Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Slo' Tom from Furnaceface: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1866

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

In this 1866th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Slo' Tom about the legacy of Furnaceface, The Ballad of Richard Iommi, and Slo' Tom and the Handsome Devils. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Before settling down in your easy chair to listen to this album, may we make a suggestion? Take your phone off the hook. Somebody might call during the next half hour or so and interrupt your fun. There's more. Welcome to episode 1,866 of Toronto Mikeed. an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

Order online at Great LakesBeer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta

and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Fusion Corps O' Nick Aienes. He's

the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Redley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making his Toronto mic debut, It's Furness-Face

Vocalist and Bassist Slow Tom Stewart How you doing Tom? Doing great, thank you so much for having me, Mike. This is awesome. I've been looking forward to this to doing this. Well, just for this episode only, you may call me Ottawa, Mike.

Ottawa, Mike, you bet, yeah. So are you in Ottawa right now? I am, yeah. I'm sitting in the shop of the music store where I supposedly fix a bunch of busted amps. And I'm looking out at the corner of Bank and Gladstone right now. Okay. You know, for many, many years, I was married to a lovely woman whose dad lived in Ottawa,

and I spent a lot of time in Ottawa. That's a pretty cool, very walkable, very nice city you live in there. Yeah, we feel really lucky. It's pretty cool, you know. And have you always lived in Ottawa? Well, my dad was in the military, but ever since, like, grade 11, I've been in Ottawa. lived out in Nova Scotia for a while, lived in Petta Wawa for a while,

but all my adult life I've been in Ottawa. Yeah, I love it. It's great town. Lots of cool stuff going on. Always a good scene. Lots of cool bands. Lots of DIY. Well, I'm hoping you'll, you know,

flesh that out for me a bit. Like, I want to know all about, you know, furnace face. I want to know everything post-fernus face. I have so much, like, a yearning to, like, absorb what was going on in Ottawa. But can I just read you a note I got from somebody who heard you were coming on the program?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm excited. All right. Jim Moore from Rusty, he wrote, Furnace Face. My old band, One Free Fall, did a show with them in Ottawa. It was in a Mexican restaurant. So I'm pausing for you to tell me, do you remember this at all? Well, it was probably the downstairs club right below Mexicali Roses, which would have been the Mexican restaurant. But we also played, Furnace Face played with Rusty

at the University of Victoria, like the hall there. Okay. That's the kind of info I'm looking for here. So do you remember what year are we talking about with this one free fall? Because that's pre-Rusty. What year do you think that might have been? I think that probably would be right at the beginning of Furnace Face

because our first single came out in the fall of 89. It's called Drugland, a seven-inch single, and then the cassette of our record came out in, you know, shortly after that. And so if that was before Rusty, it probably, that show probably would have been the downstairs club, or even the upstairs club, which were, which sandwiched Mexicali roses. And that would have been sort of like, you know, you know, probably 90, kind of that. 901, I would say, you know.

Okay, okay. So, of course, Rusty's form because one free fall, you know, merges with Scotty Mac who left the Doe Boys. You were telling me before I press record, you listen to the John Castner episode of Toronto Mike, right? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, that's the thing that really drew me in. And, you know, I'm a huge Doe Boys fan.

I just, I loved those records. And I've always been, I've always been impressed by, by, you know, the whole band, but especially John, you know, holding everything together. And just, I really enjoyed that interview. And I thought, hey, maybe they would, they would, they'd be interested to hear a thing or two

from old slow Tom. Well, that's just it, right? Like, so that was like my doughboys deep dive. But now I want to do a furnace face deep dive. Like, I'll tell you, I've been listening. And I feel like this is a underappreciated, spoke in the wheel of Canadian rock. Well, that's high praise.

Well, thank you. I mean, it was a pretty crazy, as you can imagine, it was a pretty crazy 11 years. And like I said, our first single drugland came out in the fall of 89, and our first record had two seven-inch singles and a cassette. Like, this is how long ago we're talking about. And we toured Canada, like, twice on a cassette and two-seven-inch singles. And then we just kind of progressed from there.

We did over the period of 89 to 2000, we did, you know, 11 years. We did five records. We basically did a record every two years. And we, you know, we would tour the country pretty much every fall and every spring. And, you know, pretty much everything. We did have a manager for a brief period of time. But the vast majority of the time, we were self-managed. I booked all the early tours.

Pat did all of the merchandise and the artwork. Dave did all the band management day-to-day or the financial part, and I did the sort of immediate day-to-day type stuff, and it was amazing. It was great, you know. Okay, you dropped the names Pat and you dropped the name Dave on me. These are the Dave's I know I know. So now, do you want me to call you slow, Tom? How should I be referring to you?

You can call me slow, Tom, call me slow. That's what, you know, anything, whatever feels right. right to you. I'm going to call you slow Tom. Fantastic. So give us the origin story. Like who were you in 1989? What was the scene in Ottawa? What was happening? And give me the

details on how does Furnace Face come to be? Well, there's actually a backstory because Pat Bannister, the guitar player in Furnace Face, and Dave Dudley, the drummer in Furnace Face, and I, the bass player,

were actually in a band pre-Furnace face with a guy named Steve Denunzio. And Steve Denonzo was the front guy. And he was really young when we formed that band. He was only 14. And so we formed this pre-Furness-Face-Face band. And we kind of learned how to be a band. We learned how to tour.

We learned how to play shows. And that's how I originally met, like, Change of Heart and all of those people. And we had that band where we kind of learned how to do stuff. And then when the frontman left the band, Pat and I and Dave, just basically continued on as a trio and changed the name to Furnace Face. And we were able to kind of hit the ground running because we kind of already figured everything out, you know. And so we put, like I said, we put out our first single in the fall of 89. And we just started, you know, touring Canada and playing for, you know, 35 people at the, you know, the Royal Albert and, you know,

maybe 50 kids at the, you know, the Ritz Diner in Edmonton, and there was a bookstore you could play. Like, this is all pre-Nirvana, right? And so there was a bookstore we could play in, I think it was in Regina. It was called cover to cover. And so it was very, like, you know, it was very, you know, extremely, you know, it was cassette and singles and stuff.

And, but we were super happy. We were really, really excited that we were actually able to kind of do this thing. and, you know, kind of go along. And then we recorded our second record called Just Buy It. And Bob Wiseman remixed that, and that was our first CD. Man, it sounds so crazy to talk about it like this. But, you know, this was a long time ago. And we put that record out, and we did our first tour of Canada,

and then suddenly, Nevermind hit. And overnight, Nirvana, just everything was changed. Just literally, we went from playing for, 35 kids here and 50 kids here to playing to 500 kids or 1,000 kids. Suddenly what we were doing, which was this obscure thing, was suddenly cool and suddenly popular. And we didn't change anything. We were just lucky. Perfect timing.

Perfect timing. Now, where does the name Furnace Face come from? Oh, the drummer in Dave had come up with a bunch of different names, and including some other ones that Ottawa bands took, a band called Fun for Malachi. I don't know how he came up with that, but Furnace Face, he had on this big list. And I thought I was a little, I wasn't really sure about it. I thought, well, why don't we just be called Furnace? And he thought, well, that's a little too, it's a little too serious, a little too sort of metallic or something. We want to be a little bit more open than that. But we like the idea of Furnace because it, it, it suggested a colder climate in Canada.

the furnace face thing reminded us, do you remember those old ads they used to have, where you will go down the basement and the kids would see the furnace with the face on it, and would watch them. The PSAs, yeah, this was a big deal. Yeah, and they had to pull up because it freaked kids out. Kids wouldn't go down the basement anymore. So we thought that was a cool connection, you know? And it was great name because it worked for us really well because it gave you an idea that,

you know, some of this stuff is going to be heavy and, you know, but it also, suggested we have a bit of a sense of humor, you know? Yeah, and eventually, a couple years later, the Watchman debut would be named McLaren Furnace Room. Oh, right, right, yeah, that's right, yeah. So Furnaces, we're having a moment there, late 80s, early 90s, okay. More annoying questions as we get to FOTM, Bob Wiseman,

but what can you tell me about skull-duggery records? Oh, okay, well, Dave Dudley, the drummer in Furnace Face, his brother, Matt, lived in Minneapolis at the time and had a record label there called Skull Duggery. And he very generously put out our first single on his label there. And a 7-inch came for free in his magazine called Skull-Duggery. So the fanzine and the label were called Skull-Duggery. But it was cool. It had interviews with Grant Hart from Hustardue and all kinds of just really cool.

stop from that time. And that kind of gave us a little foot hold in the Midwest. And so when we started what we would do to tour Canada, because over the lakes, as everybody knows, especially back then, was really, really isolated. So we would go down the 401 and we would, you know, we'd stop in, you know, Kingston and Peterborough and Toronto and London and Hamilton and Windsor. And then we go over the border there and we'd play, you know, Detroit and around the Midwest of the U.S., like O'Clair and Madison and Janesville and Minneapolis and, you know, Milwaukee and all of those places. And then we'd pop up to Winnipeg and do the rest of Canada and then come back and then usually go back through the states to come home. So that was kind of our circuit. Amazing.

So, okay, so because I was like, what's Scalduggery? But I love, I just had Cam Gordon over here talking about his new book track changes. And what I love is this era just before the internet, you know what I mean? Where like with the zines and the newsletters and just, and tapes and how we all kind of follow the bands that weren't getting high rotation on much music or your local alt rock station. But like this was quite a time. I loved it. Yeah, it really was. And you know, and the power of the underground at that time was.

was really impressive, you know, like just kids would trade cassettes or they'd lend people singles and they'd talk about this kind of stuff. And it had an incredible reach. And I remember talking to a friend of mine that was from somewhere in Michigan or something. And he had come to Ottawa and I was talking to him. And this was, you know, back then. And he talked to, he was just talking about the power of the underground. And he said, you know, there's all these bands that are pretty well known in Canada. And he gave an example of Blue Rodian, the Tragically Hip. He said, nobody down there knew them.

But everybody he knew knew no means no. You know what I mean? That the underground of that kind of thing, they all knew no means no, but they'd never heard of these other pants. It were technically, you know, a million times bigger. Sure. And the power of the underground, especially in Canada, with college radio and stuff, it was incredible.

It was really amazing. And you had to want it. Like, you had to work for it. Like, there's some value to, like, having to, it wasn't like, oh, man, you know, I'll click this link you just DM'd me or whatever and then music's going to come out of my speaker. Like, you had to work. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember, you know, when I first, when I was a kid, when I first got into punk rock, I remember these guys describing how, you know, you couldn't really tell what stuff was. And they'd heard about punk rock, but they didn't, they didn't know what it was. and they saw a picture in cream magazine of kiss. And they thought, okay, well, this guy spits blood, and I know they're loud, and they look crazy. And I know that punk rockers spit, so this must be what punk is.

And, you know, they were just guessing, and it's like, oh, okay. And now, you know, if you're interested in the most obscure thing, like, if you're interested in, like, Christian death metal from Tallahasseh, You can go on and you can find out all about the Christian death metal from Tallahassee immediately, right? But back then, you know, you really had to kind of guess at stuff and you'd go into a record store and the guy'd glare at you, but often he'd kind of help you find out what you were looking for. We all had to be detectives. Like you had to start asking the right questions, you know? Yeah.

You had to have your find that guy who knew the score and then you could get some info from him and there would be a lead. like we were all briscoe and logan or whatever trying to solve the case you know those different times you know um but at the same time um you know there there's many positives about the way things are it's so much easier to make records now like back then it was so hard to make a record it took so long and often by the time you finally got it out you know you know usually it was vinyl back then but you know slowly cassettes took over and slowly CDs took But it just, it was so expensive to record and it took so long. And often by the time you got something out, you know, your band had kind of developed a bit or progressed a bit.

And now, you know, you can do, you know, you can go over to your buddy's basement and you can do a pretty amazing home recording on, you know, for almost nothing, you know. I'm surprised Jess Byatt would even come out in vinyl. Like it feels like when we turned into the 1990s, it was all CDs and cassettes. Like the vinyl was gone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's for sure. It was only the, it was only seven-inch singles that were on from the first record called Let It Down.

And then when just by it came out, it was on, it was, well, originally it was on cassette, and then it was CD. But there was, there was, really from that point on, there was, it was only the odd, you know, seven-inch promo type single that, that, that, where they, you know, they'd press like, you know, 500 or 1,000 copies up or something like that, yeah. Which is too bad because I'd love to, you know, if I had money and time, I would go back and repress all this stuff, you know? Like, I'd love to repress this. Or like, you know, I actually have it on vinyl. We got to, we need a furnace face super fan listening to us right now who's got, you know, cash sitting in some account. He doesn't need or she doesn't need to come finance. I should probably just do it.

I shouldn't be so lazy. But, you know, I'm just, I hate to look back. right? I just, I only want to look forward and I'm only one, like, I'm in the hottest band of my life right now and I'm coming down to Toronto, you know, doing some solo shows. And it's so hard when you're, you're so excited about the stuff you're doing currently that, you know, you don't really want to look back. Do you know what I mean? Well, actually, interesting point, though, because this annoying podcaster from Toronto is making you look back right now. Like, are you like, Mike, that was the 90s, man. Let's talk about this band I'm in right now. Like, is, it driving you crazy? Driving me crazy? No, no. I'm so proud of the stuff that Pat and I and Dave did.

And Marty, the guy that was sort of the fourth member that recorded everything. Marty Jones. Marty Jones, yeah, yeah. And he basically, he recorded everything but the first record, but he mixed everything. And he did an amazing job. I listened to those. And, you know, those records weren't expensive compared to a lot of bands sort of at our level. The most we spent actually was having them mastered by the famous guy. I always forget his name.

Who's mastering this for you? Is Noah Mince doing this? Who's doing this for you? No, we mastered it by that famous guy. I can't even remember his name. The guy that mastered all the Nirvana stuff. Was Bob Ludwig? Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, I'm not... Yeah, I think you're right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Anyways. So, listen.

And he said like Portland, Maine, I believe, yeah. If it's okay. Yeah, I just want to make sure we're good that I promise you. In fact, right now, name this current band you're in. Oh, currently, well, you know what? We don't have to go into that right now. We can go back and we can talk about stuff. We will.

We're going to go back because I have to scratch that itch. but just shout out the name of the band you're in right now. The current band is called Slow Tom and the Handsome Devils, and we'll talk about that, but there's a couple of records. I am, yeah, I'm playing, I'm playing some solo shows. I'm playing, well, actually, I'm bringing the bass player from the Handsome Devils down with me. And so we're going to do the Cameron House on Saturday, March 28th, from 6 to 8, And then the next day, Sunday, March 29th at the communist daughter from 6 to 7.

And this is all set up by my good friend John Bora, who you know well. I know him so well. And he seems to be involved in everything. Like there's Liz Worth was doing some punk rock talks. And John was, I saw him commenting on that. Like, John is just everywhere. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, you know, I originally met him back in the day with Change of Heart.

And I reconnected with him through my friend Carolyn. Mark, who is a Vancouver Island songwriter and singer, who I think you're familiar with, and she's amazing, and I've always been friends with her. She was in a band called the Vineigrats back in the day that played with Furnace Face all the time, and

I've always stayed in... Oh, you cut out there. You always stayed in where? We stayed in connection with Carolyn Mark since back in the Furnace Fays days when she was in the Vinaigrette's. And it was through her that I reconnected to John Bora. Okay, I'm taking notes over here. By the way,

quick note on change of heart because just last week I watched the documentary Nash the slash arises again which was great

and then John was probably there I didn't see him but he was probably there I actually became friends with Cam Hawkins of FM and Cam and I

were chatting today he's going to come over there's some big FM news brewing for all you FM heads but after this concert there's like after the documentary

there's like a Q&A and then Ian Blurton fronts this like Nash the slash band and he does a cover of phasers on stun and Ian is a national treasure there's a man who should be on a stamp oh man I totally agree you know our first band

that I mentioned with the 14 year old front guy you know Ian and change of heart were so generous to having us come down to Toronto I mean we were not very good at all but you know we were kind of developing stuff and Ian sort of soft potential there. And it made such a difference for us to be able to go down to Toronto,

play, get to meet all these different people, sort of see different things. And it was huge for us. I mean, I really think, I agree. I think it's a national treasure. I think now, if Nardwar got the order of Canada, I think Ian's next. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to make that happen.

Now, you know, slow Tom and the Handsome Devils. We'll get back to that later. I have some questions about Slow Tom and the Handsome Devils. But the biggest question I have, which I'll ask, now is how do you call this band The Handsome Devils when I'm not in it? Oh, I don't know, you know, you're not in it yet. I got to learn an instrument. Oh, it's punk.

You know, is it, what's the genre that you're playing in Slow Tom and the Handsome Devils? Well, my pre-Furnace Face, I was in a band called the Slurpiece, which was this country band. And I've always loved country music. It's always been one of my things. And so after Furnace Face, I wanted to start, you know, developing my countryist up before. And a lot of the songs that I write, like with Furnace Face, it was truly a cooperative. Like Pat and I and Dave wrote everything together. You know, those songs were truly the three of us.

The songs that I write on my own are, you know, I was a bass player in Furnace Face. Pat was the guitar. He came up with the riffs. I came up with some of the melodies and we'd work it all together. But with the, with my slow tom and the handsome devil stuff, the songs that I write myself

are much more in a countryish vein, you know? I'm sure I could bump back into that mode and write with Pat and Dave tomorrow, but it's just a totally different thing. And so it's very countryish. And some of the stuff, is very, very traditional, like would almost, I mean, maybe I'm flattering myself, but almost would sound like Hank Williams or something. And there's lap steel on some of the stuff.

And, but we also pretty, it's pretty wide bridge because some of the stuff, you know, goes almost to like the social distortion, super suckers, that kind of thing. So it's, it's a very wide variety of stuff. But it still has the furnace face humor. And it, you know, it's, it's still entertaining, I like to think. it sounds like it'll fit right in on Queen Street, right? Like, I mean, it all goes about Handsome Ned and then, you know, Blue Rodeo, which brings me back to Bob Wiseman. Okay, so we're going to get, we'll close up with some good slow Tom in the Handsome Devils chatter for sure. But how do you end up with the legend that is Bob Wiseman remixing just by it?

Well, what happened was Bob had just left, or I think he, He had just left Blue Rodeo, and he was playing a solo show here in Ottawa. And I went to see him, and I was just talking with him afterwards, and I gave him a cassette of just by it, our second record. And this was the early, you know, the early mix in a different track order and everything. And I didn't really even think twice about it, you know. And then I got a letter from him, snail mail, saying, hey, you know, I really like. this thing you know but I think we could really improve it with with mixing it a little bit

better and why don't why don't you come down to metal works and I'll remix it and I'll do a slightly different track order and and and then we'll get Peter Moore to to master it and and we'll you know then then you'll have something that you can put it as a cassette I mean as a as a CD and so we did that and he did a great job he really did improve it, better mixes, just a little bit more time, you know? And, you know, fix some odds and ends and stuff. And Peter

did some stuff too, so that both sides of the cassette would match. And, yeah, so that's kind of, it was just one of those things, you know, you're a kid, you're handed people, cassettes. That's how I met Bob. Well, it's such a small world, because we were

talking about Ian Blurton and Change of Heart in one of the great albums from that band is Smile. And I put together a little audio documentary about this gong, like gong, I hope that appears on Smile for Change of Heart that is produced. The gong itself is apparently recorded at Metalworks, and it was hit by Gilmore and was produced by Bobby Wiseman. Wow.

The gong. The gong. Yeah. But the funny thing is, like, so I kind of was, I had Ian down here, and we were trying to get at the heart of it. And that's when we remembered that, oh, it was, you know, Bob Wiseman produced it. And then I had Gilmore down here. And I said to Gil, and he looks at me, and I'm telling him the story, and he looks at me and he says, he has no memory of ever hitting a gong. So maybe Bobby hit it himself.

Who knows? Like, you know what I mean? Like, who knows? Yeah. Who can remember this stuff? We can remember this. Okay, so just by it, which the cold open to this episode is actually the preamble. But wait, there's more, you know, all that before this.

Which I quite like. But my question is regarding, you know, the biggest city in the country, Ottawa is a great city, but the biggest city in this country, did you know it's Toronto? I did know that, I think. That's a fun fact. Okay. And the biggest at the time that you're breaking, so you mentioned Nirvana and when Nevermind breaks, to smells like teen spirit.

Like that's sort of like this tipping point when suddenly radio in this country can go all in on like alt rock, right? And they need to like, they need their cancons. So bring in the rusty, bring in lowest of the low. Bring in,

you know, we mentioned the watchman, you know, get the pursuit of happiness. I don't know if you, old rock, we'll make that pass. That'll work.

Okay. So we'll make all that work, right? Like, did you get any, so I'm the biggest station we had for that genre in Toronto was 102.1 The Edge, CF and Y. Did you get any love from CF and Y?

Oh, I believe so. You know, it's not a big blur to me now, and we weren't living there, but I felt that, you know, we got, we got, we were, we were, we were so fortunate, you know, um, we got, you know, we got lots of, we got lots of radio play and I don't remember anywhere in the country that, that,

that, that, that, that, that, that didn't. And, uh, Not that our stuff was the most radio-friendly stuff, but, you know, it was a different time. But the biggest thing that really hit with us was much music. Like, we had, you know, much music just changed everything for us. Well, elaborate on that. Like, so what videos would much play? When would they play it and all that?

Give me a little taste of how much music helps out for in his face. The big break for us was when, I'll try to put this in a nutshell, but when Nirvana hit, like we were signed to, we had a deal with cargo records to distribute us, cargo and Montreal. So we had this great distribution deal and they were, you know, selling just buy it CDs. And we had a really, a really great indie deal because we were our own thing. I think we were getting like seven bucks a record or something at the time when a major label, you were getting a dollar a record. That's pretty good. Yeah, it was amazing.

And but we were indie and we were our own thing. You know, we were doing it ourselves. And so we made this deal with cargo. Well, then Nirvana hits and suddenly it's cool. Like, suddenly it's a big thing. And cargo had the rights to bleach. And so MCA went to cargo and said, we'll do. anything to get the rights to bleach because we can sell a bazillion copies of them.

And Cargo said, okay, we'll give you the rights to bleach, but you've got to take our three big sellers. And at that time, it was shadowy man. It was S&FU. And by coincidence, it just happened to be us because they just got our thing and it was starting to happen. So suddenly, we were still at our indie deal with Cargo. We were still getting the thing, but we were distributed by MCA. So we were on the front rack of every store. It was amazing. And coincidentally with that, an amazing filmmaker named Anthony Sack approached us and said, I'd like to do a video for this song about to drown. And he had this idea of doing it in the pool at Carlton University. And so we went in, I wasn't really thinking that much of it. We went and did it. And bam, suddenly, not only do we have

this record with national distribution, but our video is on heavy rotation. at much music and ended up winning a CMVA and selling a bazillion records and it was amazing. It was a crazy, amazing time. And like I said, we literally went from playing to 35 kids in Regina to playing to

a thousand kids. You know, it was crazy. Well, thank you. Smells like teen spirit. I tell you. It's crazy the way that, you know, something affects everything, you know. But I want to stress, you know, we didn't do anything different.

We were doing the thing that we'd always done. And we were very happy, you know, going across the country in our van, playing to 30 kids here, 50 kids here in the back of a bookstore, whatever. And then suddenly when it hit, it was like, oh, okay, well, we can ride this wave. It's fine. But, you know, we didn't kind of have this sort of set idea like, oh, you know, this is going to last forever. You know, we were a little bit more like, ah, well, it'll go back to us playing to 35 kids. That's okay. Amazing. I know.

And like other Cancon bands caught up in the wave, of course. In 91, Sloan, speaking of Slow Tom, so Sloan puts out smeared, and that fits right in, too. Like, all the pieces kind of connect. And I can tell you, this guy you're talking to right now was all in on this sound. Oh, yeah. I mean, I saw Sloan, the pre-Sloan band, who didn't probably do that many shows, are called Kearney Lake Road. And I've stayed friendly with Chris ever since, you know. he's the only one I really know very well.

But just such an impressive band and so amazing all the stuff that they've done. And, you know, just really impressive how they've kept their head on their shoulders and really just sort of done their own thing. Had a great career. Yeah, I mean, they did kind of break up, but, you know, that didn't stick, right? And then here they are still recording. Like, I'm looking at a piece of vinyl that came out in 2025. Yeah, they played in Ottawa.

just a few blocks from me here like a week ago, two weeks ago. Yeah, not many bands, really, not many bands that are still intact with their OG members like Sloan. Yeah, yeah. No, it's impressive. You've really got

hats off to those guys for sure. Absolutely. So, much, and by the way, this is the time, I know we're kind of doing this whole like nostalgia man thing, and I know we've got to live in the presence. You don't want to live in the past. I'm the guy who's live in here in the past.

But I got to do the... I don't know what I'm talking about the past. We can talk about the past all day long. I don't mind. Good. I'm blocking my calendar. You're mine for the next four hours. We're just going to talk every...

We're going to talk about the 90s for the next four hours here. But... It was magic time, you know? I mean, it was the most amazing... You know, one of the most amazing times in my life. So I'm happy to wrap about that. All right. So maybe name check.

So, okay, so we're kind of glossing over. We're not... We're doing a, like, but we should point out that, you know, this will make you happy, comes out in 1994, and then unsafe at any speed is 1996. Like, I was reading, because I didn't even, until I started doing homework for this episode, I was reading about Furnace Fest.

Can you tell us what Furnace Fest was? Well, what happened was, the, we had played, there's this big thing in Ottawa called the Tulip Festival. I've been to it because the queen gave birth in Ottawa during the war and we called it like

Netherlands territory or something Yeah and Poland is always given the capital city all of these tulip bulbs And it's a it's a regular thing And there used to be this big And I mean there still is this big Tula festival thing But they actually used to do a stage

And one time You know They do like a 10 day long thing And one time there was this idea. Just when things started to kind of start happening, the organizer of the Tulip Fest said, oh, well, you know, we have like a,

you know, a quiet Thursday night where nothing's booked. Why do we have some of the local kids come and play their local show and, you know, maybe a few hundred kids will show up and we'll just do this thing and won't cost us very much and we'll just do it. The PA and the whole stage and everything's already set up. So we'll just fill in this night with a local thing.

So we did this thing. and like, you know, they had minimum security, because I thought there'd only be like maybe 100 kids there or whatever. Well, like 2,000 kids showed up and just started tearing down the barriers and stuff. I've got video of it. It's hilarious. And the security was freaking out, and it was an amazing show. And then the next year at the Ottawa X, the promoter there decided,

oh, well, we'll do a night. You guys can clearly draw. So we'll do it. We'll do a night at the Ottawa X. Again, the stage and everything was already there. And so I said, okay, well, let's do it where we make it like a whole afternoon and evening thing, and we'll headline it. And we'll have bands from, half the bands will be from in Ottawa that are part of the local music scene.

And then half will be from out of town. So we had like 13 engines and we had, I think, Well, Dayglows played one of them and Thresh Hermit. And like, we tried to have bands from all around, you know, across the country mixed with a local band, out of town band, local band, out of town band. And he said, well, what do you want to call it? And I said, well, let's call Furnace Fest. You know, always thinking of branding.

And so that was a great success. And then we did the next year at a different location called that one Furnace Fest too. And I think we might even done a third one. I can't remember. But that's the way it's sort of developed. And it was really great. It was really fun. We got to play with all of our friends here in the Ottawa scene on a big, big stage,

and also with bands from across the country. So, yeah, really fun. Well, Slow, Tom, here's what I would love for you to do. Could you name check some of those local Ottawa bands that might have played a furnace fest? Well, definitely, one of our closest friends' bands was called Mystic Zellets, and they were an amazing band, really great songwriting, just great. you know, really good vocals, which Furnace Face kind of lacked sometimes. But so they were great.

Let's see, there's a band called the Scatter Brains. There were a ska band, really, really good. There's a country band called Black Boot Trio, because, you know, I've always had that soft spot for the country stuff. And then there was, let's see who else in town played. There was a bank of a resin scraper that played. Oh, Stan G.T. It's a great band, Chris Page, still around town, still doing music.

They did one. And then bands that are pretty close here. Like, from Montreal, we had one year we had me, Mom and Morgan Taller. And, of course, 13 engines one year. I don't think we ever had change of heart on one of those. I just don't think it quite coincided, you know. But Dayglows, for sure. And, you know, sort of kind of a mix of stuff.

But I'm sure I could think of other Ottawa bands, but I just can't think of them right now. Well, I'm putting on the spot here, but I'm always trying to learn about these scenes I missed, right? So I can talk most of the Toronto scene at this point. But, like, who are those bands in Ottawa that if you were growing up in Ottawa, you love these bands, even if they didn't quite break on much music or nationally? Yeah, I mean, Mystic Sellets were a big thing because they were around for a long time. and put out some really great records and got lots of college radio play. Let's see who else was there around.

God, you really put me on the spot. It's okay. There's a bunch of bands that didn't last as long, but we're really good. There was a band called Chickpea, you know, female-fronted, great band. Actually, you know what I got? Yeah. What do you got there? I think I've got a compilation.

here. Oh yeah, this will help me. Here we go. It's a competition. A really great band that was really, really, did some interesting thing. It was called The Wooden Stars. And they, the drummer in that band, Jeremy, I believe, went on to play with, was it God, no, not Godspeed, but not Alexis on fire. Arcade Fire. Get out of town. Montreal greats, of course.

I'm pretty sure, yeah. Wooden Stars were an amazing band. Punch Buggy were really popular, too. Yeah, I remember Punch Buggy. We brought them out on tour a bunch of times. There's a really great instrumental band called Polaris that did, you know, sort of Ventures Instrumental, Shadowy Men type stuff. A really popular band who also played Furnace Fest was called Jimmy George.

And they were sort of more of a rootsy type thing. They had banjo and mandolin, fiddling, fiddle. accordion, kind of a poxie type thing. They're really great. There's a band called Fish Tales that also played one of the furnace fests. And Dave Draves, who's a local producer, who recorded the first

Kathleen Edwards record, the one that won the Juno and everything, or I'm sure the other ones did too, but so, you know, Fish Tales were Dave Draves band, and that was all kind of part of it. Yeah, so that's some of the band.

that you would have remembered from the Ottawa scene at that time. Love the, you know, the nostalgia going back and digging that very, very much, absolutely. Now, questions. It was, I can't stress again how much of a magical time it was. It was a really, really cool time, and it was just, it was just so fun. Everybody was doing stuff, and everybody was excited about stuff. And, you know, you'd see your video on TV, and you'd hear your song on the college radio, and Ottawa is also really fortunate.

We have a really, really great college radio station, CKCU, and it's made all the difference as far as, you know, because we're not an industry town and we know that, you know. But having CKCU really encourages people to do more DIY type stuff. Absolutely. Now, just to tie up some ends here, so you got Bobby Wiseman's helping you out, and then, of course, he had left Blue Rodeo at that point,

and now in Blue Rodeo is Colin Cripps who was married to Kathleen Edwards So it is a small world that You know your industry is a very tiny spot And it all connected Kathleen was supposed to do a duet On my first country record Which came out just after Furnace Face broke up

This one And so she was going to do a duet on this one with me But she was actually away at the time And so another excellent local woman sang on it. Oh yeah, we all know that it was Alanis Morissette, right? No, no. My friend Genetby, yeah,

great singer. Okay, not Alanis. I'm just name checking all the Ottawa grades. Okay, so we'll wrap up Furnace Face. There's one song I need to ask you some great details about, but just before I do that. So you mentioned you're being distributed by Cargo Canada, and of course they fold at some point in the 90s. right? So what happens to Furnace Face when cargo Canada folds?

Well, we were fortunate. And again, this is a lesson in DIY. Because we were self-managed and we took care of all of our own stuff, Dave Dudley, the drummer in Furnace Face, who did all of the finance stuff, was really on top of us being paid and always made sure that we were up to date. with what cargo owed us. And as they were going down, a lot of bands got really screwed. Like Grim Skunk got really screwed. I think Me Mom and Morgan Taller, a bunch of Toronto bands.

And these tended to be bands that had management. And their management didn't really, maybe they were dealing two or three or four different bands, and they didn't stay on top of it. So when Cargo went under, we were the only band, or one of the very few bands that actually had been, we didn't lose, we didn't lose because we had been really on top of being paid right off the top. You know, and so we were fortunate in that way. But certainly, when they went under, it was, you know, it had an effect on us. But we were, you know, we were at the tail end of our band anyways, you know.

I mean, you know, we all know, bands have a natural, you know, you go up and you play bigger and bigger places. get more and more popular and radio finds you and, you know, videos found you back then, and then you kind of get to this thing and then, you know, you slowly kind of go down, you start playing smaller places and whatever, and the curve, you know, the curve, and that was fine. We were not, you know, we kind of always knew that that's just the nature of a band. That's just the way things go, you know. And so when Cargo went down, we'd already kind of been through our curve. and so it didn't really matter to us, you know.

We were still able to do our records, and we were distributed through Sonic Onion for a while. And, yeah, and it worked out great, you know. I mean, I don't think me or Pat or Dave have any complaints about the way it worked out. It was good. It was just time to do other things? Yeah, I think it would run its course.

I mean, you do five records. And, you know, over a dozen. Canadian tours, all kinds of stuff in the States. We went to England. We'd, you know, and we'd done, the vast majority of it, we'd done all ourselves, you know. I booked all the original tours. I did a bunch of the management stuff. Dave did all the financial stuff.

Pat did all the merchandise. And at the same time, you know, we, you know, Pat was finishing his architecture degree. Dave and I were, you know, had jobs and, and, you know, we all had girlfriends. and Dave had kids. And, you know, we were doing all this stuff and, you know, trying to write songs and rehearse and put out the next record and make the next video and find the money to do this stuff.

You know, it kind of, it did its natural thing. And I look back on those five records, and I'm really, really proud of them, you know? I really am. But was there a sixth record there? I don't think so. I think the last record, which I'm really, really proud of, It's called The Dave's Short Again.

And, you know, we never said that it was going to be the last record or anything, but it has that feeling, you know. And we never, you know, officially broke up. And we're brothers. We all, you know, we don't hang out together or whatever, but we all get along fine, you know. And we've always maintained that, you know, we went through such a crazy experience together. But, you know, we didn't feel like we had a reason to, we all wanted to do different stuff, you know. No, I get it completely. And, you know, it sounds like after Furnace Face, you're still playing with Dave for a while.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Pat had moved out to Vancouver to work in the film industry and spent a lot of time between Vancouver and Toronto. So he wasn't really in town that much, which also kind of led to the, you know, the band kind of winding up. but a long-time friend of ours, Blake Jacobs, he used to play a band, Hot Piss. You remember Hot Piss? Ring in a bell, yeah, Hot Piss. Who could forget a name like Hot Piss?

Yeah, they're from Peterborough. Furnace Face played with Hot Piss a lot. Blake was always the one that I tried to get into Furnace Face from the very beginning, and he never wanted to be in it. But once kind of Furnace Face had wound down, Dave and I, instead of having Pat, we got Blake in, and Blake is a real massive.

guy. And so we formed this metal band called Manpower. And we had a lot of fun doing that, kind of high concept. And I might even have the record here. Hang on. Let me see. Let me see what's going on here. Yeah. No, I don't think I have, I don't think I have the Manpower record. But anyways, we did that. And I really, that's some of the best singing I've ever done. And then that kind of wound up. We only did the one record. And then I started, I already had my first country record out, this one, and then I started

doing a lot more of the, and it's pretty much just concentrating on my country stuff. And doing a bunch of solo shows and that kind of stuff. Before you had handsome devils, you had horseshit heroes. Yeah. The first band, this is a live record. That was our first record.

And it was live in a little club, the downstairs club, which was the one that you'd mentioned off the top that I think Rusty played with us. Right. Well, no, it was the band before Rusty, right? The Jim Moore and Ken McNeil band before Rusty. They were called One Free Fall.

You still there? Hey, where's my slow tom? You there, buddy? Okay, so Slow Tom's frozen, but we've got to get them back because I have a million questions about a song that I've been thinking about forever, and I can't believe I have a chance to get an answer on it. So while I wait for Slow Tom,

I'm going to thank Palma Pasta, delicious Italian food, Great Lakes Brewery, delicious craft beer brewed right here in southern Atobico. I want to thank Nick Iienes. He's got a show called, well, we've got Mike and Nick, which we're going to record tomorrow, and Building Toronto Skyline, which we're going to record tomorrow. Here comes Slow Tom, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca, and of course, Ridley Funeral Home. Slow Tom, you there, buddy. This connection from Ottawa is shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.

So we're waiting for slow Tom to reconnect. This is a live on the floor experience. And then maybe I have a quick question about, Hey, you there, Tom? You back? Sorry, am I back? I can hear you, but I can't see you, but I can hear you. Whoa.

What the hell? Did you lose your internet? I don't know. Did your battery die? No, it shouldn't. No, I still have like 70 some percent. Oh, that's good. That's good.

We've been talking for almost an hour. So I don't need the video because I only have a couple more questions before we get back to the handsome devils. And Slow Tom has left the building. We're going to get him back. I'm not giving up on Slow Tom. Slow Tom, by way, SLO apostrophe.

There's no W there. I won't give up on this man. I don't give up on my guests. We're going to make this happen. Shout out to Carol Pope. I think we took a few runs at it. her internet connection. All right.

Is it working now? I hear you. So I'm going to hit you of a question. You ready? Sure, yeah. Fire away. Before I lose you again. What happened in 1997 when the pyrotechnic effect burned you when you were on stage?

You know, I've heard that thing. I mean, we did a lot of crazy stuff during shows and during videos, but. We lost him again. What's going on in Ottawa? Don't they have Bell 5 in Ottawa? Geez, Louise. So, ladies and gentlemen, you know, this is the kind of thing that happens

when the guest is not in my basement. So I will say tomorrow, Rita Zika is in the basement, making her Toronto mic debut, and we won't require an internet connection for that one. We're going to make that happen. I understand why it just keeps saying recording and progress. Well, it is recording. Like, I am recording it, but that shouldn't be booting you off the internet.

Weird. Okay, sorry. All right. Tell me about the burns. Is that bullshit? Do I need to edit Wikipedia? I think you need to edit Wikipedia because I don't, I mean, I, you know, I don't remember any burns. I mean, there's some dicey moments with stuff, but I don't recall that.

Fascinating that, you know, so I'm talking to myself now. I was going to say, it is fascinating that Wikipedia could have this nugget, and people will regurgitate it forever and ever. People are going to make podcasts and do blog posts and there's going to be AI slop, and everybody's going to talk about Slow Tom and the burns he got on stage in 1997 and all this detail and they're going to talk about his full recovery. There's no scarring. And then you get Slow Tom on the show and he tells you that never freaking happened. Okay, glad to hear it. So Tom, I don't know what's happening of your internet, but I have to ask you about a song I've been obsessed with

since I first heard it on CFNY. Sure. I moved to, I moved over into another office here. I think there's more computer stuff here, so hopefully it won't do it again. Hopefully. But you need to bury me in information about a song I still love. I've been listening to it all week.

The Ballad of Richard Iommi. Richard Iommi. Richard was a typical suburban teenager. He lived with his parents and spent most of his time hanging out with his friends, listening to records and smoking dope in his room in the basement. There was only one difference between Richard and a typical suburban teenager. He was totally obsessed with Tony Iommi. For those of you who don't know, Tony Iommi is the guitarist in the rock and roll group Black Sabbath.

Richard idolized him. But Richard's devotion to Tony Iommi didn't end there. Not only did he change his last name, but he began buying vintage musical equipment circa 1969. His goal was to obtain the same make and model guitars and amplifiers that his idol, had used. He even got a 72-piece drum kit just like Bill Wards. Richard and his best friend would go down to the basement, get really wasted, and set up all the equipment like a shrine. They talked about the day that they would form their band.

Richard, of course, would be the guitarist. Tony Iommi out of old cream magazines and papered something that would change their lives. Lee Aaron was coming to their town, a singer who's also known and second only to Tony Ione. Richard knew he had to somehow meet Lee Aaron and tell her the secret of his lineage. concert hall early in hopes of catching a glimpse of her. Suddenly there she was. Everything he was telling her about the double-neck guitar, the 72-piece drum kid, and why he changed his name. The metal queen

listened, and in a single sentence, brought his entire world. Oh, my God. Well, Okay, this is now cruel and unusual punishment for the listenership, and I humbly apologize. You know what? You deserve a ticket to my

one-man show at the Elmo on May 21. Go to Toronto Mike.com. Click Elmo gig at the top. and, you know, buy a ticket or two. Please do that. I want to see you there. It keeps cutting out on the internet. Is there a way to go closer to a router?

If you just go away from the internet and just use your phones. Do you have internet out of your phone? I don't know. I don't know. Oh, problem. I just, and it was working fine and then just suddenly starts. I like this troubleshooting. Who's helping you there? That's Ray. Do you know Ray from the John Henrys?

Oh my God. Okay, we'll tell Ray. He's an angel from heaven. Oh my goodness. If I survive this, I'll survive everything. Here we go. Slow Tom, coming back. I think he's going to leave Wi-Fi and just use his data. We only have a little mop up here. I'm going to do a little on this song I've been obsessed with. And if I did my post-recording job right, I've already put it in and you've heard it. Love that song so much. Reminds me a bit of like suicidal tendencies, institutionalized. And that's slow Tom doing that.

So what a great song. Richard I'me. What a great song. How are we doing, Ottawa? Okay, we think it might be working now. Sorry about that. Hey, bury me. I'm going to shut up and listen.

Barry me in information on the ballot of Richard Iommi. Okay. So we're recording. This will make you happy. and we have the music all done. And we spent a lot of time on the music. And we had all these different melodies and vocal ideas. And Pat had his ideas.

And Pat tried to sing it. And I tried to different stuff. And the actual guy producing the record was in Tamblin, who's like a longtime Ottawa famous folky guy. And he was getting kind of frustrated with it. And then finally, out of just desperation, because we'd spent so much time on the music, but we just didn't have a lot of,

any vocals for it. And out of desperation, I thought, okay, and I heard, I came up with this idea, more of sort of a spoken kind of thing, because none of the singing melodies worked. And Dave Dudley, the drummer in Furnace Face, had this great story about this guy he knew that was, that was trying to recreate all of the original gear that Black Sabbath had used. And he was obsessed with Tony Iommi, and he had this sort of, you can never really tell if he's quite serious or not, that he was like the lost son of Tony Iommi, and he was a really quite interesting cat. But anyways, I'd heard all of this stuff sort of secondhand from Dave. I'd never met this guy. And then I thought, okay, well, I'm just going to imagine what it's like to be

this guy, and I'm going to write all this stuff. And I came up with all the stuff. I just made up about him like having a big collage from Cream Magazine and and parade and stuff on on his wall and all this sort of stuff. And I just made it all up. Well, and then I came up and the guy's like, oh, yeah, this is going to work. This is going to work. This is really because I think one of the things about furnace space is we were pretty good at or we were best when we wrote kind of relatable stuff, you know. And I think Tony Iommi and my girlfriend thinks she's fat and a bunch of stuff like that. people could really relate to. And I always felt that that was when we were at our best.

Anyways, we do this song and Dave said, oh, you know, you've got to go okay it with this guy. You can't just do this thing, right? And so I go out there and what do you know? It's exactly like I imagined. All that stuff was exactly how I imagined it. I couldn't believe it. He had the collage. He had all the stuff. It was completely bananas. And he listened to it and was kind of You know, he was kind of amused and kind of flattered. And, yeah, that's one of those songs that people really like. I adore it, but I also adore suicidal tendencies institutionalized. Yeah.

And this one reminds me of that one. Yeah, I get where you're going. I mean, very, very different songs. But I always felt we were best when we connected with basically who we had been a year or two before. The kid in the suburbs, you know, you know, with all of these ideas and these sort of dreams of rock and roll and stuff like that, I always felt we were best

when we connected with that. And I totally get what you mean by that suicidal tenancy's song, for sure. I think we should put that song on a stamp, like Furnace Face, The Ballad of Richard Iommi, get that on a stamp. We never, you know, we didn't, we never used that one for a video. We used, we used other stuff. That was probably a mistake. We probably should have used that one for a video.

100. That was my next question. Where was the high rotation much music video for the Ballad of Richard Iommi? Well, we ended up choosing, this will make you happy, the title track. And the other, there was another video, and I forget what it was. There was two. I can't remember what the other one was. But both of them did really well. I think we want to see MVA.

We want a CMVA for this will make you happy video, and that got heavy rotation. and there was a second video from that record. I can't remember what it was. Oh, Oh, love a gun. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we shot that in Montreal at night.

And that was crazy. And if you watch that video, there's a scene where I go into a corner store and I rob a corner store and I pull the gun out of the stuffed animals' ass. I don't know if you've seen it. It was a long time ago. Spend along. I've got to go back to YouTube and dig this up.

I got to see this again. That one got a lot of rotate. Like that one was really good for us. Yeah, yeah. So I did reference quickly when you were talking about mastering your albums, whenever I hear mastering, and I always throw out the name Noah Mintz because he seems to master.

But you did play with Head, right? A lot. Yeah, yeah. They actually came across the country with us at least once or twice, and they played one of the furnace vests. And in fact, I just had messaged both Brendan and Noah yesterday, actually, you know, saying, hey, I'm going to be in town, you know, to see you guys, you know. Well, I just bought a lawn ticket to see.

Brendan's with some new band. I don't know if you heard of them. Broken something, broken something like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, so apparently they're a happening thing, and I'm going to see him this summer. They'll do okay. You know, Noah takes full credit for Brendan becoming a musician, like that he was like just some student.

I think Trent, I think they were at Trent. I'm trying to remember where they were, actually. I'm pretty sure that Brendan takes credit for making Noah into a musician. This is interesting. Yeah, which is, I just, there's a great documentary on Crave about broken social scene from a guy who just took all this footage and he tried to make a doc in 07 and they said, And then finally, I guess, Kevin and Brendan said, okay, it's a really good doc. Anyway.

Well, I'll check it out. Got to check it out. Okay, so we're wrapping up now before we lose the internet here. And what's your favorite song by Slow Tom and the Handsome Devils? Oh, man, I've got like six records out. So I'll have to pick something from the new record that just came out called Gas in the Tank. I mean, I really like all the ones on this. I like, but I really do like the title tag, Gas in the Tank.

I think kind of sums up what I do, and all of that stuff's on Band Camp, if people are interested, the entire catalog for Slow Tom and the Handsome Devils is on Band Camp. And I'll definitely be playing a few of these songs at our shows at the Cameron House and Communist Daughter next weekend. Yeah, people should come out and see Slow Tom and The Handsome Devils. I'm glad you picked gas in the tank because not only is it critically acclaimed, but it did reach number one on CKCUFM. Yeah, I'm really proud of that. And I feel like, you know, we talked about not looking back too much,

but I feel so fortunate. I'm in like this band is so hot. The guitar player is incredible, bass player is incredible, the drummer is incredible, great singer. They're all great singers. And I just feel so fortunate, you know, that I'm able to sort of, you know, do this new, this, this, this sort of have like a, a whole second wave of stuff I can do.

And I can play to, you know, I can play in the worst crust punk bar in Ottawa, and I can play around the Ottawa Valley in these little towns. And I can even play in like really, you know, fancy places where they sit down and listen to you and drink white wine and stuff. I can, I can kind of meld my set for, for any of these people. and I'm looking forward to the camera and also to the communist daughter. I'm coming down solo with my bass player, so he's going to play upright.

I'm going to play acoustic, and it'll be fun. I mean, you conquered, you know, the world of punk and, you know, alt rock with Furn his face, and now you can conquer the world of country. Well, we'll see. At least I can amuse myself. Hey, man, you know, we did have some beyond your control. Slow, Tom, I don't blame you at all,

but we had some gremlins going on there. You kept dropping out on me, but we did it. We made it happen. How was your Toronto mic debut? It was fantastic, and I'm so, so pleased that you've had me on. Like I said, that John Castner, Doe Boy's interview, I was really, really impressed with. I was really knocked out.

I thought, oh, man, I got to see if I can be a part of this thing. It's really cool. Well, I think Furnace Face was really cool, and I've been listening to a lot of it lately, And I know I have this tendency to hyper focus on one song. Like, Gino Vanelli had to tell me to get off of black cars already. Like, I feel like you're about to say, get off of the ballot of Richard Iommi already. But I will say, you got a lot of great songs, a lot of great, you know, great titles of songs.

And that battle of Richard Iomi, which I am going to drop in this episode, much like you were dropping out of our chat a few times there. I think you're going to win over some new fans. I think some people might have missed you in the 90s and they're going to go. back and catch up on what they missed. And I hope they go and see you, Slow Tom, and your handsome devils. Yeah, me and Chops will be there. I'll do some solo songs. As far as the Furnaceface Back catalog, you know, we own everything. We never signed anything away. But Pat and Dave aren't crazy about putting stuff on any of the iTunes or anything like that. But they have agreed that we can do stuff on band camp. We haven't done it yet. But I'm in the process of

that. And as far as, you know, I'll just plug these one last time. I'll just plug these shows. I haven't played in Toronto, you know, for a really long time. And I'm playing solo show with my, with my buddy Chops backing me up on base. Saturday, March 28th at the Cameron House, from 6 to 8, and then Sunday, March 29th at the Communist daughter, March 29th, from 6 to 7, set up by my very good friend John Bora, I really appreciate him setting that up. So people can make it out for it. John Bora is a legend. Yeah.

And when does this whole thing come out? Well, let's say, as I speak right now, my laptop tells me it's 303 p.m. All I'm going to do, because I'm not going to edit any of that, I'm going to drop in a song. So I'm going to drop in the ballot of Richard I owe me because that's the kind of guy I am. And then I'm going to release it in the wild. So I will say this will be in podcast feeds before 3.30 p.m. Oh, my gosh. You're so fast.

Well, I should edit out all that crap when your internet kept dropping, but I refuse. Hey! You know, there's only so many hours in a day. Well, no, not even that. It's like, it happened. That's what happened. It's a fly-in-the-wall experience. This happened, right?

You did drop out. Not your fault, but you dropped out. And I could clean it up like it never happened, but that's a lot of bullshit right there. All right. But, Tom, this was amazing, man. I want to thank you for giving me over an hour of your life here. and I hope to meet you when you get to Toronto. I'll buy you a Great Lakes beer.

That would be great. I would love that. Yeah. Well, again, I can't thank you enough. I'm so happy to be on here, and I'm going to share this to everybody I can. You're now an FOTM, much like John Bora and Noah Mintz and Brendan Canning.

Who else did we name check? Ken McNeil, Scotty McCullough, John Castner, you're now an FOTM slow-tong. I'm honored, thank you. And that brings us to the end of our 1,86th show. Elmo combo tickets are now available. Go to trottomike.com. Click Elmo gig at the top, buy a ticket or two or three.

See you on May 21st. I cannot wait. On March 26th, it's sunny day. This is a province-wide tapping party to celebrate the release of Great Lakes Beer's Sunny Side Session IPA. Don't miss the launch on Sunny Day. Much love to all who made this possible. That includes Great Lakes Brewery.

Did you know you could get Great Lakes beer at the Elma Combo? Palma Pasta. Love me some palma pasta. I've got a large lasagna in my freezer right now for Rob Salem and Rita Zicus. They're excited. Nick Iienes. I'll see him tomorrow morning for a new episode of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick. Recycle My Electronics.com.com. If you have old cables, old electronics, old devices, don't throw them in the garbage.

Go to recycle my electronics.ca. Find out where you can drop it off to be properly recycled. And of course, Ridley Funeral Home, they've got a great podcast called Life's Undertaking. See you all tomorrow. Again, Rita Zekis, Rob Say, in the basement, who could ask for anything more. See you then.