Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Shawn William Clarke KOTJ: Toronto Mike'd #308

Episode Date: February 25, 2018

Mike and Shawn William Clarke chat about his career in music before they play and discuss his ten favourite songs.

And right now, right now, right now it's time to... Take out the jams, motherfuckers! I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm a Toronto Mike, wanna get the city love My city love me back for my city love Welcome to episode 308 of Toronto Miked A weekly podcast about anything and everything Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery A fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke.

Did you know that 99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? Great Lakes Brewery, brewed for you. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. And PayTM, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week to kick out the jams is musician Sean William Clark. Welcome, Sean. Hey, thanks for having me.

I know the calendar says it's February, but it's spring-like outside. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's really nice. I came a little early to the neighborhood here so I could walk around a bit and visit the Vinyl Emporium. It's been a great morning so far. Cool. Yeah, you're in New Toronto right now. So where do you normally hang? Like where's your Toronto? I live on Roncesvalles, so I love that neighborhood.

And my partner, she lives at Front and Jarvis, so the market area. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So I'm usually around those districts. But I did used to live in Etobicoke for the first four years I lived in Toronto. I went to Humber College. So I used to spend a lot of time in this neighborhood. Were you in the north campus or the south? The south one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's really close. Yeah. Very close. That's the old Mimico Insane Asylum.

That's what I've heard. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. They've done a lot of really great stuff there. I'm sorry. No, no, no. Go ahead. You know, I haven't been there in years. And then I did a bunch of big bike rides last year. And I went back, kind of back through behind the building. And they've done so much stuff there.

It's crazy. I mean, it's been a while. But I guess progress happens. No, they built up a bunch of stuff and uh yeah and they speaking of that mimico insane asylum um you ever see suicide i haven't actually seen it but have you seen suicide squad not yet no no they filmed like the scenes in suicide squad filmed inside uh the the old insane asylum oh really yeah uh and i i guess if you go way back,

and I think you're a bit younger than I am, but Police Academy. That's right. That's where Commandant Lessard and the gang. That's right, yeah. So that's the, yeah, Humber College now. So that's very cool. Yeah.

I have to share with you and everybody listening that Stephen Stanley is a big fan of yours. Which is quite an honor to have someone as talented as Stephen sing my praises, I gotta say. Well, before you get too excited, I think he's also a fan of mine. Right.

I'm gonna quote Stephen before we celebrate Stephen Stanley. But he told me that, he says, Sean is wonderful. His album, William, is one of my favorites from the last 10 years. Wow. And he says your new one is really good too.

So for those, and we're going to do like a brief bio now, and then we're going to deep dive. But you have, what your new album is called? Topaz. Topaz. Yeah. And the album that, well, Stephen loves your new album too, and I'm going to play some cuts from it shortly, but the album before Topaz, was that William? Yes, it was.

And so how long ago did William come out? That was in 2014, and the new one came out last fall, man, so a few years in between. Yeah, but that's high praises because, you know, as a guy, I was, when Shakespeare

My Butt came out, like, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I was listening to a lot of 102.1, which I can't remember when it was CFNY

and then they started Combs Off the Edge. I don't know when it broke up, but the, they played a lot of stuff from Shakespeare My Butt and I just, like, adored that album. So Stephen Stanley singing it broke up, but they played a lot of stuff from Shakespeare My Butt, and I just adored that album. So Stephen

Stanley singing it. Yeah, that was a great album. And his new album is really great, too. I see you've got it there on your table. For those who haven't heard it, Jimmy and the Moon. It's a really great album. You should pick it up. He writes he's got a couple songs on it.

We have a similar interest in writing songs about Toronto and places, you know, within the city. He's got a couple songs on there that are just great little snapshots of Toronto, like the Troubadour Club and some other things, which if you're a fan of Toronto and you're a fan of good songwriting, I suggest picking that album up. And you mentioned when you moved to Toronto, you originally lived near here, I guess, going to Humber College. But where did you come from? I came from Orillia, Ontario, so about an hour and a half north.

Came here for college, Humber College for music, back in the day. When did you know, like at what point in your life did you realize you wanted to be a musician? It's hard to say exactly. It could have been as far back as like, you know, pretending I was Robert Plant in my room singing along to Zeppelin tunes

or I had a lot of encouragement in high school through my music teachers. And I think, yeah, I think maybe if I had to guess, I'd say maybe kind of late public school when I started listening to a lot of classic rock. And it just seemed like such a great thing to do to perform. And I've been trying to figure out how to do it ever since. I would guess that Bob Dylan would be one of those guys.

You're like, I want to be Dylan. Yeah, Dylan's had a huge influence on me as a songwriter. I probably first heard him... The first album that I really got into was the Highway 61 Revisited record, which is a fantastic rock folk record. And then as I progressed, I got into his earlier albums for his songwriting. Another side of Bob Dylan is one that I really love. And of course, some of the obvious ones, but Dylan's great.

Yeah, absolutely. And his new records are great too. I mean, he's hit and miss, but I totally dig that about him, that he's unpredictable with what he's going to do next. Yeah, for sure. But he's a living legend, as we say. There's not many living legends out there, so if you get a chance to see a living

legend, you should do so, right? Yeah, you should. And Dylan's new performance thing is great. I love the... I don't know if you've heard his more recent albums at all. No,

man. The last time I heard a Dylan track, we're going back to like the wonder years, not when it was the wonder boys. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's, yeah, I forgot about that. Well, right around there, he released one of my probably top five favorite Dylan records at time out of mind.

That's the one that's the album, right? Which is brilliant album. But lately he's's the one. That's the album. Which is a brilliant album. But lately he's been doing this kind of crooner thing. He's doing Sinatra covers. Which sounds ridiculous. But I think it works really

well. And he's got this really great band behind him. And the songs are so well put together. And his voice is great for it because he's not a crooner uh in any traditional sense of the word but i mean the way i look at it if pat boone could put out a heavy metal album then right dylan can put out a crooner yeah totally and it's great and when they perform live i went and saw them last year and the highlights of the

night were the new songs like he would i i've told this story a few times because i think it's great uh he he would you know he'd play the classics uh which he's been doing more of which is fine you know people come to see that but i thought he kind of sits behind the piano and he's not a very good piano player i don't think you know he's just kind of like you know it kind of beats down on the piano and then when the new songs come up, he gets out from behind the piano and gets in front of this old-fashioned mic

and strikes this Bobby Darin pose and starts singing these songs. And I think it's great. It's so magical. I never thought that the highlight of a Bob Dylan concert would be him doing Autumn Leaves. Right. No, that's great. That's great.

But legends do legendary things yes for sure now um okay so you're an indie folk songwriter that's how you'd uh describe yourself although do you like being pigeonholed like with a genre attached to you or because you know if they did that to to bob dylan he wouldn't be doing the crooner right and that's the the truth? I don't mind it. I'm not as against it as some people. I understand how it's useful because there's so much music out there. Sometimes you need little signifiers or things to like, you know, to grab onto. picture with your description of what you do then uh hopefully people will kind of know what they're going to get and they'll listen to you um so i don't mind it uh if people are if people want to call me folk or indie or whatever that's fine right if they're listening to it the uh so you were twice nominated as songwriter of the year in now magazine's best of toronto poll very cool and i'm going to play some tracks,

but this is from your website, so you can't even tell me I'm wrong because you published this. Oh, goodness. Topaz was inspired by 80s Gordon Lightfoot, Kenny Buttrey's drumming on Neil Young's Harvest, and the existential dilemmas we faced in 2016. What existential dilemmas did we face in 2016 well remind me yeah i know i'm gonna have

to start changing that soon as we as we keep facing existential dilemmas was this was this trumpian no well yeah that was a big part of it uh it was it's also sort of a personal thing i had a really rough 2016 uh not in any uh you know I'm not gonna complain too much like you know I still have my loved ones and um and uh all that's great I just you know I lost a job in 2015 at the end of the year that I really enjoyed and was like considering changing my career direction for uh and i went through this thing of just like not knowing what to do and not wanting to do anything you know i didn't want to work i didn't want to play music i you know and trying to like have that conversation in your head of why you should do it and and it was kind of hard finding reasons you know uh so it's really in my head for about a year but isn't that i mean correct me if i'm wrong but this is sounds like

you were depressed like yeah because you don't want to do anything you don't want to do what you love which is music you don't want to work you stay in bed for long periods of time like this not so much that but i've you know would sit around in front of the computer and just scroll the internet and you know that kind of that's dangerous don't do that yeah right it's a dangerous game yeah uh and it was um yeah it was it was i would say it was a depression of some sort um that uh and then by the end of the year i started to try to kick it a little bit. And I started planning the new album and I started working on just kind of improving myself. So that's kind of a personal thing. And I think collectively, 2016 was the year when, sorry, there is that thing where we were starting to

lose our heroes in a way that, you know know we've all it's not there was a we approached it differently in 2016 because there's nothing new about losing people who get older you know and who we looked up to but some of these people we like like David Bowie and Lemmy and Prince was in there yeah Prince um there Prince. There was a real conversation going on about it that I don't know if there has been before. I don't know if it was a very useful conversation or anything, but it was interesting to see, and I think we all needed to get out of that a bit.

And I don't think Donald Trump helped at all. We're still dealing with that. Exactly, yes. Yeah. I think maybe the first year was kind of a what do we do and i think now people are in the all right we're gonna do something phase with with that it does feel like that i mean with the teenagers of all things like i've seen actual action like i've seen corporations drop nra from their programs yeah over the last couple weeks yeah like in the last couple of days, I've seen more action. And when you realize the impetus for this action are teenagers,

it's almost like, uh, for the first time in a long time, there's this hope that maybe all is not lost. Like maybe our future will, will be okay. Yeah. It's really inspiring.

It's, um, seeing these kids who shouldn't have to do this shit, you know, um, putting it together and uh you know just like the things they're saying and also they're not they're not playing any games you know they're not interested in your you know in like their political bullshit right they're

not trying to bipartisan it's not by yeah exactly and it's like and it shouldn't be it shouldn't be a left or right issue to say i don't want want my friends to die. You know, um, it's really something. And I hope we as an older generation can do our best to support them and, um, speak out and, uh, smarten up, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, uh, let's talk about Topaz for a minute. Cause there's a review I read. So it may be a little backstory for people listening. So, um, I'll be honest, a lot of like what i would call indie songwriters are like hey can i come on your show and stuff and i say no over and over and over again okay and then uh so stephen stanley vouched for you and he told me about how much he loved william uh and then i went and i said i gotta listen to this guy's stuff because i wasn't familiar with your work so the

first song i listened to and i'm gonna play it in a second, was Autumn in New Brunswick was the first song I listened to. And I listened to it. And then I started, this is on Bandcamp, I started listening to more stuff from Topaz. And it's gorgeous stuff. Like, I just loved it. Like, it's amazing. Thank you so much. It's great.

So I'm going to quote a review of your new album, Topaz. This is from Exclaim. new album Topaz. This is from Exclaim. And it's Clark is a master of nuance, simplified use of instrumentation and luminosity through storytelling. Topaz is one of the most likable sets of songs you'll hear all

year. I mean the whole review I could have quoted the whole thing. It's all so glowing and just fantastic. But let me play some of your stuff and then can we talk about Topaz? Yeah, sounds great. All right. So this is the aforementioned Autumn in New Brunswick.

And if you want, like, you know how I just had Sky Diggers, Andy Mays over, and I played, like, I Will Give You Everything, and I just made him tell me, like, how the song came to be, and it worked really nice. Like, how does autumn in New Brunswick come to be? You know, it comes from a tour I did. I used to play, the female voice you hear on this track is Alenka Krakus, tour I did. I used to play, the female voice you hear on this track is Olenka Krakus, whose band Olenka and the Autumn Lovers

I used to play in. And we used to tour together. And we toured the East Coast a couple times. And so this is inspired by those tours, like those long drives between, you know, Edmonston and Moncton or whatever. Right. And in the autumn, it's beautiful up there. And the trees are changing.

And there's just this, there's just this, there's something about it. It's like, it's a very like, you know, you're with people, but you also can, there's this kind of isolation that's quite lovely, actually. And I was hoping to capture that in this song. And I asked Delenka to join me because she's a beautiful voice and a wonderful singer. And the production of it, James Bunton's my producer on the last two albums. And so we just worked the band and we wanted this nice groove, this very Kenny Buttrey drum beat, you know, very simple. And Andrew Delson did a wonderful job of that.

The synth pads Christian Peterson put in, I think, were those little swells him and James worked on that I think make the song it's like a small little thing but it's just like I just love hearing it it's yeah and then the guitar was the guitar playing on the whole album was influenced by that Gordon Lightfoot thing in in thoses albums, Shadows and Salute, songs like Whispers of the North, which is kind of a pit, reverb, electric guitar sound

that I was really attracted to. Down the street, there's a Sweet Olenka's. Oh, yeah. Makes really nice chocolate things. It's a good place to go. Yeah, it's actually great she's great yeah i think we spent our last night in montreal my eyes are heavy

I hear slips whispered call The breeze sheds leaves From trees with ease of call I think the bass line is like the real backbone of this song. David Gluck, who's played on the last

couple albums, came up with this beautiful little, almost like a McCartney-esque bass line in the, not in this section so much, although the bass playing is great in this too, but in the main section that I think

really holds the song together nicely. It's like a wonderful backbone. It's just a really, like, I don't know how to describe it, except it's just really pretty. Like, it's just a really sweet song. I hope it captures that feeling of driving through New Brunswick. Just watch out for the moose,

because I did that drive a couple of Augusts ago. Watch for the moose. It's scary, yeah. As soon as the sun goes down, you're kind of like, oh, we better get home or get to where we got to go. It's no joke, man. I have a buddy who lost his parents because they hit a moose in New Brunswick. Jesus. I know. That's scary. Yeah. It really is.

your personal preference for a song to end, do you like it to just end or fade away? Do you have a preference? I don't do a lot of fade outs, no. They just never feel like they work so much for me. I also like, there's so many songs that fade out and you're like, ah,

I kind of wanted to hear that go on a little longer. Okay. So I was against fade outs like for a long time. I didn't, I don't like the fade out. I like the stop kind of, I think on the note or whatever. But then I saw a video,

I think it was Vox or something. There was a little video where they explained the genius of the fade out is that the song lives forever and they're talking about you know what i mean there's this whole yeah like the song never ends if it fades it keeps going yeah and then i was like oh maybe the fade out does work sometimes like it just totally like changed my mind on the whole that's how impressionable i am like i see a little video and it was put together when i'm like oh maybe the fade out isn't so bad yeah but now when i listen to song i'm always now i'm just suddenly i'm really focused on how it ends. Like, is it just boom?

Or is it like, like just a fade away? Yeah, it's an interesting choice to make. I always think of it like, what am I going to, what do we do live? You know, especially with this album, we rehearse the band.

So we had endings for everything. So there wasn't a lot of time where we thought maybe a fade-out would work. It can be useful though. But some people find it lazy, I think, because like, oh, I don't know how to end this. Oh, we'll just fade it down. Just fade it.

Just keep playing. Just keep playing. We'll fade this one out. Yeah, exactly. So I'm going to play Young and Love. What's the full title of this song? Young and Love at the End of the World. And I'm going to play this,

then I'm going to play your Lonely 2. Okay. I was hoping to ask you out See what your plans are Saturday So whose voice is that? That's Abigail LaPelle, who's a songwriter here in Toronto. We could get food She's got a great voice.

And I just toured with her in Europe in September. What parts of Europe? Germany, Belgium, and Netherlands. Nice. Yeah, it was great. It was so much fun. Wow. And this song was the last song written for

the album it was i kind of needed some more music and my producer james was uh really pushing me to i'm not a very fast songwriter or i got it in my head that i wasn't a very fast songwriter you know like i kind of was a right when the spiritthe-spirit-hits-me kind of approach, which my producer called bullshit on. He was like, no, that's bullshit. You sit down, you write, and if it sucks, you either go back to it later or you discard it, but you just keep writing.

And so he wanted me to write another song, and I wrote this very quickly, actually, and sent it to him, emailed it to him, and be like, I don't know about the song. This is what I wrote, though. Here it is. And he was like, it's perfect. It's great.

It's the perfect song for the album. It's funny how that works. Yeah. Yeah, he called you out on your bullshit. He did. And you realized, you're right. That is almost like a crutch, I suppose. It is, yeah.

And he really did. And I was whining to him about being like, oh, you know, I can't write. And he's a great producer for this because he knows when to be hard, when to kick me in my ass. And he was like, listen, if I see you on social media today, I'm going to be very disappointed. Like, basically saying

if you spend your time checking Facebook as opposed to writing, then you're not doing your job. Which is the kick in the ass I needed. That's funny. You know, we heard Olenka

and Abigail. Beautiful voices. These are Toronto singer-songwriters. They're all amongst us. I think there's this whole very cool, beautiful scene that happens that the masses are completely oblivious to. Yeah. It's hard to...

I get it. Like, it's hard to... There's so much noise out there, right? Like, it's hard to, like, take the noise out there, right? Like it's, it's hard to like take the time to pick out what's good, you know? Um, but does it irk you at all that like, if a deaf leopard says they're coming to town,

like a bunch of people go crazy. Oh, deaf leopard's coming to town. You know what I mean? But meanwhile, like there's this whole like, uh, original,

like homegrown talent doing stuff like this. And this, this kind of fishtails into another question I have, which is like, how do you get, how does an independent singer-songwriter get exposure in 2018 when like, I'm going to use this as an example. I'm going to use Hayden as an example, okay?

Because like that's on the age where I was like a teenager when I was listening, I said before, I listened to CFNY and they had a new music search and they gave out these CDs with theseNY, and they had a new music search, and they gave out these CDs with the contestants in their big new music. And there was a Hayden track called Take. It was like two minutes long. Cool.

I don't know who the female is on that, but take a part of me, take all of me. And this song's still stuck in my head. I can do it all day. I don't know that song. I'm a huge Hayden fan as well. It's like the first slice of Hayden I ever heard. Take, take me with you. It is the coolest track. I should take it up fan as well. Yeah, it's like the first slice of Hayden I ever heard. Take, take me with you. It is the coolest track. I should take it up and play it.

But so I love this take that was on the new music search. And then Much Music, at some point when he puts out Everything I Long For, plays the hell out of Bad As It Seems, right? And hell of it. And I'm like, holy shit, this guy sounds so good. And I got that album and the whole album is amazing but like you had much music and you had terrestrial radio stations i guess there's nothing else back then right but you had them you know giving exposure to people

like hayden and that's where a guy like me would hear it and then fall in love with it and then forever became a hayden fan like how did what, what's doing that today? Like, do you have anything other than, they rebranded by the way, CBC radio too. Have you heard this? I don't know. It is now CBC radio. No,

sorry. CBC music is what they're calling CBC radio. Oh, I did hear something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm thinking that's the only station where something like that might be heard. Yeah.

Um, it's hard to say, like, I don't, I'm not too sure how people are finding their music nowadays CBC's

a good help and they've played some of my music a little bit this round which was really great and I'm very happy for it

and very you know I'll take as much as I can yeah sure but it's gotta be that's gotta be to me

if no station other than the public broadcaster and not the they don't play much music on one, but two, which is music now. Like, if that's your only radio exposure, and there is no, there's no much music playing stuff from, you know, indie stuff. So, it's got to be, you know, really tough sledding for talented singer-songwriters like yourself. Yeah, it is is for sure um and and i think the thing that's kind of uh kind of frustrating about but also um i think it's also very intriguing about it is that no one has the answer right now and i'm not sure if anybody will

like anyone who says they have the answer is lying to you because there is no answer because there's so many different paths you can choose right now and i think that's the one positive is that like you can you can find forge your own path and be successful in one way or well successful is an interesting word well you got the tour europe like the way i look at it is like how do you define success maybe you didn't pull up in rolls royce or whatever but yeah you got the tour of Europe. Like the way I look at it is like, how do you define success? Maybe you didn't pull up in a Rolls Royce or whatever, but you were just in the Netherlands to perform music for people.

Yeah, and I think you define your own success, right? It's not gonna happen the way it used to happen. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing though too, you know, because having like a gatekeeper to dictate what you listen to i don't know if that's the better answer right right um i think it's nice that you can find things on all these different avenues i streaming has its issues but uh it's amazing the access we have now and so i think there's a chance for people like, you know, an indie band from Nunavut has just as much chance of being heard as, you know, a band here in Toronto. And I think that's great.

So that part of it's really exciting and really interesting. I don't, on a personal level, I don't know what the answer is. I found a thing that I'm happy with. Like I found my happiness in playing shows I want to play, booking little tours here and there if I can, releasing music when I have the money. Well, that's my question. Let me just talk about money.

Sure. You live in Toronto. It's an expensive place to live. It can be, yeah. I always wonder, and my whole life, I'm not from this industry, I don't know, except I've talked

to people like yourself and I talked to, I don't know if I want to out them, but a lead singer of a very popular Canadian band that was massive

in the 90s, okay? And he opened, after we stopped recording, he opened up to me about like how much he pays himself from the, like he explained

the SoCan stuff and he explained, and I realized like he can't afford to live in, he lives in Toronto, he's got a wife about how much he pays himself. He explained the SoCan stuff. And I realized he can't afford to live in... He lives in Toronto. He's got a wife and at least one kid. But it was like a reality check that this guy whose songs were all over the radio and much music throughout the 90s, that's not much money to live on.

It's really tough for him. And then I wonder, people like yourself, do you have to have a full-time job in order to support the music at this point well yeah i think you have to work to like other jobs to support i have a few different i i have a thing going i'm really happy with right now where i have three or four things that kind of come up and i can take and i have a lot of freedom right now to uh book a tour like I'm gonna go east coast again in April cool and I've got time I've got that freedom to book that but kind of work up till there within one of these three or four jobs um that works for me it might

not work for other people but I think that's the way of the future right now like I think that's the way things are going for work um is that the gig economy that i read about yeah i think so and i think that's what we're looking at right now i don't i think the days of working 36 years at one place are long gone um and i'm happy for that personally like i would get so bored with that i think that's how you get stagnant and sad you know not i think that's a great outlook like what you said there that's a great because since we don't have much control over it you've taken the silver lining, if you will. But I would say that having that job you know is going to be there for decades so that you can have that as your income.

And then around that, you build your passions and things, the things you love, like you're touring and you're writing your music. Because I'm sure that takes time to write songs. It does, yeah. And then you've got to put it together. Where did you record Topaz? We went up to Gravenhurst, a place called Curry's Music. Okay.

I've recorded my last two albums there. It's a great shop, by the way, if you're ever up in Gravenhurst. It's antiques and records and instruments, and they also have a little studio there. It's just like a beautiful little Haven to go hang out. You know, Ravenous is gorgeous. I mean, all the Skoka stuff is gorgeous,

but yeah. And, and Curry's is a must for anyone who's up that way. But that's okay. So, so it was nice that our grandparents could, could have a job and have it for like 35 years and then get their gold watch and then retire like that.

There is a benefit to that. But in the same breath, what you're saying, and you're a creative mind, like you're a, you're a creative person. I think that would destroy you. Like that'd be a soul sucking life. It wouldn't work for me. No. Um, I would not, I don't think I'd be very happy with that. Uh, but I'm not to judge someone who would be, you know, if that's your thing, that's really great. I hope it works out. But no, I like change. I like doing different things. I like interesting things. I'd like to, you know, leave this world

with like some experiences under my belt, you know. Oh, yeah, I know. I hear you. Personally. I'm like that too. I've worked in all sorts of industries because of that, which I think is interesting. Are they all creative industries?

Some of them are. I worked in the beer industry for a while, and one of my favorite jobs was when I was first living in Toronto. I worked as a projectionist at the Islington Theatre. Get out of here. Yeah, back when they had film. Where was the Islington Theatre? It's still there.

It's the Cineplex. Oh, Queensway. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Okay, yeah, yeah, sorry. Okay, yeah, yeah, sorry. And back when they used to have film there, I was a projectionist, and I thought that was a cool job.

And I worked at Yuck Yucks for a while, and I've just done all sorts of jobs in different fields that I think help make me as a human being that I've enjoyed anyways. And then I do uh right now i do woodworking uh well like furniture making with the guy so i'm doing a lot that's very creative and always changing so uh i've been happy with it but the problem is it's i don't know what my future holds but i've never been a big like future i don't like have a five-year plan so um so i don't know what that

holds but i'm pretty happy right now happier than i was in 2016 that's for sure no and and it allows you to make beautiful music like this so this is uh you're lonely too let's listen for a little bit here i don't remember getting here so your voice blends very nicely with a beautiful uh female Let's listen for a little bit here. So your voice blends very nicely with a beautiful female voice. Who's this? This is Anna Horvath. She performs under the name Marival. And she's so great.

She's going to have a new album coming out this year, and I am so excited for it. It's be fantastic merival cool he said you had a restless night it's like a relaxing ambience like it's kind of very uh i guess it's not one of those uh hype songs you know no i'm not much of a hype song guy. Yeah, like sometimes you got to hear that track. What was it? Diana Swain was in here and she's like, what was the song? I listened to Lenny Kravitz, Are You Going to Go My Way?

Oh, yeah. She transitions from mother to like news person, like when she's in her car driving to work. It's like, oh, that's her hype song. It's like Lose Yourself by Eminem or something. Right, right. Don't listen to this for that hype. No, this is after the job, right? You want to come down, yeah. I was actually really influenced by New Age and ambient music

when making this album. And a bit of that kind of seeps its way into some of the tracks. Well, the tracks on this album that are just like ambience music, right? Like Back to Breath and, how do you say, Gros Morne? Gros Morne, yeah, yeah.

Gros Morne. I wasn't sure I used that S or not. Oh, yeah, I think you do. You're probably right. I hope so. That's the national park in Newfoundland. I trust you on this one.

Yeah, I hope I'm right. No, I'm notorious for not pronouncing words right. Like, I'm in the wrong. What am I doing hosting a podcast? I really do suck at that. And the other guitar you hear on this track is Christine Bougie,

who plays with Bahamas quite a bit right now. And she's played with a whole bunch of other people, Amy Milan. And I think she played on a Jason Collette record. And she's such a great guitarist and such a unique guitarist. Her music as well, like her solo albums are great. Oh yeah.

This is her solo part. I'm just going to let this one play through because it's so great. សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� It's just such a tasteful solo. Guitar solos I'm always a little weary about because they can get wanky and they should serve the song as opposed to serve the guitarist, you know? Right. And I think that's a prime example of a guitar solo that serves a song

and it's like, oh, tasteful, beautiful. Absolutely. If somebody is listening right now and has listened, we played three of your tracks, Autumn in New Brunswick, Young in Love, and You're Lonely Too, and somebody who wants to buy this, so where would you direct them? Tell us now where somebody should go on their computer

if they want to buy this. You could just go to www.seanwilliamclark.com. And there's an E on Clark. There is, yeah. And E on Clark and Sean is S-H-A-W-N. And you can buy physical copies from that website. And I've got some links to the digital copies of the new album, at least.

And I'm everywhere. Apple, if you like like download or stream Apple, Spotify, um, I have physical copies in some stores here in Toronto, uh, Sonic Boom, uh,

Tonality, uh, where else? Yeah, I think that might be it. Oh, June records. So there's a few,

a few avenues, uh, whatever, whatever floats your boat, CD, vinyl. Yeah, I was going to say, you're all pressing vinyl again. That's the big thing.

I know. I'm a huge fan of vinyl. I have a huge collection at home. And I kind of jokingly say that I wanted a copy of my own record for my vinyl shelf. And now I have $399 to get rid of. That's funny. My last Kick Out the Jams guest was Alan Cross.

Oh, cool. That must have been great. Yeah, it was fantastic. It started with The Who and it was just good fun. But he told a story about his vinyl collection because he's got a monster

vinyl collection, a big one. And he talked about the stereo he listens and how, you know, why everybody should only listen on vinyl. And he's a huge proponent of vinyl

as your medium for listening to music. Yeah, I think I've heard him talk about it before. That's an interesting conversation, the whether vinyl sounds better than anything else conversation. I don't necessarily agree with it. What I love about vinyl is i love the ceremony of it you know like you have to take time with vinyl you have to take it out you have to be careful with it you put it on you put the needle down and it's spin the black circle man spin spin spin

spin a black circle yeah exactly and it demands it demands your attention more than digital music does i think yeah um i i think there's a for pure quality i think there is an argument to be made for cd sounding better uh a person with a better ear than me would make that argument but uh i'm a i'm a vinyl junkie myself not to be a dink but uh the cartoon i always like to share on vinyl and i love that you guys love vinyl like i love it like i'm so happy for you but i can't tell what i love most about vinyl the expense or the inconvenience yeah okay i can't do that so that's like how i mean maybe it's a little better my ears sure can't tell they're garbage uh and i love that i'm like you like first of all when i mow my lawn i like to

use a push mower like i like to do things that way because I like something about that I prefer. So I think in spirit, I like the idea of you pull it out of the sleeve, you put it on, you put the needle. I like that whole premise there. When I make coffee, I do it in the French press. That's how I'm wired. But I don't have the money for the vinyl. It's just too inconvenient and so enjoy, but I can't partake of it.

But when I started collecting vinyl, it wasn't expensive. It was the cheap option. And it's really over the last five years or so that I've noticed the price is going up exponentially, which has been very frustrating to someone like me who likes finding a deal, who likes finding a deal but all you know but also likes not spending a lot of money you know like i i and my collection was built up on me finding reasonably priced records and that's a lot harder to find especially in toronto toronto prices are really bad and and a lot and most of the world is catching up to that well most of the world most of ontario at least i used to go to saint jacobs to buy records um over the last few years and uh even them their prices are starting to come up to toronto levels and it's it's it's

unfortunate because uh i think uh record there used to be a good way to discover music let's go back to cassettes okay that's what i say They're coming back. People are making cassettes. And you know why bands make cassettes is they're cheap to make. So I know a lot of bands. One of my favorite bands in Toronto is Little Kid. And he releases all his albums on cassettes. Cassette and CD. I mean, you can download it for free on Bandcamp.

Oh, sure. Which I suggest people go to Bandcamp and check out Little Kid. But anyways, you can also get cassettes. And I should point out, two of your jams I'm going to play from Bandcamp. Oh, sure. Of course. Which I suggest people go to Bandcamp and check out Little Kid. But anyways, you can also get And I should point out two of your jams I'm going to play from Bandcamp

because that's how indie they are. We're going to Bandcamp for them. Can I play, so I talked earlier about Hayden's Take that was on that

New Music Search. I want to say that was 1993 CFNY New Music Search. And they had some cool bands. Head was on this. Oh, yeah.

Remember 2H Head? Yeah, with Brendan Canning. Yes, right. Brendanndan can exactly from broken socials yeah absolutely like there was cool stuff on this uh but one of the jams i loved on this uh was hayden's take and you said you hadn't heard it so i don't know if i have yeah i can't wait to hear it and you can tell me if it holds up because i still love it and i want to know if I'm just living in the past or what. Take me home. God, he sounds so young. Take me with you.

Take me home. Take a part of me. Take all of me. Come with me. Get away from me. Please agree with me. Disagree with me. Come with me. Get away from me. Yeah, I haven't heard this song. I need you. I don't need you. I need you. Take a part of me. Take all of me. Come with me. Disagree with me. Please agree with me. Take all of me. Take a part of me. Stay away from me.

Take a part of me. People tell me I'm insane. Take all of me. I'm insane. I'm insane to love you. Come with me. I love you. I don't love you.

Get away from me. You don't love me. Please agree with me. You hate me. Disagree with me. You despise me. You're killing me. Come with me.

You're leaving me alive. Get away from me. You're killing me. Come with me. You're leaving me alive. Get away from me. So there you go. Early Hayden. That's interesting. I'm always really, and this is something I've created in my head. I don't know if it's a real thing or not, but I've always been really interested in music that sounds like

it could have only done well the time it was released. Like that song could only have made that compilation when it was released. There's no other time. And I don't mean that as a negative thing either. I just think it's so interesting. Wow, he sounds so young. It's crazy. Yeah.

93, I think. But he must have been young. He was young. Yeah, he would have been, yeah. Yeah, 93, I think. But he must have been young. He was young. Yeah, he would have been, yeah.

I'm going to mention a couple of other projects I have on the go that I just want to tell people about. So one of them is TMI. So what TMI is, it's a podcast. Every weekday morning, I drop like a three and a half minute podcast. Oh, cool. And in a nutshell, it's five things I think you need to know for that morning. So five things you should know. And every episode of TMI, and this is only a couple weeks uh it's only been

around a couple weeks i started it on valentine's day but i play a song in the background that's relevant to one of the five stories so it's like three minutes so i i created this because it's something i like i would dig like three and a half minutes with one of my favorite podcasters every morning what I should know. And I would totally be into it. So I'm doing it. It's reminding me how tough it is when you start a podcast,

like when you start from zero. And you kind of watch the downloads grow and you realize, oh yeah, this podcast was like that too. You forget. So it's like, oh yeah, it's tough when you start a fresh new podcast. So I'm going to use this forum to tell people that they can subscribe to TMI at torontomike.com

slash TMI. So subscribe. Listen to a couple. They're three minutes long every weekday morning. If you don't like it, unsubscribe. There's no cost here. Give it a go. I'll subscribe to that.

Hey, there you go. There you go. It's another subscription right there. Speaking of subscribe, so another thing I launched this weekend is a YouTube channel for this podcast, Trono Mic'd, in which my intent is to put, I want to put a 45-second to two-minute clip

from every episode. So there's 308 episodes now. So it would be a picture of us because we'll take a picture after and just like a minute snippet, like teaser and I'm going to post these to the new Toronto Mic'd YouTube channel so subscribe to that too the user is Toronto Mic'd with a d at the end find it on YouTube Toronto Mic'd and if you go to torontomic.com I put a little YouTube button at the top that you can click to get to the YouTube thing so so that so that's brand new. In fact, they said to get your custom URL, you needed a hundred subscribers

and I had like five cause I just started it. And I put out a tweet like, Hey, I need to get to a hundred. And it was amazing. Cause like I was at a hundred, like a couple hours later. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. And I got to, that's a new YouTube rule. Like if you don't have a hundred subscribers, you can't make a custom URL. Huh've got a bunch of these weird rules going on. Anyways, thank you for subscribing and hopefully you enjoy that YouTube channel. I have a Patreon account

for this podcast called patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. I want to thank one person specifically, Wayne Weiland. Wayne Weiland doesn't like Patreon, which is fair. So he wanted to contribute. So he found another channel.

He emailed me some money just because he's a big fan and he wants to help contribute. And thank you, Wayne. That's amazing. Patreon.com slash Toronto Mike for everybody who's okay with Patreon. You mentioned you worked in the beer industry.

Like what did you do in the beer industry? I used to work at Steam Whistle. I spent the last half of the job working as infiltration. And that's by the Dome? Yes. I've had a tour

there. Oh yeah. There used to be good tours there. I don't know what they're like now. And I remember what I liked the most was I got a bottle opener. Yeah. And I was like, I still use that bottle opener. It was great.

So I see myself. But what you have in front of you and what's going home with you is Great Lakes beer. So enjoy their local craft brewery. Well, you live near here. So they're at like rural York

and Queensway area, kind of by the Costco. That's what I always think. Oh, Great Lakes, 30th anniversary. Oh, interesting. Sorry, I was looking at the beers. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

You have the Lake Effect is in there. Did I give you a Lake Effect? Yeah, Harry Porter. Nice. My partner, she's going to reap the benefits of this. She's a beer connoisseur. I'm sure she's going to really dig into this. Well, make sure she saves one for you.

She can't bogey them all. Well, I actually like, I've been taking a break from drinking for the last year or so. Oh, she can have them all then. Yeah, so she'll probably end up drinking them all. And I think, but Great Lakes makes some good beers. So that's a really nice

really nice gift thank you and they should be like what i like about great lakes is it's always ridiculously fresh like there's always a canned on date like i don't know if you randomly pick one this is all i don't even know but if you on the bottom is there a canned on date or uh yeah i think there is but this one seems to be a little smudged but yeah okay well that's it's always shocking to me like uh like oh that was canned like last tuesday you know what i mean like that's then they don't ship it outside of ontario for that reason like it's all super fresh so and that's the nice thing about the the new craft beer culture that's been going around is that like you can get fresh beer

in your neighborhood uh and and i think and that takes you back to the old days of it before the majors took over. It's really nice. Yeah, yeah. And it's like a bit of like, because like you said you were in Germany recently, but I go to Germany quite a bit for like business. Oh, cool. They all have these like, this is like this, this street has this brewery and that's what you drink here. And it's like, it's kind of got that spirit going on.

It's real community vibe. It's so nice. Absolutely. Absolutely. So enjoy that beer. But you're going to need a pint glass to pour your Great Lakes beer into, although your partner is going to be doing it. So give it to her.

Oh, yeah. But this pint glass is from Brian Gerstein at propertyinthesix.com. Ah, very cool. And he just like, yeah, they're actually like really good. Speaking of Alan Cross, he's got a couple now because he's been over a few times. And he loves these pint glasses. I think he's going to come over for the pint glass. He's just coming for the pint glass. Oh, it's Alan again.

Oh, yeah. I just want to chat on the podcast because I get a pint glass. Yeah, and he's like, I don't care what we talk about. Just get me the glass. Yeah, which works for me, actually. He's got his own jingle, too,

which I think is very cool. So, propertyinthesix.comcom I just want to tell a quick story so they you're a sports fan right like you're a Raptors fan I'm a Raptors fan yeah it's funny

Brian Gerstein tweets as Raptors devotee he's a huge Raptors fan okay cool but he is a big fan of primetime sports with Bob McCowan on 590

and they announced like Stephen Brunt was going to be coming back as a co-host and they announced that Richard Deitch was coming to live here from New York or something to do the other weeks that Stephen doesn't do. But where I'm going

with this is that Brian called in to Bob McCowan to tell Bob McCowan that he needs to come on Toronto Mic'd and I thought this was a real cool move. I put a recording on toronto mic'd and i thought this was a real cool move like uh i put a recording on my website and everything and it's like uh i love the idea somebody would take the time to call up bob on the air this is broadcast on 590 and be like uh when are you going to go to toronto mike's basement because uh he's got to come on so thank you brian for

doing that well there's uh that community thing, right? Which is so important in the things we do. Absolutely. It's lovely to see. You're absolutely right. And if you're planning to buy and or sell in the next six months, you got to call Brian. So Brian's at 416-873-0292. Or just go to propertyinthesix.com and find out how to contact him through there. Brian is a real estate sales representative of PSR Brokerage.

And on behalf of Brian, Sean, I'm going to ask you, how are the Raptors going to do this season? It's a loaded question. I think they're going to do great. Well, they're already doing great. But what's great now? Is great making the finals? Or is a conference final enough?

I think they have to make the finals this time. I think I'm not complaining about the conference finals over the last little while. We only have the one, actually. Yeah, the one, yeah. But it was only two years ago, so it's still fresh in our mind. Yeah, exactly. I think they definitely have it in them to do it, for sure. It's such a great team.

That bench, man. That's what it's all about. The bench mob is what they, for sure. It's such a great team. That bench, man. That's what it's all about. The bench mob. Yeah. It's really amazing to see. Those guys are so fun to watch. You're right. It's like you barely miss a beat when the second unit's on there.

But we lost a heartbreaker the other day, which is too bad. But I got to say, I'm with you. I think that this year we have to make the finals. It's the window. We haven't had a window. I mean, LeBron's kind of rebuilt the team, and we'll see. this year we have to make the finals. It's the window. We haven't had a window where the LeBron, I mean, LeBron's kind of rebuilt the team and we'll see.

They'll probably, who knows, they'll probably be back in the finals. But, you know, at least as good a chance as we're going to get. Yeah.

Who's your second team? Who do you like? I don't have a second team. I don't have a second team. But when I do need to root in the finals, I find myself rooting for LeBron James.

Yeah. Just because he's so good like and i've watched i mean how old are you i am 30 uh 38 30 i'll be 38 in may so you don't have the same memories of all the jordan years that i do okay because i'm just doing the math because i've so i've got like five years on you but it's close enough you've seen enough jordan is prime but i mean, Jordan was the man. And I believed thoroughly, even though I didn't see the Oscar Robertsons

and the Dr. J's in this. But Jordan was the best. I changed my mind. Well, I didn't change my mind, but somebody has come along who I believe to be a better all-around player than Michael Jordan. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I see people try to argue it that i have a one friend in particular he's very anti king james and i just don't his argument is like if you don't have the ring you know if you and i think that's kind of bullshit like that's well he's got three rings it's not like he's his argument then hey well three i mean jordan had six so yeah what is that guy's argument then what i'll'll say is, I noticed this. A lot of people, and I can see why

because I had trouble with it at first, but the whole announcement and going to Miami and bringing Bosh with you when they already had Dwayne Wade and stuff, that really does, did leave a bad taste in a lot of our mouths.

Like, it's sort of like, it's just the whole announcement's special and like, F Cleveland, I'm going here to win some rings because it's kind of loaded or whatever. But then when he comes back to Cleveland and actually, and I watched that series against the Warriors,

the second series against the Warriors, like he put the team on his back. And I mean, even in that final game seven in the final minutes, like when he blocks that shot, like he was like, he was Superman. Like he did everything he could to bring that title to Cleveland

against a better Warriors team. Like just like, to me it was like, did I just see what I just saw? It's like, this guy's just unworldly. And we're just so lucky that we got to watch the era of LeBron James. He's incredible. And he does, like, Jordan sold a lot of shoes, but he wasn't a political-minded guy. He would never voice his opinions on different things.

And LeBron is, he's so full of like uh real talk like he'll tell you what he thinks of the whatever the political situation is in the usa he'll speak up and out knowing it might cost him some shoe sales or something with republicans or whatever yeah yeah no yeah he's he's really something to watch uh and watching that uh all-star game uh was uh was really great too because i'm a curry i'm a curry guy uh so seeing uh team lebron win in the end was a little disappointing well curry great player uh his dad was a raptor and uh he spent some so you know but curry's great player but i still root for lebron when the raptors are out i'm uh i'm not afraid to say no fair enough paytm.ca let me tell you about paytm it is a free online bill payment service that

helps manage all of your bills in one spot so i pay all of my bills through paytm and i slap basically every bill except my credit card bill i pay with my credit card i, I pay with my credit card. I get Paytm cash, which I can use towards other bills. And I also get the points I have on my MasterCard. I get these points at no frills. I use them all the time. It's fantastic. Now, what I like and what I encourage you to do is use the promo code TRONOMIKE when you make your first bill payment with Paytm and they'll give you $10 in Paytm cash that you can use towards bills. So if you have that $85 hydro bill, you only got to give them $75 because you can use the $10 you got for using TRONOMIKE as your promo code. So go to paytm.ca, download the app app use my promo code and you can thank me later

Sean my friend I have one last question are you ready to kick out the champs yes let's do this oh yeah yeah yeah yeah Oh oh oh oh oh wah Only the lonely Only the lonely

Only the lonely Dum dum dum dum dee doo wah I know the way I feel tonight Only the lonely know this feeling ain't right There goes my baby, there goes my baby There goes my heart They're gone forever So far apart But only the lonely

Roy Orbison, Only the Lonely. Yeah, Roy. I think one of the best singers of all time. The thing that I love about his voice is there's such an ease in how he does it. He goes from these beautiful soaring highs to these lows. Like it's the easiest thing ever. I guess it's that effort's the easiest thing ever you know there's i guess it's that uh that effortless mastery right you know where like it's just and it's like butter it's just it's pristine it's

pristine and and it's so like it's so full like his highs are you know his highs are aren't shrill they're they're well-rounded and his lows are like boomy and and and and just fat you know like he's and like this section here is more sorrow but that's the chance you gotta take if you're lonely you can hit that note

me? yeah I don't know I have to work at it but I mean like there like that high to the low like the I don't know that's at least an octave and a half there, I think. This is just me thinking out loud. Like it's such a jump. It's such a lovely run within like, you know,

three bars or two bars. And you have to do so much with your body and with your head and your chest and your, that it's really inspiring to hear a singer like that did you have difficulty choosing your favorite roy orbison track for this because a little bit um that track i picked because i i cover that track but i do when i do the chris isaac version which is uh in a lower key uh because because that high is is uh but chris isaac is also in that style of singing, is a wonderful singer. His voice, again, has a lot of the same characteristics as Roy's.

Cool, man. Roy left us far too early. Who was kicking out the jams recently? Maybe somebody kicked out the jams recently and we had something from Handle With Care by the Traveling Wilburys. And I was thinking, even their second single, which is the end of the line,

in the video, Roy's gone before they filmed that video. They have a picture of him as they contribute. Yeah, that Traveling Wilburys stuff is so great. And that kind of thing doesn't always work when you get a bunch of egos in one room.

Or like a supergroup. Yeah, supergroups don't have a good track record for the amount of time people go on about them, but the Traveling Wilburys, that, well, both albums are really great, but that first album especially is so many hits. And you must have loved them because, I mean, Dylan's in there and everything. Dylan, George Harrison,

I love George Harrison, and Tom Petty, another guy we lost recently. I love Tom Petty. I was at a party last night where it's kind of a salon kind of party where people get up. You write your name and you do a performance. And my friend who hosts it, she starts and ends the night with a song. She asked me to play with her, and we did two Tom Petty tunes

at the start and at the end. And I've covered a lot of Tom Petty in my time. Cool. Let's kick out another jam. Mm hmm. Standing on the waters, casting your bread While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing Distant ships sailing into the mist It will burn like a snake in both of your fists While a hurricane was blowing

freedom just around the corner for you but with truth so far off what good will it do

joker man danced through the nightingale to burn good will it do Joker Man dancer the nightingale to burn my heart like a moon oh oh oh Joker Man

so slip through the sun that's Joker Man and I'm going to let you say his name I think it's Catano Velosa. Oh, I guess it'd be Velosa. I've never heard it said. So my pronunciation will probably be just as good as yours, I think. But he's a Brazilian songwriter and singer

who was kind of one of the guys who spearheaded the tropicalismo or tropicalia genre in Brazil which is like the mixes elements of psychedelia and traditional Brazilian music and very political in the 60s and 70s like he said like him and Gil were exiled from brazil in the late 60s early 70s because of their politics um but i this song i don't know where i heard this first i think i saw a video online i was because this is a bob dylan song this song joker man and i saw a video for this and his voice is so on this song song, it's so like, you know, he's, how can I word this? He's being from another country, being from Brazil, of course his style is totally different than what we're used to.

And I'm in awe with what he does with his voice like his vibrato at time is really it's really interesting and just how he moves in this in the chorus like at the end of this chorus like the things he does it's just like It's like, to me, it's ballsy, you know, to do things like that. I think you have to have a lot of confidence in your voice. Maybe it doesn't sound so much like that, but I find you've got to really sell yourself as a singer. And he's a beautiful singer. I really like his albums in the 90s uh which are

quieter uh some of them some of them are actually still a little rocky but uh his voice is gorgeous he's got some songs that appear on um some soundtracks like uh the amaldavar film uh is it talk to me i can't remember just talk to me yeah I can't remember if it's that film that he's got one song that's really popular of his where his singing is just gorgeous. He's really a really interesting character, and his albums aren't very easy to find, which is problematic for me, personally. I'd love to pick up his albums on vinyl,

but you can't find them in Canada. I bought one in Cologne when I was there, but I paid a bit. It was kind of disappointing. I paid a lot of money for it. And then two weeks ago, I saw it in Sonic Boom for like 10 bucks. Oh no.

Because it was like one of his like 80s albums that isn't very, it's actually not very good. My neighbors are from bogota so uh they're always going back there so i can get them to piggy up some stuff oh my god that'd be great yeah yeah i mean um this song is really about the band though like there's so much drive in this band like the drummer like it's not like by any means a traditional drum beat in our in the way we understand it of course but it's so driving and the violin and guitar playing is just so exciting and anyway i just can't get enough of this song it's about six minutes long and i could listen to it over and

over again it's three times the length of only the lonely yeah right and that's that for two different approaches, right? And I think this was recorded in the 80s or 90s, this song? I'm not too sure. It's my first, I'll be honest, the first time I've heard

this gentleman, okay? I don't know where I would even hear him if I didn't have a friend who said, hey, listen to this. Yeah, you know, I think one of his songs

was on the Moonlight soundtrack, too. Did you see? I saw the movie. Yeah, which is beautiful. Oh, this is a really nice part. This is so great. What a performance, this song. This is an album I've been looking for for a long time.

I don't know if it was released on vinyl. I've been trying to look for it on CD, too, and I just can't find it anywhere. So if anybody has a copy of this and they want to get it to me, please do. Here's a question, an ethical question for you as a musician, independent musician who's working hard to make money on his craft.

What do you say to people who steal their music? I guess it depends on how they're stealing it. If we're talking about digital downloads and stuff, I don't know. What can I say? downloads and stuff i don't know what can i say like it's it's if it's a if it's an issue of like not having money to buy music i say take it you know like if i well come on like i mean on band camp i'm gonna play a couple of tracks in a second like i think it's a dollar yeah it's true yeah if you don't have that like yeah it's true it's it's tough to say i just so it's hard to say because sometimes if it's like the difference between like spending uh spending a dollar

spending money on an album and sorry on taking an album to listen to it and not what am i saying here if they if the choice is like they get they want they'll take the album for free and listen to it but if they have to pay for it they the album for free and listen to it, but if they have to pay for it, they won't listen to it. It's sometimes better to just be like, yeah, take the album, you know? Also, I think with illegal downloading, a lot of times people do that to hear things, or they used to. I don't think they have to do that anymore.

Where you wanted to hear something, you just download it for free and see if you... I mean, I didn't do a lot of it, but I did a bit of that where I download like a discography from someone like Paul Simon. When I first got into Paul Simon, I downloaded his entire discography on Napster or something.

Right. And I listened to it all and I now own them all on records and whatever. Well, that's like when you went to HMV and you could say, I want to hear this, and they'd let you listen to it before you bought it. Yeah. It was a big thing in the 90s.

Yeah, and I wonder how many people are still doing that. Maybe it's still prevalent, but I think now with streaming on Spotify and iTunes, it's probably a lot easier to just listen to whatever. Well, now with YouTube, right? Almost every song you can imagine is on YouTube. That's true. And, I mean, I can speak for my 13-year-old daughter. Like, she

takes the YouTube and converts it to an MP3, and then she throws it on her phone. So she'll convert from YouTube. And I'm sure the people like Alan Cross are cringing right now. Right, because of the qualities. But she sure doesn't care. It's true. It's pop music. Yeah. It's true. It's pop music.

Yeah, it's true. It's hard to say. I don't really have a, I really don't have a stance on it, per se. I don't do it, but also I don't come from that time. Right.

Right. Well, because I was going to say, you could steal Ketano. Is that how you say it? Yeah, Ketano. You could steal his album, but I said too much

I got my Spotify I got my Spotify account so I can list a bunch of that there cool let's kick out another jam yeah guitar solo Oh, it's like a storm at sea And everything is lost

And the fretful sailors Are calling out their woes As to the waves they're tossed Oh, they are all gentlemen And never will they know If there is a reason Each of them must go To join the cruel flow It'll take a long, long time

It'll take a long, long time It'll take a long, long time It'll take such a long long long time Sandy Denny It'll Take a Long Time Yeah from her second album, Sandy

Sandy Denny most people will know from as the only other voice on a Led Zeppelin record. She sings the Battle of Evermore with Robert Plant. She was big in the 70s, you know, British folk scene. And her voice is just beautiful. Beautiful voice. And her songs are great. And it's just like,

this album, I have a friend who used to live in London and I'd go, he used to work at a record store and I'd go there and I'd be like, what should I buy? And he would just recommend something to me and I'd pick it up because I understood his opinion

or appreciated his choices. So this is one of the ones he recommended to me and I just fell in love with this album. This is kind of some of the music that was influencing my last album, William, was the 70s folk rock stuff. Richard Thompson and Lyndon Richard Thompson and Pentangle

and all these British folk bands that are really great and Richard Thompson plays on this it's yeah production's so good, Sneaky Pete on the pedal steel

yeah she's just got Production's so good. Sneaky Pete on the pedal steel. Yeah, she's just got one of my favorite female voices of all time. And I wish I could vocalize it a little better. There's an early trend developing in your jam list in that singers and their voices. Yeah, and I actually tried to cater this list that way. I recently did another podcast where he asked me to pick like five songs that... Who is this guy who stole my original idea? Well, we'll talk about it afterwards. I don't want to start any beefs here.

He's not calling it Kick Out the Jams, is he? He's not. Oh, thank goodness. No, no, no, no. I have to call my lawyer. Yeah, exactly. does um where we where you talk about five songs and i i kind of like picked five songs uh kind of like over a period of time uh and i wanted to do something a little different with this one i wanted to focus on vocalists that have influenced me uh because like vocal i started taking vocal lessons a couple years ago with this great teacher named

Amanda Mabro. And a friend of mine recommended her to me. And when she described the lessons, she was like, you know, it's so great. Sometimes I just cry. And I was like, well, that's weird. Like it's a vocal lesson. I understand. And I get it. It's like therapy. It's like, and I get it. It's like therapy. It's like when you get the right teacher, you know, and it's like, she's the type of person who can get things out of you that you didn't know you had. And singing when you do it right is a euphoric thing. You know, you use your whole body and I would leave those lessons like walking on a cloud. And so I've been trying to focus on my singing a little more. The last time a teacher made me cry is when he said, you are Lisa Simpson. The substance, you ever watched the Simpsons? Yeah. Okay. Remember when Dustin Hoffman,

the substitute teacher, left her a note and it's like, you are Lisa Simpson. Yeah. That's the last time a teacher made me cry. I'm tearing up right now. Thanks a lot, Sean. Yeah, here we go. That's a great, and that Dustin Hoffman episode, he couldn't, he didn't attach his name to it, so the actor in the credits,

it's credited to Sam Etik, which, of course, Semetic. Semetic. Mr. Bergstrom. Sam Etik. I didn't know that. So there's a fun fact.

Nice. Simpsons fact of the day. Yeah, I watch too much Simpsons. Oh,dick. I didn't know that. So there's a fun fact. Nice. Simpsons fact of the day. Yeah, I watch too much Simpsons. Oh, me too. I love it. Me too. That was a great jam. Man, I'm so ignorant.

Okay, you're only three jams deep. Of course I know Roy Orbison, and of course I know Only the Lonely, but the next two artists I wasn't even familiar with. But here's somebody I know. Let's kick out your fourth jam Cymru, Cymru, Cymru Many rivers to cross But I just can't seem to find My way home Wandering I am lost

As I travel on The white leaves of the day Men have never crossed Many rivers to cross And it's only my mind That keeps me alive Many rivers to cross, Harry Nilsson. This is from the album Pussycats, which I think should be an essential album.

It was an album he made with John Lennon. John Lennon produced it and appears here and there. I don't know how it's credited, but on the album. And it's basically a John Lennon album in that all of John Lennon's guys are on it, like Jim Keltner and Klaus Berman. And Sneaky Pete makes an appearance again on Pedal Steel. And this was kind of, this album's more famous

for their behavior during this time. This was part of, this was kind of during John Lennon's lost weekend when he... Oh, men behaving badly. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of stories about them just being assholes and drinking too much. And this is an album where John really pushed Harry Nelson

to his limits as a singer. And not in a healthy way, but there's still so much beautiful things happening on this album. And he, I mean, I think they used to have like, you know, who can lose their voice first competitions and stuff like that like it wasn't healthy behavior but some of the songs well most of the songs are really great there's a lot of covers like this one which is a jimmy cliff cover um they do save the last dance for me a really kind of a cool version of that and um and then harry nilsson who's one of the greatest

songwriters of all time. Some of his originals on here are some of his best. A song called Don't Forget Me that is one of my favorite tunes. Harry Nilsson, as a vocalist, has really influenced me. He released an album before this, which was an album of standards. And he worked with, I think, Count Basie's orchestrator. It's called uh a touch of schmilson in the night huh and a lot of people don't like it but i just love his voice on

that album it's just he was probably around my age then and he i don't know i i just feel like he's probably his best uh his best condition as a singer uh which I guess inspires me in a way that you can just keep getting better. And then I think from this album on, he really started kind of messing his voice up. But yeah, the production's so great on this stuff, this John Lennon production, where it's just kind of that wall of sound thing that he got from Phil Spector. Where it's just so big. Absolutely. But yeah, Pussycats is an album everybody should have.

It's also got one of the best album covers, if you've ever seen it. It's like their heads, John Lennennon harry nelson's heads on like these little like pussycat characters and like it's it's really a funny cover we're fading out here right yeah this is a fade i think it works the song will play forever if you fade it out properly yeah that's what i've been told anyway yeah exactly the song's gonna be in your head forever it never ends so i guess it is tough to do that live though right yeah you have to have a really good band to be able to do that really well live i've seen it done but uh everyone's gotta be on game no very that's that's great that's great

let's uh kick out another one there yeah that band that piano playing speaking of john lennon. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I was dreaming of the past And my heart was beating fast I began to lose control. I began to lose control. I didn't mean to hurt you. And I'm sorry I made you cry I didn't want to hurt you

No, I did Just a jealous guy Donny Hathaway, Jealous Guy. Wow, isn't that great? So much groove. That's that live album, Donny Hathaway Live, which is, I think, one of the best live albums of all time. It's just like the band is so good. It's Cornell Dupree's playing guitar and Willie Weeks on bass.

And Donnie is such an exceptional player, songwriter, and singer. And he was, I believe he was a songwriter and arranger for Curtis Mayfield's label for a while. And I guess kind of like Isaac Hayes, you know, where he was a arranger and writer and then kind of came out and started doing his own things. And his albums are so great. And they, I mean, they dip into, sometimes they're a little cheesy,

kind of pop, like kind of radio soul, radio R&B. But this album is like, man, this concert would have been great. I just can't imagine being at the Troubadour or wherever the bitter end or wherever they recorded this. And this band, first time I heard this cover, I was at the Film Buff on Roncesvalles, back when that place was around. And one of the few times this has happened

where I was looking around for movies and like i just stopped and like i was like when i was like what is this song like and i'm like it's obviously a cover of jelzka but who is it like i've never heard this before and she was and then she was like oh i don't know it's you know it's one of the guys put a cd and like oh but you got to find out for it you know okay hold on a second and uh here's a record i don't own because it's always so expensive when you find it tiny find out for me. She had to, okay, hold on a second. And here's a record I don't own because it's always so expensive

when you find it. Tiny Hathaway Live. Oh, that show would have been amazing. Nice. A lot of covers. I didn't realize

I picked like three covers tonight. You know what? So one of my favorite bands of all time is Pearl Jam. Okay. Okay.

And it's funny. I share this in common it turns out. I thought I was the only one in the world with this song as their favorite Pearl Jam song

because Pearl Jam has got a lengthy extensive catalog of great original material. Okay. And I love it all. And my favorite that beep.

Was that on the computer? Okay. I heard a beep. Oh yeah. Okay. Well whatever that was. It's still rolling computer? Okay. Oh yeah. Well, whatever that was. Uh,

still rolling, right? Yeah. Although I do want to close my Gmail real quick because I have a feeling that is a hangout. Yep. Okay. Uh, I'm getting a Google hangout.

You're too popular. I'm pretty sure it's my mom. So I'm pretty sure. Uh, what was I saying about Pearl Jam? Oh yeah. So it turns out I share this in common with Dave Hodge of all people

but my favorite Pearl Jam song of all time and I've seen them live a dozen times and I love their catalog is Crazy Mary oh I didn't even know

the cover you should do Victoria Williams cover from the Sweet Relief from Victoria Williams and it's like people are like fellow Pearl Jam fans

are like well like how can that be your favorite song they got so much great original stuff I don't know I don't have an explanation except it's my favorite Pearl Jam song and like, well, how can that be your favorite song? They got so much great original stuff. I don't know. I don't have an explanation, except it's my favorite Pearl Jam song,

and it's a cover. So I'm with you. Sometimes covers are just... I guess that's it. Yeah, if the right person's doing it and doing something different with it. I think that's the nice thing about that Jealous Guy cover is it's so much different than the song,

but it still works. Yeah. And they even change up the phrasing of the chorus, which I like. The, I'm just a jealous guy. Absolutely. It's their own spin on it. Very cool.

Spin that black circle again. Spin the black speaking trilogy. That's a great song too. Spin the black circle. Yeah. That Vitality album, I feel it's underrated because I think when you come off of 10 and then the one of the the

big one uh with go an animal on it elderly what's that album oh yeah versus versus yeah like what a monster album versus it's like a million in his first week or something back when albums sold like that and then the vitality i feel like there was a bit of a backlash uh i'm sorry but fucking love vitality like just i'm I'm like that with no code, which people, the Neil Young album, people hate no code, um,

which I didn't even realize until I was like reading, uh, cause I don't follow Pearl Jam that much, but I'm, I was reading up on, I can't remember, someone did a top, you know, like the Pearl Jam albums in order and no code was like,

they're talking about how it's like such an overrated, it's such a bad, not overrated, but such a bad album. And I was like no it's it's like one of their best albums i love that there's so many great songs got hail hail on there and smile lucan's on that lucan's and um my favorite tune on that is off he goes brilliant which is just a really great song but that's the album that was the neil young influence remember they did that thing of neil and then they did mirror ball and then Merkinball. You remember Merkinball

with I Got Shit on it? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, like, which I think it, yeah, so you get the Neils kind of in the No Code album, which I think some Pearl Jam, people who want to hear

like a live and even flow would be pissed off by that. But no, it's like, it's called like yourself, you know, it's like Bob Dylan, you know, he's going to do

some crooner stuff and he's a fucking genius and it's going to be great. Yeah. I love No Code. Yeah. I'm glad we agree on that for sure yeah it's only a couple of like some recent efforts from pearl jam i felt were uh not up to their standards oh yeah pretty much pretty happy even like yield is an album i can put on over and over again yeah well yield has do the evolution is that and i think that's one of their best songs

is do the evolution i love that. And what a video that is. Oh, so good. Speaking of videos. McFarlane. What's his first name? Todd. Todd McFarlane. Almost called him Scott McFarlane.

Scott, yeah. Seth. Seth, that's a good one. Yeah, not the family guy guy. Okay, let's kick out another jam. Nice. Oh, yeah. I read a lot nowadays, much more than before. You left me high and dry in a loveless land

with nothing but time on my hands I read a lot, not just magazines But other more serious things To get me through the day Nighttime too Whilst wondering How in the world To go on without you

Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe. I read a lot. Yeah, Nick Lowe, one of the best pop rock songwriters of all time, I think is a fair estimate. For those who don't know, contemporary of Elvis Costello,

he wrote What's so funny about peace loving peace love and understanding um and since his first album and since his and before that since like Brinsley Schwartz and uh he's been writing the best pop rock songs and to this day so this song comes from his last full-length album I think and he's in his 60s and he's still writing these perfect pop songs like this song the I love the progression I love the lyrics his it's one of those songs that it's it's I always I play a song live a fair bit, and I always say it's the best post-breakup song ever written. It's what I like about it, and I like songs that can be poignant, but funny at the same time.

And I think that's what this song does really well, because it's kind of defiant. It's kind of like, you know this kind of like i read a lot you know now that you're gone basically um it's just so perfectly written and he's his voice is still great which inspires inspires me a lot, it's nice to know as you age that you might, like some people lose their voice, but with taking care of yourself, you can still have a wonderful voice up in your 60s. Didn't the late, great Leonard Cohen just win a Grammy?

Yeah. Think about that. And his voice went a different way. His voice just got lower and lower and lower. Cohen just win a Grammy. Yeah. Think about that. And his voice went a different way. You know, like, his voice just got lower and lower and lower. Yes. But it's, okay, now, you see, you know what?

It's my phone. Oh, your phone. Someone's trying to get you. It is my mom. Oh, you know why? Because she's like, she's not used to this recording time for me. Like, here I am recording on a Sunday afternoon. But don't worry.

I'll call her later. Can't interrupt her kicking sorry mike's mom don't worry she doesn't listen to this podcast i actually that's a funny joke uh i think she was who was it uh head on somebody roger ashby okay from chum fm do you know roger rick and marilyn rick's long gone of course but yeah so my mom's a huge fan of roger ash he was on he was also like a 10 50 chum when my mom was a chum bug this is back in like the 70s i guess or 60s and 70s yeah they were called chum bugs like this was this was the way we you know they all heard their music on 10 50 chum and they had all these djs and rick rick roger ashby was one of them so that's the only 308 episodes i think that's the only time she was motivated to figure out how to hear this thing

hear me talk to roger ashby that's nice yeah well better than none i guess yeah that's funny nick lowe i read a lot that's i like the literal i like the um like this is the story is so literal like i read a lot it wasn't like I like the literal, I like the, like the story is so literal. Like I read a lot and it wasn't like, not just magazines, but sometimes serious. Yeah, but other more serious things.

To get me through the day, night times too, while wondering how in the world to go on without you. Oh, it's so great. It's so funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

It's, it's songwriting at its best. That's great. Great. And before I, now I'm moving to band camp for the next jam. I'm going to play it

from Bandcamp. I'm all set to go here. I have a question about the other podcast you did. Oh, yeah, sure. So what was the format when this guy has you

talk about five songs or whatever? What's his, is it a him? It's a him, yeah. It's Brent Jensen. Okay. And it's a good podcast

and he does it differently than you, so don't worry. No, I'm not actually curious though because this is how I decided I liked it but I'm maybe how does he do it? he does it like

he doesn't play he doesn't play any music so it's just an interview oh and what he does is he calls it like five songs that make your skin vibrate that's that's his kind of tagline with it and um and again steven did that one as well um and it's um sorry it's my mom calling you yeah i'm so sorry no uh no i gotta i gotta head to ikea after this and i'm being i'm being reminded you gotta tie those trips together come in here you gotta get to the ikea

and uh i don't know if it's, I mentioned Sweet Alenka's already. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's true. Which is relevant to this next jam. But there's a great San Remo Bakery is on Royal York.

Oh, that's right. And everybody, they all go there. But anyways, please continue. I totally forgot. Oh, you're the format of the podcast.

Yeah. So he does, yeah, so it's just conversational. And you do five songs and you just talk about them. Like, you know, he does an intro like you do where you kind of talk about the artist and then they go into the, like, five, seven songs, whatever.

And you just talk about it as, like, the first song you picked is this. And then, like, why is that? And then you just talk about it. So you don't play the music. Yeah. No, I'm going to check it out. That's cool.

It's called No Sleep Till Sudbury is his website. That's great. I love that name. And I think. That's a great name. No Sleep Till Sudbury. Taking the Beastie Boys, No Sleep Till Brooklyn and throwing Sudbury in there. I love it.

Yeah. And I think what's nice is that. And I think that's really the great thing about podcasting is that like you guys can do on paper what sounds like the same thing and do it in a totally different way it's really interesting yeah absolutely it's cool that we have a couple overlapped guests yeah i gotta go back and listen to steven and your episodes for sure please do yeah let's uh hope this works uh let's hear your next jam. Okay. ¶¶ guitar solo Sweet little road in the country I've been

Waiting for someone to take me down It's one day and there's a dead cousin I'm in Waiting for someone to take me down Sweet land or odd in the country Trees smell of flowers and honey I've been waiting for someone to take me And I think that it might just, it might just be you This is Olenka and the Autumn Lovers, Sweet Little Road. This is from a 2010 album called And Now We Sing. So Olenka, we heard her on the first track we played, Autumn in New Brunswick.

And I used to play with her in the early 2000s. And she is one of the most, probably one of the most influential songwriters on my, especially on my initial progression into this world that I occupy now. This song's a little different than some of her other songs. It's a little more ambient and spacey, but I think it fits kind of what I do a little better.

But her songs are like these great, sometimes folky, sometimes, I don't know, like, she used to call it gypsy folk because she's Polish and she's got that influence on some of her playing. She's a brilliant songwriter and has really changed my life in great ways. She lives out in BC now. She hasn't recorded an album in a while. Unfortunately, she has some, I think, some tendonitis issues or something uh which has been kind of slowing her down which is really a shame because the world needs more of her music um i i pulled the cd out when we were talking about this and i hadn't listened to it in a while and i was saying that like if i had a vinyl reissue company this would be like the top of my list of albums that

i'd reissue that people have to listen to like it shouldn't disappear that was a sweet little ditty right there that sweet sweet little road it's great and the whole album's great and you realize though that uh so it's olenka and the autumn lovers right so she clearly loves autumn so she had to sing on your trash autumn in new brunswick you know any song about autumn and she's right there yeah totally she's in yeah yeah she's like i don't know i don't know about that song does it mention autumn like yeah it does she's like okay i'm in. She's like, I don't know about that song. Does it mention autumn? Yeah, it does. And it's got to be autumn. Don't call it fall. No, fall's a boring way to call it.

Even if you think it's a little pretentious, just go with it. Go with it. That was great. Olenka and the Autumn Lovers. People should listen to more of her music. She's released a few albums, a few EPs, and I think they should be part of the canon of this country.

Jam number eight. Jam number eight. I'm trying to find my friends Swallowed up by the streets again Can't tell you why, can't tell you where or when But no sooner had we touched down Bent over and kissed the cold ground, than a thousand feet marching in the street were all around. Oh. Can you tell me how to get home?

I never wanted to be on my own. Can't stand it, I can't stand alone. No. Oh. Hostage Town by Abigail LaPelle. Yeah, Abigail, as I mentioned earlier, she was on the second song we played tonight. She and I toured Europe together, which was a lot of fun.

And she's such a strong performer. She, you know, every night we played together was like a lesson of fun. Um, and she's such a strong performer. She, she, you know, every night we played together was like a, was like a lesson to me, you know, in how to, how to be on stage and how to, uh, how to connect with an audience in, in different ways. Um, and it's interesting, you know, you tour with someone and you someone and you you bicker and you do whatever and it didn't matter how much bickering we did as soon as she got on stage i was like oh my god i'm so glad i'm here you know like she's just her songs are so good her voice is great and it's interesting so i had elenka and record and abigail and and anna and it's amazing how people approach things differently. Like, Olenka comes into the studio prepared.

She has notes she took. She has different ideas that she wants to try out, you know? And, like, everything's perfect and it's great. And she takes over the session. Because she used to be a band leader. And I say that, I mean, she's used to having, like, a big band that she has to look after like she used to play with like seven people or whatever when i was in the band and then abigail comes in to the recording and she's like she biked there and she's you know she's kind of like

uh so what are we doing today you know yeah you know and she you know she i don't know if she listened to the song very much but but she just does her and like we just told her to do your thing you know because she has a thing that she does and that's why her approach to harmony is harmonizing like being the uh background or harmony vocal is totally different from melanchus uh in a really interesting way well that song a hostage town that's that's her singing of herself right yeah yeah she's doing there's double vocals yeah which is uh yeah which is cool it gives you that uh i know i once saw like one of the behind the music things and they were doing uh it was

butch vig talking about how he puts nevermind together and he goes yeah here's kurt doing his vocals and here's kurt with kurt and then you get that big sound or whatever. It's kind of cool. Yeah, and also doubling the vocals on the same notes and also an harmony. It's an interesting way to approach it. I've done it a little bit, but I think the first time I heard that was David Bowie. When I heard David Bowie doing that, where he's doubling his vocals

and then adding a harmony on top. It's an interesting approach. Of course, people have been doing it since before that, but that was the first time it stood out to me. Cool. Let's kick out your ninth jam. Right. Let's do it. the time Where did you go?

I could take a root to the things you give my love Seven months ago Looking all the art Looking only on you I was all above I was one But one is not enough

Against you against you Out from the woods and down into the city I go with you Tease and teach me how to be a lady I know I'm not

And I can't want to talk over her. I know, right? Sounds like, hey. How do you? Yeah. It's so impossible to pick the time to jump in. Here we go. Maribel.

Yeah. Calendar. And this is from a ep she released in 2016 a lo-fi recording and uh and because she's working on a new album this year that i'm like i said at the top i'm so excited for she's working with Sam Gleason, who's a really great guitarist, a very inventive guitarist and producer. And I just saw her play a bunch of her new stuff the other day. And wow, I think people are going to be getting one of, I think it's going to be one of my favorite albums of the year. Her voice is perfect. And her guitar playing is really something too.

Like this song doesn't show it so much. But her new stuff, some of her choices she's making for chords and progressions are really exciting. And I found myself watching her hands the whole night and being like, where are these choices coming from? They're not choices I'd make, which I always find really interesting when I see artists, because no one plays like you, of course, but it's nice to see. I love seeing somebody who does something different

and trying to figure out what it is that she does. Her one advantage is that she has really long fingers, and I have these little child fingers. That doesn't help. So she can do some things that I have trouble doing, advances is she has like really long fingers and i have these little child fingers that uh that doesn't help uh like so she can do some things that i have trouble doing but um that's my problem when i play basketball it's like you need bigger hands yeah oh god i couldn't i can't palm a baseball you know you can't play slow pitch yeah that's i always wonder if like a she sounds amazing and it sounds like her new album is

gonna be great she's so she's mirabelle toronto-based musician singer songwriter wonder what the like does she ever and i know this is a question for her not you but is there ever like a temptation to sell out you know what i mean like you know what i mean get a little pop or whatever and uh just get yourself all over whatever a kiss.5, and then make some cabbage or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's the question for her. I'm not too sure how she approaches it. We'll have to hear what the album sounds like, I guess.

Who knows? Maybe she did. Maybe she did. Good point. By the way, I'm on her, I played that from her Bandcamp page, and she describes herself as a mystical dirtbag. There you go. That's so her.

I've never heard that before, but that sounds like her. Let's kick out your final jam. Here we go. Love, let's talk about love Is it anything and everything or a fire? I didn't feel it on you I can feel it on you

Cause maybe the night that my dreams might let me know All the stars are closer All the stars are closer All the stars are closer Cause maybe the night that my dreams might let me know All the stars are closer All the stars are closer Cause maybe the night that my dreams might let me know All the stars are closer All the stars are closer All the stars are closer

Tell me what you gon' do to me Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue But you can't bring the truth to me Fuck you and all your expectations. I don't even want your congratulations. I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises. All in your conversation.

I hate people that feel entitled. Look at me crazy cause I ain't invite you. All you important, you the moral to the story. You endorsing motherfucker, I don't even like you. Corrupt a man's heart with a gift. That's how you find out who you dealing with. A smart person that you I'm building with. Kendrick Lamar. All the stars. And how do you say her name? SZA?

SZA? I think it's SZA. I think so. I think you're right. Look at us her name? SZA? SZA? I think it's SZA. I think so. I think you're right. Look at us struggling here. SZA. I just go with the RZA, GZA approach. That's safe.

I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. I love this chorus so much. I've listened to this song so much over the last like three weeks that it's been out and it's that chorus gets me every time I and I was trying to figure out what it is about it

I think the production on it is what does it it's like it's the drum production in particular and then her voice is perfect like modern pop R&B singing Her album came out last year and was like a huge hit and worth checking out if you're into that new R&B thing. And then Kendrick is, I'm not, I'm not like a hip hop connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. I like what I like, but I,

I, it's kind of varied. And I, so I, I but it's kind of varied. And so I make this claim as someone who probably shouldn't be making claims. But I feel like Kendrick has changed the game, brought a new level to rapping. It's one of those moments I think you could pinpoint to where the game changes. Maybe you know more about than i do but uh what i can say to that is that uh

i hear a lot of kendrick lamar because my 16 year old son probably the artist that i hear the most actually uh so kendrick kdot as we call him is is where it's at. You're absolutely right. He's the guy right now. He's so exciting. Like, his flow is great. He's got, he's very talented. It's that, you know, I think it's that effortless mastery again. Like, he's, the way he raps, he can change his rhythm so quickly and so smartly that it's, I don't know, you don't hear that a lot in hip hop

in my opinion, and again this is from someone who doesn't listen to a lot of it but that track, that soundtrack is great, the movie is great Black Panther, yeah So you've seen that movie? I did, I saw it when it opened And it's as good as everybody says it is? Yeah, I think

depending on your opinion on Marvel films it's as good as any Marvel film that's for sure so if you like Marvel films I think it's as good if not better than most of them it still unfortunately

has to sit within that Marvel bubble so you still get your shitty Stan Lee cameo and someone's going to mention the goddamn Infinity Stones. And I think that ties it down a little bit. I think it could have been a bigger film if it wasn't tied down to the Marvel nonsense,

in my opinion. No, it's just that it's... Did you see it? No. No, okay. I'll try not to give anything away. Culturally, it's very important and it? No. No, okay. I'll try not to give anything away. Culturally, it's very important, and it's great, and I hope it changes the landscape of film.

But, yeah, anyways, it's worth seeing, I think, if you like good action movies. Well, I mean, I'm so far behind. I still have to see Wonder Woman, okay? You know what I mean? I know. Yeah, I'm so far behind. I still have to see Wonder Woman. Okay. You know what I mean? I know. Yeah, I'm terrible. I've seen all nine movies nominated for Best Picture

for what it's worth. Oh, nice. But these big blockbusters, for some reason, because my teenagers who would watch it with me, they always go off of their buddies in the theater. So your old stomping grounds, the Queensway, Islington, Cineplex. So it's like, now it's like, my wife's not into them.

So it's like, you know, my other two are too, I have other kids, but they're just too young for these movies. So it's like, I'm sort of stuck and I end up not seeing them. But yeah, I do want to see Black Panther though. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I think, yeah. Mumble, mumble.

Mumble, mumble. Sean, this was an absolute pleasure. That was great. Yeah, thank you for having me. I had a really great time. And I was thinking, what is it? And now for something completely different. That's how I would introduce your 10th jam

because we had these like nine sweet little singer-songwriters and then you threw down some K-dots. So just to keep us on our toes. Yeah, I thought I'd change it up. Yeah, and I think like, yeah, I try to listen to as much modern music as I can. And some of it I like, a lot of it I don't.

But I don't think it's any different than any genre or any time, you know. And it's interesting doing something like this. There's so many times, like after I sent you that list, I was like, oh, I should have sent you a Sade track. Or that new Janelle Monae track just came out the other day. It sounds like Prince and it's so good. What else, what has changed?

I think you're right. Pop music, pop music, it's always whatever. But what's the biggest change to me, in my opinion, is that rock has completely disappeared from like the radio. Unless you're listening to like classic rock or boom or whatever, but there's,

there's no rock on like a pop station today. The closest you get are the Imagine Dragons guys. Yeah. And I guess that's kind of rock, but you know what I mean? Like it's not the rock we had on our radio.

No, it's true. When we were growing up, whatever, Pearl Jam's Daughter was a top 40 hit you'd hear on top 40 radio and that's gone. So that's the big change.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think there's a lot of really interesting rock and roll being made right now in my opinion I think R&B is right now some of the most interesting music over the last couple years

I've been really intrigued by a lot of the stuff that's been coming out of that kind of genre right now final Kendrick Lamar point before we leave is what I like about Kendrick is that he's saying something. And I'm pointing now to the Public Enemy shirt on my wall. Right.

That was my favorite band. I mean, I loved Public Enemy. I still do. I loved Public Enemy because they were saying something. They were politically minded and it sounded important to me. Yeah. And I think Kendrick's from the same cloth. I think so.

Yeah. I think he's the right artist at the right time yeah well apologies to uh home local uh talent drake okay who is fantastic too but when it comes to like the depth of what you're saying you got to go kendrick yeah yeah no well and i and i think uh i think kendrick is a much kendrick is a much better rapper than drake yes well definitely uh not more aggressive style, I would say, where Drake sounds like he's hardly trying. I think even just his technical skills are just better. Not to knock Drake.

Drake's got some great tunes too, but anyways. We would never knock Drake on Toronto Mike. No, not on Toronto Mike. Are you kidding me? By the way, I noticed we've got the lowest low playing right now. Stephen Stanley's on this track. I know, it all comes full circle. Hi, Stephen. I know he'll all comes full circle. Hi, Stephen.

I know he'll listen. He told me he was listening to my podcast and he was surprised when it closed to this jam. And he's like, that's our song. You know what I mean? It's so weird. Anyway, that's great. Thanks for doing this.

I loved it. Great. Thank you for having me. And that brings us to the end of our 308th show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike sean is at sean clark but stick an e at the end of that and remember sean is s-h-a-w-n and it's seanwilliamclark.com so you had to add the william because there's another sean clark or you just wanted to it was like uh rebranding of sorts you know well it's like when uh a lot of artists will do that like a jaying of sorts, you know? Right. Well, it's like when, uh, a lot of artists will do that.

Like a Jay-Z will put an album called Sean Carter. Is he Sean Carter? Sean Carter, yeah. Is that Little Wayne? Who's Little Wayne? Little Wayne is, uh,

whatever. They'll put out albums. Oh, no, right. Sean Carter, but Little Wayne has the albums called The Carter, right?

I don't know. Yeah, it gets confusing, but yes, they use their real names instead of their handles, which is always a good effect there. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Brian Gerstein.

And PayTM is at PayTM Canada. Actually, I won't see you next week. I'll see you in a couple of days because Steve Anthony is coming over to kick out the jam. Speaking of much music. Oh, wow. Nice. and i've seen the sun go down on but i like it much better going down on you yeah you know that's true because everything is coming up