Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Remembering FOTM Al Mair: Toronto Mike'd #1159

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

In this 1159th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike shares audio from episode 1086 with Al Mair as we remember Al Mair who passed away Friday at the age of 82. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

On Friday, legendary CanCon maverick entrepreneur and co-founder of Attic Records, Al Mayer, passed away. Earlier in the week, Al was awarded his Order of Canada medal in his room at Sunnybrook Hospital. Less than four months ago, Al was my guest on Toronto Mic'd, Less than four months ago, Al was my guest on Toronto Mic'd, and I joked with him that earning his FOTM status was more prestigious than being awarded the Order of Canada. In honour of Al, here's an edited version of that conversation, which also included Derek Emerson and Chris Turner. It's kind of a coincidence, but just last Monday night,

sitting here with me were Steve Waxman and Kevin Shade. You know those two fellows? Vaguely, vaguely. And it's funny because at the time, I don't think I knew you were going to be our special guest. And I was asking so many, you know, attic questions, and I'll be peppering you of some of these later. But here you are, co-founder,

and we're going to get the addict story. But here, let me start by congratulating you. Congratulations, Alex, on the appointment, your appointment to the Order of Canada. That's pretty impressive. Thank you. When you got the call, what was your reaction? Did you just get a phone call?

I got an email asking when they could call and what number. It was quite a surprise. I knew I had been nominated some time ago and I've been retired for 20 years

so for this to come when it did was quite a surprise and I'm pleased. Well, I'm pleased for you as well. What an honor it is that we have Al on the line all the way from Yonge and St. Clair there. Do you mind, Al, giving us the Attic Records origin story? I know we're going back to 1974 here, but how did you come to start an independent record label?

Well, got to go back a long way further to 1960, well, to 1954. I was a high school student, and I skipped school to see a movie called Blackboard Jungle. Right. And I went to Matinee Theater at Yonge and Queen. And if you saw the movie, particularly in a theater, the beginning is all the lights go down. The screen is black, And his voice comes on. One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock.

Four o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock rock. And it goes through. It's Songs Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley. And I had been a music fan already and was getting into a variety of music. But that just blew me away. And I said, I was working in a record store after school, and I said, I want to be in the music business. 1962, I went to the New York World's Fair

in New York City for a week with a friend from Toronto. And it was phenomenal. It was great. Loved it. I've never seen anything like it before. 1967, Expo in Montreal. I went with a gentleman by the name of Paul Ski,

who's now retired, but he, at that time, was a teenage announcer at a radio station, St. Thomas. He ended up being president of Rogers Radio and went into the Music Industry Hall of Fame on the broadcasting side the same night I went in on the music side. Expo was much better than the New York World's Fair, and it convinced me that Canadians could do anything that foreigners can and can do it better. So I got a job at Capitol Records in the accounting department. I had had one two-hour accounting lesson, but that at the time was the only degree you could get at night school. I didn't want to go to day school, so I got hired at Capital, not because of my accounting skills, obviously, but having worked at retail, I knew all the catalog,

I knew how to pronounce the names of the classical composers, cetera. At Capital, they decided to have an internal training program to try to promote people within instead of hiring from without. I took it, and because of my retail experience, I aced it. So I got promoted out of accounting into indoor sales, which meant retailers called in, and I took their orders and told them what was new and tried to talk them into stocking it. From inside sales, I got promoted to outside sales and got a territory of Western Ontario

where I would go to the accounts and take orders. But as a salesman, out of town, the salesmen were expected to call on the radio stations and hype singles. Well, most of the salesmen didn't know anything about broadcasting, didn't have any interest, never did it. I was just the opposite. I loved it. So I started concentrating on promotion to the exclusion of sales.

I left Capitol and went to what is now Universal Music and started as Ontario Promotion Man. And within a year, I was national promotion, and I was at Universal from 64 to 68, during which I won the three general awards. One is top regional promotion, one a tie for national promotion, and the third national promotion on my own. During that period, I promoted The Who, Jimi Hendrix, all sorts of acts. And one of the acts I was promoting was a guy from Toronto by the name of Gordon Lightfoot. Gordon was working at a bar on Yonge Street upstairs called Steel's Tavern. It was between Sam's and A&A.

Steel's Tavern was the building in between. Gordon was working upstairs for $200 a week and food to take home for his family. He was married with one child at the time. I promoted his records, five albums that he had done for a label called United Artists, and worked very closely with him and broke him. And all those albums sold platinum in Canada, 100,000 plus. So he asked me to manage him. So in 68, I started managing Gordon Lightfoot. And the first record we put out was an album called Sit Down Young Stranger, which had a song called If You Could Read My Mind on it.

I went to the president of Warner's, his new label, Warner's here in Canada, and they had just opened up their own company here. And I said, you don't have a good promotion department. And the president said, I know, but I don't know anybody in Toronto. I just moved here from Montreal. If you know anybody that you want me to hire, I'll hire them. So I called a friend of mine, Tom Williams, who at that time, he what they call brokered the all night show in

CKFH and played R&B music. John Donabee, who went on to a lot of success in other stations, was the all night man. Wow. Tom paid for the six or eight hours. Then he went out and sold the time. eight hours. Then he went out and sold the time. And it was the only R&B show in Toronto. Anyway, I approached Tom and said, do you want to work at Warner's? So he said, sure. So he became the head of promotion at Warner's Canada. So we worked closely together on the Lightfoot stuff. And over time, for a variety of reasons, I realized that personal management wasn't what I wanted to do. It was to be back in the record business. So in 74, Tom and I did a business plan, went out looking to raise investment capital. We started, did the business plan in the weekend, and by Tuesday, we had raised $300,000. Wow.

So we launched Attic in May of 1964. Wait, 74. 74. I continued to manage Lightfoot until 1978. Wow. But we launched Attic in 1974 and never looked back. Oh, that's amazing. Okay, so Attic, we're going to have so many questions about Attic artists,

and I'm so glad you're here to answer them, but I'm just going to turn the mic over to Derek. Derek, did you want to start with any particular, like I'm just trying to think of how we structure this. I know we're having a meeting on the fly here. Yeah, well, I mean, from our point of view and for the purpose of the book, we're talking about heavy metal.

And I think that Addict started out with more easy listening sort of artists and stuff. And we could go into lots of depth with that. But I think one of the harder acts that they started to break was Triumph. And I think maybe that's a good place to start. Let's do it. Since Rick Emmett is an FOTM, that means Friend of Toronto Mike,

and Al, you're now an FOTM yourself, so welcome to the club. It's almost as prestigious as getting the Order of Canada, almost. But it doesn't come with a lapel pin, so you'll... Okay. I get a T-shirt. You know what? I probably could get you a t-shirt but let's let's talk triumph i actually just saw the documentary on triumph i think it's on crave tv here in canada but what can you tell me about breaking uh this this toronto trio well mike and

gill came to us and i think it was mike knew tom previously from his Warner's days. I'm not sure why because they didn't record. His bands didn't record for Warner's but they had some relationship and they came and said look we want to form a power trio and there's a guitar player he's in a band the leader has a record contract with Capitol Records, but the guitar player, Rick Emmett, is not part of the contract. He's just a side man. And if we can get a record contract that he will be part of, he'll come join us, we think. So how about signing us? We have a single we recorded, two tracks, and all we want you to do is sign us, let us get Rick, and send out the single.

Don't worry about promoting it, but we'll go out on the road and we'll hone our craft and we'll write the songs, and when we're ready to make an album, we'll come back. So we signed them, no advance. The single, they recorded it at RCA Studios. It's not on any album. It's, I guess, a collector's item because not very many copies were made. But at that time, you have to remember that the bars bars there was a lot of work available for rock

bands in the bars uh you know all over uh eastern canada so they went out in the road for months touring in northern ontario and quebec and then they came back and said okay we're ready uh so we made the first album now I think uh Derek has a comment I was gonna say that at that point in time um there was a pretty strong circuit in Ontario and Quebec for bands to tour hard rock bands and burgeoning sort of heavy metal bands um but there was an appetite from what I understand from doing the research, there was an appetite for the club owners. They wanted to have cover bands. And so did Triumph run into that a little bit at the beginning of their... I remember Rush even said that.

Rush had to do covers at the beginning too. They started writing, and as they played, they started introducing original material into their sets. They came back and said, we're ready to make an album. So he made an album at Phase One Studios in Scarborough and launched it here in Toronto with a three-prong

approach. They played I'm trying to remember the name of the club on Western Road, Queensbury Arms. Right. I think it was the piccadilly tube downtown or it might have been the gas works and uh a bar in scarborough i'm trying to remember the name of long gone anyways that was their launch and we had commercials on the radio to support it and the album took off and uh there was one track on it was a cover of rocky mountain way uh which we released excuse me we released a single and that

got them a lot of airplay uh because it was camcon and it was a known song that was the only cover they did on that album. What year approximately? I'm just trying to, I'm curious what radio stations you would have been promoting Triumph on. I guess 78, 80. Okay, so Q107 launches, I know, because I just did a Q107 Mike Umentary

45 years ago this year, Q107. So they were around in 77. Yeah, Q was a big supporter of Triumph. And Triumph were a big supporter of Q. And John Donabee was there. I don't recall if John was there. Day one, I think, if I remember correctly.

Dave Charles, I think, hired him for a day one, but yes. Yeah. Mike Levine in particular got very tight with the announcers of q and they got a lot of support and we did the usual promo things with displays and contests and what have you and you know they were able to spray it out of just toronto and become a national band. And we sold, first album went platinum, which was 100,000.

And then we made the second album and it also went platinum. And I couldn't get a deal for the first album in the US. But there was a radio announcer in San Antonio, excuse me, by the name of Joe Anthony. And I had sent him a copy and he started playing it and called me.

And he had a partner with a guy who ran some pizza store chain and they were selling records through his pizza chain. So I started shipping them records to sell, and they kept playing the records. I don't think they ever paid me for any of the copies I sent them, so I don't know if that constitutes bail or not. Anyways, we're not talking a lot of copies, but we got the buzz happening in San Antonio and the guys in San Antonio were

presenting a concert. And I don't remember who was the headliner, but the headliner canceled and they had already had the show on sale and sold the tickets. So they called and asked if Triumph could headline. Wow. So of course Triumph for more than glad to headline so off they went to texas for their first headlining gig i think there was something similar to that uh happened with killer dwarves didn't it and that's not when they were with us okay uh the guys in san antonio they supported moxie and a number of other Canadian bands. I don't know if they helped them get deals. Anyways, I was continually shopping Triumph in the U.S.

And had the head of A&R, sorry, let me step back. They played Toronto. They were going to play Massey Hall as a showcase. And then Massey Hall heard about the pyro and said no way so they moved to uh maple leaf gardens what was called the concert bowl which was about 9 000 seats and we wanted it to be full so they hired April Wine as the opening act right uh we had eight or ten A&R people from the states up here and we went out for dinner and we came at intermission so they didn't know who the opening act was whether and we don't know whether or not April Wine how many additional tickets they sold but the point was the show was sold out so we had the

anr people all sitting in a row with somebody from attic in between each of them uh the anr people at that time tended to want to be hip and hard rock metal was not hip in their minds they were into english bands and what have you. Anyways, they all left at the end of the concert. On the plane on the way back to New York the next morning, they're all in business class, and the Globe and Mail wrote a scathing review of Triumph, which was to be expected.

Again, the writer at the Globe and Mail considered himself too hip. The guy from RCA was in economy. He didn't get the free newspaper. He was interested. RCA was not a hot label at the time. They were living on Elvis, and they had Jefferson Airplane and some other acts, but they weren't a major player by any means. So I said to Warren, that was his name, look, we'll make a deal. Take the tracks you want from the first two Canadian albums and put them together for the first

American album. And the deal will be an easy deal for you i'm not looking to beat you up financially but you have to commit to a second album as well it's minimum two albums so warren agreed and put out the first album and uh with rca and the band they were able to get things rolling pretty well in the U.S. And then the second album broke them through with RCA. And they were on their way in the U.S. Love it, Al. And I'm going to be asking you about another heavy metal band from Canada. But first, just really quickly, when I opened up on Twitter that you were going to be making your Toronto Mike debut, Michael Barclay chimed in.

And Michael Barclay, and this is unrelated to the heavy metal book for a moment, but ask him about the A&W Root Beer song, the rare pop hit led by Tuba. What's this about? A&W at the time had a bear, not an animated character, like a sports mascot. Yeah. And he was in the commercials, and he walked, and the song was called Badum Badum. It wasn't a hit, but it was fun. And actually, A&W sponsored a maritime tour by Flood the first time they had ever sponsored a band. That's wild. So Michael Barclay, yeah, he mentions that was an early Attic hit.

So I wanted to say that. And I also wanted to shout out another FOTM who chimed in when he heard you were coming on. His name is Gare Joyce. And Gare wants to know, Al, do you remember him writing a profile about you for Report on Business magazine? And it's okay if you don't, but his feelings will be okay, I think.

But do you remember this at all, Gare Joyce writing about you for Report on Business magazine? This might have been it. Oh, here, I've got to flip screens here. Okay, yes, okay. So he also says, Gare Joyce also says, that's great, he's going to be happy to remember. He says, and bagpipe and marching band albums. The secret of survival for any record company is a steady flow of product. You always have to have new releases to ship out because you're always getting returns and that's been the death of many many independent labels

around the world you know you you put out one record and you get some action on it but then next month you don't you're not shipping anything, so you're not bringing in any money. So we did all sorts of things, including bagpipes and marching bands, and we took shots at things that we thought would be fun. Awesome. Now, Chris, Derek. Also, Michael Barker, I've got to say his book is the best book on the Canadian music industry I've ever read. His recent book.

Just marvelous. Okay, so his most recent is actually 2000 to 2005, but the one before that's also very good, which covers like 1995 to 2000, I think. Yeah, I read that one, but it was the recent one that I thought was phenomenal. Hearts on Fire? Yep.

Yeah, I agree. I read it as well. 600 pages. It's a long read, but... You know, he's a great FOTM. Now, Derek, Chris, is now a good time for us to talk about Anvil? There's never a bad time, really. I'd like to know

what was the transition from Triumph to a band like Anvil? How did you become aware of heavy metal? Was that something that was even on your radar, or did you just kindumph to a band like Anvil? How did you become aware of heavy metal? Was that something that was even on your radar or did you just kind of stumble into it through Anvil? Because at that point, Anvil was one of the heavier bands around. And so for Attic, who had a history in some lighter sounding... The Rovers.

Yeah, things like this, right? Hey Good Hardy and things like this. It seemed to be a leap for any label, really, to tackle a band like Anvil. How did that come about? Well, first off, Tom and I had both promoted a variety of artists for the labels we worked for. So it wasn't anything alien to us. Our personal tastes at the time were singer-songwriters. And we signed a few,

Shirley Eichardt, Ron Negrini, Ken Tobias, and we got a lot of airplay on the artists, but we didn't sell very many records. And as I said earlier, even though we had raised 300 grand, Even though we had raised 300 grand, we had to be generating revenue on a daily basis. So we weren't closed to anything. And we said when Mikey Gill came with the concept of triumph, we did it. Why not? We had flood. And unfortunately, Brian Pilling had cancer. Fortunately, Brian Pilling had cancer, and we put out the first record and had success with it.

We actually bought the masters from another independent label that couldn't afford to finish the album and release it, Daffodil Records at the time. And Tom had promoted Flood when he was at Warner Brothers. So that was a friendship thing. Anvil, I don't know how Tom was I think friends with their then manager, Bruce somebody. Anyways, we got this record

by Lips. And it was just a white cover with lips in lipstick color on it. And we listened to it and said, hey, this is pretty good. It's a Finnish master. It's different with a Finnish master, you can say yes or no. When you're considering signing an act and putting him in the studio, and you don't know what the final cost is going to be and you don't know what the final outcome is going to be, it's a much different decision, a harder decision to make. With Anvil, it was an easy decision. So we signed them. And we introduced them.

We put out a Q107 homegrown album. If you remember them. Yes, indeed. They sold for $2.99 or something like that. Q107 Homegrown album, if you remember them Yes indeed They sold for $2.99 or something like that And As we were the label, we could put On who we wanted on it So we put Anvil on

And that helped With promotion at Q And it was a good record And we sold Almost gold in Canada with it. I had shopped it unsuccessfully in the U.S. Again, it wasn't considered hip by the A&R people. So I hooked them up with a guy named David Krebs,

who was managing Aerosmith at the time. He was a heavyweight manager, a friend. So he took them on for management and he put them on as opening act for an Aerosmith tour in the US. I went and saw them in Albany, New York, and Anvil did their set. And then it was intermission and Aerosmith one of the members I don't remember which one was too stoned to go on stage so Anvil went out and did the set all over again and which point they got the guy in Aerosmith unable to stand up. And then they went out and did their show. Anyway, David was shopping it. And he came back to us and said, I can't get a deal for the U.S. without Canada.

And that really, you know, was against what we were trying to do, was to retain Canada. But we thought, what's best for the band? We'll let you out of your contract with attic and so i think this was the time the second album if i remember right sure forged in fire anyways we let them out of their contract uh david never got them an american deal and years ago i I think it was when their movie had its premiere at a theater on Yonge Street. I was invited and I went and Rob said that the worst day of our life was when Attic let us out of the contract. Anyways, you know, we let them out of the contract. They never really made it big, unfortunately,

but they're still working at it. And they just announced some dates and that's great. I, you know, I love Rob. I love Lips. I'm glad that they're able to keep making music. Let's say you two gentlemen about Anvil on the tail there. You, Chris. Well, I was just wondering,

at one point for Metal on Metal, the trailblazing record, how did Chris Sangres get brought into it? I knew Chris. I used to spend every quarter, I would spend a week in London and another week on the continent. So for a lot of our acts,

we had a lot of European activity and one of those trips, I think it might've been the trip where I picked up David Coverdale, the Whitesnake album, which was Whitesnake was the name of the album, not the name of the band. I think that's when I met Chris. Anyways, he seemed an appropriate producer for Anvil. So we hired Chris to produce them. Yeah, they did great work together. I mean, that's a milestone kind of album.

And so I guess it begs the question too, and Forge and Fire was an amazing record too. And so what was your strategy to try and break them? I know that you guys got really uh you know good exposure for them on festivals in europe they were on monsters of rock and reading festival and that and i think at one point you guys opened an office in uh in the uk yeah we did trying to sort of spearhead was that spearheading anvil and lee aaron i guess yeah we hooked them up with neil warnick at the agency in England. He was the biggest agent

in Europe, and he had all the big rock bands. Anvil were just one of the actors we hooked up with, with Neil. And he got them on all the festivals. You know, they didn't have, they never had good management, unfortunately, and that worked against them. You know, they didn't have, they never had good management, unfortunately.

And that worked against them. It's now an appropriate time to talk killer dwarfs. I know we teased them earlier, but what can you tell us about killer dwarfs? Well, Tom, my partner, was single and lived downtown. So he was the guy who went out to the bars every night uh and he saw the killer dwarfs somewhere i don't remember where uh and he uh liked them and we were doing quite well with the high rock acts with anvil and god all in triumph uh so he signed the Killer Dwarfs. He made the first album. And as I recall, they demoed some songs for the possible second album. First album didn't do very well. And it was option time. As I said before, as a record company, when you send an act into the

studio, you don't know what it's going to cost, how it's going to sound, etc., etc. And we just weren't blown away by the demos. So we didn't exercise our options. So we just put out one album by the Killer Dwarfs. And again, I don't recall them having strong management. I don't recall them having management at all, unfortunately, which is really tough for a lot of Canadian acts when they don't have decent management who has clout,

not just a friend of the band, but somebody who can make things happen. Alex, do you remember a band called Kraken? Because they were quite good friends of Anvil and a phenomenal band at the time. They actually recorded with Chrisris as well a demo i'm aware of the name but i'm not familiar with the band no all right i just wondered because there was a lot of bands going around the time intro other than anvil of course there was crake and was another band called rapid tears i don't know

if you remember them no not at all so did you look around for every any other heavy metal bands particularly like were you looking for metal bands or is whatever just kind of crossed your path you took we're always on the lookout for new acts period of any kind but as i said the metal and hard rock fans were the most loyal uh so we were always looking for acts in that genre uh Somebody approached us with Lee Aaron. I don't remember who it was. I think it was Robert Connolly, who was managing Lee at the time. He approached us with the album Metal Queen,

which again was a finished album. Right. So all you do is say yes or no, negotiate a deal. So we did, and we picked up the Metal Queen album and put that out. This actually is a great segue. I'm glad you mentioned Lee Aaron. I was going to bring up the Metal Queen album and put that out.

This actually is a great segue. I'm glad you mentioned Lee Aaron. I was going to bring up our Metal Queen in a moment here. But since we're talking Killer Dwarfs and we're talking Lee Aaron, what role did Much Music play in the promotion of these acts? Because Much Music is where I learned about Lee Aaron and it's where I learned about Killer Dwarfs. Yeah. Well, Much music was really important. And again, at that time and going back to what I said earlier, when we went out and raised money,

we knew it was important that we had to make world quality records and videos. Initially when we started, there was no videos but uh actually in the early days we did with patsy glant we did some of the earliest canadian videos were from new york to la and a couple of other patsy glant tracks do you know where they air i'm always curious i know uh toronto rocks and i Video Hits and there was a show on CFMT called Something Else, I think it was called, with Jay Gold and Shirley McQueen. But where would you air a video in this country pre-Much Music? and of course there's already MTV in the US so again in the case of Lee Aaron

Conley came to us and he had already done the video on Metal Queen in Los Angeles, somehow he connived to get on a set at Universal City and produce the Lee Aaron video so it was an easy deal for us to pick up and Much had to play Canadian videos and there wasn't a lot of quality Canadian videos being made in the early days of Much.

So we were producing quality videos. So we got support on basically all the videos we did. For sure. I'm thinking, you're right, there was a small, a limited universe of Canadian hard rock, heavy metal videos.

I think I saw that Helix video every single day on Toronto Rocks. So shout out to Helix, also FOTMs. But glad you mentioned Lee Aaron. I'm actually going to read a question and I know that he's watching live on our live stream,

which is live.torontomike.com. Hello to Midtown Gord. Midtown Gord has a question and I know that he's watching live on our live stream which is live.torontomike.com Hello to Midtown Gord. Midtown Gord has a question for the Eve of Darkness guys. He says I saw an artist called Villavant. I hope I'm saying it right. Villavant opened for Leigh Aron on Friday.

She is young and super talented from Brampton. By the way, Leigh Aron's also from Brampton but we're talking about Villavant here.ne's also from Brampton, but we're talking about Willa Van Teer. And Leigh-Anne's a Karen. That's a fun fact. Okay. I was unaware of her before that evening. Where currently, I love this question,

where currently can one find out about new and upcoming metal artists in this country? That's a good question. Chris, Chris, this one's on you, buddy. Midtown Ward wants to, where do you get discovered? I'm an expert in the old things, not the new things. Yeah, well, there's a good question chris chris this one's on you buddy i'm in town ward wants to where do you i'm an expert in the old things not the new things there's a lot i know where to see anvil and i in the air in but what about like you know this century i honestly couldn't answer that i don't know where people go because you know much music is gone i don't know if you caught that memo and

the radio today is not playing new metal there's no new metal playing on the radio in toronto no you're right i mean i, I guess you've got to go down the rabbit hole that is YouTube. Or hope you see them open for a band like Lear. Or go live, yeah. I don't know where you'd see any of that stuff. What do you say, Derek? I'm no further ahead than Chris, to be honest.

Okay, Al, what about you? I don't know if you're keeping your ear to the ground anymore, but where would somebody discover a new metal artist in this country in 2022? Well, it's interesting you mentioned the person who opened for Lee. I didn't go. I'm not prepared to go inside a bar yet. I've had COVID and I'm old, so I won't go inside a bar. So i didn't see lee on friday but the act that opened i saw a post today on facebook about them and it sounds like it came from a management company and it was uh it was a produced little bit on facebook so obviously they recorded uh at elmo when they did a quick edit on something and have put it up on the internet.

I can't, I'm not aware of today's marketing things and how things get started with influencers and all the other stuff that goes on. I think Bandcamp is a big thing right now as well. It has been for the last several years. So there is a comment. Bandcamp is audio only. Yeah. And, you know, going back to what Mike asked earlier about the impact

when he saw Lee Aaron's video on Much. Much and MTV and the various European equivalents, once they played a video, they gave you a national and or international platform. Right. It's different from getting a radio station in Toronto to play your record and then trying to get it played in Winnipeg.

Much MTV, etc. were all national or international and they had immediate impact and they set the visual image of the act like it or not. They set it. There's somebody like Lee Aaron in The Metal Queen

that makes an impact, right? You get that connection with the artist and you get what they're trying to put across. And earlier on, in the earlier part of the 80s, there was only a limited amount of videos. So to Al's point, you're getting that international or national exposure, and you're getting it over and over and over again because there's not a lot of things. But you're also getting it over and over and over again because

there's not a lot of things but you're also getting it to a broad audience at once you are but like mike pointed out he saw helix every other day right because there was only so many videos to play you think about like it's an odd time for bands right now because they have the world at their fingertips with the computers they can reach anybody individually right but you can't do anything broad to capture people that are not looking for it. You can only capture the people that are seeking it. Now, DJ Dream Doctor is on the live stream at live.torontomic.com, and he's listening, and he says, Banger TV, so this is DJ Dream Doctor speaking, Banger TV is a good source for new metal. And when he says new metal, he doesn't

mean new metal. He means new metal. And I mean, there are websites too, like Brave Words was another, you know, supporter of the book. And they cover, you know, things that are vintage, like our topic, and they cover new shows too. Local bands.

Thank you, Midtown Gord. That was a great question. And there's another question. This is for you, Al. It's from Adam. And Adam writes, I had this attic records compilation called metal for lunch yeah please ask for any so i'm gonna read the whole thing

and we'll figure out where to focus but please ask for any stories about kick axe who appeared on the compilation as well as attic artists like lee aaron and john al John Albany appearing on their Welcome to the Club album, doing a cover of With a Little Help from My Friends. Al, what can you tell Adam about his Metal for Lunch album he loved? Well, the first record, there was two records involved. The first one was called Metal for Breakfast. Okay. And it was a compilation.

And not just attic artists. We i think we had judas priest and as i recall our then distributor was uh cbs columbia and they gave us access to some of their stars so we put out metal for breakfast and the cover was an announcer from Q. I forget his name, but long hair, black T-shirt. And he had a cereal bowl in front of him. And we put out metal for breakfast. And we used that to introduce some of the attic artists. And it was TV marketed on Much Music. So it was a gold album.

And then we did a subsequent one called Metal for Lunch. We also did one with Robert Connolly, Lee's manager at the time. I'm trying to remember the name of it. It had a cartoon cover, and it had a number of, I think it was all Canadian bands, and included the band that Sebastian Bach wasach was in his first band oh wicked yeah that was a maple metal comp wasn't it or was that the uh one with the girl on the front of it maple metal i believe was called yeah yeah cool cool any kick-ass stories for uh adam nope all right moving along uh so track on the album so as the uh 80s sort of

you know wore on um by the mid 80s the um the earlier part of the decade the the heavy metal that started out the 80s seemed to be a little bit passe and thrash metal and and more extreme forms of metal started to happen by the mid 80s. And at that point, Attic launched a sub-label, Viper. And I think the first signing was Razor? I think you're right, yeah. Or it may have been Blind Vengeance, because I know that they were kind of around the same time period. Yeah, they're both about the same time.

I don't remember which was which. Well, Razor were sort of upping the ante locally for thrash metal. And they were sort of, you know, Metallica was doing it in the States and Slayer and other bands were starting to do it. And in Canada, we had a few bands, Exciter and a few others that were in that sort of extreme realm. Anvil sort of touching on it as well. But Razor started to take it to another level in terms of speed

and the thrash genre. So they put out an independent EP first, and then I guess they were signed to Attic, and then the decision was made to release the first album, which was sort of part of the EP and part newly recorded material. So what was the logic behind that, rather than just going with a whole new, a brand new recording? Well, what was on the EP? Very few people had heard it. So why waste the tracks? And I don't recall whether Dave Carlo had somehow funded the entire album or

Attic funded completion. I don't recall the details on it, but we did use, I remember we used the EP because that had given them the image they had, a very underground image. So we released the first album. Unfortunately, again, we're talking lack of management. And if I remember right, one or more of the band members had day jobs and responsibilities. So they were never able to tour at the time, it was very frustrating because touring, as we talked about earlier with the bar scene, was very important for Axe.

And Razor were not able to do that. Did Attic never get involved with the management side of it? They didn't want to manage the bands? In a record company, you have a conflict. Right. So we did what we could for the bands. And in many cases, we were quasi-managing them. You know, back to the anvil situation right uh you know we got the booking agents in europe we worked with the booking

agents here in canada uh you know we got the things rolling and we did a lot more than a record company would be expected to do uh but we we didn't have the time or inclination to manage because management is a full time business. You know, my, my success with Lightfoot proved it. You had to know what you're doing. You had to have contacts. You had to be able to work with the record company. You had to be able to work with a book agency. You had to have a vision for the band that you could convince the band to follow.

So we're talking about that. For the Evil Invaders video, how involved was Attic with that? Did you spur that on? Who paid for that? We funded it, yeah. And how did that work out? Which is really one of the first thrash kind of band videos to come out of Canada, I think, right?

It didn't get a lot of exposure. Really? I think I probably got on Power Hour, on Much, and a few things like that, but I never got into regular rotation. But it was an important part of marketing the band, so we did the video, and we didn't get the results we had hoped for because of lack of support from the band

itself. There seemed to be a rapid succession of Razor records too. Once they got signed to Viper, I think there was three albums that came out within a span of about a year year and a half, something like that. I don't remember the details. It seemed like the label was supporting the band and the band was able to create enough output like you were mentioning about getting a new product out

there it seemed like that was it was a good pattern that that was happening where there was a lot of releases there was excitement there was a video and yet like you said it was they weren't able to maybe tour yeah the touring might have been the the hindrance i actually have a few questions for al i was so excited when i found out mr attic was going to be on the program i had brought out one of my 12-inch singles but we'll get to that in a minute al can you tell us the story of a teenage head at the ontario place forum yeah uh again Yeah. Again, I've said a couple of times, but when you're offered a Finnish master by a band, it's easy to say yes or no. And if you say yes, then it's a matter of working out the contractual details. Teenage Head with Frantic City was a Finnish master. They came to us and they shopped it to everybody including our then distributor CBS

so we were starting to get into a bidding war with CBS and I spoke to the president and I think he instructed his people to withdraw from the bidding war He instructed his people to withdraw from the bidding war. Anyways, Teenage Head signed with Attic. So we were very happy. And the first album, Frantic City, went well past Platinum. And they had a manager, Jack Morrow. Jack was his alias.

He had an Eastern European real name. I forget what it was. But he was very creative. And every teenage head date, he tried to make him something unique, whether it was going into a club and decorating it, you know, making it. I guess if it was in October, it would be a Halloween party or in Christmas or December, it would be a Christmas party, all the dates in December. Anyway, he was very creative in that. Unfortunately, he was a thief, but we didn't know that at the time.

So we put out the first album and we recorded, subsequently recorded a second album. I forget the title of it, but it also went gold plus. And we had had a number of acts play Ontario Place. My then wife was involved in programming of the forum of Ontario Place. So she might have had something to do with the number of our acts who got to play there. I don't know that for sure. But Teenage Head headlined.

And I had hired the Rolling Stones publicist. He had come up from New York. I had a friend at MTV in the States. He came up with a couple other MTV people. We had a couple other people from the States, not A&R people. I shopped Teenage Head in the States and the name,

most of the labels in the US were afraid of it. And the name came from, I think it was a Ramones song, but being a teenage attitude in your mind mind not of oral sex but right uh anyway they did ontario place and uh it was sold out uh it was magical uh some people couldn't get in a lot of people couldn't get in because the forum didn't have reserved seats. It was first come, first served. And some people might have been there at three o'clock in the afternoon at Ontario Place. And then they went to the forum.

So it was a problem at the forum with a number of our acts, Triumph and Gatto as well. And some people tried to swim across to get past the security, past the front gate. So it was reported in the paper as a riot, which to the best of my knowledge, it wasn't. But it was a wonderful night. And Frankie, to me, Frankie was the best front man I've ever seen. Wow. And if you were ever at Ontario Place at the Forum, there was a circular stage and it had a barrier between the stage and the seats. And Frankie got up walking in that barrier all the way around and the fans were touching him.

And Frankie was just just magical that night. So we had everything going for us. We had a commitment in New York from a radio station and a club, the club they were going to play in the radio station was going to broadcast the concert live. We had interest from MTV. And if we hadn't been able to get on MTV, that would have eliminated any problems with the name from the record companies. Anyways, as we know, shortly thereafter, Gord, their teenage head band went off the road. Gord broke his back.

The band hired David Bendis to fill in, but they didn't want to do New York without Gord. So all the momentum we had went down the tubes. Wow. Wow, what a story. I'm going to ask you this question. So I told you last Monday Steve Waxman and Kevin Shea were here, and they didn't work at the same – they each worked at Attica different times.

No, Kevin replaced Steve. Right, right, right. So Steve had great detail about one of my favorite artists, Maestro Fresh West. Yeah. He's been on the program a few times. So I brought out my 12-inch attic, put out this Maestro Fresh West, let your backbone slide. I've got drop the needle over here. But go ahead.

Something's happening. Can you see and hear me? I can hear you. Yeah, absolutely. Something's happened here. Oh, it's all good on my end, though. I can see me? I can hear you. Yeah, absolutely. Something's happened here. Oh, it's all good on my end, though. I can see you. I can hear you.

We're all good here. Okay, I can't see you. I can hear you, but I can't see you. Okay, okay. Well, I'm holding up the 12-inch for Let Your Backbone Slide. And it's kind of interesting. Oh, he's gone now. So, gentlemen, you two take over for a bit while we see.

Because I'm getting into my maestro quite, just now we're getting serious, okay guys? But why don't you guys tell us about some, if there's any heavy metal bands that had nothing to do with Attic. I have a note from Hamilton Mike who wanted to talk about Coney Hatch, Anvil, Killer Dwarves,

Svengali, Slick Toxic. So we did talk a lot of Anvil and Killer Dwarves, but what about Coney Hatch, Svengali, Slick Toxic. So we did talk a lot of Anvil and Killer Dwarfs, but what about Coney Hatch, Svengali, or Slick Toxic? Yeah, well, Coney Hatch is another one that we were going to get to on this list of Attic signings. So Coney Hatch is an Attic. The first album, I believe, was on Attic.

But they had some unfortunate... We cover this in the book, actually. There's a couple of unfortunate incidents where they were put on shows to give them a leg up locally. So they opened for Judas Priest on the Screaming for Vengeance tour. They opened for Iron Maiden for the Peace of Mind tour at Kingswood. But in both cases, they kind of got heckled off the stage. The audience, although, I mean, I think the first album is really entertaining is that the

one of monkey bars yeah i love it yeah and there's uh there's some good material on the first record for sure and it seemed like it would be a good fit for some reason and they cover it in the book and they kind of laugh about it these days but they got heckled off the stage well he's a sweetheart here are the three big topics i need to address with Al while we have him here. Maestro Fresh West, Weird Al Yankovic, those two for sure, and then I need to find out, you know, why did he sell Attic

Records? Because Attic Records, he starts it up in 1974 and he sells it in 2000. I'm interested. Who didn't dig Weird Al? So the story was, okay. Well, do you know where the sample comes was okay well do you know the where the sample comes from right the drop the needle sample so i did know but uh the story was told in great detail by steve waxman last week because he was there you didn't know it before that i did know it haywire i did know it i didn't know but you know why because um i've had maestro on three

times i've asked him about it and uh joel goldberg does this name mean anything to you he was actually we talked about like where would you see a music video before much music he was hosting a show on cfmt called uh something else i believe it was called as jay gold spinning like early videos you know before much music so but he also directed the first bunch of maestro videos so he directed the let your backbonebone Slide, the Drop the Needle. And there we're back on Maestro and we're reconnecting. I'm going to give play-by-play to all the FOTMs listening.

Alexander, he wants to be called Al. He's like Paul Simon said, call me Al. He seems to be reconnecting. It's joining. Another show. Well, we're waiting for him to join. Another show that deserves an honorable mention for both the punk and the metal side of things

is The New Music. Yes. Right? And so that was started... Jeannie Becker and J.D. Roberts. Exactly. It started in the late 70s and it's very important to be playing

really obscure music on mainstream TV. And that's how I... As being not from Toronto, that's how I learned about a lot of Toronto metal. And while we're at it, talk about community radio. Right? Like CKLN was a great resource for

all of us. A guy named Brian Taylor was playing... Know the name well. Yeah, he was playing a lot of this music as it was breaking on ARGROCK. And that's great because let's shout out not heavy metal, but for hip hop, let's shout out DJ Ron Nelson. Yeah, that's right. Because this is going to bring us back to Al.

How you doing, buddy? Welcome back. Am I back? You're back. Sorry. My computer crashed first. That's okay. I kicked out a... I'm just glad you came back. You could have been like, forget these guys. But I, as I tease the audience, I need to talk

Maestro Fresh West and Weirdo Yankovic and then I need to find out why you sold Attic Records, but let's start with Maestro. What can you tell us about Maestro Fresh West? Well, as Steve told you, he approached West when he was in

another act. Vision? Yeah, I think that was the name of the band wasn't anr he was promotion right so anyways he saw them at something and gave wes his card but wes never followed up anyway the again it was a finished album that was done and uh joel goldberg had produced a video on Backbone. And I don't recall, probably came through Steve, going to Much Music and finding, you know,

every week and finding out what's happening. Anyways, they had sampled Haywire, a song called, just a line called Drop the Needle. Dance Desire was the song, right? Yeah, the Haywire song. Yeah, and he, yeah, they start with drop the needle, right? Yep. And Wes had sampled it.

So I said, okay, they didn't clear the sample. So I said, okay. They didn't clear the sample. So I got the contact information for LMR Records in New York, which is a label Wes was signed to. And I called, and the head of the label was a guy by the name of Larry Molas. Larry's father is a big real estate tycoon in New York. And I don't know why he started the record company, but he did and signed Wes.

So I talked to Larry and I said, you know, you've got this sample. It's unclear. You've released the record in the U S you know, you, you can't take it off now. It's too late. So let's do a deal. So I told him how much I wanted for the sample. Then I said, well, but I'll pay you that amount to license the record for Canada. And Larry said, fine. So the money didn't pass hands at the time.

But we got the Canadian rights to Maestro. And literally the rest is history. It took off. Just a magic video. You know, Wes is a great guy. We had a great relationship. And then when his contract with LMR ended, we signed him directly to Attic.

And I don't know if you remember, he did a hip hop version of the Guess Who, These Eyes. Of course. Using the original masters. Stick to your vision. To make them clear. Stick to your vision. Yeah.

Love it. I just love the whole story. And yeah, he was discovered on uh electric circus which was co-created by the aforementioned uh j uh joel goldberg so he's on that and stevie b rmb artist stevie b sees him and then hooks him up with lmr and in the u.s and the rest is history. The bad side, unfortunately, we paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties to LMR, and Wes didn't see any of it. That is tragic. It is.

And now he's living in New Brunswick because he says it's too expensive here. If that money had gone to the artist, he'd be here today. Possibly. All right, let me talk about an American now. That's a great Canadian success story, Maestro Fresh West.

But how do you end up representing Weird Al Yankovic here in Canada? As I said earlier, I traveled a lot and I went to Europe every quarter for two weeks and over a period of time made relationships, friendships. I knew what pub people went to after work and I was invited out with them. So I would meet not just the person I was dealing with, but the staff. And, you know, we ended up licensing a lot of foreign masters. We had Motorheads, Ace of Spades.

We had Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac. We had his first two albums. We had David Coverdale. A lot of that. We were in the licensing business and jennifer warren i had licensed the nylons to uh an american label called wyndham hill which was distributed by a and m and they had done quite well we sold over a million albums in the U.S. with the Nylons. Wow. But they had an option. And one of the two lead singers of the Nylons, unfortunately, was dying of AIDS.

So we did a live album at Ontario Place. And it was kind of a best of with some original material. And Wyndham Hill didn't want to pick it up for whatever reason I never really understood because it wasn't a an expensive deal and the album was going to sell probably at least a hundred thousand in the U.S. and for Wyndham Hill an indie label that was good business you know that's a million dollars in business uh so i was in la shopping the nylons and probably other things at the time and it was friday i had lunch with somebody uh and he mentioned that uh a guy by the name i'm trying to remember chuck's last name. Oh, his name's escaping me. Anyways, he was running Scotty Brothers Records.

And he was a fan of the Nylons. So my friend said, you should call Chuck. So my friend called Chuck and said, yeah, I'd like to talk. So my plane was later in the day, so I had a couple of hours. So I went over to Chuck's office and met with him and played him the Nylons album. And he said, yeah, we definitely want it. And I said, well, what are you doing in Canada? And he said, nothing.

Our deal with CBS ran out some time ago, and they had no representation in Canada. So I gave them the Nylons live album with no advance. And they gave me the Scotty Brothers catalog with no advance. And that included Weird Al. A number of others. Survivor, which had Eye of the Tiger. It was a wonderful catalog. But Weird Al was the biggest selling act in it.

And all his back catalog, no artist sells like Weird Al. And then when we got our first new release, we brought Al up to Toronto and he worked with Steve and he worked with the people at Much Music. music again as steve i listened to your interview with steve and kevin as they said al uh could cat nap for 20 minutes he did it in our office we were having a meeting and we looked and al was lying in the floor sound asleep uh he'd work all night which is what he did at much music and did regular promotion during the day and he had just a great relationship with much. And he also had a great relationship with Tarzan Dan who had a video show on another network. YTV.

Yep. Uh, and we worked closely with Al and Al's manager and, uh, it was just a wonderful relationship, uh, until Scotty brothers sold the label. And that was the end of our relationship with them.

Well, as you know, there's no one nicer on the planet than Kevin Shea, and Kevin Shea tells me that Weird Al is an absolute sweetheart. So that's one sweetheart talking about another. So I love it. And I want to shout out Brian Dunn. It was Brian Dunn who really wanted to make sure that I asked you for any Weird Al stories, as if I was going to forget to ask you about weird al but sounds like the man could catnap uh like a champion yeah it was great

again as they said you know he graduated as an architect uh you know uh and music was initially architect. And music was initially just a hobby with Dr. Demento. I'm looking for a particular picture on my phone if I can find it. I used to listen to Dr. Demento on Chum FM on, I think, Sunday nights at 8 o'clock or so.

Don't know if you can see that well or not. Pull it back a little bit because sometimes you get to... It's hard to make out the detail, but I see was that Weird Al? know if you can see that well pull it back a little bit uh because sometimes you get okay i kind of can it's hard to make out the detail but i see was that weird al and and is that weird and you okay yeah i'm gonna change the lighting maybe that'll help oh amazing okay i love it i love these photos okay let me let me see this here uh no it's not helping no but i can see the the mustache i'm sure that's al and then i see that make that makes you the other guy and i can see his his shirt it's always very loud but you you yourself

today al you're wearing uh there's two owls i just realized but you're wearing a a shirt that could be in tribute to weird al yankovic it could be but i always in the summer wear hawaiian shirts you know what i'm to start doing that. You guys, we should be wearing more Hawaiian shirts. So here, before I find it. I do have a question for him, if you don't mind. Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. Chris, if you have any question for Al, now is the time.

Al, you mentioned Attic did a lot of licensing, and you licensed Motorhead Records. And one of the ones that always fascinated me was you re-released the What's Word Worth, but you released it as the watcher with a completely different cover. And as one of my favorite record covers, the watchers, you know, man in the brass diving helmet, just floating. You remember that? Nope.

No. Oh, what label was it on? For you attic. Was that attic? Not road runner. No. Okay. No, I i i don't remember that particular record sorry it's just a license deal you did i was just always wondered where that you know image came from but i guess you can't answer that if you don't remember it sorry no sorry i've been

very impressed with al's recall but uh there's just evidence he can't remember every detail there but this is 40 years ago, guys. All right, before we say goodbye to you, because you've been amazing, Al, why sell Attic Records in 2000? I sold it. I was 60 years old. I wasn't particularly fond of the music that was popular then, hip-hop.

You know, back to Wes. Wes never made sexist records. We always talked about it. I was 60. I wasn't relating to the music that was popular. I'm sure the artists that we were talking to weren't relating to me either. You know, we weren't a large corporation. So I started thinking, you know, what do I do with the record company? And in my mind, I was going to go with not invest in new Canadian artists

because that's where the risk was in the expense. Probably downsize strictly to licensing foreign product and maximizing the bottom line for me and my family. Unfortunately, both Scotty Brothers and Roadrunner were both sold, and they were the backbone of our licensed product. But at the same time, fortunately, Alan Gregg, who at that time managed the Tragically Hip, he came knocking on my door and said, I'm starting a record company.

It's going to be a public record company with access to the stock market. We'd like you to be an addict to be the core. And we'd like to buy you if you're interested. And I was interested. I didn't let on how much I was interested, but I made a proposal that, you know, the offer. I was quite honest that we were losing Roadrunner and Scotty Brothers, but we went ahead with the sale and launched Songcourt, which unfortunately a year later went bankrupt.

But then you ended up with the Order of Canada, so... 20 years later. FOTM Almayer was 82 years old and will be missed.