Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sharon Taylor: Toronto Mike'd #994

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

In this episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with the Program Director of CFTR680 in the late 80s, Sharon Taylor about the station, being a woman in radio management, and the mass firing at CISS. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

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Joining me this week on Toronto Mic'd is radio executive and friend of Blair Packham, Sharon Taylor. Welcome, Sharon. Thank you. Nice to be here. And you were telling me a moment ago, you don't get to Etobicoke much because you're not sure where you are. Etobicoke much because you're not sure where you are. No, I'm East End and East End Toronto stays East End. Honestly, I don't cross... So you don't cross Yonge? No, and that's the Great Divide. It's Yonge, North South and it's the

401 East West and I'm inside that square that is East Toronto. So I take it you don't go to many sporting events because they're all West of Yonge. All the Dome, the Scotiabank Arena, the BMO Field, these are all west of Yonge. I occasionally visit

the west side just to keep up on fashion. Queen Street West? That's right. The odd sports game. So yeah, it's just I don't know what very, you know, I think that anywhere that you live, you tend to just gravitate to this little circle outside of your house, right? Oh, listen, I forever used to say, like, I was unfamiliar east of Yonge. Right.

And I agree. And I have some friends now in East York, and I'll take bike ride trips to East York. But, like, when I go to Scarborough on the odd occasion, I don't know't know like the street names. I don't know where I am. It's like I've gone to a whole different city. So I totally know what you mean. It's like a foreign land when you get that far away. I have this kind of make-believe snobbery kind of thing. And the place that I was living in before where I am right now, I was actually one street into Scarborough from Toronto. And I was so embarrassed. I refused to put it down as an address.

Oh, no. Shout out to Mike Myers and the Barenaked Ladies and Maestro Fresh West. Well, it's the same thing as harboring envy with people who still have 416 area codes. Do you have a 416? No. See, I do. Do you really? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. If you could sell those, I would definitely be in the buyer's market. This is like that Seinfeld episode with, what do they have? The 212 or whatever New York had. And then, yeah. Right.

Yeah. The same thing. All right. So, Sharon, I know you're used to being on the other side of the table we're going to talk about your many years as a radio executive and we're going to focus on a station I loved listening to in the late 80s but I just want to make sure you're right in front of the mic because you're kind of just off it a bit you should hear it in the can oh I have no oh there you go oh there you are there Sharon all right pleasure to meet you but i believe and you'll correct me if i'm wrong i believe we have actually met before

because uh coming out i mean we're still in the pandemic but there was like coming out of that first 18 month period where like we didn't see any live music i had an invitation from my friend pete fowler uh love pete pete Pete has a home that's way west of here. Right. And in his backyard, he said he's got like, he said Stephen Stanley was going to be there. He's an FOTM. And then he said the guy from the Jitters was going to be there.

And I'm like, okay, Blair Packham. Like, that's going to be amazing. So I go to this thing. I just want to tell Pete Fowler, if he's listening, that was like a magic, amazing night. And you were there that night. Yeah, I was there. It was great.

It was wonderful. Exclusive, you know, to get an invitation because there weren't that many people in Pete's backyard, right? Did you have any of the butter tarts? Yeah. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. Who made those?

I don't know. That was unbelievable, though. I think I went back for thirds on the butter tarts. Exactly. No, it was a very, it was like a very magical night, and the weather was great, and it was just nice to be with people and listening to music. Magical night. Yeah.

And subsequent, since that night, Blair has become an FOTM. He came over. And finally, you're here. And again, I mentioned there's going to be a lot of CFDR talk. What do you think of, like, when you hear this, tell me, how do you feel? Sundays are commercial free. Commercial free.

CFDR. It's a great, that was a great radio station and a lot of fun. And when I hear stuff like that, it reminds me of all the radio that i used to do oh that's so cool what is that i think if not that i'd ever open it up but it's a t-shirt or something like that yeah it's like vacuum pack that's my everybody who's listening

that's a cfer i think actually i know who gave that to me that was evelyn macko who gave that to me you know what evelyn macko is one one of those people that when you hear Evelyn Mack, or at least for me, when I hear her on the air, she sounds like Toronto to me. It's like Mark Daly when he was at City and his unbelievable voice was everywhere. When you hear Evelyn Macko, you just know that you're listening to Toronto radio.

Oh, I'm with you. And I want to say hi to Evelyn. She actually submitted a clip for episode 1,000. So we'll be hearing her on episode 1,000, which is coming in, I guess, a couple of weeks. But she sent in a note when she found out you were coming on. She said, Sharon is a lovely person. So that's Evelyn Mako.

Wacko Mako says you're a lovely person. Clever and a talented writer. FYI. And then she put a wink wink there because i guess you write for fyi yeah fyi music news and uh bill king writes for that yes oh god yeah bill king's a fantastic writer i wouldn't even put myself in the same neighborhood but yes yes he does hell of a keyboardist, piano player too. Played with Janis Joplin, you know. Yeah, well, I haven't done that either, so. I'll actually maybe, okay, I'll read the rest of Evelyn's and then we'll kind of dive deep into it

after I ask you a few more Blair Packham questions. Oh, sure. Evelyn says, she paired me with Tom Rivers, a first on AM radio after hearing us during a radiothon for Jamaican hurricane relief. Have a great chat, Sharon,

she says. So, okay, we're going to get there. Cause, uh, I will just disclose to you that, uh,

I listened to Tom rivers in the morning on six 80 CFTR when you were working there and we have so much ground to cover, but there's an earworm. There's an earworm. I just need to chat with you about off the top here. I've been a fool, bladed dumb Should've bladed smart Used my head but not my heart Must've been crazy, bladed hot

I should've bladed cool Now I'm just the last of the red hot fools Everybody said you were an easy mind cool. Now I'm just the last of the red hot fools. Everybody said you were an easy man. It was a century. Okay, so I listened to a lot of this when Blair was coming on because, of course, it took me decades to kind of

weed the earworm out of my brain. But it came back right away. And now it's back again because I got prepared. I was preparing for your visit. I mean mean this song it really does like for me it really does burrow inside my brain and get stuck there like i literally all day will have this like going through around my head it is so catchy right and you know i mean i think writers strive to have that but i think it's also the just the luck of how it hits people at a certain time right like I remember once um my husband at the time um talking to me and saying you know I'm

serious I may have to go to the hospital if I can't get that Beyonce uh thing out of my mind I forget what song was for but right um but yeah this is such a catchy song, and earworms are what, you know, Top 40 Radio was all about. Absolutely. So how do you become friends with Blair Packham? Well, you know, Blair I knew about, you know, for years and years and years because of my time in radio, and we're about the same age, you know, so he was doing his stuff and I was aware of it. But we never really met until, I forget, a number of years ago I was in, oh yeah, I was in Brandon. Manitoba. Brandon, Manitoba.

Home of the Wheat Kings. That's right. I was there because I was working in Winnipeg and overseeing two radio stations in Winnipeg and two radio stations in Brandon. And there was a music conference going on there. I forget which one. And Blair was there for whatever reason, and so was I. And we ended up sitting side by side.

And I said, you know, at some point I'm going to move back to Toronto. When I do, I'll have to give you a call and see what's up. And then just a few years, just a few years, it shows you're old when you say just a few years. A few years later, I came to Toronto. And that's exactly what happened. I gave him a call. And luckily, he was also East End. Oh, yeah, right. You know, if it had been West End, it wouldn't have worked out at all. Friendship would not have been that would have been the end of your relationship. Yeah, exactly. So it was when I came back and I was not

working when I first came back and called Blair up to have a drink and did that and just kind of fell in with him and a terrible crowd of people at the same time that I haven't been able to tear myself away from. Blair's got a good rap

on him. This is the expression I'm going to start using because he's a good talker and he sounds great on the podcast and he's been on the radio, of course, quite a bit in his career. I guess Q107 breaks the jitters, I suppose, with the homegrown contest and Q, of course, around the time you're at CFTR.

But okay. Listen, wait a second. I've got to talk about Q107 for a second here and Blair. So Blair won that homegrown or whatever that homegrown thing was. But Blair was also employed by Q107, right, as a jock. And if you've heard him talk about that, he talks about it like, yeah, you know, and I'd be mean to the callers. And I'm like, do you realize all of us who went to school who sweated

away in the manitoulin island radio stations hoping for a break at the top and you know here's blair at q107 kind of like yeah whatever that's uh i know blair is going to return i got a message from him for episode 1000 in which he seemed to want to talk about more than just the jitters. Because I focused, I hyper-focused on the jitters. And just like with you, I'll hyper-focus on CFTR because that's kind of what I do around here. But is it true you're like his driver? Is that right? Like he only got, you drove him to Pete Fowler's home?

I doubt it. Okay. You don't remember? I doubt it. Okay. You don't remember? I doubt it. No, I don't think so. I very rarely drive in the west side of town. And that's way west, of course. Wherever the hell Pete Fowler lives.

I did arrive with Blair, which might have caused this. Okay, that's where my confusion comes from. Yes, yes. You arrived with Blair. Okay. A quick note from a gentleman named Ian March he says when he found out you were going to be on Toronto Mike's he wrote this will be great

she's a lot of fun do you know this name Ian March yes of course I do he's fantastic Ian's great yes and I am a lot of fun actually alright get comfy here because I'm dying for all the inside stories where will I begin with you?

Why don't we begin? I want to get you to CFTR because you're the program director at CFTR from 1988 to 1991. I was a heavy listener of your station throughout that era. But, you know, how the heck do you get yourself there? Like, give me a taste of uh what you had to endure before you could become pd at cftr sure well i grew up in a really uh small town i grew up in leamington which is um just south of windsor and that's where the kellogg's plant or the heinz plant heinz because they both got you yeah it's the the tomato capital of canada thank you

very much but yes so i grew up in Leamington, and I loved radio. I loved, loved, loved radio. And I was lucky enough to be able to listen to Detroit and Windsor radio. So as a kid, I liked it so much that I got a job at the radio station in Leamington on weekends. I would go in and type up the obituaries for them. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. There you go. I would do the obituaries in this town

that has a really large Italian population. Okay. Right. With huge long names and stuff. Anyways. So I did that. I really liked it. But as I got older, Anyways, so I did that. I really liked it.

But as I got older, I didn't see any place for me in radio. There was not. The only woman that I knew of on the air was a woman by the name of Karen Savelli, who was the all-night announcer at WRIF in Detroit. And naturally, I loved her because she was the only one that I ever heard. That's literally, that's the only woman's voice you hear on the air. I mean, maybe other than like traffic.

That's right. There would be traffic, like JoJo at CKLW and stuff like that. And yeah, and there'd be women, I guess, in news, although I don't really remember that as I say it, but there were no women doing on air shifts. So I didn't give it a lot of thought, but at the same time, I don't think I saw a future there. And so I started working for the government taking care of kids. I worked in London at the Children's Psychiatric Research Institute working with emotionally disturbed kids

and I did that for a few years and I it was rewarding but I didn't like it that much and I realize now what I really didn't like about it was the working for the government part. I really I was young and I really despised the fact that regardless of how hard I worked, I would always get paid the same as everybody around me. Right. And so I started looking for something else to do. And at that point, I thought, why not? So I decided to apply for community college radio programs. And at that time, the reputation was that all these programs because

there was one at every community college right they were always filling up immediately it was hard to get in i remember um coming to toronto and interviewing with phil stone at humber and they had just started up i think the radio program Anyways, I was nervous that I wasn't going to get in anywhere. And I ended up getting in everywhere except Ryerson. Ryerson did not take me. And I ended up going with Fanshawe College in London because I was already living there. Makes sense. Yeah. So I go to Fanshawe. I go there for a year. And then in the summer, they used to hire, with a government grant, they used to hire five or six of us from first year to run the station that had a frequency, 6X,

to run the station over the summer. So I wasn't just the last person they hired. I was the last, last person they hired. Like the last person they hired who did all the shitty jobs at the radio station ended up getting a job somewhere else and quitting. So then they hired me on. So like I was way back. Working there in the summer, got offered a job at a London radio station,

worked there, worked in Hamilton. In London, I was working promotions. I started as promotions. Well, I started on the. I started as promotions. Well, I started on the air, and then about 10 minutes later, realized this was not what I was going to do for the rest of my life and worked in promotions. And then went and worked in Hamilton. Okay.

Then went and worked in Winnipeg. Then went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Wow. So now we're coming to the CFTR part. Okay. I'm in Moose jaw yeah i um i was incredibly honored to be in moose job because i was working for a company called moffett communications at the time they were a western company based out of winnipeg and they were a

fantastic radio company like lots of legendary broadcasters, and they just really did their business well. And one of the things that they did is they treated Moose Jaw like a training ground, particularly for programmers, and they would send people that they wanted to advance into programming to Moose Jaw to work there. So I was working for them in Winnipeg, and I had only been there a year, and they sent me to Moose Jaw.

So I'm in Moose Jaw working, and I was in Moose Jaw for a couple of years and loving it. Like, not so much the city. I'm not sure I ever went outside other than to get to work. But I just loved the radio. I loved not sure I ever went outside other than to get to work. But I just loved the radio. I loved being able to take a radio station apart and put it back together again, practically on the air. Okay, pardon my ignorance, but are we talking like early 80s? Where are we in the, I mean, I'm just curious here. Let me think.

Yeah. Yes, it would have been, yeah. Well, I, yes, early 80s, yeah. Just getting my, okay, so you're in Moose Jaw, which like a triple a affiliate yeah exactly okay exactly and i had a great general manager uh stan ravindal who just doesn't get the credit in in history that he deserves for being a great radio guy right um he actually said to me when he picked me up at the Regina Airport the first time and drove me to Moose Jaw that I wasn't his choice for program director. That head office had kind of foisted me onto him. But he told me in such a way that it somehow didn't offend me very much. and then you know two years later when he's saying to me that i'm the best program director he's ever

had it was just that much more meaningful you know because he was a very principled very fair very honest guy another dumb question uh get used to them but uh when you say head office is that is that rogers like where are we like what no that, yeah, because this is still Moffitt. Yeah, so head office was in Winnipeg. And in head office was Randy Moffitt, the owner and president, Jim McLaughlin, who was, I guess he would have been the CEO. Chuck McCoy was the national program director. I've heard this name so many times, Chuck McCoy. Oh, well, the two big influences on me when I first started working

were Chuck McCoy and Dave Charles. And both of those guys were very, very, very big Sharon Taylor supporters in the beginning. Did you hear the Dave Charles episode of Toronto Mic'd by any chance? No, I didn't. So you've got to check that out. But I saw that you did one with him, and I do want to listen to it. He's unbelievable. I remember sitting with him when I was in my 20s somewhere in a restaurant,

picking at his brain, and he said to me, Sharon, you don't understand what I have to do all day. I sit and talk to dinosaurs. Some things never change. Yeah. So, anyway, CFTR. So, I mean. Oh, no, yeah, I love it.

And name drop like it's your job to do that. I'm trying to kind of archive a history that doesn't get told enough. So I need you to be very like these details that you maybe, maybe a PD is like, oh, people don't care about the details. On this show, I care about the details. Keep rocking. Well, one of the things that needs to go out there is that at this, this was a whole different time in radio.

Like it wasn't, it was a whole different time in radio and a whole different time in radio like it wasn't it was a whole different time in radio and a whole different time in the world like it was a different culture it was everything it wasn't just it's it's completely different so back in those days it was pretty much understood that unless you were exceptional in some way that you were going to if you were on radio you were going to go to a small market and you're going to work a small market for a while then maybe another one then maybe a medium size and then not you know and if the planets all lined up then you would end up working geographically where you wanted to be right and at the level that you want it to be. So, you know, I didn't know

anything at all until I started working. And I realized that pretty quickly that I really wanted to be in a major market. I was a pretty competitive person. And I just liked all of that. And being from being from Windsor, the Windsor area, and growing up with Detroit radio, I was unlike most of the people that I was working with because most of the people that I was working with grew up either with Toronto radio, which was CHUM and CFNY, and out west it was CHED in Edmonton was kind of like the huge station. And then, of course, there was the stations in Vancouver, which I never heard.

So it was different that way. So anyways, I expected to go and move around from small market to small market. And I ended up marrying a guy that I met in that first year in radio school. marrying a guy that I met in that first year in radio school. And we made a deal initially that because we were both in radio, that we would go wherever the best job was, both of us would go. And best job didn't necessarily mean financially, it just meant best job. And as it turned out, I ended up, you know, getting lots of jobs in the beginning. And I was changing jobs every two years, pretty much for a while there until I got to Toronto. So I'm in Moose Jaw. And let's see now. Oh, while I was in Moose Jaw, I hired some really great on-air people that are still out there. I also hired

Bill Hayes to be my promo voice. Now, hire is a really bad word to use because I don't think I ever paid him anything. He was so kind that he said to me, if you can just send me some swag from now and again, you know, whatever, I'll do it. So, you know, right there, I was making the station sound so much better. And so, yes, I'm working in Moose Jaw, and I'm having a great time. And I, by this point, was a complete a complete radio nerd like i was into everything radio and i did it there was no place i wanted to be more than at the radio station so i was usually at the radio station and i think that i started counting once and unless i was sick and back then we were um uh egotistical enough to to to always think that we were you know in the entertainment business and if you were sick you still went to work that was you know so different than today very different from today where you would be like arrested for going exactly

so um i worked every day for for years including um you know christmas day and stuff because there was no automation at the time. And so those of us that were young and single were used to working holidays where guys with families could be off. And by guys, I mean it was many years before. I went through my entire career from the time, well, let's say from the time I was in Moose Jaw, all the way, not one job I had had ever been done by a female before. So, okay, we recently lost Rosalie Tremblay. Yeah.

Okay. And we, every time I read about her, I never had the fortune of hearing her on the radio, but we hear like, okay, you know, I heard the songs Bob Seger's wrote. You know, is this, you know i heard the songs bob seger's yeah you know is this you know listening to windsor detroit is there a uh but sort of uh somebody you can emulate in there in rosalie at the time like is this post like tell me here's something really really bizarre so um no because i really i only kind of knew about her like other people in radio knew about her, that she was, you know, incredible and so good. And the artists love her and all this kind of stuff. And one day I happened to mention it to my mom and both my parents had nothing to do with radio.

So I mentioned it to my mom and she said, Rosalie. And I said, yeah. And she said, Rosalie Tremblay. And I said, yeah. And she said, well, are you talking about the Rosalie Tremblay that used to be your babysitter? And I'm like, what? And she said, yeah, Rosalie Tremblay used to live here in Leamington. And she was single.

And she had a son about the same age as you, which would have been Tim. And when I would go into work, I would throw you in the playpen at her house with Tim. So she was my babysitter. That's a mind blow. Yeah. But you know, my parents will occasionally say, you know, have you heard of this person? They're going to be the governor general and you went to school with them or something, you know, like they just don't think about stuff. But still, because you know, there's, when you're looking for, you know, program director, women program directors in Canada, like, it's a short list at this time. Oh, it's a...

So your babysitter might be, you know what I mean? Like, that's wild. Yeah, that's true. It is very, very strange. It is very strange that I didn't, like, go and attach myself to her head. Okay, I know you got a coffee there. Is it okay with you if I crack open a fresh can of Great Lakes beer here? Oh, I hope you do.

So I'm going to do it on the mic, of course. So thank you, Great Lakes, for the fresh craft beer. I opened up a Burst IPA. It's a personal favorite. I have for you, Sharon, in my freezer upstairs, I have a large meat lasagna for you to bring home with you.

Frozen one. That's fantastic. So you're leaving with, that's going to, you're going to love it. I did, I think, did Blair give you any? Yes,

and he ate it, no, he didn't. But he told me about the evenings that he was going to eat it, but never seemed to come with a invitation to join him. So yeah. Well, don't give him any of that.

No, no, of course not. Okay, you got your own now. And you've got some fresh craft beer I'm going to send home with you as well from Great Lakes. And there's a Toronto Mike sticker for you. Oh, I love it.

Courtesy of StickerU.com Amazing. I got an email, by the way, because I wrote a tweet about you coming on. There's a bunch of people you worked with at CFTRTR and we're going to get into CFTR now that have been on the program, their FOTMs.

And I was tagging them. And I mentioned Evelyn Macko wrote me about you, but also FOTM Jean Valaitis had lovely words to say about you as well. And I'm saving it because I want to go, because obviously we need to talk Tom Rivers before we get to Jesse and Jean and we have, but Bill Hayes is another guy who's been over here. So shout out to Bill Hayes.

Of course, Larry Fedorek has been on many, many times. He's a client now. And KJ. I mean, I knew him as Chris James. Yeah.

Quickly. I told him when he was here, I said, why did you change the name from Chris James to KJ? Because I, who am radio savvy, didn't know it was the same guy. Right. Like, like why did you mess the name from Chris James to KJ? Because I, who am radio savvy, didn't know it was the same guy. Like, why did you mess with your brand?

Do you think that was a mistake? You should have stayed Chris James. Well, I don't, did he have an answer for that? Yeah, he just said somebody suggested it and he went with it. But I think it was a terrible reason. It was just an evolution, I think, actually. Because he was, I worked with kj uh in let me

think now london when i got that first job in london i gotta say after my first year of school working at that station at the time bill hayes was there kevin nelson was there chris james was there um the rest oh uh jeff O'Neill was there. This was an incredible sounding radio station. And out of all of those people, KJ, Kevin Nelson, and I became really fast friends. And, you know, stayed friends for years and years and years after that. Chris James, and I've said it before and I'm happy to say it again, has always been my favorite disc jockey.

I just think he's, well, I don't think, he is amazing. And that's why we hear him today on Boom. Yes. He's still on there on Boom. And you know who agrees with you? Mad Dog. Yeah.

Jay Michaels. Yeah. Who just took a gig in Montreal. Yeah, he's also very talented, has a really talented brother. Right, and they're not really Michaels at all. They're like Doodalays or something like that. Yeah, I'm not really sure, but they're both terrific.

And Jay, I don't know well. I've only talked to a couple of times, but both those times he was very, very wonderful, and I've only ever heard nice things about him. And he loves KJ with all his heart. He thinks KJ's the best broadcaster he's ever heard. Well, he is. Even though he changed his name and he should be Chris James,

but that's okay. He's a good broadcaster. You know, when KJ and I were working together in London, I remember him coming up to me one day with this pink slip and it was the message slip from Bev at reception. day with this pink slip and it was the message slip from Bev at reception and it said Chris James Pat Holiday from CKLW called you're supposed to call him back oh and he showed it to me and both of us were squealing like little girls like we were so excited about this and then when he got the job at CKLW I was I was beside myself because kj is actually he's a he's a type of

announcer that played against the the common you have to have a big voice kind of thing like kj does not have a big deep voice but because he doesn't have, he has a bunch of other stuff that deep voice guys don't usually have. And I thought he's a great, he's outlived almost all of us on air. Well, he's outlived some of us on the earth, but he's also, he's still on the air. That's true. I'm trying to think. And now I'm just glancing at this list because I'm going to run through this list with you shortly. I believe he's last person standing actually.

He is actually. What's Eric Thomas up to these days? I don't know. He's still doing something. I think he does some race line stuff. I think he's still doing race line stuff. So he might be tied. But when you go back and I'm just looking at the lineup because soon I'm going to walk you through the lineup from 1988 because this will be great fun for me.

And yeah, KJ's last person standing on this list. He was already working at CFTR when I got there. And like I said, I had worked with him before. And then I also hired him years later when I ran Kiss FM, the new country station. Anyways, Chris, he was part-time though at CFTR when I got there.

He was kind of like doing swing. And then I forget who left or whatever and moved people around. And I had an opening for Chris full-time. But he was visiting his folks up in the Sioux when that happened. So I took out an ad in the Sioux paper to let him know. Oh, wow. And that was a lot of fun those were fun times yeah this is gonna be uh remember remember cfdr with uh sharon here okay so and and i really

am excited to have you here because again uh you know i do a lot of cfny episodes but i'm not ashamed i'm not ashamed to say in the late 80s uh and I was what was I was pretty young guy but in the late 80s I was all over mid to late 80s I was all over CFTR so let's talk about well you never gave us the official word on how you got to CFTR so I'm sitting in or I'm working in uh Moose Jaw I'm married um I have an apartment there with my husband and one day um which was not uncommon I, which was not uncommon, I had to go to head office, I had to go to Winnipeg for some meetings. So I'm in Winnipeg. And when I'm there, my husband phones and he said, You won't believe this. And I'm like,

he said, Sandy Sanderson from CFTR is here. And I said, What do you mean he's here? And he said, he's here in Moose Jaw. And I said, Oh, why? And he said, he wants to meet with you. And I said what do you mean he's here and he said he's here in Moose Jaw and I said oh why and he said he wants to meet with you and I said oh so anyways to make a long story short Sandy was I okay was staying until I later that day or something I got back on the plane sure and we all got together for dinner and we're having dinner at this i can't remember the name of it but there was one really great high-end restaurant in musta okay and we're having dinner there and he was looking for the next program director for cftr because he was going to be elevated uh eventually to gm which was you know kind of a secret at the time you know but he's letting

me in on because he wanted to find out if i had any level of interest so um at one point when i said to him i don't know it's okay great but i don't understand why you're here um talking to me and he said well i've been interviewing all sorts of people for this job and every single one of them has mentioned your name. Wow. He said, so I just thought maybe I should meet you. No. And I said, yeah, but you forget they mentioned my name because I'm fun.

Personally, it's hard to imagine that at a time when that's an unannounced visit to Moose Jaw to meet with you. That alone sounds kind of amazing. It was. And I mean, here's, it was,

it was wonderful and horrible, all wrapped up into one. Okay. And it was wonderful because it was, of course, enormously flattering. And I have, I had clearly up until that point been living a life that was,

had to result in some kind of radio success that or i would have just you know right laid but i mean i'm you know i'm not making any assumptions here except you you look very young to me i can't imagine uh you're very old in uh 1988 we're not going to talk about my age while i'm here it's just how i feel like you know uh i'm just doing the math quickly in my head you're very young in 1988. Yes, I was. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I was really young.

So he's there and he's saying to me, you know, so all these people are mentioning you. And I said, great. Then the next, so we had that. And at one point I remember I wasn't really that, well, I was impressed, but I'm working for Moffitt and Moose Jaw. So you would think anyone in Moose Jaw, if CFTR comes along, you're going to say, yes. In fact, I'll go back with you, you know. But I was with Moffitt and I knew that I was either going to be going

to Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver next. That was going to be one of the spots that they were going to put me. And I was really happy about that. So I wasn't drooling at the thought of joining this big unknown CFTR. And at one point, I went to the washroom where we were having dinner, and Sandy said to my husband, boy, you've got to help me here.

And my husband said, oh, I'm there, but I'm not going to be able to do anything. I can't help you. What kind of financial compensation are we even talking about in like 1988 for a program director at CFTN? Now, so... Let me see your T4 for 1988, please. It was really, you know, it wasn't much.

I'll tell you this. When I started at my very first job at CKSL at a school, I was making about $12,000 a year. And that was less than I had been making at my government job, which, you know, I found to be kind of disappointing. But I went on a really, once I started working, I, you know, you make more money when you change jobs than just staying in a job, right? Right. And I was changing jobs really frequently.

Here's the other thing to remember. It was a different time. And it was right around then when the government started making noises about not enough women in business and not enough women in federally governed bodies at the table. And so I think that in that case, I really took advantage of that situation. You know, I think that all companies looked across their stations to see what women they had, who might be promotable.

Right. Like you were desirable regardless of gender, but the fact that you weren't a dude was an asset. It absolutely was. And you knew it. Absolutely was. It was an asset, but here was like when I said it was the most wonderful yet the horrible thing,

here's the other thing. So I go to CFTR and their last program director was Sandy Sanderson who had come from New York. They're announcing me, the first woman who's ever been a program director there, and I'm coming from Moose Jaw. Some say it's the New York of the prairies. Nobody says that.

Well, they say Saskatoon is the Paris of the prairies. Yeah, they do say that because of the bridges, yeah. Because that's in a Tragically Hip song. That's how I know it's true. Speaking of Wheat Kings, I figure there must be a New York of the prairies. Yeah, they do say that because of the bridges, yeah. Because that's in a tragically hip song. That's how I know it's true. Yeah. Speaking of weak kings, I figure there must be a New York of the prairies

and that's Moose Jaw. Humble Howard Glassman, by the way, is from Moose Jaw. Yes, he is. So shout out to Humble. Yes, sorry, Humble. Sorry.

I did love Moose Jaw when I was there. Yeah, you know, I think he's used to the Moose Jaw jokes. But you know who does live there today? Not Humble Howard.

He's here in Etobicoke. But Birding Cummings lives there. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what Moose Jaw's like now. When I was there, it was a really old town because the farmers would retire and all move into town.

So it was a pretty old population there. So for somebody like me, you know. Well, it sounds like White Rock, B.C., where Brother Bill lives. It's like people go there like in retirement age. Exactly. It's like God's waiting room. Right. So I go from Musta to Toronto to work at TR.

And it was obviously unbelievable, but it was also very difficult because I had very little credibility in the trenches and the pressure of the job was enormous. Okay, we need to get ourselves in like late 80s mode at CFTR. Maybe we'll leak in. I know you're there from like 88 to 91. So here's just to get us in the mood. All hits. 680 CFTR. Jamming Toronto with more music than ever before. The most hit music. The best hit music. Tom Rivers

in the morning. Then at least 50 minutes of music every hour. 680 CFTR. Lock us in at cable 92.3. Your only all-hit music station. All-hit 680 CFTR. Okay. Okay, you go first, and then I have a question about that.

Yeah, so the guy on that is Mitch Craig. Okay. So the guy on that is Mitch Craig. Okay. Mitch Craig is an American and used to be a huge voiceover guy for radio stations. Sure. He was voicing the image work on, Jesus, some New York, which New York station was it? KROQ? No, no, that's in Los Angeles.

It would have been with like Scott Shannon and it would have been a top 40 station. Anyways, Mitch Craig was the voice of that. And when I got to TR, I think the image voice we were using was Jeff O'Neill, who was the midday announcer at TR. And I always wanted to get a different image voice because Jeff is a great image voice guy. And I had used Bill Hayes as an image voice guy before. great image voice guy and I had used Bill Hayes as an image voice guy before but you know you really want to get somebody from outside your station just to add another dimension to your sound so I thought well I'm going to try phoning this Mitch Craig guy now this is so long ago that when I phoned him he didn't know anything about Toronto and I kind of picked up on this early in the call. And I said, you know, how much would you charge?

And how would we do business? And I convinced him during the phone call that we were basically not a very big market. Smart, smart. So he calls me back, though. He did. He found out you had a baseball team. Yeah, he said, I've looked you up. And, you know, the jig is up here.

I understand Toronto. But of course, I got a great deal with Mitch because exactly what I knew what happened, happened. That is, when I hired Mitch, I was the first Canadian station to hire him, and I met you within a year and a half. He was on a dozen other Canadian stations. Okay, so that voice, here's my little story about that voice. So so i remember that voice so well it was all over the imaging at cftr and i always thought and

i didn't know who it was till probably till right now actually but eventually i did learn it was not this person but at the time i thought it sounded like optimus prime okay because i was a big transformers guy right and peter cullen is the name of Optimus Prime. And in my mind, that voice, is that voice on this here again? No, sorry. Hey, so, what are all these?

See, that's a jingle. That's a jingle. Okay. That's not an imaging. No, that's a jingle. And back then, we used to get our jingles sung in Nashville, I think.

It was the jingle company. Okay, okay, okay. So, I know. It was the Jingle Company. Okay, okay, okay. So I know, it's all these different elements. Okay, so the voice guy, Craig? What's his name? Peter? Mitch. Mitch Craig.

Yeah. Okay, that's wild to me. I always thought he sounded like Optimus Prime. And he sounded, you're right, he sounded, dare I say, ballsy. Am I allowed to say that on a podcast? And that's why I never went into radio, because how the hell am I going to be able to compete with people who sound like that? But, wow, that's a voice I remember well.

Okay, I don't know what he's up to now. He's still with us? Yeah, he is. The last I heard, which would have been, I don't know, three or four years ago, he's older now. I don't think he's doing as much work, but he's still around, so yeah. Okay, good for him. I just need to play

a little more because we're going to talk Tom Rivers here. As we approach the deadline, the record that you will hear exclusively on the Rivers Air Force, Give Peace a Chance, All Morning. All we are saying is give peace a chance. None of Tom Rivers'

usual jokes today as the world inches closer to war. One of Toronto's top DJs changes the format of his show without permission. From 5.30 till 9, prime time in radio, the only music heard on CFTR, the John Lennon Yoko Ono anti-war anthem. That's the only song he played all morning. It's the song Lennon and Ono played during their famous 70s bed-in, a Beatle using his influence to promote world harmony. The song anti-war protesters have hung on to ever since this wasn't a radio programmer's delight that's playing the same song over and over and over in fact the repetition

factor probably turned a lot of listeners away i figured okay today i can do this we can gear up to do this programming department didn't know anything about this they did call very early in the program to want to know what's going on. I explained they backed me 100%. The repetition of the song, that's not going to get you any ratings. I don't want ratings from this. I just wanted to help the people that were calling in who had concerns. I mean, this whole thing is just totally blowing me away. And I'm scared.

But I'm really scared. Oh, well don't be. I have a mother in San Francisco. We're one of the major naval bases in the United States. Oh, don't be. So I figured, why don't we give the people who are sitting there waking up in the morning, knowing that it is deadline day or whatever, why don't we give the people the opportunity to just express their fears and maybe help one another out? Okay. Okay.

So, okay. Tell me, you remember this, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Are you the person who called him in the morning and said, what the hell are you doing, Tom? I could have been. I could have been. I mean, Tom, I don't remember that, actually.

So this is, of course, this is January 1991? No, yeah, no, I wasn't there. That was after, no. You were there, you know, I know you're there because you're there. Tom Rivers is, of course, replaced by Jesse and Jean. And you're there for that. Yes. So you're there until... No, no, here's what happened.

I'm going to fight you on where you were. Well, you might win. Tom was in the morning. I got fired from CFTR. And when I got fired, Tom was still in the morning show. But we had hired Jesse and Jean for afternoon drive. Mike Cooper had left. Mike Cooper was in afternoon drive.

Bill Hayes was in middays. And Rivers was in morning. And to be fair, I mean, I think we can call it now that when we hired Jesse and Gene, it was with an eye to the morning show when Tom was going to leave. Right. And it was, you know, really in the last few years that he was at TR, it was waning. You know, like it just, it wasn't as, the show wasn't as hot as it had been. And so we very much knew that we had to start making a plan B. And so that's why, as a matter of fact, when Jesse and I was out in my car driving a guy around, an announcer from New York, who we were entertaining hiring for Afternoon Drive.

And Sanderson phoned me and said, how quickly can you get rid of him and come back here? And I said, I don't know, soon. Why? And he said, because I just found out jesse and gene would have interest in coming over and they were at q right yes right and funny i used to hear them on q sometimes and they would kind of crap all over am radio like this is a big part of the jesse and yeah yeah yeah of course you know the day that they started um i remember sitting in my office and i was talking to fedoric and it was it was afternoon drive and I think it was around six,

six 30 by then, but we had been served with two cease and desist already. So we knew that, you know, this was going to be a great, great relationship. So here, let me read the Jean Valaitis note about you and then I'm going to walk you

through the lineup starting with Tom Rivers here. Okay. So Jean Valaitis note about you. And then I'm going to walk you through the lineup, starting with Tom Rivers here. Okay. So Jean Valaitis writes me, Sharon, question mark. I love her. She was the PD when senior management hired Jesse and Jean for afternoons and then on to the morning show. But it sounds like you leave before they actually go.

So yeah, that's when Tom Rivers leaves. Yeah. And the last morning show before it went all news of course jesse and jean tell the story uh they've been on this program but i guess they basically they get they get told oh we're going all news and then they go to 640 like this they just go down right straight to 640 okay and the last morning show before it went on this bill hayes is one of the great guys in radio he was so welcoming same with KJ. Here's a name. He's been on, and I'll use his radio name because we won't disclose his real name, but Bob Callahan. Yeah, I think I

hired Bob. I don't know whether he was already there or whether I hired him there, but yeah, Bob was, I can't remember what shift he did. He would have done swing probably or weekends or both. He, yeah, I think he was doing like maybe shift he did he would have done swing probably or weekends or or both he yeah i think you're i think he was doing like uh maybe uh 10 p.m to 2 p.m it'd be the bob callahan uh shift and bob callahan of course has something in common with the gentleman we spoke of off the top pete fowler a couple of guys on radio who decided they'd make better cops than radio personalities. Right, scary. And better job security anyways.

Okay, so let's walk through the lineup and then we'll get into some of that. And this ties in nicely with what Evelyn Macko said off the top where she talked about how you paired her with Tom Rivers. So tell me, you get to CFTR in 1988 and already in the mornings is Tom Rivers. What can you share with us about the late Tom Rivers?

I was terrified of working with Tom Rivers simply because of his, you know, reputation and the fact that he was so huge. And for those who don't know, he was a 10 50 chum guy. He's an American, right? To a lot of these guys.

Yeah. And he was kind of known for doing like, well, he said he did that stunt in 99, 91, but he, he sounded like he would do some stunts that management didn't always love. Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Yoko Ono thing, he was so, his instincts were really fantastic. Like, they really were fantastic. And quite honestly, when he says, you know, management, you know, didn't like it or whatever,

I bet you 50% of the time that was show, you know, and we were all in on it and good with it. Now, that said, he did do lots of stuff on the air that was not appreciated. I remember once I had to talk to him about the bit that he and Eric used to do called The Unfriendly Giant. I loved The Unfriendly Giant.

And this is Eric Thomas, of course, who now does race live. Oh, and Evelyn was a voice on that, too. She did a really good voice on that. So anyways, I had to talk to him about it because the general corporate feeling was that they were too long and not very funny. So I needed to speak to Tom about that, which I did.

And that was one of our discussions that didn't go well. Overall, my experience with Tom Rivers was a very positive one, which flies in the face, I think, of what I knew about Tom before I got there, how big and blustery he could be, how he suffered no fools gladly, all that kind of stuff. And here I was, this girl from Moose Jaw, I thought he was just going to eat me for breakfast and that would be it. But he was actually really kind to me and very gracious and all that. Once when I had that unfriendly giant conversation with him, the next day he did the unfriendly job and but the thing was he did a full i think somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes of the unfriendly giant and i think you

must be fuming when this is happening this is a yeah well i'm actually yeah it is but it's funny at the same time you know i'm the only one that's really in on the joke but it was funny because at the end he said you know and today's um episode is dedicated to sharon taylor it may not have been it may not have been short or funny enough but still and it's like oh tom now that clip i played of him the stunt he was doing with the uh give peace a chance he actually doesn't last much longer than that like that's january 91 and a couple of months later uh they move them to afternoons and they basically swap jesse and gene with tom rivers it sounds like and then in afternoons tom rivers doesn't last he's he's gone like shortly thereafter so uh tom rivers i'll just say tom rivers i he was my favorite growing up i love WKRP like he was like the Dr. Johnny Fever

of Toronto to me and he died way too young you know you mentioned Mark Daly earlier but Tom Rivers I think in his 50s as well

and I know he worked with again with we'll get to this guy in a minute but with Larry Fedorek on CKFM when I was at CFTR Larry Fedorek

was the promotions manager and he did a Saturday shift. And that was it. Okay, let's do the Larry part now then. I'll just skip my order here because Larry won an award for his fantastic speaking of the Prairies. He did a podcast called

I Was Eight because he grew up in Saskatchewan. Yes. And he won an award for this. And it's a TMDS production, but Larry does all the work. I just do some technical parts, really.

And he's got a new series called Later That Same Life, which is just as good. Like Larry, I think Larry's a tremendous storyteller and an excellent broadcaster. And he's currently

not working in terrestrial radio. He's doing some podcasts, of course. But tell me everything you can about Larry Fedorek. So I get there. Larry is the promotions manager, and he's on the air. And his office was between my office and the music library.

So we were really close geographically. And very quickly, I started thinking and saying to people that he was one of the funniest people I had ever met and spent time with. I wasn't at that time. I wasn't really, you know, his his on air radio thing was not it was not like Rivers, you know, it wasn't, he was so, like listening to a Saturday morning show, he had his own sponsors. I don't know if you remember this. But like, I remember the first sponsor was, you know, it was being brought to you by toast on a stick. And toast on a stick. And then after that, it was being brought to you by baked potato on a string. You know,

was being brought to you by baked potato on a string. You know, and so that kind of stuff just killed me. I thought he was hilarious. And so I worked with him at CFTR and put him on, you know, different shifts whenever I could and then had a chance to hire him again years later when I was at KISS. Oh, right. He just, he's just, he's actually, it hasn't come out yet.

I've heard it, but you'll hear it on his feed on Thursday. But he tells the Shania Twain story. So that must be. Oh, which one? Accidental grabbage. Oh. Inadvertent grabbage. Yeah.

He's told it on Toronto Mike, but he's telling it on his podcast soon. But, okay. So here we are. So Larry Fedora, good guy. Yeah. He's told it on Toronto Mike, but he's telling it on his podcast soon. But, okay. So, here we are. So, Larry Fedorek, good guy. Yeah. And fellow Etobicoke native. And he lived in Etobicoke. Yeah, exactly.

Shout out to Larry Fedorek. Let's talk about, you've done a lot of talking about Bill Hayes, actually, but maybe a little more on Bill Hayes. Yeah. So, Bill, I got to know in my first job in radio, the station in London where KJ was at and Kevin Nelson was at. Bill was there as well. And so I got to know Bill there. And Bill had, I think, been working at CFTR prior to going to London and was really doing it at the behest of the program director there, Sandy Davis, who all of us admired greatly and was a really

terrific programming guy. So I think Bill had kind of agreed to drop down in market in order to work closer with Sandy. And I think he was also the assistant program director there as well. So I worked with him for a few years there and when i um then when i later on when i was in misjah and i was you know using bill as only a friend can you know which is doing work for nothing um i had that kind of relationship with him then and then yeah when i came back to toronto and he was um already a tr um yeah his of course, is on the air in this market now because he's a co-host of Overdrive on 1050 TSN radio, Brian Hayes. I don't know whether it's like I've lost track.

He had a few kids, and I used to babysit his oldest girl for a while there in London. But I also remember years later, one of his boys, if he had more than one, one of his boys used to wait for him to come home every day, this was before he went to school, by the front window with his hockey stick. Aw. Yeah. Maybe that was Brian.

It could have been. It's funny, you've been talking about Jeff O'Neill. Well, coincidentally, that happens to be the name of, coincidentally, the name of Brian Hayes' co-host there on Overdrive. talking about Jeff O'Neill. Well, coincidentally, that happens to be the name of Brian Hayes' co-host there on Overdrive. Right. Jeff O'Neill. Yeah, there was a Jeff O'Neill in Winnipeg too, a different one. Lots of Jeff O'Neills out there.

And Bill Hayes, of course, people know this, but brother of some guy named John Derringer. You know, oh, I'll give you a Derringer story. Let's go. John Derringer started in Sarnia. And when he started in sarnia he shared an apartment with my ex-husband and i think there was three of them sharing an apartment there in sarnia and if i'm not mistaken there was my ex derringer and a doug they were all sharing this apartment. One of the three of them, it must have been Doug, had a cat that lived there. And this cat was kind of a weird cat.

You'd come in and all of a sudden you'd notice it was sitting on the top of your door. You know, like it could just jump that high. Anyways, as the story goes, one day John was home alone and enjoying his free time with you know maybe a beer or two and maybe you know smoking something until he started to get moderately freaked out that the cat was staring at him so he went somewhere else in the apartment but apparently the cat followed him and sat down and continued to stare. And this just got, the more he medicated himself, the worse it seemed to get. So he went and locked himself in the bathroom for a while

and managed, apparently, to calm his panic attack down and was feeling good, had convinced himself that the cat was not staring at him purposefully and decided he could take on the world again and open up the door to go out and the cat was sitting right there staring at him. You know, I've yet to convince John Derringer to make his Toronto Mike debut.

So any pull in that regard. But because you mentioned cannabis, I just need to let all the FOTMs listening know So any pull in that regard. But because you mentioned cannabis, I just need to let all the FOTMs listening know and to let you know, Sharon, that Canna Cabana was created by and for people who love weed, love to smoke it, buy it, chat about it, and share it with their friends. Canna Cabana is more than just weed, though.

They've got bongs, pipes, vapes, dab rigs, grinders, and anything else a smoker could want. You go to cannacabana.com, sign up for the Cabana Club, and you'll be the first to know when there's a sale going on. But I will tell you, they won't be undersold on anything. They have unbeatable prices on cannabis and smoking accessories. So welcome to the Toronto-Miked family, Canna Cabana. Yes, and thank you for the job that you're doing.

The Ontario government, they're the only institution that could lose money selling weed, you know. So I'll tell you a CFTR weed story that I think is hilarious. Let's hear it. My father used to love, when he came to Toronto, going to Tom Jones, the restaurant. And Tom Jones was just down the street from where CFTR used to be. And that's where we used to hold our jock parties, which were legendary.

Tell us where exactly was CFTR? It was right on Victoria. And I think we took up a couple of floors because there was also a CHFI there at the time. But believe it or not, at the time, you know, no one was listening to FM. And I think I asked somebody, what even is the format of CHFI? Because I don't think I had even listened to it. Candlelight and wine.

Wine, yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. So anyways, my dad was in town and I took him to Tom Jones for dinner and we had had a fantastic dinner. And after that, I said, you know, dad, the radio station's right there. Could I take you up and show you around? Because, you know, my father had never really been in any places that I had worked before and he didn't know much about radio. that I had worked before and he didn't know much about radio. So, um, so we went up and first I took him to my office, showed him a few other offices, you know, boring. And then I was going

to take him down to the control room and show him where everything happened. But as we were going to the control room, we were passing the production studio. And I said, Oh, here, I'll show you the production studio. And the production studio had one of those swing doors'll show you the production studio and the production studio had one of those swing doors you know so I just kind of put my arm up and pushed it expecting it to swing open but it didn't because it was locked from the inside and I heard all this scurrying around so I thought oh best we leave so I said to dad okay let's go to the control room and as we were walking down the hallway the production room opens and the announcer on the air comes out behind him his operator comes out and then a huge cloud of weed smoke comes out yeah so they are completely mortified of course and went right back to their

uh rooms you know kj went or not kj whoa is it kj did you slip there was it kj and gary bell is that who we're talking about no oh gary bell was a great guy um when the announcer went back to the announce booth ob went back to the op booth and I'm standing outside in the hallway with my dad. And I said, okay, I got to go talk to the announcer for a minute. So I tell you what, why don't you go in and talk to the op? And I said to my father, I said, you know, he's kind of shy. So he'll really like it if you ask him a lot of questions. So here's this poor op who's high, terrified,

because, you know, I've just kind of caught them. And my dad is in there, you know, trying to ask him questions about the board and all this stuff. And before I left, I took my dad out to the lobby, and then I went back to see the two of them, and I said, okay, you know, see me Monday morning. Because I was on the weekend so they kind of I'm sure twisted a bit um over the weekend and told them on Monday

you're not gonna you're not gonna lose your jobs but please next time have the common sense to at least have one of you stay straight you know that's great story I love those radio stories yeah keep them coming uh Mike Cooper. Mike Cooper. Cooper was, I guess my time with him was really short compared to everybody else. But I'll tell you something. He is just a stand-up guy overall. An unbelievable family man. He had young kids when I knew him.

And he talked about his kids constantly. I used to kind of keep an eye out for his kids sometimes when we were doing promotions together. But the one thing that I really, really admired about Mike is that he was this incredibly successful, larger-than-life personality. Well, here's the story. Once we were at a bar, I think it was at the Copa, but we were doing some kind of promotion there, and Mike was there. Our all-night guy at the time was Gary Bell Space.

He was and had been the all-night guy for a number of years. And there was some young kid in the bar that night because it was a radio event, talking to Mike. And the kid was a radio guy who might have been working, I don't know, Kitchener, somewhere outside the market, but really, really wanted to get in, and was, you know, of course,

trying to grease Mike up a little bit to put in a word for him and whatnot, but the kid made the mistake of saying something like, well, you know, I'd certainly be better than Gary Bell. Mike Cooper picked him up and put him across the bar so quickly. And I'll never forget because I was standing there, you know, said something along the lines of, don't you dare ever, ever suggest to me that you're better than Gary Bell, you know and and and so his loyalty was always i felt on display along with you know this bigger than life kind of personality well i become uh buds with

aaron davis and uh the way she speaks about mike cooper he could just tell he's a stand-up guy without a doubt here and in fact mike cooper got Cooper got, he got another run. Like I, he came back when, do you know what happened with Darren B. Lamb? No. Do you have any insight? Nobody does. No one's talking about it. Okay. So he came and filled in there with Maureen Holloway prior to them all getting kind of

let go in that. Well, I don't know what we call it when Mike Cooper was just filling in, I suppose. But yeah, he's back to retirement, back to enjoying his retirement. You know, I was sitting in the music library at TR once and I was reading a Toronto Star article about the station and Mike came in and he's walking by me and I said, hey, could you see this article? And he said, what's it about?

And I said, it's about the station. He said to me, am I in it? And I looked and I said, I don't see it anywhere. And he said, okay, fine, walked away. The I looked and I said, I don't see it anywhere. And he said, okay, fine, walked away. The five-tenth stupid joke of the day. Yeah, that was the really, at that time, Gary Slate, Mike was leaving to go work for Gary Slate, and Tony Viner was the big guy over at Rogers that I was working for.

viner was uh the um big guy over at rogers that i was working for and so uh when we knew mike was leaving we trademarked stupid joke of the day so uh when he went over there he wasn't able to use it um but that was yeah that was one of his what do we call them back then touchstone uh kind of yeah appointment tuning that we did. Oh, and I know, I get my stations a little confused sometimes. What was I listening to? Is it, it's not you guys. Did you guys run the Super Chicken? Did we or?

I would hear it in the mornings, but I don't know if, I might've heard it with Scruff Connors on K7. Yeah, that might've been, I mean, I remember listening to it. He's everywhere, he's everywhere. Yeah, I can't remember now whether it was me listening to him on other, I don't think I ever ran him.

Okay, I'm just curious, because somebody was running it, and I would hear this thing as a kid. I was probably going to grade school, and I'm waking up my alarm clock, my clog radio. Right, right, right. And I'm hearing like Super Chicken, and I'm like, what the heck is that? And then many years later, I find out it's just this old thing, like it's just an old syndicated thing. And that was a thing for a while, was that kind of comedy on the radio.

There was a guy out of Edmonton, Randy Broadhead, who used to do comedy bits for us that we would run that were really funny. But radio really has, the presentation of radio has changed tons. It's way more authentic now than it is hyped up. Well, I mean, we talked a bit about Scruff there, but if we talk about Brother Jake Edwards, he got that McLean and McLean champ bit, and he made a career out of that.

Right, yeah. You know, I've always been one step behind Brother Jake in every market. You know, like I worked in Winnipeg right when he left. So I don't know the guy at all, but what a great broadcaster. And he's good friends with Gene Valaitis. They did a thing in Vancouver fairly recently before, I guess this is the one year anniversary. I believe this is the one year anniversary of like sports radio disappearing

in a bunch of Canadian markets. Right. Like I think that was where they were in that, whatever it was in Vancouver, TSN radio, whatever it was. TSN. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I should say with Jesse and Jean that, um, I was, I was so surprised with how great they were to work with. And I, I think that only comes because back in the day, the really talented, um, people on the air were allowed a certain amount of misbehavior and it was overlooked because of their talent. And so I kind of expected a bit of the on-air

Jesse and Jean shtick to be part of our relationship and it wasn't. I mean, I remember them. Or they're pros. Oh, completely. You know, what do you want well you know who's a pro was dick smith was there when i was there okay i'm saving him for the news section we're almost done here okay but steve gregory steve gregory was doing evenings something like

that i didn't know steve very well um and ended up yeah see i saw him a few years ago, actually, at Kevin Nelson's funeral in Ottawa. So he spent a number of years after leaving Toronto having, I think, a very, very good career on the air in Ottawa. Okay, we did already speak of Bob Callahan, the Callahan man. And we spoke of Chris James quite a bit. He was there, of course, now known as KJ on Boom. Let's do the news now. So let's talk about... That's the way I see it.

Was that Dick Smythe? Was that his thing? That's the way I... I'm Dick Smythe. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about... I love the way he packaged. I mean, I missed him on 1050 completely.

I even missed him on City TV, but I did not miss Dick Smythe on CFTR. And then there was that period where CFMT would air CFTR personalities. I don't know what year that was. I don't either, but that was set up in our newsroom and it was ad hoc kind of

camera set up where you could go in. I think Macco would have been seen on that. But tell me before we get back to Macco, talk to me about Dick Smythe. Dick Smythe had this huge reputation. Of course, I knew who he was and I was really in awe of his talent. And I thought there's, you know, first of all, first of all, I came up on the programming side of radio. I mean, you can, I think to make things easy, you can always talk about radio as being split in two sections.

One side is sales, one side is programming. There's an admin department that keeps everybody rolling, but that's it. So I came up on the programming side. So I had some keeps everybody rolling, but that's it. So I came up on the programming side. So I had some involvement in news, but not a lot. And I thought, you know, there's nothing I'm going to be trying to tell Dick Smythe about. And one of my first experiences with Dick is he walked down to my office and he was like, Taylor. Yeah. And he's like, Taylor. Okay. All right, Taylor, did you listen today? And I said, yes. And he's like, okay, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to change? And I said, Dec, you've got four minutes at the top of the hour. You can do

whatever you like, but the less you say the word poofters, I will be very, very happy. So, you know, I never, ever try to, um, try to give Dick Smythe any advice. He was his own guy and what a, what a, what a prince of a guy he was. I was down in the newsroom once and I, I'll never forget, Prince of a guy he was. I was down in the newsroom once, and I'll never forget. Somebody said, did you hear that Dick's daughter is moving in with her boyfriend? And I looked at Dick, and I said, really? And Dick said, yes, but they're not having sex.

They're not married. And that's the way I see it. That's right. Great, great guy. I'm Dick's mate. Yeah, what a character, too. and that's the way I see it. That's right. Great, great guy. I'm Dick's mate. Yeah. Yeah, what a character, too. I love, and this is pretty much why I do this program, is because I miss the characters.

I feel like they're, I mean, City TV had a bunch of them, and Dick was there, too. But we mentioned Mark Daly a couple of times, but there's a guy, he was with Dick Smythe at the big aid there, the Windsor. And just these larger than life characters, it feels to me, and I don't know what you would say as a radio executive, but it feels like stations are risk averse these days

and they're looking for a safer approach than some of these bombastic personalities we remember from the 80s and 90s. Well, that's certainly true, but I think the reasons are a little different than what you might be describing. And by that, I mean, you know, I consider myself really lucky to have the career in radio at the time that I had it. Because when I had my time in radio, we didn't know anything about anything. I mean, our so-called research back then was calling the local record stores and asking them what 45s were selling. And what are the chances that some slack-jawed guy who answered the phone is going to tell you the truth about, or even knows the truth about? talking, finding out information about radio, because the only way to figure out whether stuff

worked or not was usually to try it. And what really, my opinion, is what really changed about radio is when research became cheap and technology really jumped forward. And when you put those two things together, suddenly all this gut instinct programming was no more. You really didn't have to wonder what your audience wanted. You could find out exactly what they wanted. So I was able to, I came after freeform radio, you know, back when people could play whatever they wanted. We were still tightly, it was tightly formatted radio,

but it was also, we didn't have any of the research that said nobody cares about what the announcers are saying. Right, right. And also, who did I hear? I heard somebody on one of your podcasts talking about how back then the FM stations used to do a lot of talking about the music and stuff. Oh, the foreground programming? That's Scott Turner.

You see, that was all mandated. Yes. That was all CRTC. We had to do foreground. We had to do mosaic. Right. We had to do, and these were all specific things talking about the artists. Right.

And that's where you get, I mean, to go back to CFNY for a minute, that's where you get, like, you'll get like a live in Toronto and, you know, eventually ongoing history of new music, which is actually still around with Alan Cross. And yeah, you had a mandate from the CRTC to have a certain number of hours of foreground programming. Exactly. And so there was a lot more talk. Oh, the 5 o'clock, what was it? Q107 at the 5 o'clock Rock Report?

Or was it 6 o'clock Rock Report? It was the... Paul Makowitz and then John Derringer at some point. I actually listened to it with Makowitz and Segarini. Oh, you know what? He's an FOTM too, Bob Segarini. That show was fantastic. I loved that show.

I was working in Hamilton at the time, and it used to drive me crazy that I was in this bedroom community to this station that ran this fantastic show. No, it was. I remember it well too. And do you remember Barometer? I think Bill Carroll maybe? Not as well.

Okay, okay. Okay, but we'll just wrap up. One more name. Oh, two more names in the news department, and then I've got some more questions for you. But let's spend a couple more minutes on Evelyn Macko because she alludes in her little tweet to me. She said that you, Sharon, paired her with Tom Rivers,

and it was a first for AM Radio. What exactly was the first for AM radio? Having a woman on the morning show? Like, what is Evelyn Macko referring to there? I think that's probably what she's referring to. I mean, it's hard to recognize that back then you still didn't hear of women in co-host roles that much. I mean, the men in morning shows were still single. And Rivers was, you know, 98% of his time there. And a chum, he was by himself.

I mean, we would put people in and out of the control room with him occasionally just to spice things up, if nothing else, for him, you know. But by and large, it was just him but when i evelyn has a better memory than i do and and she's right i remember hearing them on the air and the jamaican thing was another a tom rivers thing actually there had been hurricanes in jamaica that had been very very bad and um tom just decided he, along with enough people that he knew who have taken, you know, who have gone to Jamaica year after year after year, needed to know about this in order to help out. And he just jumped into, I think he was broadcasting from City Hall for a

while. Yeah, it was great. Okay, one more name for the news department. Larry Silver. Thank God it's Larry Silver. Oh, I love Larry Silver. Larry Silver is like legendary. I also knew Larry from CKSL in London. And Larry is like one of those guys

where like, okay, two really, really quick stories. One day we had had some burglary at the radio station at cftr and you know we had had stupid burglars you know they had taken like tv monitors and stuff and one of the tv monitors they had taken was from um the newsroom so for days if not weeks after that lar Larry carried around the remote to the TV, constantly clicking on it, sure that he was going to come across the perpetrators. Oh, that's funny. I heard he's, well, Evelyn warned me Larry was a funny dude.

What's he up to these days? Are you still in touch with Larry Silver? I'm not in touch with Larry Silver. And I got to track him down. Yeah, you really should. Here's the other story really quickly. And this didn't happen during my time. It's just a legendary Larry Silver story.

So, you know, in AM, we used to use those carts. Yes. Play from carts. And the newsroom would have tons of carts because the little clips they would use in their newscast did one clip per cart. And it was always the job in the newsroom would have tons of carts because the little clips they would use in their newscasts, one clip per cart. And it was always the job in the newsroom of the lowest person to, at certain times of the day, go clear all the carts. And by that, it's taking all the ones that have been used and erasing, bulk erasing the stuff on the cart.

So we have a new intern. And Larry is showing them the ropes, which is just not so ill-advised to start out with. But Larry explains to this person, this child, that these carts fill up with words, and the words need to be emptied off of the carts every single day. Right. By this, you know.

And so really, he had this poor intern so confused about how to get the words out of the cart, into the eraser. Like he would do those kind of jokes that were. But he was very, very funny. And not to overshadow the fact that what a great news guy and great writer. All of these people, Evelyn, Silver, Dick Smythe, just they're the people who are now absolutely, you know, just horrified by the kind of writing that goes on in news. So what happened?

Like, I know, what happened? Like, yeah, you know, I'm going to try this out, because I've never actually said this out loud. And I think that this is... It's a good place to do it is right here. Yeah, exactly. Let's hear it. I think that it has to do with passion. And I

honestly do think that back in the day when we didn't have all the information that's available now, that makes it so much easier, if you will, to follow a format, to do all the right marketing, to have the right stuff on the air. Back then, we had to believe in what we were doing. And we had to believe in it to a point of ridiculousness. Like we were kind of like the football team, you know, like we were, all of us in the different radio stations, we were real teams, like we really believed in what we were doing. And a lot of that was, you know, youth. But we felt that there was a greater good that we were always trying to achieve. And when I got into radio, I really got into it for that.

Most of the guys that I've met in radio usually got into it because of the music. And the music was a huge part of it for me but i really loved everything in between the music and really loved listening i used to i was one of those kids with the trans little transmitter radio under my covers at night transistor radio transistor sorry yeah and um and back then we had an enormous passion, like the passion that Mike showed that that kid, you know, who, and I just don't feel that I'm not blaming people. I'm not saying that people aren't passionate these days. I'm sure they still are. But it's not quite the same. It's a it's a little more cut and dried. It's a little bit more like, I hate to say it this way, but it's a little bit more like how talented you are doesn't really matter. Because if you bring other qualifications like motivating people and all that, you know, you're being given all the stuff that you need to run a radio station. You know, Back when I started, my only concern was,

particularly because I was a girl, was getting good at it, getting really, really good at it. And I got really good at doing something that nobody really knew how to do right, so nobody could say I was doing it wrong. So I would say these days, it's passion. Is it, if I'm hearing you correctly, because i think you're making some good points there but because everything's at our fingertips

now right everything's right there yeah you know my seven-year-old can find out answers to all these things in like 10 seconds because of that you can be lazy and uh whereas but maybe before the internet uh to you you had to love it to do it and you had to have passion to do it because it was not easy. Well, or am I, am I? Yeah, no, I think you're summing it up really well. I just don't think that I'm probably expressing it exactly like I want to. It was because you, when you got into it, you knew that you were going to be traveling. You were going to be nomadic.

There was this whole kind of romanticism to the job. Baby, if you've ever wondered. Yeah, exactly. Wondered whatever became. Up and down the dial. Right. So there was that. There was just this.

It's not that it's easier. It is easier now. But it's just more delivered to you you know it's it's more like here's what the research says um right this is what we should do and these are the songs we're playing because the uh market research right over the oh my god you know yes again let's go back to cfny but i have i do have on like an iver hamilton or a scott turner and i really loved you know or you know uh david marsden and i love to talk about like how do songs get played and like they had music lovers on a committee that would kind of listen to the new imports from the uk and stuff and they would kind of do it that way where's today right today

there's some focus group or something and it spits out you know play 1979 by the smashing pumpkins every three hours or whatever whatever it is so it's out you know play 1979 by the smashing pumpkins every three hours or whatever whatever it is so it's very you know and i also noticed this if i may as a radio fan of radio even though i don't listen as much as i used to like if somebody let's say tragically i won't even name a name because i don't want to you know it's a terrible thought but a rock an old rock star dies today okay back in the day like when john lennon was shot you know ingrid schumacher came over and she was talking about like they played lennon and talked about lennon like they can they can mix it up on the they can they can they can on a dime they can change up

their playlist and kind of refocus on john lennon and talking about that because that's the biggest thing in music whereas today you'll find like somebody will die like a neil peart will pass away and you'll kind of look at the q107 playlist and how long does it take them? And Rush is one of their bands. Like you'd think they could go to Rush immediately and start talking about this, like Neil Peart passed away. Like this is a big fucking deal.

And it just seems like everything's so automated. Like there's no room for human variable interplay. And you know what? You're right. And there's something that does tie in with what I'm trying to say about the passion. And here's another example. I was, the first time I worked in Winnipeg

a couple of different times, and the first time I worked in Winnipeg, the station that I worked at had the Winnipeg Jets play-by-play. Andy Frost was there. Andy Frost. He was actually on City FM. I was on the AM side. All scored by side by number 90 no we can't do can't

do gilmore for andy frost no you know not gilmore we can do number 13 matt sundin yeah that for sure so we're doing the jets broadcast and as the promotions manager at the time and i think i was assistant pd as well one of my jobs was to go to every single Jets home game with our camcorder, which at the time was, you know, like a yard long. And in between periods, I would go and stand in the Jets box and film a promotion that we did every home game. And it was a promotion where three people went out on the ice and had the chance to shoot the puck down the ice at the net,

which had a thing in front of it, and it went through the smallest hole. They won $58,000, and that was the frequency of the station. Exactly. I used to, much to my program director's dismay, always call it, you know, that shoot the puck thing. You'd say, it's not the shoot the puck thing. Anyways, I was over there one time filming, and the person won.

And the thing that happened when they won is a couple of things. The rink announcer had a really great line. I forget what it was, but he swore. And it was just really kind of a good moment. And the place went insane. Like, people were standing. So I'm running the cam quarter and getting all of this. And when I was done, um, that was the old Winnipeg arena

and city CKY studios were right beside the arena. It was a sweet, sweet setup anyways. So I ran back over to the radio station and this was, you know, kind of 11 o'clock at night. There's nobody around. so i go over to the tv side and i find somebody over there who's willing to help me cut up the tape so i get the tape i cut we get it cut up yeah i get it sent out somehow that night by courier right in the next couple of days it got played on good morning la it got played on the Today Show. Most importantly, did it get played on Sportsline? It got, I don't know. But Marv Albert played it.

Wow. And I got a letter from Marv Albert. Oh, George Michael's Sports Machine. I'm trying to think of these old school programs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. But, you know, at the time, not that it was like, oh, wow, great. Look at, you know, what I was able to do with this.

That's where the passion part got you. Because where people gave a shit yeah you went the extra mile and and i don't know whether that kind of ownership exists chris james was one of he was used as by more than just me as an example of every single radio station had to have a chris james and we would describe a chris james as the type of guy who if you know nobody was moving because of snow in the city chris would be out there wading through waist deep snow making it to the station to keep us on the air wow and that's we were all like that back then. Amazing. And I got to find out why, you know,

it ever ended for you at CFTR because it sounds pretty damn awesome and I was listening, but I just got to shout out two guys who are no longer on the air, but were on the air since the 70s and it was the longest run. It was incredible.

But Daryl Dahmer and Russ Holden were heard on CFTR. Well, you were only there a few years, but forever. Right. Since the 70s, I suppose. Russ Holden were heard on CFTR. Well, you were only there a few years, but forever, since the 70s, I suppose. Russ Holden, nicest guy in the world. Daryl Dahmer, not as easy to get along with, but brilliant at what he did.

They were both terrific at what they did. And I think they just hated talking to me in every other program together, you know? So don't blame them. But that's a long run. I don't know if that's a unique situation. But that's a long run. I don't know. That's a unique situation. They were there a long time.

Yeah. It's amazing. Russ Holden and Daryl Dahmer, the traffic. Okay. Oh, by the way, I got some, I did a little research here. So just for those listening who are wondering. So Tom Rivers actually does his last morning show shift on June 11th, 1991. So that's his last morning show gig.

And then Jesse and Gene, of course, moved to the mornings from their afternoon drive spot. Their first day on the morning is June 17, 1991. Then Tom Rivers, I guess he goes on a six-week vacation. But then when he finds out,

he finds out when he gets home, he finds out he's not the morning man anymore. He's got to do afternoon drive. So they bumped him to afternoon. But very shortly thereafter, by the way, by the way, when he finds out he's not the morning man anymore. He's got to do afternoon drives. So they bumped him to afternoon, but very shortly thereafter, by the way, during this time, Chris James was doing the afternoon drive and he doesn't last much longer than that

and he's out at CFTR. But it was a good run for Tom Rivers. I know he came to CFTR after getting fired from 1050. Chum. Yep. Good run for Tom Rivers and I enjoyed the Rivers. Rivers Air Force? Air Force? Sorry, Air air force air force is a whole different show yeah yeah yeah no rivers um like

i said rivers um we had our we had our moments because i was his boss but um he was he was kind to me and at the end i i phoned his um his widow after he died and talked to Nancy for a little while. And she reiterated that, which made me feel really great. She said, you know, out of all the program directors that Tom had, he always spoke very nicely of you. So that was good to know because he was a high-maintenance kind of guy. I can imagine. Why does it end for you at CFDR?

Why do you leave CFDR? I was fired. And I was fired primarily because of ratings. When I was hired, the station, as all AM stations were doing at the time, was starting to tumble. And it was just going in the opposite direction. And there came a – it's easy to see now in hindsight, at the time, you're never sure whether it is really over.

Is it going to come back? Are we going to do something? So at one point, I just knew that they were going to have to change me out because the ratings were dropping. And you can't say to your staff and to your clients um the end is near we're not going to be playing music on am much longer instead you do what you're supposed to do which is you fire the coach and uh say we're working on it you know it really was the end of time for at least for new music on am radio you still had the golden oldies and i know 10 50

lasted a long time and you could find like i don't know what you call it uh what are they the greatest generation what do we call them the boomers no the boomers not the boomers before the boomers like uh the the the last the latest anyway the i always call them the greatest generation but there's another name for those guys but anyway anyway, like the Don Cherry is an older. Anyway, shout out to Don Cherry if he's listening. But the new music, it was end of time. Well, it's getting close. And certainly in Toronto, when I left TR,

I went and worked in Ottawa next. And I worked at a station called Energy 1200, which was another AM Top 40 station. And we did a lot of really fun stuff there. And we were still, you know, that was when, you know, we would play like Marky Mark and stuff. Sure, good vibrations. Of course. What a jam that was.

Are you kidding me? It's a guilty pleasure. So there were still a few more fun years left. But yeah, then it was done. And for me, it was really done because at that point, I think I had primarily only worked at top 40 stations and had to start branching out after that. Okay. So one of the places you've referenced a couple of times is Kiss FM. Yeah. My mom had a mug. Of course. Of course. My mom's a big fan of that station.

mug of course of course my mom's a big fan of that station well god bless her you know god bless her because that station had every good intention that um you can imagine and i could tell you a lot about i was working in ottawa i was working for the rawlinson's in ottawa which is where i went after cftr right 1200. Right. And they had won the license in Toronto for a new station, and they had won it with the promise of a country format. So to shorten up the story a whole bunch, at one point the owner, Gord Rawlinson, who I absolutely love, he and other owners that I've had.

I mean, these are some of the, these people, you know, really made my career happen. But on that note, do you miss the days where like, I hear a lot of stories from people who are like, yeah, I could talk to, you know, Alan Slate. Yeah, totally. Or Waters. What was his name? Jimmy Waters. Jimmy Waters. Like these are, you could talk to the owner

you can't talk to the owner of bell media well and here's the thing and not to put anything down on bell media but what what what in the world are you going to talk to them about i mean they don't really know anything about radio yeah they're a telecom exactly right and you see back in the day these people that i'm talking about the sl Slates, the Rawlinsons, the Moffats, you know, all these people, these were family-run businesses. These were ma and pa operations where in the summertime working in promotions, I mean, I think at almost every station I worked at as a promotions director, the boss's kid did at least one summer. Like Gary Slate? Well, I remember when Melinda Rogers, you know, worked in our music library for us. I remember when Randy Moffat's kid, one day we were, I was out with him and we were, this is his kid in the

summertime, he's working for us. And we're having to load stuff into this van. And the stuff we were loading was really heavy and was sharp. And we're cutting our hands on it. And he said, isn't there somebody who should be doing this? And I'm like, yeah, that's us. But the reason I always liked working with owner's kids was I had more than one owner say to me my kid's going to be working for you work them like a dog right and that's what they wanted they wanted their kids to have a real genuine working experience remember arthur carlson okay he had that job because mama carlson owned the station yeah nepotism and radio is not a bad thing. I mean, broadcasters, it's in your blood a little bit

if you're brought up in one of those broadcasting families. But anyway, so I'm in Ottawa, and they have this license, the Rawlinsons have this license to put on the air in Toronto. And I knew about it, and I had worked Toronto already, and my family is here, and so I really wanted it. But I just, I didn't say anything about it. I was doing well in Ottawa, whatever. And then finally one day, Gord Rawlinson called me and he said, I want to talk to you about going to Toronto and programming the new station for us. And I said, really? And

he said, yeah, what do you think about that? And I said, well, I actually know five of the people that you've already talked to about it. And since I'm number six, I'm really excited about this because I think I'll be able to name some of my terms. That's funny. That's funny. And it was true. And he, obviously, I ended up going. And that experience at Kiss FM bonded Gord and I and Doug Rollinson and I and Doug Pringle and I in a way that no other experience could have. And I'll just tell you really quickly, when we got together in Toronto before the station went on the air, it was about four months before.

I think we got together in August or the station went on the air, it was about four months before, I think we got together in August or September and we launched in January, we did a lot of talking at the beginning about what kind of format we were going to be because you kind of know that you're supposed to put on the air what you promised, but then it's usually years later you're sitting there saying, is that promise still good? Can we still do that? And one of the things that we knew was that Toronto had never had a country station, it had only ever had a country

AM station. And the country AM station was never successful in a market competitive way. You know, they had enough ratings to, you know, do okay, make make money and stuff. but they weren't competing with Chum FM or anything like that. So we knew we had to do it differently. And I spent, as did most of the people on the senior team, three months in almost like country school where that's all we did. Yeah. Listen, we believed, and I went into it with the worst attitude. When he asked me if I wanted to go to Toronto to run the station, I was like, absolutely. But I hated country. You know,

I just didn't think I would have to tell anybody that I could fake it. But after I had been there three months going through this learning curve, not only did I like it, I became a missionary for this music. I've heard this story before. I heard this story from Colleen Rusholm. Yeah. And she told me the same thing, that these are the greatest people. Yeah, they really are. And some of the greatest music. Now, if a tidal wave came and washed out all the crappy country music and there is a bunch of it like any format right what is left is absolutely phenomenal and

i had no idea so my theory at the time was i was programming then so i was hiring everyone for on air and whatnot all the on-air roles. And my theory then was we were trying to put a station on the air that kind of went against the grain of what you, as a Torontonian, what you would think of country stations. And you would think Yeehaw, and you would think, you know, hay bales, and you would just think, you know, your dog ran away for three days. hay bales and you would just think you know your dog ran away for three days so we did all these different things to have it present more upscale more hip more contemporary and one of the things that i did is except for cliff dumas in the morning everyone i hired came from a top 40

station or a rock station right like i hired dan williamson from the mix i hired donna b from q107 love donna b by the way yeah you know like i hired all these people because not just i didn't want that because there is a country style of delivery that you know sounds kind of country i wanted not just a different kind of more energetic delivery i wanted to hear people fall in love with the music like I did. And I think a lot of our first year, second year energy actually did come from that. You know, where we were all digging Garth Brooks at the same time, you know. La Love It used to come in the station and do interviews with us. He'd come in and go here i

am yeah he's so great oh my god one day he was finishing an interview and as he was leaving he was in the lobby getting going into the elevator as the mavericks were coming out for their interview and it was like holy shit this is toronto you know like fantastic and this this again uh larry's uh later that same life has a story about shania twain well she must have been a godsend too for uh for kiss fm yes she was and the godsend was she was right at the beginning of her big career, you know. So she was still. And CanCon too, right? Yeah, totally. And she was still, what do you call it?

She was still recognizing dates that she had agreed to, you know, years earlier when she really didn't have. So she was available. She was really available to us. Yeah, well, you guys had her in ads. Yeah, we did. Of course, with Carla Collins and the whole, anyway. Yeah, no, not Carla.

Not Carla Collins? Carla never worked with Carla. Okay. Who am I thinking of? Well, it was with Fedorik. Fedorik, right. Yeah, yeah. Who else was on that show?

Do you remember? I don't know why I had Carla there. Oh, Jackie Donaldson was on there. And, of course, Rivers. Right. Actually, I think that I think that

Larry had been fired from the mix and I called him up and at that point we also had the New Country Network on TV Is that CMT? It is now Back then it was called NCN New Country Network on TV. Is that CMT? It is now. It is now.

Back then it was called NCN, New Country Network. So we had just launched the New Country Network and it was upstairs from us. And so I called up Larry and he had been fired and I said, well, listen, you know, I don't know what I've got for you here. In fact, I don't really have anything, but why don't you come over

and we'll see what we can figure out. And he did. And he worked for a few months at the New Country Network until I was able to put him on the air with Cliff Dumas in the morning. That's right. Okay. Yeah. And he did that. And then I eventually, down the road, had to fire Larry.

And I think Larry likes to tell the story about how during me firing him, I was the one that was crying. That's great. Yeah. That's a good sign. Good empathetic move. All right, Sharon Taylor, I bet you it would shock you to find out how long we've been talking. How long?

About like an hour 40 something. Get out. I think at this point. Not kidding here. So I mentioned it'd be a lot of, yeah, about an hour 45 actually. Right. So, of course. I didn't even get to tell you the story about.

Well, this is your opportunity because I haven't started playing the Louis 45, actually. Right. So, of course. I didn't even get to tell you the story about. Well, this is your opportunity, because I haven't started playing the Louis Alou yet. Okay. So, everything, like, you know, you're driving to Tobacco, and you're like, where the hell am I? Yeah. And you're like, I got to make sure I tell this story and that story. Yeah.

This is your chance to drain the swamp of stories. Let's hear it. I'm going to tell you the one big story, and that's the story when Kiss FM was sold to Rogers. And it became briefly for like two weeks, power 92.5. Right. And then switched to Kiss.

Back to Kiss. With a K? Yes. Right. Yes, because we were at Kiss with the C and they decided to keep the Kiss. I can't wait to hear the story because I remember this. Yes.

So one day my boss, Gord, came into town, took me out for dinner. We went to Southern Accent. Used to be down in the theater district. And he said to me, I've got some big news for you. I'm selling the station. And I'm like, what? I really had no clue. And he said, yeah, I'm selling to Rogers it's a big secret you can't tell anyone I'm gonna need your help doing this and I remember

saying to him okay okay fine yes whatever but what about me you know like where are you gonna hire me and he said kind of like he said well i kind of sold you the station and so um there were people who were um over the next three months i'm going to guess i would literally go into the station in the morning leave by noon one go over to rogers work with them on launching the new station. I would also work with their HR department because we had to fire an enormous amount of people and I had to do a big bulk of that. So I would go over there every day and work on that.

And then I would come home and in the evening I would talk to the Royal Coco accounting people in Saskatoon. So this all went on for like three months. And I don't think at the time I was giving any proper recognition to the fact that it was internally devastating. You know, this station hadn't existed before the bunch of us got together. And, you know, I remember sitting on boxes with cell phones trying to do stuff um and so um anyways so he said yeah you so for three months I do that and finally you know the day came where it was going to happen and um there was a last minute foul up

and I remember they were all I was the general manager then, and they were all, everybody was in my office standing by the fax machine because lawyers were faxing over stuff and were faxing signatures back. And what had happened is we had to let go of, I don't know, 90%, 95% of the programming staff. In fact, I think the only on-air person that was saved was KJ. Wow. Yeah. And so what happened is a bunch of people got a note that there was going to be a staff meeting

in the boardroom at five o'clock. I don't remember the time. A bunch of other people, the on-air people, all on-air news and announcers all got a note saying that there was going to be an announcer meeting at the rosewater supper club which is a place that we had used before for staff meetings okay keep keep going because i've heard i know exactly where we're going now wow okay keep going i need the detail here. Shout out to Mike Richards. So everyone on the programming, the announcers and the news people,

of which we had a huge newsroom at the time, are at the Rosewater Supper Club. And because of all this faxing and whatever the problem was, everything got pushed really late. The people in the boardroom were waiting. Rosewater Supper Club was waiting. But of course, they had a bar. So they're waiting and drinking.

Yes. And I had said to my owners somewhere that week, when we started talking about the actual D-Day, and how, because it was going to flip formats that day as well, how it was going to all play out. I said to them, I will not fire everybody. First of all, I don't think I can. I don't think it's possible to do it without renting out a big room and doing a mass firing, which none of us want to do. So I said, and I don't know, I was just able to say stuff like this at the time i

remember saying to them you know i think that your hands have to be in this too you know and so they agreed that they would um they would take care of the people at the rosewater supper club and i was going to take care of everyone who was left in the station and just to be clear again okay so rosewater supper club that's where the on-air talent has collected to to booze up and they think they don't know why they're there they think that there's something this is i remember the speculation might have been that this was a positive thing they were there for yeah yeah i don't remember what that was either but can i ask you is this so are we at this is this the same this as we finish this story is is jeff lumby there yep and mike richards yep okay you're in

the right place sharon okay this is the story has been told in great detail and it's one of the epic stories in toronto mike lore because well i'll let you finish the story and then i still remember lumby and he's coming back by the way everybody to kick out the jams uh he's living in france now really he sold his ontario whatever acreage they had up north or whatever, or wherever that is. I don't know where it is in Cambridge. I have no idea, but it's somewhere around the GTA.

He and his wife, Julie, sold their Ontario property and bought a property near like Toulouse, France or something. Wow. And they are like there because I'm helping him with his podcast in which he shares the details of moving to France during a pandemic.

Wow. And he's going to be on Toronto Mike next week or the week after to kick up the jams and talk about that. I wish I were better friends with him. That would be terrific. Yeah, they were, Danny Kingsbury was my PD at the time and he brought in Richards and

Jeff and that didn't, I bet you they weren't there six months and the station got sold. When they were brought in, I didn't know. Like, I didn't know until three months before the station got sold. So, I slept okay at night knowing that we hadn't brought people in, knowing that they were going to get fired a few months later. But, yes, so they're at the Rosewater Supper Club. They don't know why they're

there and you're right there was some kind of thing that they thought they were maybe there for some really great reason and they weren't um and i'm back at the radio station so here's what i know and then i'll fill you in on rosewater so what i have is i have an armful of brown envelopes and i'm literally walking around from room to room, you know, copy department. Okay, listen, I can't spend long, unfortunately, but I'm here to tell you that the station has been sold. You're being let go. All the information is inside of this pocket. Please take it home. Go through it. I need you to leave now um but don't worry if you have any personal effects here i personally guarantee that they'll get to you so i did that

literally walking through the hallway and just going into each room and firing everybody that was there i did it in the newsroom and And then I had my engineer with me. I remember I went and fired Kingsbury and, yeah, all these people. And then I went and got my engineer, Rick DelFerra, great guy, and he came with me into the control room, and I fired whoever was on the air there and we flipped the station over and it started with a pre-tape that i had done um just saying that the station had been sold thanking our listeners and all that kind of stuff um now down at the rosewater separate club and where is this again i feel like i should know where rosewater separate club isn't it kind of

like not adelaide but one of those streets around there? Okay, so like we're in the entertainment district here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was really... Good bike lanes on that street. That's what I know. Yeah, it was considered very swank and still might be at the time. That's why I don't know about it.

So they were all there and nobody knows. And they're all quite annoyed that they're being made to wait but they're drinking and they're drinking yes yes and they're really drinking so by the time that gourd and doug got there most of these people were hammered right and gourd and doug did i'm sure a good job of what they had to do, which is something they didn't want to have to do, but it was not taken well, as you can imagine. Nobody was happy.

Everybody was losing their job. Now, the really awful part actually came right after that, which is Rogers had given us 15 minutes or I had 15 minutes to get everybody out from the time we switched the format because they were all waiting to come in. So I had to do this with everybody saying, I need you to leave.

I need you to leave. Right, you can't go back to your desk and put your stuff, your picture of your child and all that. Yeah, it was awful. But I said to everyone that I could, I said, you know, like Danny always had the same two pictures

of his boys up in his room and the pictures were at least 15 years old because they were cute then. He had his little kid picture. But it was like, don't worry, I'll make sure that... You know, that's the guy who put Humble and Fred together. Yeah.

Because Lumbee and Howard were in Montreal. Here, what? Like Humble and Fred was almost Lumbee and Howard, except Lumbee didn't want to leave Montreal. Right, right. I interviewed Howard before we hired Jesse and Gene for Afternoons. I was trying to hire him. And that's 91? No, that's 90?

I don't know. Okay, but that's wild because 1989. You know what? He does do that CKFM 18 months. So Humble and Fred starts, and then we'll get back to the Rose Garden. But Humble and Fred start in 89 because Howard comes from Montreal to be a Fred who's already there. And

then like not too long into this show's history, Howard quits to go to CKFM. In fact, he's the first person to say Mix 99.9 on the air because he's the morning show guy. He says that for the first time. And then I don't know, about 18 months later, he comes back to be with Fred on 2.1.

It was probably during that time when he was at Mix. Well, you know, I produced their show today. Like, I will ask him about it. Yeah, and he may not remember, but I clearly remember interviewing him, and I didn't have a chance to offer him the job because he turned me down before I even offered it. He kind of said, you know, I want to do mornings,

and I said, yeah, but Rivers is still in mornings. And I'm offering you afternoons. And, you know, Tom won't always be in mornings. And to which Humble said, yeah, you know, I really want to do mornings. And so he ended up, you know uh removing himself kind of from the running because he just good for him you know he just wasn't willing to take a chance on not getting there yeah he had a good run with yes so rosewater supper club so they go there they tell everybody the station's been sold they've all been fired see later. So all of these people tried to come back to the station,

which makes sense, but they couldn't get in because all their cards had been decoded by then. And all their cards had been decoded by then because basically Rogers wanted us out and wanted to be in. And I'll tell you something. I was working for Rogers at that point, right? When that 15 minutes came up and the Rogers people came in, it was like a cartoon. I remember standing inside the station and the elevator doors opening and these people just

pouring it like out of a clown car, you know, these people pouring out of the elevator and just going to the first. This story is a future Mikeumentary. Absolutely. But can I ask a question? Because I heard this from Lumbee and Richards, both or whatever. They said they had to pay for their drinks at the Rosewater Super Club. You know what? That to me is, so you're getting fired. You know, shit happens.

This is corporate radio and you're being fired. But now you've been drinking at this thing you were invited to get fired. The fact that you get the bill for the drinks you've been drinking as you get fired to me that that's where i lose my shit sharon i'm just yeah and i'm a pretty calm and reasonable guy yeah let me tell you i have no let me i have no idea why that would have happened it never and i i'd love to have a conversation with somebody who remembers it better than I do. It never would have happened as a result of any of that management team saying they should pay for their drinks, because that wasn't the kind of management team it was.

And I'm happy to say, in fact, I'm thrilled to say right now that when that station was sold, say right now that when that station was sold, Gord did something that I've never known any other owner to do. And he said, I'm going to want to give everyone who's full time a money gift as a thank you for their service. And he said, so I want you to take the list of employees and put beside it how much you think I should give them. And he just needed something to start from, to edit from, right? So I said, well, you know, I need some money. And it was unbelievable. But, you know, he gave every single person who had worked for him at that station, who was there on that last day, just on his own, a check, you know,

for thousands of dollars in many cases as a thank you so my point is nobody from that company would have wanted that to happen that they paid somehow if that happened it happened inadvertently and the management company would have been mortified to find out about that but yeah danny Kingsbury tells a story about, you know, getting fired by me at, you know, four in the afternoon and going home in a daze and sitting there and watching the evening news. And Chuck McCoy, representing Rogers, is standing in his, in Danny's control room talking about this new station. Okay, here's a mind blow for you. Okay, so we're talking on February 7th. It's now almost five o'clock.

I'm serious because I have the receipts. I wrote Danny Kingsbury an email earlier today because I was chatting with John Pohl. John's great. We were chatting like a private chat about he loves Toronto Mic'd because he's got good taste in podcasts and he's a great FOTM.

And he was like, Danny Kingsbury would be a great guest. And I like yeah I produce Humble and Freddie be a great guest and he goes yeah here's Danny's email address or whatever and I literally wrote Danny and it's the only time in my life I've written Danny Kingsbury is earlier today like it's not really yeah it's the only time in my life I've written an email to Danny Kingsbury right and that was earlier today and I actually it was I hadn't even thought about the connection you'd have. And I never, none of this even occurred to me. Danny is such a wonderful person.

When my daughter was going to Queens and Kingston, Danny was living there at that time. And I was living out west and I phoned up Danny and and i said you know typical you know you're first born i said she's going to queens and she's going to be on her own and i'm so worried and of course you know um kingsbury and his wife had her over for dinner nice you know all it looked at i hear a lot about him because dan duran a howard glassman jeff lumby like this is like a crew that's a crew that's a squad. Absolutely. I'm surrounded by him because Dan's good friends of Humble and Fred, and I produce the Humble and Fred show.

I'm helping Lumby with his podcast, and he's become a bud. And it's like, yeah. So it's like I just today wrote Danny Kingsbury for the first time. Sharon, oh, my goodness. When I said, do you have any other stories before I play Lois the Low? That might be the best example. I'm so glad we talked about that Rosewater Supper Club incident because it really is a future Mikeumentary.

I've heard so much about it from Mike Richards and Jeff Lumby. And to get your perspective on all that, that's amazing. So just, I know that we're yada, yada, yada, yada over in like these important parts, but obviously you're at Kiss FM for like a good eight year run or something. 92 to 2000. Yeah, you're right. I think at that point that was the longest I had been at any radio station.

Wow. And then you head west. So there's a, and we won't go into any details here unless it's something really exciting, but you're in Saskatchewan, you're in Manitoba. My wife is from Edmonton and you're there. Yeah, I only, that was my last radio station group was in Edmonton. But I got to tell you quickly that 10 of the best years of my life were spent in Winnipeg. I loved Winnipeg.

I've worked there twice. Even in the winter. Yeah, yeah. There's something so special about that city. I don't know how to explain it. Matt Cundall will maybe be able to explain it for you. I've never been there. Well, let me tell you,

they have an incredible street vibe when it comes to music, when it comes to film. It's a big film community. Well, my buddy filmed a movie there recently and his van got stolen. Well, that's also very common in Winnipeg. But Winnipeg has just been, it's a great radio city.

Okay. Like there's a lot. I know CJ Connors just went there, but I think he actually was let go from that job. But he was doing mornings at City. You know what? I think he's, I haven't heard a lot of TJ, but what I've heard I really like. Yeah, he's good. I think he's out of it now.

Oh, I think he's in real estate now. Which is, you know, it's always disappointing. It's really disappointing to me when I hear women who I think are talented that end up dropping out because there's still not enough women. Oh, can we close on that note then? Yeah. Because I was thinking about how you didn't have

a lot of like role models and like radio executives that were women to kind of look up to and emulate and stuff. But nowadays, there's many, well, many more. Like, how does it feel? You're likely to be one of those like role models that these current radio executives were emulating. Like you kind of filled that role for so many women. I'm just curious, like what it was like being a woman in broadcasting management. It was really, really, first of all, I don't know any different, but it was really tough. I mean, when I got into it, I was in my 20s,

and I really quickly decided that I had to adapt in the sense that I felt that I had a chance at success in the business if I was able to assimilate into the ranks. If I could get the guys to accept me, then I would have a better shot. So that's why I got tough really quick, you know, like I swear like a sailor. But I got to the point where every girlfriend and every wife trusted me because I was a trustable woman inside the business, right? And the guys, you know, didn't dare cross me

because I also was young and full of it and would tell them, you know, exactly what I thought of them. So there weren't a lot, but I remember very, I hired Julie Adam, and I remember we were at a CRTC hearing, and Julie was sitting right behind me, and I was leading the panel, and I said to the commission, I said, you know, if you're looking, I can't believe I was this smart back then, but I said to the commission,

if you're looking to see the future of Canadian broadcasting, it's sitting right behind me, and that's Julie Adam. And that was, you know, Julie was really young then. I was going to mention her by name. I recently booked her on the Humble and Friends show to talk about her new book, and I was going to mention her by name because she comes up a lot on this program. Yeah, well, you know, I had a, when KISS wasn't on the air yet,

I was working there with Doug Pringle behind the scenes, and one of the PDs from one of our stations out west phoned me and said, I've got a junior position. I'm going to hire somebody, this girl that just finished school in Toronto. I'm looking at her. Will you interview her for me? I don't have enough money to come out there or bring her here. So I said, sure.

And one day we were supposed to meet downstairs for lunch, and I said to Pringle, why don't you come? I've got to interview some girl for Tom and make it better if you'll come with me. So Doug came down. We sat and had lunch with Julie. Met her. Going back up in the elevator, I said to Doug, oh, I'm so sorry for Tom. He's not going to get her.

I'm keeping her. Now, she did end up, she worked for me for a few months and then she did end up going out west and working for tom and had a very good experience and i'm glad she went out there for but she she had something special right from the get-go and speaking of trifectas i feel like there's a trifecta like Liza Fromer, Julie Adam and Martine Geyer. I feel like that's like a Ryerson trio of BFFs or something. Was it Ryerson that Julie had gone to? I think so.

Yeah, I think it was some Toronto school. But yeah, you know, there was, so Julie had me and other people like me. I didn't have any of that female kind of right companionship i used to joke that if i ever got to sit at a table where i could borrow hand cream from somebody it would be fabulous but there was if you look now at what guys when they put up pictures on facebook or whatever of hey look at this squad from 1987 they're all out golfing and there's no women in the picture. Did you ever learn to golf? No, but what I did learn to do is when they would talk about going golfing,

I'd say, you know, I love going to a spa, and they would take up from each guy and buy me a spa certificate. All right, Sharon, I know that you're still writing at FYIMusicNews.com With fellow FOTM, because you're an FOTM now, fellow FOTM Bill King. Love reading the FYIMusicNews.com. Shout out to Gary Slate. And it sounds like, I didn't mention it, but it's impressive that you were the executive producer

of a documentary that aired on Bravo Canada and the Trio Network in the US. Yeah. The scream heard around the world. Maybe if you come back, I know you can do one sentence now, but maybe we'll have to dive deeper into it next time. I did that movie in 2000, 2001 with Marty Malouche, who is a fantastic film guy, writer, whatever.

And it basically is a film about why 13-year-old girls need teen idols. And it was fascinating. The scream heard around the world. All about teen idols, yep. And congratulations, you're a member of the Fanshawe College Broadcast Hall of Fame. Yay! Impressive. Yeah, considering I only went for one year, dropped out,

and when I was there, three months in, they asked me if I would consider leaving because there were other people that, you know, really wanted, yeah, so. Interesting. Gave me lots of motivation. Did you have a good time? I enjoyed this very much. Yes, I did. It went really fast, though.

Well, you know, good times go fast. They do. I want to get my lasagna and my beer. Don't share any of that lasagna with Blair Packer. Not going to happen. Don't share any of that lasagna with Blair Packer. Not going to happen. Don't worry. And that. Oh, let me give you that.

You reminded me before I sign off. Yeah. That's a flashlight for you to bring home to keep you safe. That's courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Cool. Because they don't want to see you anytime too soon. But they're good people when you need them. So thank you to Ridley Funeral Home.

That flashlight is going home with you. And that. All this swag you got, and that brings us to the end. Don't worry, it's in the freezer. I'm going to fill that up. It'll be heavier when you leave. And that brings us to the end of our 994th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at TorontoMikeSharon. Are you on Twitter? Yes, I am. I am 416lady. I could not find you, but now I know your secret identity. Yes, and I'm reachable at SharonTaylorRadio at Gmail. You can write Sharon and tell her

she was great on Toronto Mike. That would be nice. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery or at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. I'm going to the freezer to get a lasagna for Sharon right now. Sticker U is at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. I'm going to the freezer to get a lasagna for Sharon right now. Sticker

U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana, they're at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all next week. Picking up trash and then putting down ropes. 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