Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Remembering Bob "Iceman" Segarini: Toronto Mike'd #1290

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

In this 1290th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike remembers Bob "Iceman" Segarini who has passed away at the age of 77. You'll hear Bob Segarini talk about his time with The Wackers, his solo work, his pivot to radio on CHUM-FM and Q107, his television work on MuchMusic and CityTV's Late Great Movies, and, of course, composing The Edison Twins theme song. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

There's sad news this morning. FOTM Bob Segarini, the Iceman, has passed away. Bob was 77 years old. I first met Bob at an event for Toronto Radio Veterans that I crashed thanks to an invitation from John Donabee. I knew the Iceman from Q107, and the fun fact that he wrote and performed the theme to the Edison Twins, a show I quite enjoyed in the mid-80s.

And then there was that infamous story of how Bob was fired as host of late great movies on City TV. But I'll let him tell you that one. Bob and I finally connected for a lengthy recorded conversation in May 2020, when he made his Toronto Mike debut in episode 645. In this episode, you'll hear about his years in the Wackers

as a solo artist, working on the radio at Chum FM and Q107, and making the move to television on Much Music and City TV's late great movies. He was the original host. And then there's the sad story of the Edison twins. That's right. This conversation left me feeling sad. But that's reality.

That was Bob, who was very honest, very coherent, and very interesting in this 90-minute chat. Rest well, Bob. The Iceman cometh, and the Iceman goeth.

Bob, thanks for joining me today. How are you doing, holding up during this global pandemic we're all dealing with? How are you doing? Okay, so far, the good news is I have a pulse. The second good news is I'm kind of used to spending a lot of time by myself. I'm terrific company when you get right down to it. And I'm not really a people person. So this is not a stretch for me.

And the bad news is I can't go. I love grocery shopping, and I can't go do that. So you do. I miss my daughter and my grandkids. I miss my girlfriend. But other than that, I'm just, you know, adequate, okay, Canadian, I'm happy. And are you in Toronto right now? Whereabouts are we reaching you? Yeah, I am in Toronto in the northernmost northern regions of the, I'm exactly 15 kilometers from

the CN Tower. Okay, so you're way north, I'm way south. And then here we are meeting via telephone today. And thanks again for taking my call, Bob. My pleasure. It's just a matter of pushing a button, so it's cool. I'm going to play a song that hopefully will take you way back. And then we're going to talk about this. So hopefully you can hear this.

Oh, yeah. I know this one. This is the Whackers. There's the Whackers. There's love. I'm going to give it a moment to breathe before I pester you with questions. How does this sound to your ears, Bob? It sounds like being on hold with Rogers. That's how it sounds. It's better than that.

But, uh... It's just, you know, one of the songs I wrote and recorded. Actually, the Wackers version is not the original version of it. The original version of it is the band that I had picked together before that called Roxy. And they're quite different. I prefer

the Whackers version. Where do you find that? I have my sources here. So, I want to get you to Toronto, because this is Toronto Mike. But first, let's just talk about, you know, how you get there and the whackers and everything. So first thing, the first fun fact about Bob is that you are you're American by birth, right? When abouts did you come to Canada and why?

I was born in San Francisco in 1945. I grew up in Northern California, a little place called Stockton, and after I started playing in bands, we would play on the west coast, back off of Amatrice, went to Vancouver quite a bit, played Dreadnought Circus, which is owned by Tommy Chong from Cheek and Chong. Wow. And we'd go up and down the coast from San Diego

to Vancouver, just back and forth for years. And then Roxy toured, and we did the East Coast. And then I was in the Wackers, and we did our first album in San Francisco at Wally Heiders. And Gary Escher, our producer,

said, if this gets some good critical success, we will go someplace exotic for the second one. And we went, yay. You know, we picked London, Maine. And we ended up going to Montreal. We were getting there. Oh, we're going to France. And I opened up a Rand McNally and found out it was Montreal.

I thought we were going to Canada. And I took the train to Montreal. Fell in love within 40 minutes of being there. Wow. And after going back and forth three or four times, I moved to Benner in 1972. There's a gentleman named Tim Phelan who is a, he heard you were coming on Toronto Mike, and he sent me a note, and Tim wrote, I look forward to hearing the Whackers guy.

I know everyone in Toronto knows him as a radio personality. Everyone who grew up in Montreal in the 70s remembers the Whackers playing at their high school. Great band. That's true. The Whackers and all the young dudes, those two bands. Yeah, tell me, okay, so it sounds like when you're based in the USA, you have The Family Tree.

Right. That was the first recording band. So that's your first band you're in. And then Roxy. That was the first band I recorded in. I was in two or three other bands prior to that. Okay. And then I decided to form my own band.

The Family Tree was the first one that I put together and the first one to record released records. So tell me about, if you don't mind, tell me about being in the Whackers and what level of success would you say you achieved? Just give us a little bit of a taste of

what it was like to be with the Whackers back in the, I guess in the 70s? Yeah. Yeah, 1970. One, two, three, and a bit of four. We toured a lot. We played an awful lot.

We played an awful lot. We were sort of at the front of the glam rock T-Rex David Bowie thing. We'd been turned on to David Bowie in California by Jack Holzman from Electric Records, who had the option of putting out David's, I think it was his third album, had the option of putting out David's, I think it was his third album, but he had no releases in the U.S. or North America until Hunky Dory. And he gave us a cassette of Hunky Dory before it was signed to anyone in the state, and we fell in love with it. So it was a big influence, along with the Beatles and T-Rex.

And so we sort of went down that path, and we did very well wherever we played, because the band was amazing live, and I have proof of that. And we played L.A., we played a lot of prestigious gigs, we did lots of good touring, we played Carnegie Hall. We did lots of good touring.

We played Carnegie Hall. And the thing about Montreal was, I went there on a press junket, two of us did, and we went back to record the second Wackers album, Hot Wax, and we were treated like the Beatles. First of all, our first album was all over the radio on Sheldon FM. And we got chased through the Alexi Neon Plaza. I don't know if you can get that.

That was a strange experience. And we were just already accepted. It was like pre-chewed food. We were already on the radio locally. We were already well-known locally. When we played, the big club there with the mustache. And from day one, every time we played there, he couldn't move. It was packed.

And we had a ball. And before we moved there, we had done, we went out to do two weeks at the mustache. And we kept getting held over. We ended up there for over a month. And that was seven days a week, eight sets a night. there for over a month. And that was seven days a week, eight sets a night.

So when we went back to California, it was like we had come back from Hamburg. And there wasn't a band on the West Coast that was as tight as we were or as hot as we were. And I'm proud to say that we had just a ton of great original material. And we did, the two covers that we did,

we did so well. Well, we closed the Carnegie Hall show, which she loves you, and got a standing ovation. Wow. And that's back when it was taboo

to cover the Stones or the Beatles. Right. Because it was too early. You know, but we just, we didn't care. We just turned the songs into hollering.

But Montreal was great. And somebody in our crew got the great idea of playing high schools. And we did. And that started up a huge circuit at the colleges and universities and high schools that we all benefited from. And it was a wonderful time in Montreal because it was Padre Lero, Eiffel Wine, Mahabony Rush, Charlebois, Annette Workman, Moonquake. It was this huge explosion and very similar to the ones I experienced in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. So I felt kind of

that I was in the right place because Montreal's music scene at that time was insanely vibrant. And, uh, we, uh, we moved there all except for one member who stayed in California, had a great career doing a voiceover and cartoon work and stuff. And, uh, we were in Montreal for five years and two bands. Amazing. I loved it there. I still love Montreal.

Yeah, and it's, I mean, Tim, you know, I was born and raised in Toronto here, but hearing from people like Tim, who grew up in Montreal,

like you said, this, you know, the Wackers, everybody knew the Wackers. So, well done.

We got, we were treated, the beauty of Montreal has always been that they were on the cutting edge. I remember seeing Genesis there before anybody had ever heard of them. And they sold out the fatigue at the University of Montreal. And you could turn on the radio there and hear not only Michelle Pazuello, but Cam and General Giant, Sean Phillips. We spent, on doing our third album there, we had the guys from Monty Python hung out

with us for two weeks because they were putting together their first North American live tour in Montreal. Wow. It was just a real focal point for what was actually happening in the front lines of art and music. It was a great and tremendous time to be here. I mean, I can't begin to tell you how much fun it was to be there in that environment. And it covered our music and our viewpoint and it helped to create a unique sound at the Wackers' Inn.

We were very fortunate to be there at that time. Just like moving to Toronto was at the right time and the right place too. It's another, went from one great music scene right into another one. Okay, so tell us why you made that change.

Like why did you end up leaving Montreal? To Montreal? No, from Montreal to Toronto. Oh, that's pretty simple. While we were having a good time, there was an election in Le Veau, and a guy named Le Veau was put in power, and Mr. Le Veau did not like the envelope.

In fact, the cooler heads in his administration stopped him from putting these big red A's on the mailboxes of Anglo-American, Anglo-Canadian people. where most of the West Island and Montreal Island is where most of the English-speaking were. And all those things I read about Montreal hating English on the street when you're on the ground, never saw any of that the five years I lived there. Everybody had a wonderful time and had wonderful French friends. And, you know, I stumbled through French, they stumbled through English. We all had a good time. Anyway, well, that made it difficult to get work because he got the union there to say that the Anglo bands were taking work away from the microphones, which of course was ridiculously not true.

Right. And it just got a little uncomfortable. And my wife and I had just had a baby and with work growing up, uh, it started to get pretty miserable, even though our flat, our beautiful flat in MDG was $149 a month. Wow. It was starting to get tough, and my wife was working, and she was tired, and so a friend of mine, you may have heard of him, a guy named Martin Malouish, Marty Malouish, suggested

that he could maybe give me some studio time, You know, and the bands had broken up. I was really between projects. And he had suggested that if I went to Toronto, he might be able to give me some studio time. So do you remember the turbo? Wonderful turbo train? No, remind me. It was this high-speed train

that looked like a snake with two bumpy heads on it. And it went between Toronto and Montreal. And each end were observation cars. And you sat right behind the pilots or the engineers. And there were bars. So Martin and I would drink our way to Montreal and go to these meetings. And he did. He kind of came up, and I started to work on an EP in Toronto while I was still living in Montreal. And we were going back and forth so often that I started just walking on board the train with Proust.

They all knew me. on the train with the crew, because they all knew me. And then that led to finally, once this was progressing, my mom came out to watch the baby, and she and my wife and baby came down to Toronto with me, and we checked into the Town & Country

Weekly Rate Motel on, I think it was Jarvis Street, or a lot down here to stay, across the street from Dirty Louie's, the all-night convenience store, and the hooker hangout. Right. And while I was in the studio during the day,

and my mother watched the baby, my wife would go out and whip her houses. And I was in the studio recording, and I get a phone call from her, and she goes, I found a house. I love it, and it's a house. It's not an apartment. I said, great, where is it?

She tells me. I hang up the phone, and I turn to the engineer, and I said, wow, man, my wife just found this house. He goes, where is it? I said, it's in the head of a Coke. He goes, where? I said, it's in Etobicoke. He goes, where? I said, it's in Etobicoke. He starts laughing.

I went, what's so funny? He goes, it's Etobicoke. I said, I don't find that funny at all. Hey, whereabouts was it? Whereabouts in Etobicoke? Armadale Avenue. 33 Armadale Avenue. If Armadale Avenue, just below.

If you walked up to Bloomer Street, your city corner from Jane and the subway station. Oh, I know it well, but I don't even think that's Etobicoke, because you're on the other side of the Humber River. I think that's, I think you're in Toronto there. Well, yeah. Well, now

we are. It was just, they stopped being dry a couple of decades ago. But I remember that it was our mail set of tobacco. Oh, that's funny. And it's funny because David Sparrow, a name you might be familiar with, that has FYI music. Yes. An industry magazine called The Record years back then. He was my neighbor. He lived two blocks up around the corner from me. Wow.

And the neighborhood was full of produce. It was just like perfect. It was just a great place. And a great place for my daughter to grow up. And we stayed in the West End from there. We went to Dunedin Drive in the Kingsway. Beautiful home there. Just a block and a half from Lampkin Kingsway. My daughter went to school until we had to

go back to California for a few years. So that's and I just slowly fell in love with her home and have not been out of love with it since. I'm going to play another... What brought us down here, basically, was politics.

There's a period of time you go back to L.A. before you settle in Toronto. Did I hear that right? Okay, I'm going to have to correct you here. People always make the mistake that when I say California, for some reason in their heads, they hear Los Angeles.

I lived in L.A. off and on for about 10 years. We do not consider, as a native Californian born in San Francisco, we do not consider L.A. as part of the state. L.A. is where people from all over the world come to become rich and famous. And when you meet people in L.A., you're more likely to need somebody from Ohio or Manitoba or Paris or Wyoming or Akron than you are that were born in the basin.

L.A. has a lot of great points. They have pink hot dogs. They have hot dogs. They have canters. They have Frank and Moose. Moose on Frank. They have the Sunset Strip. They have the Whiskey Agoza. They have amazingly beautiful women.

But it is where you should go after you get great. There's really no need to go anymore. But it's not California to me. When I say California, I'm talking about the Sierra Nevada foothills, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, the San Joaquin Valley, the Eureka, and then up into Oregon and Washington, and I'm talking about the stands of Sequoias and the Redwoods and Big Sur and Monterey and Carmel, that's San Francisco, that's California. California, gotcha. that sentence that's California and even this far south of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara these are beautiful places as Los Angeles if you want a real

indicator of LA go on TV on slice or HDTV here in Toronto and watch Million Dollar Listings, Los Angeles, and The Housewives of Beverly Hills. Watch those two shows. And then, of course, watch any American Idol or Masked Singer. Those shows are indicative of what Los Angeles represents as far as entertainment and music and lifestyle goes. And to me, I watch. I don't watch the music ones because I can't watch these kids try and get an

indentured slavery contract. I just can't do it. But the Million Dollar Listens and the Housewives, W.O.'s Housewives, I have to watch because it is fall-down funny. It's just the entire lifestyle and mindset of these people is jaw-droppingly entertaining to me. And the real plus is that Denise Richards has been added to the cast of

Beverly Hills Housewives, and I've always been a big fan of her because she's she's outspoken and she's gorgeous and she's funny but I don't know I don't go back to in fact after I moved from Los Angeles in 1970

or 71 I've never been back I'm going to play another song for you, Bob, on that note. And then do you recognize this one? I want to give it You hold me deep I want to know me You hold me deep Goodbye, L.A. Goodbye, L.A. Goodbye, L.A. Written at a sound check in as long as it takes to sing it.

Wow, I love those fun facts. On stage at the Hotel California, a little club that held 50 people and had a great barbecue spare little joint and four tables in front of it and I just wrote it one night down in San Chuck

and then we played it two or four times tonight and that was that ended up being the title of our second album wow

I gotta ask you some more questions from listeners this is sort of the music portion of the conversation

now Adrian Strickland asks me to ask you, Bob, about hanging out at the crash? No, sorry, the crash and burn. The crash and burn. And working with the diodes. There's a great picture. I should have sent it to you. If I would have asked, I would have sent a picture. It's a great picture. I should have sent it to you. If I would have known you were going to cast it, I would have sent the picture. It's a picture of me and a couple of diodes and Steve Leckie, a Nazi dog from the wild zones,

and the lovely Doug Pringle and Michael Juran from the polls. And we're standing. The picture was taken by a guy named Ralph Alfonso, who was responsible for the correction. And the picture was taken at the entrance of the place in front of the wire fence. And everybody looks like a punk. This is 1977. Right.

Except for me, I look like an episode of Miami Vice or a Colombian Coke dealer. Because I'm right off the boat from Montreal. And these people, I met them. I think I met Paul Robertson

and John Cato first. And they took me to the Beverly Tavern on Queen Street, which is where the punk and new wave scene was gestating. And they opened this club to rehearse in called The Crash and Burn. And it was in a basement of a building that was the headquarters for the liberal party, some political party.

Right. And it was next to a pen where they kept buses, I think school buses. Steve Leppie and I broke in there one night and broke into a bus. I sat in there for hours, and Steve unloaded about his dad. He talked about his father for hours.

Anyway, so I'm aware of these guys. And the Crash and Burn was only open for three or four months, but it is the birthplace of the Canadian punk music scene and fashion scene, which... Okay, there's another college here called OCA. These kids were also involved in the design and art and fashion aspects of that college's... What you could learn there. And then there were a couple of other people. Sandy Stagg, he had at first a boutique and then a restaurant,

so the Peter Pan restaurant. And this is all gestating in the Queen Street area. And the Crash and Burn was down in the theater district, just above 10th Street on, I believe, off Duncan, on Duncan. And so they were going to open this place as a venue. So Ralph got a company to sell beer. And so you could buy a beer for $5 and a paper cup there. And the first night, they needed an app for the diodes to open for.

And I happened to have some friends called the Nerves that were on the road from California. So I called them, and they came and played. And because the guys that came with the sound system that Robert rented were just making fun of the kids, I sort of took over the sound, so I became the sound man at the Crash and Burn. And the next thing you know, you know, Ben Lizzie's hanging out there when they're in town. Deborah Harry's there all the time. All these wonderful bands are starting to form and play there.

The Ramones played their first, I think, gig there. And Crash and Burn became the nexus, the one place that the entire punk scene on this planet started in London, England, New York City, and Toronto, Ontario. Wow. And having been a part of the Buffalo Springfield Birds heyday of the L.A. music scene, and then the Santana, Fillmore, Jefferson Air playing Grateful Dead, San Francisco scene, then the Paglio, April 1, Mavie Rush scene in Montreal, to come here and totally by accident and for destiny be dropped right in the middle of something I was too old to be part of. and there was no reason that this happened, yet I ended up becoming very involved in it. I ended up producing a lot of demos for the kids that put bands together in this movement. It was still one of the most exciting and vibrant times and most understood, misunderstood music scene I've ever been a part of.

To this day, when you look around and see the lasting impact of these people and that time on music and especially on this city, I'm proud to have been there with these people. And it started all of it at the Crash and Burn. Oh, man. So that was... I mean, if you put in plaques in Yorkville and

Yonge Street for Ronnie Hawkins and stuff, well, I'd like to see a plaque on the Peter Pan. I'd like to see a plaque where the Fiesta used to be. I'd like to see a plaque where the Miriam Harahar clothing store used to be. I'd like to see a plaque with a Beverly Tavern on it.

And I'd like to see a statue where the Gresham burn was. Let's get her done. Let's do it. Now, here's another question from Michaels. Saw Bob play at the Hollywood Tavern, my first concert as an underage, underager. Please ask him when his music will be on Apple Music. I've been waiting for his library to go digital. Okay, wait a minute.

You have to repeat the last. I got the Hollywood Tavern. I have a great story about the Hollywood. Okay, it was basically. What was the question? It was Hollywood Tavern, and then he wants to know when can he stream or buy your music

on Apple Music and the other digital streaming services? Yeah, we're out there. I know the Wackers are on Spotify and iTunes

and the rest of them but the Cigarini Band if you use Alexa and iTunes and the rest of them. But the Sigurini band, if you use Alexa or anything that you talk, they have trouble with my name. You can't say Sigurini and get to my music. I mean, it'll take you half an hour to get them to understand what you're saying. Gotcha.

But there are tons of Sigurini band tunes that era of Toronto on YouTube. In fact, if you go to YouTube and you type Segarini or Wackers or Cats and Dogs Segarini or Roxy Segarini, if you put that in the search window, you'll find almost everything that's ever been recorded by us. Okay. Now, give us the Hollywood Tavern story, and then we'll get you to radio. I've got to get you to radio. Okay. Well, Tavern story, here's my favorite one.

Last stage one night, and I'm a mouthy guy on stage, and I talk. There were nights when we I talked more than we played and uh we didn't get fired because I'm it's entertaining I guess so I'm going on and on and with that and uh we had a lot of bikers in our uh audiences my whole life I have because they get they get it and so we've got a table of, I think it were Satan's Choice. There's a big round table up front to my left on stage looking out at the audience. There's a dozen of them there. And I said something, and I don't remember what it was.

But it pissed off somebody at that table, He's a gigantic, just huge guy. So I'm staying away, and this guy gets out of his chair and knocks it over, and he's lurching towards the stage like Godzilla towards Tokyo. And my band goes like haywire. A couple of them kept playing, but the drummer is thinking, we're all going to die.

And the guy starts to climb up. He's loaded. And he's trying to climb up on the stage. And I'm standing there. And the guys at the biker table are laughing because he's just drunk. And so a couple of them and some of the bouncers came, and he was just about to pull one of the light towers over onto the stage, and they grabbed him and wrestled him away, and he sat down and calmed down.

And I'll never forget that, because it was hilariously entertaining. It was like, you know, I think people thought it was part of the show. Right. But no, our music's pretty easy to find. Right. Yeah. But no, our music's pretty easy to find. Okay.

My band name, you can find it on Spotify. And I think Pandora, if there's still... All of it. Okay. YouTube is where to go mining if you want to find the majority of it. I want some vintage photographs and video, too. Now, Paul Hawkyard, he's a regular listener of Toronto Mic'd, and he just wants you to know that your shows on Q were classic. But before we talk about Q107, how do you end up as a DJ on Chum FM?

I answered the phone. That's exactly what happened. Once again, bands split up, and I've fulfilled my commitments with a band, with Michael Zweig's band, and then again with David Bendit. Wonderful, wonderful experiences, those, and some tours. And now I'm sitting at my dining room table at 7 a.m. in the morning after clubbing all night with a guy named Cam Carpenter, and the phone rings. It's like 7 or 8 in the morning. I answer it, And this voice says, Hello, is it Bob there? And I went, Yeah, this is Warren Cosper. I'd like to be a DJ. And I went, Fuck off. And I hung up. a Toronto star, Peter Goddard, who was the head of the music review people at the Star at the time,

had asked me to write something about what I thought was going on in the city musically. So I did this big thing. It ended up on the front page of the entertainment section. And I took radio to task for not playing a lot of the music I thought they should be playing. Which, of course, I misfired because they started playing a lot of it. If it wasn't for Q and Chow and everybody

and CFNY, we were known before our album hit the street, thanks to those wonderful radio stations. So anyway, so the phone rings again and the guy says, Bob, it's Warren. Seriously,

do you want to hear? And so this time I listened and I had done I should have sent you the thing. He actually wrote the story that FYI published at one point I had done

some voiceover work for him with Motorhead stuff like that and we had done a concert a wonderful live simulcast Charmin City TV at the Palais Royale which I still,

I'm so thrilled that we did because it's so good. So, he said, he thought, he suggested that I be a DJ

to the Palais de B at Chum. So, one weekend we went down there and he took me into the side studio, production studio,

and he taught me how to use the board. And the idea, he said, do you have a nickname? I said, the only one I've ever had was from junior high. I went to a Stockton Junior High School, which is about 3,000 strong, and all my best friends were African-American, Mexican-American, a lot of Italians, and Portuguese people, all farmers and workers and Asian people that had settled in the area because of the agriculture.

So I was a very good dresser when I was in the eighth grade. And my black friends called me Ice because I looked so cool, man. Right. So they gave me the nickname Iceman when I looked so cool, man. Right. So they gave me the nickname Iceman when I was about 13 or 14 years old. And then after junior high, it just went away because they started busting people around, and suddenly I was in a high school that I think had, I don't remember any black people.

I remember one kid, Danny Wong, was in it. And that was a tragedy in my life. It was like being a sandwich covered in Miracle Whip. It was horrible. Anyway, I told Warren, I said, I've never really had a nickname, except, you know, for the lousy ones. You know, it's like a weenie and a nose. He said, you must have had one. I said, yeah, well, you have like a weenie and a nose. He said, you must have had one. I said, yeah, well, yeah, there's one.

He said, the Iceman. That's great. We'll call you the Iceman. And the idea at Trump was for me to break into their signal through, you know, a taped entrance of electrical noises and shit. And that at midnight, I would take the station over for two hours and play what I wanted to play. And that would enable me to play all the latest current hip rock stuff and the local stuff because, you know, Chum was looking for that kind of outlet

and they wanted to, unfortunately in those days, everything that was local or Canadian used to be ghettoized. You know, they'd play it between 6 a.m. and midnight. But anyway, that was the original plan. And then it got shut down, so he gave me the... This is probably the craziest radio I've ever done. I was on from 10 till 2 at night,

followed by Kelly Jay and his wife. And I think between Kelly and I, we broke every conceivable rule that Sean had ever had in place. And I only lasted there for six months because I interviewed Motorhead. And Filthy and Lemmy ended up staying at my house for a week while they were in town between tours. And it was a nice and sweet... You know, Lemmy'd be making

breakfast, Lemmy'd be... There was a nice and sweetest time. They spent the entire time drinking tea and sending postcards to their family back in England. But I had done this, and so I asked if I could interview them on the air. And, yeah, you get a 20-minute segment, and here's the two motorheads talking about it.

Well, they got there, and we did the whole show. And like me, huge arm defense. So Chung used to have these little red stickers that they would put on the tracks of albums that you were not allowed to play. So we spent three or ten to four taking these stickers off these tracks with our thumbnails and playing what amounted to race records

for the entire time. Great interview, great fun, great time. Thorns were ringing off a hook. And the next day I got fired. Oh. And, no, listen, I have to admit, well, Kelly went through the same thing. One night he had Tower of Power come in and play the brakes. The whole band live on it.

And so basically we got fired for making astoundingly good radio. But in fairness, we broke the rules. And so like trying to become a Catholic priest, when they tell you to plant the carrot seeds upside down, you don't tell them that they won't grow and plant them right side up. You plant them the way they tell you, because if the carrots come up, you have to leave the seminary. So,

uh, like that, there is, we're completely justified in booting the best radio that they had off the air. Okay. Before, uh, before we get you to cue real quick here,

just to summarize that. So basically they explicitly told you, you got 20 minutes with Lemmy and you got to play these two songs. And you basically, it sounds like you decided, no, we're going to do something different. Here's the thing. I kind of believe that you,

you know, instead of fighting the rappers, you go with them, you'll get out of them a lot quicker. So I didn't make a decision. I'm not one of those people that puts a lot of thought into on me. Which is actually a very funny statement for me to say. Here's what happened. We talked. We were already getting along.

And we just went. We just followed. We just did we were already getting along, and we just went, we just followed, we just did what we wanted to do. And it's Lemmy, right? It's Lemmy. What would the sense be of not taking advantage of that opportunity to make a moment that we're talking about right now, but we're not talking about anything anybody else on that station did, are we? No, and I will say this. In 2020, hearing that they gave you 20 minutes, that's actually kind of amazing because today, the same situation,

they'd give you seven minutes. Radio today is not radio. It is a format spotter to sell beer and a few other things. And it has nothing to do with music or what's really going on out there and it's unfortunate and my hats off to my friends who have stayed the course keep their head down and they're still working on the radio they're still great djs they just don't have a way to show anybody it's just you you have to maximize the music and you have to

line sequence the breaks. So that said, I wouldn't survive 18 seconds at a terrestrial radio station. But I do know how to introduce something that could compete with radio that would blow people's minds and be very successful. But I can't find any interest in it. What is it? You want to sign a non-disclosure agreement? I'll tell you, but not today.

Let's get back to this. So anyway. Okay, so Chum FM... It wasn't a scheme. It wasn't thought out to take over the show. It just happened, and I let it. I said, here's my idea of great management.

Great management hires great people and then leaves them alone. Because that's when you discover new things, get new ways to do things, and people can either prove themselves worthy or not. So the kind of hands-on management that have rules and regulations for people, that's the same reason that advertising agencies keep replacing their writers because they keep getting them from the same place and they they have the same education, and they get the same crap. But guys like me can't get work, because we will bring something new and fresh, but we can't bring anything new and fresh, because management has rules and regulations that won't allow that.

So I'll get off my soapbox. There was no thought put into it. Great things are allowed to happen. There are not many people out there that can manufacture a great thing. Right. Which is why the word blanding always gives me a toothache. The difference between a singer like Loomer out of England and a singer like, what's her name, Lady Gaga. One is a rehearsed, contrived, studied brand.

And the other one is a singer with passion and feeling. So I don't care how good somebody is, talent, I can walk around my apartment building and find two dozen kids with as good of voices as anything on the radio and better, but that's not where it stops. That's where it starts. Right. People just brand themselves

and want to, you know, increase the cash and be like, Bohemian Rhapsody, that movie, it's like, Queen's music has always been rock music as played by your professor of chemistry. Right. The scene in that movie where they're sitting around discussing,

now, what can we do to make our audience bigger? What can we do to attract more? I just might well, this is why I never liked your movie, except the radio about it. That's a good, good song. Here's the thing. When you consciously try and please your audience, you are no longer an artist. You are a, you are a, what's that word? You're constructing things. You are a, what's that word? You're constructing things. You are supply and demanding. You are a provider of goods. A commodity?

You're a product, a commodity? Because the minute that you start to create stuff for anyone other than yourself, you're no longer an artist. You are, you're building furniture. no longer an artist. You're building furniture, and you've taken yourself out of the equation. So I'm very adamant about that when it comes to my entertainment. I like to see people follow their vision. I mean, every record I've ever made, everything I've ever done was to entertain me. And that people exist out there that like what I do, that is the most awesome, incredibly touching thing that I have ever had in my life, to know that I can do something from the heart and know that there are some people out

there that get it so when you asked me earlier about success I have an amazing success in that I have been able to do this my whole life I'm not financially successful I'm not a big celebrity but you have to realize that those weren't my goals. And I kind of feel respect and admire people who can do what they have to do to achieve those two things. But literally speaking for myself, I can't do that. It just takes too much out of life. So anyway, to get back to you. It just takes too much out of life. So anyway, to get back to you. Yeah, so Chum FM fires you.

It wasn't pre-thought. It just happened. And I'm still proud of that moment. And when Ross called me into his office the next afternoon and gave me the news that services were no longer required, I understood completely. And here's the funny thing. You want to know about Q? Here's the segue. I got home before the end of the work day that day. Gary Spade called and asked me if I'd like to do all nights.

Wow. The same day. It's funny. Just last week, I talked to Gene Valaitis from the old Jesse and Gene show, and he talks about being fired from 680 and later that day having to deal with 640. So it sounds like you got picked up quick. You cannot call yourself a broadcaster unless you've been fired at least three times. Right.

Any broadcaster will tell you that. We're basically just hot dogs. And people pass us around like whores. But at least there was overnights. Overnights are gone, right? Most stations don't. They just do... Another giant mistake on the part of the... It's all about the dollar signs.

Contemporary radio people. Well, they're not radio people. That's the problem. Radio stations are run by people a thousand miles away in skyscrapers that came from the Coca-Cola or Kleenex divisions of the corporations. And they're running radio exactly the same way they ran those. It's just numbers on a spreadsheet. Yeah, one of the great losses

is the loss of live overnight radio, especially in major markets. Oh, for sure. So, Bob... We can do another nine hours on radio sometime, if you like. Let me do...

read another question from a listener, and then find out a little more info about Q107. So Rob says, looking forward to hearing from the Iceman. I still remember, like yesterday, hearing Bob announce his Ice Pick of the Day and then hearing Eddie Grant's Electric Avenue for the first time. Ice Pick of the Day! I forget who voiced that, but it wasn't me.

Oh, and one more I'm going to read. One more I'll read, and then we'll hear about Q. Dave says, he did a great Cars spoof, we steal our best friend's licks, and a hilarious Elvis Costello imitation. You want the story on that?

Yeah, please. Okay. When the Cigarini band started playing, the normal procedure in the nightclubs here on Yonge Street and Queen Street and everywhere else was three sets a night. Well, I didn't want to play three sets a night. I wanted to play two sets a night. Well, I didn't want to play three sets a night. I wanted to play two sets a night.

So we started going on at 10 and 12, as opposed to 9 and 11 and 12, whatever they were. And at first, we met some resistance, but we played a full hour, sometimes longer sets. And people loved it, and they drank more because they had more time to drink. and they drank more because they had more time to drink. And what led to that was I hated doing third sex, and when we had to, we would just goof around. So the more we goofed around, we would keep stuff every time we did something.

We got the cars thing came from that, the spring scene thing where I stick my fist in my mouth because he mumbles a lot. We did an Elvis Costello thing. We did Mick Jagger's singing Satisfaction in reggae backed by Henry Mancini.

These things just happened on stage, the creativity of the guys in my band. And so they became a set into themselves. And we were in a good mood and stuff. We would do this 30 minutes or so of these poofy takeoffs. And I would do Jim Morrison doing The End. And if you go online, you go to YouTube, put in Cigarini and Tut1, T-U-T-1 and T-U-T-2.

And those two clips are from the Palais Royale show, live show. And they are that set. And you can see for yourself exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. Because here's the thing. The secret of live performance is if you have fun,

your audience has fun. Right. So our entire mindset was to go and have a good time. We never rehearsed. We rehearsed on stage or at sound checks, and I flat out refused to.

And the musicians were so sharp, and led by a wonderful man named Peter Kasher, who's been with me for I don't know how long. Great guitar player, painter, and chef, I might add. Wow. And Peter would just whip everybody into shape, and everybody knew what they were doing at all times. Secret of a great man, surround yourself with people that are better than you.

Smart. 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 in a frat house. It was a bunch of guys on drugs playing the music they loved, 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, Chuck Chalmers is on 99.9, whatever they're called now. Jim Woods is doing great. Lee Eckley's still on here. Just a tremendous amount of people doing tremendous things.

And we had no idea what we were doing. But Bob Makowitz, who was the heart and soul of that station, it was like having a French Renaissance poet writing the history of rock and roll. 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 Edwidge. There was actually a column in the Daily Star about radio. That's how popular radio used to be. Yes. you, have you paid the guy? And we didn't. It was just a little swirled rear to go, wow, we've been noticed and we're justified. So, yeah, QN07, 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 Too Tall, 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 well 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 era of knock-down, drag-out radio.

It was classic. Now, Bob, why did you leave the Mighty Q, Toronto's best rock? The first time I left was I had John Martin, a wonderful man who had worked in conjunction with City and with Chum doing these... He worked on the new music, the TV show, and the dances that... The 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 said, 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, 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 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. So that's fine. Hey, Bob, I have a quick question. By denying me a second thing, I guess you could say you did. 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 applied by your seat stuff. One room full of kids and me and John Martin. An amazing man. Now let me and John Martin. An amazing man. Now, let me... And Moses, also an amazing man. Sure. Bob, did you ever have an opportunity at Much Music to go in front of the camera? Oh, I was several times when somebody screwed up.

One time I had to fill in for somebody and Tina put it up. It was like, remember Homer's makeup gun that he used on Marge? Yes. That's basically, she made me up like a circus clown. Said, no, it's going to look good, and she kind of just threw it with me. So there was that time. No, I didn't want to really be on the air because I didn't, it wasn't, you know, I was like 32 or 33 or 34, you know, much better to have the kids up there.

I liked my job because it was easy and it was simple and it was high profile and paid well. That's why I had it. And I was learning stuff. I learned a lot of stuff. That's why I have it. And I was learning stuff. I learned a lot of stuff. I mean, what I learned in the editing days there,

we had a ball when they handed me... I thought I was being fired from much. I guess I was. But as a consolation prize, they gave me a great movie, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights on City TV. Sure. And that... So you were the first. The most fun I ever had in my life.

Let me bang this home though for everybody that you, Bob, you are the initial host, the first host of City TV late great movies. City TV's late great movies, yes. It was built around me actually.

I'll tell you what it was. Tell me. Okay. Say a television station buys The Godfather to show on their TV station. Well, in order to buy The Godfather or rent The Godfather to show, let's say three times over a four-month, six-month period, a four-month, six-month period, you take a bundle of B-rated movies, C-rated movies,

and just shit movies. Right. Legri Movies was created to burn off all the shit movies. Right. And that was my job. Now...

I eventually started begging and getting some good stuff like Spaghetti Westerns and other fun movies like Steve McQueen's The Blob. We did that. Right. Had a lot of fun with that. But so that was the job. And again, I don't know who suggested me or came up with the premise, but the idea was that my office was actually in a hallway outside of Marcy Martin, Andrea Martin's sister's,

she's my boss, outside of her office. I was in a hallway on the fourth floor and they dressed it as a set. This looked really kind of cool. There's also some of that on Retro Toronto and Retro Ontario and on YouTube.

But the idea was they gave me a locked-off camera. That means a camera that was aimed at me behind my desk. Brian Linehan, God bless him, was dropping off interviews he had done with people that were in the movies we were showing so I could talk about them on the breaks. with people that were in the movies we were showing so I could talk about them on the breaks. And the lovely man went, wait, what'd you say? And then there was a guy at Master Control down in the basement, five floors below us,

who turned the camera off and on and cued me over the speaker as when to start talking. And that's how it started. And I got bored. Well, wait, pause right there. Pause right there. Because I want to hear this story so much so. But I need to say, you mentioned Retro Ontario.

He happens to be a good friend of mine. And I told him you were coming on. And he sent me a 40-second clip. And I'm going to play it. And the quality is not very good. But I'm hoping at the end of this clip, you'll be able to answer something for Ed from retro Ontario and let them know what song is being played. So let me play this for 40 seconds. Hopefully we can,

uh, we can understand it. T.O., what a bird. He's my kind of bird. You know, I've lived and played music in cities like L.A. and New York all my life, and they might have great pasts, but T.O.'s got the future. Toronto, I hope I've got the greatest movies you've ever seen tonight. I really mean that. Oh, boy, I can hardly hear.

Welcome to Late Great Movies. Here's your host, Bob Segherini. Now, that's probably a copy of a copy of old VHS that... Is that a video clip? Yes. At some point, that's a video clip. Am I walking down the street in a yes sweatshirt and a hat? I only have the audio here, so I don't know.

What song is it? That's Ed's big question. He wants to know what song is playing during that clip. Okay, does it sound... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I wrote it. I wrote the same song for the show.

That's me and one of the cameramen, Terry Dale. So does that song have a name, or is it just something you originally composed for that use? No, it's just something that I wanted the same song, so we wrote one. Okay, so you've solved a great mystery there for Ed Conroy, so thank you for that. And now I need the story of basically the night you got fired.

From late great movies. Right. Okay. I didn't get fired. Again, I walked away from the late great movies. Right. Okay. I didn't get fired again. I walked away from it, is what happened. Okay. I'm pretty sure I would have been fired, but I wasn't. I just walked away from the show.

And here's why. First of all, we went from me just, you know, talking about the movies to having guests on. And it's a whole bunch of great stories. I hate to just go right to the end of it, but I will. We had been doing this a bit. You know, at the late night talk show, Stardew McCarston, they put a big picture. He'd hold a picture up, a piece of cardboard, on his desk, and then he would describe what the picture was, and it was always funny? Yeah.

Okay, well, we started doing that, among other things. And we had this picture of Sammy Davis Jr. when he was three years old, when he was part of his parents' vaudeville act, in blackface. So, the irony, Sammy Davis Jr. in blackface is a really cute picture, and it was funny. We also had a picture of

baby Hitler that we would show and say different things about. So, we would show this thing almost every time. It would be the last one. And, of course, Sammy Davis Jr. And it became a punchline of the whole bit.

So I get a memo from Moses going, this is racist, and it's terrible, and it has to stop. And I don't want to. And this is one of many memos that we, I mean, he told me that he didn't want Ty Cumberbatch on the show. If you saw his face, he fired me that he didn't want Ty Kempel on the show. If he saw his face, he'd fire the lot of us. Well, from that day forward, Ty would wear a lampshade over his head or a gas mask until he eventually got hired. I wouldn't let anything happen. Anyway, so I get this memo, and so Ty and I and Terry and Paul, our pal Paul, our intern at the time, we had gone a long way. We had lights and affordable cameras.

This is why we used to shoot a lot of stuff outside of the building. The laborer looked. Hey, four guys with a $75 a week budget charged with providing an hour and 20 minutes a week of live television. And we did it. And we did it great. We drove up the overnight ad rates. I made him a lot of money. Anyway, so we get together after this moment.

I said, well, we've got to come up with something funny. So we came up with the idea that we'll do stupid cat tricks, like stupid human tricks. Right. Right. So we did a little piece of music and a picture of a tiger or something. And Ty at the time had like two or four cats. And they all did, they had their little bits like cats do. So the first one was a Siamese cat that if you played the bongos on its back,

it loved it. It wanted more. So we took a video of that and then we put some music behind it and I did the cat going, wow, wow. And it was great. We all laughed. We showed the clip and that was

this week's thing, right? So I get a memo on Monday saying, you have to apologize for beating on a cat. What? We had some complaints that you guys were beating on this poor, defenseless kitten. And I said, all right, I'll apologize. So we go on TV. And he brings the cat down. So he puts the cat on my desk.

Okay. And the kitty's going, meow, and it's just sort of wandering around on my desk. I'm petting it, stroking it. And I apologize profusely, for it appeared that we'd be on, but in actuality, it's a kitty stunt that this kitty did. You can see it's perfectly fine, loves everybody, and patted him a couple of times on the butt and the head. And then I handed him to Todd. Well, that's what I did in real life earlier in the night.

What we did in post, before this ran, we just made it look like it was live. It's on my set, right? I handed it to Ty, but Ty was out of camera range. So it basically looks like I just fling the cat out of my hands to the left. Then we added the sound of a breaking window, screams, and all of a sudden these other effects. So you got the impression, through the miracle of comedy,

that I had thrown the cat out of the window. And it didn't say anything. It just went into the movie. Well, all hell broke loose. And we showed, when we did the cat that night, it was another one of Ty's cats. And it's a big fluffy thing. And its trick was if you put a yogurt cup down on the ground

with some yogurt in it, this cat would put his head in the yogurt cup and eat the yogurt. But it would put his head up so if you get the yogurt to slide down his throat, it would back up. So you've got a cat eating yogurt out of a cup the way it always does,

backing up out in the yard. So we shoot that. And we add some ZZ Top instrumental music. And they're going, Oh, and our laughter. Well, Moses happened to be in the building when it ran.

So he comes flying up the stairs, up the back stairs, and goes, Cigarette, me, hallway, now. Okay. Now, there's a magician woman there with her puppy that did magic to us, and Terry and Ty and Rob Salem from at the time of Toronto Star. Right. from at the time of Toronto Star. Right. So we go down the stairs to the next floor, and he starts screaming at me.

And I started screaming at him. And I said, look, this is fucking comedy. We're not hurting anybody or anything. And I said, and I was not in a good mood at this point. And I said, look, your ass wouldn't even be here if the chump, if Alan Waters hadn't forgiven you for beating. I said, you made your bones on tits and ass late at night. Everybody told you that it wasn't a good thing to do and that it wasn't right. And the only reason you got away with it was because the numbers were good and the waters packed you.

And you made your career off of tips and ends. And you don't see the humor in this. You're not the audience of this. This is for bartenders and waitresses and cab drivers and guys in rock bands. And they get it all. And you now have ads. And oh, in order to stimulate the advertising, we did fake ads that we would bury in the middle of the real ads. So nobody tuned out for the ads. We watched them all.

Anyway, and I just, I tore him to strips and I made him cry. And I just left. I went upstairs. I finished the show. I went home. I never went back. And Marcy called me on Monday. So you coming in this evening?

I said, no, I'm not going back. She goes, why? I said, did you read the paper this morning? And this is the final reason that I made the decision not to go back. Rob, who's a dear friend and I love dearly, very much wanted that job, I think. And he wrote about it in Saturday's paper. And it was on the front page of, I don't know if it was on the front page, front page of the entertainment section,

that the cat's out of the bag, the ice gets the ax. Wow. And I didn't get the ax. I didn't go back where I'm sure I would have gotten the ax. And as it turned out, they just met you, throws on the street. And Mike Daly, God bless him, doing Mark Taylor, doing the throws. But the humor that permeated the late nights of it, that all came from me and what we did there in the six to eight months we were on the air. And again, I am forever in Moses and John's debt for allowing me to have, A, not only the time of my life, but to get skills I didn't have before I was allowed to play with a television station.

Now, Bob, did I hear you correctly that you made Moses cry? Put tears in his eyes. Put it that way. And again, he didn't speak to me for two years. And we finally became like we could speak to one another eventually. like we could speak to one another eventually. I have a friend whose best friend is Jose Policiano, and Jose was in town hanging out with us at this little bar my friend owned, and I made sure that Moses got invited down.

And he did. We have great pictures. And I love it. I mean, you have no idea. Everybody that ever allowed me a microphone or anything else, you have no idea how much respect and gratitude I have for these people. And there's no way I can express it to anybody. And, you know, and that it rubs some people the wrong way.

I have no control over that. I know my intentions are always good. And I know I lived up to my promise and I know I did things that entertained people. So, what else is a person supposed to do? Now, Bob, this might be

an appropriate time for me to ask about the role drugs might have played in all of this. You've been very open and honest about your struggles with drugs. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that now? I liked drugs. I did a lot of them. I eventually stopped. What else would you want to know?

How long ago did you stop, though? I started smoking pot when I was 13, because you could buy it in a matchbox for five bucks at my junior high school. Couldn't smoke it a lot. Just smoked it sometimes. It was really bad. Didn't smoke much pot. Going into the rock and roll thing just a little bit.

Didn't drink at all. And slowly got into pot when there was only Acapulco Gold and Panama Red. Panama Red made you laugh. Acapulco Gold made you say that if we were all brothers, there'd be no more war. So it was a pretty simple choice. My mom came home one time, and four of my friends and I were breaking down a key on her kitchen table and making three-ounce clean lids that we sold for six bucks so we didn't have to pay for pot. It was simply, we were supply and demanding.

And my mom comes in with a grocery, and she looks at it, and we're like deer in headlights. It's like standing there, just sitting at the table staring at it. And she looked at this for a minute, takes a beat, and she goes, well, don't let your father see you. And that was the end of that. So she never said a word. And for decades afterwards,

I tried to get her high, but she never would. So I smoked a little pot back then. Then I stopped smoking pot in my 20s because it just made me want to go to sleep. Gabbled in cocaine a little bit from teenage years on. Did a lot of coke in the 80s because we all did a lot of coke in the 80s. And when you had money and access, you did coke.

And it was fun. And we all had fun. We had no idea that there was a price to pay. None whatsoever. That came in the 90s. But towards the end of the 80s, unfortunately, I learned how to cook it and freebase cocaine. And therein led 10 years of freebase and coke

and fucking up my marriage and my career and my health. And then I stopped finally. Took three years of getting up every day and saying, I'm not going to call my dealer. I'll call him tomorrow. And it took and I've been clean ever since. And that was

1995 or 6 somewhere in there well congrats on that that's great news that you've been clean that long but seriously one day at a time right

everything in moderation is fine when we had a handle on cocaine and it wasn't a lifestyle it was just fun and just say no kids cane, you know, and it wasn't a lifestyle, it was just fun. But yeah, just say no, kids, because if you can't handle it or if it gets the best of you, it just completely fucks your life up.

How are you, like, how difficult was it to stop? It's awfully addictive. Like, were you able to stop just on your own? I'll say it again. Well, first of all, you have to stop on your own. I think this 12-step program is all bullshit. If you have to blame somebody or, you know, point to somebody as how you did something,

there's something wrong with that. God didn't get me into this position. I did. I got to get myself out of it. No, like I said, every day for three years approximately, I don't know, I didn't keep a journal or anything, I would get up every day and say, I'll get high tomorrow. And I did that for three years until I just no longer got up and said that to the point where I wouldn't even have known who to call to get

anything. So, it's... I can't go back and change what I did. All I can do is live with it and put it in perspective. And yeah, it was... I have nothing but regret about what I did and what it in perspective. And yeah, it was...I have nothing but regret about what I did and what it led to and the people I hurt, including myself. That said, lesson learned, and move on with your life. I mean, it's not... I don't find it

interesting anymore to be honest with you. Like I said, I spent a lot of time getting high and now I don't. It's about the best summation of what I can think of. Okay, so it sounds like you've been clean and sober for 25 years, but do you think

the hiring people and the people in the business still judge you for your 10 years in the wilderness? I believe that I'm more a victim of ageism than I am of any preconceived notions from 40 years ago. Although, I will say this. There are those who look at me and still perceive me as 1985. And when somebody looks at you and have already predetermined that you're doing drugs and you're an asshole and you're full of yourself and all the rest of it, there's not really anything you can do about it except wish that they'd, you know, show more sense

and judge people by how they are now and not how they were then. But I can't do that, so it is what it is. I believe that when you hit 65, you become really impacted by ageism and the entertainment arts, all of them. I believe that when you hit your 70s, that these people hypocritically, so are incapable of thinking you have a fresh idea or a new idea, or that you can navigate through today's wild things, and nothing could be further from the truth. We are the only culture, Western culture is the only culture, that rejects and discriminates against their elderly when every other culture embraces their knowledge

and experience. We're also the only culture that plans for how much money we can make in the next six months than a 50-year-long plan to make sure that people have a better life. And if anything, this pandemic is a huge, huge, wonderful opportunity to put humanity before the economy and even it out again. None of us need five cars. None of us need six houses. Nobody needs what so few have when so many have so little.

Well said. No, Bob, well said. I don't have a lot of hope, though, that this Western culture will reset itself, even during a pandemic like this. See, that's a big part of the problem, is the negative energy of all these people who have no more knowledge than I do of the things we all talk about, politics especially, this pandemic lately, music, everything. No one is well equipped to be Karen on Facebook, not one of us. Yet, I am shocked that I don't see as many people as me speaking up.

Of course there's hope to turn this around. There are more good people than bad people. So why we don't do something about all this nonsense, the biggest reason is because people don't think it's possible. Negative energy. Well, Bob, I would say... I hope we get back to normal. No, man.

What we were when this thing started is not normal. It should never be normal again. See, I think it starts with yourself. This is common sense. You know how they get rid of the Trump administration or any administration that is detrimental to life on this planet? It's simple. You vote for his opposite, for the person that goes up against him.

That's all. Everybody. You pick the Democrat or the liberal, and you vote for that person. And you park your ego, and you park what you think you know about the man, and you park what you think you know about the woman, and you park what you think you know about politics, about the woman and you park what you think you know about politics and you find the person that can remove the things that have gotten us to the precipice. Once you do that, then you have a chance to turn things into a better direction for a

better result. But if you're going to say, well, I'm not going to, I'm going to vote for this person, even though I'm going to write him. Those are the people that doom advancement to not happening. So you want to be part of making the world a better place to live. Then you have to do things like, this is not Putin's fault in the U.S. He's just doing it. Every government, even the U.S., they all have NSA. They're all trying to bring down other countries' governments.

That's their job. They pay people every year to do that. The fault of the U.S. are the people in the U.S. that fucking accommodated them. They're the blame, not the outside forces trying to penetrate. So if everybody looked at their own situation and made their own situation better, it'll all be better. And it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick. But people got to wake up, and there's no easy solution.

People got to wake up and there's no easy solution. But negative energy, if you don't have hope, you got nothing. Yeah, I hope it wasn't perceived as negative energy because really what I mean is that I look out for myself and my own family. So prior, way before this pandemic, I made several changes that basically dramatically reduced my carbon footprint. I literally, I biked with a trailer to pick up groceries earlier today. I'm basically, I drive so little, you wouldn't believe it. And I'm doing a bunch of things here. And I feel like I'm with you.

Have you noticed, I can go out of my balcony right now and I can see the layers on the CN Tower because there's no pollution. Right. There is very small carbon footprint, period. You know why? Because fewer people are driving because fewer people need to drive. We have to remember this. It's simple. Why is the air cleaning? Because we're paying attention to making it dirty and we're not making it dirty.

So when a pandemic ends, why don't we continue not to make it fucking dirty? Pretty simple. We're already doing it. And same with the water. Why can you see the water is clear in the Venice channels? Why is it cleaner in the lakes? Because we're not polluting it. Why don't we continue not to pollute? How do we do this?

Well, we've got to get big corporations and the companies that allow this footprint to happen to back the fuck off. And people need to be able to, who was it that just told Twitter, just that their entire staff can from now on work at home. How many jobs are there out there where we could continue to work from home? There are a lot. So whether we learn anything from this pandemic or not is up to us. Not to any of the Karen's on Facebook. There is no plan. The plan is done that for us.

Mother Nature said, all right, everybody, fucking take a deep breath and look around. Right. And if you don't take that opportunity, I mean, literally, stop and smell the roses. Because for the first time in decades, you can smell them. And there's a reason for that. It's because we have lightened up. So that's the big secret. That's the big solution.

Let's not spend time blowing people up. Let's spend time building the hospitals. Let's not spend time... I mean, let's... Jesus. I don't want... I just got to appreciate, and I apologize. I don't want, you know, I just got to appreciate, and I apologize. I don't like that.

I don't like getting angry because what I'm saying is so obvious to me. And I wish people would just be patient and realize that what they can do, they're already doing. It's that simple. How do you incorporate not driving as much or giving people their space or contributing more to society? Like my friend Bradley, Carter, who's been making pies for people and giving them a way to help people that are shut in. Doing this out of the goodness of his heart, people donating in fruit and lard and all this stuff. that needs to be, on the surface, not these fucking avaricious, driven, greedy people like Mitch McConnell. These people need to be jailed. And people like Scheer need to take a big gulp

and think of his family and not the economy. The economy will take care of itself once people can do what they do for a living wage. Jesus. Well said. No, a lot of passion there in the belly. I love it. And well said. And this is going to be the most abrupt left turn in the history of podcasting.

Because before I close, you've been amazing. Thanks so much for this. But before I close, listeners of Toronto Mike know that there's a show, a Canadian television show that gets referenced often. And we talk about it almost every Friday, for example, with Stu Stone, who was on the show. I'm going to play one more jam, 40 seconds, and then I got to ask you about it. Here it is. Okay, Bob, this is you, buddy. Yeah, that's me again. Wow, I mean, what a great show,

especially for people my age. We just grew up with this thing. What can you share with us about doing this song? And Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario wants to know why the heck won't Chorus release this show for streaming? Apparently Chorus is holding onto it in some vault or something. What can you tell us? They could actually... There are six seasons that ran a hundred...

I forget how many. Six seasons ran at least over a dozen years and i don't know how many different countries it's never been released in a box set or streaming and i could actually have an income from that that would actually change my life so drastically for the better i could could get dental work done. I could do a lot of things. And they're not even aware that it's in their vault. And again, it's because nobody that works there was around when Novena existed. This is just stuff taken up room.

Right. And how the song was written, just like everything else in my life, it sure happens to us. I was friends with Clive Smith, one of the owners of Novena. And they had written a show, a fourth show of the first season called Rock and Roll Anniversaryiversary for his friend John Sebastian. And the idea was for John to play a character named Chops Dorfman

and do Do You Believe in Magic on the show. Well, there was a scheduling conflict. John couldn't do it. So I went down to audition. And I got to part. And while I was waiting to go into the audition, two gentlemen walked by me in the hallway, I would assume the producers,

saying they were not happy with the theme song. They wished they could get another one before they went to print. So I owned a little studio in Brampton at the time, so I remembered that. I go in the audition. By the time I got home, so I remembered that. I go in the audition. By the time I got home, there was a message that I had gotten a part. And I called private Bankum, and I said, would you mind if I wrote a song to sing instead of Do You Believe in Magic?

And he went, no, go ahead. So I go back to the studio and by myself wrote a song called Real Life Magic. And I had a couple of my friends come out and play some betting tracks so I could record it. And then I figured, why not do a theme song? So with just voices, I did the Edison Twin Steam Song those are all voices the only thing that was added to that

is I think I put a bass on but I'm not sure and then I heard some kind of maybe a tambourine I must have added that to my line because

all I had was my voice at the time I recorded so it's just all me singing all those parts and then this kid and then boom boom boom boom

all that stuff. And so I took both things down to Nelvana the next day and they approved both and that was that. Amazing. That was a great show because the kids in it were great. The stories were great.

And there was a learning, it was an educational thing. It was quite fun. And why it's still not on the air and why they still haven't made it accessible is, of course, right back to City TV and everybody else burning their old television shows and radio shows because, quote, they don't see the worth in them. Well, Bob, I'm going to take it on as a personal challenge here to see if we can get

Chorus to release this into the wild and just if for no other reason, get you a little bit of extra scratch so you can get that dental work and take care of some things. While you're at it, get them to release all those tracks in the way they are

with a digital upgrade virtually. And while you're at it, contact MuchMusic slash whoever owns Chum Now, Bell, is it? Bell Media. And get me the rights to the Cigarini at the Palais simulcast, which they mislabeled and said it took them five years to find the two-inch tape

because it was mislabeled El Macombo. And further, and this is a big one, somewhere, probably on that two-inch tape, but somewhere in their archive, if they haven't destroyed it, is the only copy of the music video of Don't Believe a Word I Say, which Warren Cosworth said, one of the reasons that I got hired was that was the first video, non-performance video that he had ever seen

that wasn't like a Spectrum vision or something. And the only copy of it that exists is somewhere in that vault, somewhere at the city slash much. I don't believe a word I say. And then the letter to Powell. Those are, I need to see those released or at least available to me. Well, we have the right people listening to us now, so let's hope we can get something worked out there.

Bob, thanks so much for your time today. It was a great pleasure to chat with you about your life and your career in music, radio, and television. I hope you stay well and take care of yourself. Thank you so very much. And thanks for having me. And anything I can do to help those two causes, if you would let me know.

Absolutely. Thanks again. I love you. I love you, Toronto. I love you so much. I can't tell you. I love you clearly in the corner

The kind of girl I'm looking for You look just like my former lover Who doesn't love me anymore I really like the way you trade flame From your shoulders to your shoes Are you a fan of Peter Francis? Are you a fan of Peter Francis? I thought you were a damn dude. Look, I don't really mean any of this.

But I'm really lonesome tonight. I'm not too good at being smooth. But I'm trying to be nice to you, baby, because, well, I need some company tonight. You have an amazing body. You look like you'd fall for this kind of crap. Are you a Gemini or Capricorn? I bet you love to disco dance. I bet you love to disco dance Did you read the hype report, babe?

It's time the women had their chance I'm hanging on your every syllable And I agree with all you say I love the way you hold your cocktail glass I'll bet you always get your way I, I know I'll probably never ever see you again And well, I'd be lucky to even remember your name And really, I hate myself for doing this

But I have this need And if you're really a woman, you have a need too I know you do I keep reading about it. Don't believe a word I say. Don't believe a word I say. Don't believe a word I say. Don't believe a word I say. Don't believe a word I say Don't believe a word I say