Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ron Hawkins: Toronto Mike'd #175

Episode Date: May 24, 2016

Mike chats with Lowest of the Low lead singer and songwriter Ron Hawkins about Shakespeare My Butt, success for which you're unprepared, Gord Downie, the perfect marriage of Peace and Quiet and Tim Thompson's Maple Leafs montage and much, much more.

Welcome to episode 175 of Toronto Mike's, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is Lowest of the Low singer and songwriter Ron Hawkins. Hey Mike. is lowest of the low singer and songwriter, Ron Hawkins. Hey, Mike. What a pleasure, my friend. I have closed every episode of this podcast since I started, 175 episodes.

Every episode is closed with Rosie and Gray. I heard that, yeah. That's a lot of episodes. Maybe more than I've even sung it. Yeah, well, I gotta say, that song, well, I'm gonna go gush later. I don't want to start off gushing. But needless to say, there's two bands in the early 90s, my formative years, if you will, when I'm a teenager, there's two Canadian bands that I just couldn't get enough of. One was Lowest of the Low, and the other was the Tragically Hip. Right. and the other was the Tragically Hip.

Right. And we're recording, and I thought we'd start with this. Like, the news came out this morning that Tragically Hip lead singer Gore Downey has terminal brain cancer. Yeah, I know. So there you go. I don't know even what to say about it. It's such a tragedy, and I mean,

it's a personal tragedy to his family and himself, and then it's an extended tragedy to, like, this year has been very bad for that, you know? Yeah, it's been terrible. It's been terrible. And this one hits, I think, you know, to hear, you know, Gord Downie, and they're going to do one last tour. And yeah, it's for Canadian music and fans of, you know, Canadianadian songs that's a that's a big hit but i was chatting just like moments ago before you arrived i was chatting with tim thompson and we'll talk about tim later he's the guy who puts together those hockey montages yeah that everybody loves but uh he's a he considers you a friend and he considers uh

gourd a friend and we were talking about how you two are sort of like, you're both great songwriters and lyricists. There's a lot of common ground in terms of your styles. And it's very, very Canadian and just really appeals to my sensibilities and his. So it's just an interesting coincidence that I have you here the day we learn about Gord. Well, it's also what makes, maybe what makes it, or which heightens the sense of tragedy with a guy like Gord is that, because obviously, as I said, it's a personal tragedy to himself and his family, but then because his lyrics are so, he's always been such a, I feel like the same as I am. It's important to him to build a community and whether it's Canada or whether he's an

internationalist or whatever you consider him, he's built a community of people, like-minded people around him. And he speaks for an awful lot of people who he's able to crystallize certain things for people, you know? So I think when something like that happens to somebody like that, you know, John Mann, we, the same scenario with John Mann and his early onset Alzheimer's, you feel like you've lost, you know, they, I guess he's just created a bigger family than his own, you know, like the whole nation is a family member. So yeah. So that's what sort of heightens. I mean, it's not a worse tragedy maybe than the person down the street who we don't know, but I mean, at the same time, it's, it's just, it involves more people, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. He makes this big country, this vast country, he makes it feel sort of like a

small community. Like he just kind of ties it all together. Yeah, so that's terrible. And it was really jolting for me to wake up to that news because just last night I went to bed after a very surprising victory by my Toronto Raptors. Are you at all a basketball fan? I am not

particularly a basketball fan. There's still room for you on this bandwagon if you're interested. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure when a basketball fan. There's still room for you on this bandwagon if you're interested. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure when they get into the... When do you win if you're... Okay, so I know. We have these great names for trophies like the Stanley Cup, the Great Cup.

Even the World Series is kind of a neat name. This is like the NBA championship. I have no idea if it has a name. It just sounds so corporate or whatever. So yeah, if we get in... We're two wins away from the finals, which is... If if we get there then you'll see the big sweeping street shot you'll see my little face in there like the guy who's never watched a basketball game in his life cheering at the top of my lungs and yelling at the refs yeah what do you mean that's a charge

what are you talking about yeah so uh i i'm i watched i watched most raptor games in the regular season and i thought they were very good, and I felt they should make the conference finals, but I didn't give them a chance against the Cavs. I actually predicted Cavs in five, and I'm already pleasantly wrong. Who knows? Cav must be short for something, right?

It's not C-A-L-V-E-S. You really aren't a basketball guy. It's Cavaliers. Okay, good. That's better than what I was thinking. Cavs is a very unthreatening thing to name a basketball guy. Okay. Cavaliers. Okay, good. That's better than what I was thinking. Cavs is a very unthreatening thing to name your basketball team. And a Raptor would devour a Cav, I think. Yeah.

That'd be easy. Let's start with a bit of business here, which is that there's a case of beer in front of you. This is Great Lakes beer. Another tie-in to Cleveland is there's two Great Lakes brewery. There's one near here like at Royal York and Queensway and that's these guys and there's one in Cleveland and I've been watching on Twitter

they have some kind of bet going over this series we have right now. This is good stuff and you're taking it home with you and it's a local independent place and craft beer so I like the spirit of the place. It is good beer. Good. I'm going to drink it in the car on the place uh it is good beer good i'm gonna drink it in the car on the way home so when i get home i'll tell you what it's yeah i don't condone that

i am not responsible for that activity now i think i have to punch you hard in the face and take your keys i think i'm like legally obligated now right every podcast i do that's what happens we're getting there anyway all right and um yeah so you got the beer you enjoy that so let's talk about lowest a little uh and i'm gonna play some clips and ask you some like annoying fan questions so we're gonna see how tolerant you are sure okay but uh you so you start this band here in toronto as popular front so take me back like because what because i first hear about you through 102.1 CFNY in 91, I guess. But how does the band form in the city? Well, I guess you have to go back before Popular Front to a band

called Social Insecurity, which was started in 1983. And it was a three-piece Marxist straight edge punk rock band. And we had an original drummer that didn't work out for us so we fished around and did some auditions and Dave Alexander showed up and so he joined the band in sort of mid-84 so David and I have been playing together since 1984

and then when that dissipated we were looking around, Dave and I did we sort of freelanced a bit went around, recorded some songs and just wandered in the wilderness for a bit and then he had a friend who knew a guitar player named Steve Stanley who we met had a rehearsal with and totally dug him

so then the three of us became kind of the three amigos and we built Popular Front which turned out at any given time to be a seven piece band an eight piece band, a five piece band and it had horns and it had percussion and stuff like this and it was sort of of i'd say ska and world beat and punk you know all that kind of stuff a melange you know if you will and then that was going nowhere like that was going absolutely nowhere there was a day in maybe 19 mid 1990 where i drove dave home from a show at stratengers which

is in the east end of toronto and it's still there we did a horrible show i think my girlfriend was the only person who came to that show. And I dropped Dave off in front of his house and I said, should we just pack this in, man? Like, obviously the universe is trying to tell us that we suck and that nobody's interested except, and probably not even my girlfriend, but, but, uh, and he was like, yeah, we, so we just decided to let it sit for a week or something. And, you know, we cooled down a little bit. And I mean, think about that. That's probably mid 1990. By the end of 1990, we were doing a little folk open mics and stuff like that and starting to build what would be lowest to the low, me and Steve and Dave just going as a three

piece. And then it wasn't even, it wasn't even a year later that we were kind of on fire as lowest to the low. So it's kind of a testimony to people who, to kids who are in bands that, you know, there are so many peaks like that and troughs where you think, you know, that's it, you know, and sort of the luck of the draw, whether you do pack it in or you don't,

because some people do. Had we done that, then my entire history for the last 30 years would have been different. So it's safe to say the name Popular Front was ironic. Like when you got the short guy and you call it tall yeah the fat guy you come slim that's right that's right all right so yeah so let's take us back to let's talk i think it's 91 you'll let me know because you but in 91 uh there's and i remember i used to collect these discs like cfny had this hundred thousand dollar contest i

think they called it discovery to disc but i remember it by a different name but i might be mixing up my like cf and y contest discs and and i have them all in crates that's the thing i have them all i i don't know i think they might be in this closet behind me but um when i went when i digitized my cd collection wait i would say that was like in 2003 or something where i did and i literally took each disc i own and put it in the slot and ripped them like right which was a huge process to me and then i got rid of all the discs i figure i could easily find like these are you know like nirvana's never mind like i got rid of all those right but i kept all the discs i thought were something like maybe more obscure stuff so i kept all these like new music search that's what it it was called. So, but I digress because this is called Discovery to Disc.

But you put in the song Gamble. So let me play a little bit of Gamble. And then I want to talk to you about that experience with CFNY. guitar solo Your hips are swaying And your eyes are saying That you need two gamblers For this game you're playing That's you, man. Do you mind if this whole experience, maybe I just listen to all your music

while you kind of watch me enjoy it? Sure, and you continue to tell me that it's me playing it. That's right, that's you, man. Yeah, so you continue to tell me that it's me playing it. That's right, that's you, man. Yeah, so you entered Gamble in the Discovery to Disc contest,

so tell me about all this kind of pre-Shakespeare My Butt stuff with Lois and Lo. Well, here's our first correction of the day.

That song is from our second record, so it's after Shakespeare My Butt. Okay, so Gamble's not the song from the, at least we only had onebate okay so Gamble's not the song from the at least we only had

one correction so far Gamble's not the song no I think you're right because we because that series of that contest went on year after year and this was the year

that we we were sort of in the running with Head also a local band wait Happy Happy is that the tune

Happy I can't remember what tune oh yeah i think it was happy and head had two h's to start just to confuse the head as we like to refer to them so yeah so we uh we were in that contest with them and we were in the unfortunate position for a couple of months where everybody on the street people in the industry were saying well you guys are shooing you guys are going to win there's no way you're not winning. And so we were like, well, you know, it's whatever. Like, you know, Head's up there too. They're a great band.

Who knows, right? No, no, you guys are going to win. There's not a chance. You know, you guys, it's a shoe-in. So as we got closer and closer, we decided, very unlike Close to the Low, the CBC allowed us to rummage through their costume department, and we showed up in, like, powder blue tuxes and pink you know uh glitter diamond suits and stuff cool just to be unlike ourselves and then we had we sort of had a game plan that if

we didn't win we were going to make this big mock thing in the crowd and stand up and say we were robbed and storm off and make a big make us make a theatrical scene about it just because we thought that would be funny yeah and our unfortunate manager like that was usually what we did. We would come up with some kind of weird theater thing that we would want to do and the manager would go, can you not just sit in a chair and maybe win or maybe not win? So anyway, then we of course didn't win because Head won.

And they were such incredibly sweet guys that I remember Brendan Canning coming up to me and saying, look, if you guys have bought a new van or invested money because we thought you were going to win too, we could loan you some money out of what they'd won, right? And we're like, no, look, if you guys have bought a new van or invested money because we thought you were going to win too, we could loan you some money out of what they'd won, right? And we're like, no, no, guys, it's totally good. That's not how we are, right?

We didn't count our chickens before they were hatched. Right. And we were happy, thrilled for those guys. So, yeah, so it all worked out great. But that was a really amazing moment. Again, sort of community of the local musicians thing. When people think Toronto's a big, cold place full of you know record industry people and blah blah blah blah and you look at that like that's just one indie band looking at another band going man sorry i thought

you guys were gonna win you want some money and that's another example of a guy who you know went on to greater success with a different band like yeah and you know i would like to say i mean i would say my personal philosophy is that part of the reason why he's been so successful and brendan's been successful across the board is partially because that's part of his nature. You know, he's in this for the right reasons. He's a great guy. You know, of course, lots of dicks become famous, too. So who knows?

And I'm sorry for messing up my years of these discs and stuff, because off the top of my head, I remember this album that you're talking about, the new music search disc or whatever that had. And it was happy because in my head, could I be happy? Like this was like the reframe. I barely remember the nineties at all. So don't worry. We're going to run into this. That's what I'm here for,

man. But the other cut unrelated to anything, but there's another cut on that disc that I loved. It was Hayden's take. So it's like, uh, take a part of me, take all of me.

And it's like, I just really simple, like-minute song or something. And I just dug it. And then I dove into the Hayden rabbit hole. And I was like, this guy, Hayden, is going to be massive. I figured this is the next Neil Young. And it's just interesting how you catch these bands coming up. And then when people hear this, when people hear Lowest of the Low,

forget the Tragically Hip. This will be the biggest band in canada history i forget rush like this is listen to this and then it's just interesting how things don't always they don't always blow up the way you think for the masses well you know how many i mean it's there's so many mathematical variables involved because there's not just the quality of the art being made there is the marketability of the art being made there's not just the quality of the art being made, there is the marketability of the art being made, there's the people involved in that process inside the band. Some people are better suited for it, some people aren't. I mean, look at Nirvana. You're talking about Nirvana.

It's a perfect example. They should have made, you know, they could have made 30 records, you know, but there was no way that was going to happen because Kurt Cobain was not built for it, you know? there was no way that was going to happen because Kurt Cobain was not built for it you know yeah so true there's a there's a lot of variables it's not and the bottom line is it's not just talent it's not just songwriting ability and you know there's so much more to the equation you're at the marketing and all that and and then what do you

want to do like what do you want to do with it I mean like again we come back to court and talking about some people come into it because they want to express something. And it's becoming, to some degree, it goes in and out of fashion to be vulnerable. Whether it's literature or it's visual art or it's music. Not everybody wants that. There's times that are full of it. I mean, look at the 80s. A lot of what was popular was very surface-based. And that was cool and people liked it.

And it's a fashion that people go through. popular was very surface based and that was cool and people liked it and it's a fashion that people go through and then you know the clash comes along or whoever you know hip-hop comes along in different genres that bring it back down to the street and back to you know we've had enough of this you're right of swimming pools right you know you know eventually yeah like the hair rock is gonna there's gonna be some kind of a grunge movement uh some organic garage rock is gonna kind of supplant the whole hair movement and then there'll be some boy band that'll take,

it'll be a back and forth pendulum. You're absolutely, absolutely right. Shakespeare, My Butt, and I've written this on Trottle Mike many times, but it's truly

one of Canada's great albums. Like, and I'm very biased because like I said, I'm a teenager and I'm in love with this album

and they're playing the snot out of it on my go-to radio station at the time, which was 102.1. They're playing the mess out of it. And we're going to play some of the cuts that I heard, you know, I'd wake up to basically, like Humble and Fred would be spinning because it was just so frequently rotated, as they say.

But what's the origin of the name Shakespeare My Butt? I think a lot of things have happened with that well with every band but i mean with our band especially uh the reason well here you go i'll go back to the why we were called lowest of the low uh we came up with that name very early in the process and then we went through a million worse names believe it or not um one of them and i i like to bring this up because it brings us back down to earth one of the names that we were seriously considering was men shall know nothing of this yeah it's a terrible name it's a really terrible name and it was in the on the list and i think what happens

is you go farther down the list because at first you think well we've got a million great names and you know this lowest low can't be the name and you go farther and you go no you know what we've got a million worse names than that and you have to go back to the beginning and go, I guess that's the name. And everybody we told that that was the new band name, like all my friends, everybody we met were like, what? That's horrible. You can't call yourself that. And then, you know, by the time, just like anything, by the time we started to be successful, it stuck and it was our name. So people were like, yeah, that's cool.

You know, and it could be the low or whatever. Shakespeare in my butt is exactly the same thing. I think it was a misreading. As I remember it, our bass player, John had a poster that said Shakespeare's Britain on it. And I think I said, I looked at it from across the room and said, does that say Shakespeare's brain? And then somebody said, it says Shakespeare's butt. And then it was Shakespeare, my butt. And then at the moment I had this, I would always have this fight at parties when I got drunk, which was that, uh, you know, Shakespeare, like the,

the focus on any given part of the canon is like, I said, you know, like you don't need Shakespeare. I mean, I, I get that Shakespeare is important, but you don't need Shakespeare. Those stories are told by other people in other ways. You need the idea of those stories, but you don't necessarily need him. You know, like you don't need Paul McCartney. You don't, you know, I mean, we do and we don't, right. We need the idea of these people and we need what they give us to continue in some form. So that was, you know, that was, I guess, that was the philosophical part of Shakespeare in my butt was like, I, you know, lyrics are very important to me, but, but don't blow them up into anything bigger than they are, you know?

Well, you mentioned the lyrics. What I liked about Shakespeare, My Butt, is that the lyrics, they seemed very smart and very local. It just seemed like a Toronto band with very smart lyrics, which I truly appreciated. Well, I think, and if there's any reason why Popular Front flopped and Lois the Low didn't, I think it's probably because there was a little hill I went

over at that point in my life. I was, I had been in an eight year relationship that broke up and I moved out of my apartment with my girlfriend and moved into this little punk rock apartment and had a crappy little room with a bunch of other crazy dudes who were trying to do something, you know? And, and then I was walking around the city and I would, I had a notebook with me and I would just daydream and I would look around and I, and I had quit my day job. It was like, I'm going to be a musician once and for all. And so, I mean, all those things went into a pot. And I think at some point, uh, I had this epiphany where I stopped writing about bigger world issues with Popular Front was really about not unlike, you know, I guess you two would have been one of our sort of heroes at the time. It's like getting a bit bloated with the idea of politics in the bigger sense, you know, which I still think is important, but I don't think very many artists do it well. And I wasn't a person who did it well when it was a capital P, but when it became a small P and I was incorporating it into little stories about people I knew in my city, then suddenly it was very galvanizing and it took with people and it was intoxicating for me as well. Absolutely. And with your band,

my research is coming off the top of my head. So I love that you'll correct things because I've got the one so far. There's going to be probably more. But I remember, and I could be wrong about this, but my memory is the first single that 102.1 played the mess out of,

and they really did. And I know there's CanCon rules and stuff and they must have been happy to see that this satisfies that. And I know that 102.1 at the time was, there's a lot of hip going on, but the Barenaked Ladies, it was before Gordon,

so I guess the tape, I guess. But there was a bunch of stuff there that was getting, you know, they played a mess out of that. But you were, I think it was this. So feel free to correct me, but I remember hearing Henry needs a new pair of shoes on very high rotation on 102.1. Right. For sure it was in high rotation. We may have to go to Wikipedia at some point.

You know what I did though? I did go to Wiki and there's a lack of like the details of singles and release dates and stuff that seems to be lacking over there yeah but

it's because nobody in the band can remember that that's right so on that note though like so you you talk about not remembering

too much of the 90s and I'm guessing you were having a good time in the 90s is that the deal I was having you know a good slash

horrible time so is it a bad idea I've given you beer is that just tell me now no no no deal? I was having, you know, a good slash horrible time. So is it a bad idea? I've given you beer. Is that just tell me now, have I aired here? No, you know, it's like, I'm not being disingenuous when I say that I feel like I got out of the 90s alive. And I literally have buried three or four of my friends from the day back, you know, because they didn't get it together. So, you know, it's a serious thing. It's a serious thing that I joke about, you know, and I think, again, we talk about how people are built for different things.

I wasn't built to be as successful in lowest to the low as we got so quickly and it got away from me. And I think I, you know, I, I always say that I think if I had, if the band hadn't broken up, there's a very good chance I could have been dead by the 90s. So it was good for me to do that. It's a shame in a way because, you know, we're back at it in different ways. Released a record in 2004 called Sorted Fiction

and we're back out playing shows now and every time we're back at it, you know, some people will say, you know, you guys, if you guys had have stuck it out, you would be like the hip or whatever. And it's like, yeah, maybe, or maybe I would be dead

or maybe we would hate each other or, you know, because we didn't have certain tools. There was nobody in our camp telling us, you know, you guys could just take six months off. Right. or, you know, because we didn't have certain tools. There was nobody in our camp telling us, you know, you guys could just take six months off. Right. Breathe, you know.

Because it's funny how, you know, we talk about the Gore Downie that we're talking about for obvious reasons. And then like organically, Kurt Cobain showed up in our conversation. I always think of Kurt Cobain because he had, you know, this breakout with Nevermind and then In Utero was a big hit. And that's really it because he opts out. Like it's, it was, I always wondered like what if he just like

went to an aisle like Belize or something for six months? Like what if you just don't do press and you go with your family like you can go, you know what I mean?

Like and I always, you know, these different alternate universes. On a very much smaller level, I mean if you want to just forget the difference in size of Nirvana and Lowest to the Low.

It's all relative anyway. I feel like I had a lot of the same issues he had in terms of dealing with the kind of popularity you get. And then, you know, I mean, a classic one for him and a classic one for us was like suddenly you had all these cool fans, this grassroots audience that you had,

and then you have a couple singles on the radio and suddenly you have all these dicks at your show and you're like, what am I doing? Am I responsible for these people? Or, you know, he would talk about, I think there was like, you know, date rapists and things going on at Nirvana shows. Sure. And he was, you know, and I think he posted that famous thing.

Like if you're, you know, homophobic, racist, sexist, you know, don't fucking come to our shows. Right. And so you deal with that stuff, right? You, but at a certain point, like I learned that, you know, you know, you're not responsible for every idiot who comes to your show. You're, you know, you'd like to take credit for all the cool people and, you know you know you're not responsible for every idiot who comes to your show you're you know you'd like to take credit for all the cool people and you know and not all those other people but I mean at the same point you're you're creating a spectacle that people come to

see and you're trying to make links and you're gonna have there's gonna be things you don't like about it another great Canadian band Sloan they're they're famous lyric it's not the band I hate it's their fans right and I always tied that to the hip because i i would go to a lot of hip shows and there were so many like frat boy assholes at these shows and it was like i i just seem like such a weird because gourd's up there and he's he's ranting about the environment or some cerebral thought he's having in the middle of like 100th meridian the fast version is he only. And it's like, these guys are all like just chugging the beer and just being assholes. And I always thought of that Sloan lyric.

So it's interesting you point that out. I went to see the Weaker Thans open for them. We were playing Hamilton and I think La Luna or something, and they were playing opening for the hip at Cobb's Coliseum or something. So we had enough time to pop over. And walking in and getting to our seats, I was like, man, the environment in here is pretty stabby. It just seemed like somebody's going to

get killed or, you know, raped or it was like, it's just, it was a horrible, horrible vibe, you know? You're right. And so it's interesting because you did, you know, you did the caveat already, but you know, there's the Nirvana level and then there's a little bit relatively speaking, you're kind of, you're going from like, you know there's the nirvana level and then there's a low so low but relatively speaking you're kind of you're going from like you know we have uh my girlfriend's in the crowd there's our there's our crowd today and then the singles are played on you know at at the time radio this in the early 90s radio was the way we discovered new music you know this is this this was huge and if you were a young person like who liked rock you only had really one station in toronto right that was playing new rock if you will and you guys who liked rock, you only had really one station in Toronto that was playing new rock, if you will. And you guys, like I said, lots of exposure.

I was going to ask you about Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes, but this is more interesting right now. But yeah, you do basically blow up almost overnight. The lowest of the low become a big deal with Shakespeare, My Bite, almost overnight. And we just take for granted that people want that and people in the bands, I mean, that you would want that and you would want that success and you would kind of, you know, build on it and do this.

But you're right, not everybody is carved out to be, you know, famous, famous rock star. Yeah. And for me, all I can speak is for me, I wasn't ready for it. And I didn't know how much of it I wanted. Certainly, I wanted the shows to be full of people that were interested in our music and I wanted to spread that around. Um, but I also wasn't graceful enough to deal with it. You know, I mean, I, there was a period of time where every single time I left my house in the annex or Kensington market or wherever I would be stopped four or five times a day. Uh, and it takes a certain person to be graceful with that. You know, I wasn't particularly graceful because I was a snotty little punk dude. And it's weird because at the same time I totally respected people and I, and I generally

respect people and I'm interested in them, but you know, you're a human as well. And so you get to a point where sometimes you just don't handle it very gracefully. And, uh, and I, you know, and then if you're cut out cut out for that i mean that's the thing is we get back to it like i'm not i'm not a person who is that interested in the surface aspects of fame i don't i don't want somebody blowing smoke up my ass 24 hours a day i don't i don't care you know like all my all my joy in the art thing is pretty much front loaded the writing the songs playing with my band recording you know for sure playing live but you know six months in a year in the same songs, like that's another thing we were out on the road with the low all the time. And what the industry

wants you to do and what is smart for you to do as a business is to just hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, go again, go out again, go out again. But as a human and as an artist, especially as a person who's supposed to be in tuned with their feelings and the things that you want for people, you know, that's not, it's not a good way to be a human. And you may even sabotage this success. And I only, I bring that up with this quote I read where it says that Lois de Lalo played an early industry A&R show wearing t-shirts that read, don't suck corporate cock and corporate rock still sucks so it's it's almost like you're you're you're actually putting energy towards uh i want to say like suppressing the fame cycle like almost almost a little bit of self-sabotage is that a fair uh i think that

was more about weeding out our camp you know which was um because we had a you know a lovely lovely uh patron of the arts y Yvonne Matzell. She's been in various forms in the music industry since I've been around it, promoting booking clubs. She's just wonderful. And she always loved us, and she was a bit like a den mother for us. And she would go, oh, you boys. Everything would be like, you're so cheeky.

Why do you have to be like that? And our manager at the time, of course, lost his mind because he didn't want us to do this this was like a industry showcase we're trying to woo record labels right right and i said you know i know it looks i know it looks counter intuitive but i said at the same point just like anybody in the band if they don't think that's funny if the record company that we're working with doesn't think that's funny and poignant then isn't our life just going to be a constant weekly hell? You know, like, aren't we going to be fighting this fight every single week instead of once?

Right. You know, up front. So I think it turned out we went with a record label called LSD Records out of Vancouver, a guy named Bruce Levins, and he was insane. And like at a certain point before, I think before we were involved early on with lsd records he was sort of suggesting that there'd be a hit of acid in every release in the package of

every release like wow legitimately like not not hey that'll be funny not faking it up but like and i thought wow that's incredibly uh ballsy and something that we would think of but it's a stupid stupid idea and so by the time they got to us, I think they had been toned down a little bit, but they still had that kind of renegade energy. And they had us for a very short period of time and then Universal sort of bought us out from them. And then we had a sort of, I would love to say

we had a fractious, horrible relationship with them and followed time, which is not true. We had a little bit of issue over videos and this and that and timing of getting records out. But basically, we had a very artist-friendly deal from them. Cool. And they didn't get in our way and, you know. Good.

What's Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes? What's that about? Well, this, you know, this is where I get the warm fuzzies about Shakespeare in my butt is because when i listen to it i can actually uh you know i mean it people tell me that it means something to them in their lives and they're in university they were here you know it's a soundtrack to their life kind of thing well clearly it's a soundtrack to my life as well because the very

distinct parts of it are uh real people in real places to the point where a lot of my friends when we finished doing it said you know maybe the next record you don't use proper names you know of the people you actually know right um but this there was a guy i when i was living out in the east end uh in riverdale park um i wasn't living in riverdale park i was living near riverdale park but he was a homeless guy um named joe and he would come around and he always had this very distinct thing where he wanted 36 cents or something something you, you know, ridiculously difficult, you know, to provide. And, you know, to the point where he would get angry. If you gave him two bucks, he would get angry. He wanted, I can't even remember if it was 36, but he wanted a very specific number. And I would see his feet

all the time. And in the summer, he basically didn't wear shoes. In the winter, he had these, they looked like they might've been docs or work boots or whatever, but they were so screwed up that he had them gaff taped, like his toes were sticking out of them and they were gaff taped and everything. And so the song is basically about him. Um, you know,

me just wondering, well, what do you, what does he do when it's 20 below, you know? Well, at least you changed his name. Cause it's,

I changed one name on the record and now I've unchanged it. That's right. Um, I was going to say, he's going to have a hard time today finding the 36 cents, because no one's got a penny on him anymore. Well, that's wonderful of you to say that, Mike, but I'm pretty sure that he's not looking for 36 cents anymore. On that note, let's do Salesmen Cheat and Liars. How about... Here, I'm deciding which one to do next. salesmen cheat and liars.

Here, I'm deciding which one to do next. I know The only feeling you have is rage And I know I feel the same as you But I think Great suit. I saw you recently at the Horseshoe Tavern. Got babysitted and took my wife.

Actually, it may have been before, actually. No, maybe it was three years ago before Jarvis was born. But anyway, sing-along songs, man. Like, these songs, I'm just trying not to sing along in front of you because I think that would be really, like, embarrassing. I'm trying hard, too. So, Salesman, Cheats, and Liars. That's another big cut from Shakespeare, My Butt,

that got a lot of radio play. What's that one about? I think it's just fairly self-explanatory. It's about the idea of wearing a mask, you know. Whether it's, again, as I'm saying, us in Popular Front putting on a different kind of front

than who we really were, or whether it's actual salesmen, people who we really were or whether it's actual salesmen you know people in the industry or whether it's just daily lying to yourself and to your friends about who you are you know just the other day uh my two-year-old stubbed his toe outside and there was like it was bleeding and no joke and this is unrelated to your visit but like spontaneously i just started singing bleed a little while tonight like I modified the lyrics a little bit for his toe but I gotta dive that one might be and I mean it's tough call because I'm a big Rosie and Gray fan but bleed a little while is fantastic another fantastic cut and I'm just gonna start it up here I'd hit the post if I was any good but you

know tell me a bit about uh bleed a little wild tonight beautiful song oh thanks well that's uh again you know like i was writing my life you know it's like what's that quote there's a quote from the simpsons you know it's uh hey it's randy newman and he's singing everything he sees yeah yeah so a little bit of that you know like i was just writing about everything that was happening to me. I had a little dalliance with a person who, when that relationship broke up, that I got very obsessed with, as you can hear on this record. There's a couple of songs about her, and I think part of why the record translates to people

is because, in my own mind, as I keep using the word, I felt like the protagonist in the movie of my life you know like i had that real romantic uh sense of being the protagonist in my own book you know and sort of walking around daily you know that's an intoxicating thing to feel it's you know incredibly narcissistic as well and um but it that maybe is another conversation people could have is like, uh, to be the best artist you can be, do you have to be slightly less of a human or, you know, slightly less healthy or rounded human being?

Um, but that's where I, that's the state I was in at the time. And so, uh, so it was easy to find large, uh, statements about this obsession I had or about the city or about what is it in, they all just became a big melange to me, like a big film. So let's use this cut as the example. So when this song is coming together, you're the lyricist.

So how does the group collaborate? Is it essentially Ron Hawkins is the guy who writes this, or is it a collaboration at any point? Like, how does this work? Well, for sure, Ron Hawkins is the guy who writes this, because I used to bring the band fully formed songs, like fully finished songs. What I had been doing before that in Popular Front

was demoing them all as well, right? Because I was into it, and I was into sound and stuff like that. And Andy Cuama, who produced Shakespeare, but I remember him and I having a beer and at some point he said, you know, why don't you just let the band be the band, you know, like it's cool that you can do this and it's probably even helpful for the band to hear your vision of

what the full song sounds like, but why don't you just bring the songs in? So that's what I started to do. And because I moved into this little punk rock apartment, I had nothing other than my clothes and my records and you know, an acoustic guitar. So I would sit on my bed and my records and you know an acoustic guitar so i would sit on my bed and i would write songs and i would go into rehearsal with an acoustic guitar or electric guitar and just teach the band the song and then we would and you know then you can

hear steve brought all these great uh there's great sort of um iconic uh lines that lead into a lot of the songs on shakespeare yeah and uh, and just that element of Dave and me and Steve creating a sound, you know, so that's what, that's what the band brought. And, you know, and then it's funny because we recorded this at a Foley studio.

Andy worked at sound by deluxe. He was a Foley mixer or a mixer for film. And so we would get in late at night. We did the beds at metal works, but then we did all the overdubs in a Foley studio. So we were literally standing, you know, there was a box of sand, a box of gravel, where they would go in and do the footsteps in a movie.

Okay, yeah. So I listened to this record, and, you know, part of the problem for me is that I get the nostalgia and I get the sort of the vibe of the record, but it's, to me, the sonically worst sounding record I've ever made. Oh, yeah. Just in terms of, like, guitar sounds, you it's, to me, the sonically worst sounding record I've ever made. Oh, yeah. Just in terms of, like,

guitar sounds, you know, this, that, and the other. So it's an interesting... Well, I guess it's... That is interesting. It's an interesting education in what people care about, you know? Songs are songs, right?

If the songs work, then people are attached to them. You're the only guy who thinks that. The only guy who notices that. Maybe, yeah, I don't know. But it's something that, you know, and and just how young we sound our voices sound thinner and more naive and you know the thing about making records too is that you that if you if you're in a band uh plays on the road a lot usually you record the record and then you're out on the road

so a year and a half later you've been tweaking and singing and vamping and you know little things work their way back in so when you listen to the actual recording again, you're like, it all sounds very straight, like you just, you know. I can see that, yeah, because it's evolved since that moment in time. But it is a statement of a period, you know, it's a document, so. Great song, great song. And fade that guy out because i want to talk about you know back then i remember i was buying cds back then so this is like

that's how long ago this was i'm buying cds and i remember i used to my rule i buy lots of cds i liked but if i got at least three cuts on that album i really liked i felt like i got my money's like this is how my brain was thinking. Hold on, I've got to pause for this. Hold on. Man. And this is a listen-through. Shakespeare

in My Butt is a listen-through. There's not a bad cut on that album. We left stuff off, too. Is that right that right yeah there's three or four songs that we uh were intending to throw into the mix i don't know i don't remember why it landed at 17 i know there was a cassette tape as well and it had two less songs on it because i couldn't fit them on the cassette but i think bill baio didn't make it on there, and Kind of the Lonely One, maybe. So what's the inspiration of Eternal Fatalist here? It's a great title, too. Well, again, this is straight out of my life.

I was living with a guy who, he's unfortunately one of the guys that didn't make it out of the aughts, and he just was kind of a hero of mine in a way. He was a little bit older than me. He was a great punk rock writer. And I'm sure even that there are things in The Lowest of the Low that I cribbed from him. So he was quite brilliant.

But the problem with him is he was one of these people who settled into this idea that he was a misunderstood genius and he liked that role, I think. And so he, you know, he never really pushed too hard, you know, and as, as the low was building, I remember, uh, getting this vibe from him where he loved me to death and, and he loved my, that I was getting successful, but at the same time he resented it in another way. And I think what he resented was either the work ethic or, you know, the elements that aren't just, I'm brilliant.

Sure. Sure. And I think that's one thing I always bring up about lowest to the low in that time is that, you know, that, yeah, sure. There's a certain part of it.

Certain percentage of it is having something to say and doing it well. And another huge part of it is working your ass off. And a third big part of it is luck and having, you know, living in a time, like, look at that. I mean, we lived in a time where DJs at 102.1 could just decide to play you.

They can't even do that now. So even, it doesn't matter how good you are. I'm actually surprised they could do it then. Like, I just assumed it was, like, coming from the, whoever, the PD or whatever was making the calls. Because I, so this is episode 175. I get a lot of CFNY guys come in here, like current or the 90s guys,

or even before, like the David Marsden times or whatever. And it's, you know, David Marsden, which was 80s, he let you play what you want, and he had a lot of flexibility there. But it sounds like it all kind of disappeared when they were kind of reborn. I don't know, the McLean, there's a lot of business stuff going on there in the early

nineties, but it sounds like, uh, DJs got the list, I think maybe, but you were all over the list, which is fantastic. But who,

like that's the, the image I like to use is that the door opened a little bit and we jammed our foot in the door, you know, like, but the door has to be open for you to jam your foot in it. Right.

So that's what I, when you look at people who got big in that little explosion, um, you know, it's not fair to compare that to people who don't make it now or whatever happens because it's like, you know, well we could have done all of that stuff and we would have been banging our

head against the wall if there was just nowhere to, right. To have an outlet for it. You know, were you, uh, close to any kind of personalities, talent at 102.1 back then?

Well, Bookie became a friend of ours, but he sort of became a friend of ours because we got to know him through that. We knew nobody really. And I mean, I'm even currently, one of my friends who seems to know everybody, he's a musician uh and we're good friends and he goes well you know so and so and i go no i don't yeah you don't know

anybody like you're just gonna do your thing and you know i might now know more people than you that's entirely i'm sure you do yeah and i think it's just partially because i don't you know you are encouraged when you get involved uh like film industry the music industry to be that person who's constantly collecting numbers and glad handing and stuff like that and i've always hated that so i never done it and you know that could arguably be uh a big roadblock in my way as a solo artist maybe you know but i don't know it's just to me it's just about being uh real you know having integrity and just being real and doing it for the reasons and you mentioned bookie who he's a great advocate for uh you know indie bands in toronto and the local music scene

like so this local music scene uh are you familiar with today's local music scene in toronto well i mean i you know it's so varied and it's so um like again the internet the whole uh whole explosion in the democracy of the Internet, it's funny because I feel like I'm a champion of it and I'm a victim of it at the same time because, like everybody, it's like, you know, we always railed against the sort of curating and the five major labels and the exclusionary, you know, from on high kind of aspect of it and waiting for the day that that would all be torn down and the revolution would come and the revolution came and just like you know political revolutions in the world you go hmm i didn't expect that we'd all be murdered you know or i didn't you know like now it's like i didn't expect that every day of my life i would be expected to be glued to

social media in order to rise above the white noise of the internet it's like he's a son of a bitch but he's our son of a bitch like Like sometimes, you know, you have to be careful which dictator you displace. Well, I mean, you can even get to Saddam Hussein, right? Everybody talks about, well, you know, at least the trains ran. That's exactly right. So, I mean, it's difficult. And I mean, I can't remember. Oh, yeah, getting back to like the bookies and stuff like that.

You know, like there was an industry. Luckily for us, we got to be part of an industry that had some renegades in it at the time, I think, you know, and I guess I'm looking at it now. And I sort of think I wish that it's easy for me to say, because my job isn't on the line to do it. But I mean, I look at things like Indie 88, who espouse the same things, they use the same terminology, they have a lot of the same people there. But to be quite frank uh it's a sham because i mean they don't really do any of the things that 102.1 did and so unfortunately for me i i look at it and i just think like the emperor has no clothes right and when you say that um you mean like sort of like we talked about these new music search and these different things like that stuff's not happening the outreach i guess the outreach to the actual community that that it's sitting on top of you know what i mean like it's almost like uh and I'm not talking about me, I'm just talking about, like you were saying, do I know much about what's going on in the indie scene now? And I do, I do from what, from those people I run into. But as I say, it's splintered into a million different forms, which is fantastic. The democracy of it, like if you want to be into Persian music, then that's your thing, right? And you can get it and you can get lots of it like if you want to be into persian music then that's your thing right and you can get it and you can get lots of it right and uh that was not the issue like when i didn't walk into sam the record man and find you know great music from uzbekistan you know right but

you can find it now easily so i think as i say that's an incredible move forward as uh as as internationalists and as humans it's not it doesn't help that kind of glamour of the Beatles or the Stones where there's like a band that we all love and our high school, everybody in the high school has the record, you know, ACDC, whatever. Like to me, that doesn't sound like it will happen again

because there's too many options, you know? Right, right, right. And you mentioned so that Indie's not doing what 102.1 used to do, but 102.1 isn't doing what 102.1 used to do either like they both seem to be very similar and they're both you know very i don't want to call corporatized or whatever but they there's not you're right and and i don't like back in the day i mentioned i got i got i heard music for the first time usually through the radio and that's where i heard you

guys for the first time and that's when i heard the tragically hit for the first time whatnot but today of course there are many other channels so where exactly like where do people discover and you're still putting out great stuff like and you know idiots like me just want to talk about shakespeare my butt because we just want to be like 18 again because we're like you know you're the best music in the world is the music you heard and loved when you were a teenager like this is just a truth of for a variety of reasons so idiots like me want to just talk Shakespeare my butt. But, I mean, there's great... We're going to talk about Peace and Quiet soon,

but there's amazing, beautiful songs coming out that you're producing today. And where... So where would people hear this? Like, where would someone go to discover? Well, the CBC has been doing a pretty good job. I guess they're doing a smaller version of what 102.1 was doing for me personally back in the 90s.

That seems to be my major radio outlet that way. And is that 3 or 3 and 2? Because 3 is the web only and then 2 is actually on the radio. Yeah, 2 for sure. Yeah, cool. So that's been a couple of songs off the last four or five records with them, which is great for me. four or five records, you know, with them, which is great for me. And, and it's, you know, but I, I don't, I can't really answer the question because I think I've had this aching, uh, twinge that all of the formats that we've been using are obsolete. And that's sort of, I mean, even the

more recent ones, I'm starting to think that social media has no real impact unless you're massive, which is no different than, know you can you can get your records on the radio if you're jay-z so it's the same thing to me like the radio certainly radio is an old format and it's kind of dead for as a way for indie bands to get out but i feel social media is as well in its form the way that we use it so i'm just wondering like what do you what kind of bomb do you have to set off to get any kind of attention you know and that's just to bring people to your music so that you can then do the hard work of impressing them and creating something that resonates with them it's a very very uh demanding thing to do you know right right

right i'm almost hesitant to play i'm gonna play one last track from shake bear my butt and then we're gonna move on uh but i if i playlist there's a pavlov's dog reaction that listeners are gonna have they're gonna think we're done. So I'm just letting people know, you're going to hear these notes here. The episode's not over. We still have lots more to talk about, but I'm going to play my...

Michael, play it again at the end of the show. I'm going to play it again at the end of the show in case you want to hear it again. Maybe one other time. Because normally I would say, and that brings us to the end, but no, we're just warming up here. So this song, I don't, you know what?

I have no memories of hearing this on the radio. Like I, and I was, did this ever get played on the radio? Oh yeah, it was all over the radio. Was it? All over at 102.1. In fact, it was a, it was a real thorn in the side of our management at the time because we had a, you know, as you can imagine, we were basically pretty unmanageable in those days, you know, we had our opinions and the band was kind of like a little gang, you know, as you can imagine, we were basically pretty unmanageable in those days, you know.

We had our opinions and the band was kind of like a little gang, you know. And it was hard to work your way in there, even if you were as close as your management company. There was always a sort of, we would stand toe to toe and take on whoever it was, right? So one of the things about this was like, okay, you have almost a minute worth of introduction before the vocals happen. That can't happen. That's why i close with it by the way but no sorry to interrupt but that's exactly why i close with it because i can do my whole spiel before you chime in with this beautiful sentiment here but please please continue because no one wants to hear my thoughts on rosie and grain yeah so i mean that's that's a good example of what 102.1 was willing to do and how you know

we said well fuck it we don't care you know, so then don't play it on the radio. That's the, you know, the phase we were in was we were building a tribe from the ground up, you know, and an audience that we didn't feel like we needed the old formats, you know? So we had that kind of audacity that you have when you're that age. And we just said, well, fuck it. Then don't,

then they won't play it on the radio. We don't give a shit, you know? And of course then they played the crap out of it and, and we didn't well fuck it then they won't play it on the radio we don't give a shit you know and of course then they played the crap out of it and we didn't edit it or anything our manager was saying at least edit it

like that intro happens twice once with the guitar and once with the harmonica take one of them out you know and we were just we're not willing

to do any of that the one thing that I the one compromise I made in the studio and this was more from inside the band was that there was a lot of stuff a lot of swearing on stage in the songs, and we took all of that out vocally,

and I was always super angry at the band about that and always felt bad about it afterward, because I felt, not because I'm a potty mouth, but because I just felt like that was part of the vibe and the intensity of the songs you know especially live you know like talking to you and uh it's almost sounds like you're so fearful of being a sellout like a shill or some kind of like that making compromises where the the art has to be as first as it can be and still you know make a living but uh you know so you're hesitant

to make any of these compromises that would be what i people would say you're you know so you're hesitant to make any of these compromises that would be what people would say you're selling out which bands do all the time like yeah yeah I would say I'm not afraid of it

more as I'm just not interested in it like you know but I mean environments change as well because like one classic story

about the low was that Molson was chasing us for years to use Salesman Cheats and Liars as a beer commercial and so

you know right off the bat, of course, we said, fuck you. And they were offering 75 grand or something in 1993, you know. So that was huge. And we turned it down and everybody, our label, our manager, everybody was like, are you crazy?

And we're like, no, who would do this? You know, like, because we were in an environment where that was, you know, who would do this? Like, none of our friends would do this. Neil Young, this notes for you, right? Yeah. You know, going off on Michael Jackson and Madonna or whatever. And then every year, you know, the money kept getting bigger and bigger.

They kept offering it to, and of course, because we were so narcissistic and neurotic about our band, I got it in my mind, like, they're trying to break us because we're a symbol in this town. And if they can break us, then they can break anybody right right so you know i'm sure none of that was really going on but uh but in my mind it was more important to stick it out so we did that and we never broke to it and now i look around and i think like i don't even i would be hard-pressed to find a band who wouldn't you know i mean it's just not considered a thing but i do remember um you know partly because i was a big Neil Young fan and going off in his notes for you and stuff,

that, you know, what a cello. But then you're right, every band started doing it and then you'd hear like, you know, you'll hear Zeppelin in a Cadillac commercial or you just, every band and all, even... Well, because it's, you know,

I don't even want to get into the rabbit hole that is the philosophy. I think it's, oh, what is his name? Walter Benjamin, about the idea that, you know, like when you can go and buy a hundred Van Gogh coffee mugs and mouse pads and stuff of great works of his, at a certain point, people can't even see the work anymore. Right. certain point people can't even see the work anymore right because it's just whatever magic and whatever mojo was in that work is gone because you know now it's a t-shirt and a like the scream right it's yeah like how could you how could you how could that have any impact when it's been satirized and used and you know so i guess it's a small version of that like we don't make beer commercial music we don't we don't write the songs for beer commercials. We don't write incidental music for that. So why are we allowing them to use this song? Which, you know, even at the same time, the reason I could get so neurotic and weird about it was, I think, because it was also Salesman Cheats and Liars. And I'm like, they're not even listening to what this song is about. Or maybe they are. And they're trying to flip the bird at us. I don't know, you know, but you get into that crazy mindset, you're chasing your your tail because and the only reason i'm chasing my tail is because that's not what it's meant for what it's meant for is to be put on a record to be sung to people because i'm honestly trying to

say something i'm not trying to be the backdrop for a beer commercial you know how come uh how come my hair turned so white and you still got the the full head of red hair like is that natural this is not natural it would have been natural when i was eight this would have been the color of my hair when i was eight it's been touched up i know i appreciate your honesty because there's some gray in it it's not gray but there's some gray in it for sure but uh this is not my my original color there's a tangent for you but i just you got great hair and i'm like just looking like he's got all this pigmentation like why did i lose my pigmentation you've got that's a that's a big

question mike a little help might be too big for this for this uh you'll have to come back that's another episode into itself but uh all right so the follow-up uh hallucinogenia am i saying that right i always struggled with that one but uh like so that one uh we had uh like you mentioned so gambles on that even like because you corrected me already but i want to be the lowest of the low and that's george bush senior and i always i always liked that you had that that's george bush senior dropping the most of the low line right you threw it on the album but there were a few you know again like pistol Pistol and some cool tracks. But do you think the people, like these fans you were trying to weed out or whatever,

are looking for another Shakespeare in my butt? And there's sort of a, like, hey, where's my Shakespeare in my butt? And there's almost a sense of disappointment, like they've been let down or something. Well, again, you know, if you can pull it off, then you're the Beatles. If you can't pull it off, you know, know I mean the thing that was in my mind I think is that we were growing listening to different music we were you know I was hanging out with Art Bergman

a lot and he was always a big influence even before Shakespeare but just you know my idea and it still is my idea that you know I like the way people like the Beatles worked which is that each record they were trying to do something different than the last record, and new sounds and new ideas and stuff like that.

To me, that's what being an artist is about. So, you know, and I remember in our inner circle, they talk about Shakespeare's The Booze record and Lusiginia's The Drug record. So, I mean, there was an awful lot of that stuff going on too. So I think that informed what we were writing and doing in a way, you know, as it does. And then you...

And I think, you know, it's just like, to me, there are some songs on there that are just as good as the songs on Shakespeare and My Butt, but I get, you know, like people would come to see us instead of the kind of folk punk thing they were getting this super loud onslaught of guitars and that wasn't what they thought we were, you know? So when I listen to both albums, the Shakespeare in My Butt is a big sing-along album,

and you get that feeling, you're singing at the top of your lungs, and then this, Lesser Soul, and then you... Yeah, and I think this one's darker, and the obsessions are a little darker than on Shakespeare and then you uh lowest of the low breaks up right this is like 94 I guess this comes up and then you guys you break up so why the breakup in 94 I'm going to be specific which breakup I'm talking about but the 94 breakup what was that what was behind that one

well I think all the things we're talking about uh not prepared for what was asked of us and what we were becoming. Too many, you know, probably I think we crossed Canada six times one year and it was like too much in a van, too much, you know, I have an apartment, but I'm never in it. Too much coping mechanisms. You know, there's so much, you know, people, I guess more and more people do know, but I mean, generally people look at the two hours you get to spend on stage and think, wow, that's pretty awesome. And that two hours is awesome, but they don't realize there's 22 other hours in the day. And, you know, there's a lot of downtime. There's a lot of bullshit. There's a lot of what the hell are we going to do, you know?

Right. And so there's a lot of coping and a lot of partying and, you know, in a lot of bands. And we were even like, as I say, like I was built to not be a rock star. I grew up as a, as a Marxist and hated everything about rock stardom and what it means and, you know, the capitalism of music and the, and, uh, and I fell into a lot of the same pitfalls and traps that, that, uh, everybody else, you know, Nikki Sixx fell into. So it's surprising because, you know, you'd think I would have had the wherewithal and the brain to, to steer clear of it, but I didn't. And I's surprising because, you know, you'd think I would have had the wherewithal and the brain to steer clear of it, but I didn't. And I think that speaks to, you know, possibly a

weakness in me, but also a weakness in what's expected from people to be in that position, you know? Now, I got a question about sort of like level of success in terms, and I know this doesn't mean a whole lot to you which is like refreshing to hear that but like we let's talk so bare naked ladies are kind of the independent scarborough thing they put out the yellow tape and then they break at some point i guess of one week i guess they break in the u.s and now they're basically they're i think they're more loved in the u.s now than they are in canada like they're just right and they're big and now they're a big uh they become a big once they break in america they're a big financial success.

They're making a lot of money now, Barenaked Ladies. You got the Tragically Hip who dominate this country. I don't even want to think about it with the fact that the lead singer announces he has terminal brain cancer. How many nights in a row could they sell the ACC? They could sell out as long as he's willing to go, I think. In this country, that band is monster band. But we are notoriously unable to break the U.S. market. as long as he's willing to go, I think. In this country, that band is a monster band,

but we're notoriously unable to break the U.S. market. So if lowest of the low, and I'm a Toronto guy, born and raised, so to me, you're the fucking huge band because I'm Toronto, this is what I hear, but then you start to explore, oh, they're not listening to Shakespeare in my butt in Texas the way they are here or whatnot. Buffalo, of course, because they get the 102.1 stuff and Buffalo's like Canada's, you know in texas the way they are here or whatnot right you know buffalo of course because they get the 102.1 stuff and buffalo's like canada's you know whatever so i'm rambling here asking just

want to know about like level of success like so you were successful enough that you could make uh an adult living in toronto off this band and uh you you you not break in the u.s is that stuff that ever mattered to you or you happy to be kind of big here? Like, just help me understand. Well, you know what I find? I mean, you know, I think I own the entirety of my career, which means that I own the fact that I was instrumental in shooting myself in the foot rock star wise.

You know, like certainly I could have had a different career had I shut up, chilled out. Maybe we took a little time off and we just kept the low machine going. But, you know, then I look at my history. I look at the writing I did for the Rusty Nails. I look at the writing I did as a solo artist and with the Dugan Assassins.

And, you know, and this is no slight to the lowest of the low, but it's not, you know, they're all very different bands and they were different groups of people supporting my fairly broad interests as a songwriter. So I don't know, you know, it would have been a trade off. I wouldn't have had the career I've had and the career I've had has been quite satisfying to me. industry as a person, as a songwriter and, uh, and can still, as I say, make it not just a living, but a good living doing something that I love to do and doing it on my own terms. To me, that's win-win, you know, like for somebody else that might be, you know, I don't get enough adulation or I'm, or I'm not held up with Keeler and Downey and all those guys, you know, this stuff doesn't really matter to me. It's like, I can only play to so many people at a time and I can only do so

much in my life and I'm doing it. So, you know, so that's where my head's at as far as, and it has always been at. Um, but yeah, but you know, but it is where I find it, it's the flip side where I find it's awesome. And it, and it tickles my, uh, my, um, my rockstar bone is when I'll hear like a friend of mine, Mick Thomas, who's from Australia and we've had a, you know, they came out and did our, um, Mick and a squeeze box Wally from weddings,

parties, anything came out and opened for us on our, um, 20th anniversary Shakespeare tour, which started off in a little place in Kingston, uh, called the toucan, which is like,

I think it holds 60 people. And then the last show was at Massey hall. So that, which was a very lowest of the low tour to do like 60 to 22,200. But I would go over and tour in, uh, in, uh, Australia and Melbourne, uh, you know, strictly on the, on the fuel that Mick is a fan and I get to go over there, but I got to make lots of friends, play some great shows and they take my career, uh, at face value. Like there's no, there's no Shakespeare in my butt for them particularly there is, but, um, but Mick would also tell me that in his neighborhood in Northcote, he said back in 94, when they played with us here and then they went back, they took a bunch of records back

as Aussies are known to do by a whole bunch and give them to their friends. There was a bar that they used to hang out in. And he said every Saturday night they would shut the bar at two o'clock or whenever it shuts in Northcote and the regulars and the bar staff would put Shakespeare on and play it in its entirety and drink and sing. Nice. And you know, stories like that give me the chills because it's like he was, that's 1994. So I was living my life here. We were doing things and everything. And unbeknownst to me, every single Saturday night that was going on in Melbourne, you know, across the world. So, so I get more of a kick out of things like that. Things I don't really know about where it's resonated and they've spread the word and and to a small you know

hardcore group of people that means a lot you know like that really makes me happy and there's going to be some guy who's going to start a podcast in his basement and he's going to close every episode of rosie and gray so that's the shit that man that's that's that i keep saying things like you know if you told me like i can i could bitch about not making enough money i could bitch about not playing big enough shows but at the end of the, if you told me, like, I could bitch about not making enough money. I could bitch about not playing big enough shows. But at the end of the day, if you told me when I was 16 years old that some bar in Melbourne would be playing my record every Saturday night, or you would be inviting me down into your basement to do this podcast and you end all your shows with my songs, or that Rosie and Gray was sung on Australian Idol, or that every Saturday night at the Leafs game,

Threesome Quiet is playing. Oh, we're going to get there, yeah. You know, like, those are not things I would have even believed when I was 16. So perspective is a big thing. Yeah, and it's all about

what drives you. Like, if you're motivated by, like, having a fancy car, well, that's your priorities and that's a whole, you know, but if, like you said, you know, they're singing and dancing to your tunes in Australia, like, that's your priorities. And that's a whole, you know, but if, like you said, you know, they're singing and dancing to your tunes in Australia, like that's what an artist seeks, right?

Mm-hmm, you would hope so, yeah. That's awesome. And okay, so you mentioned you did the, Ron Hawkins and the Rusty Nails. Hey, I remember the story coming out and I just remembered it now. I didn't even make my notes, but I remember a story. I was hearing it on the radio.

Ron Hawkins lost his voice. And I remember thinking, oh my God, what a great voice. What a great band. Ron Hawkins lost his voice. What's going on here? Can you tell me what the heck was that about? Can you tell me what happened? You just lost your voice? I don't know that that's not a Rusty Neal

story as much as it's... No, it's a Ron Hawkins story, I guess. The lowest of the low story. We were on tour. Again, we come back toest of the low story. We were on tour. Again, well, we come back to Hallucigenia. So we were on tour with a band called the Cadillac Tramps from Orange County. And I think it was the first night we were in Banff or somewhere. I don't know why that was the first show,

but we were all taking LSD and we were playing touch football, as one does. And it was getting darker and darker and it was getting kind of dusky. And so it was getting hard to see anything and i remember this is classic when you know when you have these little a little voice comes in your head and says you know it's kind of too dark maybe it's too dark for us to be ah and then i got clotheslined by our our uh our road manager who was quite a hulking guy and he just kind of caught me in the throat knocked me on my back i couldn't breathe and

and when i came around you know i was fine everything, but my voice was sort of shot. Like it was, you know, not, I couldn't hold a straight note. So for the first week of that tour, it was a bit Lou Reed or it was a bit, you know, Bob Dylan or something. And, and then we got back from that tour and I could, you know, I could sing and everything, but then we went into do a couple of singles. Uh, and I remember Andy again Andy again Andy Koyama who produced Shakespeare was producing the singles and he said through the talk back into my headphones he's like um he said this is weird he said you know you're never pitchy but you're pitchy he's like you can't seem to hold that note straight you know I was like oh fuck and so I went to uh uh a throat doctor to see they put a camera down my throat

and everything he said well you know he said is it psychosomatic? Because, and I said, I can assure you, I was run over by my road manager, but he was like, well, there's no damage, there's no polyps, there's no nodes, you know, most people have something going on and you've been singing a lot over the years and everything. And so everything was fine down there. But I, from that day on, I can't sing falsetto and, you know, not that I used it a lot, but if I, you know, let's say I want to sing some beach boy songs with my family, I can't do that anymore. I can't sing falsetto. So that's the part I think he was thinking like, is that psychosomatic or, you know, so I don't know. But, but, uh, the other, the catch to it is that my voice, as we were talking

about when I listened to Shakespeare, I think it's so clear and so naive sounding that, you know, it's added a lot of grit and, uh, sort of, I think a lot of clear and so naive sounding that, you know, it's added a lot of grit and sort of, I think, a lot of beauty to my voice. So I'm often telling people, you know, well, here's what you got to do. You got to take a lot of acid and get your road manager to run you over. Like it's got a little sandpaper, it gives it a bit more character. Yeah, it just gives it more character. That's pristine. Very cool. All right. Yeah. I just remembered that the voice was gone and yeah, you still sound great. So, I mean, the voice sounds good to me.

But in 2000, there's a reunion. And then you release, I guess there's a live album, Nothing Short of a Bullet. And then in 2000, I listed a low reunion. And in 2004, Sorted Fiction comes out. But then you break up again, right? Is this the second breakup? Is that right?

Every 10 years, you're going to break up?, right? Is this the second breakup? Is that right? Every 10 years you get a breakup. So what's behind this one in 04? I think we, well, you know, I think I had had years of, you know, I had quite a bit of success with the Rusty Nails and it was a great experience. And I've just been, it's funny, I've just got, found some footage or been sent some footage of old Rusty Nails stuff. And I've been cutting these videos together and iMovie and releasing every throwback thursday i've been releasing a new rusty nails video and you know my my joke is that you know because it's a commercial boon to release things you know 20 years after they happened but but um so that band was really you know it's tangible in the in the footage like what an exciting band that was and everything and uh so i had you know i'd had know, I'd had a taste of that. I'd done some solo stuff, lowest to low. We made that record and we had a

great time making the record and everything. We toured it and stuff like that. But I think it's like you were saying earlier, you know, there, there is always a creeping feeling that, that for sure people want to come out and see the low, they love it. And, you know, yeah, certain percentage of them are interested in the new stuff and what's this and that, but what everybody is interested in is hearing Shakespeare songs. Right. So, uh, I know, yeah, a certain percentage of them are interested in the new stuff and what's this and that. But what everybody is interested in is hearing Shakespeare songs. Right. So I think for us, it got to a point where it was like, yeah, that was a great exercise, a great experience. But for me as a solo artist as well, I then had these parallel things going on, which is I was in the low, but I was also doing solo stuff and preparing for the next couple of records I made, which went into more sort of roots territory. And, uh, and so I think it was just that, you know, like, uh, it was time to, to just put it, you know, I think the thing about the low

is because it had such a big career at some point, every time we did anything, I think we felt like we needed to make a statement, you know, to our fans. And, you know, we've since been to a point where it's like, you know what, we've broken up and gotten back together so many times that maybe there's no need for a statement anymore. Maybe we just, people just comfortable with the idea that, that the low comes and goes and ebbs and flows and we do things,

you know? For sure. Now you ever, did you ever consider changing your name because we had Rockin' Ronnie Hawkins? you know, I only ever saw him, by the way,

I only ever saw Ronnie Rockin' Rockin' Ronnie Hawkins. I only ever saw him on New Year's Eve on city tv right wearing the big fur jacket at nathan phillips square right yeah yeah so did you ever think like uh like just to make to avoid confusion because i'll bet you there's been more than a few times where uh somebody thought you were arkansas ronnie hawkins yeah yeah well a a whole bunch of cabs pulled up with a bunch of bikers at a show in Kitchener one time, a Rusty Nails show. And I just went to the door person and I said, you know, it's all cool and everything,

but you might want to ask those guys who they're coming to see. Because if they pay 15 bucks to come and see the Rusty Nails, there might be problems. Yeah, they might not be happy with what they get. But yeah, I bet. So you just said that's your name?

Fuck it, I'm going to use it. It's my name. Also, it's never really been an issue. There's enough of a generational gap. I think that it's not... I joke about how I used to get phone calls at three in the morning. There was a spate of phone calls from drunken ladies, older ladies, who I think were looking for Ronnie Hawkins.

That's funny. That's funny. I just remember that fur jacket, man. Cowboy hat, yeah. Just New Year's Eve, though. And I know he's, whatever, before my time, he was a big rockabilly kind of guy in Toronto, whatever. But, man, I just know him from those New Year's Eve and City TV. I'm not with John and Yoko. I mean, he's got a bit of a...

He's still with us. He's still, I don't know. Yeah, he's still with us. Yeah, he's still with us. He's got a big place up north somewhere, I've heard. I don't know exactly. Maybe near Peterborough,'s still I don't know yeah he's still with us probably got he's got a big place up north somewhere I've heard I don't know exactly

maybe near Peterborough maybe I don't know but who knows who knows man who knows man so I just get this bookkeeping here so in 07

you guys play two final shows I gotta use quotes around final shows because I've been on shows since then but at the Horseshoe Tavern and then

so I guess this is like December 4th, December 8th, 2007, and then, oh, and Club Infinity in Williamsville, New York. You guys were always really big in like that Western New York. Is that strictly because 102.1 was so popular?

Yeah, I think it's a 102.1 thing. And it's just like... Well, they also like the hip there, so I think there's a CanCon, a Canadian spillover in Western New York. Yeah, and I think, you know, it's weird, but I think to some degree we're exotic to, Canadians are exotic in general, I think, to Americans.

Sometimes in, you know, sometimes in an honorific way and sometimes in a mocking way, but definitely we're that close, you know, we're close. And I've always say, and it's not me trying to blow smoke up Buffalo's ass, but it just, the idea that, you know, I think Buffalo and Toronto in a lot of ways are very similar cities in terms of original working class roots sort of moved on past, you know, like we don't have as much industry in Toronto

anymore. And now it's more of a, what would you call it? Intellectual property kind of based city, you know, like. Yeah. And sports team failures. Sports team failures, disappointing sports teams. You know, they have a beautiful Art Deco history as well. Like they're building, you know, there was a day when Buffalo was quite a destination, you know, in the States. And so there's that, there's kind of a sadden,

a sad, not sad, there's a sort of like a melancholy after the glory kind of aspect, you know? So I think it was a perfect town for the lowest of the low because we had that in spades, that vibe, underdog vibe. And so, yeah. And just a matter of, I think because of the 102.1 got down there and then we would go and continue to go back. I mean, I think that's the thing with bands, you know, if you have some interest in a place and then you go back and go back.

You nurture it. Yeah. Yeah. You nurture it. And then that's, it becomes a relationship, you know. If anybody, this is a quick aside that I just saw the 30 for 30, the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the Buffalo Bills four Super Bowls in a row and they talked to Jim Kelly and everybody and it's a fantastic little documentary.

I just finished it up the other day. So if anyone's curious, it really does kind of paint, sets the table like in terms of what kind of town Buffalo is and what the Bills mean to that town. Right. And right and just you know what happened in the early 90s there with their beloved bills so if anybody wants to track that down it's pretty damn good uh 2010 december 2010 this is this is the show i was talking about earlier so okay so i only had two kids back then

not four okay so december 2010 uh you guys reunite again for two shows at Lee's Palace in Toronto. And then to celebrate the release of a new remastered edition of Shakespeare, My Butt. So you were fantastic. You closed with Rosie and Gray, of course. And yeah, that was great. And I'm going to come right back to the Tim Thompson Leith's tribute. But first, just Stephen Stanley and you. I just have a question. So in 2013

that's only a few years back right he quits the band Stephen Stanley so what's the relationship been like with Stephen Stanley through all these years it just

I sense it's tumultuous like it just it's a tumultuous relationship yeah we're sort of you know we've been brothers in arms we both make each other laugh quite a lot

and we you know so we and we also know which buttons to push right and when we make each other laugh quite a lot and we you know so we and we also know which buttons to push right and when we were out on the road a lot i mean back in the day the before the first breakup certainly i i don't it wasn't relationships that broke the band up by any means i think it was exterior relationships that helped break the band up and uh and just a grueling schedule that we weren't ready for. But certainly when we were at our worst or at our most vulnerable, you know, we were in a van.

If you wanted to get nasty to somebody, the only people nearby were your family. Like I said, brothers, yeah. Band members, right? So I think Steve and I, you know, we're both very good at verbally sword fighting, you know, and we knew, you know, and of course, because you're in a van and every night you're together, you know,

it's just like a relationship, you know, the buttons that will push that have the most, uh, emotional effect. So I think, you know, I was very good at that with Steve. Steve was very good at that with me. And we, uh, so we built a, a, a very, uh, volatile relationship, but you know, like the funny thing about our relationship was that I would say 90% of the it was amazing and it wasn't volatile but the 10 of the time that it was volatile was very volatile so uh yeah so i don't know i i mean i don't really know uh more than that what to say about it other than at a certain point i think steve had had enough um and it was you know the as these things happen that kind of uh breakup didn't happen in a particularly volatile period or anything like that. I think it was cumulative stuff that he was just not into it anymore, not into it the same way he was.

So that was that. If you're a betting man, will we see another lowest of the low show with Stephen Stanley in the group? Like a Nigel Tufnel sort of scenario? I have no idea. I mean, the... Like, if I'm going to place a bet on this, because I heard they're offering that in Vegas. Right.

You know, here's the best advice I can give you is never, ever place a bet on the lowest of the low because I don't even know what will happen. So, I don't know. I mean, you know, it would be nice if it wasn't just done and the chapter was closed. But I can't speak for Stephen

and I can't speak for the other band members. It's just, it is what it is. And it's like when Steve left, I mean, definitely Dave and Dylan and I, we took a big break and we decided, well, there's two ways to go with this. We close the chapter for good. And we say, okay, that's, you know, that's the story. That's, those are the movies, you know, a new hope to the return of the Jedi. That's it. You know?

And so that's it. Or, you know, or do we continue and do something else? Do we get another guitar player? Do we just do it as a three piece? Do we not do it at all? So we kicked that around for a while. And then Dave and Dylan and I were, were playing the odd show. We were getting together and rehearsing and jamming just for fun because we we love each other and and then we did a couple of shows as Low UK and uh surprisingly fewer people got that joke than I thought would get it but uh you know they were like I was like you know when a band can't really use their band name so like Bush X yeah exactly yeah so we were I said you know we originally were called uh Low X UK 99 but uh so we did a couple shows like that and they felt really good and then there was a lot of you So I said, you know, we originally were called Low X UK 99.

But so we did a couple of shows like that and they felt really good. And then there was a lot of, you know, I have to say there was a lot of groundswell from audience fans and promoters and people like that saying, you know, you guys should play some shows. And so we dipped our toe in. We got offered Beer Fest at the exhibition and we decided, well, we'll dip our toe in. And Brian McMillan, who plays with me in the Do Good Assassins, I said, well, I know a guitar player. So he came out and played, and it was really great. And we just built from there. So we decided, like, then this is a new chapter.

If this continues, it'll be a new chapter, you know? The Do Good Assassins. This is the DoGood Assassins. This is the Do-Good Assassins. A wounded soldier from the bad old days And it took me to where Yeah, I lost it because it's fucking gorgeous, but that's Peace and Quiet. Yeah. And it's Do Good Assassins.

But I want to talk about how this song was used recently by Tim Thompson. Right. So Tim Thompson, for those who don't know, on Twitter he's at Boundless, but that first O is a zero, so just be aware. Oh man. In fact, I'm at a point now when I hear this song, I

see the visuals. So just to set the table here, so Tim Thompson's the guy who used to do those fantastic hockey montages before Hockey Night in Canada games. For reasons I'll never understand, they let him go, uh, I think a couple of years ago or whatever.

So he's no longer doing that for hockey in Canada, but he put together a like Maple Leafs tribute video, uh, set to this song and they play it before every leaf game at the air Canada center. Yeah. And I mean, it's,

he's got it on his Vimeo. So, I mean, it's on toronto mic.com somewhere, but fine, fine. It's on Vimeo, Tim Thompson I mean, it's on torontomike.com somewhere, but fine, it's on Vimeo. Tim Thompson, Peace and Quiet Maple Leafs Tribute. It might be one of the,

just a fantastic montage for Leaf fans. As you can see here, I'm a forever Leafs fan. You know, there's a lot of sadness there and happiness and hope for the future. For the first time in a while, we have some hope. And it's all like perfectly encapsulated by this montage. But your, the lyrics of Peace and Quiet, which are like local and stunning,

seem to fit it perfectly. So I'm going to read a quote by Tim Thompson. Then I'm going to ask you about Peace and Quiet. So this is a chat I had with Tim Thompson. I actually have to censor a little bit about this because I don't think it's all for public consumption. But okay, so Tim Thompson says, I made a doc on Ron and the Low

and a few other Toronto sports writers back in 2009. Peace and Quiet was a new song during the filming of it. Always wanted to work with it. One of my all-time favorite songs. Anyway, and then I'm going to redact this. They're not going to read this part. He talks about Hockey Night in Canada. I won't read that part, but I will say will say last summer the song just presented itself to me again while i was thinking

of making a piece for the leafs and i realized how perfectly the lyrics fit their story the power of metaphor and symbolism and how incredible ron is with the words musically it has all the right peaks and valleys and is such a powerful song so I went to work on it he literally like he told me he had chills just telling me about this like so you did not write Peace and Quiet about the Maple Leafs I did not but I think that's uh that's Tim's uh the genius of Tim right is that um as he says like we met because he did a doc about a bunch of different indie musicians and then I've gotten to know him over the years. He shot a couple of videos for me.

And I'm at a point with Tim, like, you know, he sent me an email and said, you know, I've got this thing I'm doing and I wanted to use Peace and Quiet. And, you know, my answer is just always go for it, Tim. You know, 100% trust. It'll be great. Because that's his real forte. He's got a very sensitive ear for that matching, especially like indie rock music with sports, which is, you know, and just seeing,

not to put too fine a point on it, but seeing the ways in which the struggle is similar for both. And yeah, I didn't write it for the Leafs. I wrote it about Kensington Market, actually. And again, the same, the, hey there, tragic one, I saw your ghost in Kensington, is the same character as Eternal Fatalist. So it all comes full circle.

Awesome. And that these people come back in my lives. And so it was about Kensington Market and about the ghosts I see in Kensington Market and how much I love that place and how much that no one would consider it a quiet place to be. It's pretty raucous and got a lot going in it. But for me, I lived there for a very long time and I could walk among those people and have that sense that people, you know, alone in a crowd kind of thing, I would always find a great deal of solace in Kensington Market.

And so I think, and then, you know, and again, there's a, there's the varying different kinds of day that Kensington Marketcus had as a Jewish ghetto, as a punk rock hangout, as then Jamaicans and Vietnamese and just the wide swath of people that have come through there and made that their home and the ups and downs. And then Tim starts to cut it with the Leafs.

And then he did some stuff that I think in the last, he got pretty cheeky with it. The last line about, is it funny how you seem just like a rumor now and he's cutting to the glory days with the Leafs having Stanley Cup. It matches perfect. Yeah, it's almost as if I wrote it for the Leafs, right?

Or wrote it for, it's almost as if Tim made the piece and then said, Ron, can you write a song for this piece? You know, but it's actually the other way around. And so, yeah, it's an amazing, it's amazing thing. And Tim's been able to do this a couple of times

once with the, I think with the Hab habs he did something about bellevue and uh so he's been doing some freelance stuff uh in the way that he used to do them for hockey night in canada and they i've i've never uh seen a person not be touched by them you know i've had the famously famously crusty bass player in my in the do-good assassins derrick uh he said it brought a tear to his eye and he had an uncle who played with the Leafs. And yeah, so it's just, it really moves people. It's a perfect marriage between, like, yeah, the history of a once great franchise

that has fallen on hard times, but has hope again for the future. And like, just totally, perfectly mapped to the lyrics in this song, which, you know, as he said, it's a powerful song. It's got the right peaks and valleys. It's a beautiful song in its own right. But married this montage by tim thompson it's i mean i could i'm gushing again i'm just it's fantastic if you haven't seen it see it if you have any

feelings about hockey or uh if you have any feelings period and this will move you uh like derek and his tear it's uh fantastic um ron mclean speaking of hockey and how it kind of ties in with music so ron mclean was in here recently and he uh we talked about another tim thompson montage where he takes gore downey it's all tying together here my friend gore downey's a lonely end of the rink which is about hockey so it's a natural for a montage actually i'll play it while I talk since... So, and Ron McLean tells us, he says there's a correlation between Canadian musicians

and being a goaltender. And he says there's a number of Canadian musicians that are goaltenders, right? Yeah. Okay, so... Me too. Yes, and this is where I'm going.

So, he runs down a list. He actually says there's another one I can't remember. And I'm talking to, I don't know who helps you with your lowest of the low Twitter account, but I'm having chats with him. And he's certain it's you are the guy that Ron McClain meant to mention in this discussion or whatever.

So you were a goalie. I was a goalie. So this correlation, do you think there's something about, because goalies are a little bit off, if you will. Like there's, is there anything to the fact that. Goalies are super cool, if that's what you mean. Yeah, of course. I think that's what you meant to say. Well, no, my take on it, my joke has always been

that the goalies are the guys at the end of the bench in the dressing room talking about English bands and art, while the Neanderthals are waving their dicks around in the dressing room. And I'm being only slightly facetious because a lot of the stereotypes, when I was playing anyway, because I was playing in the 70s and the early 80s,

so a lot of the stereotypes about sports jocks were completely valid from my experience. And I know things have come a long way since then and there's a lot of initiatives to make sports more inclusive. Well, these are the hip fans we talked about earlier. Yeah, could be. But yeah, so I think goalies tend to be, you know, I guess goalies are like quarterbacks

or like pitchers or whatever. They're delicate guys on the team that have a very specific job to do and their job goes on the scoreboard. I guess that's part of it too, is that there's a lot of pressure and your job goes on the scoreboard. If you make a mistake, it's up there, you know?

So, so maybe that's what it is. And there's a little, there's a certain take, or I mean, maybe it's as, maybe it's as pedestrian as the fact that we have to be so, uh, aware of our surroundings that that would help you be a songwriter and that would help you be a visual artist, you know, like the same taking it all in and sifting it, you know. It actually is another kind of small world tie in here, which is that Tim Thompson is friends with my cousin, Mark Gowan, who was a goaltender on the same team as Tim Thompson. He played in Guelph hockey. My cousin was the goalie. And I always and I've talked actually with Ron McLean, I talked about this when I hear Lonely End of the Rink.

And I always, and I've talked, actually with Ron McLean, I talked about this. When I hear Lonely End of the Rink, it's about, you know, basically it's about Gord Downie's dad sitting behind him at the lonely end of the rink. And, you know, and it's about, and it's a great hockey song. And I always think of my cousin Mark and his late father, Bruce, who was always sitting there behind him at the lonely end of the rink having his back. So it's just, it all ties in together here. Well, that's, you know, there you go. That's the genius of Gord Downie, I guess is that that you don't even have to hear the song you hear the title and that's a there's a world inside that title you know yeah absolutely uh uh last question because you've i've taken a lot i took it at 90 minutes i hope that's okay but uh the local so i'll be

talking about local scene but uh new music, uh, what are you digging these days? What am I listening to these days? I mean, I've been on a, on a vinyl kick. So, uh, rotate this just moved,

uh, pretty famous little vinyl store from queen street. They at least ran up to the, uh, they moved to Ossington, which is very close to my place. So I've been in there, you know,

just going through like old reggae dub compilations and the sonics from Seattle and uh you know Joanna Newsom and Kurt Weill like a bunch of new stuff bunch of old stuff you know sort of recurating my my collection and what I love about it is is uh you know all the talk about analog being creamier or warmer or blah blah blah you know you can get into the audiophile aspect of it. What it, what vinyl certainly does for me and the, and what I'd forgotten about over 20 years is engaging with it, like putting it on, uh, Hey, it's going to stop and you have to flip it over. Like spin the black circle. Yeah. You can't, you can't not be engaged

with it. Right. So one of my, one of my most current obsessions is just being engaged. And again, it comes down to Gord. What we heard today about Gord is that none of us know how long we have, how much time we have to spin our wheels or to actually get hunkered down and do what we want to do. And I think luckily for me, I'm not a religious person. I don't have a conceived notion of a hereafter or a reincarnated. So my scenario is that every day counts, and I want to be engaged, and I want to be present.

And even as stupid as something like engaging with vinyl, what it's done for me is made me become a music fan again and sort of go out and not only just do what I did when I went to Sam the Record Man, which is go in there with the intentions of buying Kurt Weill's record, but then also finding

this crazy deep cuts of reggae dub stuff and EDM stuff and buying Caribou and just all different forms of music that are informing. Uh-oh. Is this like the Academy Awards?

I'm being... No, honestly, Jeff Merrick was in and I was playing because, you know, it was like 90 minutes before he's like, shut that down.

He made me play some real statics and talked for another 45 minutes. Right, okay. Definitely no pressure at all. I want to thank God

and I want to thank my beautiful wife and my children. Don't forget to thank the Academy. And the Academy. How many kids do you have? I have one.

Okay. Oh, because you said children. I think I would only survive one. The one I have, Rudy B. Hawkins. She's a dynamo. Cool. Sweet. Hey, I want to...

Can I clarify one thing too? Yeah, please. I was told that you are Toronto Mike, but I was saying to Lawrence, who is the person who does our Twitter and you've been engaged with, I said, isn't he really Mimico Mike? It's not Mimico, man. It's not Mimico? What is it? So when you get to First Street, Mimico's done. Right. I said, isn't he really Mimico Mike? It's not Mimico, man.

It's not Mimico? What is it? So when you get to First Street, Mimico's done. Okay. Okay. New Toronto. New Toronto. So New Toronto is between Long Branch and Mimico,

but it's the mega city, man. So we all get the same mayor. But yeah, you're right. You're Mike from The Six. Yeah, I'm The Six. There's a street. I saw a physiotherapy thing opened up down the street, and it's called Physio in The Six. I think that's when you know a termotherapy thing opened up down the street and it's called

physio in the sixth I think that's when you know a term is sort of jump the shark okay you know physio in the sixth

and somebody on Twitter said that's where Drake goes when he you know when he's 60 year old with hip pain

or whatever physio in the sixth from the dad dancing from that video I'm sure he needs to get at least I can do that dance

I'm not very graceful like I don't have good rhythm or whatever but I can do that Drake dance so I appreciate that. He's lowered the bar for guys like me.

Thanks for coming to New Toronto. Yeah, thanks for having me out here. And Mimico, you mentioned Mimico real quick. Brendan Shanahan's

from Mimico. He's a big fan of that Boundless montage. I've seen a quote from him where he dug it. So look, all comes together with a nice bow.

Yeah, there you go. And to your own song, that brings us to the end of our 175th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Lowest of the Low because you're not personally on Twitter. Is that right? No. Okay. So Lowest of the Low is at Lowest of the Low.

See you next week. Oh, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Won't speed the day And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

And it won't go away Because everything is rosy and gray Bye.