Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Richard Rodwell a.k.a. Maximum 60: Toronto Mike'd #1353

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

In this 1353rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Richard Rodwell a.k.a. Maximum 60 about Beat Factory Productions and his work with The Dream Warriors, Maestro Fresh-Wes, Michie Mee & LA Luv and others. Also, his composition for many YTV shows, Cash Cab and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Yo, where'd everybody go? What up, Miami? Toronto VK on the beat I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm a Toronto Mike, you wanna get the city love My city love me back for my city love

Welcome to episode 1,353 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Thank you. RecycleMyElectronics.ca Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable,

informed, and focused on long-term success. Season 5 of Yes, We Are Open. An award-winning podcast hosted by FOTM grego for manaris and ridley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921 today making his toronto mic debut is richard rodwell better known to me as maximum 60 hello richard, Richard. Hey, how are you? How do you want to be addressed? Mr. Richard Rodwell or Maximum 60? Oh, let's just go with Richard.

Let's go with Richard. Maximum 60. I will call you Richard from now on, but we'll get into the origin of that name, Maximum 60. But how are you? How are you doing? I'm great. Great.

Great feeling good. good to be here did you recognize the cold open off the top so here i'll play it again here yo where'd everybody go does that resonate with you yeah that's for sure that's off the dream warriors album uh i think that one's called maximum in a dream i think is that the one called Maximum in a Dream. I think, is that the one? Maximum 60, Lost in a Dream. Like that's the name of that. That's like a track. You buy the CD, which I did. Yeah.

And I got, okay, I'm a big Dream Warriors fan. So we're going to get really deep into this album. This is everything. I'm going to ask you a million questions. But that track is called Maximum 60, Lost in a Dream. It's like five seconds long that's it in its entirety that's the whole track yeah yeah it was it was like and we use it at the end of the uh my definition uh video as well it's like i know it's just in the studio and just yo everybody go

okay so not to bury the lead but that's your voice on that track that is that is me yes yes dude i'm so excited to be talking to you. I mean, I don't know if you do a lot of press. You told me right off the top you don't do a lot of podcasts. No. Is this your podcast debut? This is my podcast debut, yes.

I'm honored. And I made you come all the way from far away. You know, we won't dox you here, but it was a long trek for you. So I just want you to know I do have parting gifts for you. This is sort of like like i don't know the like when you lose on jeopardy and they give you the board game or something but congratulations to you because this is like recent news i think this news broke after i scheduled you to appear on toronto mic

the canadian songwriters hall of Fame is celebrating four classic songs from the 80s and 90s. I'll name them in no particular order. One is Informer by Snow. Do you like that song, Informer? Of course, of course. Great song. I had a chat with Snow's manager

just the other day. I'm going to get Snow on this program. Darren, as you know, just like i won't call you maximum 60 i guess i should call snow uh darren but informer big toronto jam martha and the muffins echo beach what do you think of echo beach oh my who doesn't love echo beach i love that song you know the guitar and and what those guys are doing is just ahead of its time great song i should have wore my martha and the muffins t-shirt big fan they're they're fotms like you and what those guys are doing is just ahead of its time. Great song.

I should have wore my Martha and the Muffins t-shirt. Big fan. They're FOTMs like you. That means Friend of Toronto Mike. Richard, you're now an FOTM. Cheers. Welcome to the family. All right.

Excellent. That's another epic Toronto jam. This song, before I get to the last one, which will lead us into the opening remarks here, Drinkin' in L.A la by brand band 3000 that's a montreal band but what do you think of that song drinking in la um it was it was it was cool i i wasn't i wasn't like a huge fan of it but i thought wow this is this is really cool and and like what they're doing creatively as far as the um the samples and the programming because i'm always looking at things from a uh from a sort of, from a picking a point, picking apart, you know, a technical view.

But yeah, it was a great track, cool track. Because I mean, we're going to get to know you better in moments, but you're a, you're a composer. You're, you're, you know, that's, that's how your brain, you, you pick apart a song. You can kind of see how it gets assembled, right? You can break it down. Yeah. Like I'll be in the mall and in, in, in like a clothing store and I'll hear something playing, you know, in, in the background on the speakers in the store. And I'll be like, oh, and I'll remember, I'll remember the drum pattern or something. And I'll go, I got to try that when I get home and stuff like that.

I wish I had your brain. Can I borrow it like for a weekend? I'll bring it right back. Well, the problem is you don't want to switch with my brain because you'll be thinking, you know, the thoughts that are popping in there, like why weren't the Dream Warriors on this? Okay, so we'll get to all that. We'll get the final. I don't want to bury the lead.

This is going to open our conversation. But the fourth and final song being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame is, hey, you know what? I can play this song. What am I thinking? Let's start a little bit of this, and that'll warm us up here, get us going here.

What the fuck is this? My definition of a boombastic jazz style. Here we go, are you ready for one another? Dream Warriors, noise, noise is new, discover old Once again with a new blend, so telephone a friend Yo, Dream Warriors got this new song, it's dope, man! I'm back this to the prime as Optimus Fans are friends, I'm universal and cosmic Concrete jungles abound

Stand by the speaker, you're smothered and covered up in the sound You stand strong as you pump your fists I'm talking all that jazz Now what's my definition? My definition My definition My definition is this My definition

My definition My definition My definition is this My definition My definition is this My definition, my definition is this, my definition. Okay, Richard, now is your time to shine. You were there.

What exactly, firstly, I guess right off the top, when you hear that song in the cans right now, and I don't know if you've heard it a million times or if it's been a while, I have no idea, but what are you thinking as you listen to My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style by the dream warriors wow you know um because i was when i created i i just i just think of the time in the studio i think of the the intricate uh programming and stuff that went into making it all come together uh it brings back um visions of eng England as well because we were in a jazz club in England

and and that's sort of how the the sample came together we met a DJ and he's like oh you guys gotta you know do some stuff and and so here I'm gonna send you guys a bunch of albums and Louie is the one that went through the albums and we found these samples and we just put them together and that's how this song came together. Okay, let's break that down. Just like when you hear a song in the mall and you start breaking it apart,

I got to take that sentence and break it down. So this, of course, for Canadians, we're Canadian here, this is like, we know it as like the definition theme song, which is, of course, why it's called my definition of a boom bastic jazz sound. But this is a Quincy Jones sample, right? Yeah, yeah, it is.

Okay, so I want to know who's involved. I need to know. In fact, the more detail, the better. You know, I know you're probably used to these guys want their two to five minute sound bites about, you know, this great song by Dream Warriors, but specifically... Oh, yeah, let's hear it.

Oh, yeah, no, no, we got another minute left. Okay. You hear this, obviously, you hear the bossa nova? Is that the name of the... Soul bossa nova. Soul bossa nova. Okay, so you hear this thing, and then what your brain automatically starts uh thinking about how you can uh sample that loop that and get you know king lou and capital q to to rhyme over it like break it down for me again i you know um a lot

of people don't know this but like louie is lou or king lou is the creative genius really behind the whole project the whole and now the legacy begins album genius really behind the whole project, the whole, and now the legacy begins album because he's the one that took the, took the records home and listened to them. And then he would come into the studio and say, Hey Rich, we're going to sample this. Let's sample this.

Let's sample this. Let's sample this. Let's cut that. Let's do this. Let's do that. And sometimes, especially with this song, I was like,

Louie, what? No, no, no, we can't do that. He'd be like, Rich, no, trust me, man, just trust me. How I describe it is he was

the architect and I was the builder. He would bring all the raw ideas. He'd have a blueprint or something. You'd have to build this thing. Exactly, and add finishing touches to make it all sound seamless in that. Okay.

Step back a little bit before we get back to, and the legacy begins. I mean, I've had, I say, I should say I've had DJ Ron Nelson in the basement here and I've grilled him, but now I'm going to grill you,

Richard, but build us up to how do you end up getting involved with, I guess, beat factory, right? This is, this is when you're, you're not only the,

the dream Warriors, but FOTMs like Maestro Fresh West, Mishy Me, Kish. Like, I love this scene. So how do you end up involved in Beat Factory productions? And just give us that origin story. Wow. That goes way back, right?

Because you don't, I mean, I thought an older guy was going to be at my door. I'll be honest. I thought you'd be older. Because I know you're doing this in 1984 and i'm doing the math but you must have been very young when you began um well i'm i'm a lot older than i look okay let me see some id sir oh you got a driver's license there i'm gonna i i have no shame in telling anybody i'm gonna be 60 next month so that's what 60 looks like 60 feels

great bro yes all right i gotta i gotta i gotta know what you know i'm about a decade away but now i know i got my work cut out for me all right so you know ivan berry's part of this story the beat factory productions uh i need the whole story the mic is yours give it to me now i'm documenting this history in toronto rap uh, so we're going to go deep. Let's go deep. Let's go deep. So it's funny because I was speaking to a guy, and everybody has to know this person's name

because this is the person that got me interested in electronic music from the get-go. His name is Lennox Grant, L-E-N-O-X Grant. And Lennox and I actually met when we were five years old at a place called scarborough gospel temple there's a church um in scarborough and we sort of you know we're banging on the piano together and then years later years later lennox um goes to a high school in pickering and i go to the same high school i'm Hey, aren't you the guy that was back? Hey,

since five years old. Right. Wow. He's like, yeah, that's me, man. And he had a Casio keyboard.

I don't know if you remember the little ones, the ones that played da da da. Yes. No, I remember. He had one of those little ones and he would play in the halls of the school. And so I was like, man, this is great.

So, of course, I had to get a Casio keyboard, right? So I think it was a version bigger or something. And we would play these sort of off-the-top-of-our-heads songs around the hallway of the school. And Ivan Barry went to the same high school as us. In Pickering. In Pickering, yes. And one day Ivan said, hey, you guys are pretty cool.

I could get you some gigs and I could get you to play at the roller skating rink and stuff. So that's how it all started. We started as a group called Traffic Jam. jam um it was lennox and i with like six keyboards each going on on stages and just playing electronic music and just you know with with with no vocals or anything um and then we did that for a while and then we got a singer involved who was rupert gale uh rupert gale got involved um because people are like you guys need a singer and so rupert came on board and we sung in traffic jam toured around toronto and ontario as a quarter kind of like a rock funk band and we did that for a while and then traffic jam sort of broke up and then it was lennox who came up with the idea of beat factory he he he

created the name and um beat factory became a production company producing um music for other artists so he started working with be cool and all those guys um and then after that he sort of finished with beat factory and that's when i came on board and then ivan said hey you know i've got there's a girl called missishimi. And so Ivan would go and find the talent. And then I'd be the guy that would put the music together. All right. So specifically, let's start here with Mishimi. I love Mishimi.

Yeah. I've been over here a few times. She knows what I think of her. So specifically, what was Beat Factory Productions doing with Mishimi? And LA Love, I guess. And LA Love, yeah. We started just making tracks for them. was beat factory productions doing with mishimi and la love i guess and la love yeah um we we started just just making tracks uh for them and then they got involved with boogie down productions that's all through through ivan and um yeah it was just just making music it was just you know i i did

jamaican funk and uh victories calling and on this mic that you know different tracks like that those were big i mean you're talking to a guy who watched a lot of much music back then these were these were big much music jams i loved it yeah making funk wow yeah yeah yeah and then um yeah and then we you know the dream warriors album that we did that and so what was your so because i want to dive deeper into dream warriors specifically but what uh were you guys doing with maestro fresh wes maestro um i did a track on his album he wasn't really involved with with with the beat factory camp he was under farley's wing so farley sort of guided his career and and got production for him and all that but um maestro reached out to me and said, Hey, I need a slow song. And so I, I said, okay, I'll bet I'll do it. So I created private symphony. that was like a single after like Love in an Elevator.

Like you always had to slow it down or whatever. And I did notice there was a time in the like late 80s, early 90s when, you know, rappers would throw like a slow jam in the mix. Yeah, yeah. So that's Private Symphony. Yeah, yeah, Private Symphony, yes. Okay, which also, now this gives me an opportunity to shout out a good FOTM who actually connected me with you.

And he also directed a number of the videos that we're talking about, Maestro Fresh West videos, etc. And Dream Warriors videos. But let's shout out, I know him as J Gold, Joel Goldberg. What do you think of Joel Goldberg? Joel Goldberg, he's a mensch. You know, he's just like... And that's a good thing.

Yes. Pepsi taught me that. It's a good thing. Okay taught me that it's a good thing okay good to be a mensch yes joel goldberg is is a solid guy uh creative um just creative juices flowing you know uh he created electric circus with uh as you probably know with with sharon cavanaugh and always a always a visionary pleasure to work with great guy look if i don't know that then put a put a bullet in me. I'm done here.

Absolutely. He's a co-creator of Electric Circus and a good guy. And every time he's on the show, I'm sorry, every time he's mentioned on the show, I like to drop a little sample here. No Cleveland, no Bowie. A little louder this time. No Cleveland, no Bowie. So that's for Joel Goldberg, who's a good Cleveland guy.

So that's Michael Williams on Toronto Mic'd. And every time Cleveland gets mentioned or Joel Goldberg gets mentioned, I'm probably going to drop that little sample here. So let's get very specific about one album in particular. And now the legacy begins. In fact, I'm going to play a little more music. You can't stop me. Of course, I'm going to play a little more music. You can't stop me. Of course, I'm going to play a little more music. How about some of this? You wash your face in my sink In my sink sink In my sink sink

You wash your face in my sink Simplicity with synchronicity makes a mind-mail Revealed impossible like a walkthrough on my field Sadly get up to bat and take a swing Think should I, should not Try too late You sunk into the sink then I wash my face You wash your face in my sink

In my sink sink You wash your face in my sink You wash your face if I sing, if I sing, sing, sing You wash your face if I sing, if I sing, sing You wash your face if I sing, tougher That's what I'm getting, I'm getting rougher And you beat me, suffer The loss of an attempt, well tried Well your side tried, but my side will never be denied Cause I'm swinging and stinging, neglection with an injection of truth

I've come to untwist the twisted How does it feel now that I got you all to think? Yeah, and wash your face if I sing, if I sing, sing I've come to untwist the twisted. How does it feel now that I got you all to think? Yeah. And wash your face in my sink. Wash your face in my sink. Here I go, I, here I go, I, here I go again. I have a little face. I don't want to fade it down, but I want to hear your voice, of course, Richard.

But, again, what are you thinking now when you're listening to Wash Your Face in My Sink? Again, I'm thinking just the intricacy of what is going on musically. It's almost like a dream. It's like I kind of remember doing it I, I kind of remember doing it, but I kind of don't because I've done so much stuff. You know, it's, you've done a lot,

but I'm guessing that this is a particular point of pride for you because we're talking about over a million units sold worldwide. This was a big album. Yeah. Huge album. And, and you know what? In fact, it's this track that started off everything.

Watch your face in my sink. You know, we did the demo we sent it over to england and island records freaked out and they're like hey you guys got to do an album immediately and wash your face my sink blew up went to top 10 and across europe uh top of the pops and all that so this is a track that really started it so this was um when i hear this song it's like man this is this is a track that really started it. So this was, when I hear this song, it's like, man, this is like the beginning. This is like really the beginning of everything. Yeah, for most of us, particularly us normies, this is the first Dream Warriors song we heard was this song right here. And it was a love at first listen.

I'll be honest with you. Even 2023, I'm listening to it and I'm just digging it. It's great. Great. I have a question about the popularity of the Dream Warriors in England. What do you think they got that maybe wasn't resonating as strongly

with Americans, for example? I'm just curious because we often hear the Dream Warriors far more popular, I believe, in England than in the United States of America. What are your thoughts on that? Canada has eventually caught up to England and Europe. But back in those days, Europe was way more advanced in just the way they thought, just in how they dressed,

in the kind of foods they had. Just their whole creativity and mindset was just much more advanced than Canadians, especially in certain genres of music. So I think it just took a, you know, they saw the creative more of the project. And also there seems to be like there's a jazz fusion in the mix there, which I think later, you know, with Dillasoul and Tribe Called Quest, for example, it's almost like possibly, again, these are my thoughts. I want to hear your thoughts. But Dream Warriors were almost on the bleeding edge,

like almost too ahead of the curve in that kind of a blend. Yes, yes, great analogy. Yeah, yeah, you captured it. That's exactly what it was. Sometimes being on the bleeding edge uh you're you're you know maybe it's king lou is the creative force but you can you're visionary you see almost too far ahead and it's like it's like that scene in um back to the future where he's playing the van halen or whatever and he's like you're not ready for that yet you know what i mean it's like but you still sold i mean it's hugely popular and influential album that sold over a million units canadian rap artists simply didn't sell a million

units back then this is way before you know you know drake probably could like sneeze into a microphone and it'll be uh streamed a million times by lunch but But back then, no, this was a rarity. And the scene was sort of, you know, and this will tie in back to DJ Ron Nelson because I'm curious of his role in all this because am I right that the And Now the Legacy Begins album by the Dream Warriors is literally recorded in DJ Ron Nelson's basement?

Yes, yes, yes. You know, it's funny you mentioned that before coming over here today i listened to the the kish interview oh yeah i love kish yeah kish is my boy and kish described it perfectly you you went downstairs and beat factory was to the left ron nelson was to the right wow and um yeah i i lived in that studio so i lived in a little little 10 by 6 room. I was there probably for like three or four years. And I had a little microwave in the corner.

And I slept on a futon with no board. So just a futon mattress on the floor. And broke like they had these pizza pizza coupons and i'd have to you could get two sandwiches for five bucks and i would i would go and get the the five dollar sam's have one for like you know mid-morning and the other one would be for dinner and like just tough times and just yeah well if you heard Kish's episode, you know, Andrew Cascino, who was wizened up and became a voice actor so he could pay his bills.

He's in California. Hello to Kish. Then you heard him disclose to me in that episode what he made from Order From Chaos. Like I purchased the CD Order From Chaos. I remember buying it in the basement of HMV at 333 Yonge Street. Just like I bought it now The Legacy Begins.

These were CDs I purchased and I loved. But I was personally blown away when Kish revealed, you know, what he made from that album, which wouldn't buy you a large pizza today. Mm-hmm.

Like, it sounds to me like a criminal level, like that the artist would be so squeezed like that. It just just something smells there and i would wonder what your thoughts are well you know what you know what at the end of the day at the end of the day all of us all of us back in the day just did it for the love of doing it you know we just we just simply somebody was making money somebody was making not the artist

yeah but we didn't you know at least i didn't i can't speak for everybody but at least i never i just never thought about the the financial part of it and they appreciated that because they knew they could exploit that naivety i'm getting mad here okay i'm still mad at the what i uh i watched the fifth estate yesterday with the the buffy saint marie uh revelation so I'm kind of fired up on all this stuff, these injustices, et cetera. I think it's messed up that the artist seems to make the least from their art in this structure, this music production infrastructure.

It should be flipped. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Things are just the way they are there's various groups you've moved on from that yeah better place, better opportunity these days

DJ Ron Nelson, I'm curious since we talked about some of these early Canadian hip hop acts like Mishy Mee Maestro Fresh West of course Dream Dream Warriors, more. Kish, what role does Fantastic Voyage on CKLN play in all this? And specifically DJ Ron Nelson? Well, Ron Nelson, I mean, without Ron Nelson,

there would be no hip hop scene. Point blank, done, finished. I mean, he brought all of the American acts from New York and all over the place to concert halls so that we could see them live. And, you know, man, these guys are human beings that we can touch. You know, because without them, without seeing them perform, you know, there's, there's no, um, nothing to look up to, nothing to. So when those guys came on stage, it was like, oh man, I could, I could be one of the, it gave us all hope. And, and Ron really exposed that hip hop scene on a national level to

everybody. So, uh, he's not in red respect for Ron Nelson. Absolutely. Uh, There's actually, you're bored one day, I had Chuck D on the program and we talked about DJ Ron Nelson and Fantastic Voyage and bringing the first hip-hop shows to Canada and it's quite an interesting listen.

If you get a minute. Alright, before we conclude, because you've done so much more, it's funny, it's like, oh, this guy invited me to his basement and he just wants to talk about and now the legacy begins it's like you're like i have so many decades of great stuff and we're going to cover a lot of that but just one more Ludi, Ludi, Ludi, Ludi, Ludi My mother wanted me to make another song Something brand new so she could dance to too So this one's dedicated to no other than my mother

My father, my sisters and my brother Or you could say the family, or better yet the families Oh wait a sec, what the heck This one's for Jamaica, Africa, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts, Bermuda, Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Martin's, and do not forget Montserrat, Nevis, Aruba, Grenada, Guyana, and Cuba, St. Vincent, Anguilla, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Curico, Dominican Republic, and Rio, Martinique and Guadalupe, and Virgin Islands. Truly, this one's for my mother when we were playing. Luli, Luli, Luli, Luli, Luli, Luli.

So Richard, when the albums dropped, did they drop them back then? I guess that's a modern term. But now the Legacy Begins is released, and it becomes a commercial and critically acclaimed album. Were you at all surprised, or did you know it all along? That's a great question. I was surprised.

I was really surprised at the reception, and I guess it's something we created that people just resonated with around the world. And when a media company from England called me, I remember lying in bed and they called me, Are you Richard Arnold? And they did this whole interview on me. That's when I was like, okay, this has gone big. There's something happening. Yeah, there's something happening there, yeah.

Wow. And on November 1st of this year, that's only a few days away, okay? It's the October 28th today at Toronto's, the Glenn Gould Studio there by the CBC. They're going to induct my definition of a boombastic jazz style into that Songwriters Hall of Fame. Will you be there? Absolutely. Yes.

Good for you, man. Get your flowers. You deserve them. I'll be there. King Lou will be there. Capital Q. Yeah. It's going to be a great evening.

To bring it back to the great Joel Goldberg, he is actively working on getting King Lou, Louis Robinson, and Capital Q. Does he have a real name, or is it just on his birth certificate, Capital Q? I don't know if I'm allowed to divulge that information. We know Snow is a Darren O'Brien,

but yeah, we don't have to. But Capital Q, King Lou, got to get them on Toronto Mic'd. We got to talk more about that scene here. So you, co-owner of the Beat Factory, got to get them on Toronto Mike we got to talk more about that scene here so you co-owner of the Beat Factory we talked about you doing that with Ivan Barry when does it end and why

I mean you run for you have a good decade there but why does it end for the Beat Factory production it was really good everything has it's time everything has it's start everything has it was really good um everything has its time everything has its start everything has its end and um i just when we did after the european tour um which was six weeks across europe um promoting the album i i just i just felt it was when i get i was like you know when i get back to canada i'm gonna i'm gonna do something different i'm gonna

i'm gonna pursue a different uh direction in what direction was that um it it worked out that it was it was television that i i didn't know at the time but i i just knew that um i just knew that i was like okay i'm kind of done with with producing rap uh after that yeah so it's funny because uh uh or at least a coincidence that joe goldberg now you know he works at the zoomer plex the zoomer plex is in liberty village it's he's it's uh the ytv the old ytv studio it's the same geographical location and you maybe i'll play another this is not not the dream warriors but and i hope i pulled the right clip here it It's tough to find quality. I should have said, hey, send me some files, but listen closely here. time to compete when your time's up so what you gonna do with that minute screen who's rapping on that track that is me

sir that's you take you on a ride to a place that's live with the music is bumping to make you vibe but that's you take you on a ride to a place that's live where the music is pumping to make you vibe but there's always something new around the corner gonna play a little uh-oh make you jump to the beat because it's time for a treat but the question's next you try to compete many times up to two say what you're gonna do let me just scream uh-oh you're not only the rapper on that track you're not just a hired gun you compose that track everything yeah that's your baby right there okay so some of the listenership because i know You're not just a hired gun. You composed that track. Everything, yeah. That's your baby right there. Okay, so some of the listenership,

because I know I am, will be a little too old to remember Uh-Oh, the game show for YTV. So what was Uh-Oh? Uh-Oh was a half-hour game show where kids would compete against each other. So it was actually created as a spinoff from another show called It's Alive,

which I also did the opening theme for. Okay, well, hold that thought then. Let's see if this is it here. tough to find by the way uh my research skills here okay so that's awesome it's alive so start with that what's it's alive it's a ytv show that you compose the music for but it's alive and then bring us to uh-oh and then tell us uh in this this part of your professional life like you're just doing you're just like the musical guy doing YTV shows, but yeah, start with what are these shows and what you did for them. And, uh, so how, how this all started another interesting story. Uh, and it all ties back to the dream warriors when, when, uh,

YTV did a segment on the dream warriors. Um, they, they came in down into the Ron Nelson studio and they did a piece with them. I think they were interviewing him for some uh clip or a show or something okay cool and after the dream warriors interview a gentleman by the name of rick watts uh i owe my entire tv career to him uh he he was the producer at ytv at the time and he said to me he said hey richard have you ever thought about doing music for television and i said no and he said um well you know because i'm here thinking like the only way have you ever thought about doing music for television? And I said, no. And he said, well, you know, because I'm here thinking like the only way to, you know, do music is to do an album and go on stage and get beer thrown at you and perform in smoky clubs.

Only if it's Great Lakes beer, though, remember. By the way, you're going to take, just so you know quickly, fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. You're taking that home with you today. Cheers. Awesome. Cheers, man. And so, yeah, he said um so i said no he said well we've got a new show called it's alive um and we're looking for an opening theme and i said interesting i said what's an opening theme

i i had i didn't have a clue i agree i don't get an idea what this guy was talking about and so he's like so we're looking for music for 30 seconds like 30 seconds and he's like yeah you know because i'm here used to doing tracks for three minutes four minutes and he's like 30 seconds yeah and and and so i i told him at first i told him no i said nah man nah and we went we literally went back and forth for about three weeks he's calling me hey did you want to do no rick no hey it's me again do you want to do this and i said okay and so i finally caved and i said okay let me do this 30 second opening theme and so i did it i sent it to them and they loved it so they used that as the opening theme for It's Alive. And then It's Alive had a little segment called Uh-Oh! The Game Show.

So It's Alive was sort of like a sketch comedy thing. And Uh-Oh! The Game Show was a little 10-minute segment in It's Alive. And apparently the viewers loved it, so they decided to do the Uh-Oh! The Game Show as its own separate thing, its own separate show. So again, he needed an opening theme um uh-oh didn't even have the green light until i sent the opening theme so they didn't have the they didn't have the green light to go ahead with the show until until i sent the opening theme wow so so you know he asked for the opening theme i gave it to them everybody at yt was blown away and he's like okay yes we've got the green light to go ahead and then the animation was created to the opening theme so and the whole set design i don't know if for all you

uh-oh fans out there because first the animation was created and then they designed the entire set around the animation but it was all from the music. Okay, amazing. So you're composing these jams. And there's a certain demo, maybe just a titch younger than me, where this is going to just hit. It's like when I hear the Degrassi Jr. High theme song, right? It's like those of a certain age, this is going to be key nostalgia.

But I'm curious, when you compose this song for uh-oh and you realize there's a part for a rapper do you think you'll call one of your buddies i don't know you go hey kish a maestro you're gonna call one of your buddies or is your thought all along i'll just do it yeah i'll just do it i'll just do it you don't need to bring in the uh yeah you can do it yourself okay by the way before i leave that scene uh there is a gentleman from that scene i i loved I'll just do it. You don't need to bring in the, yeah, you can do it yourself. Okay. By the way, before I leave that scene, there is a gentleman from that scene. I loved his music and I'm concerned about his well-being.

I'm just wondering if you have any information and you don't have to be very specific, but do you know how Rumble is doing? Do you have any insight into how MC Rumble is doing? I have no idea. No idea. Okay. I thought i'd ask you since uh rumble and rumble and strong were a part of that scene there too okay so ytv uh-oh shout out some of the other shows on ytv again this will hit with a certain demo uh younger than i am but

what other shows on ytv did you compose the music for well once once i did uh-oh i mean i was like the guy so everybody was like okay richard hey can you do this can you do this can you and so i did um a show called little big kid i did another show called um alpha to omega another show called warp okay another show called my special book um so yeah i think it was i think that's the well those are the wide tv shows shows but we should shout out CKVR right you you also did some composition for CKVR in Barry yeah I did I think something for the Barry Rogers show yeah what was I'm trying to remember like I this is the new VR era I'm trying to remember the Barry Rogers show what was that I you never saw it I never watched it

you only watched the opening theme and then you said I'm out of here so if anyone could tell me very Roger show. What was that? You never saw it. I never watched it. Oh, come on. You only watched the opening theme and then you said, I'm out of here. So if anyone could tell me what the very Roger show is on CKVR, I am curious. All right, man,

that's a great run. So Uh-Oh! runs for six seasons and you did not only composing and performing that opening theme, but you do the underscore, all the sound effects.

Everything. Yeah, it was such a great experience because I had my sampler. So everything was triggered live. So I had a little setup with my keyboard and a sampler, and I'm watching the gameplay. You do it live. All live. So I was watching the gameplay, and I had an earphone in one ear,

and I'm watching a little monitor on my right, and I'm doing everything live. So when the Pl planco chips are falling down the thing i'm doing all on live on the keyboard and the bumpers and stings everything would be triggered from different keys on the keyboard the opening going to commercial all the sound effects that sounds fun to do it live oh it was great it was great it's fun it reminds me of like when you learned at some point i learned that the the those sounds that you hear fired off by a keyboard on uh seinfeld's opening were not just

they were actually done live and like to hit the beats that you know jerry would do a piece of stand-up this is the early days of seinfeld he'd do a piece of stand-up in the beginning and somebody would in real time react to the beats and the jokes and stuff with that keyboard firing off those sounds. But I always figured it was canned or whatever and whatever. So when you learn it's done live, it adds that extra element. And that sounds like what you're describing yourself right now, being the musical director for Uh-Oh. The spontaneity. Yeah. Yeah. You got to react to what's, you know, it's like this and I don't know when I'm going to fire

off a no Cleveland, no Bowie. It depends on when it comes up organically all right so you do this for you do it i guess that gets into the the year 2000 but then you kind of move on to some some interesting ad campaigns right yeah sort of um did did Kellogg's and a bunch of stuff. I think a couple were through Joel, actually. Joel was directed, I think, one of them, and then he passed me on to a couple of the producers, and I did some stuff for that for a while, yeah. I mean, big brands. Future Toronto Mike sponsors like Kellogg's and Microsoft and Nestle and AT&T.

Like these are monster multinational brands here. Yeah. I mean, it's cool. It's cool to kind of dip your, dip your toes in everything, right? Yeah.

You got to try a bunch of different stuff. Okay. So when I told my nine year old upstairs that you were coming over, I didn't, you know, I didn't celebrate your work with the dream warriors and I didn't say, Oh, you know what? You won't believe what he did with Mishi, me and LA love. Uh, no, I,'t, you know, I didn't celebrate your work with the Dream Warriors. And I didn't say, oh, you know, well, you won't believe what he did with Mishi Mi and L.A. Love. No, I hit on one song in particular, and he's very excited.

In fact, afterwards, he wants to meet you. So could you compose a song for a series that he just adores? This is work he did for Nelvana here in Toronto. But before I play it and talk to you about it, I just want to give you, I already gave you some beer from Great Lakes but I want to let you know I have a large lasagna in my freezer you can take home

courtesy of Palma Pasta and I promise you, Richard, you're going to cook it up and you're going to report back that it is the very best lasagna you've ever had that came from a store. That's my pledge to you.

Wow, cheers, brother. Yeah, and you're going to have your pasta, you got your beer. I have a wireless speaker for you courtesy of you. Wow. Cheers, brother. Yeah, and you're going to have your pasta, you got your beer. I have a wireless speaker for you, courtesy of Moneris. Oh, wow. And it's good. Everybody, I just had Rob Pruce here. He was the keyboard

player for the Spoons. He was here yesterday. And he was telling me how good that thing sounds. Moneris sends it over. You can enjoy anything you want on that thing, of course. But, you gotta listen to season five of Yes, We Are Open because FOTM Al Grego went east. He went to the Maritimes.

He went to Newfoundland. And he collects inspiring stories from small business owners. And then he shares them on Yes, We Are Open. Season five is dropping now. So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're subscribing to podcasts, I urge you, Richard, to subscribe to the Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Whether you already work with a trusted

financial advisor or currently manage your own investment plans, the Advantaged Investor provides the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. And we're going to get to some of those goals in a minute. Also measuring tape, courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. You never know if you need to measure something, Richard. Insert joke there. I'm grateful for it. Too many jokes popped in your head and you're like, I shouldn't say those jokes. That happens to everybody.

But thank you, Ridley Funeral Home. They're pillars of this community since 1921. And I'm going to play that song now. I hope Jervis is listening. But I'm shouting out two websites just before I do that. One is pumpkinsafterdark.com because it's the week. This is the weekend for Halloween events. And they have an award-winning monster event in Milton, Ontario called Pumpkins After Dark.

So go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and get your tickets now. There's only a few days left in this amazing Halloween event. Tis the season. And recyclemyelectronics.ca, that's where you go, Richard. So if you have any old Casio keyboards that don't work, you don't throw that in the garbage. If you have old electronics or devices or tech, you go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and find out a place near you where you can drop it off and

get it properly recycled. So those are your marching orders, Richard. I almost called you maximum six there. Where does the name maximum 60? I mean, I know this cause it's obvious, but tell us where the name specifically came from. Maximum 60. Louie, Louie and his genius mind, of course. So one way, one day we were in the studio and he's like, hey man, you know, you control things, you know, you control things kind of like the speed limit, you know. And so it was maximum 60, the speed limit, that's it.

Did you ponder maximum 100? That would put you on the highway. Was it 100 back then on the highway? Yeah, I think it's been 100 for a while now. Yeah, 60 is like a street like Islington, for example. Yeah, the little streets. It's 60, yeah. Bigger, little, because the real little ones are like 40, and then you get the bigger ones like Islington, Kipling.

Those are like 60. And then once you get on the Gardiner or the 401 or the 400, you're now in 100 land. Although I took a road trip out east like Al Grego just did, and I can tell you when you get to New Brunswick, it's 110. Oh, wow. Did you know that? No.

I know. So we're missing out on it. Who drives 100 anyways on the Gardiner? Unless there's traffic and you can't go fast. But if you're on the 401 and you got the space to do it, who drives 100? Nobody. Nobody, right?

Nobody's doing it. That sounds dangerous to me. Like if I see one going on, I'm like, that's dangerous. Like I don't know what your rule is uh my rule is like if i see it's 100 and it's no traffic my brain says you can go up to 120 like i just i that's my personal cap is i'm not going beyond 120 but that's still that's still 20 more than the limit am i saying too much am i incriminating myself there you go but i can tell you richard only drives a 60 maximum 60 okay let's get to that song here jarvis has waited long enough It's a doing it all across the nation Time to battle now for world domination

Cool in your head, you better get a grip The battle has begun so let it rip Hey playboy judges, here we come They should be cool in their hip, you better get a grip, the battle has begun so let it rip! Good day boy, judges, here we come, rip now, let's go now! The competition's gonna be number one, rip now, let it go now! I don't know where Beyblades came from. Obviously, it's been around a long time, but I only seem to have noticed in the last five years when it hit the schoolyard that my nine-year-old goes to

and it became like everyone had to have all these Beyblades. This song is called All Across the Nation. It's from the Beyblade series. I got questions. You composed this. Yeah, so I composed it with, it's funny you mentioned his name uh rumble so so rumble and i had actually created a a duo called the black europeans and

um that's where we you know we started to do a lot of ad work and stuff like that and uh you know basically i the the the contacts that i had garnered from Chorus, doing the YTV stuff, I sort of branched out to Nelvana, who was also Chorus at the time. And I reached out to a guy. Well, it is now, right? So Nelvana is owned by Chorus. Yeah, so I reached out to a guy called Stephen Hudeki, who was the previous music supervisor.

And he got us gigs like Cardcaptors, and there's another show, Metabots. And then, no, actually, no, he got us Cardcaptors and there's another show, Metabots. And then, no, actually, no, he got us Cardcaptors. We worked on that. And that's Amazing Combat Machines. That would be your song for Metabots. In Metabots, yeah. So as the black Europeans, we created these songs for Nelvan

and a couple of the ad campaigns as well. And, yeah. Okay um yeah okay sort of moved on from that and card captors uh whenever you try and let's go are a couple uh uh jams you composed for the the movie yeah okay good for you man and this song uh who's singing like who's singing on that that's not your voice he's singing on the beyblade song all across the nation it's a guy i i forget his name we we asked people we were because because nalvana wanted like a sum 41 okay so obviously i don't think you know when i hear that i start i don't want to waste my time be another kind of like i hear some 41 like it's very influenced by some 41 yeah so they were like there's no shame in that, Richard. Find someone that can sing like,

you know, the guy from Sum... Derek Wibley, I think. Wibley, yeah. And so we... I don't remember the guy who sang it. No, they're from Ajax. Yeah, yeah, close, yeah.

Something in that Durham water. Shout out to Durham. Okay, so that's not Derek from Sum 41, but so I think it's kind of a mind blow to me that you were working with Rumble in 2002

when you composed this Beyblade song. So, all right. Now, again, at some point you lose touch with Rumble, I take it, since you have no idea how he's doing today. But I know Ron Nelson had some concerns for his well-being. So I just hope that Rumble is doing well. That's all I'll throw out into the universe right there. Okay.

So Card Cop, we talked about Beyblades and all this great stuff here. There's a I mean, you do so much stuff here, but there's one more that I think listeners will be like, oh I can't believe he did that. So I will shout out FOTM Adam Groh and he's been over a few times. We've had some great conversations

and then I'm going to play a jam and we're going to talk about that. If you're up for it, let's motor. Item right there. Alright, this is Cash Cab. What's your involvement with Cash Cab, Richard? Cash Cab, I wrote the opening theme of the music.

And for season one, I did all of the music. So it was the opening theme and then all of the music in season one, which was about 20 minutes of music. All the different cues, all the sound effects, the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, all of that stuff. I designed it all. And yeah, so Cash Cab another um great story of how i actually landed that gig so rick watts from ytv right after he after you know ytv sort of ended

he would always keep in touch with me you know and um he'd go from different production companies to different production companies say hey you should try out for this hey you should try out for that and so cash cab came along and so he's production companies to, hey, you should try it for this. Hey, you should try it for that. And so Cash Cap came along. And so he's like, hey, you know, you should you should try out for this one. This is this is this is good. This is going to be good. And I'm like, OK.

So so he's like, OK, so here's the producer name. And so get in touch with. So I got in touch with them and they're like, OK, so we want we want something like this. Can you do it? So I went and I did it. And then they're like, OK we want we want something like this can you do it so i went and i did it and then they're like okay well that sounds pretty good but you know we're kind of looking for like lenny kravitz with a sitar you know i'm like oh okay sure no problem i can do that yeah so i i would send them another track and then well no it's kind of like and so this went back and forth

for a good seven or eight times and then i said you know what this is just this is just for me to get the gig i don't know i don't have the gig yet right so i said to them you know what i'm gonna uh you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take my gear down to your studio to right into your office and i'm gonna create something on the spot for you so i took down my computer and my speakers and my keyboard and i set everything up in their office i said okay what do you want me to do right and so they're like oh this is amazing you're here oh this is so exciting okay can you do some like rock and so I pulled up like a guitar and logic and and you know did a drum you know something and put some and so I was there for a couple of hours and then I packed up my stuff and oh this is fascinating thank you so much and i think it's three days after doing that i got the email

wow saying that hey you know our team you know we're really impressed with you just wanted to let you know that you've got the gig so you're gonna you're gonna be the guy doing the music for cash cab wow and cash cab the one thing i remember item telling me is that cash cab like for a long period people thought there were new cash cabs being created but they were actually seeing reruns like so i don't i it's something it's very difficult to tell like what era is like new cash cab episodes or they just rerun in old ones they're just yeah there's eight they shot eight seasons okay starting in like 2008 or something like that, right? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. But you got, okay, eight seasons and you, yeah, you did the opening theme, background music, the sound effects for Cash Cab. So shout out to Adam Groh and shout out to Cash Cab. I mean, I know a lot of people who've been on Cash Cab. It's kind of like you're walking around late at night one night and then the Cash Cab cab shows up.

It's a fun little Toronto tradition there. Cool, man. Cool. the cash cab cab shows up it's uh it's a fun little toronto tradition there cool man cool now i want to uh point out the fact that you owe your entire career to lennox grant you know that right like this all of us like hearing you bring that keyboard and you're doing this for cash cabs i'm like you only got that keyboard because of lennox right yeah yeah he without without him he's the one that brought me into electronic music he was the one that first got a him, he's the one that brought me into electronic music. He was the one that first got a sequencer. He was the one that said, hey, man, I got this thing called the MSQ-700. We're big Roland fans back. Roland and Apple.

From day one, I've always been a Roland and an Apple guy. And he showed me this thing, the MSQ-700. And I think he had a, what drum machine did he have? Was it the 727 or the 606? And he's the one that said, hey man, this is what you can do. And I was like fascinated. Lennox, so how's Lennox doing these days?

Great, great. I was actually on the phone with him just before coming over to your place today. Okay, that's good to hear. And I hope Lennox listens to hear that Richard, you owe him like 15% of your entire lifetime of employment income. Yeah, probably more.

Maybe 20% for Lennox Grant. Okay, good stuff there. Amazing. And that's L-E-N-O-X. It's only one N. Right, not like Lennox Lewis. It's got the two N's in there. So we kind of whirlwind through your career,

spent a little more time and now the legacy begins. But is there any other highlights you'd like to, this is your opportunity, Richard, because I am going to play the song you did with Maestro, just to drill into that a little bit. And then I need to pick your brain really quickly on something that is bothering me. So I like to talk about things in the zeitgeist that are affecting me.

And there's something affecting me that I want to just ask your opinion on, just as a human being, not necessarily as a musical composer. But are there any other highlights in that fascinating career you've had? So what are you doing right now? What is it right now? You're just composing music? Yeah just for different different uh projects that come along different um like tv companies reaching out to me and saying hey we need you know we need a pack for for this and just sort of keeping keeping the chops going right and i'm working on uh i've got a uh a

new uh preschool animated project that i'm actually working on right now. It's going to be the next Baby Shark. Okay. Yeah, you got to aim high. I love it. Telling everybody right here, right now, it's a song called Mama Monkey. Okay, Mama Monkey. So we can't hear that yet, right?

We got to wait to hear this. Yeah. Oh, you're thinking if you could flip me a file, I would play it. You never know where these hits come from i have my youngest is seven now but she latched on to this show called bluey and i never i didn't know i never even heard it you know i'm not that i'm listening to like the preschool chatter or whatever but i i'm like she's and it's australian so they've got like australian accents and they even use like terms that i know

are like australian terms like we don't actually use here and it's very australian but she loves this thing and you know it's likeable enough just like we don't actually use here and it's very Australian, but she loves this thing. And you know, as it's likable enough, just like, but it's like, you never know what's going to hit. Suddenly bluey is hitting,

like, where did that come from? So what's yours called again? It's called mama monkey. You know what? So the video's done. There's an animated video that's done for the song. And we want to,

do you want to sing it for me? Oh, geez. But it's, it's a kid singing. So I wrote the lyrics and I wrote the music, but a kid singing. It's like, Mama monkey likes to clap both of her hands.

But you got to hear it. So I'm going to send you the link. Okay. I'll share it. And you can check it out. All right. Let's talk about this. Yeah.

All right, Richard. We're going to slow it down. On a Saturday morning. South Etobicoke. Kicking out the maestro. Memories. Vintage. Well, you know, this is a six-minute jam.

I'll bring it down. Talk to me in real time. This is like pop-up video. Okay, so maestro's like, I just need a slow jam? What do you got? And I just bang this out i mean you can you can hear the jam and lewis overtones jimmy jam and terry lewis like those those guys are my idols you know as producers and uh the whole sos band uh that era you know r&b just whose voice are we hearing here?

Oh, man. You can't remember. What the hell is on there? I don't remember. Okay. It's getting hot in here. Flying over oceans while the clouds go passing by. I kiss you on your lips and taste your scented neck. We're going on a trip we'll never, ever forget.

I'll take you on a voyage Traveling hand in hand Yeah And like an orchestra Your body I'll command Conducting Instructing You won't need to move

I'll tell you straight up, girl. Won't nobody disturb this groove. You see, you've been more than just my lover. Is that you whispering in that part? Is that you? I think so, maybe. I recognize the whisper. Okay, it's getting very hot in here, but I'll just bring it down a little bit.

But yeah, what an era, right? I feel like LL Cool J started this. He would always go hard, whatever, hard rhyming, and then he'd have that slow jam for the end of the night. Yeah, great vibes, man. And that album, I mean, that album had, that's simply in effect, it had Let Your Backbone Slide in it. And that's like the first, I think that's like your first top 40 Canadian rap song

that really broke on stations like CFTR. 100%. Big shout out to Maestro West, man. Another solid guy. Visionary for sure. You know, kudos to everything he's done. And you know Dwight Drummond's in the video for Let Your Backbone Slide.

Really? He's got a cameo in the beginning at the stairs when they're in the red jackets there. And I think that's because he was working security for Electric Circus, and that's how he hooked up with the director of that video, Joe Goldberg. Wow. You can share those fun facts of Lennox Grant when you can. Okay, so what's bugging Mike lately? I'll keep this brief because I'm going to explore this with Tom Wilson on

Wednesday. Tom Wilson is a Hamilton musician who was in a bunch of bands I liked, but particularly junk house. That's kind of what we're going to focus on on Wednesday. This, uh, nineties or rock outfit junk house. I always liked them,

but he's also a man who lived five decades of his life thinking he was, uh, born to, born to Hamilton. His Hamilton parents were of Irish descent. So he thought he was a white guy. And then he found out in his 50s he was actually adopted and he's a Mohawk man. Like this is a kind of a mind blow, right? You're 50 years.

So it'd be like a few years ago you learned you're a white guy. I'm white. What would that change for you, Richard? You'd be like, what the hell? I'm a white guy. I'm white. What would that change for you, Richard? You'd be like, what the hell? I'm a white guy. Okay. So what's bugging me is really affecting me. And are you at all familiar with the Fifth Estate episode yesterday that talked about Buffy St. Marie? Do you know who Buffy St. Marie is? I know who she is. I don't. I know nothing about the Fifth Estate. So I'll put it in a nutshell. And just curious in your feedback,

because you're literally the next person who came over into the studio to talk. I did bring this up on Toast yesterday with Rob Pruse and Bob Ouellette. But now I've got Richard Rodwell, Maximum 60, in the basement. And just before we say goodbye, I am curious. So Buffy St. Marie forever, like for the last 60 years, presented herself as an indigenous woman, born on a reserve in Saskatchewan, and then adopted by white parents in the United States. And then at some point in her early 20s, she rediscovers her birth family, the Cree people, First Nations. So she basically rediscovers her indigenous roots, essentially, and then has been an absolutely wonderful advocate and inspiring indigenous musician and, again, advocate.

I love this woman, Buffy St. Marie. That's her in a nutshell. But the evidence is overwhelming, and the receipts have been checked and CBC journalists did a fantastic job. And if you watch this Fifth Estate episode from yesterday, it's free on YouTube and I put it on torontomic.com. But if you watch it, you will learn that Buffy St. Marie is actually not indigenous at all. She was born to a white couple in the United States,

and the father is of Italian descent, and the mother is of French descent, or English or something. But the white, and that name, Buffy St. Marie, she's actually Beverly Santa Maria. And then Santa Maria became St. Marie because there was anti-Italian sentiment following World War II.

So she is a white woman, a white American woman who doesn't have any connections at all to the indigenous peoples until in her early 20s she's adopted by the Peapod First Nation. This is her as an adult. So for 20 years she lives her life as a white girl

in a white family, in a white neighborhood in the United States and they are Christian, and they are middle class. And she lives that life for 20 years, and then she seemingly invents this fictional indigenous story about being adopted in the 60s scoop.

Apparently this never happened, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm grappling, I'm processing all this and grappling all this, and the big question is, does it matter? Like she did so much good and she's such a hero to so many in the indigenous community and people like myself, like does this falsehood, this lie, essentially negate all the good she's done the past six decades. And this is a heavy topic to close with. I'm just curious if you have a thought on that

as I grapple with it. It's a big one, Richard. You thought this was all about Dream Warriors. It's a lot for you to process right now. But, yeah, like here, okay, so you're a black man. Yeah. If a white person lives 20 years, you know, with their birth parents being raised as a white person lives 20 years with their birth parents

and being raised as a white person, and then in their early 20s is adopted by a black family and immerses themselves in the black community, does that make that person black? At the end of the day, I think it comes down to what anybody's, what everybody's comfortable with. If, if you want to live a certain life and you, if you want to live how,

you know, as a, as a, as a persona, or if, you know, you're a man and now you want to be a woman, you know,

it's, it's, it's okay. As long as there's happiness, as long as, as long as you're happy, I mean, she must've done whatever she did for her own reasons.

I can't speculate on what those would be, but at the end of the day, if she's happy doing what she's doing, then so be it. Okay, one more question before Lois de Valo takes us home here. So last question would be, okay, so she's won many awards,

like earmarked for indigenous artists, etc. So she's received accolades like earmarked for indigenous artists, etc. So she's received accolades and awards as an indigenous woman. And because she won those, and again, she's not indigenous. She's a white American. She's not even Canadian, but she's in the order of Canada. She's won all these things as an indigenous woman. Did she not take those awards and accolades from somebody who was actually indigenous like because if if they had some award for best uh i don't know what they have but because but something

that uh like like she she was ineligible for these awards that she happily took and celebrated but someone else would have received these who was actually an indigenous person like do you see that part like so uh this is all and again no answers here today this is big heady stuff and i'm seeing the outreach some people are like leave buffy alone she's a national treasure and i totally get that nobody loves buffy more than i do go read toronto mic.com i mean i'm crazy about this woman i used to see her on sesame street in the 70s i love woman. But these facts are compelling in this documentary and I'm just processing like how does that change things for how I perceive Buffy St. Marie.

It's kind of a mind F. And Richard, I don't expect any answers from you because I have no answers myself, but I feel a need to talk about it. You know what I mean? I can see your viewpoints. However, I have no comment. You have to process all this.

Okay, but Richard, you hit it out of the park and you're trying to make debut. And that was amazing. We have to take a photo by the TMDS studio tree out front. And I got to get your lasagna out of the freezer. But this was great. If that was your podcast debut, you were fantastic. Thanks, man. Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak on this platform. I just want

to say to anybody out there who's maybe still listening, feel free to reach out to me, richardrodwell.com. My direct email is richardrodwell.com. But I got some cool stuff on there, like some little stuff i'm working on projects and my discography is on there and all that but yeah richardrodwell.com to reach out for whatever you need any questions i'm here to help and congratulations again on uh the uh the award i'm not aware the the honorary honoring honoring of Dream Warriors is my definition of a boombastic jazz style. And I'm glad you'll be at that event November 1st. Congrats on that.

Those are four great songs being inducted. And you had a big role with one of them. Cheers, man. Thank you so much. And if anyone listening has, somebody out there might need some composition production work. You've got the resume, man. Look what you've done. So reach out to Richard. Somebody out there might need some composition production work. You've got the resume, man. Look what you've done.

So reach out to Richard. He's a cool cat. And that brings us to the end of our 1,353rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. I'm also on Blue Sky as Toronto Mike. And again, it's at RichardRodwell.com. RichardRodwell.com. Go to RichardRodwell.com for all your maximum 60 needs. Big thank you to all who made this real talk possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta.'s Raymond James Canada that's Manaris

that's Recycle My Electronics that's Pumpkins After Dark and that's Ridley Funeral Home speaking of electric circus Richard this is an interesting coincidence the next guest on Toronto Mic'd is on Tuesday and it will be Juliet Powell. Oh, Juliet Powell, not only like Miss Canada, I believe, but she took over for Monica D'Ole on electric circus and she'll be my guest on Tuesday morning. Very cool.

See you all then. Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true how about you

oh they're picking up trash and they're putting down rogues and they're brokering stocks the class struggle explodes and i'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine fine it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is rosy and gray

well i've kissed you in france and i've kissed you in spain and i've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Shakalaka