Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Q107: Toronto Mike'd #1071

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

In this 1071st episode of Toronto Mike'd, a Mikeumentary about The Mighty Q, 29 different FOTMs share stories from 45 years of Q107. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

If you grew up with rock and roll, it's an important part of your life. That's why at Q107, we play the best of the old and the best of the new. Listen tomorrow morning to find out why we're Toronto's best rock. Q107 Welcome to episode 1071 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

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Learn more at cannacabana.com. This is episode 1071, 107.1 107.1 This episode is all about Q107 As is typical with these micumentary episodes of Toronto Mic'd This would not exist without the efforts of the VP of Sales, Tyler Campbell. Thank you, Tyler. At 9am on May 22nd, 1977, six weeks after the debut of the Toronto Blue Jays, and three days before the opening of Star Wars, Toronto radio listeners who tuned to 107.1 FM heard this.

You're born in debt and you're never free You live all your life for the company And the smoke pours down on your mercury As the paint chips off your walls Slag cars roll to the heap side Down the slope flows a hellfire slide And the kids grow up too fast inside And they're spittin' in the high school halls

It's a hot rock town It's a hot rock town It'll ground you down It's a hot rock town Hot Rod Town Smoke drifts up and slowly west Black as a suit that's always pressed Far away like a day of rest When a funeral wagon calls. Sheds and a fort's on Saturday nights, blasting past the hotel lights.

Laugh in the face of a day that might come when the rocks should rubble and fall. It's a hard rock town. It's a hard rock town. It'll grind you down, it's a hard rock town សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់� guitar solo Is there a world like on TV Where people look better than you and me If there is it might as well be Far beyond the sun Lovers break each other's hearts

Beautiful people walk in the park. And no one coughs in the morning dark. And nobody is no one. It's a hot rock town. It's a hot rock town. It'll grind you down. It's a hot rock town. it's a hot rock town It's a hot rock town, it's a hot rock town

It'll grind you down, it's a hot rock town That's Hard Rock Town by FOTM Murray McLachlan. The first song played on Toronto's brand new rock station, Q107. FM rock radio in Toronto was booming in the mid-70s, as the superior sound quality of FM and the wider availability of FM radios and cars made it the preferred standard for music radio. Chum FM was the king of music radio in Toronto, having debuted its progressive rock format in 1968. CFNY began to play some progressive rock in 1976, but there was a definite gap in the market for an album-oriented rock station.

Alan Slate, who owned CFGM AM, known today as 640 Toronto, applied for an FM license in 1976 and received it for that year, in 1976, and received it for that year, choosing to build the new FM studio on the 30th floor of the Hudson Bay Center at the corner of Yonge and Bloor. The first voice heard on Q107 was John Rohde, a radio vet who'd worked all over North America, including stops at CKFH and Chum FM. Coming out of Hard Rock Town, here are John Rohde's first words from May 22, 1977. This is CILQ FM, Toronto.

And being the very first person to get a chance to talk to you on this news station, I wanted to play a record for you that means a lot to me for some strange reason. It just means summertime. It means everything's going to be all right. That's Ian Anderson, a man who sings just like he's playing a flute. The whole band sounds like a flute band, doesn't it? This is Q107, and this is John Rohde.

It's a very exciting moment for me to be the first one to get a chance to talk to you on the station. And Murray Smith will be in this afternoon at 3 o'clock. We drew lots here to find out who was going to go on first. Of course, Murray lost, so he has to be number two today. One of the sponsors Q107 would like to extend its warmest wishes to is Toronto Hi-Fi, with stores in all the major shopping centers and on Yonge, north of college. Just to show you that everything in the entire world is an excitement, I just phoned my mother to tell her that we were on the air, and she said, Oh? I hope you stay longer at this one than you do at the others, she said to me.

Of course I will, Mom. It's 1.32 at Q107, and that was Day at the Races from Queen. Take my breath away. With a name like Queen, you expect them to have an expensive album, don't you? Big Steel is another one of our sponsors. Q107 is glad to be associated with them. We're looking forward to a long and happy relationship. I get to play all my favorite records today, every one of them.

I'm going to play something for you by Steve Miller, who's a guy who's influenced an awful lot of other artists, including, believe it or not, people in Fleetwood Mac. See if you hear some of their stuff in this. Better yet, see if you hear anything. This is Q107. You should get used to hearing a lot of good music, because we're going to play fabulous music.

I promise you, it's the truth. The way I know is because, well, I've been to the record library for about the past three weeks, and I know everything we have in there, and it's fabulous. Honest. It crossed my heart. I just saw my name go by on an airplane a few minutes ago. The biggest thrill of my entire life. And if you're wondering who the names were that went by in the airplane before,

if you're laying out in your backyard, lying in the sun listening to your radio, Dave and John are the two guys who have, what can I say, built Q107 from the ground up. And I'll tell you, we're on the 30th floor. That's a lot of building. That's a lot of building. Q107, the great metropolitan FM rock station, is pleased to welcome the great metropolitan sound company to its happy family. We look forward to many good times together.

We're going to have them, too. I'm John Rohde, and Murray Smith is in here this afternoon. It'll be the first chance you've ever had to hear Murray and what he thinks is good music. I'm going to show you what I think is good music. It's from the Hotel California album by the Eagles. They've kind of become, whatever that word is, you know when you go into a restaurant and you ask for your favorite soft drink, and you ask for that one name

and you always get some other name? Well, that one big name in soft drinks is like what the Eagles have become to modern music. Give me some music like the Eagles make, will you? That's Van from Q107 from the Moondance album, which is the album that introduced Van Morrison to a lot of people, oddly enough, because it was really one of the first ones to get a lot of airplay

on your average old radio station. One of which this is not. I'll tell you, Q107 is going to be a very amazing radio station. You'll get a chance to find out as the weeks go by. And a lot of people have been calling so far this afternoon to say congratulations. Some of the people who were involved in installing the transmitter were calling saying congratulations on the transmitter not going off the air. That's one thing to be happy about. A lot of people have been calling, just saying, you know, thanks for being around. Thank you. We want to listen to you at Q107.

If you want to drop, you probably never get through on the phone today. I should tell you that right now. The phone is just jammed. It's like a premiere movie here, sort of. But if you drop us a card or just scratch a note on a piece of paper and mail it to Q107, our address is this. Ready? First chance you've had to hear it.

Suite 3000. Suite. 2 Bloor Street East, Toronto. Q107. Actually, if you just address it to Q107, it'll probably get to us. Everybody knows where we are in the post office department right now. And we want to find out what to do. We want to find it out from you, too.

Best of Bachman Turner Overdrive, So so far is the name of the album and this music doesn't sound really too mormon to me i don't know this very special episode 107.1 of Toronto Mic'd is a deep dive into the 45-year history of Q107 through the experiences of the many FOTMs who have worked at Q. In this Micumentary, you'll hear 29 different voices representing every period of the Q legacy, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of their time at Q107. While John Rohde was the first voice heard on Q107, hosting mornings from 6 to 10 a.m., middays were hosted by a man who was an integral part of the Slate Communications team who secured the Q license. Dave Charles. Dave started on the air in the GTA in the 1960s, working at CKOC in Hamilton and at CHUM.

After a move to Edmonton's CHQT, where he quickly turned around their ratings, the program director of another Edmonton station, CHED, called Alan Slate and recommended that he talk to Dave about a job back in Toronto. Here's Dave Charles from episode 955 of Toronto Mic'd with that story. Here's what I did. I made friends with all the DJs, including the station manager at 630 CHED. of Toronto Mic'd with that story. Here's what I did.

I made friends with all the DJs, including the station manager at 630 Chet. And they would sneak me in the back door to announce meetings. So what is he doing here? And I said, well, these are my friends. But anyway, they adopted me. They adopted me, not realizing that I was the program director

down the street of the competition. But not really competing directly for their ratings, but we had more of an adult, you know, an adult sound. But anyway, they took me to football games. They had Eskimo games, and they were really good. Anyway, the guy who was there, the head of the team, was Keith James. And Keith told me the story. He said, look, I got a call from Alan Slate about you. And I said, why? And he said, well, I recommended that he hire you because you're driving me nuts. So anyway,

sure enough, get a call from Alan Slate, flew me down back to Toronto, and he said, look, we have a station, CFGM, Country Music Station. I have a station in Sarnia, CHOK, and I have CFOX in Montreal. But he said, more importantly, i would like you to apply for an fm radio license he said you're not going to get it because there's 14 other competitors but you know you need the practice i said okay so a year later cfgm we took the ratings as high as they could go for a country music station against ckfh but i brought this friend on board john paracall and we put together the license application,

which is now Q107. Wow. We won the license. Two of us won, CKO and our group. And Alan didn't think you'd have a chance. No, no. He said, look, you're not going to get it because nobody knows your work.

But we figured out what the CRTC wants. So what I would do is i'd fly to ottawa and meet the crtc staff and said look we're new we have no idea what we're doing can you help us out and we just befriended them and they helped us well look here's what you need make sure you got this covered and they coached us all the way through the process so by the time we got to the earring we had it all nailed and here's how we got the license which is really a story rock 102 in buffalo was getting a lot of rock listeners because chum fm was kind of wandering and they hadn't got their

format figured out they're trying to move into chum am territory and so all the listeners who loved rock would listen to rock 102 in buffalo so we said that to the commission do you realize the station buffalo new york is draining listeners out of Toronto. Not only that, they're selling radio advertising in Toronto, and that's not on. So the commissioner really took note of that. And so I think that is the reason we got the license. So as a result, we said, we are going to play 40% rock,

because it was so much good rock. And as a result, Q107 got the license and the rest is history. And within, I guess, two or three books, we had taken most of Chum FM's audience away, cut it in half, and we just started to take off and become the brand it is. And then we adopted the Superstars radio format

with Lee Abrams, added that to the mix, and the thing just blew up and it became the iconic brand it is right now. With the license won, Dave Charles became Q's first program director, and it was up to him to hire the rest of the on-air talent. For his first hire, he filled the afternoon drive slot

with a man who became a Toronto radio legend, John Donabee. John has worked in Vancouver, Montreal, in nearly every station in the Toronto market. Here's John from episode 358 of Toronto Mic'd, telling the story of being hired at Q107 and providing some important detail about the day one staff. There was a guy by the name of Gary Slate, who was a salesman for CKLG.

And he said, you know, you should call Dave Charles, who's going to be the program director. My father just got a new license. And I think it's something you'd like. We're going to take on Chum FM. And okay. a new license. And I think it's something you'd like. We're going to take on Chum FM. And, uh, okay. So I became the first person hired at Q107 to do afternoon drive,

three to eight. And talk about a trip of a brand new station. I mean, the entire staff and here's where I'm going to, I don't, maybe I don't, I shouldn't put you on the spot. Because I've heard a lot of people talk about Q here on your show.

Yep. Who do you think the first morning man was of Q107? I don't know. My guess would be Scruff Connors would be a guess. That's what I hear all the time. Okay. Scruff was the third morning man. Oh, yeah. The second morning man was Ted Wallachian.

Okay, yeah. Ted was doing the comedy bowl because when John Rohde, I don't know if you know that name. It's not ringing a bell. Okay, John Rohde, the most intelligent person I ever met because he's a member of Mensa in California. He did the morning show. He got bored.

Mensa in California. He did the morning show. He got bored. We worked together again twice at Chum FM and also at Key 590. He now lives in Picton, and he makes wine. But he was the first morning man. The whole staff was roadie in the morning. Dave Charles took two hours till noon.

Murray Smith. Murray did noon to three or something i did three to eight marianne carpentier went till i think midnight and scott marwood can't i can't remember yesterday sometimes mike but i remember this staff that's great that's great we were in the toronto sun we had I should have brought you the ad. We all had big paper bags over our head because they wanted to, uh, to show everybody that, uh, there was a new staff, but they wouldn't name us, but Dave Charles and John Paracall, uh, who they would both later leave Q and become, uh, joint communications. And, uh, they were the guys who were the pds and when they left gary slate took over and uh yeah those early days unbelievable unbelievable well that's exciting getting to launch a new station like oh yeah i'd never done it before you know and and we're walking into the control room at two bluer east and we're looking straight down young street right to the water

bluer east and we're looking straight down young street right to the water and uh elvis costello came in one day uh he was a little tough to take uh meatloaf um i'm trying there's a lot of bands that came in there that uh were just breaking and we would they'd come in and uh what year is the launch is it 77 what may may of 1977 okay yeah i got back in april i remember charles would love this joke okay dave i'm here uh-huh good we're going on next month uh dave i don't have any money well you know we're coming on next month so i drove to oshawa and live with my me and my two kids my wife, and we lived with my mom and dad for a month. Then we got an apartment at Young and Blythewood. Do you want to hear a little bit of yourself on Q107? Here's a little bit of, yeah, let's hear a little John Donovey here.

And born to run, both from Bruce Springsteen's and powerful rock and roll at 528 on Q107 Toronto. Toronto's best rock. I'm John Donabee. And we've got about 13 degrees out there right now with mainly clear skies. Winds will die down this evening with lows around 7. For tomorrow, highs of 20. And same for Wednesday, sunny and warmer.

And mainly sunny for tomorrow. A good, beautiful few days coming your way. Gamble Rogers is at the groaning board. I'll be there. One hour from now at 6.30, I'll have for you the brand new Cooper Brothers album, as well as music of the Eagles this evening on words and music. And Dean Hill, who I just talked to a few minutes ago, has been tuning up all day, getting ready for a visit tonight at 9 from the Cars. Two of the members of the Cars will be here for a solid hour between

9 and 10 tonight, playing their favorite toonies. And they'll be the guest jocks tonight along with Dean. So we'll be listening tonight. The Cars and the Q107 Studios playing some of their favorite music. That's between 9 and 10 p.m. On July 2nd, this band will be in our city. This is an old Roy Orbison song from years ago. Jim Capaldi recorded it as well.

This is Nazareth with Love Hurts from Q107. There you go. Nazareth. That's Barefoot. A little bit more. Formerly Atkinson, Danko, and Ford. Dwayne Ford now married to Patsy Gallo. 14 minutes before 6 o'clock.

I'm John Donnelly. There you go. There you go. A little taste of you and Q. Thank you for that flashback. Just as an aside, because you're a radio guy, I mentioned Dean Hill. Dean left Q eventually and became probably the biggest jock in Vancouver. Just an amazing guy.

He's still on the air out there. As with many news stations, it was not always an easy path to success. When Dave Charles and his team had a clear vision for what Q should be, Alan Slate had a different, gentler idea of how the station would sound. From episode 955 of Toronto Mic'd, Charles describes the struggle to keep Q a hard rock station. Alan Slate wanted adult contemporary, easy music. He came to me and he said,

look, the station's not going to work. We're going to lose a ton of money. And so he insisted the call letters be C-I-L-Q, Silk. Right. And I said, Silk? He said, yeah, that's because we're going to be a beautiful music station. I said, oh, don't.

Anyway, so we got into a lot of hassle on that. Tony Viner, who was the station manager, and John Paracall, my business partner there, and our marketing manager, we fought tooth and nail to keep Q hard rock and rock. And it did. Thank God it prevailed. Because Alan Slate had another vision for the radio station.

He wasn't wrong, by the way, because there was room for a beautiful music station in Toronto. He was absolutely right. But because we were so spirited about Chum having the dominant share in the marketplace and because they were losing their audience to Rock 102 in Buffalo, we said, no, we can do this, we can do this. But, you know, eventually after a while it just became too difficult because Alan was really, you know, very, very insistent on stuff. And, but thank God he

let Q remain and Gary Slate came in after us, his son, and realized that, hey, this is a goldmine. This radio station is needed in Toronto. It is good for Toronto. And he kept it rock. Because the day one lineup that Dave Charles assembled included proven local radio vets like himself, John Rohde, and John Donabee, the new station had instant credibility with listeners. John Donabee recalled that feeling on episode 358 of Toronto Mic'd.

And when you started, when you helped launch Q107, giving it, essentially you gave it instant credibility by having John Donabee as part of your launch team, I think. Here's Dave Charles' line. I'm walking into the control room. Because the first day we all did an hour. And then the next day we, you know. And Dave went, here comes Mr. FM. Because Dave worked at Chum too. And I'd had a reputation of, you know, being comes Mr. FM. Because Dave worked at Chum too. And I'd had a reputation of being at Chum FM.

And I think I was the only one there that had been at Chum FM. And so, yeah, it was instant credibility and marvelous guests, great guests. And it was a great time. I was there for two years before I left to go into television. And it was just great. And Gary Slate was a great time. I was there for two years before I left to go into television. And it was just great. And Gary Slate was a great guy to work for. John Rohde left Q before the end of 1977 and was replaced in the morning by another jock

who was on his way to becoming a legendary figure on Toronto's airwaves, Ted Wallachian. Ted was another day one hire at Q107, but started with his focus on something a bit different than the album rock that Q was playing. Here's Ted from episode 435 of Toronto Mic'd to explain. Alan Slate was granted a license for an FM station, which is Q107. And I went to Q107 and I pitched them an idea doing a show called The Comedy Bowl,

which was going to be a one-hour collection of interviews with comedians and recorded comedy albums. Do you remember what year this is? This is 1970. Well, whenever they were there, I was there day one when they signed on. Yeah, you're the first.

1977, I guess. Were you the first morning guy? I was not. I signed on to do the Comedy Bowl and to do the Saturday and Sunday morning. John Rohde was the original morning man, but John only stuck around for about three months and then he left and then I took over.

I believe that John Rohde is a voiceover guy we'd hear on like much music promos. Yeah, he owns a winery now, a vineyard out in Prince Edward County, I believe. And when you, so Q, and this is the launch of Q107. Yeah. CILQ. So Donabee's there.

Donabee's there. Yeah. He's a friend of the show. I feel obligated to. I've known Donabee for there. Donabee's there. Yeah. He's a friend of the show. I feel obligated to. I've known Donabee for John. I've known John for years. John was doing Afternoon Drive. Yeah.

Do you remember who else was there? Mark Daly was doing the news. And at one point, Jim McKinney was doing sports. Jane Houghton was there. Jane Houghton was there. Jane Houghton, yeah. Keith Elshaw. Okay. Ron Bruchel did a jazz show before Bill King moved in and did his jazz show.

The late Richie York was there as well. Oh, God, I'm going to forget people. Dean Hill, Bob Say. I can't remember all the names. It's okay. I'm here to, I'm capturing this history. I think this is really cool. So you're...

And the first song we played? Yeah. Murray McLachlan's Hard Rock Town. There you go. Murray McLachlan, who's, yeah, fantastic. His wife's been here. But the Q107 launches, and you mentioned you're doing the Comedy Bowl,

and I'm wondering, did you pre-date, like, are you ahead of the Rick Hodge Sunday Funnies? Oh, yeah. Okay, I thought that's what I was asking here. Yeah, you're number one. We were the first one. He stole that idea from you. No, I don't think so.

The interesting thing is it became so popular, not because of me, but because of the uniqueness of the program. And on Sunday nights, we ran it at, I think, 11 o'clock, 10 or 11 o'clock. We actually, at one point, outrated CFRB at that time slot. Wow.

Which was stunning. Ted mentioned Mark Daly, who most listeners will remember as The Voice on City TV. He was the longtime newsman who left us far too soon in 2010. Mark was Q107's first news director, spending a year there before moving to City in 1978. before moving to City in 1978. In episode 955 of Toronto Mic'd, Dave Charles remembered some of Mark's innovative ideas.

John Paracall, my business partner at Q107, and Mark and I would go for, after a long day at the Mighty Q, we would go across the street on Yonge Street to a Hungarian restaurant and have a schnitzel dinner. And we would sit there and work out the world. And Mark would tell us all these stories, and he had incredible context. have a schnitzel dinner and we would sit there and work out the world and mark was telling us all these stories and he had incredible context um figuring out news things like he had a thing he said the weekend we have no news on the weekend so here's what i'm thinking why don't we do a feature called high witness news so what are you talking about he said yeah there's a lot of bad

drugs on the street according to my friends in the trauma police lots of cop buddies for daily so so yeah we'll we'll tell people what to stay away from. So he had eyewitness news on Saturday morning. Then he had another one called News Circus, all the bizarre news that doesn't make the regular news. Wow. So Saturday morning, eyewitness news and News Circus. Just incredible.

Amazing. And people loved it. That's Mark Daly. Mark Daly's nose for news and his contacts in law enforcement allowed Q to break the biggest story in rock in August of 1977. Here's Dave Charles once again with that story from episode 955. He was the guy, and here's why you got to remember, he was the guy that broke the Elvis Presley story.

When Elvis passed, he saw the story and nobody believed it. So what he did, because he also worked for the Ohio Sheriff's Department, and he knew right away to call the chief of police in Memphis. And he did, and he identified who who he was and the chief was yeah he's in the morgue he's died and he cut the actual story on the air and next thing you know ctv is in the studio and john donabee john donabee who was listening put together like you know off the top of his head an incredible elvis Presley special that ran on cue. So anyway, CTV came down and filmed it.

Meanwhile, Chum FM was denying the fact that Elvis had passed. And this is Mark Daly. Mark knew how to get the news story. He was connected. He broke the story. He broke the story. Geetz Romo, who spent most of the 1970s as half of the popular chum fm morning show pete and geats had left chum in 1977 and was doing some freelance fairview electronics commercials for q107 geats visited toronto mic'd for episode 470 to tell the story of how dave charles hired him okay so you're a free agent

so to speak and then uh is it is it fair to say uh, Donabee is a big reason why you end up at Q107? Um, well, it's a good thing that I did end up at Q107 and I also ended up working with Donabee, but, uh, the reason I got there was, uh, I was still doing the Fairview electronics commercials. Right. And at 1030 at Albion Road in Toronto's West End, I still remember that line, and they're no longer there.

And I think it's a pot shop now. But I went down to Q107 at Bloor Street. Dave Charles was running the radio station at the time. He was the PD, and I met with him, and he said, there's no room for you here, Geetz. I said, oh, okay. And I dropped off my commercials, and I'm standing in the lobby waiting for the elevator, and Alan Slate, the owner of Q107 at the time,

comes out into the lobby lobby and he sees me. He said, hey, Geetz, why aren't you working here? And I said, because there are no jobs. Who told you that? I said, Dave Charles. Oh, okay. Where are you going to be at 4 o'clock this afternoon? I said, where do you want me to be?

He said, I want you to be at home. So I was at home, and at 4.05, I got a phone call from Dave Charles and said, come down here. We got to talk. You're hired. Wow. See, friends in high places are working out for you, Geetz.

Yeah, they did. Dave Charles' success in getting Q107 off the ground led him to explore other opportunities. And in 1978, he left Q to start a radio consulting business called Joint Communications that took him to stations across North America, the UK, and Australia. Around the same time, Brian Master joined Q107 from Chum as music director. Here's Brian from episode 489 of Toronto Mic'd,

sharing memories of his time at Q107. Now, so you moved to Q107 in June 78 and you're there until I guess June 80, so you're there a couple years. Yeah. Can you share any what it was like working at Q107? It was a lot of fun.

We had some great guests come in, Grace Slick, David Lee Roth, and Alex Van Halen came in. Michelle Phillips from the Moms and Papas, Melissa Manchester. Were David and Eddie behaved? They came in on roller skates.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Actually, there's a picture of them, Gary, Nick Panasico, and Donabee, and me in the lobby with our Q107 mannequin. Wow. And Sam, Samantha Taylor worked there as well. I got her hired there. From Video Hits.

Yeah, great girl. Another realtor. She in Realtor too? Yeah. Okay, interesting. I got to get her on this show because I love that show. I watch that all the time, the Video Hits. She did well with that.

Yeah, for sure. So Q was, it was a crazy place. I mean, two blurries, 30th floor. There was a stockbroker down the hall. There were some hijinks we won't go into. Well, that's the good stuff right there. So you have, why do you return to Chum FM? Like you have a couple years at Q,

sounds like a fun place to be, and then you end up back at Chum. Yeah, we just couple years at Q. It sounds like a fun place to be. It was. We weren't seeing eye to eye on things. Gary was good, gave me some time. I talked to Bob Wood, another wonderful person, and got back to Chum FM. One of the most notorious morning show hosts in Q107 history was Scruff Connors, who joined Q in 1980 for the first of two stints at the station.

Scruff was one of the original shock jocks, pulling outrageous stunts like locking himself in the booth and playing only Stairway to Heaven until management broke in to stop him. stairway to heaven until management broke in to stop him. Early in his Q107 tenure, he hosted a Scruff-a-thon, staying on the air for 36 straight hours to raise over $70,000 for cancer research in honor of Terry Fox. He was a big personality who left an indelible mark on colleagues and listeners alike. Scruff passed away in December 2016, and I never did get him to the TMDS studio. But his son TJ Connors visited for episode 366 of Toronto Mic'd and explained how Jeff Newfield became Scruff Connors. Your name is TJ Connors. Yeah. Scruff Connors was a fake name.

Yeah. You know how that came about? Yeah. When did you become Connors? When did dad? No. Okay. Well, tell that story first and then tell us how you became a Connors because you weren't born a Connors. Right. So there was a time in I mean, the Scruff Connors character was created at Q107

really. You know, he was found on a park bench and da-da-da-da-da. A ragtag guy. He was originally going to be Chuck Connors. But I guess when he showed up one day and he was all disheveled and Alan Slate said, Are you going to shave that thing? You look scruff. And all of a sudden it just stuck.

And it was like, you know, Scruff Connors. And pretty memorable name, right? Yeah, it's a great name. Initially, you know, Chuck Connors was the rifleman. And then when I decided to get into radio, I was like you know scruff connors and uh pretty pretty memorable name right and then uh initially you know chuck connors was the rifleman um and then when i decided to get into radio i was like okay well i guess we'll carry this on and my name is tyler joe and you know tj pretty short pretty quick pretty easy to remember lee beef eckley was another important voice from the early days of q107 acting as a bridge between the OG crew and the glory years of the mid-80s. He joined me for episode 1011 of Toronto Mic'd and shared some of the highs and lows that his friend Scruff experienced during his first stint at Q107.

He was a challenge, I guess. He was a challenge in that he was a very complex person exceedingly talented um he could light up a room and man when he turned on that microphone it was just the most incredible things would happen you know he had a reign you know that was kind of on and off but when he first launched in toronto nobody had done to toronto what he did. He was kind of like our Howard Stern. And I remember I used to walk into bars on a Friday night after I finished my shift, and I would hear people talking about, did you hear what Scruff Connors did today? And it was very common. It wasn't just once in a while. It was commonplace.

And the stuff he pulled off, I don't know how he did it, but he was always pushing the envelope, which is probably the best thing to do. It's easier to pull people back than to push them into something that they're not comfortable with. He might've been on six to 10, but Scruff wasn't always on the mic by 6 a.m. Yeah, that depended on what he was up to the day before or the night before. He was a pretty complex guy. Guys like that can be up and down, and I think that Jeff Scruff had a lot of emotional issues like a lot of people do, and he had to manage those in the public eye,

and that was a challenge. And sadly, I guess it was in 1982, his wife Rita was tragically killed in a car accident. And that was a very, very difficult time for him and all of us as well, because we were very close with Rita. And I was with them the night before wow and I remember being I remember I remember being really upset because I went to visit them up at the house and Scruff says we're going out and he says to Rita we'll be back in a little bit now we weren't back in a little bit we were gone for a long long time and uh so the next morning Rita was very upset at Jeff and, uh, and she was a little upset at me too, I think. And, uh, and before I left, I just gave her a big hug and a kiss and said, you know, sorry, you know, if we upset you last night and, and I left and, and the next

morning she, you know, I found out that, uh that later that day she was killed in a car accident. So that was a really hard, that was really hard because I left her on that note, even though I tried to make it right. And I'm sure I did, but, you know, that way was very difficult. Scruff was a talented broadcaster who made his mark everywhere he went. He also engaged in some self-destructive behavior, which may have contributed to his early demise. Longtime Q107 DJ Shirley McQueen, who we'll hear more from later, visited for episode 652 of Toronto Mic'd and told a quintessential Scruff story. You know, speaking of people we lost too early, probably due to vices

here. Let's talk for a moment. Did you work with Scruff Connors? I did. And Scruff, oh my goodness. And there's another guy who, you know, like brought himself back from the edge a couple of times, but I've got a good Scruff story. Yes, please. So I did evenings for so many years at Q107. And you may recall after we left Young and Bloor, we went up to Young and Norton in just north of Melassman Square there in North York. And that's where Andy was doing the overnight syndicated show. Do you remember? Overnights with Andy Frost.

And Scruff came on and was doing the two shows that Andy did not do, syndicating across the country. Most markets were carrying the overnight syndication. And so I would do evenings, and I'd hand it off to Andy Frost and his producer, Gio, who were in the other studio next to Q107. And on the other two nights,

it would be Scruff who came in. Well, one Friday, Scruff comes in for a show, and there was a bar across the street from our building. I can't remember the name of it. So I'm just walking out. Scruff is just walking in, and he literally does one of those shepherd hook arm things with me and says, Come on, we're going across the street to the bar. We want some drinks.

And I'm like, but Scruff, don't you have a radio show to do? He's like, and he's, oh, I put the first hour in the can. Come on, let's go get some drinks. And I'm like, well, okay. So we go across the street and we sit in the bar and he's just pounding these shots back. I'm like, Scruff, maybe you better take it easy. You still got a radio show to do. And then I, so I thought I got to get him out of here

or he's going to be too hammered to go on the air. So I'm like, okay, come on. It's our last one. We're going to, we're going to, you know, pack it in here, Scruff. So I take him back to the studio and I get them all set up in, uh, on the air and I left. And then next morning I called in for whatever reason, I needed something from somebody there and, uh, do you hear about Scruff? And I laughed. And then next morning, I called in for whatever reason. I needed something from somebody there. And, do you hear about Scruff? And I'm like, no. It's like, oh, he had a heart attack last night on the air. They had to send the paramedics.

I'm like, are you joking? Yeah. So, Scruff just lived hard. The man lived hard. But again, talk about a guy who could deliver. I mean, he was one of the funniest people in the room at all times. And was the same off air as he was on air. You know, there was no pretense. He was just that guy with, you know, the best lines, the best jokes, but authentic.

Scruff Connors left us at the age of 64, dying of bladder cancer. He lived a hard life, and his choices were sometimes problematic. But his talent, passion, and humor helped put Q107 on the map. We'll give the last word on

Scruff to Brother Jake Edwards, another Q107 legend who shared his Scruff memories on Jake Edwards, another Q107 legend who shared his Scruff memories on episode 646 of Toronto Mic'd. He was amazing. He was from Winnipeg. Jeff

Neufeld. Back then, he was a radio rep and would come around. He would be in the office. I always said to him why aren't you on the air what the hell is what why aren't you on the air and uh and lo and behold they you know it happened and but he used to come in and we used to sit there and shoot the shit all the time incredible guy but one of those guys that automatically pure from the soul just absolutely every fiber in his body was geared to communicate

and to make you laugh and to come up with the weirdest crap and uh you know so we were two peas in a pod i can tell you that lee eckley's tenure at q107 spanned seven key years, and he was an integral part of building that initial foundation. From episode 1011, here's Lee talking about some of the names he shared the airwaves with during his time at Q and how he dipped his toe into television.

Who was at Q107 when you arrived there? The morning show was hosted by Ted Wallachian. There you go. And he was at CF107 when you arrived there uh the morning show was hosted by ted wallachian there you go and he was at cfny as well yes he was after after q107 yeah for a couple of stints if i'm not mistaken yeah uh middays who was doing middays um okay so i did a little little looking into this uh you might bob say was he there yeah bob say was there. I don't, maybe he was doing Middays at that time and then John Donabee was doing Afternoon Drive

and a guy named Dean Hill was doing The Evenings and Ron Bruchel was doing The Overnight Show. So this is all starting to come back to me. And very good. And here's a name.

He's a guy, this is a guy I want to get on Toronto Mic'd at some point so maybe if you can help me do that. Wayne Webster. Ah, Wayne, yeah, yeah. Worked with him in the music library at Q107, and Wayne and I went to

Humber College together as well. Wow, and here's the news department, I believe, in 1978 on Q107, you had Jane Hodden was there. Jane, yep. And Chuck Bridges. Chuck Bridges, he was great. I loved working with him because I worked with him at, or I didn't work. I listened to him on Chum FM and I just loved his delivery and working alongside him was fantastic. He used to come in literally 30 seconds before his first newscast and he would rip and read. And it just blew me away how a guy could just come in and just rip the top stories off the teletype,

sit down and ace a newscast the way he did. I think he's out east now. Paul Harrington was in the news department. Paul Harrington. Paul Harrington. Yeah. Yeah. He was from Brantford.

He used to commute from Brantford all the time, and he ended up getting a job back in Brantford. And if I'm not mistaken, he and I just hooked up on Facebook a couple of, a few months ago. I haven't seen him posting much lately, so sorry. Sorry, Paul. There was also on, at the time, the 6 o'clock rock report, Bob McElwitz. Yeah, it wasn't the 6 o'clock rock report back in those days.

Well, when I started there, it was just a short 15-minute, maybe even 30-minute feature. It was called Performance. And the 6 o'clock rock report evolved from that, and I'm not sure when it did that. It was a couple of years later. But that evolved from Bob Makowitz moving from a weekend position to his music director position,

and he created the 6 o'Clock Rock Report out of that. And speaking of foreground programming, I think there's an episode of Scott Turner where we just talked about this sort of mandate, the CRTC mandate and all the foreground programming that pops up. But barometer. So I mentioned Bob Say, he'd be on like from 10 to 1. And then barometer would be on from like 1 to 2, and then Bob Say would come back 2 to 3

before John Donabee takes over 3 to 6. Yeah, I actually did that for a little while when I was doing middays at Q107 in the early 80s, and it was nice. I'd work for two hours, head downstairs, have a little lunch, and then come back and finish my two hours. So while we're at q107

here uh and uh as we progress here so that was like 70 when you get there it's like 78 1978 but here let's get to the mid 80s on q107 so you're still there but uh i i don't remember samantha taylor being on q107 because I don't discover Samantha Taylor until Video Hits. But Video Hits was a CBC show, but before that, she had a CFMT show called Video Singles. Correct. I have stories about that I can tell you about.

Yeah, I love it because anyone my vintage remembers Samantha Taylor bringing us the videos. Let's hear it. Well, I was one of the original hosts of Video Singles. Really? Yeah, originally we shot, a whole bunch of us shot the pilot. It was myself, John Major,

Rick Ringer, and Samantha Taylor. So the idea was to have five local radio hosts hosting the show. Well, this is on a competing television station. You had the Chum City Connection, and Q107 didn't have any conflict right um but um it didn't work out for the chum folks uh ringer and john were discouraged from doing the job john major actually quit his job at chum

because he wanted to do to do the television gig and um you know for whatever reason, we were discouraged from taking on that extra workload by our managers at Q107. at six months of age, where he grew up as a child entertainer, dancing at county fairs, playing the accordion, and eventually joining bands as a young man. He became a songwriter and recording artist, working with Harry Nilsson and in bands of his own like The Rats and The Wackers. Bob's music brought him to Canada, where he stayed, transitioning from musician to broadcaster, first at Chum in 1982, moving to Q107 later that year after being fired for playing music that wasn't on the playlist. Lee Eckley worked closely with Bob, and in episode 1011 of Toronto Mic'd, talked about his memories of the man they called

the Iceman. The Iceman! Yeah! One of the most talented, fascinating people I've ever met in my life and he was a killer on the radio. I remember when I was doing evenings on Q107 he was doing late evenings on Chum FM and I turned on the radio

one night. Late evenings on Chum FM in those I turned on the radio one night, late evenings on Chum FM in those days was 10 to two o'clock. And I turned him on one night when I was driving home and I thought, oh my God, how do I compete with that? Because he was spectacular, a remarkable talent, remarkable talent. And you know, a guy that's done so much, I mean, television themes, he's been a very successful musician. He's been a very successful musician. He's been a successful broadcaster. He's a fantastic writer. He's one of the most talented people I've ever met.

Without a doubt. And he had this shot to be a much music VJ himself. But then there's a famous story about him sort of shooting himself in the foot with the opportunity there as well. But, yeah. I think that Bob would tell you that in the foot with the opportunity there as well. But yeah. I think that Bob would tell you that in the long run, he could have been his own worst enemy at times,

which is unfortunate. But that's Bob. But that's true of a lot of geniuses, I find. I mean, that's a big word, but a lot of talented, gifted people, their biggest obstacle is their own damn self. Yeah, yeah. They like to carve their own path and be damned if you don't let me.

So, yeah. So, Bob Segherini, three to six, and then Bob Makowitz with the Six O'Clock Rock Report at six o'clock. And Mako and the Iceman, Bob Segherini, together were fantastic. It was great listening. It was must-listening every day. Bob Sigurini joined me for episode 645 of Toronto Mic'd

and talked about what made Q107 such a special station. Now, speaking of having a good time, did you have a good time at Q? I had, up until doing the all-night show at City TV, the most fun I ever had. Because it was like working at a frat house. It was a bunch of guys on drugs, playing the music they loved, having a ball. It was a family.

having a ball. It was a family. It was sheep herded by people who got the energy of it and understood the immediacy of it. And we would get yelled at, but not fired. And everybody on, I mean, let's see, James and Judge, James still on music, some of them are dead, Gary's a billionaire, Jeff Chalmers is on 99.9,

whatever they're called now, Woods is doing great. Lee Eckley on Philanthia. It's a tremendous amount of people doing tremendous things. And we had no idea what we were

doing. But Bob Matowitz, who was the heart and soul of that station, it was like having a French Renaissance poet writing the history of rock and roll. Bob saw the music we played in a completely different light

than anyone else I've ever known. And he brought such depth to everything. And when we did the 6 o'clock rock report, there's a great article that Henry, I think his name is Megan Edwards. Henry, there was actually a column in the daily star about radio. That's how popular radio used to be. Yes.

And this guy wrote about, uh, Bob and my six o'clock rock report, but a great picture about how it was. I can't tell you. It was, the article was so good and he so got what we were doing. It was almost like, you couldn't have gotten a better review had he paid the guy.

And we didn't. It was just a little swill to read and go, wow, we've been noticed and we're justified. So, yeah, QN07, it was incredible. it was incredible. There's never been... In my mind, for that kind of thing, you have to look at early Shulman FM in Montreal, when Doug Pringle was there in Futal,

and that iconic bunch, and to NY, when Marsden and Earl and those guys were there. And this was radio at its absolute rodeo best. Wow. This was radio when what was being said and who was saying it was as intimate and as important as the music being played. And I will be forever grateful that I was part of that pure

of knock-down, drag-out late. It was classic. The Iceman's first stint at Q107 came to an end in 1984 when he was approached with an exciting opportunity at a brand new music television station. Here's more from Bob

on episode 645 of Toronto Mic'd. Now Bob, why did you leave the Mighty Q, Toronto's best rock? The first time I left was I John Martin

a wonderful man who had worked in conjunction with City and with Chum doing these, I worked on the new music, the TV show and the dances that their video dances that they used to do at the schools,

and the simulcasts that were done in conjunction with Chum. And John calls me up and invites me to the bamboo. We go upstairs to the rooftop, and he offers me a job as one of the first three producers of something called Much Music, which is going to launch and be in competition with MTV, Canada's MTV. And I've written extensively about this in my blog. I said, so what does a television producer do?

And he said, you'll find out. So being the kind of guy that I am that, well, well, new territory, I can't say no to this. I went back to, I went into Gary's office the next day and he'll always tell people that he fired me, but he didn't. I walked into his office and I said, look, I don't want to leave. By this time, I was doing afternoon drive at Q. And what I said was, is there any way I can do 7 to midnight or a different, I wanted to stay at Q and do 10 till 6 at City so I could do both. Right. And he wouldn't let me.

That rule changed when I left, and I made a decision to go with T. And if he wants to think that that's firing me, he's entitled to it. So that's fine. Hey, Bob, I have a quick question. By denying me a second thing, I guess you could say again.

No. But after that, when Steve replaced me, Anthony, another dear friend of a door, Steve was allowed to do both. So a learning process for all of us. Yeah. Anyway, so that's when I went into, became a television producer, which, honestly, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

But I had some good adventures there. That was another, it was all flat-out your seat stuff. One room full of kids and me and John Martin. In 1982, Q107 hired a newsman from Chum FM who would go on to become another name in the Q107 pantheon, Gene Valaitis. Gene would go on to join the Morning Drive show, co-hosting with a number of people,

until, in 1986, he was joined by Jesse Dillon to form the iconic Jesse and Gene Morning Show. Jesse and Gene would remain together at two other stations, returning to Kew for another run in 1996-97. Q for another run in 1996-97. Here's Gene from episode 637 of Toronto Mic'd, explaining how he was first hired at Q107. How did you of me. I knew of him. And he was going from working in sales to being the program director at Q107. And we were at some event and he asked me what I was doing. And I said, I really need a gig. And so he invited me in to do a news edition. And I got hired to be a reporter throughout the week and to do the Saturday and Sunday morning news. There was a guy by the name of Dave Budge who most recently was running City TV.

He and a woman Valerie Ambrose at that point were doing the morning news with scruff connors and um i filled in for dave budge and um i just was you know very conscious about the fact that i should really be very very good during this vacation period and you know i mean it's it's not very nice but uh dave got told that he was going on the weekend and i was going to be on with Scruff. And that started the whole thing at Q107 with it started Scruff and Gene. And that was five years. And then it was, gosh, for a little while, I guess it was Steve Anthony and Gene. And then it was Brother Jake. And eventually it led to Jesse and gene and brother jake is a very good friend and uh for last year uh after roundhouse radio fell apart in vancouver jake and i were doing a saturday morning show on tsn 1040 in vancouver so it was nice to reunite with him and get back together again but you know

what with all these guys in radio, I've always had really good relationships with people. I've never burnt any bridges. And I've remained friends with everybody that I've worked with. The Q Morning Show in the 1980s went through several iterations. Following Scruff Connors was a man recruited from the East Coast, a man who'd leave and rejoin the Q107 lineup three different times, and who'd voice one of the longest-lasting recurring characters in Canadian radio history, the champ, its brother Jake Edwards. Here's Jake from episode 646 of Toronto Mic'd, recalling how he ended up at Q107 in 1985.

Okay, so were you recruited to Q107 here in Toronto? Yes. Well, when I was working in Halifax, Gary Slate was friends with Arnie Patterson, who used to be Pierre Trudeau's press secretary. And we were applying for another license. Gary, my friend, Gary Obie, Magic. We applied for the license. Of course, we were beat out because Arnie had some connections. Let's just say that.

And both the presentations were awesome. I narrated. I was the voice for the presentation. Gary had all the speakers lined up and I mean, they were blown away and we didn't get it. And we were denied. And that was sad. So Arnie called me and said, Hey, I know you want to come back here and rock. I've got the station. Do you want to go? And I said, yeah, I'm coming. Because, you know, Maritimes, they had no classic rock station. C-100 was playing pop music where John Gallagher worked. And and John will tell you that he listened to. He listened to Q. He listened to Q-104. That was his favorite station. We get into this gripe all the time. He just thinks that, oh yeah, we blew you away. You never had a chance.

We had the best talent. I'm going, John, come on, man. Are you kidding? Let's go over the lineup again. And you get back to Cindy Lauper. While brother Jake was in Halifax, he worked with a gregarious sportscaster who made an impression on him.

When the sportscaster role opened up in 1986, Jake thought of his friend from down east, and thanks to him, Toronto was introduced to John Spike Gallagher. Here's more from Jake on episode 646 on Spike. Is it true that you're the reason we have John Gallagher in the big smoke here today in Toronto? Yes, 100%. 100%. He impressed the hell out of me when I was down there. And I remember we were looking for a sports guy. And Gary Slate, of course, you know.

And I sold him on John. And John came up. And he was just a little pistol. You know, he's just a firecracker. And I had this dream. I was dreaming that I was going to call him Spike. His name was going to be Spike Gallagher. And I thought, yeah, yeah, Spike Gallagher.

And then I don't know if he grew to hate the name later on. You'd have to ask him. But I just thought it fit perfectly, I thought. Yeah, you know what? I remember that time. Like we're talking, I guess we're in the mid-80s here. And if my timelines are right, you had Corey Hart, who was rocking that spiky hairdo type deal. And you had Wendell Clark, for example.

I think he was doing the similar style. He had like a mullet thing, but it was spiky hairdo type deal. And you had Wendell Clark, for example. I think he was doing the similar style. He had like a mullet thing, but it was spiky on the top. And I just assumed it was, I didn't know it was you that gave him the nickname, but I just assumed it had to do with his hairdo.

No, no, it just didn't. It was just a name that came to me. I swear to God, it was in a dream. I told him, I'm going to call you Spike Gallagher. First of all, it just sounded great. So I'm all about how things sound, not how it looks. John Gallagher has been a guest on Toronto Mic'd three times.

And in his first visit, episode 181, he told his side of that origin story. So I see my buddies from Jake Edwards' former radio station, K104, playing softball. Because back then, remember back then when radio stations had really good softballs? I do because I keep hearing about the Wankies, which are like the CFNY team. That's right. Freddie Patterson keeps telling me about them. K107, we had the World Series at Mol me about them. Oh, the Q107. We had the World Series at Molson Park in Barrie, and it was serious.

We won one year. Derringer hit a bases-loaded triple. Joey Vendetta was on the team. Andy Frost was on the team. We're going to get to him. I will get to him, unfortunately. Anyway, I'm playing softball in Halifax, and the station's in shambles. And people are worried about their next paycheck.

So I go to Doug Barron. And Doug Barron's a famous Halifax type of guy. He goes, I said, how's Jake Edwards doing at K107? They're going, great. Terrific. I go, what are they doing for sports there? They go, they're looking for somebody. I go, how'd you know that?

He goes, well, we both apply. They turned us down. That's the origin story. So this is how'd you know that? He goes, well, we both apply. They turned us down. That's the origin story. So this is how you end up in Toronto. Earl McRae, the great sportscaster and writer, goes to Ottawa, freeing up a gig. Jake and I are buddies in Halifax. So I gave him a call.

Gary Slate flew me in. And oh, man. I, in fact, the first day when I saw Jake Edwards, when I came to Toronto, August 8th, 1986, we're doing the big high five. Oh, my God, we're finally working together. He goes, I'm leaving. He's leaving the next day to go to Winnipeg. And then he's almost like Ali winning the championship three times

because he had three different stops at Q107, Brother Jake. Gallagher's bombastic style made him very popular with listeners and occasionally unpopular with the people he reported on. Just a few days after signing on with Q107, John Gallagher faced some legal trouble, as he explained on episode 181 of Toronto Mic'd. And we went after a lot of people. I had to do a Q comment every morning.

And it's tough to wake up and go, oh boy, what do I talk about now? I'll make this quick. J.I. Albrecht was a former GM of the Toronto Argos. But he was like a flim-flam man, a carnival barker out in Halifax, trying to get a team called the Atlantic Schooners to play in the CFL out there. And he was a piece of work. We'd have him on the talk show, the morning show. He goes, someone will call up,

you know what, I don't think CFL football is going to work out in this city. He goes, honey, why don't you go make me a pie? Why don't you make J.I. Albrecht a pie? Anyway, I'm writing a commentary, and I go, whose ugly mug do I see staring at me in the Toronto sun today? It's J.I. Albrecht, the

thing that wouldn't leave. I'm 12 days into the gig, Mike, and he hears it and he sues me for $500,000. Wow. Yeah, me personally for $50,000. Just, you know, chump change. So 12 days in to

my gig in Toronto, you know, I packed up the house and moved to Beverly, right? You know, from Halifax. Yeah. And I'm being sued for half a million dollars. Wow. Oh, I don't know how I got out of it. He wanted more, and then we didn't settle, and he got nothing. And, of course, J.I. is no longer with us.

And, well, I am. In addition to being a great broadcaster, Spike Gallagher could party with the best of them. When I spoke with Shirley McQueen on episode 652 of Toronto Mic'd, she remembered both the excesses and the loyalty of her friend. Anything you can share about John Gallagher at this time would be appreciated. John has always been such a character, and he is so much fun to be around. And there you go, like, thank God he brought himself back from the brink because, man, it was dicey for a while, you know. And, you know, hey, I call myself a participant to a certain degree back in the 80s, too.

But I never sort of got the appeal. I mean, I dabbled and I immediately thought, oh, I don't like this, you know. It never really, it wasn't addictive for me. It was not my drug of choice, you know. Well, that's good luck. I mean, that's good because if you did it and you're like, oh, I love this, then you're in trouble, right? Then you're in trouble. And, you know, not only is it bad for you physically-wise, but the money, like, people just spend thousands on that, right? Like, no wonder you needed club gigs, because

holy crap, you know, and then you weren't saving any of that, because it just evaporated up noses you know it was uh like what what a terrible drug that that is and that was yeah and uh if you're like john gallagher you needed to be both a morning show guy on qn07 and a uh sports uh guy at night on city tv on city tv yeah and i, John's just one of those guys where it's like a car wreck. You're compelled to watch because what's he going to do next? What's he, you know, what crazy antics, what jab, what barb, what turn of phrase? Like, he was just one of the best in terms of writing great material,

stealing great material, whatever he could do to bring it to the masses, but he delivered, that's for sure, and still does. While Q107's legacy is that of a hard rock station, Q's programming through the 1980s was eclectic. Some of that variety was due to government regulation, such as the midday current affairs show Barometer, which met the CRTC's requirement for foreground programming. However, the variety could also be attributed to whatever program director Gary Slate found interesting. Bill King is an accomplished musician,

having served as a musical director for Janis Joplin and Linda Ronstadt. He has had a long career as both a jazz pianist and a broadcaster. In the mid-1980s, Q107 had a Sunday morning jazz show that Slate hired Bill for, given his jazz credentials. Here's Bill from episode 361 of Toronto Mic'd with his Q107 story. It was Q107 when you started your broadcasting? So, okay, so you're at the Mighty Q in 1985, and tell me how you got the gig on the Mighty Q in 85 as a jazz broadcaster. Let me tell you, I had no

idea I was going to ever be on radio. It was nothing I'd ever pursued or thought about, but Bob Mackiewicz called me. I was great friends with Bobby because of China and other bands in the past, the reggae and all that. Bob said, look, we got Q Jazz on Saturday morning, but the person there

doesn't really know anything about jazz. Which is a problem. Would you come in and do a radio check and see how this works out? And I went in and did it, and they go, okay, we could fix you up. You've got some intonation things that we could work with.

But I think that's authenticity, like you sound like the real deal. That was it. So we did that, and then they said, okay, put together a show. So I put together a show, and then they run it by Gary Slate, and he approved it. So we did that, and then they said, okay, put together a show. So I put together a show, and then they run it by Gary Slate, and he approved it. And so I started going there every week, and then I was in with the Q gang. So it's me, John Derringer, Andy Frost, Jake.

Brother Jake Edwards. Brother Jake. All of this great cast, and Shirley McQueen. Was Gallagher there? John Gallagher? Gallagher, too. There was just a great cast and Shirley McQueen. Was Gallagher there? John Gallagher? Gallagher too, yeah. There was just a great cast of people. Yeah.

And it became like this amazing social affair where we had the Cube Softball League. We played softball together. We hung out together. I stayed for a year and a half, and during the year and a half, me and Gary sort of butted heads over music because I was playing jazz and he'd go find

something else and i go come on man let me just let me just play this so you know i started stretching i found sort of shadow facts and use them and i started playing this crossover stuff and then i i think i played what was it uh i had this series that came from nashville called the master series it was jerry doug Douglas and Albert Lee, and it was just amazing. But it wasn't really suitable for a jazz show, but I played it anyway. And he loved it. Cool. And he said, play more of that stuff.

And I had nothing else to play then, so I couldn't play any jazz. And I said, maybe I should take a pass because I've got to live in this community. They're already throwing rocks at me. Also joining Q107 in 1985 was a man from Winnipeg whose signature booming voice was the soundtrack to many people's Sundays for over 30 years, Andy Frost. Andy's authoritative but warm tone made him immensely popular and also got him the job as the Leafs PA announcer at the Air Canada Centre,

a job he held for 17 years. Andy visited the TMDS studio for episode 291 of Toronto Mic'd and told me his Q origin story. How does a guy from Winnipeg find his way to the mighty Q in the centre of the universe here? Well, I, uh, you know, I worked radio in Winnipeg find his way to the mighty Q in the center of the universe here? Well, I worked radio in Winnipeg for, I guess, seven years or so. And Q107 in Toronto offered me a position. And to be honest with you, Mike, I really had no interest in coming to Toronto to work. I'd been to Toronto, you know, when I was a kid, I used to come here all the time and stay with my aunt and uncle that was just up Islington. And it just, you know, sure, I felt as if I could probably handle the job. But, you know, hey, I was in my hometown.

I was working Winnipeg Jets games back in the early 80s. I was on the top rock station in Winnipeg. I really had no interest to leave. But it got to the point, I guess, about the mid 80s where at City FM in Winnipeg, they cleaned house and they got rid of myself and a bunch of other people. And, uh, at that point, uh, I thought, sure, let's, uh, let's see what's going on with Toronto. And they had asked me to come to Toronto on a few

occasions and I continued to say, no, thanks. Appreciate the offer and being as polite as I always tried to be. Right. And it got to the point where, sure, let's give it a shot. And I got here, honestly. Within the first week, I thought, well, I can do this. This is, you know, the people are relatively the same,

and yeah, I can handle this. And I've been at Kew, well, essentially ever since. I left in the late 80s for maybe about a year and a half, couple of years. Went and worked at a friend of mine's record company. You know, I didn't know this in my mind and I'm sure a lot of people

don't know this. In my mind, you get to Q in like 85 or so and you've been there ever since. Yeah. It's like one of those like, so you're saying there was a period in the late eighties where you actually were not working at Q. Correct.

Oh yeah. And then I went back to Q, as you may remember, maybe not. Um, we did a syndicated all night show that ran across the country and they asked me to come back and host that. And at that point I thought, sure, let's give this a, let's give this a shot.

The great Shirley McQueen worked closely with Andy during her tenure at Q107 and remembered her experiences with him fondly on episode 652 of Toronto Mic'd. Yeah, working with Andy was just tremendous. I mean, he came to Q107 about, I want to say less than a month after I did, from Winnipeg, of course. And Steve Warden followed behind, not too far behind. And when Andy first came on board, was he a program director yet? No, I think they just brought him on board for Psychedelic Sunday and for some specials and things like that. But at one point he started doing Afternoon Drive too.

Maybe when Derringer went to Montreal that happened. But yeah, Andy, Psychedelic Sunday and of course our live stuff at the Phoenix, the live club gigs that Andy was doing, Strange Paradise Mondays. I went often to the Strange Paradise Mondays. I went often too, and I would pinch hit whenever he wasn't available or on holidays.

I hosted a few Strange Paradise Mondays myself. Otherwise, I was in the parlor at the Phoenix doing Friday nights, the retroactive Fridays. So Andy would do Mondays, I would do Fridays, but we were always at the Phoenix, as was, like you say, as were most people. Andy's tenure at Q107 is most associated with Psychedelic Sunday, nearly a full day of programming featuring music released between 1965 and 1975. Psychedelic Sunday ended when Andy left Q in 2018.

But here's Andy from episode 291 talking about starting Psychedelic Sunday shortly after arriving at Q107. Psychedelic Sunday shortly after arriving at Q107. Psychedelic Sunday. So did you start Psychedelic Sunday right away, like in 85? Is this a... Well, yes. It was one of the first things I did,

and back then we would have been playing final. It was what was played. And whose idea was it to spell Sunday with the P? I always... Thank you for asking. Whose idea was it? That's a really good question. I'm not sure.

It may have been in place when I started hosting Psychedelic Sunday. I get it, of course. It's always been there. Yeah, that's right. It's right. I wonder how many people even realize, but it's funny when you see it in print. But yeah, Psychedelic Sunday has always had Sundays starting with a P.

So Psychedelic Sunday, I mean, a lot of people, if you don't associate Andy Frost with Leaf Games at the ACC and whatnot, but it's Psychedelic Sunday that's top of mind, I think, when we think of Andy Frost on Leaf Games at the ACC and whatnot. But it's Psychedelic Sunday that's top of mind, I think, when we think of Andy Frost on Q107. That show has been going on forever.

By the way, who did the show when you left for a couple of years in the late 80s? Well, even in the late 80s and even when I was doing the syndicated all-night show, which would have ran from 91 to, I don't know, 97 maybe. I wouldn't have done Psychedelic Sunday at that time either. So there was a variety of hosts. Rory O'Shea would have been one. Bob Pritchard was one. I'm not sure who else would have been there.

But, you know, Psychedelic Sunday, I loved doing the show then, and I still love doing the show now. And, yeah, you know, it's different now, but a lot of things are different. On that note, so, okay, well, I better tell the people that you're still doing Psychedelic Sunday. So it starts with Al joins. He does the first shift, and then you come in and close out the Sunday. So it starts with Al Joins. He does the first shift and then you come in and close out the Sunday. Well, for a long time, Al Joins did start off Psychedelic Sunday when it was a 12-hour show. But Al just does regular Q107 playlist now from six in the morning until noon. Then I do

Psychedelic Sunday from noon to six and uh we just start playing a bunch of tunes at uh at six o'clock regular q107 playlist but you know the show previously was 12 hours from nine in the morning till nine at night now it's six and that's probably sufficient so ever since i became the champ, eh? The champ of what? The fucking champ. I'm the champ, right? I'm a macho, camacho, I don't know those fucking guys, right? Ever since I became the champ, I've been worried about my behavior at home.

Like, I get up this morning, right? And I'm sitting at the breakfast table, and then my wife says to me, she says, drink your coffee before it gets cold. So I think to myself, well, she's getting hysterical. So I figure I got to take her out, right? Overreacting? No, no. I figured she was getting hysterical. So I give her a head fake when she was putting the toast on the table, right?

And she went for it. And a short uppercut and a left to the body, and she was eating linoleum. In my peripheral, right, like I catch the baby moving in on me, right? So it's a straight right, right? Fast right. And he's in twilight land, right. Right? Fast right. And he's in twilight land. Right? Before he can move.

So I go out to get the paper, right? And my neighbor is shoveling the walk out there, right? Yeah. And he says, is it cold enough for you? Fuck, that's enough. So I dance over to him, right? Yeah. A quick flurry of lefts and rights.

He wasn't expecting it. No, no. And then a solid uppercut. Fucking guy was... And he's tasting the cement, right? And I said, now... Scattering the snow with his blood, eh? Out cold, I said. How was that?

Is that cold enough for you? Yeah. Ever since I became the champ, I've been doing this. That's McLean and McLean's The Champ from their 1985 album Cruel Cuts. They were a Winnipeg comedy duo who often

found themselves in trouble with promoters and broadcast regulators for their profanity. As a Q107 listener in the late 80s, one of my favorite morning show segments was a different version of The Champ, the Q version,

voiced by brother Jake Edwards. And what started out as a two-minute bit on the Q morning show became something that was syndicated to stations across North America. Here's a Champ segment from the early 90s. You know, me and some of the guys decided to get together for a game of poker the other day. I told them they could play at my place,

and Mrs. Champ said she didn't mind as long as she could play herself. Well, Mrs. Champ had never played before, so Knuckles Muldoon offered to help her out for the first few hands. We started off with straight poker, and I was feeling pretty confident with a pair of queens. My wife happened to have two aces. Beginner's luck, I guess. As she's laying them down on the table knuckles is leaning over her shoulder and he says hey it looks like mrs. champ has a nice pair I says pardon excuse me he said it looks like mrs. Champ has a nice pair. Well, I lose it. I snap. I hand faked him with one of those eye jacks. The fool goes for it. Then club him with a set of poker chips. A flurry to the

solar plexus. He's lying face down in a bowl of beer nuts. I said, how's that? Does that look like Mrs. Champ's got a nice parent up for you? Ever since then, I've been the champ. Did Jake steal the champ from McLean and McLean? Steve Anthony, of Much Music and Breakfast Television fame, was at Q in the mid-80s with brother Jake, and he shared his thoughts on the origins of the Champ when he joined me for episode 123 of Toronto Mic'd. I recently introduced my two oldest kids to the Champ, okay? One note on the piano that made the guy a million dollars. I have no idea. I just know Brother Jake did the Champ, and he used to do it at 6.40 in the morning,

and I used to wake up to that station. I would actually wake up for the champ. We would talk about it at school. We would all talk about the champ that morning. Summer is still in my head. I got it. It's just, again, it's one punchline over and over and over. Pass the tea bag.

I lose it on you. I lost it. I just lost it. I've got uppercut to the jaw. I hit him in the solar plexus and he went for it. He went for it. And they write themselves and then you would write your own and people would submit them.

Think how long he did. He made money off that? Oh, tons of dough. And he syndicated it to classic rock radio stations all through the United States and Canada. Everybody's playing the champ. This is not unknown. This is not unknown. This is public knowledge,

but it was McClane and McClane, the Canadian comedy trio, the tremendously rude comedy trio who had the champ. It was a bit on one of their albums. Really? And Jake, excuse me,

the term is not stolen. It is... Co-opted. No, he borrowed creatively. He was inspired. Right. And then they did a cease and desist. Okay, yeah.

So they should, yeah. And he said, can I buy it from you? And they had no intent. It was like two minutes on a record. They were never going to go forward with it. And he had a great idea for it. So it was not as if, I mean, like I like i said he bore creatively but he was the one who wrote and writers i mean how many episodes of the champ are there for 10 years or something yeah

60 000 of the same joke same punchline brother jake explained the origins of his version of the champ on episode 646 of toronto miked and explained how he began doing The Champ and how he turned it into a full-scale enterprise. He also responded to Steve Anthony's claims of stealing the character from McClane and McClane. Dude, I can't... I looked... Was it 640?

Was that the time when it would originally air? I don't know. In my mind, I have it stuck that... It was quarter after 7, 7.15. In my mind I have it stuck that... It was quarter after 7, 7.15. Okay, so whatever time it was, literally I planned my morning around this. I had to have the shower done because I had to be listening

to Q107 for the fucking champ. I couldn't miss it. And then I'd make my way to Michael Power High School. And I still remember, I don't know if it was teachers or students, somebody sent in an idea for a story and you shouted them out and they played it over the PA at Michael Power because it was somebody who went to school there. Me and my friends, we loved the champ. anything, didn't know how big this was going to be. All I knew was it was going to be big.

I knew deep down inside people were going to lose their shit. And I remember the McLean brothers, McLean and McLean, they had a character on one of their albums, which was a punch drunk fighter, but there was no double entendre. You know, the toast came out, it was burnt. He popped his wife in the head, which was a punch drunk fighter, but there was no double entendre. You know, the, he, the toast came out, it was burnt. He popped his, his, his wife in the head, which was wrong. And, uh, and then, uh, and, uh, so I thought, you know, and I was friends with Blair and Gary, uh, they're, they're dead now, but two of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life. Uh,

we had them up to Toronto. We did a lot of guest appearances. And it just, it saddens me to know that they're gone. But the double entendre thing came to me and I thought, there it is right there. And I was in Halifax. I actually wrote the first one in Halifax because I was coming up to Toronto. I was just experimenting around with driving my wife crazy. And the first one was this is how far back this goes was the computer. So Champ was looking for a computer that he wanted to get. And I go back. Right. I'm over there. Right. I'm in the computer room. The guy says to me, hey, Champ, never mind IBM, never mind micro, whatever that is.

Come on out back and I'll show you my Wang. This is a Wang computer, right? So that was the first one. I went, oh, my God, this is going to be good. And from there, it was just, you know, writing them. Tony Daniels was a guy that I used to dress up as a champ because I didn't want anybody to know that it was me. I had this big thing when I did my voices, I would put them on a recorder and play them over the mic. So I talked back to the recorder, whether it was grandpa or

whatever voice I had, and it fooled the program directors. And when they see me, I'd have this recorder up there you said I thought you had somebody on the phone no so I would play back and forth to myself so I thought Tony dressed up he's a big burly guy and I would send him into the clubs as you know as the character and then I thought you know what this is going to get too big I'm taking over I'm going you know i made this happen i'm going to make this happen and that's how that's how that happened so wow okay so that voice effect though you're are you slowing down your voice like are you speaking fast well you know

at first we we just you know and it has had its different incarnations over the years for sure and then once it went to syndication you know um to do 30 episodes um and you go into a studio uh you wouldn't do 30 in one day but you'd probably do 15 uh you know and write them and get them ready but to not take away from the live stage show you couldn't make it go too deep. You know, you had to. Like, I can get my voice. I can bring it way down there. If I'm doing a stage show, it's got to be.

There's no, you know, there's no magic mic that's going to make that sound deep. So I just grabbed the house mic, go up and do my show. So that's why I didn't. When it started off right at the first it was like it was dragged down and then I started to go do the syndication and I would do that and that's live to tape

and if I got really tired then we'd have to slow it down because my voice would start to get you know, start to get beat up were you, okay I have memories of it, the voice, at some point later, maybe you had left Q, and I feel like, I feel, tell me if I'm misremembering things,

but I thought I heard Andy Frost do a champ. Oh, he might have. I have no idea. He didn't do it as a, what do you mean, as a real character? I feel like I, were you always the voice or at some point? Always.

Yeah. Always. Okay. Always the voice. Yeah. Always the voice. Okay. And people, I mean, there was a guy called the bird that was on the air and he was from

Toronto. I hired him in Winnipeg. So he got hired in, I forget, it was a station in the states and i picked up billboard magazine one day and it had best original character on whatever the bird and he called himself the champ what you're listening you scrawny little bastard i've never talked to you know i had to put a cease and assist on order on him but he went and took it verbatim, took all my stories, took everything and let her roll. I mean, come on. That's bullshit.

Now, not to cause more trouble, I almost caused some trouble with you and Andy Frost there. But an FOTM, by the way, means Friend of Toronto Mike. So if I drop FOTM, that's all I'm just indicating. These are Friends of Toronto Mike. Just in I drop FOTM, that's all I'm just indicating. These are friends of Toronto Mike. Just in case you were wondering there, but FOTM Steve Anthony. Jake, do you have a, what's your relationship like with Steve Anthony? Well, I mean, you know, we hung around a lot. I mean, we would, you know, he's a big guy on Much Music and, and you know, Jane and I, and you know,

everybody would end up at a house somewhere, uh, partied up and, um, tell stories and, um, yeah, great guy. Good friend. And I love it. I'm laughing because I should have pulled the clip and I was, did Steve a favor, but it's out there. His first appearance on Toronto Mike, I think you came up in conversation talking about Q and a seven. And then I went into my, Oh,

I love the champ. And he stopped down. He was very serious. And he wanted to make sure everybody was well aware that you stole the champ from McLean and McLean. And then, uh, and I,

I just, it was a very interesting moment. Like it seemed like he was personally, uh, somehow offended by the praise I was giving you for the champ. He said that? I got to pull... That's crazy.

I should have pulled the clip. I told you exactly how that happened. I mean, McClane and McClane were the inspiration. I created the radio character with the double entendre. That's as simple as I can put it. And you licensed it right you licensed the character from McLean and McLean right

that's correct yes we were partners we were partners I took them into everything Todd McFarlane this is just off piste here but Todd McFarlane who you know creates these 3D characters for

baseball and of course did the Oilers emblem many years back, logo many years back. He called me up. Laurie, my wife, said, there's a Todd McFarland on the phone. He wants to take the champ to the Fox Network down in Culver City, the cartoon. Culver City, the cartoon. And when I came here from Toronto, we were working on the character, the cartoon character with Steve Evangelatos, who was a Walt Disney animator, really good, super solid guy, still working today. And by the way, that character, the champ, is going to be a cartoon one day. It's just a matter of time because the shelf life on this thing is incredible. So Todd says, there's only one way we're going to get this into the Fox people is if I take it down,

you know, brother Jake ain't taking it down. I'm taking it down. I said, okay, great. So he's there. And at the 11th hour, they, they said, no, we had no neck McGurk. We had Manny, the mechanic, we had, you you know all characters that i wrote uh and put in and uh and uh it just didn't happen and and and this is the irony mike is or call it what you want a bunch of months later family guy came on and i thought he was telling us that hold my pole while I relieve myself. Hold my rod while I relieve myself. And then all of a sudden you know the content that's in Family Guy. Isn't that ironic?

And if you look at Family Guy and the animated champ, there's a really close-looking character there. So, you know, who ripped who off? In September of 1986, Brother Jake Edwards was fired from the morning show and left for Winnipeg. His replacement, Gene Valaitis, was already very familiar to Q107 morning listeners as news director and having regularly been a part of both Scruff Connors and Brother Jake's morning shows. Gary Slate hired Jesse Dillon from Calgary to team up with Gene on the morning show and according to both of them it was a rocky start. Here's Gene Valaitis

from episode 637 of Toronto Mic'd with his version of those early days. Now, Jesse and Gene, though, the first iteration of you guys is here in this stint with Q107. And was it great chemistry off the get-go? What a Toronto tandem. When I think of morning radio, you know I work with Humble and Fred, and I think they're fantastic. But I'm the one who, when you were on their show this morning i stuck in the notes the open question is there a humble and fred without jesse and gene because jesse and gene you guys this is like 86 when you guys start is that right 86 or so i don't know something like

that something like that so you guys are on the air at Q for a little bit, and then they tried to, in my opinion, that kind of is an impetus for Danny Kingsbury, I think it was Danny, who helped bring Humble from Montreal and create the Humble and Fred duo that is still going today, to be honest. So it's just an open question if Humble and Fred would exist if there wasn't a Jesse and Gene in this market. Well, I was working during the morning show with Jake Edwards and the program director at that time. Well, I don't know. I don't think he got along with Jake. I think Jake was a little too popular. Right. And Jake was transferred over back to a station in Winnipeg. And it wasn't a very popular move at the time within the station.

But this guy was flown in from Calgary. And they sat us in a room on a Sunday afternoon and said, can you guys work together? So we talked and yeah, I thought this is an interesting guy. He thought the same. So lo and behold, about a week later, it's the Jesse and Gene show. And it was absolutely the worst radio since the beginning of radio at Signal Hill. And it was just terrible. I mean, it was awful, awful, awful. Gary Slate, the program director, sat us in the room in his office and said,

he said to Jesse, he goes, this doesn't sound like the tape you sent me. And he said to me, he goes, you've worked with lots of people. And he goes, you just sound terrible. And he gave us, I think it was $300. And he said, take this money, go out and get drunk this afternoon go out and get drunk this afternoon and find out what's wrong. So we did. And we came in the next day. And from that day on, it was magic. I knew exactly what Jesse was going to say before he said it.

And he knew exactly what I was going to say before I said it. And it just absolutely clicked. So that's the best $300 a radio station owner could ever spend. How did it click? Do you have any explanation there? No, I think we just had to get to know each other and laugh a little bit. And I think we were both uptight about our new situation. But it did click after that. And it was just onward and upward from there.

So a lot of fun you know i think the thing that we both share in common is the fact that uh we're preparation kings and radio to do a good radio show is all all about preparation preparation preparation local local local and really working around the clock being cognizant of your competition and constantly wanting to beat them. Jesse tells his side of the story on episode 212 of Toronto Mic'd, when Jesse and Gene appeared together. I phoned Gary Slate one day. I came from the coast, spent two years in Calgary. I was at a radio station there working for a horrible Nazi.

I spent two years in Calgary. I was at a radio station there working for a horrible Nazi. And one particular meeting, he told me to get a metronome because my cadence was off with the way I was speaking. And I thought, I'm not applying for the Edmonton Symphony fucking orchestra. I'm doing a morning show. So when he told me to get a metronome, of course, I told him where I thought the metronome would best fit and wasn't in front of my face measuring my cadence while I spoke. So I phoned Gary Slate.

I said, hey, I got a hold of him back in the day. And I said, look, it's Jesse Dillon. I'm calling from Calgary. He said, what the fuck are you doing there? And I said, I'm asking myself the same question. He said, are you talented? Yeah, send me a tape. I sent him a tape.

He flew me out almost immediately. He said, look, I like what I hear. I want you to go down the hallway and meet Eugene Valaitis. He's our news director. See if you can work with him. Okay. Walked down the hall. I found the newsroom.

It's young and bluer. What floor was it down on, Gene? 30th. I said, hey, my name is Jesse Dillon. Yeah, Gary told me you were going to pop in. How are you? Great. Gary wants to know if you and I can work together.

Yeah, I can work with you. Yeah, I can work with you. Yeah, I don't have an ego. Boom. That was the extent of the meeting. Literally. Right, Gene? Yeah, really.

Honestly. So that was the chemistry test. I'll wait. I said to Gary, yeah, we can work together. No problem. It'll be fine. Literally. Right, Gene? Yeah, really. Honestly. So that was the chemistry test. I said to Gary, yeah, we can work together, no problem. It'll be fine. Great. You start Monday. Then that began what I consider to be the worst 10 weeks

of radio in my career. And mine too. It was just awful radio. I don't know. It just didn't click. We were thrown together. It just wasn't happening. Gary pulled me in the office one day and said, man, dude, this is not what I hired't know. It just didn't click. We were thrown together. It just wasn't happening. And Gary pulled me in the office one day and said, man, dude, this is not what I hired you for. You know, you're awful. Where's the funny Jesse Dillon telling stories? Where's the chemistry? You guys sound like shit. And he was right. We really sounded awful.

Oh, God, it was terrible. And he said, have you gone out and got stoned with this guy or got drunk with him? I said, no. He said, well, for fuck's sakes, here. I think he pulled out some money. And he said, take Gene out and go get high, get drunk. And we did. And it worked so well. Like, the magic was on.

Boom. The next day, it worked so well that we made a very, very strong point of doing that almost every day. Is that right, Gene? No. doing that almost every day. Is that right, Gene? No. No, not every day. Come on, dude. You became an alcoholic. How long have you been off booze?

16 years. Okay, well, dude. What are you talking about? Yeah, it was pretty bad. But what I'm saying is you were into working out. I was into working out my drinking arm and you didn't do that every single day. I mean, we did that

quite frequently. Maybe it wasn't every day, but how often would you and I be walking around from Remy's to whatever else in Yorkville? Come on. Six out of seven days a week. Six out of seven days a week. When Jesse and Gene sorted out their chemistry issues,

Q107 began to put promotional dollars into the new morning show. Here's an example of a Jesse and Gene promo from 1987. Every weekday morning on the Q Morning Zoo, Jesse and Gene ask the 107th caller to spin the wheel of cash. Q107 is giving away a total of $107,000 cash. Other radio stations would spend this amount of money on a fancy TV commercial with marching bands, monkeys, and rock videos.

But we'd rather give it away. Listen every weekday morning at 7.10 for your chance to spin the wheel of cash on Toronto's best rock, Q107. As their audience grew, so did the promotional budget, with bigger contests. From episode 212, here are Jesse and Gene remembering one of their biggest contests, an F-bomb, and the winner they had to talk into screaming. We gave away $107,000.

See, that promotion led to one day during ratings, during fall ratings, which were the most important to the radio station. I love this story. We were giving away $107,000 to the 107th caller. Remember that, Gino? I sure do. I know where this is going. And instead of 7.15, we made a special dispensation. do. I know where this is going. And instead of 7.15, we made a special dispensation. So this was at 8 a.m., which was the biggest quarter hour. And, to self-aggrandize

for just a moment, Gina and I are both humble businessmen now, but back in the day, our average quarter hours at that time were 140,000, which were beginning to eclipse chum. Q107 really had to come of age. It was making a lot of money.

And each rating point back in the day, I don't know what we had, a 10 share or a 12 share at that time, but each point was worth a couple million dollars. So stations billing $25 million. We're suddenly, we've gone from the two biggest assholes in the world, that didn't change, but the two highest rated assholes in the world, and now we're giving away $107, of a six pack of beer no disrespect mike so um uh eight o'clock rolls around uh we open up our mics perry our producer was supposed to hit the timpani he didn't i thought

i was off air so all you hear at eight o'clock is dead air then you hear me saying timpani ass fuck uh i don't i don't think we'd i don't think that had ever happened on the air up until that point hadn't you no no no no the the f-bomb was not dropped up until that point wow so so and then we say okay congratulations your caller number you know who's on the phone hi my name is ian ian you know what just happened congratulations. Your caller number, you know, who's on the phone? Hi, my name is Ian. Ian, do you know what just happened? No. Your caller number 107. Gene says, do you know what that

means? Now the timpani's going and all the accoutrements, sound effects, Perry finally put the hash pipe down and started pushing the brake buttons. And the guy says, no, what? Gene said, you just won $107,000. Get cool, man.

Thanks. Like no reaction at all. Oh, man. And so you see the look on Jesse's face. It's like he becomes so angry that the veins are popping out of his forehead like a Rand McNally roadmap of Ohio. And he says to the listener, who's just won all of this money,

the following. Dude, we have $107,000 cash, certified check. Unless we hear some screaming, and I mean real screaming, something that we can use as a promo tape down the road, we're going to hang up on you. It's going to be called a phone accident. It's completely legit and legal. And we will go to caller number 108 and gauge their reaction. I'm going to count to three. No screaming,

no money. Three, two, one. You have never heard such blood curdling screaming in your life. I've never heard such blood-curdling screaming in your life. There's lots more to come from Jesse and Gene, but let's first wrap up the story on someone we heard from a little bit earlier, Steve Anthony. Steve joined Q in 1986 from CKGM in Montreal to host Afternoons. Here's Steve from episode 123 to explain how it happened. Okay, let me get into the particulars.

Yeah. I'm trying to make sure that the filter is in place between the brain and the mouth. Now, just keep in mind, you're the one who told me you have, like, an actual hard stop at a certain time. So I got a lot of, you know, I got to get to, you know. Okay, fine, fine, fine. A certain music station. Fine, Okay. So I'm working as the music director and program director of the CKGM in Montreal at the time.

And I was dealing with a lot of people internationally and dealing with a couple of people in particular in Toronto. And the owner of the radio station station who had been asked many times to sell it finally did decide to sell it and he sold it to the folks at Chum the Waters brothers the Waters family and um consequently I was advised that Chum supporting from within would take one of these people who've been out in the sticks programming a station and they were going to bring them in to program the station that was just inevitable so meaning i was on the outs for a program director still doing the gig anyway so um one of these people of toronto based after that happened they warned me it was going to happen they just kind of had their ear

to the rail they um they said uh is it safe to assume that you're not happy about the situation? And I kind of said nothing. And then before I knew it, they spread the word here in Toronto to particular people, and one of them was Gary Slate, who was at the time general manager, PD of Q107. And so they contacted me, he contacted me, and they actually spent, I'm flattered, six months trying to get me to come to Toronto. And the reason being because, you know, I'm only three and a half years into the business professionally. And what I'd heard was, oh, if you ever leave Chum, you'll never get

another job in radio because they're so big. But he spent six months trying to get me to Toronto. So he succeeded and it was great. It was like legendary. K107 at that time was legendary. Steve Anthony's time at Q was short-lived as he was hired away to become one of the most popular VJs on Much Music, where he spent eight years before moving to breakfast television full-time. On episode 123 of Toronto Mic'd, Steve shared the story of how he was hired away too much.

About three months after I arrived, I was hosting a movie premiere and Q107 listeners. And it was a music movie. I don't remember it. It was something called Absolute Beginners. David Bowie was starring in it or something uh and i just i just messed around with everybody and there were there was a couple of producers from much music that were there and so they contacted me and they asked me if i wanted to work for them because they had a slot because jd roberts at the time he was he was leaving he was going to go to city tv whatever became of that guy he's now in it i

think he's now in atlanta he's doing he was on c he was on abc then he was on he was going to go to City TV. Whatever became of that guy? I think he's now in Atlanta. He was on ABC, then he was on... He was definitely on CNN. He was the heir apparent, right? CBS, right. Yeah, and he left because... I was kidding.

He's still around. He's still a great guy. He's not as high profile as he was because I think he's doing something local and i don't know sure i don't even mention anyway so he um uh they offered me the job and i turned it down uh because i'd only been in toronto for three months and working for q107 and gary slate for three months and it felt like a betrayal. After spending all that time to get me there

and three months later, I jumped ship. That would be a dick move. It would be really scumbag, douchebag. Did you know that douchebag is two words? No, because I don't write it. I write it as DB. It's much shorter. Oh, really? Because I'm typing a letter to friends like I use the word a lot and on Microsoft

Outlook mail, it says douchebag, one word, and it's underlined in red, which means it's grammatically wrong. Yeah, and it's two words. I bet you those Microsoft guys haven't added it to their dictionary. Yeah, it's one word. It's two words, but it is there. Douchebag. Who was the douchebag? I got to do this douchebags podcast today. I'll see you after. That's right. Douchebag. So I didn't want to betraybags podcast today. I'll see you after. That's right.

Douchebag. I didn't want to betray him because he was a great guy. He is a great guy. One of the most wonderful guys on the planet. One of the most generous. He doesn't listen to this thing, so I'm not sucking up to him. He might. He might. Whatever.

And so that was that. And then a year later, Much Music came back and asked me, and that felt like it was okay, that I'd at least put in almost a year and a half at Q. So that was it, and so then I went to work for them. If you're enjoying this deep dive into the history of Q107, a special episode 1071 of Toronto Mic'd, you might also enjoy the special episode 1021

dedicated to CFNY. Get it? 1021. And you might also love episode 1050, a tribute to 1050 Chum. Again, this episode does not exist without the immense effort of my good friend and valued FOTM, Tyler Campbell. While I'm giving thanks, you know the drill by now. If you enjoy what you hear on Toronto Mic'd, you need to support the sponsors.

In no particular order, drink fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Just do it. And if you're hungry, get yourself something to eat from Palma Pasta, delicious, authentic Italian food. If you need stickers or decals or anything of that nature, stickeryou.com is where you go. Sticker-y- Stickeru.com. The world's most comfortable pants are from Dewar. D-U-E-R. You can go to Dewar.ca or you can visit the retail store on Queen Street.

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but not least, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of my community since 1921. Someone else we heard from earlier is Shirley McQueen. While there had been female DJs at Q prior to Shirley's arrival in 1985, she was the one who most firmly staked her claim to the male-dominated airwaves of rock radio. Shirley had come to Toronto from Regina

and got a job co-hosting a music video show called Something Else on CFMT. That's with FOTMJ Gold, by the way. After the first season of that show, she got a call that would make her a fixture on Q107 for 13 years. From episode 652 of Toronto Mic'd, here's Shirley with more on the call she received.

How did you get the gig at Q107? Well, it's funny because basically they were blowing up something else. We didn't seem to gain enough traction for the higher up, the management. So they wanted to blow it up. And so word on the street was that this Something Else show was getting the axe, the shepherd's hook. One of our very last shows, I think about a week before we went off air that spring in 1985, I came back down after the show, back down to my desk, and there was a message from Gary Slate, the owner and purveyor of Q107 Standard Broadcasting. Wow.

Just a giant, a titan figure in media in Canada. And he wants me to come in and interview for a gig at Q107. I just about fell off my chair, of course, because, again, talk about gold. So, yeah, that's how I got my job at Q107. I went and sat with Gary, and by the end of our conversation, he offered me a job on Q107. I went and sat with Gary and by the end of our conversation, he offered me a job on Q107. So I started doing overnights and weekends and stuff like everybody does, of course. And yeah, the rest is history. A Q107 legend who is yet to be on Toronto Mic'd is a year one employee who many consider to be one of the original geniuses at Q,

Bob Makowitz Sr. Mako Sr. was responsible for creating the 6 o'clock rock report, an hour-long fixture in the schedule on the current state of rock and roll that lasted into the 90s. After 10 years at Q107, Mako Sr. was named program director in 1987, but only stayed in the role for a year before leaving to go to CKFM. You've heard a few people mention Macko Sr. fondly. Now here's Shirley McQueen from episode 652,

describing the man and what it was like to work with him. Yeah, well, Mako Sr., I mean, he, again, just a great mentor, a great mind. He's a 19th century English lit major at Rochdale. And I don't know if you've heard the stories. Well, he actually wrote the book on Rochdale Tower. It's called Tower of something. Oh, it's escaping me right now. But Bob and a partner of his wrote the book on Rochdale all about that experiment in the 60s and early 70s, Rochdale College in Toronto, which is just, I mean, it was sort of like a hate Ashbury scene, if you will. There was lots of ash, you know, and Bob was part of that. He was immersed in that. So he's got an amazing mind, and he's so literate and so intelligent and smart, He's so literate and so intelligent and smart, and yet he's just fun to be with as well and loves the music that came out of that period as well and brought that to Q107, of course, when Slate hired him to program the music on Q107.

I'm not sure if he was there at the very beginning, but he was there for most of the 80s and 90s, most of the Gary Slate years anyway. Oh, for sure. So just a fantastic guy to learn from and to be around and absorb all that knowledge about music and the scene, you know. Of all the iconic voices to have worked at Q107, there's perhaps none more iconic than Jeff Woods. He was a Macko senior hire in late 1987, and Jeff visited Toronto Mic'd on episode 177

to tell me about how he was hired. So Bob Macko, by the way, I've had a bunch of guys on here who are buddies with Mackle Jr. yeah you know like that whole crew there is like Strombo and Jeff Merrick

they're all good guys I work with them all or close to them all and Bob and Bob Jr. met with me many years after all that and we talked about I was going to go out

to Vancouver potentially and run a station for those guys they had great ideas I wanted to work with guys like that and he so he's you're right he's the ideas. I wanted to work with guys like that. And he, so he's, you're right,

he hired you at Q, and that's like 87 or something? It was 88, well, late 87, you're right. And then I started January 88. And it was probably the most thrilling phone call I ever got. It was one thing to get a call from Gary Slate, wonderful. And another thing to get a call from Bro Jake, amazing.

But to get a call from my hero, which was Macco, I was working at a wood shop with my father and he came out to the floor and the machines are going saws are going and he goes bob mackowitz on line one wow and i thought holy shit my ship has come in yeah i ran to the phone and three days later he he gave me a job at q big personalities filled the halls at Q in its heyday, and occasionally they butt heads. On episode 177,

Jeff Woods shared a story about a time he and John Gallagher clashed. John Gallagher, great sports guy. Spike. Spike. Another guy with a photographic memory like a Derringer. The overnight guy would have to record

the sports line, the bat blue sports line. Right, right. And you'd phone in and you'd get, imagine now, phoning in and getting the details

of last night's games. Totally remember doing that. But I recorded it for the first time and I thought I did it right. You couldn't really check. You just hit record, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda,

last night's scores. That's the score thing brought to you by. And did that come on like the wire, like a ticker or something?, last night scores. That's the score thing. And did that come on like the wire, like a ticker or something? I would get it. I would rip and read.

I would rip and read. I would record it and then you hit play and then you walk away. I hear, I'm with Jesse in the control room. Jesse's on the microphone.

I'm listening. The world's listening. And I hear screaming from the newsroom and it's Gallagher screaming bloody murder. And I went in because Jesse goes,

go check, see what the hell's wrong with him. I go in the room and I go, what's wrong? I'd only known him for a couple of months. He goes, somebody didn't record the sports library. I go, well, you don't have to scream about it. Just show me how to do it properly since you're the sports director, you son of a bitch. And I just thought that's not a real nice way to treat a new employee. We've never really had a meeting of the mind since. To his credit, Gallagher owned it when I asked him about it on episode 181. I don't remember that incident. I don't remember that incident. But I met him at a,

well, Pat Cardinal we lost a little while ago. He was the program director of The Hog, Maximum Grunt. And I was doing mornings on that show. And I saw Jeff. We were, yeah, had a great time. All right, because he knew I was recording that. So that's as on record as it gets. Oh, that's fine. No, it sounds like something I would do.

And again, you have to remember, and of course, maybe I was just a little off kilter there, but I would do City TV sports the night before. Right. So, I mean, and I'd be at the Kew Zoo just after 5 o'clock in the morning. And there could have been some cocktails involved the night before. Me chasing strange women. You and Alomar.

That's right. So maybe I got two, three hours sleep. But, you know, that's old. There's nothing as old as yesterday's news, Mike. Although Jeff Woods had a long run at Q107, his first stint only lasted about a year. Here's Jeff explaining why from episode 177 of Toronto Mic'd. So tell us why you left Q the first time. I was heartbroken. So I told you, Macko hired me.

And just like when Jake hired me at Q104 and then left to go to Toronto, Macko hired me and then left to go to Gary Slade at CFRB. So I lost my ally yet again. I felt adrift without Mako there. He got me in and then he left. And then the general manager, who now is respected and known as a great guy, but back then he had a lot of bravado

and he had a lot of bravado and he had a lot of opinion and his opinion at the time was that i sounded too fucking american just to quote him right and i've brought this up before and and people like hey why don't you bury that hatchet and stop grinding that axe i'm not grinding and i'm just telling you the story no it's a part of the story part of the story so he said you sound too story. So he said, you sound too effing American. And he goes, everyone on Q107 has a certain sound, and you don't. And I argued with him, as I mentioned in the book, I argued with him that Chum FM,

Ingrid Schumacher, back in the day Rick Ringer, I thought they have a really consistent homogenized or cohesive sound. Q did not. Gallagher didn't sound like Derringer, didn't sound like Macko, didn't sound like Bill Carroll, didn't sound like Andy Frost, didn't sound like Derringer, didn't sound like Macko, didn't sound like Bill Carroll, didn't sound like Andy Frost,

didn't sound like Christy Knight, didn't sound like Shirley McQueen, didn't sound like Jimmy James. Everyone sounded very uniquely different. And I was yet another different. We were a dog's breakfast of radio DJs. It's a mosaic. Yes.

So I disagreed with them, but he's the boss. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. And what's wrong with sounding American anyway? Depending. Obviously, there's parts of America with distinct accents. I didn't sound like this.

I wasn't in the movie Deliverance. Right. But, you know, people do think I sound a little British or Australian or American. The irony there is that he is American, the boss at the time. Self-hating the prophecy or whatever. It was weird, though, but everything for a reason. I had done six months there, and it gave me the impetus to go and open a record store,

which was one of my dreams. In the 45-year history of Q107, the station has had three owners, the Slate family, Wick, and Chorus. Shirley McQueen talked about some of the ownership and management personnel changes she witnessed in episode 652. You know, my time at QNF 7, I said, all I have to do is stay here long enough and I'll work for every company because we were bought and sold like about three times four times in my tenure there and uh I had over I think eight PDs in the time I was at QM7

well can you name the owners like because uh you mentioned so is well I'm gonna let you do it I was gonna I was gonna take a stab at it but do you remember all the owners of Q during your time there? Well, as I mentioned, I was hired by Gary Slate, and that was Standard Broadcasting, and they sold to WIC, Western International Communications, a year after I got there. So I only worked for Gary for that first year, a year and a bit kind of thing. And when WIC bought us, that would have been they hired Don Schaefer. Actually, I just got a text from Don just this morning. They hired Don Schaefer

to come out from Vancouver and program Q107. So I had my PDs up to that point had been Gary Slate and then Bob Makowitz, Andy Frost for about five minutes. And then believe it or not, Andy Frost for about five minutes. And then, believe it or not, Joey Vendetta was PD. Yes, yes, Joey Vendetta.

Part of what made Q107 so popular was its commitment to being part of the community. The Q107 community cruiser was at many events throughout the city, doing promotion for the station, giving away prizes, and doing live radio hits. The Cruiser was a great launching pad for people who wanted a career in broadcasting, and it produced at least two people who went on to bigger and better things. Liza Fromer was one. Coming to Q from Ryerson for her first job in media, she went on to co-host Breakfast Television from 2001 to 2006, and later co-hosted The Morning Show on global television from 2011 to 2016. Liza joined me for episode 189 of Toronto Mic'd, and shared what it felt like to have that job at that time in her life. My very first job in media was at Q107 and driving the community cruiser and I wrote this

when it was announced that Gord Downie was ill which just was crushing to learn. My very first gig in the cruiser. I'm driving down the highway, down the 401. I'm working for Q107 that I love. I'm working in this business that I'm just getting into. I was just out of university and I was playing fully completely. And I thought, well, Jesus Christ, I don't think my life could get any better. I have peaked.

This day is the perfect day. You know what? You had peaked. That was the dream gig right there. Right there. Yeah, and I wrote that on Instagram the day that it was announced at Houston. Liza also talked about some of the people she worked with and one relationship in particular with a Q vet. The Q107 Community Cruiser, what kind of car was that? Do you remember? It was a big, gigantic van, like an old school Chevy or something. Okay.

I could see it. Sort of like that Ford van that Terry Fox had. Yeah. It was a monster. And it said, the Q107. I would sign off saying, I'm Liza Fromer and the Q107 Schneider's Hot Rod Community Cruiser. Hey, that sounds good. That's why you went into, I guess, I was going to say radio, but really TV, because you have a great voice.

Thank you. Very good. Thank you, thank you. In those early days, somebody pointed out that you were heavily, you've spoken about you were heavily influenced by Bill Carroll. Is that true? He and I dated for a while. I didn't know if I was allowed to say it. I knew that too, but I didn't know.

You can ask me whatever I want. I didn't know because somebody said... I'm an open book, Mike. You'd bring Bill Carroll to parties at Ryerson. Probably. Sounds about right. I just had John Gallagher in here. You did?

Yeah. And he's, by the way, he has great stories. You have great stories too. But John Gallagher is in here and he tells me the most interesting story, but he tells me after we stop recording. And he says, next time I'm in here, ask me about this. So I guess John Gallagher was dating a woman

who Bill eventually married, I guess. Oh, Sylvie? Yes. Oh, I don't even know that story. Isn't that funny? John Gallagher tells me a story. Sylvie was his girlfriend. Really? I'm just sharing this. He says he's going to tell it on the next podcast.

I don't think it's at the school. She's a lovely woman, but that's new news to me. I had no idea. I haven't talked to Bill in forever. So you're kind of connected to Gallagher somehow, I guess. You dated a guy who ended up marrying Gallagher's girlfriend. John was part of the morning show. Was Jake Edwards John? The Q Morning Zoo.

Of course, because I was a big Champ fan. And I won't bore anyone with the story, but I do Champ impressions. Do you? Do you do a Champ impression? No, I do not. But that was the morning show. So I know John, yeah, for sure.

And then he was at City when I was at City as well. Right, right, right. Spike. So yeah, so Bill Carroll, you dated Bill Carroll. I did. I was a young'un. Yeah, well, I get lots of these notes or whatever, and some of them I don't read because they're not fair or whatever. And some of them I'll hint at and see what you're willing to tell, but you're like, Hit me, man. Let's do it, she was 19 and he was 30.

But that's fine. You're 19. You're not 16. No, exactly. And I was actually, I was 20, to be fair. Yeah, if you're 20 years old, you could date a 30-year-old. My wife's seven years younger than me. I mean, it is what it is.

But it is funny. Times were different. That's for sure. After Liza left in 1993, she was replaced by Terry Hart. Terry spent 18 years as the face of the movie network, interviewing some of Hollywood's biggest stars, and continues to be seen and heard

on the Toronto entertainment scene. Here's Terry from episode 336 of Toronto Mic'd, talking about her time at Q107. So when i got the job at q107 uh bill carroll and perry goldberg hired me and they were kind of like you know yeah we want to hire you but we don't like your name i think they said it more kindly than that and i had a not even a bad name terryock. It was at a time when everybody on the radio was changing their name. And so I had a name changing party when we did like Terry Thomas, Terry Thompson,

all the alliteration stuff that everybody was doing at the time. Yeah. And I hated everything. And then my mom called me the next day and said, what about Heart? It's grandma's maiden name, which I knew.

And she pointed out that my grandma had two sisters and all three of them were married and changed their names. So the name died in any traditional sense. And so she said, you know, you'd kind of be carrying the name on. It could be your name if, you know,

patriarchy was different. Right, yes. And so i became terry hart and the rest is history now so we did talk quite a bit about the cfny traveling terry stuff uh off the top i'm very interested in the q107 stuff so it's cool okay now uh so you mentioned bill carroll everybody listening knows bill carroll So he's the one who hired you? Yeah. For some reason, I don't know, because I don't remember why the cruiser kind of...

I think that it was like I did an interview with Perry Goldberg, who was the promotions director at the time, and Bill Carroll. And I think Perry was kind of sussing out if I could do like the promotions part of it like actually you know because there were some things that you had to do other than just be on the radio

and then Bill was the guy who was figuring out if I could be on the radio I had been on the radio at CKNX and CFNY but this was you know that gig was amazing it was the only entry level full time job in radio in the city of Toronto. Wow. So and Liza Fromer

had done it before me and she was amazing. Like did she pass the baton to you? Was this like a literal She kind of did. You know she was leaving radio to work in television. She was going to go to YTV or a production company. I remember

the YTV show. I played a clip for her. Yeah. And do you remember any of the jocks at the time? Oh, yeah. I remember them all. Do you want to drop some of those names for me? Brother Jake was doing Mornings. Then Scruff Connors was doing Mornings.

Shirley McQueen. Joy Vendetta. Steve Worden, who's still a very good friend of mine. Bill Carroll. Rory O'Shea, of course. The newsroom was... But you gloss Carroll, Rory O'Shea, of course. The newsroom was... But you glossed over Rory O'Shea, but you lived with Rory O'Shea.

How do you know that? Am I not supposed to know that? Or is that off the record? Do I have to delete this later? No, no, no. Yes, I did live with Rory O'Shea. Okay, because you dropped him in a list. That's where it's come now.

That's where it's come. Now you're asking me about my former romantic life. Hmm. How did you know that? I do my homework on this show. Come on, you knew that. You listened to Toronto Light. That was a long time ago.

I got to be the Brian Linehan of podcasting here. There's a lot of pressure. Bless Brian. A lot of pressure. So, yeah, I mean, really, Marsha Lederman worked in the newsroom. She was so great on the radio. She was incredible.

Andy Frost, of course, was there, too. Like, rock and roll was... And it was new rock still. Yeah. It hadn't gone classic rock yet. No. No. It was new rock.

And it was just... I worked there for three years. It was... Danny Kingsbury was my boss. Oh, yeah. He was a great boss. I learned so much from those people. Steve Warden still is one of the people who I admire most as an interviewer. I wish he was on the air.

I wish I was able to hear him. He was so good on the 6 o'clock Rock Report. Bill Carroll, obviously, on Barometer, back in the days when we had talk regs. Right. You had, what did they call that? Scott Turner once explained this to me, but it was called foreground programming or something like that.

Yeah, I forget what the name was. But you had a requirement, right? Yeah. You had enough talk on your... That's why, because at the rock radio station, we had a talk show from 1 till 2, hosted by Bill Carroll, Barometer, with a live audience. Yeah, and I remember the,

was it the five o'clock rock report? Six o'clock rock report. Six o'clock, yeah, I had it an hour early. Yeah. And then at some point, I feel like Derringer hosted that at some point or maybe I'm confusing my memory. John and I never worked together weirdly.

I know John just professionally, but we never crossed paths in that building at the same time. I think he had gone to Montreal when I was in that building. And I wasn't at Yonge and Bloor. I just missed Yonge and Bloor days. And I was at 5255 Yonge Street. Is that Yonge and Norton?

Yonge and Norton. Right, right. Because I just had Evelyn Macko on. So it's like she was talking about the Yonge and Norton because she was doing news for QL7 and 640. Very interesting. Liza Fromer was a very popular guest. People loved that episode when she was on Toronto Mic.

And I've been trying to get her to come back and kick out the jams with me for a while now. I think she even sent me her jams at some point. And I got to close that deal, get Liza back. Because she was fantastic. Absolutely. And yeah, so I don't know if I, if I got you, uh,

with the Rory O'Shea thing, I didn't mean to throw you there, but, uh, I heard that possibly you were a couple, but you know, Hey, yeah,

we were, we were a couple for a long time. How long? Uh, four years. It's a good run. Yeah. That was, it was's a good run. Yeah, that was a very respectable run.

We did our best. There's another FOTM who was at Q107 in the 1980s that we haven't heard from yet. Al joins. He was hired by Andy Frost in 1988. Al had two tours at Q. The first one ended in 2001, not long after Wix sold the station to Chorus. Here's Al on episode 321 of Toronto Mic'd, expressing how it felt to be let go the first time. All right, so your first tour of duty, why did it end at Q107? Well, I think the reason why it ended was, I don't know why.

They went from Western Broadcasting to Shaw to, it wasn't quite chorus yet, if I do believe. And they're, you know, they shuffled about 18 of us out at that time. And that was probably the most, yeah, it affected me. The first time it really, I didn't know what I was going to do.

I couldn't listen to the station because it was just too close. And then, you know, that kind of wears off and you start, you know, going back to the station again. That's when I took a course at Ryerson. I took motion picture production for two years. And that's when I took a course at Ryerson. I took motion picture production for two years. And that's when I started making the videos.

And then I was brought on by Durham Radio to launch The Rock. The Rock. Yes. 94.9 The Rock. Okay. The Rock. That's great. Great station, by the way, The Rock.

We're going to play a clip there. But here's a great quote for you. This is from Stephen Page. They asked him if he was being interviewed prior to the Junos reuniting with Ed Robertson and the rest of the Barenaked Ladies. And Stephen Page said he did not follow anything to do with Barenaked Ladies after he left the band.

He said, that would be like watching a sex tape featuring your ex-girlfriend is what he said. So I totally can see if, especially because it sounds like maybe the first time you left Q, you were caught maybe more by surprise. Like this time I think maybe you were ready. I was. I thought it was going to happen a year ago.

Yeah, and it changes everything when you're kind of ready for it. But the first time when you're not ready for it and you see the folder, it really can really hurt. The last thing you want to do is listen to that station that decided they're better off with your voice not on it. That's right. That'd be the last station I listened to.

For sure. And you know what? It's even like that right at the moment because I'm too close to it. Family members were saying, Al, did you hear who was on Sunday morning? And oh my. And you're like, not my problem. Yeah, exactly.

And those were my exact. Al came back in 2006 after being let go from 94.9 The Rock, the station he helped launch in Oshawa. Also from episode 321, here's Al explaining how he returned to Q107. How do you get a second tour duty at Q? Well, I gave it some time and I got in touch with Blair Bartram and left a few messages on his machine. And finally he had his assistant call me

and she said, would you like to come back and do a few shows? And I'm like, well, sure, you know, twist my arm. And then it evolved into a swing thing. You know, Blair would call me at 5.30 in the morning. Joanne's not well. Joanne's daughter isn't feeling very good.

Can you come in? And every time, like I, this is, this is the truth. Every time that Blair called me, I always came in. And that was, you know, I think that's a work ethic that I'm proud of because I love doing what I do so much. I mean, we've all had those jobs where you're watching the clock, you're in a maintenance situation in a factory and you're like, when

am I going to get out of here? Sure. And yet I had clocks all over the studio and they couldn't, you know, they didn't distract me at all. It was like, oh, slow the clock down. Right. You want the opposite. Right. You're like, oh, slow the clock down. Right. You want the opposite.

Right. You're like, oh darn, I only have a half an hour left in the shift or whatever. That's right. For Toronto sports fans in the 1980s and early 90s, Global TV's Sportsline, with Jim Taddy and Mark Hebbshire,

was the gold standard in nightly sports recap shows. Their work influenced a generation of sportscasters in Canada, and it was a shock in 1995 when Hebsey left Global to join Q107 as sports director. Q107 had won the radio broadcast rights to Maple Leaf Hockey, so for the first time, Q would be broadcasting live sports on its airwaves. In his first visit to Toronto Mic'd on episode 89, Hebsey explained what prompted him to make such a big move. So I had an opportunity to go to Q107 and AM640 and do play-by-play of the Argonauts and originally play-by-play of the Toronto Maple Leafs, which is what I wanted more than anything,

radio play-by-play every game. So Is, which is what I wanted more than anything, radio play-by-play every game. So I accepted the job, handed in my resignation to Global, went off on a couple weeks holidays, right, after signing my deal with Q107 and 640. And then while I'm on holidays, I get a call from my new boss to say, really sorry, can't give you the Leaf play-by-play job. We can give you color commentary. I said, oh, that's not what we Leaf play-by-play job. We can give you color commentary. I said, oh,

that's not what we agreed on. We signed a contract. Well, yes, but Joe Bowen is very, very popular. And the Maple Leafs do not want to lose Joe Bowen as their play-by-play guy. Would you be okay with that? Sure. I mean, I totally understand. I mean, why would anybody get rid of a guy who had been there for years and the voice of the Leafs and take on a guy who is known for the Hebsey Awards and being flippant and obnoxious and stuff like that. So I accepted the job as a color analyst where really I had no business being a color analyst. I'm not a former player, right? It's true. And the contract was a four-year contract. So I had signed, I'm kind of locked in. Okay. So that's why I left Global for this play-by-play gig. And I also did morning sports on Q107 and 640.

So my plate was pretty full. The money was much better. And the opportunity to do play-by-play was something I couldn't resist. I was almost 40. I was 39 and done what there was to do as a sportscaster. So now is the time to be a play-by-play guy. done what there was to do as a sportscaster, so now is the time to be a play-by-play guy.

After being away for seven years, Jesse and Gene returned to Q107 in July 1996. They had left in 1989 to go to CFTR, eventually replacing Tom Rivers as The Morning Show. In 1993, CFTR stopped playing music and became 680 News. Jesse and Gene were out of a job. They didn't stay unemployed for long as they were hired by AM640

Q's AM Sisters Station to host mornings. However, by 1995 the AM music purge continued and AM640 became Talk 640. Jesse was let go, and Gene stayed on to host the morning show with another Q vet, Jane Hodden. The following summer, Jesse and Gene were reunited on Q107

for one last short-lived run, only to be replaced by the brief and controversial Howard Stern experiment. Jesse and Jean told me all about their final queue stand and the FOTM that got bumped in their favor on episode 212 of Toronto mic'd. Less than a year. You're at Q107 the second time. So just, I'm sorry for, just want to find out. So how do you make the transition from 640 to Q107?

Like, was that because it's the same company? Let me just go back quickly. So we were at, we were at Q from 86 to 89 and we went to CFTR till 92. And we came back to the building, the chorus building at Young and Norton at the time, which is now Young and jesse and gene way but we came back there in 92 i think we were there from like 92 to 95 then we got fired and that was really like the firm i don't see that movie with tom cruise that was a labyrinth of madness that's a book in itself so then we both got fired i think i got fired first and you and him hung in there for a while, right, Gene?

Yeah, a couple of months. A couple of months to do some news. And then there was a year where we were not together. Gene hung on to do news there. And I went out to a Bill Evanoff station in Brampton. They had just got a signal from Orangeville and brought it down to Brampton, called it hot one of 3.5. You had to step over the Indian cookware in the mall in Brampton to get into

the studio, you know, the, the, the Pakistani rugs and incense and all that stuff. And, and I, I, I kind of deal with Bill. I said, look, man, I'll give you a, I'll give you a morning show. Don't pay me. I'll hire deal with Bill. I said, look, man, I'll give you a morning show. Don't pay me. I'll hire my own team. But I want 33% to 30% of the revenue for the morning show. And I want to syndicate it.

And I want to use this as a flag. I really wanted to syndicate a show. And ultimately, what I was going to do was hopefully make that successful, hire a few people. Gene was gainfully employed in news. And then eventually, we'd get back together. We'd get our show syndicated. Anyway, it didn't work out. The station worked out. They went from nothing to about 500,000 listeners, brought on board some talented people to help with the morning show. And then Ted Smith called me one day, about a year into that program, he called me

and basically called me from Vancouver. He said, hey Jesse, it's ted smith hey ted how are you doing long time no talk he said look q107 has fucked itself up beyond reproach quote unquote would you and gene come back i said i don't know man i mean how many tyrants can you get fired from the same station in the same organization he said i know i know we haven't treated you well but would you come back? How much? Yeah, I'd probably come back for that, being that I'm eating my own excrement, stepping over pots and pans to get into a fucking hole-in-the-wall radio station in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, I think I could do that. Let me talk to Gene. I phoned Gene, and I think you said the same thing, Gene. Yeah, I said, let's do it. So we came back. But you know, there's a story that goes along with it that's quite a story. I don't know if you want to hear it or not. I do.

I definitely do. Do you want to start this one, Gene? What story is that? The backyard barbecue, the call from Tuscany. I'll start it. Yeah, you start it. Ted Smith phones. Ted cut a deal with Gene and I.

He was the president and CEO of... WIC. No, WIC. WIC. It was WIC at the time, but WIC sold to Chorus, right? Yeah, but we were working for WIC. Okay. Was that WIC when he came out here? This was the third time to Q, though.

No, no, no. Yeah, but it was Western International Communications out of Vancouver. Yeah. So Ted was still in charge. It hadn't yet sold itself to Chorus or become Chorus. So Ted cut the deal with Gene and I over the phone, confirmed it. And then he phoned Don Luzzi on his holiday. Don was the president of the chorus, Clusterfuck,

and phoned him in Tuscany and said, hey, your new morning show is Jesse and Gene. And Luzzi said, well, no, it can't be. We've already hired Jeff Lumby and his team from Y95 in Hamilton. Correct, Gene? That's right. Oh, wow. And Danny, I think, is with them them now we've already hired them you know

in fact we've just press released it well cancel renege jesse and junior you know morning show make it happen click so uh that's how i heard the phone call went and then uh danny kingsbury who was in the backyard barbecue with jeff lumbee and the Y95 Morning Show team celebrating the new move from Hamilton to Toronto, had to put the phone down and say, guys, turn the music down for just a moment.

Yeah, I'm just going to set my beer down here for a second. Wives in the house? Yeah. I just got a call from Don Lucey who just got a call on his holidays from Ted Smith. Yeah, we got some a little bit of a

challenge here. Boom. The reason I'm telling you that story, when we went back into that building, it was like a funeral for Jesse and Gene. I said to Gene, dude, what is the vibe here? No one wants us here remember that you know yeah no i do well we weren't their first choice we were we weren't on

their radar and it was it was one of those rare occasions where the west was dictating what happened in the east and um it was a rough ride for us there was there was no joy in hogtown for jesse gene uh no one wanted us there, we felt, and it was difficult. It was difficult to maneuver around that. And so when Pat Cardinal came in and gave us our marching orders, it was understandable. We just knew that we were short-term. And as you mentioned earlier, you guys were supplanted

by syndicating the Howard Stern Show, which of course is a whole chapter unto itself in Toronto radio history with the Stern entering the Canadian market there. the Howard Stern show, which of course is a whole chapter unto itself in Toronto radio history, with the Stern entering the Canadian market there. I guess if you were going to get replaced by somebody, I guess we should take that as a backhanded compliment. The only guy they could find to replace us after a six-month search was Howard Stern. And is that the last time you guys were on the radio together? May 5th, 1997, Cinco de Mayo. Last time we were on the air together, with one exception. We did a three-minute stint at CFRB. They were experimenting with maybe bringing back a brand.

I think we did a show or two there. But other than that, yeah, May 5th, 1997 was the last show we did. On episode 637, Gene elaborated on the reasons they were given for being fired and the marker of their legacy that remains in North York. 23 years ago today, what happened 23 years ago today of significance in Toronto radio history, Gene? Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, 1997. Jesse and Gene were taken into an office. We were told that we didn't follow direction. We were told that we used really bad language. We were told that we did very bad things on the air. We were told that we were both being fired.

They gave us a letter to sign. They gave us a few little things and they walked us out of the building Q107 up on Yonge Street north of Finch. And because we did not follow direction, because we used terrible language, because we did awful things on the radio, we were replaced by Howard Stern. Firstly, a shout out to Mark Hebbs here who reminded me the other day, there's a Jesse and Jean Way, right?

Yes. Is that close to that? Young and Norton, right? Where would we find Jesse and Jean Way? Yeah, it's a little alleyway at Young and Norton. And while we were on the air up there, we had a very good relationship with the then mayor of North York

before he became the mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman. And we convinced Mel that he should name this little laneway after us. And he did. And I've driven by it a couple of times. The sign is still there. I don't think it's something you find on Google Maps. It's just kind of like one of those things where they just put a sign up and ignore it kind of a thing. As Jesse and Gene witnessed, the 1990s brought a lot of change to radio, and Q107 was not immune. WIC consolidated the Q and 640 operations, meaning Q107 left 2 Bloor Street East for the Young Norton Centre in North York. Foreground programming requirements went away in 1993, and that, combined with several AM stations moving away from music entirely and going to all-talk or all-news formats,

meant the death of the news departments at music stations. The very early years of Q107 featured many well-known names in radio news, such as Mark Daly, Gene Valaitis, Jane Hodden, and Bill Carroll. The last full-time on-air news staffer at Q107 was Evelyn Macko. Evelyn's done it all in radio news in Toronto and had a front row seat for the Howard Stern years. She joined me for episode 334 to talk about the highlights of her six years at Q107. Kathleen Rankin was leaving Q107 and Talk 640. And Dave Trafford, the news director.

He's back on the air there. He's back on the air at 1010. Yeah, doing the MOTS. Right, the MOTS retired to look after their equestrian business in Arran or something. That's a big thing for them. Yeah, for sure. That timing worked out that they

needed someone and here I was. The city already knows your voice. Already when they hear your voice, they're already thinking there's integrity in that delivery. When it comes to news, that's really important. Integrity matters in news. It's one thing to be the guy who's like,

it's the Rolling Stones. But that's a different kind of integrity. That's the showmanship. That's what draws people in. You're preaching to the choir on that one. But when it comes to news, when it comes to news, when Dave Trafford needs a news voice,

to me, you can't do better than Evelyn Macko. This is a no-brainer for Dave. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, and then so I was doing the news on cue and 640. So extra work again. And this is pre-chorus, right? It's pre-chorus. This is WIC, I believe. Right, right. So, extra work again. And this is pre-chorus, right? It's pre-chorus. This is Wick, I believe. Right, right.

Western, yes. Wick and then Shaw, because there were jokes about a Wickshaw. And then Chorus. So, how long were you at the Q107 640? 1995 till 2001.

So, what's that? Six years? Seven years seven years okay so here's we got some questions here firstly i want to talk about this culture so like this office uh you broadcast out of north york is that right the q and young norton center right and what is it so this is the howard stern era right so they're uh simulcasting uh stern in the mornings on q107 so what's that like i know eventually they pull the plug and then Derringer comes back and gets the mornings. But can you share a little bit of what it was like working at Q107 and 640 back? You mean as it relates to my job?

All of the above, yeah. Oh, we had just the culture there. Well, there was a lot of sitting around and waiting. And there were a lot of phone calls, angry phone calls, because they just didn't get his, Stern's, humor. And he was ahead of himself in terms of being on terrestrial radio. His stuff wasn't working well with Canadian audience.

Let me help, because I listened to the Stern show on Q, and I stopped and started, Because it was also on at WBUF in Buffalo was also doing Stern. And I started listening to the Buffalo feed. Here's why. Because you're right. We have our CRTC stuff is our standards. It's especially when it comes to like French language stuff. And I remember this distinctly. So there was a lot more cutting out of the content on the Q107 feed of the stern show than on the buffalo feed and of

course as a listener you don't want anything cut out obviously yeah but i yes i definitely remember oh they i guess somebody was was at q107 ready to like do the delay button or the dump or whatever absolutely i can't remember her name i want to say monica but that's i have a picture of her very slight little girl that's a fun job. I suppose. What do you do? I edit Howard Stern. Oh, he's talking about the Frenchies in Quebec. Dump. Yeah, it was crazy.

May I ask you about some of these Q107 and 640 personalities that you've worked with? Sure. Okay. All right. Shoot. All right. How about Marsha Lederman? Oh, she's very clever, very smart. She's out in BC now and I think writes for the Globe and Mail. Karen Horsman was there, right?

Yeah, I lost track of her. I think she was doing some stuff on CBC. But together, they did a really, really good show. Very thoughtful. They were very thorough. And it's good to see more women broadcasters. That's always good to see. women broadcasters like you know that's always good to see I agree I liked this guy I think there was overlap

please tell me if I'm wrong were you there when brother Jake was there oh god yes in Q107 Donna Saker was there too Jeff Chalmers was the right Jeff Chalmers that's right you gotta have Jeff Chalmers Jeff Woods like so many others in Q's history Chalmers was the... Right, Jeff Chalmers. That's right. Yeah. You gotta have Jeff Chalmers.

Jeff Woods, like so many others in Q's history, returned to the station after six years away, immediately moving into an important role. Here's Jeff from episode 177 of Toronto Mic'd with the story of his return.

Alright, now the late Pat Cardinal, is he the man who brings you back to Q? Yeah, you know what? He just passed away, sadly, just about a month or two. And as you said that, as you said his name, I get that chill up my spine. It's like a ghost goes through you and your hair stands up.

That just happened. Pat was kind. I heard through a friend, Rebecca Gibb, who worked promo at the radio station, and she went on to marry Pat Smear from Foo Fighters. But Rebecca said to me, because she was in the promo team, she said, Cardinal really likes your thing, likes you on the radio,

and you should come back and work at Q107. And I said, well, maybe he should call me. But Pat's the kind of guy that he puts the bug out there, and then you're supposed to react Yeah the feelers So I did I called him I said I understand that you maybe want me to come back So that summer I worked five days a week at Sony

And then I would do weekend shifts at Q107 What year is this approximately? This would have been 97 Summer of 97 So this is like Because I know Pat's the guy who brought Howard Stern Yeah but shortly thereafter he brought Howard to Q And he brought Howie Kogan, he brought Howard Deque.

And he brought Howie Cogan, and he brought Gonzo from Hits FM, and Joanne Wilder from Hits FM. He brought a lot of people into the fold. And he had David Cade doing the voice work. He surrounded himself with people he thought were A, talented, and B, decent people. So I happened to be lucky enough to be one of them. And he made me assistant program director on day one,

which is unheard of. I guess at some point you become the program director, right? Yeah, well, Pat, when Chorus came together, CFNY and Q107 are under the same roof now with AM640, and Stu Myers, who ran The Edge, he really made The Edge brand. Probably the smartest program director this country's ever known. You know, his daughter's

there now. Yeah, Carly. Carly, yeah. She was a little kid back then when I met her. And she's a talent in her own right. But they brought Stu in from the Edge because Stu is a meat and potatoes classic rock guy at heart.

He can program classical if he put his mind to it. And he was successful programming new rock. But his real comfort zone is classic rock. So they put him on, they moved Pat out. he went to Energy 108,

and they moved Stu in to run Q. So then I became his assistant. And then when he left, I became the, shortly before he left, I became the program director. Wow. Dude, that's great. And I was still wearing, full circle, I was still wearing

my wife's theater and my flip-flops and my ripped jeans. The end of the 1990s and early 2000s saw some new voices at Q107 who would remain on the air for a long time. One of those voices

belonged to Joanne Wilder who can still be heard on Q today. Here's Joanne with the story of how she was hired at Q107 from episode 198 of Toronto Mic'd. So tell me how you end up at Q. Well, Hits FM was sold by Standard. They were selling them off and I really wanted to stay with the company. I was worried about being with a company that was smaller and if Hits FM was going to be sort of the top of the line in the company, where was I going to move up? How was I going to move on and hopefully come back to Toronto where I was from?

So I knew I had to get out. And I talked to JJ and he's like, oh, I'd love to bring you back. I just got nothing for you right now. But, you know, I'll keep you in mind for anything that came up, will come up. So I reached out to Pat Cardinal, not realizing that Pat Cardinal and JJ Johnston were really good friends, but also very competitive with one another. So I think I kind of became a pawn in the situation, but it worked out great for me. But, um, it was, I will say I was terrified because JJ, like I said, was a mentor to me and just a hell of a guy. And I really made him mad

because what happened was he, he called me up and said, um, I'm thinking this was a quote. I'm thinking of bringing you back down the line, maybe. So I need you to come in and do an overnight shift for me on Sunday night. So I would have to do the overnight and then go home and sleep and then get up and do the evening show at hits FM. He's like, I need you to do Sunday night. home and sleep and then get up and do the evening show at hits FM. He's like, I need you to do Sunday night. So I had in the meantime, gone to visit Pat Cardinal and he said, I want to hire you, but I, I, I got some things I've got to do right now. So, um, give me a couple of weeks, couple of months, and maybe a couple of months and I'll get back to you. But I do want to hire you, but just, I can't right now. So I was like, okay. So I was kind of in limbo. So when JJ just

said that I called up Pat and I said, just want to give you the heads up. I'm going to be on the mix this weekend. So I just don't want you to turn on the mix and hear my voice and think that I'm going to work for the mix. I just want to keep, I got a call back like that from Pat saying, come and see me tomorrow. See? And I got hired.

And so I called JJ up to let him know to say, I've been hired by Q107. If you still want me to do the show on Sunday, I can, But just so you know, I'm going to be working for Q. And he tore a strip off of me. He was so mad. I thought we were friends. How could you do this? We made up long after that. But I was terrified for the longest time.

It's not like you turned down a full-time position at MIPS for Q. JJ was just really, because like I said, I think there was a little bit of rivalry between him and Pat. That's too funny. Uh, now Pat, of course, uh, sadly, uh, passed away recently. Uh, he's no one in my circles for the guy who brought Howard Stern. So is Howard Stern doing mornings when you arrive at Q? He was already there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was there. So I would come on, uh, actually when I first got hired there, I was hired to do three overnights and two weekends because Shirley McQueen was doing middays at the time. Right.

So I was just about to go into Pat's office and say, oh, my God, you've got to cut one of these overnight shifts. This is killing me because the turnaround was just hell to go from a 6 a.m. to midnight shift and then somehow switch it around and do like noon to six on Saturday and six to noon. I can't imagine. It was hell. So I was just about to do that when Shirley McQueen announced that she was going to be moving out West. And Pat said, oh, I need you to fill in on middays until we figure out what

we're going to do. And after my first shift at middays, he called me down and he said, you want the job? And I said, of course I want the job. And he's like, it's yours. It's sweet. He said, I still have to post it, but it's yours. Yeah, but that's 1998. That was two months I was doing the overnights and weekends. So it wasn't long after I got hired by Q, I was doing middays. Not long after Joanne Wilder arrived at Q, another important voice was hired, one that remained on the air at Q107 for 19 years,

John Scholes. John visited me for episode 339 of Toronto Mic'd to explain his journey to Q. The story goes as follows. I was obviously a mature student when I went back. I didn't go back until I was around 27, 28. And while I was, what time, when did we start? We started in the winter, I believe,

what they call the certificate program. It was a little over a year. It wasn't a two-year program. We started in the winter, I believe, what they call the certificate program. It was a little over a year. It wasn't a two-year program. We started in the winter, and sometime around late spring, early summer, I thought to myself, you know, if you're going to get into this industry, you should try or at least get the feel for what a radio station's really

like, because until that point, it had been the college station, which isn't much more, well, back then it's not much more elaborate than what you got here. It's much better now. It's incredible, the equipment at much more, well, back then it's not more, much more elaborate than what you got here. It's much, it's much better now. It's incredible. The equipment at, at Humber now, but back then it was similar to what we're doing here. Very basic. It worked.

It was very basic. Other than that, it was just listening to radio. I never spent any time inside a station. So I figured, you know, it might be cool to be a fly on the wall and see if you can get in somewhere. So obviously by default, the first station I call on would be Q. And I remember the day I decided to do that. I was in college and I was, I remember where

I was driving. I was driving east on Steeles Avenue coming down towards Bayview. I don't know why I remember this because I have zero memory. That's what my wife is for. And at that time, Howard Cogan, Hungry Man was the afternoon guy.

And I think he had John Panette, the late comedian, on the show. Yeah, of course. And he had pulled up to the station. Panette had pulled up to the station while he was doing his interview, 16 floors up at Kew. They had towed his car. So... Panette's car. Yeah. Is he the I don't care guy? I don't care.

Yeah, the big huge guy. Yeah, yeah. He talked about his weight. Really, really funny guy. Miss him. But he was interviewing Panette and they towed his car during the interview and someone told him that. So the interview, which was funny already,

just turned into this whole thing where Howie was trying to get the guy's car back from the tow truck driver. And I thought, this guy is really funny. I really like Howie. He's just kind of irreverent.

That was kind of his shtick at that time because Stern was on the morning show and I knew he was a big fan of that. So I guess some of that rubbed off in his own way. Actually, I don't mean to interject.

I love this story. I want to hear more. But I don't think it was rubbed off. I think maybe there was a, like, be more like that. Maybe. I think. Possibly. At that point, maybe it was.

But he had Panetta on. So I go, I really like this guy. So I emailed him, I think, at that point and called him and said, you know, I'm a radio student. Could I come by and hang out? He said, so I go, I really like this guy. So I emailed him, I think, at that point and called him and said, you know, I'm a radio student. Could I come by and hang out? He said, yeah, man, come on by, hang out, and pick CDs, get coffee, put your feet up.

We used to call it interning back then. It was not an organized thing. It was just combined. And it's unpaid, right? Oh, 100% unpaid, 100% unpaid. So I started doing that a couple days a week while I was in school. And it turned into three days a week and then four days a week. And then eventually I started opping the board, doing board opping down at the 640 side overnights

and so on and so forth. And that's how, and I never left. Q107's legacy is that of a rock station. But within that broad genre, there have been several variations on the format, from the progressive, album-oriented rock at launch, to mainstream rock and pure rock in the late 80s and 90s, to classic rock in the 2000s, to today's mainstream hits. John Scholl saw multiple changes in his tenure at Q, Don Scholl saw multiple changes in his tenure at Q, and he walked me through them on episode 339 of Toronto Mic'd. Tell me about the formats, though. You told me already we learned you have a terrible memory. Yeah, awful.

The worst. Can you remember, though? Because as we talked about these top 10 of 10, it was like New Rock, I want to say. And then at some point, I can't remember when, but at some point it becomes, maybe it's post Howard Stern when Derringer takes over in the mornings. It becomes, is that when it becomes classic rock?

Yes, when I was first there, it was the pure rock format. Pure rock. Pure rock, yeah. And that was, as you said, we'd still play the Zeppelins, the Floyds, the ACDCs, but you'd also be playing Big Wreck

and Foo Fighters. Like Black Crows or something. Black Crows, all that stuff. It was more, there was some active rock in there. There was some classic rock in there. And you still had Psych Sunday with Andy there as well. You had Stern in the morning for a while.

And shortly after that, Derringer was doing Afternoons when Howie left. And then, of course, the tenure of Howard Stern came to an end. And then Derringer, bang, into mornings. And it blew up, right? The switch to classic rock came shortly after Joanne Wilder joined Q107. She was a fan of that era, though she still hears from people

who miss those classic tunes. Again, from episode 198 of Toronto Mic'd, here's Joanne with her experience during the Q10 Zeppelin era. Yeah, you evolve and you change and now Q is playing stuff like Duran Duran. So you get to play this track and great hits and real classics.

So do you get complaints from guys who are looking for, what are they looking for? They're looking for this all the time. They want to hear it every hour. Hold on here. Oh, but see, this is the best band of all time. How can you not love that music?

Especially Led Zeppelin IV, which this track is on. You know, we'd be playing a hell of a lot more Zeppelin and different album tracks if I got to program the music. I don't know that I would have a lot of listeners. In the classic rock era, the nickname was Keanu Zeppelin. Yes, and you know what? I came up with a thing for that. We started doing Keanu Zeppelin, and we started Respect the Zep,

where I used to have people call in, and you had to respect the Zep. And we did Respect the Zep weekends. Nice. Because if you can't, people would complain. And we'd go, yeah, we are Keanu respect the Zepp and we just respect the Zepp weekends. Nice. Because if you can't, people would complain and we'd be like, yeah, we are Q on a Zeppelin and we're proud.

But that's not the case anymore. And you still, we should point out, you still play Zeppelin because you're doing real hits and real classics and this is a real classic. But it's not as much

as I would like. No. Blair, FYI. He knows. I think it would get annoying if I were in your position and people would think I'm picking the songs. Because I know there are people out there who think you're picking the songs. I think it would get annoying if I were in your position and people would think I'm picking the songs. I know there are people out there who think...

I think most people know, but there are people who's like, Joanne, why are you playing that? In 2004, Q107 took a big swing and hired Canadian rock legend Kim Mitchell to host Afternoon Drive. Kim had never been a broadcaster before, but his music knowledge and his personality gave him a solid foundation to build on.

On episode 679 of Toronto Mic'd, Kim joined me to explain how he got the job at Q, improving as a DJ, and how his time at Q ended. We all know you were on Q107 as the afternoon drive guy. So I'm curious how that came to be and then I need to know why it came to an end. Sure.

It came to be because I was looking for something to do and basically on Sunday nights, I thought, well, this would be, talk to my manager and like Sunday nights, it'd be nice to do a little radio show. People are coming back from the cottage. I played all these to most of these people that are coming back from Toronto and met with a Q107. I thought it would be a good fit.

They said, yeah, this would be great. Men didn't hear from them. They thought it was an awesome idea. I didn't hear from them for months. Then they contacted me and went, our afternoon drive guy guy quit do you want a full-time job and of course i'm like does it are you saying like i need to come in every day is that what you're saying i've never done this and they went well yeah as a matter of fact you would so i was like okay i thought about it all right sure yeah and i made it a priority i pushed my musical career sort of live playing to weekends only

and dove into it. And really, you know, honestly, this will be no surprise to your listeners, but I sucked bad for the first year. I think we all suck at something when we've never done it before. So many of us are in a corner or a little construction site or in an office somewhere where we can make our mistakes and, you know, only the boss or something. But, you know, you're on the radio and you're trying to find your way.

And the listeners really let me have it for about a year. There's one guy who even made an email address called I Hate Kid Patrol. And you're not just on the radio. You're Afternoon Drive, which is one of the two big spots. And you're on a big Toronto station one of the two big spots and uh you're on a big toronto station like so you have nowhere to hide no no no but uh here's the deal mike is that you quickly realize that this is a craft that needs a lot that you i quickly respected and realized that i have a lot of work to do. And fortunately, I had a great boss who at four months,

I walked into his office and went, I'm going to quit. I'm not cut out for this. And he goes, no, no, you have something. Let's stick with it. Give it a year. And then if you feel like quitting, go ahead. And we worked hard and it turned into something. And I sort of won the love of a few few listeners and the show ended up doing really well.

So for 11 years and then at the end, a lot of people were being let go. Of course, the president had left. They had a new president in and they were making a lot of changes. They were hacking all downsides here. Every company company it's a big company it's a public company and every company was leaning up their their programs and cutting people and one day they said hey you want to come down to the office you know so-and-so wants to talk to you and i kind of knew right then it's like okay because my contract's coming up i thought right i don't think this is going to be for a contract renewal this time. So, and that's what they said. They said, we're all done with you.

And we want to, you know, we'd like to make it, you know, make it a nice thing. So yeah, they've treated me well. I have nothing bad to say. And I had a pity party for a couple of weeks. It's like, wow, that was my first job and I just lost it. Well, you had 11 years in radio. And I lost it when the show was doing really well. That's too bad.

Well, no, radio looks ahead five years. They wanted to sort of change stuff up. So that's cool. Anyway, it was a good time. It sounds like you're now truly, you can truly say you're in the radio fraternity because you are a victim of budget cuts. And I think almost every radio personality in the country has experienced that one or three or ten times so you're right and

and most people i have met in radio in in my musical career they would always be like oh yeah i've met you before at such and such a station you know five years ago they move around a lot so you know i just happened to that happened to, and after a couple weeks, I went, well, I'm going to go back to being a rock guitar player. How bad is that? So I had a music career to fall back on. As Kim mentioned, the 2010s were a turbulent time at Q, as cost-cutting became a top priority for Chorus.

Many Q107 veterans were moved out in favor of younger, cheaper broadcasters. From episode 177, Jeff Woods shared the story of his exit. July 2015. Not even a year ago. Q107 bloodletting. So we have basically yourself, Jeff Woods.

You got Dominic Diamond, Nails Mahoney, James McPhee, who was doing the 640. I guess he was doing both. I think he was a 640. News director for years for both stations. Yeah, good guy too. And he's a big soccer fan because him and Robbie Jay, I see them tweeting back and forth.

And a hell of a hockey goalie. Is he? Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. Cool. And the list goes on and on. Well, the other. Kim Mitchell.

Kim Mitchell, absolutely. Yeah, Kim Mitchell was doing the two to six shift, I guess. Yeah, the afternoon show. They didn't renew his contract or whatever. I don't know about the terminology and stuff. But his last day was announced at the same time. So is this the first time you're fired from radio? Yeah, it was.

It's the first time in 30 years. You made it pretty good. I did, okay. It's a good run, eh? But like I said before, sometimes you get out before they get rid of you. I've left jobs before seeing the writing on the wall. Or you can smell it coming and you're like, I'll move on now. And you're just like, this isn't going to end well.

I'm going to leave. Why did Q107 fire Jeff Woods? Well, probably for a couple of reasons. Paramount among them was budget reasons. I was making a pretty good dollar. them was budget reasons. I was making a pretty good dollar. And I mean, in the grand scheme of the world of business, radio pay is, you know, it's typically less.

Oh, yeah. People think, oh, my God. Unless you're John Derringer. Unless you're John Derringer. Or Aaron Davis or Bob McCowan. Mornings, generally, sometimes afternoons, but real talents that have been doing it for a long time that are bringing in mega listeners, and therefore bringing in mega

dollars. Marilyn and Roger. There it is. Those are the million dollar voices. I was far from that, but I was more than they thought they needed to pay someone to do the job. Interesting, isn't it? In fact, that job, I wasn't replaced. There's no sort of national host. There's no sort of syndicated national

host for classic rock or for heritage rock in the company anymore. The job was eliminated. It's not like, oh, you found a better guy to do it. Let's get rid of Woods. No one's doing the job anymore. And so that's part of it. Money.

And the other part of it is a new manager in the company decided that the value of history around music had decreased and declined, and no one cares about music history anymore, was his thing. Al Joins, from episode 321, explained his departure from Q just a few days after he got the news, along with fellow Q vet, Andy Frost. It was about time. Really? Really, though? After all these years. Well, I've had the best about time. Really. Really though?

After all these years. Well, I've had the best time of my life. But why does that have to end? I disagree with you that it was about time. Well, it's not going to end. It'll end for Q107, but podcasts, as we were talking about before we went to air here, is the new wave. And I've been doing a podcast for independent music for a couple of years now.

So I've kind of prepared myself for all this, you know, all this stuff that's going on today. Uh, I can't, you know, say enough about Q107's listenership, Mike.

Uh, I've never really experienced, you know, more enthusiasm and more passion than Q107 listeners. And that's why I would always carry that with me because I had a big passion for music as well. And in this radio era, this era of radio, music doesn't really count anymore, unfortunately. The personalities are what I like from radio. I like to know that if I tune in on

a weekend, my friend Al will kind of be my guide as I listen to some classic rock or whatnot. That's what I like about radio, personalities. And I think that carried Q107 for years and years and years. Some of the best personalities coming through that place, you know,

Bro Jake, the late, great Scruff Connors, Andy Frost, Al Joins, Jeff Woods. You put Al Joins on that list. You can't do that. Can you tell me a little bit about how did this go down? Did they call you in a room and somebody gave you a folder? Well, last Tuesday, I was out doing some things in the morning. I came back. There was a message on my phone from the new general manager of Q107 and asking me to call him. And I called him. And then he said, can you come into the radio station? I said, yes. And I came into the radio station and we met in a small little room, much like this. And he handed me my walking papers and from episode 339 here's john scoles who was let

go in 2018 after 19 years at q107 that's what happened i need to know what happened why are you no longer on q107 like why did you have to say goodbye to us um i guess there's uh it's it's the radio landscape i I mean, they obviously want some change. I was there a long time. How long were you there? 19 years. I was there 19 years. So, you know, it

happens. I had an incredibly long and good run at that radio station. If they've got something else programming in mind instead of me, that's totally cool. That's totally cool. I mean, that's business, right? You can't tell the story of Q107 without talking about John Derringer.

Derringer joined Q in 1984 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming music director in 1985 and hosting the popular afternoon drive show from the late 80s until 1993 when he left for Montreal. Derringer returned in 2000 and after the Howard Stern experiment was cancelled in 2001 took over the morning drive show

which he hosted until May of 2022 when his former Q co-host, Jennifer Valentine, posted a Facebook video describing the verbal abuse and discrimination she faced by a co-worker that she did not name. She later confirmed that she was talking about John Derringer. Social media posts of support and confirmation of similar experiences came from multiple people, including Maureen Holloway, Colleen Rusholm, Andrea Ruse, and Jackie Delaney. In light of Jennifer Valentine's video,

Derringer was suspended pending an investigation conducted by a law firm hired by Chorus. Derringer's talent as a broadcaster is undeniable. He's compelling, funny, and dynamic. According to the accounts of some of those who worked with him, the man behind the mic is very different. Craig Venn first worked with Derringer at the Fan 590 as producer when Derringer hosted the morning show from 1995 to 2000. When Derringer left to return to Q107, he brought Craig with him.

When Craig visited in 2017 for episode 218, I asked him whether he found it challenging to work with Derringer. Craig gave us a glimpse behind the scenes with Derringer, though his experience as a man was likely very different than the woman John Derringer worked with. So just a comment yesterday

appeared on, I guess Jennifer Holliday was named new co-host for John Derringer's show on Q. I'm going to just read Doug's quote here and just ask you to comment. Doug writes, Derringer has never played well with others, especially if they try to upstage him in any way. Craig

Venn comes to mind. Craigie got tired of being the perennial beta male to Derringer and they ended up getting into it on air a few times. Anyone remember the boxing match between Craigie and Ryan? When Ryan was the young upstart nipping at his heels where Derringer was pushing a reluctant

Craigie into a pointless boxing match? Or the time they got into it about leaving a marriage if the partner cheated? I'm just going to ask the question, if there's any challenges working with an alpha male like John Derringer that he needs to be the star, can that be difficult in any regards? Well, you know, here's the thing.

When you have the star being John and then someone below him being the producer or the sidekick, of course, there's some unevenness there, right? Right. He's the star. When it's like a Humble and Fred, there's an evenness to that. Right. You're both equal within the show. So even if Howard is, say, more of the alpha male than Fred, there's still an equal partnership on that radio show.

When it's just the Dean Blondell or the John Derringer, then yeah, it can be tough being the underling. But, that being said, was it Doug who brought it up? Yeah, that was Doug, yeah. The argument about should you end a marriage over an affair, and there was a couple of good screaming matches.

When those microphones turned off, we were smiling and laughing, because John loved that. Right. Because he- And it was clearly memorable. He's still referencing it now. And let me tell you, it would take some courage for me because I was, again, just the producer of the psychic.

You know, when you get into a heated screaming match on the air with John Derringer, it can be intimidating. Sure. But I can tell you this, in the midst of it, John would look at me and wink and he'd give me thumbs up. He loved it. Because you didn't know as a listener, you didn't hear that anywhere else. What afternoon show had two people just randomly screaming at one another? So that was that.

Colleen Rusholm was on the air with Derringer in the early 2000s. And after Jennifer Valentine posted her video, she told Humble Howard that Derringer would call her the C-word off air, and she developed PTSD as a result of the abuse. When she joined me for episode 97 of Toronto Mic'd, she was understandably guarded in what she said about Derringer, given the power that he held in the industry at the time. How far are we from this Q107? Why don't I remember? Because I are we from this Q107?

Why don't I remember? Because I used to listen to Q107. Hungryman Kogan? Afternoon Drive? Maybe I was gone by then. Do you remember him? Nope. Yeah? I honestly don't.

You know what? I was a big 102 guy for all of the 90s. Right. And then Q was like all Q10 Zeppelin, I used to call it. Well, it was classic rock and then it flipped to pure rock. Do you remember the pure rock days? But I remember the pure rock because in the late 80s, I used to listen to the Top Ten at 10.

And that's when I would first hear Guns N' Roses, for example. They played the Appetite for Destruction. But that was still before they were named pure rock. Right. Because it was just Toronto's Best Rock. Toronto's Best Rock. I had a sticker on it. Toronto's Best Rock.

Yeah, so it's had a few, it's evolved a few times. Right. But I was there in the Pure Rock Days doing Afternoon Drive with Hungry Man Kogan. And then,

what happened, then John Derringer came along and I coasted with him and then from there I wanted to do Morning, so I went to Energy. 108. Well, no, they flipped.

No. The all-hit superstition. You're teaching me so many things. 95.3, it flipped. Okay, wow. Yeah, so now it you're teaching me so many things 95.3 it flipped okay wow yeah so now it's y108 95.3 which has been a million different formats what did like what do you think of john only because uh we have a mutual friend who hates john derringer who humble howard does he speak publicly about that he's yeah he honestly i think i would never speak out of school i would never speak out of school. I would never speak at a school.

This is actually like fodder for his daily podcast. Yeah. Derringer. Did he talk about Derringer on a show? He did. So it might be more like they talk about Derringer and Blundell and stuff. Because I believe it would be more like Derringer hated Humble. So Humble is reacting to this hatred he's getting from Derringer.

It could be. And if you know Howard, he doesn't like being hated. He takes it very personally. What's Derringer like as a human? I've never met the man, but what's he like as a human being? I can't tell you what he's like as a human being. I can tell you what he's like as somebody I worked with on the air. Okay, tell us that then.

I'll tell you. Oh, I hear a baby. There's a baby in this house. We have a baby up there. We'll get him on the mic. I'll tell you. I, I hear a baby. There's a baby in this house. We have a baby up there. We'll get him on the mic. I'll tell you, I learned a lot from John. John is a seasoned pro. That man could turn a microphone on and be the most compelling,

still some of the best radio I've ever heard, ever. He was the most generous to share the airwaves with. He was the first guy in the room that would be, hey, Colleen, show me what you can do, and would create characters that was swan stevenson for a while on q107 it was quite funny and he would sit back like a flapper is that a flapper it was like a flapper but she really was my crazy sister and she was very jealous of me it was like this whole character yeah very good but he would sit back and he would put his hands behind his head and just let me do it as far as a human goes, I don't know him on that level. And actually, I haven't seen him in years.

So I hope he's doing well. He works for the same company. I hear he's doing okay with that company. I think John's doing just fine. Professionally and money-wise, I think he'll be okay. Jackie Delaney worked at Q107 alongside John Derringer in 2002 and pulled no punches when I spoke to her about him on episode 1037 of Toronto Mic'd. Did you work closely with any of the Q107 legends we've known from the several decades? We talked about Andy Frost, who's no longer there, but what about John Derringer, who's been there for a hundred years or so at this point? I worked with John Derringer later in the Q107 experience and

later in my career. Working with John Derringer was one of the things that lent itself to my leaving radio altogether. That was the worst experience that I had in radio. Would you be willing to elaborate? Like, what do you mean? Like, because John is, and I've never had him on the show, but I have asked him on the show and he's politely declined, but he's one of the radio legends of his generation in this marketplace. Yeah, well, the way he treats female co-hosts is also legendary

maureen holloway has had a long successful career in toronto radio working at some of the top stations in the biggest jobs mo was part of the derringer morning show at q starting in 2001 with her segment the last word which was heard on stations across Canada. She hadn't worked side-by-side with Derringer until 2014 when The Last Word ended, and she became his co-host until leaving for Afternoons in 2015. In 2017, after leaving Q107 to host the morning show on CHFI, she joined me for episode 217 of Toronto Mic'd

and had some words of advice for Jennifer Valentine. This broke yesterday morning, but we'll pretend it's breaking now. Breaking news from your old home at Q107. Derringer in the morning have made a big announcement that Jennifer Valentine, formerly of Breakfast Television. Yeah, from Rogers, yeah. And I know Rogers let her go

after a million years. And then she did hook up, of course, quickly because she was doing that Bachelorette. And I did not watch. But on the W Network, I did not.

It didn't know it existed. But W Network had like a Bachelorette Canada post-game recap or something, like a post-show. Yes. And she hosted that. That's right.

That's all chorus. Yeah, that's all chorus. And then she's on the Global Morning Show a little bit, because that's chorus now. And now she's on Q107. Do you have any advice for Jennifer Valentine as she becomes John's co-host? Yeah, it's interesting, you know, because I was very interested to hear. I guessed, by the way, I called last week.

I sent brand director Blair Bartram a text, Jennifer Valentine. Because it was the February 14th announcement, right? I also knew they were looking to put a woman in the morning show. And, you know, she was available. She definitely had to be on their radar. And as it turns out, I was right. She's in the family. You're smarter than me because I made a guess too.

Were you guessing Ingrid? I guessed Ingrid because I think that because I think she would, I'm sure it's too soon. Like I'm sure that she's still working legal on stuff. I'm sure it was way too soon. And I don't, I didn't think business-y like that, but I knew she was theoretically available and I knew that

I think she would sound good on that stage. I think she would. Although, I think Ingrid is very much a midday personality. Mornings are different than any. I did afternoons at Q for a year and a half. Yeah, we're going to get that. The Mo Show. Yes, but back to your question, do I have any

advice? Well, first of all, congratulations to everybody. The show really needs a woman, and this is no reflection on the, on the fellow's ability, but you know, you need to have a balance, right? I've some, some listeners tell me that it's a little, sometimes gets a little caveman. It gets a little locker roomy. It gets a little testosteroney and they need, they need a woman, but not just any woman. And, and if I had advice to Jennifer, it would be like, you know, something, find something to make it your own because it is a guy show.

And I was lucky that I had the last word and I had something that I, that I had a break that, that they very, uh, uh, graciously, um, gave to me and said, this is yours.

So you need to draw a line in the sand and say, this is my area, uh, before you get swallowed up on the whole guy thing. John Derringer has said that he's taken, first of all, he promoted this. He might have oversold this a bit. I think he may have when he says the most interesting, the biggest thing that has happened in his broadcasting career. Right, exactly.

So that's all that spin radio, whatever. So at that point, you're like, holy smokes. And Zane Ingrid, this is, I think Obama, you're like, holy smokes. And I'm like, this ain't Ingrid. I think Obama's going to be the new co-host. Or Hillary, actually. Hillary, right. Says they're looking for a woman. Needs some estrogen.

That's correct. But then he elaborated, and he said that it was because this is the first time he chose. I think that was his words. Oh, really? He said that was his choice? That's interesting. Yeah, he was saying it was his choice. So, you were not John's choice?

I parallel this news to me. I thought it was. I'm not trying to cause any friction here. No, that's okay. In case you haven't noticed, I left. Just 10 days ago, Maureen joined me again for episode 1067 of Toronto Mic'd. Mo was joined by Wendy Mesley to discuss the launch of their new podcast, Woman of Ill Repute. Mo reflected on the Derringer situation

and had a lot to say about her experiences working with him. But now I need to ask you, because Maureen, your first visit, not your second visit, because I got the hint really quickly. I remember the first visit you asked me about Derringer and i said he's a great broadcaster yes and i actually uh okay yeah no so let's like and i'm not don't

worry i'm not gonna play the clip but people can hear it i don't edit these things right but uh a hundred percent i'll tell you the truth which is uh i had heard stories like i had been i have friends in the industry who have been telling me stories forever and you can probably guess who some of them are but I had heard stories and I don't believe in like I don't out people like you have to disclose it if it's of that nature like I'm not going to

like bear I'm pretty fair on these things like I'm not going to blindside you with something that you're not that you don't might not want to talk about but I will ask because it would be ridiculous if I did I will ask what it was like working with John Derringer and i remember how you handled the question which i you know it was like screaming volumes that you you said as you just said he's a great broadcaster and i stand by that he's a very talented broadcaster and then your second visit to

kick out the jams uh I decided not to say the words. Like I wasn't going to say the words John Derringer because I didn't, I could, I got the hint. Like, don't talk to me about John Derringer, particularly, you know, at that point in your life. But here we are in 2020. Now, now that Jennifer Valentine dropped that video and then other people like Andrea Ruse and Jackie Delaney and Colleen Rusholm. Colleen is an employee of Chorus, so she has not gone public. Yeah, well, I'll go interview her. Just talk to us. She told Humble Howard Glassman explicitly he had permission to quote her.

Like, I would never out her either until she was ready, because I know she works for Chorus. But she gave Humble permission to include her in yeah so that's the only reason I'm comfortable dropping her name but so I wouldn't do it without her permission obviously but can you tell us now that you're like not going to be so diplomatic and careful

and I won't hear about it. Oh I haven't been I made the week that it broke after the May weekend Wendy no I was on my own on this one I was approached by Kevin Donovan at the Star, CBC News, Chris Glover, Liz Braun. And it was funny because Jennifer Valentine and I know each other, but I had no idea she was going to do this. We somehow kind of managed to divide up the people that wanted to talk to us and were very public about it.

So, yeah, I came right out and told everybody it was it wasn't, you know, Mike, it's important. He wasn't he didn't bully me constantly. He bullied the two guys that he worked with constantly particularly uh uh john garbett i witnessed it um you know i mean just small things like ryan parker would who does not smoke had to go out and have a and stand with john while he had a cigarette towards the end he had to go to the bathroom with him all right so like you can see all this going on. And there were racist and misogynist comments that I just kind of that's not that's pretty common in radio. But John only turned his fury on me once or twice, well, maybe three times all told. and the first time I went to the general manager

the second time okay there were two major incidences the second time which happened years later I went all the way up and they did an internal investigation which resulted in me being moved to afternoons may I ask questions questions along the way? Okay, so, because I do have questions about this and I have heard these stories as well, but people are asking, did Q107 let Kim Mitchell go for you to... Yeah, no, Kim was at the end of his contract. He was planning on retiring.

I think they did move him out. They ushered him out a little prematurely because they needed a place to put me. But the idea was that Kim was going to move on. And I think they paid out his contract. I really don't know. But they created a situation where it was comfortable for Kim to go. Of course, he probably had a heart attack afterwards. So I had people going, you gave Kim Mitchell a heart attack, like me.

And, you know, I love Kim. And I thought he was a really good broadcaster. And his numbers in the afternoon were great. And I tanked the afternoons. But, I mean, I wasn't giving any choice, right? And you were with John, right? John Scholes? Did I say that right? Scholes?

Yeah, Scholes in the afternoon. He's a good FOTM himself, by the way. He's a good guy, but he wasn't, and I say this with love of my heart, he wasn't, I'm an actor and a of my heart he wasn't i'm i'm an actor and a reactor and he was he just he was in awe i'd say something funny and he would do this oh yeah that's not good for his mouth to hide his laughter and i was like dude i only want you to do one thing and that's make you laugh at my jokes okay so let me step back a bit here though so the second time you complained and you went all the way up,

I guess you're not naming names or whatever, but you don't, I mean, it's up to you. You can look and see who was working there. So Blair Bartram was the program director. Dave Farrow was the general manager. Mario Cicchini was the president of radio and Doug Murphy was the CEO. Now throw in some more HR people and lawyers. And those were the people that I,

and Hal Blackadar, the former head of radio for chorus conducted the internal investigation. Okay. Wendy, hang in there. We're going to get back to you soon. I know this might be a go for a swim or. No,

no, no. There's just something brewing, but I'm, I'm all swim. No, no, no. There's just something brewing, but I'm all good. It's amazing what happened to Maureen. Maureen, you talk about, I think it was in The Star, I read

it with the Kevin Donovan piece or something. I can't remember now, but you'll remind me. You were offered, because your complaints to Derringer, you were offered the afternoon drive and some money? Is this the? No, no money. No more money.

Although I was being paid morning show money. Right. And they put me into afternoons. A few people have accused me online of like, why didn't you speak up? I thought I was speaking up. I thought taking it to HR was speaking up. I didn't have the social media following that Jennifer had. I thought it was speaking up. I thought taking it to HR was speaking up. I didn't have the social media following that Jennifer had.

And even if I had, who was going to back me up? And at the end of the day, Mike, and this broke my heart, is that when they did the investigation, all the people who had witnessed this abuse did not back me up. Okay, now there's a current, I don't know if it's done yet, but they, you know, chorus put out a statement that they were doing an invest,

a third party investigation. Yeah. So they hired a lawyer. Somebody who actually doesn't work for them. Right. Or does work for them, but yeah. Okay.

Just, yes, I know. So it's a third party, meaning it's a lawyer law firm, but of course they're hired by chorus. So chorus will pay their, their big invoice or whatever,

but okay. Have you been spoken to by this lawyer so you've talked on the record or for this investigation i have not spoken on the record what i have i don't have any problem telling you this there are files with my name on them at chorus where i gave evidence it was called contemporaneous evidence meaning i reported what happened at the time. And it's there. And that should be enough for them. What do they need to hear from me now? Right. Okay.

So that's where I'm at. And when you, you know, you were with John Derringer for years, right? Because you would do it remotely from your home office. For the first 10 years, I worked from home. And in the last five years, they asked me to give up the other gigs I was doing across the country. Right. And to come into the studio and be a full-fledged co-host. And I think it's when I went into the room that, I mean, it still lasted longer than anybody else, but it just wasn't a healthy place to be.

But were you aware of what had happened to other women who had co-hosted with you? Yes. Jackie Delaney, much to my dismay, had approached me years ago with her concerns with Derringer, but I was working from home and I'd never witnessed any of it. Right. And I just said, Jackie, I can't help you. I mean, I believe you.

Right. But I can't corroborate what you're experiencing because I have not witnessed it. I'm not there. So I do feel bad about that. Right. Andrea Ruse, I knew it happened. I knew it happened to Colleen.

I knew it all, but there wasn't, what were you going to do? This was long before the Me Too movement. There really was, and I was afraid of losing my job. Well, let's dwell on that. Okay, so this is what I feel, because I have this, I feel what you feel. I feel like you want a job, right?

Radio jobs, like high-paying radio jobs are rare, and when you i feel like you're you want a job right radio jobs like high paying radio jobs are you know rare and when you get one you don't want to lose it because it's like oh i got one of the high paying radio jobs right so yeah yeah you don't want to fuck that up like that's no and i didn't and john derringer you know until the long weekend that just passed in may was one of those Toronto radio icons. When I had Jackie Delaney on, I said like, I was surprised to hear this.

He's like a, a legend of his generation. Like, so really, I'm not sure why, what would people expect you to do publicly? Like you did an internal complaint, but are you supposed to tweet about how John Derringer is bullying you?

Like that would just cost you your livelihood. I would think at the time. Yeah. And let's, let's, let's point out that Jen had been gone a year when she spoke up. Right. Okay. So what was your reaction?

And again, then we're going to bring it back to the podcast, but what was your reaction, Maureen Holloway, when you woke up Saturday or at whatever point Saturday, somebody said, have you seen this yet? And you watched the Jennifer Valentine video.

Uh, I was gardening as old ladies do. By the lake on your property with your family. I'm just jealous. I was in the city and John and I were, John, my husband, cause that'd be weird. John Derringer and I were gardening.

Right. There's a story. Yeah. John, my husband and I were gardening. Right. There's a story. Yeah. John, my husband and I were out back fixing something and Aiden, our eldest son called and he said, did you see Jennifer? I've never stopped to think, why would my son be following Jennifer Valentine? But it was all over the place, right? He said, did you see Jen Valentine's video? And he said, take a look at it and call me back. And I took a look at it and I called him back. He said, you got to say something. You got to do something. Right.

Because you realize it's been seven years since I left the company. Right. And I just, I thought, well, I've just said this is brave and true and I back her up 100%. And there was this feeling of they finally see that the emperor has no clothes. This is going to happen. This is going to, and then you just saw it swell.

And there was this feeling of vindication and relief and some sadness because a lot of people are going, like, I don't know what's going to happen to Ryan Parker and John Garbutt. They were bullied too. I don't know. Great question because I can go both sides on this. I can see they were enablers and complicit.

And at the same time, what would I do in that position when they had, they don't have the Maureen Holloway salary, but they have a job in radio, which is very exciting and important for a lot of people. And now they have this job. And let's face it, I think if you went against Derringer in one of those roles you were gone like this was the culture at chorus there that you would be no longer working there and then on that i don't know what's going to happen to them i wish those

boys well i kind of uh hurt that they weren't there for me and garbage stayed in touch parker just you know disappeared uh from my world because he had no choice. There's a difference between, you know, they were enablers, but I don't blame them because they were victims as well. The 45-year story of Q107 is also the story of music radio. The early days were full of pioneers and rogues who took big swings and had as many failures as they had successes. As radio became more corporate, those pioneers moved on and were replaced by business-minded people who put profit above all else. The signature sound of radio stations like Q107

has been molded and polished to the point of sameness. If you listen to CFNY and Q107 back-to-back today, could you tell the difference? Q107's legacy is filled with personalities who helped define rock radio, not only in Toronto, but in North America. These personalities are what people remember most about the station's glory years. People like Andy Frost, Shirley McQueen, Jeff Woods, Jesse and Gene, say their names and you immediately think of Q107. John Derringer is one of those names too.

And unfortunately, for those who built the station over six decades, the stain of his alleged behavior is what people may remember most of all. I'll give the last word on Q to Jesse and Jean from episode 212, who described exactly what it was that made Q107 so unique. You know what?

It was a very interesting time. Q107, I could only relate it to like a tree fort. And somewhere in your neighborhood, some kid would have a really great tree fort, and you'd all be friends, but only certain people were allowed to come up into that tree fort. And that's what Q was like. It was very innovative. It was totally different from what was happening in Toronto Radio, and everyone wanted to be a part of it, but there were only a certain number of, you know, chairs. So it was just everything we did was just so different. And I have to give credit to Gary Slade, who became the program director after he was in sales and his dad owned the radio station at that point.

He just let us go crazy. And it was basically like, don't break the law, but do everything different. And I mean, you know, somebody came up, Dave Barker, a copywriter, came up with this song that Scruff recorded called Chum Busters. And Peter Gross, a reporter from City TV, did a feature on this because the song was so popular

because it was all about, you know, busting Chum FM. Right. And he was, and City TV, which was owned by Chum back at that point said, no, no, no,

you're not airing this on, on City Pulse News with Gord Martineau. And we just did everything a little different, everything a little riskier. Instead of not talking about the competition, you know, we would always say, you know,

we want to welcome all Chum FM listeners to Q107. And it was just a very, very innovative time. Thank you for listening to this Q107 Mikeumentary. A big shout out to a few FOTMs who worked at Q107, but whose stories didn't make it into the show. didn't make it into the show. Danny Elwell, Bob Callahan, Alan Cross,

Jim McKinney, and Bill Hayes. And again, a huge thank you to Tyler Campbell, without whom this episode would not exist. Tyler,

I have some fresh craft beer for you from Great Lakes Brewery and a frozen meat lasagna from Palma Pasta. I'm biking over now. And that brings us to the end of our 1071st show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH and Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore See you all next week! Well I wanna take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a tin

Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow, snow, warms me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and gray. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or will do for me and you

But I'm a much better man for having known you oh you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and gray yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't stay today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey

Cause I know that's true Yes, I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? All that picking up trash And then putting down ropes And they're putting down roads?

And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine And it won't go away, because everything is rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France

and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up

Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy, yeah

Everything is rosy and gray Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah