR went all news or something like the week after they started playing our record. Yeah, I think 93, I want to say 93. Yeah, so our record came out in around 92, 93, and then we were on their playlist for

about, I'd say, five weeks before they announced they were going to all traffic and weather and I said, the joke at the time was, our next record has to be all talk so that we get, so we can stay on the air. But Dan Freeman and I are still friends. Is he in Calgary?

He's in Calgary. He's in Calgary and I was touring my book about, we'll get to this later, my book about Kids in Calgary and I was touring my book about, we'll get to this later, but I look about kids in the hall and I was doing an interview with another station owned by the same media conglomerate chorus. I think it was. And, um, and I was in the lobby and Dan Freeman walks up to me, he goes, Tarzan, Dan, I'm going to Tarzan, Dan, what are you doing here? And he said, I'm on the air in about five minutes. Want to come out and do a hit?

So I just walked into his control room and, like a whole promotion. And it was just one of those great things that happens when you're out in the field. But anyway, so the Gravel Berries did very well in terms of what they were. We toured Canada. We went to both coasts and I met a lot of other musicians who are still friends to this day. So it was pretty cool. Okay, I got a bunch of questions. But one thing I'll just let the listeners know because they don't have any visuals here. But I held up, Evelyn Macko gave me that. Do you remember Evelyn?

By any chance, do you remember Evelyn Macko? She was the news person at 680 CFDR when it was all hit. Now that you mentioned, yeah, I needed the prompt. I knew the name. Yeah, Dick Smythe was there as well. You probably remember Dick Smythe. Oh, Dick Smythe. I grew up listening to dick smith he just i do a dick smith impression was like here's how things look to dick smith you know that's how he used to talk he used to be on um chum chum am yeah he was on he was all over the place chum am he was a city tv for a while

he was uh then he was at cftr then well cfmt was airing CFTR stuff, and he's all, yeah, he was all over the place. Yeah, that's real Toronto stuff, for sure. But Evelyn Macko, who I affectionately referred to as Wacko Macko because she started on the air up north somewhere, I don't know, Orillia or something, as Wacko Macko, but let me, that was, so what I held up for you, of course,

was the old logo, 680 CFTR. That was my, like, I would say, when I was in primary school, I would wake old logo 680 cftr uh that was my like i would say when i was in primary school i would wake up to 680 uh tom rivers on 680 was my oh yeah who also started out at i think chum right yes absolutely he was at 10 50 chum as well i used to collect chum charts that's that's how much of a radio geek i was i have so many here uh i used to have them like right here i know no one can see this it's too bad but they're somewhere in one of these drawers but i did a whole episode

on the like with doug thompson who sort of was there for the whole ride basically uh like the history of 1050 chum with great sound clips and everything and he gave me all these chum chum charts with like roger ashby and john landecker and terry steel right all these uh mike uh oh mike hooper was it oh my cooper my cooper yes yeah i met jungle j nelson uh at simpsons at uh fairview mall wow yeah yeah yeah and i remember he i remember he did like he was doing a live hit from the simpsons record department uh and uh and and he played horse with no name by america and he he told us all the story like you know that pre-announcing he said this man produced george martin who produced the beatles and this features

the acoustic guitar and it was like when you're a kid right every detail like is this going to be important is this going to be on the test is what I was thinking, you know? And, and, and so, but yeah, so I'm, I was a huge chum geek. I had whole friendships based on us listening to chum. I guess it would be like having a TV show or, or an internet fan club of people who like the TV show community or something. We were all chum heads, you know? Actually, I think you had a name. You were chum bugs, right?

Chum bugs. That's right. That's right. And then broadcast from the cne every year yes and they'd have a little like mobile studio and i would be like i i it was so mystical to me i used to go by the chum station on young street and i would think that all the bands were in there because that's where the music was coming right they're broadcasting tower i would look at it like a thing of beauty, like it was just a little antenna. And it was shooting to me in the suburbs with my little AM radio. I used to listen to Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones on the swings. It's all coming back to me. I love this stuff. I don't know if you've ever heard an episode of Toronto Mike before, but this is the stuff I like. feel free to just do that I'm just going I'm just yeah like part of the reason I wanted to do it is because I was intrigued by

the fact that we get to talk about Toronto which I don't get to do enough you know there'll be lots here but that that horse of no name that was the song where uh everybody thinks it's Neil Young at first until they're told it's not Neil Young because it sounds a lot like Neil Young that was by design probably right you know because yeah I, he was definitely working on the first part of the journey. Oh yeah. You don't do that by accident. I just also love that it was plants and birds and rocks and things. He kind of gave up on he's got words for every one of the other things. Plants and birds and rocks and you

figure it out. It's just, it's like he gives up. I love songs where they bail. Now gravel berries. What was the decision not to do spell berries the way you would typically pluralize berries? That was a quirk. I got to say that was just something I, I just liked it with a Y and of course it messes people up.

I can't tell you how many people get messed up by that. But by the way, there's also a thing that happens where people know I'm Mike Myers brother. And sometimes it's a drag. Sometimes it's really great. And I'm super proud of him. And they spell his name, M Y E R S.

And then they'll spell my name, M E Y, but we're brothers. Don't you get it? Like, it's so weird. Anyway. So the thing about the gravel berries with the Y, I don't

know what that was about, but it's a brand name, so I figured I don't know if I was... I don't know. Maybe because I saw gravel berry pie and I just wanted that Y to be there for some reason. I didn't want it to look too much like the raspberries either. Sort of like the Toronto Maple Leafs in a sense

where it's because it's named after something, I think a war because it's named after something. I think a war troop in the war or something. There's some real important reason I'm butchering right now. But Toronto Maple Leaf, plural. It's not leaves. Right. So it's like, so maybe, I don't know, maybe you had a loophole there.

I'm not sure. But I do want to play a song. Yeah, go ahead. The album is called Bowl of Globes. Yeah. Everyone, I think most of the audience is going to know this jam. I'm going to play a bit, then bring it down, and we'll talk a little more about it.

And then I'm going to, I know the question, you've probably been asked, I don't know, a hundred times, but I'm going to do it again because I've never asked you. So here is a little Gravel Berries for everybody. Watching TV, listening to little Stevie Wonder where you are tonight Letters I could never give her Sudden sealed and undelivered Wonder where you are tonight Should I get a map of Africa or track the Atlas front to back

start my investigation just to find your new location wonder where you are tonight that's right I want you to know Paul this is like that thing you do like this is that song that set him yeah I think it sounds great oh yeah That's right, I want you to know he really captured a certain energy that I thought we had. I called it power pop at the time.

It's a term I kind of like. Some people don't. But I was really, really, you know, really pleased with that record. And it did actually open some doors. So I have, you'll correct me if I'm wrong here, but I remember I would hear this song on CFNY. Am I remembering correctly? Oh, yeah. CFny was a huge supporter

uh they had us play uh one of their canada day mega festivals down in ontario place and uh we i think i was on the on their airwaves like in person a few times and do you remember who you were talking to like i'm uh hyper interested in your memories of 102.1. I don't want to get this wrong, but I feel like it was May Potts that I talked to a lot. Sure. I mean, I was following that station for a long time. I mean, weirdly, Alan Cross never interviewed me.

I don't know if he did that sort of thing. And also, Kim? Yeah, Kim Hughes yeah Kim Hughes I was blanking there I was about to say Karen Gordon because Karen Gordon interviewed me on CBC Kim Hughes who I yeah I went on that you know their street level show a few times

and Dave Bookman of course Dave Bookie God bless you know we all love Bookie you know yeah if you I mean if you this might be a good time. If you have any, any more words to share with your, your memories of bookie, cause it's, uh, you know, we're still reeling from the loss in this. Yeah.

Well, the thing about Dave is Dave Bookman was the, the kind of the nerd next door. And I say that with love, uh, the guy who knew everything about the band, but wanted to know about the things he didn't know and he's your record collector friend he just made everyone feel important and what was unspoken was that he was just a huge advocate for art you know the art of music the art of communication and he saw the social value in exchanging musical ideas and music itself. And, you know, my friend Dave Bedini has expressed it very clearly. And he speaks a lot about bookie and Tim Meck,

who's a guitar tech currently for Santana, but he used to be in the, you know, the, he had, he had a band with that, you know, the bookman and him were in together. And so there's a lot of people I know who, who knew him better than me. Actually, to be honest, my first run-ins with Bookie, I remember thinking he didn't like me because he was such, I exalted him so much. Like he was kind of like a Nardwar character.

Like, I don't know if you guys know that reference. No, I do, of course, yeah. Like the kind of guy who you think, oh, I better be on my game because I'm talking to Dave Bookman. And then, you know, of course he know I do, of course. Yeah. Like the kind of guy who you think, oh, I better be on my game because I'm talking to Dave Bookman. And then, you know, of course, he wasn't like that at all. But I mean, that's just my insecurity. I was, you know, I'm the bad nerd.

I'm the nerd who doesn't think he knows everything. And then, you know, then meets the guy who knows everything. And you're like, OK, he's my he's my God. But but, you know, Bookie was just such a nice guy. And ultimately, the last few times I saw him, It's hard to believe that we're in past tense About Bookie, to be honest The last few times I saw him, it was very warm And very friendly, and I was very happy to see him

And by then I'd gotten over my Feeling of insecurity So yeah, I miss I miss him being out there You know, that's the thing, you always felt like Bookie Was on the He's out there in the front lines You know, that's the thing that you always felt like book. He was on the, he was on the, he's on out there in the front lines,

uh, you know, checking out the cool bands. You don't just replace a guy like that, right? Like they're irreplaceable characters. And they're so important, like for the fabric of a city. Like I,

I know you're may have a few pangs where you're missing, missing the big smoke, but bookie was one of those guys who you kind of maybe even took for granted that this guy would just always be there and yeah gone way too soon uh yeah just just terribly sad that we lost bookie no no i mean yeah you raise an interesting point like all i'm fascinated with all scenes like when i read a book about the new york punk scene or i read a book about the london scene in the 60s and you realize they're that people do know each other. You know, the Susie and the Banshees people knew the Sex Pistols people. And in New York, the CBGB's crowd all knew each other.

And in Toronto, we had something like that. And I'm sure there's generations now since I've left that have that thing. But there was a feeling of teamwork in the Toronto scene that I was involved in. Like I mentioned, the Rio Statics and and Jason plum and the Waltons and all these bare naked ladies were friends of mine. That's how I ended up working with them. Michael Voto produced the bare naked ladies, but he was,

you know, he was also working with change of heart and all these bands. I could name off a bunch of things, but there's a world that Kurt Swinghammer, the artist and guitar player. And he's an amazing guy. Like we all knew each other on Sex Myths we all knew each other and we would all be at each other's parties and stuff and and then end up playing on each other's records singing backing I sang backing vocals on several different people's records I sometimes I don't even remember

doing it I just show up and be part of something and that collective thing and then there's the people who are promoting it like Bookman and and the DJs. And then there's the people who are promoting it, like Bookman and the DJs and the people who are writing about it, like Jenny Punter used to write in the Toronto Star about these things and the fanzines and stuff like that. It's just, it's all part of a scene. And there's photographers who took pictures of these things. And so nothing exists for it to stay in our memories.

Those people have to make those contributions. Okay, so that's i i guess i'm rambling but that's that's the whole area right there well you're gonna i'm gonna make you ramble more but first i'm gonna play a different uh canadian jam and ask you about this and this is not yours but maybe it is we're gonna talk about it so here we go yours, but maybe it is. We're going to talk about it. So here we go. Caught the train, took the road Searching for how to go You never knew, you never told And I wonder when you are curious All right, this, of course, is Curious by Sandbox. I think Sandbox might be most famous for the fact that Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys is in the band.

That might be their big claim to fame. Yeah, Mike Smith, right? Right, Mike Smith, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's interesting about that. People have mentioned that song. And of course he has I Wonder Where You Are. And I wonder where you are. It's a very similar cadence.

I don't believe for a minute that they'd even heard of the Gravel Berries. But I did notice just now looking on Wikipedia that that record was 1995. And it is documented that the Gravel gravel berries record was recorded in 1992 right i don't know i i would like to think that maybe this is a cfny thing like so maybe the fact that we got a lot of airplay on alternative radio put these ideas into people's heads uh it'd be nice to think that they heard that phrase and

said i want to do that in my song but i wouldn't be the first person in the world to have said the phrase i wonder where you are tonight you know so i mean it i i've never met this man um many friends of mine are big fans of his and uh so um uh i don't know you'd have to ask him i don't know if it's something you want to bring up in polite conversation but i mean certainly it's not a steal if anything it might be a mild influence and probably subconsciously you know okay well well manfred manfred wrote me a note and his note says uh does he agree that's you paul does paul agree sandbox blatantly stole the melody for i wonder where you are tonight in curious so manfred and i i'm just i'll speak for myself because who else could

i speak for absolutely it's it's too much to be just some coincidence i think for sure that uh you you were your your composition wonder where you are tonight by the uh the gravel berries which i i know is yours i believe 100 that it was borrowed for uh curious that's that's my opinion uh i don't know uh we'll have to ask bubbles himself uh but uh but you know i don't have to say about that i mean yeah um but it's nice nice that people uh in the name of defending me think that i was ripped off but i don't think i was you know they don't owe me anything well uh i was gonna say it's not quite my sweet lord it's not quite but yeah yeah that's the thing too when you're when you're making as little money as any of us probably did from these things uh it's only when something becomes like sampled in a massive rap record or something that you're going to start to, you know, everyone's going to come out looking for their $75 million payout or whatever.

That's so true. So another question from Manfred, he had a bunch of good questions. He wanted, and you've already touched on this, but I'm hoping you'll just start name dropping here and we can chat about some of them. But he says, who are some of the Toronto bands that you played with back in the day? So like you started doing this and I was digging it. Just start name checking some folks from the scene here. Toronto bands. I probably should have done some homework.

I mentioned Kurt Swinghammer. I mentioned Ron Sexsmith. The Grapes of Wrath were not a Toronto band but they came through and we played with them once. We also played with Ginger who was the offshoot of them but then I later got to know Kevin Kane as well. Those guys were and we played with them once. We also played with Ginger, who was the offshoot of them. But then I later got to know Kevin Kane as well.

So those guys were contemporaries of ours. The Odds from Vancouver still do this. In fact, I was just texting Craig from The Odds 20 minutes ago. He said he'd been on this show as well. Yeah, he's been on this show. And he's very tight with Stephen Page as well, who will come up.

And Stephen Page, yeah. Well, here's the, yeah. So what's interesting is I knew the Barenaked Ladies they go out on tour and then they're recording in Vancouver they were recording in Vancouver at I don't know where but they they would show up at the odds

regular gig at the Roxy in Vancouver where they would perform as Dawn Patrol and it was their sort of cover band with fright wigs and stuff and and then Steven so I heard that Stephen and, well, actually all the Barenaked Ladies have gotten along really well with The Odds. And then we started to see

each other show up on a year. And then years later, Stephen and Craig are like songwriting team. And they do really great work. And they're in that Canadian Highwaymen with Moe Bird. Oh, the Trans Canada Highwaymen. Let's talk about that. Yes, please.

I was going to mention the Pursuit of Happiness. Okay, let me start from the top. So the Pursuit of Happiness, when I saw them, they first moved to Toronto from Edmonton, I guess. And a friend of mine was Chris Houston, who was also known as Chris Hate. And Chris Houston was kind of doing a rockabilly act, but he was also promoting a lot of independent bands

and promoting shows. And he brought them into town, I think, or promoted them at the Horseshoe. And I go to see them at the Horseshoe, and I was like, this is amazing. They were playing, because I was a huge Todd Rundgren fan, and they were playing very Todd Rundgren-inspired pop rock, which this is before they even were producing love junk. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

So, and I was like, okay, this is a band. I was jealous, frankly. I was like, oh my God, they're doing what I didn't have the nerve to do. And the gravel berries were always heading that way. So I was immediately in love with the pursuit of happiness. And all of them were amazing people too. Like Chris Abbott,ott everyone mo at the time uh by the time i saw them i think no it was johnny sinclair and leslie stanwick on yeah and then they had left the band later but um so then they ended up i don't know how but they ended up in our kitchen because i was sharing i was roommates with chris houston and he promoted the show so i guess he invited them over for beers and i said i just came from your show you guys are great so suddenly they're in my kitchen and we're drinking beers. Lifelong friendship, I'd say after that. And then luckily

they, my, my manager, I was, I was being sort of managed by Sherry Sinclair, who had been working with the pursuit of happiness with Jeff Rogers. And we ended up opening for the pursuit of happiness at all these shows, uh, around Ontario. Wow. And so they taught me like Mo taught me how to play. She's so young. And it was like one of my favorite stories. So that's one thing.

The odds were this other band from Vancouver that I also got to know when we played out in Vancouver, they actually, I met them through Kevin McDonald, the kids in the hall. Who's been on the show. In fact, he's the only kid who's been on this darn show,

even though I've tried to get all of them, but maybe one day. Well, he's a good guy to talk to about music. I'll tell you that. Right. So I was at a party at Kevin's house and I met Craig and I said, I'm going out to Vancouver. You should come see us. So we played in Vancouver at the Town Pump and Craig came with his wife, Barb, and Bob Chemist, who was their guitar tech at the time. And they and they became lifelong friends. And so then there's two bands there. And then I, you know, written the book with the with the Barenaked Ladies by this point that they formed the Trans Canada Highwaymen. And then the other thing is Sloan, who came to Toronto late in my development, and I left in 97. So they had just arrived in the mid-90s,

and I was such a fan of Sloan and remember feeling really jealous of them because they were younger than me, and they were coming in, and they were just amazing. I love Sloan to this day. I'm kind of a super fan. So then I hear that all my friends, Stephen Page, Craig Northey, Moe Berg, and Chris Murphy, super fan so then i hear that all my friends stephen page uh you know craig northey moberg and and chris murphy has formed the trans canada highwaymen who i've yet to see live in person but

i've seen the videos and just an amazing these are like my favorite pop songwriter pop rock songwriters of canada and they're from my sort of uh alumni years you know and and they know what they know i've told them a million times like i'm kind of an honorary uh i wouldn't say i'm a member of the band but i know that they they know that i'm uh i'm with them all the way on this pursuit such a uh small world day like when you connect all those dots and yeah it's just wild no it's just i think who else was on the scene when i was playing so we did shows okay so sarah harmer who was at the time in a group called the saddle tramps she was the second lead singer in that band and she wasn't

like featured yet and uh she was a and i think i can't remember if kathleen edwards was around at that point she i don't think she was around yet when I was still there. She came in a little bit later. So who else was there? That's Sarah Harmer. That's before Weeping Tile, I guess, that band, right? It was just before Weeping Tile. Yeah.

So she started Weeping, just before I left. You know, and I used to know a lot of the visiting bands too, like Spirit of the West were good friends of mine. And who else? Can I ask you about, yeah, I was going to say, know a lot of the visiting bands too like spirit of the west were good friends of mine and um and who else uh by the way can i ask you about yeah i was gonna i was gonna say uh another one yeah yeah we lost john that would some great canadian bands actually called it quits that year uh for a variety of reasons some very sad but uh because rush rush retired that year and that was the same year that tragically hip had their farewell concert and also Spirit of the West.

So it was, yeah, a bunch of big Canadian bands sort of called it that year. Oh, I don't mean to interrupt. Do you have any words to say about John? Oh, John, okay. John Mann. John Mann was not only one of the great folk singer-songwriters in my lifetime, but also folk singer- songwriters of Canada. But he was also just a really great human.

Like he was a humanist and he believed in people. He was an activist musician before there was a word for that. They're song political. It was such a great example of the social fabric that happens when you have a lot of young people who are in sort of a post-punk world, but they're also trying to work out their personal relationships as well as political relationships. And then, of course, the Irish influence that they brought in. But it was like an Irish, it wasn't traditional Irish. It was more like post-punk Irish. And the music that they made was always a celebration

and it was always really focused. And John, he had so much potential to be more than just, like I'd seen him act. He was a great actor. I think he would have written a lot more stage things, musicals and things. And when I heard he had just developed Alzheimer's disease and my father passed away from Alzheimer's disease. So I know, you know, it's a long, slow, it's

the opposite of an Irish goodbye, actually. It's, it's, it's a long, slow fading. And, and then, okay. So I saw, I was in Vancouver visiting and I saw, I think it might've been the last two shows they ever did when John could still perform and they played the odds open for them. And they did. And John was reading from an iPad, but he basically, once he gets singing, he remembers like his music's the last thing to go. He was just, but you know, I said hi to him that night and I said, I was prepared for him to not know me. And I said, I said, John, it's Paul. And he goes, yeah, I know you. But then I wasn't sure because you never know because people, that's the thing with Alzheimer's. I've seen people with dementia and stuff. You're trying really hard to let everyone think that, you know. So I don't know if he knew who I was, but I, but I did get to say goodbye. So that was, I mean, I didn't actually say goodbye because, you know, that would have been too morbid, but I got, I got a chance to sort of reconnect with

him before he finally faded out completely. And very, very sad when he passed away. Let me, I'm such a bummer today. Sorry. I guess to know a lot of people is to also lose a lot of people, you know, and, and several of my friends are still alive and doing quite well. Like just keep that in mind. But Paul, I would would say i would argue that there's something there's something about speaking hearing stories like that about people who are no longer with you that almost brings them back to life for a moment like i personally like i want to hear you talk about like bookie and john man and it's like just for for a moment you know if you had gore downy stories i mean actually i had uh kevin hearn on the program twice but the second time we was all about the secret path and him working with gore downy uh in the last couple years of his life and i it

there was something therapeutic about like listening to kevin hearn talk to me about Gore Downey. It's interesting you mentioned Kevin too, because Kevin poignant for several reasons that when I first got hired to write the bare naked ladies book, which was my first biography, four of the members contacted me and I said, so where's Kevin? And they said, oh, he's, he's getting some tests done. He's not feeling very well. And what I found out later was that he was about to be diagnosed with cancer. And that became the time. Yes, I knew Kevin from the Look People. You're holding up the Look People album. I know, I should tell people, yeah, because yes, I'm holding up the Look People.

Let me go all the way back. So James B. was also one of my contemporaries. And I still see him from time to time, and we're still in touch. Okay, quick, I have to, for a moment, just ask you, because I have this debate on Toronto Mic'd all the time with people. In your opinion, is James B. famous? We'll get back to that burning question in a mere moment. I just want to thank some sponsors, some partners of the program that help keep the real talk flowing. Much love to Great Lakes Brewery. Fresh craft beer here in Etobicoke, southwest Toronto. Go to greatlakesbeer.com.

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wonderful little videos every time he lists a home. And last but not least, this is very exciting for everyone listening to me right now in the GTHA. If you're in the GTHA, go to chefdrop.ca. Select one of the wonderful restaurants and chef-prepared meal kits there and use the promo code FOTM20 when you check out. You'll save 20% right away. This is a very special deal. I urge all FOTMs 20 when you check out. You'll save 20% right away. This is a very special deal. I urge all FOTMs to do this. Not only will you get to try ChefDrop,

and I've been hearing from FOTMs who have had great experience and loved the meals they received from ChefDrop, but it lets ChefDrop know that you're listening and it works. So, again, the promo code is FOTM20 at chefdrop.ca. Now, let's find out if Paul Myers thinks James B. is famous. In your opinion, is James B. famous?

I don't know about that. I don't know where he's... I don't want to offend him, but I would say he's famous the way, like, cult famous. Like, people who know James B. know him, and you don't come away with a neutral opinion of James B. He's a very big presence. And he was a very positive presence in my life.

And one of the many things that he was a positive presence for was, A, he was really good at letting you know that he believed in you. But just to bring this back to Kevin Hearn, Kevin was in The Look People, and then he was doing a solo record with Voya Voda, Michael Voya Voda. And then I had become a writer at this point. So I ended up writing a short six page bio, short six page, a short six page bio for Kevin Hearn, which turned out really fortuitous for me because when I got the Barenaked Ladies book gig, Kevin was incapacitated.

And as we found out, he was getting, you know, chemo and radiation and all these things. And I had to do all this research. And luckily I had his story already. I could talk to him and we were, you know, praying for him, so to speak. I mean, I don't pray, but we were like wishing him the best. And then he did pull through.

So the end of my book has a happy ending. And, and then, you know, so those, so then Kevin also poignant though, because not only did he work very closely with Gord Downie and lost him to cancer, he worked closely with Lou Reed and lost Lou Reed. So you could get, you could get Kevin to talk about several of these great artists and everyone who works with Kevin comes away with an understanding of this. Kevin's the most unique and gifted musician in that he can make, he can make his presence felt, or he can also just be a completely perfect accompanist. Like you, you could, you know, you watch a Lou Reed clip where Kevin's playing the piano and you're not really totally conscious of Kevin all the time, but then

you are, then there's a little Phil or something. And he's just like Garth Hudson in the band or something. He's just sort of sitting back there being himself and building this thing, you know, and I love Kevin Hearn. So perhaps we can use that as an opportunity to chat a little more about Barenaked Ladies. First of all, what's the name of the book that you wrote about the Barenaked Ladies? It was called Public Stunts, Private Stories. And the reason it was called that

was because at the time, Stunt, at the time we were doing this, their Stunt album was just cresting in the American, know charts and the single one week actually went to number one and it was an incredible time to be around the Barenaked Ladies having been around them earlier I'd been there with them like you know they opened for me at the ultrasound show bar on Queen Street and then they opened for us the second time they opened for us at Sneaky d's they brought all their

own people and it was really embarrassing because a lot of their people left during our set so um so uh but it was also a great thing because we were like oh my god we next time we play with these guys we'll be opening for them because they were coming through like a train so what was great to write this book was when it was happening in America. And so I got to go on the, I embedded myself with them, met up with them at the Hollywood, the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. And then I traveled in their bus with them and we went to Tempe, Arizona, and we went to Dallas, Austin, and and houston and i i watched you know bare naked lady mania happening in the united states and meeting these friends men uh friends of theirs fans of theirs

who are you know to this day some of those people show up in my social media because i'm associated with them but those fans stayed with the band all the way through it and uh so it's just a great thing to be a part of that. It was written for their management too, which is interesting. They hired me. So I essentially was their autobiographer. Like they made me the point person.

And it was really great for me to learn how to write, but also great to be witnessing my friends making it, you know, and it was such a great, the whole thing was a really pleasant experience. I remember Steven Page and I in, I'm going to say Houston, we went to see a Philip Seymour Hoffman movie and we were talking about music. And he, he, later that night, he showed me some bands like the, uh, uh, the divine comedy, a band from England. And I, I, to this day, whenever I hear any of that music was from this one bus ride where Stephen was blowing my mind. Cause he's got such an amazing sense of music and,

and just, you know, he's, you know, he's just, um, yeah, like I like them all. And, and the thing is, uh, okay. I just, I'm rambling now I'm all over the place, but when I did my kids in the hall book, I was doing a promotion at CBC. So I wore my CBC exploding pizza shirt, I was doing a promotion at CBC. So I wore my CBC exploding pizza shirt. Of course. And I that night I'm up on the Danforth or on Bloor Street West.

And I walk into a cafe. I still had the shirt on and I see someone else wearing it. And it's Tyler Stewart and Tyler and I. And I got to thank him. I said, this is my fourth book. The Kids in the Hall book is my fourth book. And I said, you guys, it was Tyler who made the phone call to say, we want you to write our book. And I said, I just want to say what a poignant thing to see you.

And we're both wearing CBC shirts. I mean, it was a real, like you appreciate this on Toronto Mike. I mean, this is like, it's, it was such a great Canadian moment to bump into Tyler. When my wife and I went to Italy for our, for our anniversary and our anniversary for what is it? Our honeymoon. That's what it's called. The honeymoon.

I should know these things. Shout out to honeymoon suite. But I, what I would do is in Europe, I would often wear my exploding, I call, I always called it the exploding asshole, but I think exploding is a much nicer one, but I would wear that shirt. Cause it's one of these, like, it's a canadian fellow canadian spots it it's like oh there's another canuck and they'll come and chat you up and it's always i always find it when i'm in europe if somebody comes up to me and it's like oh yeah we live in calgary it might as well be like down

the street like it's like it's like oh i'm in toronto like we're neighbors like yeah exactly yeah that happened to me i was in my wife and I were backpacking in Nepal and we were in, you know, Kathmandu and we were in a cafe and I hear somebody on the next table, it was a rooftop patio thing. And the next table over, we hear them going, wait, didn't he live on Bloor Street? And you hear the Bloor, Bloor Street, right?

And Lisa and I looked at each other and like, what? And I said, you guys, are you from Toronto? And they said, yeah. And it was like Kathmandu of all places. You bump into another Toronto man. Have you ever seen photos of Joseph Bloor, the man that Bloor is named for? No. Okay, well, you got to seek this out later.

Just Google image of whatever Joseph Bloor. He's a scary looking dude, man. So it's quite the photo of Josephoseph bluer so check that out uh bernicke ladies okay so i will just cross promote really quickly that i've uh had three members and i'm speaking of the original cast if you will so i'll count steven in there but steven page has been on i mentioned kevin hearn has the the two episodes but i gotta say when tyler Stewart came over, I think we might have done something like three hours. I can't remember now. But it was like, I know he listens to the program.

So hello to Tyler. He's a big fan of Toronto Mike. Hi, Tyler. It's like he was made. Well, you sound like you're made for this show, actually. But Tyler as well. Like, he just got it. And we started with Super Dave and we just went.

It was just unbelievable. Yeah, he worked for Super Dave. That's amazing. He probably told you about that story about making Baba Ganoush for Super Dave and we just went. It was just unbelievable. Yeah, he worked for Super Dave. That's amazing. He probably told you about that story about making Baba Ganoush for Super Dave. I got all the Super Dave stories and then just two weeks ago I had Leona Boyd on the program.

Oh my god. And Leona drops this bomb about when Super Dave was working in agent court, right? Filming the Super Dave show. I guess that's after Bizarre. So I guess Bizarre was there. And then anyway, and this is how...

Up at CFTO. Right, exactly, exactly. What's the story really quickly is that Super Dave offered Leona Boyd some television deal, but asked her to come to his hotel room. And I won't get into too many specifics, except Super Dave answers the door in a robe

and Leona just wanted, she said, I wouldn't tell this story while the man was alive, but she wanted to talk about some of the Me Too she experienced in her career. But yeah, so I get in this story. Meanwhile, I love Super Dave. It's not just Super Dave, but Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bob Einstein, and of course

the Tyler Stewart stories were so fantastic. But anyway, we'll leave that one, but go ahead. You mentioned Tyler being perfect for the show, and then you were saying something about me. And I got to say, if you've been in a three-way conversation with me, Tyler Stewart, and maybe Steven Page, it's kind of amazing. Steven's a little more subdued, but he's no less participatory.

But Tyler and I, I once went to a party. I don't drink anymore. And one of the reasons is I remember this party I went to I ended up in my underwear, pouring beers down my front and Marin Cadell was there as I recall, but it was and you know, Michael, but it was one of those Toronto parties, but I was so wasted at this party. But I remember the thing that cut through is remembering Tyler. He was the host, but remembering

Tyler and I just going faster and faster and faster together. To this day, he's still one of the he's one of my favorite people. He's a highlight of the Toronto Mike Dark Eyes for sure and I will just shout out Stephen Page for being a guest on Bumper Stumpers back in the day.

I don't know if you know this but Stephen Page was on Bumper Stumpers. I don't remember I don't know if you know this, but Stephen Page was on Bumper Stumpers. I don't remember that. Pre-Barenaked Ladies, of course. But yeah, so he goes way back there. Okay, so Barenaked Ladies, I could do an hour of you talking about Barenaked Ladies,

but can I ask you about another Toronto band, just to find out if you have anything to say about them, mainly because two members of the band are in my backyard tomorrow so the timing is really nice but did you cross paths with lowest of the low? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

all the time. I used to see Ron and Steve Yeah, yeah. Steve is Danly. He's no longer in the band though Yeah, but I remember years ago that was Steve Stanley and Ron Hawkins used to, I think his I don't know if he's still with this woman, but his partner at the time used to work at a coffee shop many years ago when I had a day job at Wellesley and Young, roughly. It was around there. And I remember I said, she said, you know, my boyfriend's in a band. And I said, oh, who's the band?

And she goes, have you ever heard of the lowest of the low? I'm like, well, yeah, actually. And I hadn't met him yet. So that was, and then, yeah, you sort of end up, I think we ended up on one of those CFNY bills together, you know, with a couple other bands like Rhymes with Orange or something like one of those. Well, Rhymes with Orange. But Lowest of the Low were probably one of my favorite bands from that whole CFNY experience. It's almost embarrassing, but I'm not embarrassed by it.

But I still routinely spin Shakespeare My Butt, like as if that's a new album. I just put it on because I love every song on that album. I just totally love Shakespeare My Butt. Yeah, it's a great record. You remind me, yeah, Shakespeare My Butt was one. And then Scott B. Sympathy's band was Scott Bradshaw. uh you remind me yeah that shakespeare my butt was one and then uh uh scott b sympathies uh band was uh scott bradshaw they they were those bands had the same kind of to me poetic uh they're like

street poets with like with straight ahead rock bands you know going on yeah and that also runs you have the lawn which is another band from that era with gourd cummings on slide guitar and of course ian blurton was always around with changing part and various other things that he was Lawn, which is another band from that era with Gord Cummings on slide guitar. And of course, Ian Blurton was always around with Change of Heart and various other things that he was doing. And, you know, Glenn Milchum drummed in one of my bands and then joined Blue Rodeo. It was like Blue Rodeo were definitely a big part of our scene because they kind of came from outside of our scene scene but they inspired our scene like so i would eat at mimi's restaurant on on uh on the bathurst and queen and uh blue rodeo would

be the cowboy junkies would be there jane sivery would be there wow um sky diggers were there love sky diggers shadowy men on a shadowy planet were there i was gonna play some but maybe i should play it now because i wanted to talk about the kids and I have some loaded up. But yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Sorry to interrupt you there. When she said that, it's like, I got to load it up in the chamber here. Hey, is now a good time? Yeah, is now a good time? Maybe I play a little shadowy man

on a shadowy planet and then we can talk about to this day, my favorite comedy troupe of all time here. It's my show. I'm just going to do it. Here we go. Having an average weekend. And of course, that was the theme song to the kids in the hall, which I watched religiously. I loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Tell us, what can you share with us about Kids in the Hall? And remind us what the name of your book is about Kids in the Hall. Okay. So that sounds great, by the way. I love shadowing men. My book is One Dumb Guy, what's called Kids in the Hall, One Dumb Guy. And it's currently available through House of Anansi. House of Anansi is a good Torontoonto publisher good plug for them uh they so many years ago um i knew them i'll tell you the whole story so when when i was because that's the show you do it on right um when i was so my brother mike as we established was in sketch comedy now when he was starting out he was at the second city workshops in toronto which was in those days

in the old fire hall building, which I don't know if even the building's still there, but I know that second city are not. Uh, but, um, but the old fire hall had this workshop program and you would go there, uh,

and learn the rules of sketch comedy and, you know, how to be on stage and stuff like that. Mike did really well there, um, as might've come out later. And he ended up in the touring company. But somewhere around this time,

I took a few classes because when you're a brother and I was on stage as a musician and I wanted to get better at being on stage. And also I had been known to be slightly funny around people. So I thought, what if the sketch comedy gene

could strike me too? Let's find out. And then ultimately, I if what if the sketch comedy gene could strike me, too? Let's find out. And then ultimately, I think we found out it didn't. But I took about seven, I think it was about 10 weeks of courses like they were like six week courses or something like that. And I would go there and in my class, this is what I'm getting to or in between classes, there was Kevin McDonald and Dave Foley, who would later form the Kids in the Hall. In fact, I think they had just formed the Kids in the Hall. And they said, come see our sketch troupe. And Dave Foley said to me, actually, he said, they say I'm

like your brother. Everyone says I'm the next Mike Myers. And then Kevin was, we love your brother. We think he's amazing. And it was nice that they liked that. And then I was dating a woman at the time named Shirley. And Shirley used to go to York University. And she said, I want to go see the sketch troupe. My friend Scott Thompson is in them. And I said, oh, well, yeah, I've been meaning to go see the same troupe.

It's my friend Scott. And I mean, Dave and Kevin are in that troupe. So I went to see the kids in the hall at the Rivoli and then end up going to all their shows like every time they played. And then when they got the TV show, I remember going to see the TV show tapings, several of them, not all of them. And the shadowy men were part of that. And it was really great.

So then cut to years later, I write the Barenaked Ladies book. I wrote another book about Long John Baldry, who's a musician from England who lived in Canada. And I then wrote a book about Todd Rundgren. And so around this time, I was like, what do I do now? And then I thought, I've been so wanting to tell the story about the kids in the hall. And they had just started touring again. So, you know, the kids in the hall and they had just started touring again. So, you know, I put together a book proposal and I went to several different publishers,

some American companies who were close to giving me a deal. And then, but then house of Anansi saw what it was worth and they, and I thought, well, that makes sense that a Toronto publisher would do this and, but they had us distribution. So it was going to be great. So I went to the kids in the hall and they said, I will only tell this story if you you if you're all going toisen. And, and, and they were all inspired in some way by the kids in the hall. So I wrote this book called One Dumb Guy. It did really well. And the kids themselves all helped promote it. Like we did some live shows,

you know, Toronto, we did a thing with Scott and Bruce, LA, I did a thing with Dave, Scott and it was Dave and Scott actually. And then what else? We did other things. Sketch Fest in San Francisco, we did four of them. I had done a thing in 2008 with all five of them. So I'm kind of like

ingratiated to their world. I know their world. And in fact, there's another project. I'm going to be doing another project in the new year that I will announce later, but it's involving promoting the kids in the hall in some way. And, and they're of course making a new series, which will be out in the new year as well. So I was going to ask you for an update on that because it's funny when kevin was visited uh he said that this he told me off the record at the

time that there was a deal in place one member of the kids had to sign off on it still before it could be like announced oh i remember that i remember those days yeah so i got you know that was not broadcast but i feel like we can tell that's right but bottom line is it happened so i was always curious uh so you're telling me this, when's this going to air in Prime? What did you say? I don't know when their date is for their show, but Amazon Prime is putting out a new series of Kids in the Hall in 2022.

I'm not entirely sure. You know, I have a date that they had said originally, but I'm pretty sure it's not that date. I think COVID delayed it. Like I feel like there was something with COVID that pushed it. And I'm, I'm working on a project that sort of ties into it. That isn't the show itself,

but, and that will be coming out around the same time. So that's one of the reasons we're trying to figure that out. And, and I'll lovely, I'll make a lovely announcement of that at some point. But so, yeah,

so one dumb guy just gotten me all that at some point. But so, yeah, so One Dumb Guy just gotten me all kinds of great feedback. In fact, it's, you know, it to this day, actually, people are, you know, I have a lot better clout in the writing business, I think, because of that book. And just fans come up to me. And I must say, the Barenaked Ladies book,

also I have fans who've said although i'm not as there's something i did in the bare naked ladies book that i will never do again is they they encouraged me to be a character in the book and it was my first book and i will never do that again and i actually did read one bad review once where somebody said i don't want to hear about paul myers band and's like, I know, but I was there and I was trying to, but I won't. But it is nice when the fans connect with a book you've written because, you know, I'm a fan. I write a book. My books are, you know, I'm not a hard hitting journalist.

I write, I celebrate art and the social interactions of the people who make art. And all my books, the Todd Rundgren book, which was called Wizard of True Star, Todd Rundgren in the studio, it was all about how he produced, you know, Patti Smith, XTC, Meatloaf, the New York Dolls. And I talked to all those bands that he produced as well.

And it was more about stories about making the records than any kind of like drug stories or anything like that or sex stories. I mean, I'm not as interested. People are interested in that stuff, but they'll get another writer for that. Yes, you're not there to dish the dirt. You're there to capture the spirit of the creative project, essentially.

I love that stuff. That's my favorite thing. And look at what I was saying earlier about the people I knew in Toronto. All those memories are not about that we all got wasted together. I mean, I did mention one, but mostly the stories are about like i was in the room when the when the rheostatics uh when michael voivode had just finished mixing whale music uh melville melville i think it was actually um and and whale music and but all these records and i was like i remember thinking you did it mike and you know and I was proud of them.

And I remember when they were recording, if I had a million dollars and they were adding backing vocals and I didn't get the call, but I was jealous at the time. But, but everybody I knew showed up to saying, to sing in the chorus on that, you know, and, and I just like those things to me, it was about the spirit of the team making it and the people and just, you know, it's not about, you know, other scandalous things, you know? No, totally. Totally. Now, if you don't mind,

I got to tie up a loose end from earlier in this conversation, cause I got to get back to the great Chris Ward because he wanted to know what happened to the band. So can you give us the, like, what ended the Gravel Berries? Just a lot of things. So we toured in 94, and then it was getting harder and harder. Like, a lot of times I would... Okay, I wasn't sharing any of the writers' royalties or anything like that, and we weren't getting paid a lot of times I would, okay, I wasn't sharing any of the writers royalties or anything like that.

And we weren't getting paid a lot of money. So to get people to be part of the team, I think, you know, when you're a band of five people or four people who all have the same goal, it became less clear what the goal was for them. And I would often, you know, think, well, maybe we'll just get different players all the time. So it became kind of a titular thing where one lineup made the record, and then eventually I toured

with one other lineup, and then there was a mid-lineup somewhere in the middle. And some of the players were in different lineups, but at some point it was just like, okay, it really isn't a band. And then it was getting harder and harder to sort of figure out what to do next. I had a crisis of confidence about being a performer, which was badly timed, I would think. And then I did a solo, I went, started doing solo work basically, and just started doing one-off shows by myself. And then, you know, there was a meeting where I basically said, uh, I think, I think this isn't

going to work. I think it's not, I don't think we're going to, I don't think there's a band and, and the, the, you know, the, the two last men standing in the band were really great people. Um, John Hume on keyboards and Claude Kent on drums. And it was, you know, we'd taken it as far as we could in that lineup. And then I moved. And then I moved in 97. My wife got an offer to work in Northern California for the people who make the dummies books, ironically enough. You know, those computers for dummies books.

Of course. Which I guess are now obsolete because people, when they get a computer now, they use usually a PDF that comes with it. So you don't need a book. But she was doing, working for the company that did those. And so I moved to California and that's when I started meeting other people. And then later made this record with one of the people I met, a guy named John Mormon. this record with one of the people I met, a guy named John Mormon. And we made a record under the name The Paul and John, which is, I think it's the true follow-up to The Gravel Berries in terms of the kinds of stuff I was writing, but it's more of a collaborative effort with John Mormon.

So anyway, so that's how The Gravel Berries ended up not being around. Is it okay if I revisit some sadness? Are you okay maybe uh we had some sadness and we had some happiness and here's a little more just like life right it's all over the place here but uh michael coffee and i know you saw it on twitter because i think you found out from his tweet sadly but yeah i'll just read what he wrote and then hopefully you can speak to it but michael coffee wrote uh can you ask him to speak about d Roberts? In parentheses, he says Tank, who passed on Sunday. Tank was like the gatekeeper to the whole Queen Street scene and a big part of the Garys.

Yeah. So I had heard that only online from that tweet. And I, you know, Tank was somebody who was really special. He worked for the Garys and as well as other things. I think you kind of like,

Gary Top actually wrote really eloquently. I was actually looking for what Gary wrote because he basically said that he was an honorary Gary. Gary's being Gary Cormier and Gary Topp. And I imagine if you're listening to this show, you know all about these people. Especially because they've each been on Toronto Mike.

So the listenership has dove deep into the Garys, for sure. Yeah, I made a point of putting it aside and I can't remember where I put it. But Gary Top Todd basically said, you know, he was a big present, a big physical presence. So people thought he was going to be like a big tough guy, but he was actually a really, really nice guy. And, and I didn't have as many interactions with him. So I didn't, I didn't really write anything on a personal level. I just remember that he was always a really nice guy and that, you know,

to me, he was one of the people that you, when you think back to those days, because I was really young when the Edge Club was happening and the Garys, Garys were really good promoters of my first band, Space Invaders. And so, you know, I was around the Garys world and the Gary's world was very influential to a lot of us musicians in those days. And Tank was part of that. And Tank was a big part of that. And like I said earlier, it's the people that make these scenes happen. And Tank was one of them. And I was really sad to hear that I didn't hadn't heard about his health struggles.

And and it's just very sad to hear uh that i didn't hadn't heard about his health struggles and um and it's just very sad to to hear about that and but you know i guess that's life we're especially this age i imagine we're going to hear more of these things i'm i'm sorry for your loss but just a little more sadness before we get to happier topics is because uh as i do the math i realize your brother mike is on saturday night live his last couple of years overlap with norm mcdonald's first couple years and i'm curious if you had uh any interactions with norm mcdonald yeah i did actually i um when i first went to see saturday night live i think Norm was doing update at this point and I went down to New York

and Norm did the warm up which you know everyone knows what a warm up is like the comedian comes out before the show just to get the audience used to laughing and also to get the microphones set for what recorded laughter would sound like.

So a lot of these shows have warmups and the often it's somebody from the show doing standup. And in this case it was Norm MacDonald. And he came out and he was actually three times funnier than anything on update. Although I loved his update. But and then the backstage, you know Mike introduced to meet a lot of people that, you know, like I met Chris Farley backstage. I met all these. At this point, they were colleagues of my brother.

So it would be like Mike says, this is my brother Paul. And Norm and Donald goes, ah, you're the brother. You're from Toronto, right? And it was like I hadn't even, I don't think I even realized he was Canadian until that moment. Because I hadn't really read that. I don't think I even realized he was Canadian until that moment because I hadn't really read that. We didn't become buddies or anything, but I remember at the time thinking how exciting.

And the other thing I remember about him in that day was I kind of thought he was a handsome man. He's a handsome guy because he's got the blue piercing eyes and he wore nice jackets and i remember him wearing matching because i guess on update you don't see the lower half but he was wearing a matching suit jacket you know and it was and it fit him well and i remember thinking this guy's a suave guy and i remember thinking that that hadn't made i hadn't made that impression from watching him on tv but meeting him in person i'm like wow this guy's stylish, you know?

And over the years, he, he obviously said a lot of things that were not, I didn't agree with, but he said like a million things that were hilarious. So, and I think overall the balance is that he was a nice guy who wasn't afraid to say things that were sometimes challenging,

you know? And his brother of course worked for the exploding pizza company the uh yeah neil mcdonald uh worked for the cbc for many years i did not know that that's why you become to toronto mic to hear these details yeah that was always my fun fact is oh you know i you know who oh you know the guy from the gravel berries you know his brother is, the guy from the Gravel Berries, you know, his brother is the guy from Shrek. Yeah. But yeah, who's related to who? So there you go.

Now I'm going to do a little mop up on some questions here. And I will, I guess I'll apologize to you, Paul, that I mean, we're not, just because it's Toronto, Mike, I know you've been all over like Vancouver radio and Vancouver, you know, am I right? You've had, you've been all over the airwaves in Vancouver, you know, uh, am I right? You've, you've had, uh, you've been all over the airwaves, uh, in Vancouver. Well, yeah. Do you want memories of Vancouver? Sure. Go up. Cause I have a question for you about who is your favorite, uh, co-staff writer at impact. But, uh, I, I don't want, I don't want you to think I just skipped your like Vancouver media career.

Oh, well just quickly, the Vancouver chunk is that chunk is that it's actually kind of interesting to me, which is after being in San Francisco for about four and a half years, I had a job that I didn't love anymore and it was becoming hard to do from San Francisco. So I was ready to leave and I was on a visa that meant I could only work for that company. And my wife had this similar situation, the job that she was in she wasn't enjoying as much. So we said, let's move back to Canada, but let's, let's try and see if we can just go up the coast to Vancouver and make that

work. And by this point I knew the odds and you know, Vancouver band and I just decided to go out there and within uh within a around this time I would I just written the Barenaked Ladies book so I started promoting it and I was on some Vancouver radio station and I said um it was Mojo radio actually and I was promoting my show, promoting my book on this show. Um, I can't remember the guy's name. I just blanking on the guy's name. He was a Toronto broadcaster who'd moved out there. You might know. Um, he'd been on, Oh wow. Anyway, I was guesting on the show and then, um, I, I did well. Like I, I was, as it turns out a good guest, I would say having been on both sides of this, I as it turns out, a good guest, I would say, having been on both sides of

this, I could say I was probably a good guest. And then they had me back. And then I, I said to them, Hey, um, I'd love to do this. You guys, it was talk radio. So I thought, let's do it. And, uh, I said, I'd love to do a show for you. And they, they said, well, we'll put you on in the middle of the day. They said, yes, but they said, it doesn't pay that well, but you do two hours a day from one to three. So I had the Paul Myers 1-2-3 show, which was a midday radio show, but I got to do whatever I wanted. Wow. Except I couldn't play whole songs because I guess the CRTC couldn't play whole songs. So I'd play snippets of songs going into segments, and I was really good at all sports. Oh. And then,

and I remember the day they, they had me in the office and said, uh, so on Monday we're going all sports. And I said, oh, great. So am I going to interview sports guys now?

They go, oh no, you're fired. Oh, it was like, oh, I'd never been, I,

well, I'd never been hired for radio before. So I'd never been fired before. And I remember, um, one of the other DJs from, cause it was four chorus radio stations in one building. One of the station guys from Rock 101,

I think it was said to me, don't worry when one doorway closes, another doorway opens. And I said, what if the window opens or something like that? It was one of those, I'd never heard these expressions. So, but that was cool.

I think that expression, I think it's like, uh, when God closes a door, he opens a window or something like that. I feel like, I feel like I heard it from Aaron Davis at some point. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That sounds like that sounds about right. And the, but around this time concurrently, this is why this is interesting for me. I think of my, my five years in Vancouver as being a little like broadcast school because I did that. And then while I was doing that, I was also on a show called Urban Rush on the Shaw TV Cable 10 channel. And I was the movie critic with a guy named Patrick Malija. And we would just go to see the idea was that I was a

musician and he was a stand up comedian and we'd go see movies and talk about them like that. You know, so we weren't even film critics, but we were ultimately criticizing film. That went really well. And then I, and then concurrently, my wife started working for the Vicki Gabbro show at CTV, which was out of Vancouver. And she was a segment producer. And they brought me in to talk pop culture with Vicki. And Vicki and I hit it off.

So I was doing three or four things. And then I was writing for the Georgia Straight, which is like their now magazine you know owned by the same people now by the way probably yeah I didn't know that yeah it just happened I think two years ago oh wow I didn't realize that so they were

you know so I did that and then I actually got a job on a show called Pop Stars The One which is one of those you know American Idol type shows. And I was the music judge and Erica M was on that with me. And yeah, it was a bunch of different people.

Who are the other judges? Do you have any, remember? Oh, who's that rapper from Toronto? Which one, Maestro Fresh West? Chaclare. Oh, Chaclare. Okay, amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was on that. And a comedian named Jason something. Oh my God. It's been so long. This was 2003, I think, you know, but I got what was great about that experience was that I got to go across the country, you know, staying in hotels and being part of this show that was being made. So I got to, you know, be in Vancouver, but I also got out to St. John's and, you know, we didn't go to Regina, did we? Yeah, it was Regina, I think. And, and we went to Calgary and Montreal, you know, so it was really great to be working in

media and getting to see the country without it being in a tour bus. For sure. So it was really nice. So all that happened within five years. Wow. So I feel like I owe Vancouver a lot. And to this day, I have friends there. And I was a slightly bigger fish in a very small pond. And I got recognized at the London Drugs, you know,

which is sort of like being recognized at Shoppers Drug Mart. All right, Paul, I got to ask, though, if you know, which is like being recognized at Shoppers Drug Mart. All right, Paul, I got to ask though, if you have that like that pop stars pedigree there, were you, did you ever audition for Canadian Idol to be a judge on Canadian Idol? I did not, no. I think maybe being on pop stars, the one had possibly tainted my chances for Canadian Idol.

I'm not sure. Right. Oh, cause I've had all the, actually there's one I haven't had, a guy named Zach Wer Canadian Idol. I'm not sure. Oh, cause I've had all the, well, actually there's one I haven't had, a guy named Zach Werner. I think he's hiding there.

I remember him. Newfoundland. I remember him. But yeah, but, but you know, Jake Gold, of course,

manages now, once again, manages the Tragically Hip. Well, Jake Gold gave me some advice once when I was in the Gravel Berries. we had, we had a keyboard player in that band and one guitar player. And he said, lose the keyboard player, get a second guitar player.

Guitar bands are in now. And I didn't. I didn't do that. So maybe Jake was right. I remember the time did not take it well. I said to Jake, okay, Jake, walk away. But, you know, people are just trying to help you in their way. Sure.

I think, in fact I'm pretty certain today even though it's not a full-time gig for any members of the band or anything but I think he manages the pursuit of happiness today like I feel like Jake Gold somehow is managing them right now that would make sense that would make sense yeah I mean it's at this point we're all part of a very small brotherhood or sisterhood or whatever there's a there's only a few people you know it wouldn't be surprised me if someday they called me to write a bio you know that sort of thing because we all know each other so so yeah that makes a lot of sense and uh just because they're friends of the show uh did you did you cross paths

with the the watchmen at all or were they after grab they were post gravel berries maybe well there was some overlap i think but did you ever cross i feel like we did a show where we were on the bill with the watchmen but i never really got a chance to talk to them so no i mean there's a few bands like that like wild tea that we played you know we played a show with uh uh there's some bands that i knew really well like universal honey was uh you know johnny and leslie from the pursuit of happiness and we we did a lot of shows together played a show with, there's some bands that I knew really well, like Universal Honey was, you know, Johnny and Leslie. Chorus from the Pursuit of Happiness.

And we did a lot of shows together. But, but yeah, so there's, Watchmen, I don't think, I don't think. The only reason I thought of them is because Jake,

Jake was managing them too back in their heyday. That makes sense. That makes sense. I remember I would see the tea party on the street, but I never really got to know them either. So there's a lot of like, those are the bands that were around, you and our lady peace i think it just started happening around that time so yeah but i didn't know those guys and here's a fun little just happened so i decided i would try to find out who is this mojo radio host i know the mojo toronto people but i

didn't know the vancouver host i just said i put in the the Google, I put in Google Mojo Vancouver radio host from Toronto, and the first result is like a Wikipedia blurb about Humble Howard Glassman. And the only reason I find that interesting is that Humble Howard Glassman was in my backyard yesterday with Fred. Humble and Fred were on Toronto Mike yesterday.

Oh, I love those guys. Yeah. Humble and Fred were good to me in Toronto's Mojo Radio and NCFNY. They used to play the Gravel Berries. And I actually did an event at the CN Tower that they hosted. It was like one of those CN Tower walkathons where you walk up the steps of CN Tower. But I love those guys. And Humble and Fred were very, very, very influential to me as a broadcaster. So that was cool. Yeah,

I knew those guys. So this, yeah, this other guy's name, I can't remember right now. I guess I should, but I can't remember his name. I hate that.

I hate that because I hope that's not a sign of aging. No, no. If it is, I'm in big trouble too. So that happens to me all the time, especially when the mic is live and I realize I'm not going going to edit anything and then it's like oh i can't remember anything uh what was i gonna say i but humble and fred fun fact there is that i actually produce

their show now so if you uh ever want to if you ever want to wake up at 5 15 a.m uh california time let me know and i'll put you on the show you know that's me every day i'm just kidding uh no you know what um i will do it one day one day. I'm just kidding. No, you know what? I will do it one day. One day I'll stay up really late. Well, maybe if you're ever out here to visit friends and if you're ever on a different time zone and it's a little more convenient,

just let me know and we'll make it happen. It'd be awesome. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll tell you to say hi to those guys, though. Oh, I will for sure. I actually mentioned to them that I was talking to you today and they said something about how they used to be on their show back in the day so i'm not i don't know the money or anything do i i hate that when that happens well they wouldn't

forget if you did so i don't think you do because i would have heard about it that's right that's right all right so the big questions uh who was your favorite co-staff writer at impact well uh there's a guy named manfred that i really liked that's that's the reveal right there that question comes from some manfred guy so yeah and but i will also say there's two other people that i uh the the dickie sisters mary and uh mary dickie was my editor and robin and they were they were really nice people and i think jenny punter was in there a lot too so um it was a good little crew they were really nice people. And I think Jenny Punter was in there a lot too. So it was a good little crew. They were out there on Queen Street,

right by Trinity Bellwoods Park in a little storefront office. And that was a very important gig for me too, because Mary Dickey hired me. I had just come in from the cold from the Gravelberries and I had written a piece about my friend Ron Sexsmith for the Globe and Mail. gravel berries. And I was, I had written a piece about my friend, Ron Sexsmith for the Globe and Mail. And, uh, I was interested in pursuing writing and she said, well, we can put you, you know, put you to work doing some features and reviews for impact. And it was a glossy magazine was available for free. It was similar to, uh, I learned later the American magazine tower pulse, which was tower pulse was a glossy magazine that Tower Records used to put in their store. And Impact was free in record stores around the country. And I got to interview a lot of I got to interview Iggy Pop for Impact magazine. I got to interview Urge Overkill. It's a very interesting

time, actually. Ian Menzies, who was a musician from the toronto scene that was writing for canadian musician and he had interviewed brian adams and he saw that i was writing for impact and and he he couldn't finish the article because he had to do something but he had the interview tape so he said i will recommend you to canadian musician magazine and you can finish my article using my notes i'm like oh okay so that's how i ended up writing for canadian musician so all of a sudden uh impact had given me this start, Globe and Mail had given me a start. And then I was writing for Canadian musicians. So it, um, it was suddenly I had a writing career and that led to the Barenaked Ladies book. So, so that's how all that happened. So it's, it's,

um, you know, you don't know where you're going sometimes in life. And sometimes you just have to listen, listen for what the, uh, universe is telling you, you know, so't know where you're going sometimes in life and sometimes you just have to listen listen for what the uh universe is telling you you know so that that worked out for me well one more for manfred here and he wants to know how did you come to meet uh bj horseman oh um yeah uh ralphiel ben wexford uh excuse me what's his name yeah raf Raphael Bob Waksberg. I said Ben. Okay. Well, Raphael Bob Waksberg, I only got to meet him because living in San Francisco and being somewhat connected to some media here,

I've hosted various live shows like Q&As and I've been like the featured interviewer for different shows for Sketch Fest and things like that. And this Jewish Community center, uh, we're bringing him in and they, they asked me if I would host it. So I read his book, uh,

ahead of time because that was to promote his book. And I watched about two seasons of BoJack Horseman and then, um, really, uh, just went to the thing with, oh, you know, open mind. And in the green room, we were talking about other things. And it turns out one of the stories was about Barenaked Ladies. And I said, well, I wrote their book. And we hit it off. So by the time we went on stage, and I think it's available online somewhere. You can search it out. Paul Myers, M-Y-E-R-S with Raphael Bob Wexberg.

Wexberg. I'll say it out. Paul Myers, M-Y-E-R-S with, with, uh, Raphael Bob Wexberg, Waxberg. I'll say it wrong. Uh, and, uh, I felt like we had a great, um, a great chemistry on stage and he was, uh, he told me some great stories and that just, yeah, I love the guy. I haven't really seen him since. We, uh, sometimes pop into each other in Twitter. Twitter's a, a, a stream of goodness and badness. And sometimes, uh, the good is really good and the bad is really bad. Agreed. Agreed. And one more BNL question from Brian that I missed.

I just want to get it because he'll be mad at me if I don't get this in. I'm curious to hear more stories of when he was in the recording studio when BNL recorded Maroon. Yeah, well, that was fascinating. So this is the album after... Maybe You Should Drive? No, where am I? No, Maroon. I wasn't there for Maroon. Wait a minute, it was the album after.

It was called... Was Maroon... No, it was the one with One Week on it. That's... Here, I'm going to call up the BNL discography here. We got to get this right, especially since you're the authority here. Come here. All right. So well, well, Stunt was 1998. That's right. So Stunt. So I was just as Stunt was coming out.

They asked me to write this book. So I was spending a lot of time with them. The book took a little while to get together. There's various things happening. I think also because it was my first book, I was taking a long time to turn it in. And there was no, there hadn't been a real deadline. I mean, there had, but there hadn't been. And I needed something to finish it, to finish the book.

So they said, well, we're already recording a new album, which would become Maroon. So I was flown down to LA Cello Studios, which had a lot of history because I think the Beach Boys had recorded some of Pet Sounds there when it was called something else. And they were recording with Don Wads, the it was, so I was, I was present for about three or four of these sessions. And this one particular day I came down and they, they were doing feels just was like a starting falling for the first time. Yes. And, and there was a part of it. We were all listening back to the playback and it reminded me of the,

the who, for some reason, I don't know why. And I started pretending to swing the microphone like Roger Daltrey. And so everybody started imitating me and we all did it. And, uh, and I,

I remember being so happy for them that they had like, you know, they played me pinch me and I thought it sounded great. Cause it had these sample drums, which is little loop and stuff. And Don was, and I had a great conversation about the, the role of comedy and music and it's all in and stuff. And Don Walsh and I had a great conversation about the role of comedy in music

and it's all in the book. And then I remember a year after this, so that tells you about the Roger Daltrey mic thing. So a year or two after this, they're playing in Vancouver and GM Place, I don't know what it's

called now, but GM Place and and I'm... Roger Center maybe? Maybe. And I'm in the GM Place. I don't know what it's called now, but GM Place. Roger Center, maybe? Maybe. And I'm in the VIP rows where all their friends got tickets. And they were singing that song and I started doing the swinging above my head pretending it would be Roger Daltrey.

And Ed Robertson just started laughing. And I think he pointed over to Stephen Page, like, check out Paul's doing that thing and it sort of became our little in joke i mean it was uh but uh i just loved being in that room with them at that at that point when they were they were uh now recording their follow up to their big hit album and they were in los angeles you know, recording in some of the most storied rooms, knowing what also what Barenaked Ladies, what Beach Boys had meant to to Stephen specifically, you know, having written Brian Wilson. And I don't know if you know that, but around the time

around this, Brian Wilson had started doing the song Brian Wilson. And and so he was invited to come over by Don Waz, who had worked worked with Brian Wilson and I wasn't there for this but apparently Brian popped his head in and listened to the music and gave them some advice which was don't eat too much which I think that's an amazing story in itself but that's even the story he may have told you.

Don't eat too much is the exact, that's like the opposite advice that you'd receive, enjoy every sandwich. No, receive. Enjoy every sandwich. No, yeah, enjoy every sandwich. Yes, it is. His is enjoy every sandwich, but don't eat so many of them. Right, exact opposite.

The Zevon. Warren Zevon, of course. Amazing. So I don't know if I have any more stories like that, but I remember they were at the corner of Sunset and Gordon Avenue. So it was Sunset and Gordon was where the studio was.

And Gordon being their first album title. I remember thinking, I made a lot of that in my mind. I remember standing with Stephen and saying, do you realize this is Gordon Street? You guys have come all the way back to Gordon. And when you're in a certain frame of mind, that seemed like a big deal to me.

It all comes full circle here. All right, final questions, my friend. You've done fantastic. In fact, at some point, you got to return to kick out the jams because you were just a perfect match for Toronto Mike's here. Well right. Final questions, my friend. You've done fantastic. In fact, at some point, you got to return to kick out the jams because you were just perfect match for Toronto Mike. Well, thanks. Okay. Oh, glad to hear that. Anything you can tell us about the very special project you're shooting in London with Mike from Scarborough. Actually, I call him Scarborough Mike. That is, of course, your brother, Mike Myers. What can you tell us about this?

Well, I can tell you that I think it's pretty common knowledge to people who've been following me on social media. I've said this much, which is my brother is making a six-episode Netflix series that's going to be out in the new year. I don't know exactly when because things have to be edited and there's all sorts of bureaucracy with Netflix and international dubbing and all that stuff that they do. But they're delivering it this year to be out midway through next year.

And it's Mike plays several characters and a lot of them wearing prosthetic makeup. So he looks completely different. And there's also Keegan-Michael Key, Ken Jeong, Jennifer Saunders, Debbie Mazar. Keegan-Michael Key, Ken Jeong, Jennifer Saunders, Debbie Mazar, a bunch of other people are involved. And I was involved in a very unique role, which was I've only ever done this once for Mike. I doubled for him. But because he's wearing so much prosthetic makeup, it was actually pretty easy. I look a little like him, but not really. If you put us close together, we don't look identical. But if he's already wearing makeup to look a certain way and I, they can put that makeup on me.

So I would do scenes where there's going to be computer enhanced versions of him acting against himself, but for the long shots, they might have a shot of me. If I'm not saying anything, you know, walking into the frame as Mike or standing, handing, handing a telephone to Mike or something like that. And which necessitated me being there for three months in England when they filmed this thing under incredible COVID protocols. It was one of those things where everyone's wearing masks the whole time and we're COVID tested every day and we're in a bubble. And, but, you know, it was great to be, you know, I got to walk around in London after, after the quarantine, but I didn't go into any crowded buildings or anything, you know, it was great to be, you know, I got to walk around in London after the quarantine, but I didn't go into any crowded buildings or anything, you know.

But it was just really great to be with my brother at this time in his career because we're grownups now and I can just really, you know, enjoy this moment of spending basically a whole summer with him. and just also the unique experience of being inside a whole production from beginning to end and getting to sort of essentially act with Keegan-Michael Key and Ken Jeong who are all super nice people, by the way. Both Ken and Keegan, I could be friends with them.

They're just such amazing people. So it was really, really fun and that'll come out, I think, well, the name is the Pentavarite. I think they've announced that much. And it's a word that people are probably going to stumble over, but it's like, think of Pentagon.

Sure. And Pentavar-ate. But like, it looks like Pentavarate, but it's Pentavarite with the accent on Tavarite. Is it too late to change that title? I need to know. No. We might need to change that.

I think it is not too late, actually. I'm sure, because it's about an organization called the Pentabert, which many Mike Myers fans will recognize the lineage of that, but I'll let them figure that out. That's as much as I can say. I can't really tell much about the storyline or anything like that, because that would be a spoiler.

That would also be... We don't want that anyways, because we're all going to... I'm only telling you things that are available on public sources already. It's been announced in Variety. So in the same spirit of teasers, if you will, what can you tell us about your new John Candy book? Well, I delayed it a little bit because I had to do this Pentabrit thing but I've been interviewing people like Catherine O'Hara

Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty As well as Filmmakers Chris Columbus and people like that And Steve Martin, Martin Short And it's just about The life and work of John Candy Who was one of the greats who inspired People like my brother as well, but also

inspired a whole generation of SCTV and then later with Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles and was taken, again, that's the theme in our show, but was taken far too young in his early 40s in 1994. He was born on Halloween, which is interesting because everyone loves candy on Halloween. And it's just a real great honor to walk through his life talking to a lot of people you haven't heard of who were behind the scenes, as well as many people you have heard of. And it's a it's a I don't take this test lightly. It's a it's a very I want it to be a very respectful and celebratory look at this person's life and career and how they affected all these people. And it's kind of the follow-up to my kids in the hall book, One Dumb Guy. So in the sense that, you know, it's me writing about comedy again.

I tend to write about rock and roll. And I think comedy has been as big a part of my life as anything even though i'm not a comedian so um for me to pay respects to john candy in this way a good son of toronto so uh you know new market if you want to get specific but uh he grew up in toronto you know he worked at the don lens theater as a kid you know so we claim them as ours for sure but it's funny this we talked about a small world that we live in here but uh earlier i referenced an episode of toronto mic'd which was a deep dive into 10 50 chum the history of 10 50 chum as a top 40 radio station and the gentleman who walked us through it with the clips is named doug thompson as you talk about john candy i remember

you know doug uh in his stories uh was super tight with john candy like they they did a bunch of stuff together and they were super close it's just it's just so it's just a small world that we referenced doug earlier talking 10 50 and oh that's amazing yeah yeah that's amazing well yeah i mean there's so many connections uh paul woods just wrote a book about the toronto argonauts and uh and you, when Candy owned the Argos, but Paul Woods comes in his book from a whole sports story angle. So I talked to him about talking about John and he also shared some information with me that really helped me. But like, I never would have met him. But then Brett Gallagher worked with the Argos and with John Candy. And then, and I ended up interviewing like Bob Crane, who is the son of Hogan's Heroes, Bob Crane, but he was John Candy. Bob Crane Jr. was John Candy's assistant towards the end of his life, you know, and just what an honor to talk to all these people whose lives were changed and affected in positive ways by John Candy. See if you can find out from Martin Scorsese

the status of his SCTV documentary that we were... Look, I'll get right on that for you. Because we were teased with that. And I know they had the reunion at the Winter Elgin Garden Theatre here, but where the heck is that? So if you just take a note to talk to Marty about... Yeah, I'll put that in my thing

when I get through to Marty. You know, I have them on speed dial. All right. And three, I know I think I said an hour and I've totally stolen more because. It's okay. It's a Toronto hour. A Toronto hour is any time you want. That's right.

Johnny O, and I don't understand this question, so I apologize if this is offensive in any way. I'm just going to read it, but I know Johnny O. Maybe I won't understand it, but go ahead. I have met the man at a TMLX event, so I feel like that's enough betting. My question for Paul, don't you think his argument for not reuniting with Talking Heads because it'd just be a nostalgia trip,

not breaking new ground, that's in air quotes there, is a tad lame since he just plays TH songs with everyone but TH these days? I presume he's talking about David Byrne here. I'm friends with Chris France and Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads, and I've done two different panel programs and had dinner with David Byrne.

I am not going to get in the middle of that argument. But I will tell you this, that it is duly noted that Talking Heads songs feature prominently in American Utopia and that the Tonys, I don't know if you made any acknowledgement of that. I know that there's a lot of, you know, I actually, I talk about Talking Heads on a whole other podcast, which I could plug. Well, that's actually my next question. Rando Cast with Brendan Smith.

Yeah. Because I was going to ask you about Record Store Day, but tell me about... Oh, we should talk about my podcast for sure. Yeah, so tell us, because what you're speaking to now are people who are podcast friendly. They figured out how to listen to a podcast so you're now fishing where the fish are.

Tell us why we should all just pause this program and subscribe to, uh, to record store day podcast. The record store day podcast with Paul Myers is, um, it's a biweekly show sponsored by the people who put on the actual record

store day, which you've heard of. And, uh, we also have some other sponsors, but, um, what I try to do on that show is talk to people who make records.

Uh, sometimes people who sell records or produce records, sometimes I talk to record company people. And it's stories about how records affect your life. And it's very music forward conversation. We don't speak in terms of sales graphs and things like that. We talk about what, again, like I said, the social interactions and personal stories behind people who are involved in recorded music. Physical product is what we like to talk about because that's their purview at Record Store Day. They want to keep people coming to record stores.

And they're doing a damn good job at that. If you saw that the vinyl numbers are higher than CD numbers again. So we've had people like Elvis Costello, sometimes some of my friends from Toronto, like Ron Sexsmith and Stephen Page have been on the show. Jay Ferguson from Sloan's been on the show. We've had Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, Jane Weedlin of the Go-Go's,

the Black Pumas have been on the show. I'm trying to think of other artists recently. Well, we have emerging artists and not emerging artists. We had Miles Copeland from IRS Records telling the whole story of managing the police and launching the careers of Squeeze and the Go-Go's.

And we had Daniel Lanois on talking about working with Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno. So the Record Store Day podcast is available on all platforms. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, as they say. You follow me at PullMyEars on Twitter and P-U-L-M-Y-E-R-S. And I will usually be promoting the Record Store Day podcast every second day

because we're trying to just increase our visibility. I've been doing 51 episodes so far and I'm only just getting started. So I'm really excited about it. Those are some great guests. And I think I would listen to a podcast just to hear you, you know, talk. So the fact you have these great, you know what I mean?

So you could fly solo. But one thing I'm learning to do on my own podcast is to not talk so damn much. Because when I'm a guest, you'll hear this guy. But one of the things i like to do now is just uh you'll sometimes hear me going well that is the hardest part right is to shut up and listen which i just did a poor job right there of doing but uh shut up no no no no no i see i i i'm on both sides of this gig i know exactly what it's like so maybe i'm trying to

also give you what they call good guest i'm'm trying to give you good guests here. You did it honestly, Paul. You gave me good guests. This was great. And I'm so glad we finally could get this done. I know it almost happened and it didn't happen. And then it went on the back burner for COVID, it seems. But dude, you knocked it out of the park. I really love this. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks for staying with me. And give my love to Toronto. You know, it's my, uh,

it's still my hometown no matter what. Oh, you just did it, buddy. I don't even have to now. You just did it. Hey, last,

uh, real last question is, uh, would your brother Mike ever appear on Toronto Mike? No fucking way. No, I'm just kidding. Um,

no, uh, the thing, the, the real answer is don't ask me. You're the closest I can get, so okay. But my friend, that brings us to the end of our 921st show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. As Paul just mentioned, it's pull myars, but spell pull with one L. Okay, so P-U-L-M-Y-E-A-R-S. That's him on Twitter. Follow him. He's a good follow. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. ChefDrop is at GetChefDrop.

McKay CEO Forums, they're at McKay CEO Forums. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. StickerU is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at RidleyFH. And Mike Majeski of Remax Specialists Majeski Group, he's at Majeski Group Homes on Instagram. See you all tomorrow. It's actually a double header.

I got Greg Brady in the morning and then Lowest of the Low in the afternoon. Because everything is rosy and green list of the low in the afternoon. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome phone. Rome phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit Rome phone.ca to get started.