Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sean Menard: Toronto Mike'd #1245

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

In this 1245th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Sean Menard, director of the new MuchMusic documentary 299 Queen Street West. Sean answers Mike's many questions about who was invited to participate, who was not, who declined and who was uninvited. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, the Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1245 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Season four of Yes, We Are Open. The award-winning podcast from Moneris.

Hosted by FOTM Al Grego. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Moment Lab. Brand marketing and strategy, PR, advertising, and promotion. You need The Moment Lab.

And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto Mike debut is the director of this new Much Music documentary I've been hearing about, Sean Menard. Welcome, Sean. It's good to be here, Mike. Another stranger in your house. Another stranger in the night. I'm dedicating that Frank Sinatra song I was singing

to the biggest Sinatra fan I know, Steve Paikin. And the reason I'm shouting out Steve Paikin right now is because you came in with a Ticats jacket. You're damn right. Oski Wubi. Okay, well, you, Paikin, who else? Damien Cox, Tom Wilson, Mike Grogotsky, all the great Hamiltonians. jacket you're damn right oski wubi okay well you pick in uh who else damian cox tom wilson mike gregotsky all the great hamiltonians you guys love your tie cats there you missed rick

campanelli oh yeah shout out to a good hamilton boy and shout out to ridley funeral home brad jones is a hamilton boy he's the funeral director at ridley funeral home so you're a hamilton guy i am born and raised and uh when did you leave Hamilton for the big smoke here? Oh, man. Probably 15 years ago. I've been a Toronto local now. And why did you leave Hamilton? Why not just set up shop in Hamilton? Why come to Toronto? Oh, man. You gotta take in the city. This is where it is, you know. As someone young and trying to get into the arts

and specifically television and dropping off resumes and unable to get jobs for years until you finally crack in. Well, listen, you're doing the reverse of what Ralph Ben-Murgy did. Ben-Murgy is a Toronto guy who now lives in Hamilton,

but you're the Hamilton guy now living in Toronto. So welcome to Toronto, Mike. Appreciate it. Your name has come up a few times lately. So I want to find out, you know, who you are, and I want to find out what you did before 299 Queen Street West. And then I have literally, like I have 100 questions for you about 299 Queen Street West. But just for those who listen to all the Toronto Mic'd episodes, and you should, but there was an episode with Rick Campanelli, who you just named dropped Rick,

the temp. And we talked about his role in the documentary. And then we talked, uh, I talked with Mike from Mike and Mike's, uh, Mike Campbell from Mike and Mike's cross Canada adventure. Did I get the full title?

Right? You did. It broke my heart that, uh, Mike actually came down for the world premiere South by Southwest and Austin, Austin, keep it weird. They did. It broke my heart that Mike actually came down for the world premiere, South by Southwest in Austin. Austin, keep it weird. They did, they did, but they were a great crowd. But unfortunately, Mike and Mike's

didn't make it into the cut of the film. Okay, well, you know, you're teasing now. We are going to get into the thick of things. I got questions about what made it, what didn't, why, all that. Like, so, you know, this is not a PR effort. I am your target audience, I think, for this documentary that I have these nostalgic warm fuzzies for what was going on on Much Music.

So I'm actually very interested in this documentary. But just before we get to 299 Queen Street West, what got you into filmmaking? I know you were the director of The Carter Effect, right? That's right, yeah. I saw The Carter Effect. I enjoyed it. Is that a Drake-LeBron thing?

Can you tell me who's behind The Carter Effect? Yeah, Drake and LeBron James came on board as my executive producers. That was a thing that honestly was very similar to this, Much Music Project, in that I tried to get it made in Canada for years. I had a one pitch concept called the Carter Effect. I brought it to every major broadcaster across the country, which is located mainly in Toronto. And they all passed, man. They all felt, no, everyone knows

this story. There's no audience for this. And then it took LeBron James, his production company, and then it took LeBron James, his production company, Maverick Carter in particular. He actually came down. We had met for drinks and dinner. Wait, who met? You and who? Maverick Carter.

Okay, for a second, I thought you were having drinks with LeBron. No, we did fist bumps on stage. Well, that's pretty cool. He fist bumped you. And he actually watched it behind me at the premiere. So he was kind of like a 12-year-old boy again, listening to his comments. And it was, yeah, off track.

So Maverick Carter and LeBron James, they came on board on my first feature documentary called Fight Mom about a female UFC fighter who became a mom. And when we followed her for the documentary, she wasn't quite in the UFC. Michelle Watterson. And then she got in the UFC, which was a great tipping point for the film. They came on board, they bought that. And one of the development producers there and Philip said to me, what else you got? Right. Send me everything. And I remember attaching the email

and saying, am I really going to send the Carter effect? This is so Toronto centric. This is Canadian centric. Everyone's passed oncentric. This is Canadian-centric. Everyone's passed on it. This is an American company. It was already made? No, it was just, I was trying to- You had like a demo? What did you have?

I had a one-page Word document, Mike. Okay, okay. Which is not the traditional way you get something funded, but they saw it, they loved it. It got passed up the chain. I had that dinner and drinks with Maverick Carter. And at the end of it, he just said, I believe in you and I believe in this film. Let's make this.

Wow. Did it help that Drake is such a massive Raptors fan? Well, Drake wasn't involved in the beginning. Okay. This is the detail I'm interested in. Okay. So he was, I mean, he, him and his team are very particular what they get involved on. And they knew about it.

They knew LeBron was attached. They knew we were filming it. And then it wasn't until, I would say, they saw the first rough cut. And then it was, okay, we're giving you access. Drake wants to be involved. He's going to be producer. And we want a location in Toronto that's big. Don't just put them in a studio.

So I pitched them different options and the ROM was the winner right by the dinosaur exhibits with real velociraptor fossils behind him in the backdrop. Right, that makes sense, of course. And so we're talking 2017, Drake at this point,

biggest star in the world. He just broke the Beatles records for most number one hits. And this was the first time he ever sat down for a documentary. Wow. And yeah, man, this point biggest star in the world he just broke the Beatles records for most number one hits and this was the first time he ever sat down for a documentary wow and uh yeah man I remember his manager future the prince leans close to me says hey man we're here as long as you need take your time and we went we went for just over an hour and it was pretty cool that is very cool you know because yeah you know can you believe it Drake has not been on Toronto mic yet can you believe

that a Toronto guy like that not yet making a toronto mic appearance it's surprising when you say it i would have thought he'd be sitting down here cracking a couple great lakes brews with you oh and i by the way i'm terrible host here did you want a cold great lakes did you because i can totally grab one for you from the uh the fridge if you want one i know you brought a coffee but you can also take it home with you if that's easier yeah you're getting great lakes regardless i feel i'm under sponsor obligation to say yes i let me just rock this coffee and then we'll we'll crack okay so you just let me know because then i'll uh set you up with something like a long-winded answer and that's

when i'll run upstairs and grab you a cold one do you like a a pale ale do you like a lager do you like an ipa i mean all the. Well, then I'll surprise you. Yeah, surprise me. But what was cool about that was when Drake sat down and got involved and eventually it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and Netflix ended up coming on board. And man, that was top five trending around the world when they launched it the first week.

And that was a big jumping point in my career. Cause before that, I was just, you know, pumping out sports docs that were airing on TSN or, you know, I would sell them to America as well, but that was a big, that was a big jump point for me. Cause you're not a, you're not an old dude. Like, yeah, you're still a pretty young guy or maybe it's a deceiving. Would you, your age, or is that a top secret? No, man, I'm 38. 38, okay. I had a guy in here yesterday, a great musician named Del Barber, and I felt like I was...

It's funny where I'm at now in my life with all these white hairs, and it's like I feel like I'm talking to a kid, and then he reveals his age is 39, and I'm thinking, oh, like 39? I guess 39-year-olds now feel like kids to me, so you're even a year younger. So this is the Toronto mic effect. You can make a documentary about it.

Still considered a millennial, you know, still in that age demo. Oh, okay. But it's interesting because when we get into 299 Queen Street West, I'm trying to do the math in my head, so I have to take my age and I have to kind of subtract a decade, and how much 90s much music were you soaking in. But hold on to the much music stuff. So you make the Carter effect.

People like me see it. Like this is a big moment for Sean Minard that there's a great exposure and we're all aware of the Carter effect and LeBron James and Drake. And how much of a role did Drake play in the actual direction of this documentary? Well, I think it wasn't so much about his direction,

but there were definitely notes and things that they wanted to cover. They wanted to make sure that we branched outside of just a sports documentary. We wanted to touch on the cultural effect, the fact that Vince Carter opened up a nightclub and helped bring bottle service for example to the city uh which which was shocking something you learn while you're making the film and next thing you know you're talking to a club owner who opened up the the club with him when he was 19 years old so um and then it was really just about making sure that um it was going to appeal

to an audience outside of canada which and i know we're going to get into the much thing. And that was, that's the goal here is to try and bring these stories globally. They just so happened to take place in the greatest city in the world. Was there a global appetite for the Carter effect? Absolutely. I remember doing a project and filming out in, in Paris,

France. And I mean, it aired on Netflix in 2018 and i'm walking down in the middle i'm gonna wear i'm gonna like a subdivision or something and i see a dude in a purple 15 dino jersey and he can barely speak english and i you know communicate to him that that's my film and that's why he bought the jersey. And now we're getting a photo. And so, you know, you, you, that's a, um, you know, firsthand experience of, of that, you know, people were watching around the world, which is pretty cool. From Paris, Ontario to Paris, France, uh, the Carter effect. Now, what made you want to make films? Like, was there a moment in your life where you're like, that's what I want to do,

make films? Yeah. I mean, I was lucky in a sense of, um, you know, I was raised, you know, single mom predominantly, but my dad would come in on the weekends and we'd go to Jumbo Video on the weekend and, uh, he'd have, you know, legal satellite that we consume, uh, a lot of films. And then on Sundays we, he'd take me to a movie. And this is the greatest era, personally, because not only are we renting movies predominantly from the 70s, but on the weekends, the movies that are coming out, I mean, we're in like 93 to 99, which is the 90s cinema was just incredible.

Well, around the corner, it's behind the curtain there, is my Pulp Fiction poster that I bought in 94. Still my favorite movie of all time. Wow. I think we're going to become friends. Well, more than that. So I mentioned your jacket, right? Oski, Wee Wee, Ticats, Rah Rah Rah.

But you're also wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt, my second favorite band of all time. Wow. And this is the greatest debut album named after Mookie Blaylock well Mookie Blaylock was the name of the band and then they named their album 10 because that was Mookie's uh number but yeah Pearl Jam love Pearl Jam seriously in fact I'm doing thinking I can't I gotta check this out in my because I do document everything but I think Pearl Jam might be the band I've seen the most times in my life live, actually. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Love that band. And we're not done yet, okay? So you got the Ticats. No offense, but I don't care for the Ticats. But you're from Hamilton. You come by that, honestly. But I love Pearl Jam, and you're wearing a Blue Jays hat.

I'm going Sunday. Love the Jays. Oh, this is a good time to be a Blue Jays fan, man. I want a documentary, if I may put in a request. Can you do a documentary on the drive of 85? That's what the Toronto Star called the first ever AL East pennant that the Blue Jays won in 1985. And that's the team I fell in love with.

And to this day, like, you know, the Leafs are in game six tomorrow night. I'm still, like, I'm still my favorite Leaf team of all time is still the 93 team with Wendell Clark and Doug Gilmore. Like, that's still my team. Pat Burns behind the bench. But if you talk Blue Jays, I mean, we won two World Series in the 90s and I fucking loved every minute of that.

But my Blue Jays team that makes me feel the warm fuzzies I would hopefully get when I watch 299 Queen Street West. I get the warm fuzzies when I think about my 1985 Toronto Blue Jays. Can we do this? I'll help you. Let's work on this Drive of 85 documentary. That's going to be a tough sell, Mike, because I've been trying to make a back-to-back doc.

And that has been extremely challenging. I was close at one point right before the pandemic. What did Rogers pay for it? I mean, they own this team. Yeah. And I don't know. A lot of the broadcasters up here are not spending money to make that kind of stuff anymore.

Okay. Well, this is all like good gateway because we're going to get into, you know, how the hell you made $2.99 Queen Street West here. Going to give you a couple of gifts first, and then we're diving in here. So do you, Sean Menard, enjoy Italian food? Is this a trick question, Mike? Not everybody does. I'm trying to think somebody didn't like lasagna. And I remember thinking like, oh, that's weird. That's like not liking like sunshines and I don't like butterflies. Like it just seemed weird

to hear the words, but not everybody likes Italian food, but do you? I grew up in Hamilton, Mike. That is... Shout out to Rick Campanelli. Yeah, right. So I have a large lasagna for you in my freezer, courtesy of Palma Pasta and they have locations

in Mississauga and Oakville. You're going to love it. I just got a note, I just got a note, like, earlier today from a former guest who was just letting me know that Frank Corrado, he was a Maple Leaf, he had a cup of coffee at the Leafs, and now he's on TSN, like a rising

star in the sports media world. He's very good, actually. He was here Monday. He sent me an email and said, this lasagna, Corrado, okay, Corrado, I was here Monday. He sent me an email and said, this lasagna... Corrado. Okay, Corrado. I don't have to say any more there. He said, this lasagna is delicious, so you're going to let me know what you think of the Palma Pasta lasagna. I appreciate that, Mike. And

I want to give you one more gift here before we talk about 299 Queen, and then I'll thank the rest of the sponsors later, but there is a wireless speaker for you, courtesy of Moneris, and it's going to sound great. You're going to listen to season four of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast from

Moneris, hosted by FOTM Al Grego. I'm going to see Al Grego at TMLX12 on May 11th at 6pm. If anyone wants to join us, all FOTMs are welcome to come to TMLX 12. Just send me an email, mike

at torontomike.com, and I'll send you the map as to where we're collecting at 6 p.m. on the 11th of May. You can come out too, Sean. You'd love it. It's a great gathering, but this is about, yes, we are open. Season 4, now available. You got yourself

a speaker, Sean. speaker sean traditionally people bring gifts to other people and they go where am i give sean you bring anything you got not even like i don't know is there any uh t-shirts for 299 queen street west the documentary like not yet this way not yet but there will be because we have a big event our canadian premiere september 22nd well we're gonna definitely uh give information for how people can buy. Any tickets left? I'm sorry? Any tickets remaining? There are.

There are tickets still. Okay. It's five months away, so we should. That's a big venue. Like, I don't know how many seats. That sounds like a big venue. 2,600. It's the largest downtown venue.

It's crazy. Premier event. There's a lot of people coming out to see Steve Anthony, right? He's a big draw. He's a big draw. He's a big draw. Wait till we get to this. We're almost there, guys, but I have Steve Anthony stories for you. Man, that guy's just high energy dude.

Totally, totally well. It's all that artificial sweetener that he's putting into his coffees. Like, I'm just saying there's something there. Okay, so you got your Menieris speaker. You got everything. I'll shout out the rest of our friends later. Tell me what happens after the Carter Effect. Like is 299 Queen Street West

your next project following the Carter Effect? There's, well, there was a couple other projects, but yeah, that was the one that I kind of keyed in on, on getting- What were the other projects? Like anything interesting there? Yeah, I did a sneaker series um yeah what else have i done in that time i sold a pilot for a tv show that never got made

and then it was really just honestly this whole thing of getting into documentaries was about leading to uh making hollywood films that's always been the goal but it's so difficult to crack in when you know nobody and you come from hamilton so it's, it, what I recognized early on, and I'm very fortunate at the time I, I started coming up was, uh, the rise of the ESPN 30 for 30. Right. Oh, I love those. Yeah. And so, and my first job in the industry, um, wasn't until I was about 26 and, uh, I remember going into the score network and, and i asked them if they're hiring and they said uh no but there's one position we're having a national contest to find our next sports

caster wow i said well what do you got to do for that you just got to hand in a video i was like okay so i make this pretty elaborate video yeah and um it ends up being on their website featured as the perfect submission and then so i end up I ended up getting auditions and I ended up making the final five. So now all of a sudden I'm in a reality show. Is this the Jackie Redmond contest? Year before. I love that reference. Jackie, so I ended up working at the Score Network

for close to three years. Jackie actually sat behind me. Okay, because I remember her telling me her story about the similar story, but sorry to interrupt, but I was getting like flashbacks here. Keep going up this great story. Yeah, so I ended up, I was there actually, one of my roommates on the show was Andrew Fung,

who now of course has a show. Rock and the Burbs, something with the Burbs. What's it called? Run and the Burbs. Run and the Burbs. Yeah, he was very good on Kim's Convenience. He was, he was great. Good buddy of mine now.

So anyway, so we ended up not winning that competition. And then what ended up happening was I just took a meeting with their CEO, John Levy from Hamilton as well. And I said, listen, man, I will mop floors. I'll do whatever it takes. I just need a job in the industry. I just went through this reality show here and I didn't win. I don't care about being on air. I just want to make videos. Who won by the way? Paul Brothers. I don't even know this name. Should I? You should have won, Sean. I feel like they missed out here,

but please. You could have won a contest just like Rick Campanelli once won a contest. I know. That's so true. He actually didn't win, though. He was an original,

and I learned this through the film. He didn't win the VJ search. He tried, and then he ended up winning the temp contest. But anyway, so from there, it was just working. he didn't win the VJ search. He tried, and then he ended up winning the temp contest. But, um, anyway, so from there it was just, uh, working, eventually got a job as an intern. Um, my first job was a production manager on drafted season two, which is Jackie Redmond's

season. Right. And then I become a producer there. And the great part about working at the score was it was similar to the early much days, no union, wild west. I'm editing. I could go fly somewhere. And on the way home on the plane, I've got my laptop. I'm cutting it and it goes to air. Wow. So I got a lot of reps in storytelling in short formats, a lot of five minute pieces. And then I'm working my way up to half hour episodes. Is Tim and Sid there at the time? Tim and Sid are there. Yeah. Working with them actually did a, I did a promotion for their podcast. So I would do an animated, uh, show for them. And, and so what ended up happening was, um, they ended up getting bought by Rogers. Yes. And so I get laid off. Right. And then, um, I ended up just venturing on my own. I make a documentary on the Canadian baseball team

is heading down the junior team every year to the Dominican Republic and to bring the best players down right before the draft. I did a documentary. I filmed that and I sold it back to Sportsnet. Stay with me here, Mike. The same company. Yeah, that just laid you off, right?

And they aired that 21 times that summer. And I said, well, I guess this is my business model now. So I ended up doing a few documentaries after that and you're rolling your own right this is an independent effort like like your you run this uh what do you got your own uh digital company or whatever production company a boutique man because i only usually do one or two projects a year okay we're cut from the same cloth man you. You just have better hair, right? Well, I have good hair. You have different good hair. You've got the auto good hair. Remember this, the auto show?

Is this from The Simpsons? I thought I was looking for like a Beau Bichette flow, but I'll take it. No, but it's a good hair you've got. People can see it in the photo that we share with this episode. So you've got your model now. You're like an independent filmmaker, and you're securing, I guess, funds where you can get, cause you need money to do this. Yeah. I mean, securing funds is an intro. I've never had, I never had luck doing that or success

pitching projects because to me in documentaries and I'm not, I'm not trying to shit on other documentary filmmakers that do this. I get why they do it. There's a demand from the people that are paying money to want to know exactly what the film is going to be about. Sure. And my point is Mike, it's very difficult to know that if you haven't spoke to the individuals that are in this. So what ends up happening is you create almost a,

a narrative or agenda based story. And so I've never had much luck in saying, Hey, this is exactly what this film is going to be, but I'm going to learn. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to be very curious and go wherever the story kind of takes me. So in the early days, yeah, it was just a matter of, um, you know, putting, putting things on my credit card and then selling it to, uh, TSN, or I would sell to Sportsnet. Uh, ended up, uh, the people at,pped connor mcdavid reached out to me at some

point and and said you know hey we want to do a two-part series can you follow him in his junior year final junior year of hockey before he goes to the draft yes so that was pretty cool and uh came to kind of buddies with connor mcdavid when he was you know 17 he's so fast because my wife is a big oilers fan she's from edmonton so So we watch a lot of these Oilers playoff games. And it's just, to me, it's like just so fast. Like the speed of Connor McDavid, there's nothing like that on the planet. There isn't.

And yeah, so I've been around athletes at the highest levels for about 10 years. And after Carter Effect, I said, I want to start to branch out because what happens, you get in this box. You know, and after it was on Netflix, I remember biggest talent agency in the world, WME and Hollywood reach out. Oh, we want to, you know, talk to you and represent you. And I remember sitting down with them and saying, okay, I got this script idea. I've got this going on. I want to do this music doc. And they go, whoa, we're meeting with you, Sean, because you know, the

Carter effect, and we want you to do other documentary films in the sports world, just like that for our clients and other things. And I was like, Oh, this is how the industry works. They only know me now. They don't know that I've been doing this on the side for eight years. So, um, that was a good, you know, eyeopening experience. And then, uh, the much project in particular. Well, yeah. So let's get there, okay? Because I feel like people are like,

get to the, what is it? There's a Simpsons reference. Get to the fireworks factory. Okay, so here we are getting to the fireworks factory. When and how did you decide you wanted to make a movie about Much Music, a documentary about Much Music? Well, it started after Carter Effect, where I had an idea of maybe

there's a trilogy here of Toronto centric films that can be shared with the world. And I saw the global audience and the success that Carter effect had. And I pitched bell media, who was the rights holders of all the archives. And to be honest with you, there was one guy there that believed his name was Justin Stockman. and he now works at Crave, who eventually came on board. But back then, it was to get money out of them or get them involved. They didn't see the bigger picture. It's not their fault either.

They get a concept, they get a pitch, and they don't see what it can be. And during COVID— Can I—I will occasionally interject here because I'm very interested in this. Okay, so we all know what Much Music, essentially it's like a TikTok channel today, Much Music. It's not in my demo. No, not in my demo.

I just know of it because I'm told it's on TikTok. So I believe on TikTok there's a Much Music. The Much Music we knew that was on, you know, television, it was my channel 29 on my old cable box. That is basically, I think, reruns of shows. Like there is no, nothing that really looks like the old Much Music. So Bell Media owns it because it must be making money. Like it must be because it ends up on people's cable subscriptions and people are paying for it, whether they know for it or not. So some money is coming in.

So I think as long as it generates revenue, it will exist. This is just me now. Mike is pontificating here. But why would you think about it? Why would Bell Media want to shine a light on what wonderful thing this was that we've basically killed? Do you know what I mean? I do.

I'm not in the heads of the executives. I've stopped playing that game years basically like killed. Yeah, I mean- Do you know what I mean? I do. I'm not in the heads of the executives. I've stopped playing that game years ago. Right. But, you know, during COVID, when the world kind of shut down, well, not kind of, the world shut down, there went the end of what I do, which is travel, making documentaries,

going into people's homes. In the case of sports, you know, these are millionaire athletes. That really got, that got hindered. Um, and so when I'm sitting around there going, okay, I can't leave the country. Um, I can't really, you know, leave my house to some, some regards. How, what can I do? That's something that's local. And the news had just broke that TikTok partnered with Bell Media on the Much Music brand. And so I had a contact at TikTok. I gave them a call.

And so what I tried to do is I said, you know what? I'm just going to go forward with this. I don't want any funding. You know, I don't want any input outside of what I'm able to do here. I want to make this free of any sort of corporatization or agenda-based film of trying to... You don't want to make a PR film? Yeah, I'm not promoting this thing to be on TikTok at the end of the day. What I'm trying to do is just capture this period of time that took place in this golden era,

which to me, you know, Much Music launched in 84. But to me, if Much Music was an athlete or an artist, its wheelhouse to me is 88 to 96. Okay, I'm into that because I was watching every day from 88 to 96. Well, you're right in the sweet spot. You are the guy that I'm making a film for. I'm your target audience here, Sean. Okay, you made this movie for me,

so let's get into it. And I will, well, I'll save it later. I have to shout out an FOTM Hall of Famer who I've been chatting with lately about this documentary. Okay, so we'll chat him out later. But I need to know Bell Media's role in this. Like, does Bell Media, they give you

in fact, one of the questions I got came from coincidentally somebody named Carter. I don't think it's Vince Carter, but Carter says, how much access did Sean have of the archives and how much was off limits from Bell? So be very explicit here, Mr. Menard.

What did you have access to that Bell Media owns and controls? And was there anything you didn't have access to? And then I want more detail in terms of like, does Bell Media have any kind of editorial privilege where they can ask something, get removed, or did they have any final say on the final product? Talk to me.

Okay, we'll get right into the minutia, right into the weeds here. I live in the weeds, man. I love the weeds. You can get all that high level crap anywhere, but you come here for the weeds. Let's go, brother. So I started, what I did was I kind of picked five VJs

that I'm going to reach out to first. Okay. And one of them in particular was Erica M. I actually wasn't that familiar with Erica before doing this project she was not my era of much music but upon watching her clips on youtube and understanding her legacy as being you know really truly the first female vj number two technically but the first big prominent one absolutely absolutely so erica had a great phone call. That turned into a, we ended up meeting for a couple beers at a pub.

And three hours later, she says, okay, what do you need? I want to be on board. So I brought her on as a consulting producer. And so that helped give a lot of the legitimacy to what I'm doing. And keep in mind, Bell's not involved. They're not putting in money at this point. So at this, okay, I'm with you. So you got Erica M's on board.

And right now, Bell Media is not in cahoots here yet i'm updating them i'm letting them know i'm moving forward with this project and i'll let you know okay if you don't like i have a question it's not so many questions do you have a couple hours there's a lot of questions like can you do a documentary on much music with footage without their consent. Yes and no. You can if you're using fair use and you're grabbing clips off YouTube, but to me, that's not a film worth making. You want access to it all, man,

and you want the highest quality and you want stuff that just don't exist, that you can't find anywhere on the internet. So, and we'll get into your boy, our boy, I would say, Ed Conroy at Retro Ontario. Of course, the first ever FOTM Hall of Famer, Ed Conroy. What is FOTM, by the way? Friend of Toronto Mike's, Sean, you're now an FOTM.

And by the way, I'll be annoying as fuck because when you say a name like Eric, I will probably point out Eric is also an FOTM. Although, it was during COVID and we did it via Zoom. And Eric, if you're listening, you got to get yourself into the basement here. It's way better in person. These episodes are way better in person. Well, she's just a magnetic energy, you know, energetic character. So, and human being. So, you'll have a, yeah, I can see why you would offer that. Lots of Erica M chatter in that Mike Campbell episode I did earlier this week. So, back to where we were. I end up starting to do some of the interviews. And Mike,

I'll tell you this in my career. We'll use the Carter effect as an example. Sure. In the Carter effect, I probably interviewed close to 40 people. And I would say about eight or nine didn't make the cut in the film. And that was horrible to let people know, hey, this is premiering at the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto, right before a Matt the film. And that was horrible to, to let people know, Hey, you know, this is premiering at the princess of Wales theater in Toronto, uh, you know, right before I'm at Damon film. And by the way, thanks for sitting down and spilling your heart, but you're not, you didn't make the cut. And honestly, it's, it's difficult, but it's also not because when you're sitting down editing, you have to think of the audience and when, if something's just not vibing,

you got to make this. So on this particular project, I wanted to start very small and I wanted to make sure everyone I reach out to, or everyone that's sitting down for the interview, I'm going to start building the edit and make sure, because there's so many VJs and there's so many characters. And what I didn't want this film to be was having MTV, for example, had put out a film where they were interviewing, uh, it was about mtv and its origins and had all the executives and they had a lot of uh former still current rock artists but they were all saying variations of the same thing right so i so to me i said i said this film needs to be from the individuals that gave the information if the idea is to make a film, and this is the goal, is to bring people back to what it was like to have that experience.

And I'm not going to time travel, not going to timestamp it, not going to have someone that's sitting down that's a writer named the pop culture outlet, and they're explaining to you why this was so impactful. I want the viewer to take that in and have that experience

and leave room for them to come to that organically. So it starts with Erica. So we've got Erica's on board. Yes. Erica's on board. And then I just start, I start having other interviews, Suk-In Lee, Michael Williams, you know, Rick Campanelli, Steve Anthony, who you're mentioning with his sweetener and his coffee so it starts building from there and then I had reached out to Master T because I feel like you're about to ask that question. Well it is on my list so the reason this came up in I'm going to get my episodes right this came up in the Rick the Temp episode the second so Rick's been here before but he came back to kick out the jams and then we talked about the documentary because he's

got an involvement there as you know because you know you are the director of this documentary but in that i kind of think somehow it came out well we talked about ed the sock which we'll talk about in a minute at the sock but let's talk about master t first to me and i've had master t down here for 90 minutes one day he came into the basement he was fantastic but to me he's really a key figure of course eric am's a key figure steve anthony is a key figure and michael williams are a key he's a key figure but master t is a key figure he literally wrote the the much music jam and from that move from i know your your doc is called 299 queen street because it kind of picks up after the move but the 99 queen street east like the before they moved he's kind of the to me a lot he's like the linchpin between these two

locations and this in many ways the spirit of this era that you're covering i would agree that wheelhouse of 88 to 96 that's t's time so you did you and did you ask him and he politely said no or did he ignore you what happened no no we talked he was very supportive but listen a lot of the people that chose not to take part i don't blame them because they had told me that at least every six months to a year for the last decade, someone reaches out about a much music documentary. And sometimes they sit down and have that interview and it never comes to light, never goes anywhere. And when the question is

asked to me, so how are you funding this? Me, I put my house up. Okay. Where's it going to air? I don't know yet. Is Bell on board with the archives? No. So anyone that decides to sit down after that is taking a leap of faith. And so it was my job to have conversations with people. Michael Williams, I met in a coffee shop and we chatted for three hours. And very little but much music. It was more about he was trying to get a sense of who I am

and is he someone, because he doesn't do a lot of media. He's not an FOC. He did the Doug and the Slugs documentary. I just want to throw it out there because I took note because you're right, he's not an FOTM and I've had multiple

in-person conversations. I've had phone calls, emails, and he tells me he's too busy but he can go to a fucking coffee shop and hang out with Sean Menard for three hours. Well, it's ended up being a film

that is getting highly publicized and has a premiere coming up. He's all over that Doug and the Slugs documentary, so he'll do documentaries. Well, I hope he starts. I'll have a conversation with him, Mike. Listen, I think... Just kidnap him.

He's in pretty good shape, man. I do not feel comfortable doing that with Michael Williams. So then it ended up getting to the point where you just start building the film and very careful who you're reaching out to. I mean, I'll be honest. At one point, I wasn't planning on having George Strombolov in this film.

Strombol was not going... So Strombol is in the film. He is in the film. He was the last one I got, which sounds crazy because he obviously has the largest social media following he's but he comes later he's a later guy exactly so this is this is where the other sock problem comes in okay so as you know sean menard because you knew about references to this documentary on

toronto mike so i know you've got your ear to the ground ed the sock has been very vocal on social media uh against this doc in that i i i feel twice now i've've had Steve Kersner over once in the guise of Ed the Sock, once with his wife, Red, Leanna K, I think we call her Red. Anyway, I think it stems from the fact he's not involved in this project. Was Ed the Sock invited? No, no, Ed the Sock wasn't invited. And that's a decision where you just have to say to yourself, what's the bigger story that I'm also telling? Listen, I got nothing but love and respect for Ed and Steven. But it ends up coming down to you're telling a story about music

and where it went from the 80s to early 2000s. And there's going to be a lot of people that you just end up missing out on. But, you know, there's a bigger story here. And I believe I was able to kind of people that you just end up missing out on but you know there's a bigger story here and i believe i was able to kind of capture that in a way that listen you're gonna love it there's gonna be a younger generation the biggest thing i'll say is yes i'm thinking about three audiences i'm thinking about the toronto mics of the world okay i'm thinking about there's only one of us but go on i'm thinking about well you're just goof of us, but go on. I'm thinking about... Well, you're... I'm just goofing. You're people. And because I'm of the same ilk too. I watched in the 90s.

So I'm thinking about us. But I'm also aware that there's an audience out around the rest of the world that doesn't know anything about much music, but knows these artists. They listen to this music. And the third audience I'm thinking about is the younger generation, is the under 25.

People like to dismiss them and mention their lack of ability to stay focused for periods of time, their attention span. But the biggest compliment I can get is when I had my world premiere in Austin, Texas at South by Southwest and two teenage girls come up and they tell me they're in high school and they're dressed like the nineties, just how everyone seems to is coming back, you know, and they tell me finally it was their favorite film on South by and they loved it. And so that that's the job of the documentary. And I believe I'm able to do that because it's paced properly. It's completely archives. And I'll say this, you know, about, um, at the sock and master tea and many others that aren't, aren't in the

film, they're there, their presence is felt and it's impossible to tell the much music story without them visually in the film because it all rests on archives. It's two hours of just archives. But you could easily do a seven- to ten-part series, and I hope that this ends up shaking the tree of the archives because when Bell eventually came on board, 95% of the archives, Mike, in this film were not digitally archived before. So meaning they were on the shelf collecting dust and those tapes eventually expire.

And so what, what happened was you got two hours of film, 95% of it, they digitized. And, and now they've just moved forward and made the decisions where they're digitizing everything. And I, and that, if that's the legacy that i'm able to if i'm able to shake that tree and be able to say that stuff that all belongs in a museum when 299 queen street west turns into a subway station already i'm condos i'm hearing we we wish it was a subway station but whatever it ends up becoming it's historically designated so they can't they can't yes right and so if i'm here in subway station but it ends up okay being subway station you know it's going to have that little museum of that little um you

know however large in scope but it's going to have an outlet of what this used to be and that's where speaker's corner was yeah i can see it now okay by the way on this note of uh you could do a seven to ten episode series mike campbell uh guest on Tuesday. What a week it's been everybody. Frank Corrado, Mike Campbell, Dale Barber, and now Sean Menard. Ask him about the odds of turning this into an ongoing streaming show and

about his plans to screen it in cities across the country. Okay. Answer that first one first. I see it's a two part question here, but why not on, I don't know, a Crave series. Crave,

by the way, for those who don't know, owned series crave by the way for those who don't know owned by bell media much music's archives where we're going to get into how they come on board and in what role in a second here but bell media like it's all synergy as they use in the corporate world why not a crave series like a streaming show about much music i i agree i and at one point when i finished the film so, so let me first start by saying we are taking it across the theater one night only, and we're going into concert venues, you some of the Much Music VJs from the film. And so it all kicks off in Toronto. And that's September 22nd.

Tickets on sale at roythompsonhall.com or 299queenshootwest.com where I'll also be announcing the rest of the tour later this fall. And then eventually ends up on Crave. One of the questions was when did Bell Media get involved in this project? Yeah, I still need to resolve that one. So when do they come

on board and in what capacity so what i had done is as i started to do the interviews what i had i probably got about five or six in the can and i cut a sizzle reel using just clips off of youtube and i sent it to my connections at craven bell I said, this is the vibe. This is happening. I'd love for you guys to come on board and, and, and let's find a way to get access to the archives and make this the thing that it should be. And that's when everything changed. It's a lot different when you're having conversations about it. It's totally different when it's written in a, in a pitch deck, as they call it, or a visual aid or word document but when you are when you see something tangible that has a feeling and emotion to it and um i actually got one of the scores of so the

composer of the carter effect went on to do the last dance the michael jordan series on love that yeah he won an emmy for that wow and then um i had sent him a cut of this early on and i said listen man i know you're from los angeles I know you don't know anything about much music, but I'd love it if you could score this film, no pressure. And so he ends up watching a cut and calls me two hours later and goes, oh my God, I can't believe this existed. His sister was in the Go-Go's actually.

Wow. And so he grew up with these artists. He's like, I've never seen them like this. They're real people. And MTV was pre-recorded. It wasn't live. It was a bunch of suits and a bunch of stiffs it didn't so this is my this is my blind spot okay i never saw a minute of mtv like i i know

a lot of people like my friend stew stone had a satellite hookup so maybe black market gray market who knows but they were able to pull down uh mtv i i never had this uh opportunity so i only know much i don't know what was stolen from MTV. I don't know what they ripped off from MTV. I don't know what was better than MTV. All I know is I watched Much Music. Well, I joined that as well. But through this project, I learned a lot more.

But they very much were aware of Much Music, watching Much Music. It talks about it in the film. And they eventually moved their studios in the late 90s to Times Square in New York as a complete, you know, ripoff to or homage, whatever you want to say, and having their live show and trying to bring the audience on board. Homage, not fromage. So when they ended up coming on board, Bell Media, and opening the archives, and to answer the question, I had full access. It was, you know, working in conjunction with their incredible librarians there,

live in the basement of the two nights. It looks like a record shop down there. It looks like you're going to- I want the documentary about this. Like, did you film your access? I feel you go into this. It's almost like you're in the Vatican archives or something.

You would hear rumors and I would speak to VJs where they say, you know, a lot of this footage doesn't exist. It's been thrown into dumpsters and they didn't preserve it. And that was the myth that was going around. And I had learned and I used some inside information to find out that that's not true. It's just they just didn't catalog, although it's cataloged, but it's not digital.

If you remember, I'll say this, remember Ghostbusters? Of course. Library with the cards and the ooze and they're flying around. That's what the archives, that's how they're cataloged right now. They're not even moved over digitally yet

because the resources and to want to do that is quite expensive, which is now happening. So let's celebrate that for so wait a minute so they just said hey like i'm trying to like understand so they just said hey here's our here's our have access to our archives for your doc did they have a was there also is this part of a bundle of some kind of like a financial stake or some kind of editorial privilege well they real talk they put in the they put in the stream they put in the stream, they put in an amount so they can have it streamed in Canada. I still haven't made my money back on the film yet, but the opportunity was

there to be able to partner and, and, and get that access to the archives. And that's what the film needed. So from there, um, when they watched a cut, um, my executive, the executive producer, the only one from bell that's attached with a producer credit, Justin Stockman, he watched it and he shared it amongst his colleagues. And he said, we have no notes. We love this. But this is a love letter to much music, right? Like you're not out to, you know, dig in for dirt or something.

No, man. Listen, I think the idea of getting into the weeds of when Bell Media took over and Moses Zimer has been pushed out and this i mean and and moses truly was a visionary i had a different ending to my film i actually was was originally pitched to have moses in the film on camera he's still alive not a lot of people know that i think we all know everyone listening to this show knows moses is still alive but what i'm saying is he's still very much active and he could be. Sure. I was at the Zoomerplex. I biked by the Zoomerplex today. Well, there's a museum in there, a television

museum. And so I pitched him and his assistant about, hey, I want to end the film with Moses and he can be in his museum and talking about what he was visioning when he created this. And they were on board. Moses had asked, he just wanted to see a cut so that he could speak

to, you know, make sure that it's the, he's poetically spoken and it's the perfect ending for what we need. And, um, and so I was very excited about that. The problem is once I got there, once I started putting the piece together, I realized the main character of the film is not one individual. It doesn't feel right ending it just on Moses. What's happened here is in the same way that there's a Carter effect with young basketball players in the NBA that are now from Canada watching Vince Carter, there is that in music.

We see that with Drake, Bieber, Shawn Mendes, you name it, The Weeknd, all these current artists that cite much music as their first source of inspiration coming up. Am I hearing you right? Did you uninvite Moses? Yes, yes. Wow.

So it ended up coming to a situation where I thought it's stronger if we hear from Moses throughout. Listen, again, I'm a slave to the audience, man. Best story wins. And I get it's going to piss people off. And I've been doing this for years in terms of working with athletes and teams.

And I'll sit there in Q&As and they'll go, why didn't you get this player? Why didn't you get this player? And it's just like, some say no. And some, I just, this is, this is the version that I'm telling that I think is the best globally. And it is a love letter. It's a love letter to, to not only much music, but it's a love letter to Canadians, to the idea of when you're given total creativity and free reign to do what you want, you can create beautiful stuff, which we've gotten away from in this country in my opinion. Now, as you know, I've not yet seen your documentary. You've got

to come to the premiere. You haven't invited me yet. Come on, let's go on here. I want to be there because I want to review it on this show. I want to talk. I can't speak of any authority on whether this thing is good. I think it's good because somebody I know and trust told me it's good. So believe it to be good but i need to see it with my own eyes and determine if it's good it's wild to me that there was no room in this talk you forget ed the sock there's no room for moses in this no no moses is in the duck so oh but it's

archival footage right correct so that's right that's so what i wanted to do was i felt that the strongest way to have Moses in the film is to have it from the viewpoint of what it was like when you watched Much Music. So if you remember when you watched Much Music, you would hear about Moses. You're consuming things that he very much created. He's the puppet master. He's pulling the strings. He's a visionary. And people talk about that in this film, but you never really hear from Moses. And it felt like by the time I got to the end,

hearing Moses talk about how great he is, isn't going to be as strong as getting it from other people. And even in the archives, he's always shot from far away and he's in the shadows and he's this mysterious figure. I actually heard a story the other day that the character that Ed Harris plays in the Truman Show was actually based on Moses Eimer. I could see that. Right?

Yeah, I could see that. That blew my mind when I heard that. Well, that makes a lot of sense. He created this living, breathing organism, which was $2.99, and he took away... Strombo has this great... And I have a lot of respect for him because I told him, like,

dude, you're probably going to be, like, less than five minutes in this film. I understand if you don't... Look, he's lucky to be there considering the years you told me you're covering in this I understand. He's lucky to be there considering the years you told me you're covering in this documentary. Strombo's lucky to be there. Well, we go to ends in the early 2000s

when much music jumped the shark. And it really started to, of course you have YouTube, which now all of a sudden people don't have, you know, they're not waiting around to catch it on television. And also you're having marketing, you know, having programming decisions.

Back in the day, it was Strombo even, he was on the tail end of this. If he wanted to have the punk show, he could do whatever he wanted. And once you take that licensing away from these early influencers, that's when the programming really shifts and you don't have that same type of vibe

that you were having before. So, you know, I'll say this. Strombo told me that most television studios around the world, they have a huge fence and they keep the studio out. Don't see the wizard behind the curtain, but Moses was ahead of the game and he, he created an environment where we're going to embrace the space and we're going to have the work office, uh, included with the, with the studio and it, it, there's no barrier. And then we're going to bring the audience in and we're going to have this incredible building where we bring the door, the windows up and we bring the people in and they're a part of it. And you see it now where

he was 20, 30 years ago. And that's the experience you're going to get. You could have someone saying what I'm repeating in the film. That's not going to be as strong as when you're watching it through the archives and you recognize, wow, this is what major networks like CNN are even copying now with huge budgets. So as I'm working my way through the film, I realized that the central character, the main character, you want to hear the main character is Mike in this film? Yes, please. It's the building.

It's 299 Queen Street West. And most people through the years, 40, 50 years, a hundred years from now, they might not remember the architect, but they're going to remember the building. And the architect to me is Moses Imer and his character shines, but it seemed like bigger than just one person. And it felt like, you know, this building was, was giving space to having all these unique characters come in and it's also an incredible time in history that had various types of

music which we don't see now. If you look at the charts it's typically pop music and hip hop but in the 90s it was everything and Much Music was at that perfect time where they could show it all. It's interesting that Strombo was involved in this because there's several what I call Gen X documentaries at play right now.

So you've got yours, which sounds like it's ahead of the game here because it's done. It's been seen by people and it's coming again. What was the date of the Roy Thompson Hall viewing? September 22nd on a Friday night, 8 p.m. Yeah, this is electric circus days. We're talking here Friday night.

And we're going to make an event. The cowboy dancer has been on this program. What? yeah dalton pompey's father you got it wow we gotta i gotta burn him out i gotta put him in the in the windows just to dance i'm gonna do that kenric pompey yes k pompey who released the 12-inch single summertime summertime which we we play and we talk about it's wild but strombo is uh he came too much straight from cfny he was at 102.1 the edge and the other doc that's ongoing it's not quite finished yet but i got a note from the director it's funny i gotta do i got an email from the director of the cfny documentary in the same week as i uh corresponded with the director of the much music documentary that's you sean but the cfny

documentary is uh coming soon too they're working hard on that and we've been discussing that with alan cross and others on this program but strombo was there before and the other one i'm just going to shout it out real quickly of all these gen x docs that are coming is there's a uh lowest of the low documentary coming soon lowest of the low of course uh great friends of this program we close every episode with a song from shakespeare my butt but to me it's wild like here they come like we just here they come here's the much doc right for them then you get the cfny doc and then you have the lowest of the low doc like what a time to be alive what a time for toronto mike because these are all like sweet spots that we've been covering here for 11 years which is which is awesome well strombo i'm glad that he came on board i'm excited for those

films as well i think this all this is high tide rises all boats type of thing. And the fact that it premiered in the biggest film festival right now in America gives, it's a huge testimony to the fact that this is a global story. And what they did revolutionized television.

Okay, so let me run down again. I feel like I'm speaking to the choir anyway. You're already sold sold you'll be there September 22nd at Roy Thompson Hall so I don't gotta worry so Eric Ams on board first you dropped the name

Suk-Yin Lee like she came on board early as well yeah Suk-Yin came on board okay Michael Williams came on early because you told me

about the three hour conversation I am so jealous but anyway one day one day and Steve Anthony I guess was a came on pretty shortly.

Steve Agony, wow. Now we're cooking with gas here. You got the superstar of the show there. In my opinion, Steve Anthony, the big superstar. You mentioned Strombo comes on. I think, I'm guessing, because he's such a high-profile guy. He might be next to, I don't know, J.D. Roberts, who was, of course course an era before your

covering but you know j we all know what happened with jd roberts but strombo what a what a massive figure to come out of 299 queen street west well strombo in many ways was a throwback to the original vjs so and he'd grown up watching the new music so it was it was a perfect way i remember seeing a cut before strumbles in the film and then watching it after with my producer and just commenting wow this is is such a better film especially towards the end because he really ties it together oh he's very good and and is a full circle moment and he's an fotm everybody okay as is steve anthony and erica am okay so master t said no thank you pretty much that's where we're going with that.

Okay, so Master T was invited but said no thank you. Ed the Sock, not invited. Moses, uninvited. I kind of like those three different styles of not making it. Is there anyone else who you wanted on board that came on board or anybody that you wanted that turned you down? You're looking for the gossip, eh, Mike? What is that gossip?

Because it's about a movie. I'm not asking who's sleeping with the secretary. That's gossip, okay? I don't even know, man. I just looked at it as I have... Well, if you don't know, who does? I have 10 VJs that decided that... Did you want Monica D'Ole?

Monica D'Ole's in it. She was one that I talked to early on as well. And we had a great conversation. And she believed in me enough to sit down and share her story which is incredible in the film um and and yeah so okay so here now that's maybe that maybe i'll just throw a few names at you real quick how about ziggy lawrence did ziggy participate no or maybe she's i mean i'm trying to be respectful of the fact that you didn't like i'm guessing christopher ward's not there because you I'm trying to be respectful of the fact that you didn't, like I'm guessing Christopher Ward's not there

because you don't want to cover the, he's super early. Like him and J.D. Roberts are your first two VJs. Yeah, but I would say if you're, the names that you're dropping in, I think what you're really looking for potentially is more of a, you know, oral history of much,

which if the perfect read is Christopher Ward's This Is Live book. Yeah, got around the corner. It's a great pairing after the film if you really want to dig deeper because he's got them all. And it's just in a two hour film, Mike, it's just not enough run time to get to them all. Okay, fair enough.

And you've got this footage. Let's talk about Ed Conroy for a minute here then because Ed comes on the show regularly. We do a thing called Christmas Crackers, which is always, people love the Christmas Crackers with Ed Conroy. But Ed would come on, we're going back a few years now,

I'm guessing, I'm thinking this is pre-pandemic. He was working with Joel Goldberg on a Much Music documentary. Like we would get kind of updates and he was having some frustrations with Bell Media. Needless to say, this never materialized. I'm wondering,

do you have any insight into like why that collapsed and why yours succeeded? And more specific, is it Ed just said, hey, here's my archive of much music if you want to just grab footage? Like, is that what he did? Because it sounds like he's all on board with this doc. Yeah. So, I mean, Joel Goldberg was interviewed for the film as well. So I didn't know those guys were cooking that up until I was far along in the process. But what happened was I didn't even know the connection

between Ed Conroy and Joel Goldberg until my archive producer was providing early things that we were referencing. Hey, can we get this? Can we get this from the archives? And I kept seeing Retro Ontario's watermark on all this. Yeah, right, of course. I said, who is this?

Who's finding all this incredible footage? And so that led me to just messaging Ed, Retro, hey, Retro, who are you? What do you do? Let's jump on a call. You should have listened to his Toronto Mike debut. You would have got the 101 on Ed Conroy. But he would be, I think, you know, he's a big fan.

He calls himself a nostalgia merchant. He's, honestly, there is truth to some footage that was thrown out in the dumpster. Season one, Electric Circus. It only lives in... On Ed's hard drive? No, but it's in compilations. That's the only way that Bell has it.

But he got tipped off and he went into the dumpster and grabbed all this stuff. Ed Conroy, and when I start doing more press closer to the September 22nd premiere, One Night Only in Toronto, tickets now on sale at roydthompsonhall.com,

Ed will be with me on some of these because honestly, that guy, and I remember asking him, Ed, why do you preserve all this stuff? You don't get paid for it. And he was like, it got to a point where he said, if it's not me, then who? Because he felt eventually it's going to get forgotten. And that's the synergy that him and I shared

is that this much music doc that I've been trying to make for six years that many other people have been trying to make for years and it's just not getting through. I very much came to that same moment. If I don't put up the money to make this, if I don't, you know, refinance my home to get the production started, then who's going to do it. And, and listen, maybe this is a, you know, that's the beautiful thing about film. You have 20 different filmmakers going to have 20 different films. All I'm trying to do is create the best possible thing that gets represented around the world where people are proud that they were a part of it, that they watched it, they consumed it, learned about it, finding new artists again, all that kind of great stuff.

Did you license any music in this? For example, I know you're going to show footage of, I don't know, Erica M talking to Kurt Cobain, for example. And I haven't seen the doc yet, but I would imagine there's a scene of that, right? Like, would you, I don't know, license come as you are or something? I'm curious about how the music works. There's some, there's, you have some, some wiggle room under the fair use guidelines to documentary filmmakers. You can use, you know, 10 or 15 seconds if it lines up to what you're doing for educational purposes in the film. There's, there's ways to work around it, but some, you know,

our acoustic performances that you just have to say to yourself, okay, I got to pay money for this because this is, this is incredible. And, and the stuff that exists on YouTube is just not of the same quality. I give total props to the sound engineers at much music and the, and the camera operators.

I mean, this stuff looks very unique and incredible and it sounds great. So we had to lean into that. It's, but you're paying for this thing, right? Like that must make you, you must make you sweat a little.

Like I, I've heard stories of big budget things like the Simpsons and like, Oh, their, their plan was to use this music by the Beatles or whatever. And then they realized what the price would be to play like the masters of that. And it's like,

Oh, maybe we'll just do like a sound alike. Yeah. I don't know you we use it's a ton of there's a ton of music there's a ton of music videos again i gotta see this fucking thing i gotta wait till september it's you do and and it's worth the wait how come ed got to see it what like where's my what's going on i'm not sure i none of you right is ed conroy i mean by the way no is ed conroy seen this movie of course because he came on board as an archive supervisor you didn't know you'd be hit with all these hard hits sean i could tell you're sweating over you're on the hot seat here i am interrogating you over your beautiful document love letter to bunch music 299 queen street west i appreciate

it but you're doing a great job it is a bit of a hot scene here man i didn't i thought it was going to be more of a love letter interview i didn didn't know there was an investigative journalism going on. It's the Fifth Estate. Okay, one more tough question and then a little softer. But the big tough question is, I want to know if this gentleman was invited to participate. Okay, one more name here. Only because this came up in the,

I think this came up in the Mike Campbell episode. Serious question. Does it matter who's invited and who's not? Or does it matter that this thing got made? To it's important now that i know master t was invited and he politely turned you down to me i feel better knowing he was invited interesting i because there's certain figures i don't think you need to invite i don't think you need to have everybody who's a vj i mean it's kim where's kim clark champness like i'm not going to freak out over every i love kim clark champness by the way is he part of the documentary was he

asked i took him out to dinner me and kim and they eventually said no for just all right the one name and then again it just doesn't matter you can't have everybody but there are certain like what i call like pillars of like you know i feel like you had you had to have Steve Anthony and you got Steve Anthony. And I was, I'm interested to know whether Terry David Mulligan was invited to be a part of this documentary. He wasn't. And honestly, it's a damn shame. And I'm upset at the filmmaker for doing that, for making that choice because you're being, you're being sarcastic. No, I'm not. You're the filmmaker. Well, yeah, there you go. But through the footage in the archives, I wasn't that familiar with him i came to him in the 90s he was a little bit of the older generation of oh yeah yeah he's an og he's a he's a much

music og it seems as though he was he had gray hair right from the time and he doesn't fit the he was older than everybody else and it starts to clash with the narrative that you're telling of these young vjs with no experience and then you start to go down. He was good rocking tonight so he was very experienced. And you end up saying to yourself again it's the three audiences man. It's like I know you guys are going to be upset. I know part of my childhood is going to be upset because it's not this person's

not in it. This person's not in it. But again to people that don't know the story. It's tough to. No one in America is going to be asking about where certain people are. But the beautiful part is you could jump on YouTube and start to learn more about it and you start to discover these people. And I'll say this, it's like, you know,

obviously having no personal interviews with Master T, it hurts me personally, but it would be way worse if he's not even seen or heard from in the film. But again, it's an archive doc. It's two hours of archives. He can't stop that, right? Because Bell Media owns that footage.

Correct. And he wouldn't want to because his legacy is shown in here in a beautiful way. And I hope that it ends up becoming, whether it's a spinoff doc that someone's going to do on the history of Rap City

or Da Mix and bringing Toronto hip hop to the forefront, which he's very much uh you know responsible for doing that i mean embracing the local artists and putting them on a stage they wouldn't normally have gotten he didn't have to do that but he chose to do that and that makes him an incredible pioneer in the city but um so yeah so i mean it's a film when you sit down you're gonna get lost in the archives in the world and and it's gonna bring back a shit ton of nostalgia in a beautiful way. Well,

I really do. I can't wait to see it. That's what I'm telling you. I can't wait to see this because I've been covering the same era that you're giving your love letter to this era. I've been trying to dig in for the real talk and have these people on and dive into these details, the minutia.

I legit like I'm obsessed with the minutia because there's a million places you can go and get this high level. Like yeah john martin was doing the new uh was it the new music it was the new music yeah right yeah and then you know you can talk about you know how many times have i had conversations with john martin who's no longer with us therefore could not be a part of your documentary anyways but you know you know the this this weeds that you refer to that's that's where i live but you're trying to satisfy these three audiences. And I actually understand your plight here. So, you know, there's the people like me who are looking for this doc.

And then there's the Americans, right? Like who don't, didn't grow up watching much music who need this doc. And then you're right. My 21 year old is going to discover much music through this doc the way I discovered Woodstock because the Woodstock documentary aired all the time on

city tv and i would watch this thing and i loved how it was made and i loved the documentary and to this day i feel like i was at fucking woodstock even though i wasn't born yet because of this documentary so this is how you educate the next generation on the stuff they missed and it's the archives that bring them in right right and when you start to make things through a modern lens and you have a modern day agenda that you're pushing, it doesn't have the same effect. You're timestamping it. It's not as good 10, 20 years out. And that's the responsibility, I think, of every filmmaker is to at least be conscious of the younger generation because that's what sparked my inspiration when I was younger. So I even said to Erica,

she was telling me her daughter bought a VHS camera and then she uploads it to Instagram and she loves 90s music. And I said, the most beautiful thing is, and then she uploads it to Instagram and she loves nineties music. And I said, the most beautiful thing is Erica, you're going to be able to go see it and you're going to be able to take her teenage daughter. She's finally going to really understand what this is all about and, and to be able to relive it. And, and your, your 21 year old son as well. I think that's a perfect pairing for the Canadian premiere.

And that, to be honest with you, doing the theatrical run is all about getting people to have that shared experience again, because that's what the Much Music experience was. You go to your friend's house after school and watch it, or you showed up at 299. You need that communal sense of event to bring people together. And, you know, typically in movies, especially in this film where you don't see the VJs on camera. You just hear their voices. It's beautiful though. Right. There's no talking heads. This is like just you hear the voices over the footage? Correct. But what's great about it, and I'm sure you know this, they've been on your podcast, their voices are still the same. So when you pair that with the footage, it has

this incredible magic to it because they're speaking in present tense. They're not talking about it from today back then. They're talking about these moments as if they're really happening. So that brings you in, in a more effective way. Yeah. And one of the nice things about our, you know, much music nostalgia here is that almost all of these onscreen people, like now John Martin behind the scenes died a long time ago. One guy on screen who I used to watch with Test Pattern, etc. was Dan Gallagher. And Dan Gallagher is sadly no longer with us.

We lost him far too soon. But the overwhelming majority of these on-screen personalities that we loved on Much Music are still with us. Yes, they are. And what's really cool is, you know, you mentioned John Martin. I didn't know anything about John Martin. I didn't really know anything about... Talk to Ziggy. You'll get an education. I didn't really know anything about- Talk to Ziggy, you'll get an education.

I didn't really know anything about Moses Neimer. I knew him as a name on a street and I would hear his name occasionally on the network. So this film, you know, sheds light on these incredible, you know, pioneers in our industry. And I'll say this, we talked about the three audiences.

You're right, because when I'm sitting down and I'm cutting and my first cut and it's 20 minutes deep on the history of City TV, I know you're loving it. I know you're going to love it. I'm loving it. But then I have to say to myself, the other two audiences aren't going to give a shit. But have you ever considered, Sean, like, and again, I'm stupid.

Like I've never made a movie. I don't understand any of these parts. I can imagine it's trying to, you know, you just mentioned a few times, like you put your house up up i'm worried you're going to be living in my basement because i want you to get this money back there is a bed around the corner because that's where the 21 year old crashes okay but it's almost like as i listen to you talk it's like oh you need to make three documentaries because you need to make the documentary for me you need to make the documentary for my kid and you need to make the documentary for the guy in uh in texas

who's never seen much music right like it's like these are three different documentaries at least a dvd extra cut for the uh of all the minutiae that you can't put in a two-hour documentary that's going to satisfy all these uh overlords well that's that's the goal right and that's and i believe it's a film that that checks three boxes for everybody. And it's in, I'm going to see this thing. And what ends up happening is when I think the biggest compliment to it all is, is if YouTube truly, and this isn't my own narrative, again,

I don't walk into it an agenda based documentary storyline. I still don't understand how people take written by credits in documentaries. You know, you end up, you end up having interviews and you see where it goes and the individuals that are in that chair that are talking about certain things,

and I don't even do interviews with notes. I'm really just free-flowing having conversations and where we go ends up becoming the story and I find that in the edit. It starts to reveal itself. I'm on a tangent here, but... No, fucking this is Toronto Mike. We tangent here.

We have more than two hours. You can, we'll block the next six for this. Okay. One thing I will say that I feel bad for you is that, and maybe it's Ed the Sock's fault, who knows, but there seems to be this mild vitriol leveled at you unfairly by people who haven't seen the film yet. Like to me, it's wild for me to say,

oh, what a shitty, what a shitty, pathetic documentary this is about our beloved much music. How could I make anything close to that comment without actually, you know, seeing the film? Like a lot of people, because unless you went to Austin or you're Ed Conroy, you haven't seen this movie. Yeah, and to be honest with you, not all the VJs have seen it either.

What I'd done is I sent them really just their introduction in the film when they kind of come out to get a vibe of what it's going to look like and how they appear and how they're spoken in the film. But I wanted everyone to see it for the first time on the big screen and have that moment together. Right. And they come out on stage after for our intimate interactive.

I want that moment to be great for the, not only for them, but the audience because they're going to get first reactions of how they're taking that in. And when you watch a film, I think some people are going to go, you know, I'm talking about your specific audience. Oh man, I wish I could see what these VJs look like now

and hear what the, and sometimes people might put them in the credits or something where you see them and what they're up to. That opportunity is going to happen in real life at an event across the country, 13 different cities. So that's what we're really trying to build in the end. Good for you, man. Bill Wilichka, was he invited?

He was. Bill, I just talked to Bill. He actually has a book coming out. He said that our interview had brought him to certain places and sparked memories he hadn't thought about in years. And it wasn't shortly after that he had his Jerry Maguire in the middle of the night moment where he was writing his mission statement. And it's going to be a book coming out

later this year, I believe. Yeah, yeah. He's also a good FOTM. Also loves wrestling. Just a little. Fun fact, Bill was actually my favorite VJ when I was a kid in the 90s.

Is that because you like country music? Because, you know, Bill was doing those Outlaws and Heroes. I didn't know that he did that until I started talking to him for the documentary. No, man.

He interviewed a lot of alternative bands that I liked and rock bands. He was the big hip guy too. The hip loved Wilichka. He had the long curly flow that I'm trying to tap into. And he had a great energy to him where he genuinely, you could tell,

and I think this is what did it is, as a kid, I like to see someone else on screen having a ton of fun and he's doing the dream job and he's loving it. And he's also well-researched in it too. He ended up sitting down with so many artists and he's loving it. And, um, he's also well-researched in it too. He, he, he ended up sitting down with so many artists and I really appreciate it even more through the lens of me going through all these hours of footage, which was an absolute privilege by the way. And it was a joy more than any project I've ever had ever worked on watching his interviews and seeing

him strip away, uh, the, the, you know, the, the ego or the character that a lot of these artists might portray, and they just became real humans. And it made for... Yeah, his interview style was amazing. He's a good egg. He's a good egg. Hey, you mentioned the This Is Live by Christopher Ward, which is a great companion piece

to the 299 Queen Street West documentary everybody's going to see at Roy Thompson Hall. But did you dig up the footage of Beastie Boys and Erica M? Because that's referenced quite a bit in the book. And maybe this is before that sweet spot that you were focusing on. I guess this is about mid-80s or whatever. Did you dig that footage up?

Beastie Boys footage is in it. If you're going to start getting me name every one that's in it. In fact, here, let me do a little detour here and just tell you. like, now that Sean Minard, now you did the Carter Effect, you've done 299 Queen Street West, you're making a big name for yourself.

Now you're an FOTM, you're on Toronto Mic, you're really, you're here now. You need, Sean, you need the Moment Lab. They specialize in public relations. They have a team of experienced professionals who know how to craft stories that resonate with your audience and generate positive media coverage. So whether you're launching a new documentary or building your reputation or managing a crisis, they've got you covered. I'm happy to introduce anybody and

everybody to Matt and Jared at the Moment Lab, and you can learn more about how you can achieve your public relations goals. Can they help me sell tickets to events across the country for the Much Music documentary? Absolutely. Hook me up. Absolutely. Matt and Jared, happy to hook you up. And I want to shout out recyclemyelectronics.ca because I'm sure you have like old, I don't

know, like an old VCR that doesn't work or you got an old iPhone in a drawer somewhere. You don't throw that stuff in the garbage because there's dangerous chemicals that is bad for Mother Earth. You go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and you can find out a location near you where you can safely drop that tech off and it will be disposed of responsibly, carefully.

I almost broke into some Gordani. Get Ry Cooter to say my eulogy. Okay. You know what's really cool about that actually is every time Tragically Hip appears on screen in this film at the world premiere in austin texas south by southwest there were applause by the by the canadians in the crowd yeah there's a great energy that and i can't that and that's i just kept thinking to myself wow it's like this here i can't wait to to feel

that when i'm bringing it back to the canadian audiences and that day again at roy thompson hall september 22nd. September 22nd. And there's tickets still available. So what is the website we go to to buy tickets to this Munch Music documentary premiere? You can go to 299queenstreetwest.com or you can go to roythompsonhall.com. Wow, that's classy, Roy Thompson Hall.

Good for you, man. What's next for you? When you make back your money so you don't lose your house, what is the next project you want to tackle oh man i and why is it an uncle bobby documentary because i would love an uncle bobby documentary and you're only 38 years old you're like mike who the fuck is uncle bobby well do you have another hour we'll talk about it anyway i'm throwing that out there but what do you

have on your mind i don't know man i'm my main focus is trying to make my money back on this film, to be honest with you, which has become a full-time job here, just selling tickets and planning these events. But you need Gen X to come out. I do, man. And bring their teenagers out because they'll love it too. But I want to educate them.

But I want to, at some point, do a trilogy of Toronto Love Letters, because that's what this film really is. I sneak in so many references to Skydome, to shots of the TTC in the background. There'd be a great companion drinking game eventually when this thing's streaming on crave every time you see a a ttc in the background um fly by but yeah it's it's really a love letter to the to the to the greatest city in the world and uh if i can do number three and i've got a few ideas and so hopefully that there's enough of an audience and for this film and it allows me to have that ability to do that well priestly beat you to the ballard doc but i think you could do a better job maybe so uh there might be an

opportunity there for maybe crave once a good ballard doc by sean menard thinking out loud for you buddy uh thank you for bringing on fotm hall of famer ed con. I'm glad he's part of this. That also makes me feel good. And he's told me it's a great doc. So I trust Ed. He called it the mic drop. He called it the mic. After this, there's no reason to do anymore. At least films. But I think hopefully the mic gets

picked back up for a series. Maybe. Who knows? I would love it. I get craved because that's where I get my HBO shows. So all the best. Next to this dog, all the best TV seems to come out of HBO. I get it on Crave.

Love it. Watching Succession, watching a lot of good stuff on HBO. Sean, great to meet you, buddy. This was fantastic. Likewise. Thanks for all the damn gifts and the hospitality.

And I'll take you up on that bed offer if the film doesn't make its money back. And that brings us to the end of our 1,245th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. How can we follow you, Sean Menard? Is it Twitter, Instagram? Where can we go to follow you?

Instagram at Sean Menard. And Sean, by the way, S-E-A-N. That's the right way to spell Sean, if you ask me. Named after Sean Connery, the greatest Bond. Whoa! Yes. Sean Connery, the greatest Bond. You can follow me.

I already told you how to follow me. I'm still Toronto Mike, but you can follow Great Lakes Brewery or Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sean, I got your lasagna. Don't worry. Moneris is at Mineris.

Enjoy that wireless speaker. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. The Moment Lab are at The Moment Lab and Ridley Funeral Home. Before I forget, you got it in your hand right now. That is a measuring tape courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. You never know when you have to measure something, Sean.

We're taking care of you, buddy. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. See you all next week when my special guest is alan speaking of scots alan through from glass tiger drops by the tmds studio that's on monday i can't wait. Last Tiger's in the film too. Is Platinum Blonde in the film? I'm just picking on all the 80s bands that I used to see. I don't know much music. Corey Hart, does he make an appearance? Oh, Corey Hart makes an appearance.

Oh my God. Okay. Corey Hart, future FOTM. Alan Frew, FOTM as of Monday. See you all then. Then. I know it's true How about you? They're picking up trash and they're putting down roads They're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am

But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine

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

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

Rosie now Everything is Rosie Yeah, everything is Rosie and Gray Yeah Yeah, everything is rosy and gray.