Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steven Page and Chris Murphy: Toronto Mike'd #1389

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

In this 1389th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Steve Page and Chris Murphy about the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, their new album, songs they've written for Barenaked Ladies and Sloan, and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

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An award-winning podcast from Moneris, hosted by FOTM Al Grego, and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today is a man making his second visit to the basement, Chris Murphy. Hey! And joining Chris is a man making his in-person Toronto Mike debut, Stephen Page.

Welcome, Stephen. Welcome, Chris. Thanks for having us. This is nice to not be virtual for once. And as an expert of coming here, Stephen, watch your head. All right. Thank you. Chris learned the hard way, I'm sure.

But Chris, I like that jacket you wore last time. Today you wore like a more boring jacket. What did I wear last time? It was like a cool, looked like a 70s high school jacket or something. Oh, like a more boring jacket but you had to wear last time it was like a cool looked like a 70s high school jacket or something oh like a red leather jacket yeah like it it just looked like it was like a collegiate jacket or a high school you know what that was it was my dad my dad as a kid in 1960 or something uh won a football tournament of some kind of the smaller cities in pei and he had the patch but couldn't afford the jacket but i've seen pictures of the jacket and i saw a guy at a show and he had a red leather jacket and i said i'll trade you my jacket for that jacket and he did and then i sewed my dad's patch onto that that's amazing that's a like a loving tribute yes Yes. That's awesome. And then my dad, you know,

could barely fit into it and then he's like, you should wear it. In the Lovers in Dangerous Time video, I'm wearing my dad's football jacket from around the same time, about 1960, something like that. The Scarborough Rams jacket. Okay, right on. And then, but see, I didn't think about that. It had the patch and everything, then the jacket got all

ratty and fell apart. And what you should do, I have now learned, is remove the patches. And I think we just trashed the whole jacket. Well, you know, no disrespect to your current jacket. It's terrible. And you know why I'm wearing this? It's wonderfully terrible. But yeah, go tell the story.

Because I have some scratches on my legs. I sent pictures of it to my, I just got home. I was just away. And I just sent pictures to my wife. I was like like look at these scratches on my legs she's like those those might be bed bugs i and and so now when i got home i had to throw everything that i was wearing into she had like a robe in the mud room throw all of your stuff into garbage bags throw the suitcase in the yard and and uh so okay because you basically i brought bed bug bed bugs to your you know i think if i brought bed bugs home or scratches like that,

I'd be divorced now. Like I don't even think there's any path back in the home. I'm in hotels all the time. I don't know why my house isn't just a bed bug. But I don't think I've ever, maybe, I don't know. I get bites on me all the time from stuff. I don't know why. Like I have giant scratches on my legs,

and I'm just embarrassed. I'm embarrassed of what it could... It's like, does that mean I have a disgusting toenail? I don't want to talk about it much longer. Oh, like the worst ad in the world? That ad with the guy who's got the infected toenail or whatever? I can't talk about it. It's so gross.

I'm sorry I mentioned it. Yeah, that's about as bad as it gets for me. That's like... Okay, we got some ground to cover here and we're going to try to do it in an hour. I'm going to just do a little housekeeping off the top. One is that when I announced you two were coming on today, I said it's Trans Canada Highwaymen Day on Toronto Mic'd.

Ron Sexsmith wrote awesome. So Ron Sexsmith is excited and when he's excited, I get excited. Hey, Ron. I love that guy. What's not to love, right? No, I love Ron too. Yeah, Ron's a lovable guy. Fantastic. Speaking of people you may or may not love, but we'll find out

now, is that I want to give some love to Tom Wilson. He's my buddy too. Also love Tom Wilson. How can you not love Tom Wilson? Okay, so Tom Wilson showed up. I was always afraid of him. Oh yeah, he's terrifying. And then you realize, no, he's fantastic. Yeah, he's the greatest. You realize he's a big cuddly teddy bear.

But Tom was at my event on Saturdays. So this was a big deal to me to have Tom Wilson there. I just saw Junk House like two weeks ago. And my event was TMLX14. It was at Palmas Kitchen. So thank you to Palmas Kitchen for hosting us and for feeding us all. And Tom Wilson and Stephen Brunt came out and a bunch of great people.

I'm told almost 100 people showed up. And I learned from somebody who was there, Steve Cole, who said he just saw Tom Wilson open for Stephen Page. So you guys must have done some gigs together. We did. We played at the stephen page trio played at uh kerner hall back in the fall and uh tom along with his son thompson opened for us and then we did a song all together his his uh amazing grand river song it happened to be um uh truth and reconciliation day and uh we were incredibly fortunate to be able to have tom

there to to address the the day from the stage you know it's one of those things we had the gig booked and it feels feels really strange to be doing a gig on a day like that without addressing it properly and to have someone who's like you know who's of our generation of our cohort in in the music business who also has such a compelling and and and poignant story to tell and he's so good at telling it we were just so lucky to have him there and i mean man could read the phone book and you'd be enthralled right totally and for a guy who he carries that much kind of gravitas but also is so hilarious too i mean it, it's kind of a perfect package. Yeah.

He's great. A lot of time for Tom Wilson, but I'm really excited. Like, so when I said, when this came together, they told me I was getting two of the four trans Canada highwaymen. And I said,

well, all four are great. I can't lose. Like I can't lose, but I was aware that, you know, I never met Steven page. So I was actually thinking,

Oh, it'd be great if Steven's one of these two people because we've done a couple of Zooms, but we've never done an in-person. And I was thinking, it has been a long time. Here, I took notes here. It was, let me get this right, August, no, April 2017,

when Chris Murphy made his Toronto Mike debut. Like that's over six years, six and a half years ago, Chris. So do you still remember that? I wouldn't have guessed. I do, over six years, six and a half years ago, Chris. So do you still remember that? I wouldn't have guessed. I do, but I would have guessed it was three years ago, but then you forget that the pandemic adds three years to everything you're

trying to remember. Yeah. Right. So what did I write at the time? I wrote in this 229th episode, Mike chats with Chris Murphy about his 25 years of Sloan, which is now over 30. You were already at 229 episodes by then.

Yeah. But what do you know? How many? 1,389. Amazing. I have never done 1,389 of anything. I think you did that many live shows in one year. 1996.

1996. What else did we talk about? We talked about your new TransCanada Highwaymen project. Okay. So I guess in April 2017, this thing was already a unit. It was, but it was all different people. It was me and Neil Osborne and Tom and, I don't know, Jim Cuddy. And Tom Cuthbert.

And Alan Frew. Exactly. And we talked about Underwhelmed. I have a question for you, Chris. Did you ever hear, I put together a deep dive into underwhelmed i have a question for you chris did you ever hear i put together a deep dive into underwhelmed like it's like an hour just about the song underwhelmed did you ever hear that because your your instagram uh account did like it when i kind of tagged it on something but i didn't know if you're just tagging people who like liking things

that tagged you that's probably what i was doing okay what is there to say well the song's almost an hour long i want you to listen so uh if i can get a message to you with a link okay yeah i do okay so that so everybody what i'm trying to say here is if you want the a to z of chris murphy like the whole sloan story it's going to be in episode 229 that's sort of the takeaway here and to turn the page so to speak uh april see what i did there nice april 2020 steven page zoomed in from upstate new york and that was episode 631 mike chats with singer-songwriter steven page about the bare naked ladies origin story his time with the band, going solo, touring with the Trans Canada Highwaymen,

reuniting with Barenaked Ladies at the Juno Awards, his new musical, which I have a question about, and his Zoom concerts and much, much more. And that episode was like an hour and 14 minutes.

So people can go back to episode 631 to get the A to Z of Steve and Paige. These stats are unbelievable. It's like, this is how long it was. This is the episode. It's great. Right, right.

So this is all the housekeeping component. I love it. Chris. Yeah. How was the holiday train? I saw you were with one of your other super groups. You're in many super groups. That's my plan D.

Anyway gang. Yeah. It was super groups. That's my plan D. The Anyway Gang. Yeah. It was super fun. Yeah, it was great. I didn't know what to expect. And we're basically just the holiday train. It's a CP or it's now called CPKC rail. And I didn't know what to expect.

And it was all it was. You're just playing to screaming kids making them say it's like what is the name of that red-nosed reindeer and they're like i think is it randall is it roger and like and they're just losing their minds and uh it's super fun and then sometimes you play we were playing it's just a half hour show and we would play sometimes seven shows a day and other than that i would just eat cream based meals that were force-fed oh that's wild like just fish and cream yes yes and i was trying to be smart i'm like that uh at the risk of being

inappropriate the woody allen movie called uh bullets over broadway there's a character in there who's trying to lose weight and he starts the thing by would you would you like something would it be totally um totally uh tiresome just to have some hot water and lemon and of course by the end of the movie he's just gorging himself that was the story of my train the anyway gang by the way it's sam roberts meno verstig of colorado fame uh myself and d Monks from Tokyo Police Club fame. And we have another, like I was already in the Highwaymen and then Menno was trying

to put this thing together. And I was like, well, I kind of already do this. But- Are you hedging your bets? Like, is this just like diversity being like, diversifying your portfolio? I guess so.

And it was fun to do, but I mean, nothing against that hang, but the Highwaymen's my favorite hang. And that was fun to do, but, uh, I mean, nothing against that hang, but the highwayman's my favorite hang. And that includes my, with my Sloan band, which I also, which is my life's work and of which I'm proud. But, uh, the highwayman hang is, is, is, uh, it's pretty fun. Pretty. I mean, it's low stakes, just buddies who are, you know, it's a pretty fun, you know, recording covers, you know, we, there's not that much you can get into a fight about well we're gonna play some uh trans canada highwaymen this is from the uh explosive hits volume one which is a very enjoyable listen so we're gonna we're

gonna dive into it there's gonna be a lot of trans canada highwaymen talk here but i got a question for steven now steven did you know in the last couple of weeks i have spoken with mark nathan awesome and jason priestly wow so there was a lot of you came up quite a bit as you can imagine but did they both did either of them have nice things to say about me did i and did i kind of did i come up both had chris murphy came up and neither was shocking actually but the mark Nathan episode was fascinating because it was like a con can deep dive with some

It was a can con and a con can deep dive. And he tells me he's still pretty good friends with you and that he takes credit for introducing Barenaked Ladies to Seymour Stein at Sire Records. What say you Steven Page? I say absolutely.

I mean, you know, I think Mark got less credit than he deserved at the beginning because back then our manager, Nigel Best, I think had also played our tape to Seymour. So I think Nigel got a bunch of credit, but Nigel was great too. He really was a huge believer in the band and i think you know the fact that we didn't end on great terms with nigel is kind of like put him in the dustbin of history a little bit from vnl's perspective but i look back on on on him as being a huge part of that band and mark big time absolutely and always our number one booster and then then when I put the Vanity Project out in 2005,

he bet the farm on that thing, and he put it out in the U.S., and just, I mean, he spent his life savings on that baby. And for the folks at home and some of the folks here, who was this person? This guy's name's Mark Nathan, and so he was just on what episode number? Ah, it's got to be 1380-something. be 1380 something 1380 last week it was last week um but he's a record company guy he

started in the record business as a teenager working for uh todd rungren okay and has been in the business ever since he's kind of semi-retired now but he's always got something something on the go but he uh at the time that um that we were getting signed he took us to to uh sire records but he also he managed marin caddell at that point that's correct yeah yeah 1384 is that episode and it's just it's just a half an hour where he talks about kind of bringing con can to the states and getting a hit record out of them with uh i beg your pardon hearing the sweater song by marin caddell and uh getting her signed and then i guess he was on a panel here in canada because he's an american chris and he said uh what should i be listening to from that you guys

are listening to but the states don't know about yet and they go down the panel and everybody says bare naked ladies and then the rest is history. He's one of my best friends still. What year was this and why wasn't I mentioned? 1991. I guess it was a bit early. A little bit early. Pre-Peppermint EP. Mark,

I still talk to Mark every day in some way because we send each other our wordles. Oh. Every day I have a little text conversation. I like the way he tells a story. I enjoy the chat, and you can hear it there. It's just last week. And the Jason Priestley chat was because he's in this

Borey Gay psalming series, and he's promoting that. But I, of course, I figured I got a half an hour of Jason Priestley. I figured anyone else would just do, I don't know, 90210, 90210. But I'm like, no, let me find out everything he did to help the bare naked ladies break in the united states and we went through each step along the way from peach pit after dark to the old apartment video and getting that on mtv and yeah it was awesome in the documentary of course he's great i love jason and he was just he he was a huge help to us back then but you know

it was all because we were friends i mean mean, he believed in the band, but we just really enjoyed spending time with him. I haven't seen him a lot over the last few years. He's in Nashville now. Yeah, he's a Nashville guy. And I think, looks like he's doing well.

He went country? Pretty much. He did. He's like Hootie. He's like Hootie. Let me play a song by Trans Canada Highwaymen because I want to speak

about the original singer of this jam. Oh, yeah. Giving her all I am. Reaching out with love and care. And you know she can feel it. Oh, yeah. She doesn't even have to try. Going on forever. Oh, yeah.

Knowing that's the reason why. She said tonight is a wonderful time to fall in love. Oh, yeah. Tonight is a wonderful time to fall in love. Let's fall in love. So that's Craig Dorothyvey on lead vocals. That's from Explosive Hits Volume 1. We're going to hear a few jams from this new album

by the Trans-Canada Highwaymen. We're going to find out why it exists. We've got a lot of stuff to cover here, but this is an April Wine song, and I'm wondering, especially you, Chris, because you are from the Maritimes, and I would think April Wine, there are everything to a Maritimes and I would think April Wine there are everything to a Maritimer I would suspect oh yeah for sure my cousins were really into April Wine and turned

me on to them really early um my when I worked in uh when I was in university at Dalhousie I worked in the at the Victoria General Hospital and somebody a guy who worked in the chem tech was Jim Hemman, who was one of the original guys. It was like the Hemman brothers and Miles. A lot of people think that April Minutes is from Montreal. I think they got big when they lived there, but they're really from Waverly, Nova Scotia. And Miles is a songwriting machine.

I would say that there are, I want to say 20, at least 15 songs that I think that everyone either knows or should know. Yeah, top 40 Canadian hits. And they had hits in the States too. Sure. Anyway, I love them. And then Patrick and I, Patrick from Sloan, and did it sound like I was being disrespectful to Sloan guys?

They're my brothers and I love them. Patrick and I, in 1997, we saw April Wine in the West Island of Montreal, just at some bar. They were the loudest band I've ever seen. They had this weird thing that I had never seen before, which is like a little... On the mic stand, when they moved away from the stand, it would mute the mic. Oh, yeah. That's how loud they were. Anyway, they were great.

And then we made it known that we were there. And then we got to meet the band. And they were all like goofballs, like in shorts and regular guys. And then we were told we were going to meet Miles. And we were led into a dark room where he's sitting at a table and he's candle lit. And we come over. Sloan, by the way, had also just recorded an April Wine song on this party record we had made. And so Miles holds up his ring, like kind of kissed the ring.

And I was like, ha, ha, ha. And he did not break character. Wow. He actually did present you his ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I kind of did sort of feign kissing it. Because that is a funny bit to do. And then he just went right into like, where's my money?

I was like, I don't know how much money. That's not how it works. Again, I don't know how much money, if any, they ever made from that. We didn't make any. Anyway, Patrick was with me and Patrick is a known curmudgeon and he was so

impressed at how much of a curmudgeon one could be. There's something to respect there. His curmudgeon one could be it was his something to respect there's curmudgeonly uh influence anyway that kind of is disrespectful to someone who just died but uh rest in peace king i think we all knew that he was you know i think everybody knows that he was a curmudgeon but he's but he's a curmudgeon but he's he's cool guitar player he's a great singer and the songs are great but okay i spoke to him for like 90 minutes just two years ago and i left that conversation

definitely feeling like there's a little bitterness that they didn't get their dues. Like, he kept referring to the fact that they were kind of punished for being a maritime band that was based in Montreal, and he kept talking about how the Toronto-based bands seemed to win the Junos because they were golfing with the journalists,

and they were hanging out with the journalists and they were hanging out with the press and everything and he definitely felt like uh they should have won a Juno or two or three along the way instead of what they did get which was like a lifetime achievement thing in the 2000s but they were nominated but they didn't win any Junos along the way and he seemed bitter about it whenever I sulk similarly um my manager is when my manager how come we're not nominated for right rock album of the year yeah and uh and then our manager says you're not in the music business you're in the business of driving around picking up checks and then i told that joke to craig northy uh of odds fame and his joke was so my joke ends we're in the business of driving around picking up checks and then he said well the odds is uh just in the business of driving around

steven it's anyway i the bitterness i kind of i guess i get it but uh whatever they don't need junos they have they have the repertoire like whatever who cares and they got you know it was a nice little tribute they got that they got to have the Walk of Fame right before Miles left us. I don't know how it even came to be, but I applied to get on the red carpet, and I had a spot on the red carpet for this event. Miles didn't attend. I think he was unwell at that point.

I was looking forward to seeing Miles, and he was just not well enough to attend. But he did. Yeah, absolutely. They did get it this year, just months ago. Just to promote tomorrow's episode, I was in the elevator with Alan Frew and Glass Tiger because they were being recognized at the same event. And Alan looked at me and he pointed at me and go,

you're the lasagna guy. Like he just remembered that I gave him a lasagna. Chris, did I give you a lasagna? Sure. You don't remember? No. Okay. Well, maybe I didn't give you a lasagna.

Anyways, I just want you to know, I do have lasagnas for you guys in my freezer if you wish to. Wow. Sure. Wonderful. All right. So there you go.

That was my lasagna segue. But Stephen Page, any thoughts about Have you had Garfield on? Well, it's the biggest lasagna. And he hates Mondays. And today's a Monday. So forget it. Me too.

Stephen, any thoughts about Miles Davis? Miles Davis also or Miles Davis or Miles Goodwin, either or. Well, both really are at the forefront of bebop,

hard bop, and then into the way that they just, they both turned it into fusion in the early 70s. If peeing your pants is cool, consider being Miles Davis. Billy Madison.

I love that scene so much, and I quote that all the time. And I saw a guy online made that into a T-shirt, and I reached out to him, and he sent me one for free. Oh, that's nice. That's amazing. I do drop that line of my kids.

I got four kids, and all of them have got that line from me at one point. Shout out to Double Wonderful who sent me that beautiful t-shirt. You got the hang of it here. Okay. All right. Kathy writes in. No question, just a comment. Their album is easily

one of the best of the year. That is you guys. Explosive Hits Volume 1. So fun and great driving music and Stephen's show with the trio at Kerner Hall in September was amazing. Well, thank you, Kathy. Thanks for coming to the show, and I hope you get to come to see one of the Highwaymen shows.

Is this Kathy the cartoon character? Yeah. Let me see. That's Garfield, Kathy. This is the anniversary. This next one's from Mary Worth. This is the anniversary of Ziggy came by. Ziggy from Much Music came by and kicked out the jams, and my first thought was, Ziggy came by Ziggy from Much Music came by and kicked out the jams and my first thought was

Ziggy the cartoon wow oh Ziggy will you ever win that's exactly right that's from the Simpsons so Brian Dunn wants you to know Stephen Page that he's glad to see you

and the four piece B&L legitimately enjoying themselves. Thank you. It's all been Brian Dunn. That's what I call him. That's what I call him as of now. Brian, it's all been done. I saw Brian on Saturday. Just like Brian Dunn

did. That's nice. I'm glad he's seeing that because I think, I don't know much about the other guys But I know that I'm having a blast Doing what I'm doing And it's nice to know that they're enjoying themselves I see a Look People record over there There's a little Kevin Hearn in the back there

Kevin Hearn there There he is And Ian and Sylvia Tyson's son Clay There's Kev. There's Kev. Okay, I know this guy. Bob Scott. Do you think James B. is famous? This is the recurring

question on Toronto Mic. Is James B. famous? He's famous to me. I know who he is. I know who he is. In my mind, everybody knows who he is. I'm with you. Here's the thing. Whenever I would see James B., he would say you know uh say he would like say because we had some conversation about like this would be in 1990 we had some conversation about uh this beat

goes on switching to glide by the kings and he would like every time he would see me he like point at me and say switching to glide um well i now i can say volume two oh okay because we can do it in volume two well it's i i always come for i always conflated switching glide and that hitch in a ride you want to switch in a glide you want to i always kind of conflated those things when i was little let me play the theme if you don't mind because this kind of gives us the origin story and then we can fade it down and then we can drill in a little bit.

I'll just sing over top of it. Sing over top of it. This is the Trans Canada Highwaymen theme and it gives you the answer to the question you're wondering which is like

how did this all come to be? Are we talking the whole time? What do you think of the car sound at the beginning? I think it's cool. Craig and I were on the road Hoping my album would explode But it didn't, yet again Got a call from Jim Malan

With this idea for a band Let's go on the camp rock highway, man He said he'd try to book a show For me and Chris and Craig That is really well written. That's great. Great lyrics. That is really well written. That's great. Great lyrics.

So, Stephen, if you had hits on your solo album, there would be no Trans Canada Highwayman, is what you're suggesting. Thank God I haven't had a solo hit. That's good. That's it. That's exactly right. I'm trying to suppress them all. This is so fun. We just, yeah, we don't want this to be. That's what I say every time I put a record out.

I don't want this to be too big. I want this to be a very niche thing. Keeping it real. Yeah. Well, that's my favorite part of this song is the bridge where I say these dignified elder statesmen are far too famous to haul their own equipment. I know they're only doing it because there's some humble down-to-earth Canadians. I know. It's all in here, the theme, how it all comes to be.

But maybe we can pick at some of these threads here, pull at some of these threads. But is it quite simply, I know you were already working with Craig Northey, right? Yeah, I've been working with Craig since, I mean, I've known Craig since 1992. I think I probably met Chris around the same time. I met you guys. Oh, I met you before that. At that COCA thing. COCA conference. Yep. I was in Chris around the same time. I met you guys. Oh, I met you before that. At that COCA thing.

COCA conference. Yep. I was in the band before Sloan. I might have been in Sloan at the same time and trying to impress upon you guys that I was also in this cool band. Right. The band that I was in was kind of like a roots rock band. I remember because we were on the same showcase, whatever, that night before. we were on the same showcase, whatever that same, that night before. And, you know, a lot of my, you know, I come from a sort of punk background and definitely there'd be a lot of people in my camp who would have thought of Barenaked Ladies were just like,

whatever, goofy or whatever, not cool enough or whatever. But I remember, but I remember being really legitimately blown away when I saw you guys at, I think at the Flamingo or whatever. And in the, in the in the big like it just really made halifax look like amateur hour like we like we like it was so pro and you know ends up with like tyler jumping into the arms of you know the jim and andy and we were just like oh my god let's let's rehearse you know and the the thing is, we were terrible at rehearsing. We just played so much. I hate rehearsing still, as you know.

And I like snacking and I like talking. I like to think that you're like Stephen Page, not determined to get it right. I'll get it right one of these days, maybe, partially. But yeah, how important is it to get it perfectly right? If somebody else in your band is going to get it right. Quick aside, really quickly, Chris, this is on the live stream.

We've got VP of No Sales. His real name is Tyler, who's listening live and says he knows the guy who played the kid who peed his pants in Billy Madison. Really? Like, i think that's wild is it tyler stewart checks out no but i think that's a a fun little little fact here now i will say personally speaking as i i have you both here in the basement and we're chatting it's it's a thrill for me because uh i was massive fans of both your bands bare naked ladies and sloan like they were

absolutely monumental to me in the uh the the early 90s and it's just wild to to know that i'm going to see you guys on wednesday night at horseshoe tavern well it's fun for me to be in the band too because i whatever i told you i saw the baronigas come and kick everyone's ass and in in the halifax but i also you know i would have watched i'm an adult now on tv and i get to play it at the show and we play each other's songs you know that the the focus of the show is really that we play each other's songs and celebrate them and and kind of suffer through our own songs like oh here's my song but i get to play i'm an adult now and then we've done this covers album kind of as a so that we can exist on streaming because otherwise it's like who are these guys i guess they don't exist uh and it was just so easy to do and we did it during

covid and threw files around it was fun to do and it was fun to to limit it to up to 75 like this were a lot of songs we wanted to do after. I was like, no, no, no, we can do a couple volumes of this. So we have to end in 75. I was going to ask, how did you guys decide, and maybe I'll start a song up here. Just get it going

and bring her in the background. It's Stephen Page Diddy. She's come undone. She didn't know what she was headed for. And when I found what she was headed for I worked at a food city for five years going to university and this was the coolest song that would be played on the Muzak

was Undone by The Guess Who. Well, I mean, the recording of the original is so good and the drummer is so good and so jazzy and I cannot do any of that kind of of double stroke roll that he can do. So I'm playing drums on this recording. And I'm doing my best. But Stephen's doing a great job. I mean, he's a belter.

And he can do Burton. He can do Andy Kim. Burton is just one of the great voices. And he still sounds great. And for me, it's daunting to choose that. But this is the oldest song, too. This is like, where were you? 69. It's 69 to choose that, but this is the oldest song, too. This is like, where were you? It's 69 for this song,

so this is the oldest song of the album. Well, how did you come up with the songs? Because I know you all take stabs at being the lead singer because you're all four great singers, and how did you decide which songs you guys would play? I don't think there was much arguing about it.

We were already doing 11 You Ain't Easy by Pagliaro. We had already done that in our show and so I was singing that and, I don't know. I think we just started

to make a list and that's where, as Chris said, let's cap it off at 1975 and then I think, I know I went and,

you know, did some research just to make sure that everything actually charted just so we, there actually could be hits that would have been on a K-Tel record. Because quite often, especially if you're a fan of an artist,

your instinct is to go with a deep cut, and we didn't want deep cuts. We wanted, like, even though I didn't know all the songs on this record, but... Well, we did Carry Me by the Stampeders as opposed to Sweet City Woman. Right. Sweet City Woman, I didn't want to do because, even though that was a song I sang as a baby... Man, I love Sweet City Woman. Right. Sweet City Woman. I didn't want to do because even though that was a song I sang as a baby. Man, I love Sweet City Woman. But the recording is so good and it's banjo and then it's just like.

I feel like it would be a joke if we did it. I think so too. I think a lot of this stuff, like if we had done, if I had done this record 20 years ago, it would all be about the kitsch of the songs and be kind of like ironic takes on them. Can you turn it up right now? Actually, right now. I just want to highlight the fact that this is Stephen playing the flute. I mean, some technology may have been used to make it worth...

You know, I had to do some comping, a little bit of comping there. For instance, I didn't bring my flute with me to this course or show. I didn't even know you were a flutist. Well, I sat in the flute section in band in school. Didn't do much fluting. And we missed the scatting section, so you'll be doing your scatting. I'll definitely do some scatting. So, okay.

I also want to say about Carry Me that we mentioned briefly. I get to do a duet with Steven. Like that's, we basically essentially doing a full on duet. So to me, it's, I wanted to highlight the fact that it's these different parts of your brain coming together in one sort of like CanCon Voltron as a, Edmonton Journal? I forget who said that. So whatever. It's Chris from Sloan and

Stephen Page, you know, singing together this duet. I just thought that was... I wanted to make sure we were highlighting that. It was really important with the mixes too. Craig did all the mixes and he did such a great job of them. But I think what I always wanted was for people to be able to hear

oh, that's a voice I recognize. Oh, and those backup vocals. There's Chris Murphy singing backups with Moe Berg singing the lead or whatever. I think that's exciting for me as a fan. There's Roy Orbison singing with Bob Dylan and that's Roy Harrison. Just keep riding your way. Take anyone you want to. I'm really good at this now. At this sort of syncopated bass.

I practice on the train. There's a way just be mine in your way loving you ain't so easy there's a we do which way you going Billy I sing that one and I originally wanted to do my idea originally was like I didn't want to do season in the sun I was too much but

like I wanted to do where evil grows but Craig had already kind of done that for kids in the hall A Death Comes to Town I think so like we can't do that again so I think you made a good choice

and I've noticed on the Spotify that one's getting the most streams right now I think really? which way you going Billy? yeah people are

digging that one out I think it's it's pretty impressive vocal performance from Chris on that record which way you going Billy I think it's a pretty impressive vocal performance from Chris on that record. The bass playing in all these old songs is insane.

I played a lot of the bass. I remember when I was making Page One album in 2010, I did it with this producer, John Fields. And I remember we were working on a song, and he said, do you want me to play this like an indie rocker or like Jesus Christ Superstar?

And I was like, well, show me the difference. So he was just holding down the root for indie rock, and then Jesus Christ Superstar is like this. It's like playing lead bass. Oh, I love the Jesus Christ Super bass player yeah so much like i it's my favorite so let me understand something here gentlemen so in two days time i will be at the horseshoe tavern to see you guys uh what can i expect and by the way there's a full tour coming

in like march 2024 you're gonna go out You're going to end up back in Ontario again for April 2024. And then you'll do gigs in like Minette. Is that how you say it? Minette? I guess so. I call it Muskoka. Okay, Muskoka. St. Catharines, Sarnia, Burlington.

That's close to here. Ottawa. But what's the breakdown? We're still going to hear songs that you guys wrote for your other bands, right? Just making sure. So you're going to mix in some of these hit... wait, I want to get the... The way that you're mixing it in right now. Explosive Hits Volume 1s. You're going to mix in some of these

with your other band's music that you'll play together. Yes. Yeah, I think that's amazing. I want to make sure that basically the audience gets just bombarded with songs that they know. So like all of our hits, and then, you know, a sprinkling of CanCon classics. We normally bring sort of four, four and a half songs in for Guy. And so it becomes, well, what do we cut?

Do we cut so I bring in say Underwhelmed, Coax Me, The Other Man, The Rest of My Life. Do you want to help me decide which one to cut because I don't know which one. The Rest of My Life I think you can cut. Do not cut Coax Me, do not cut Underwhelmed. What was the other one?

The Other Man. And what was the fourth one? The Rest of My Life. Yeah, I think you've got to cut The Rest of My Life. They're all four great, wonderful songs, but I personally would be devastated if Underwhelmed and Cokes Me didn't get played. All right.

I guess it's a process of elimination. I stopped practicing Cokes Me. I never started. He stopped listening in 95. I'm hoping, I'm going to play, I want to play, I'm a big Andy Kim fan.

He's been here a bunch of times. He's our buddy. And I want to play one more song that Stephen Page sings lead on on your new album.

And then I'm hoping that he nails, but he nails, he nails everything. Then I'm hoping I could play some songs from some, some Barenaked Ladies and Sloan songs that you two are behind

and maybe get you guys to react to it. Sure. A couple other little tricks I want. And here's my deal. I know I was told by somebody to keep it under an hour. It's going to be tough. But if you ever just tap your head, I will just start playing my closing theme

and end this thing. Okay, so I will do my very, very best here. But here's the song I want to play, Andy Kim's. Whoo! Whoo! Ain't it good Ain't it right That you are with me Here tonight

The music playing We gotta do this one What's that? We gotta do this one We are doing this one You have a lot of singing to do Will Andy be at the Horseshoe Tavern on Wednesday? I wish

I think I did talk to him about it I think he goes I think he flies to Calvary or something the next day So I think it was going to be tight for him Yeah, he's doing his Christmas party His Christmas event I might put pressure on him one more time Be nice to see him

Be amazing I might put pressure on him one more time. Be nice to see him. You're amazing. How come no Gino Vannelli on Volume 1? He's coming up. Yeah. All right, I have questions. So this one is for Stephen Page. I recently saw the Subversives doc. This is a documentary directed by Simon Head, who was at TMLX 14 on Saturday.

Good to see you, Simon. This is a documentary about Lowest of the Low. It has your dad and your brother in it. Awesome. And there's a wild scene there where your dad's kind of talking about how... My dad's pretty wild. His production company was responsible

for producing the yellow tape that Barenaked Ladies had much success with, the famous yellow tape, and Shakespeare, My Butt. And people started to think your dad had that magic ear because this is two huge indie success stories in Canada back-to-back from page publications. It was a pretty exciting time because it was like a whole new way of doing business.

The fact that there had always been kind of an independent world, but the street-level bands didn't have access to retailers across the country. It all started because we were making this yellow tape that we had made as a demo to take to South by Southwest with us. We had extras and started selling them off the stage and people started asking for them. Record stores started asking for them. So I didn't have, I couldn't afford to get them duplicated. So my dad said, well, why don't I do that?

And I'll take a cut. And we were like, okay, fine. And it became such a big success that lots of other bands, particularly, you know, Lois and Lo, they had a huge hit with Shakespeare in My Butt right afterwards. It was the beginning of a whole new way of getting indie music into the stores. I always said that I might have liked Lois and Lo, but their record was called Shakespeare in My Butt,

so I was like, I can't listen to that. Because of the word butt? Yes. It's a ridiculous title it's like the delta between excellence of album

and horrific title of album is like massive chasm that's too bad with that well I just wrote to Ron Hawkins

recently because someone was trying to get in touch with him and I contacted him through Instagram he was just just here with Lawrence Nichols I I'd say, three weeks ago.

They got a new album out too, but it's just wild to see the pages in this Subversives documentary. So if you can get a link, I think Simon said you can get a link on the 22nd of December. You can check that out. I'm looking forward to seeing it. That's great to see those guys are still putting new music out and playing. It's awesome. I did a show with them

at Art Park in Lewiston, New York a couple years ago. A couple summers ago. It was fun. Lanrick Bennett Jr. has a question for Chris Murphy. Finally. What's the linen like? If Stephen is pleasant, it appears to be from this distance.

Okay. When is Feltworth coming back and how did they not make it onto Yo Gabba Gabba? My five-year-old Jack needs to know. I don't know what that is. I've heard about that, but people have told me about that, but I don't know what that is. So you really had, because when I heard the question, I just assumed, Oh, Chris is going to know exactly what we're talking about.

I've heard about it. Like people have mentioned it to me before. About Feltworth? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It was this, it was,

uh, it was a band, but not a thing you were. No, you're not involved. You're not involved at all in Feltworth. No, I keep hearing about it.

I think there's a, he was just here. Oh no, that's Snuffleupagus. Sorry. That was, and uh, no,

Pokeroo. That's Pokeroo. No one saw Snuffleupagus when I was growing up. Like he no, that's Snuffleupagus. Sorry. That was, no, Pokeroo. That's Pokeroo. No one saw Snuffleupagus when I was growing up. Like, he just, adults didn't see him. And then they realized that's a bad idea. Yeah, it's like, yeah. I hear, I can tell you something about Snuffleupagus. Oh, my God, yes, please.

It's my jam. When we were on top of the world, when we were doing really well, we got invited to go to watch sesame street being filmed um it was ed and and his i think he only had his daughter hand at the time and i had my eldest isaac and we went to uh studios in queens to watch them filming this you know we're there and there's there's one two three sesame street like right there and just for context I would have been in Halifax sending out mailers of CDs of like hardship posts. That's what I was doing.

Yeah, that's what you're doing. And I had my kid and we're going, and like there's Oscar the Grouch singing I Love Trash with some kids. Wow. You know, and Carol Spinney is holding Oscar the Grouch and no one sees Carol Spinney. Like the kids are just staring right at the puppet.

It's incredible. It's beautiful. Right. Moving. carol spinney like the kids are just staring right at the puppet it's incredible it's beautiful moving um and uh matt so matt vogel who now does a lot of those voices had was a fan of the band that's so he had invited us to this um but they i looked up in the rafters you're not supposed to see any of the any of the puppets when they're not inhabited by a by a puppeteer um because it's as if they're dead i understand snuffleupagus was hanging up in the rafters like just looked up and there's just like

the this giant it was too big to hide it yes it's very large you couldn't see it was so big too big to fail yeah too big to fail like enron but it was just like, it was having a very, very, very peaceful time up in the rafters. I just, I got to see that weird being just up there in the air. My wife used to dance in like, you know, Franklin the Turtle traveling show. And there were a lot of rules about that. You can't be caught smoking or whatever. That's Times Square Franklin smokes. Just like out of his neck like a trach.

So Steve Cole writes in, turning the Anne-Marie Stalker story, Robert Keiling, is that how you say the name? Keiling? I don't know. Okay, Keiling, into the jam,

Straw Hat and Dirty Old Hank is a work of musical poetic genius. Every line of that song... This is Murray McLachlan? No, so we had a song. We had a song called... It's called... It's about this guy who stalked Ann Murray.

Oh, okay. It came from... We were talking about this story, and I remember Jim Cregan saying, you mean the farmer who likes Anne Murray? And it all of a sudden seemed a lot less sinister than it had before. He said, there's a farmer who likes Anne Murray. And I thought, oh, that's an interesting way of looking at it.

I'm just a farmer. So I wrote this song, and we titled it Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank. Oh. I should know that. As if his name was Hank. But then Murray McLaughlin does play harmonica on the recording. Oh, nice. That's cool. hat and old dirty hank oh sort of as if his name was as if his name was hank but then murray mclaughlin does sing it does play harmonica on the recording oh nice that's cool okay so he just says every line of that song could have been ripped from the news stories of the 70s and

steve steve cole's a big fan of it murray mclaughlin uh co-wrote a song with tom wilson called burned out car that i absolutely love it's got um uh who's on the background vocals sarah mclaughlin does background burned out car car not burned out cow that's a very different very that's a great song though too but i i'm i'm i definitely want um my high on my list for volume two of explosive hits is uh whisper in rain by murray mclaughlin um i wanted to say uh purple whisper in rain i wanted to do i well i flirted with the idea of doing uh an ann murray song on volume one like i i sang it and i have i recorded myself singing it but which song i forget i did a couple i think i did uh what are those ones? Like Put Your Hand in the Hand?

Yeah. And I had intended to do Hand in the Hand as a mashup with I Believe There's Nothing Stronger Than Our Love. Right. Okay. And then I forgot. Right. And then later I was like, God. We could do it live.

Yes, we could do it live. A bunch of people have a question about a cover that Bare Naked Ladies did. So let me start it up here and then we'll get, we'll talk to mainly Steven Page, but I'm also very, very interested in Chris Murphy's reaction. What do you thought of this song? And then I have to play a clip that was very controversial in the TMU.

That's the Toronto Mike universe. So let's start. Oh, I know this one have you heard this song Chris I know it our joke about this was uh do you know what a plover is no this is a bird oh yeah okay it's like pl like plovers in an endangered time. I thought they were like an endangered bird. I don't think they are. Lame joke.

In fact, there's probably too many of them. We should throw stones at them. All right. So everybody knows this cover of Bruce Colburn's Lovers in a Dangerous Time. Is this ultimately more popular than the original? Yeah, I would think so. Bruce famously did not like it at first. And had said so in the press.

He said something about how... What did he think of his giant check? I think it changed his mind quite significantly. Because at first he was like, this represents everything I hated about folk music in the 60s. Catchiness. And then later, but a couple years later, we played a festival with him in Boston, and he left a note on our bus apologizing for it.

And then I got to sing the song with him at the ACC for the benefit they did post 9-11. What was it called? I remember this. The Music Without Borders thing was called. And I got to sing that with him there, which was pretty cool. And then we were supposed to do it with him at Live 8, but the show was running late, so we didn't.

So something good had to get cut there. Gord would like to know... Live 8 is a mad fold-in for late. That's right. I would be interested in your reflection, Stephen, on this song in the B&L career arc. It was sort of a one-off for a tribute album that eclipsed everything else on that album

and had a life of its own. Oh, it was huge for us, because it was also... This you know, it was an opportunity for us to make a video. I mean, whatever, it cost $5,000 or something to make this video and it was on TV all the time. We had our yellow tape at the same time, but hadn't made a video for it. So this is pre-Gordon. This is pre-Gordon. And the other thing is this came out right around the same time that the whole City Hall thing happened. June Rollins.

The June Rollins administration had removed us from their New Year's Eve programming. And that's kind of like, forever people would say to us, Oh, that June Rollins really did you guys a favor. She made you famous. And we were like, No, she didn't. We did it because of the quality of our music. And then I realized later, no, totally it did. Because of that news event, we were on, you know, Peter Ransbridge is talking about us on The National, and

this video was playing in the background. We had something to play. So it was a huge gift to us to do this. It was just a big part. And then I remember your Bill Grundy show? Do you know that? Yes, exactly. So, yeah, that was totally our Bill Grundy show. And we did, even before we did Gordon, we were recording, we came into the studio,

to Reaction Studios to sing backups on Reostatic's Whale Music album. Yep. And we were finishing, we'd finished singing backups on California Dreamline, and then Neil Peart came in to play drums,

this drum duet with Dave Clark. And we ended up sitting around in a circle playing percussion together, like us and the Rheostatics and Neil Peart playing percussion on Rain, Rain, Rain. For context, I think I was doing mail

orders of the Threshold Hermit Smart Bomb in Halifax. You know, we were kids. I was 21. Yes, so was I. I was doing nothing. I was doing mail order. But when Neil walked into the studio, he said to me, oh, it's the happiest

face on television because I'm smiling through that whole video, which I never, I haven't smiled as much in my whole life. But that's what he thought of me. And then he bought the pizza. You smiled enough for a lifetime in that video. Exactly. But he was happy to see me

because he thought there's a happy young man. And then he paid for the pizza. I got someone here who wants to ask a question for Chris. It's George Strombmblovels. Hey, remember the time I called you down to my show because I was interviewing Neil Peart? Oh, yeah, I do remember, George. Thanks for that question. And then George was going to introduce me to Neil, but I was too nervous because I think Neil doesn't want to meet people.

Because all I had to say was, you're great. And he doesn't want to hear it. Any regrets? About not meeting Neil Peart? Yeah. That was your moment, yeah but like i i'm kind of glad i didn't but uh i i put what happened when you met miles goodwin like it could have gone to shit yeah but like he that was kind of impressive too but like i i put uh you know i

again i'm uh i'm proud of sloan and what we've done and i joke that the only band that i i bow to is is rush to me they're the the number one Canadian band of all time. Well, you know, here's the other Neil thing. I only met him a few times. But one time I was out for dinner at a restaurant in Toronto. Frowning. No. I didn't recognize you.

I stopped. But anyways, I went to pay and they said, oh, your meal's been taken care of. Come off it. Their meal's been taken care of. Wow. it. Their meal's been taken care of. Wow. And Neil Peart walks out of the back room of the restaurant and bows at me. Wow. And then just leaves.

He doesn't say anything. He just, he paid for my supper. If you had met him, you could have got a free meal, maybe. And that restaurant was Frank Vittieri's. Wow. No, it wasn't. It was nicer than that. And you got.

That's where it got better. I'm trying to make some kind of joke where you got some kind of meal in 7-4 time or something, but I can't think of what it got better. I'm trying to make some kind of joke where you've got some kind of meal in 7-4 time or something, but I can't think of what it would be. Chris was from back in Halifax sending off hardship post CDs. Stephen, what do you think? Mucho doner. Doner corner.

I have a clip I'm going to play about lovers in a dangerous time in a moment, but I wanted to hear some Chris Murphy. Surely there's some Sloan in there somewhere. What do you think of this song, Stephen? I think it's brilliant. It's one of my favorite songs. Yeah.

Oh, here's the good line. Check it out right here. It's not the band I hate, it's their fans. Chris must hate it. I have to sing harmonies on those lines. That was great. Not the band I hate, it's their fans. I have to credit Jay.

That's Jay's line. This is my song, but I stole that line from Jay. And he was talking about Kate Bush. And a lot of people have claimed that... She's not a band.

I know, but I think it's just the idea. I think there is a perception that's the tragically hip. Even they thought, or they had been told that that was them.

Because as a hip fan, I can tell you, the hip... Sorry. I'm aware of that. They sucked. Like the hip fans sucked. I understand but I and then my final button on that thought is that

once you cross over in any way it applies to you. Like it applies to us. Yeah we thought it was us too. But what about Consolidated? They didn't cross over. And they didn't do anything wrong. Literally I used their name because it kind of rhymed with Concentrated OJ. And I thought of them as being something that was really intense.

That could be like not watered down. Right. Something that was. But it was, it's actually Kate Bush. This is the. It was about Kate Bush. And I think it was just like a guy in Jay's class that turned him off of Kate Bush. I think it was just a guy in Jay's class that turned him off of Kate Bush's music

because he was just such a fan. It just drove him nuts. And I have similar people in my life. A guy who drove me nuts, and I couldn't like The Clash because he was just so over the top. Who's Carly Simon singing about in You're So Vain? I think it was Jay Ferguson, wasn't it?

I think it's, yeah. Well, Jay Ferguson, do you know that there's an artist from the 70s called Jay Ferguson? Yeah, yeah. When Jay came over, I actually played the other Jay Ferguson. Well, he may have told you the story that he sometimes gets notes from people like from so-and-so from Black Oak, Arkansas, thinking that he's the other Jay Ferguson. Like, remember those times we had? Yeah. All right. Stephen. Yeah. Here we go. Five more yeah alright Stephen

yep here we go five more Stephen questions because you played a little bit of my song I'm just sort of like the reporter here but you know I'm as

big a fan of yours Chris as I am yours I'm just kidding I can chime in I can find a way I've seen Sloan more times than I've seen Barenaked Ladies actually

to be quite honest with you but there was great controversy in our little community here of the FOTMs, of which you both are FOTMs already, but now even more so. That's Friends of Toronto Mike. There was a FOTM KOTJ episode, which means listeners could record themselves for 30 to 90 seconds talking about a song that satisfied some kind of criteria.

And the most recent criteria was terrible covers of songs you love. So the only rules were you had to love the original and hate the cover. This was the rule. So I'm going to play in its entirety Joe Louis, who I saw on Saturday. He came out to TMLX14 at Palmas Kitchen.

This is what he submitted, Stephen. Hey, Toronto Mike, Joe Louis here. The list of terrible covers is long and painful. But when I focused my search on the Canadian music scene, it was clear to me that there was no greater musical injustice than the one inflicted on Bruce Coburn by the Barenaked Ladies with their trite, sappy, and wholly unconvincing rendition of Coburn's Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

B&L's attempt to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight doesn't even have the strength to kick over a broken sandwich board in Scarborough. And it goes from bad to worse. Just compare B&L's version to one of Coburn's many stripped-down acoustic performances of the song. The ladies are rendered. Unlistenable. So. I've gone and slandered the bare naked ladies. All that's left to do.

Is lock the doors. And go to sleep with a knife. Brian Dunn should be here any moment now. Looking for revenge. Okay so for the record. We all disagreed very passionately with this gentleman, but... Joe Louis, you made me cry.

It hurt. Joe? Louis? Do we hear a rebuttal? Do you have Twinkie on there? Do you have Louie Moon on there? There was outrage in the community because we all... That's one of our favorite covers

and we all love Lovers in a Dangerous Time by Barenaked Ladies. Yeah, you know, we weren't thinking about him when we... that guy when we made it we were just thinking what do we but he sounds so cool though i mean i know it sounds like it hurt him too and i feel bad for that we just made it because when we made that song for that for that compilation record at that time we were talking you know the compilation records were were a thing and people often would choose kind of the artiest

deepest cuts and we said, why don't we just choose the one that we knew from Much Music when we were growing up. That's the one I knew. So we chose that one and Who did that? Who did the comp? Intrepid Records. They did another one. They did a Joni Mitchell one and we were on that one.

That's right. And we did an embarrassing grunge version of, do we have a clip? Oh, I thought it was fine. I liked it. I remember at the time liking it. And it was recorded by a guy named Jamie Stewart, who I never could remember if he was in the cult or the cure, and it turns out it's the cult.

Yeah. And the worst part about it was that there was no internet, and he corrected me when I said, you devils and your deeds. He's like, no, no, i said you devils and your deeds he's like no no it's your devils and your demons i was like oh my god no it is not i know it's not but there was no but he was the producer so where did you find this is you find this in the garbage i need to hear it so i'm going to be humming that all night.

You know, I got a lyric wrong in the Lovers and Haters song. Oh, did you? Yeah. But I just like it anyways. I think I said this fragrant skin rather than this vibrant skin. Yeah. This is... Listen to the snare. The snare is ridiculous.

It's insane. Listen to the snare. The snare is ridiculous. It's insane. We have a buddy who tours with us, and he had kind of long hair, but not super long, but sort of like a bob. And I have another buddy who was calling him. He said, you look like the first grunge person, or you look like the missing link

between hair metal and grunge. Or you look like the guy who, no, he said, you look like the guy who engineered Pearl Jam 10. And he's like, oh, here's what we'll get, some killer reverb on this snare. And then everybody was like, it was so new and grunge. They were like, no, it can't be that. And he's like, well, here's a look at some killer snare, reverb on this snare. And then everybody was like, it was so new and grunge.

They were like, no, it can't be that. And I was like, well, what do you want it to be? He's like, we don't know yet. It's just inventing grunge. Anyway, that snare is so embarrassing. And whatever, it's fine. It's just embarrassing grunge. And I loved Joni Mitchell.

And I wanted people to know that I also loved her. And that's a loved Joni Mitchell and I wanted people to know that I also loved her. And that's a great Joni Mitchell song. It is, but listen to me humming. It's just, whatever. It's fine. You can't leave your life without a couple of regrets here and there.

It's just so of the time and even more so than smeared our first record, which I was embarrassed of our first record for a couple of years because I just thought it was so, Oh, and then was like, we have to make timeless music after that. And then that more, even more than smeared is just like embarrassing.

This song is like, this, this is kicks ass and everything. It's just way too long, but it's a joke factory. Like every four and a half minutes or so before four 37 or something. We have two songs on this record for 40. It's just like excruciatingly long.

But this would have been a lyrics first song, which I don't write anymore. Meaning the lyrics were done and I just hung it on a tiny three-chord thing. Oh, that's enough. Whereas now I'd be like 12 chords in the truth. I've got to force a poem on this at the last minute. Well, again,

if you haven't heard my deep dive into this song, it is episode 1310. What's an example of a thing that you say? Like, listen to this joke. You gotta listen.

No, you gotta listen. So I based a lot of it on your original visit. I'd also talked to Jay Ferguson about the song. And then I did my own homework and I,

you know, there's a couple of different versions and bottom line is I urge you to listen there's a couple of different versions and bottom line is I urge you to listen to 1310. That's the number, the magic number. Do you have access to any music you want? You can just play it? I have access to YouTube.

Okay. Well, this song was based on a song by the Minutemen called Political Song for Michael Jackson to sing, if you want to throw that on, but like maybe that's too esoteric for... Anyway, this song, the musically is just made up on the spot because I had, I literally to sing if you want to throw that on but like maybe that's too esoteric for anyway this was this song the musically is just made up on the spot because i had i literally had i was at the age where i had journals full of poems uh and i no longer do but uh

it's just kind of like talk but like it's kind of a two-chord as opposed to... Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's got a leader not to take. Not to take the big sin. Your risk will change me hostage. Me and fighting with my head. I'm not ambiguous. I almost look like a dork.

That's funny. Okay. Amazing. Okay. So, quickly back to the questions here because I don't know when you guys are going to tap your head. What else do they want to know about Stephen? I find it interesting that you, Mr. Murphy.

Yes, this is about you, Chris Murphy. Not the senator, about you. Right. Okay. People assume, people wrongly assume you're a born and raised Halifax guy You're born in PEI

And then you spent time in Charlottesville, Virginia So how much time did you spend In Charlottesville, Virginia Yeah not much I went from PEI He was the guy marching in 2017 I thought you had the tiki lamps Or whatever those were The tiki lamps I thought you had the tiki lamps or whatever those were.

Tiki lamps. I don't... You don't remember that? I don't get the joke. That was the guys. The bad guys. I don't know what that is. We... It's a band. Exactly. My dad went to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. I was there for like a year and a half

or two years or something like that. We're getting the facts but I would have done I feel like a lot of words that I still would say route instead of route kind of some southern stuff and I did the Pledge of Allegiance and all that baloney

and then I moved to Scarborough for five years and I lived up kind of near where the Berenice ladies guys lived a little bit or like the Myers brothers yeah you were in kind of near where the Baroness and the Ladies guys lived a little bit or like the Myers brothers. Yeah, you were in Courtland. Yeah. Near where my pal Jeff Pouncek grew up.

And I would have gone to I would have gone to John A. McDonald which is I think where the Myers brothers guys. That's right. I would have gone there but I moved away in grade five and then I did grade five through to

you know after university and beyond to 1997 so from from basically 78 to 97 in halifax i'm a big fan of scott pilgrim versus the world and i'm wondering what exactly did you do because i was reading about you being a music performance supervisor for that fine film performance supervisor is correct a lot of people were calling me because they thought i was the music supervisor and they were wondering how do i get my music into this movie a question i also wondered how do i get my music in this movie right um but i i knew people that knew edgar wright the director and we were uh we met and he asked me if it bothered me to see um musicians not able, you know, not playing properly in movies.

And I said, of course, that's, you know, it's, I would rather scratch my eyes out. And he said, oh, you have to work on this. But of course, a lot of the people he had already hired did not play at all. And I had an impossible job. I had to deal with one guy with no lines who was a bass player in a band and he never held a bass i was just like get somebody else anyway i wouldn't have done that because i didn't feel like i had that kind of uh power but i did but nigel godrich the famous uh producer was kind of in on that and i had an audience with him and he said i looked at some of these dailies or some of these like practice videos and they look terrible i was like well you know i i'm dealing with people who don't know how to

play i'm spending a lot of time on this guy who doesn't have any lines who doesn't know how to play like and he's like okay well i'm gonna fire that guy and he did and then it looked like i did and the guy just lives he's just i've seen him since like he lives in toronto and he gives you a stink eye when he sees you a little bit bit, yeah. But it was super fun, and my hands are in the movie as some stunt double guitar hands for Mark Webber's character. It's a great movie.

It's great. And it's very rewatchable. I've seen it like 20 times, and I could watch it again. Yeah, a lot of... For my eldest son, that's his comfort food movie, totally. Yeah, my teenage son loves it too.

It's unabashedly Toronto too, which I quite like. Yeah, I'm so happy that I was able to do it and i got to hang out with michael sarah who's the funniest guy who just basically i just talk about charles groden with him like he was pretty fun hang wow okay and there's a character young neil yes who was wearing a sloan shirt that's right yeah that makes that makes it in there. Brian Lee O'Malley, who drew the comic on which the movie was based, was aware of a lot of Halifax indie rock stuff, Sloan, Plumtree, who had a song called Scott Pilgrim, which is based on a guy named Scott Ingram, who I also know.

I know a lot of the inside baseball stuff of that movie. Amazing. And the Gillis girls went to my church, went to St. Pius X. My primary school was St. Pius X. Oh, really? Nice. Just a coincidence there.

Okay. May the Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give him thanks and praise. Father all powerful and ever living.

You know what this fucking creeps me out? Like you have no idea because I can't unlearn it. I know. It's like ingrained as a kid. You can teach, you can. I hate all that stuff. You're a kid to believe anything. I hate all that stuff.

And it's stuck in there and I'm a lapsed Catholic, a proud atheist, a happy atheist. Yeah, me too. But it's stuck forever and you just trigger it. Yeah. But it's so creepy. It's just comical. But whatever. It's not benign.

It's awful. It is terrible. Sorry you's just comical, but whatever. It's not benign. It's awful. It is terrible. Sorry you had to witness that, Stephen. That's okay. And happy Hanukkah to you, Stephen. Oh, now you told everybody I'm Jewish. Now I'm going to get the hate mail. By the way, I feel awful.

I do feel awful because I played that clip from Joe Louis. And then I do think Stephen... I do think... He's not invited to TMLX if he does. Okay. But I do feel awful because I sensed that it hurt to hear him. I'm extrapolating.

Even though we all love that. We all love that cover. Hamilton Mike chimes in to say, please pass along how much I love that cover. It's not better. It's not worse. It's a completely different song and lovely take on an amazing song and if anything actually lifts the original out of its very 80s style production it makes it now sound sound timeless anyway so hamilton mike loves lovers in a dangerous time

ladies you know the thing is all i was leading to is we had no intention for that we were just part of this record we weren't thinking this is going be, we didn't know that we're going to make a video of it. We didn't know it was going to be a single. Probably if, if they had asked us out right out of the, out of the gate, we would have said no, because we were so focused on what we were coming up with.

So it's just fun for us. It's fun for me to kind of look back and it seems so innocent, like it just, the way that it speeds up like crazy, the way that the vocals are out of tune like all that stuff is so charming to me now but uh and the video the video is charming yeah the whole thing is it was just it was a great experience for us but it doesn't have to be for everybody and and i you know i do get a kick out of apologizing for this moron but i get a kick out

of it i'm also i part of me is like i think there would have been a time in my life when i would have been just as kind of like passionately against something musically and i just it's not in me anymore to even the game the game they hate the hate ain't in you no more no i mean i you know occasionally i can i will when i hear uh what's up by four non-blondes i have to kind of like swallow it back down and be peaceful. You guys didn't want to do like a cute little train beat country version of that? I said hey. No, we didn't. Canada Kev goes way back with Barenaked Ladies, and he had a question. Ooh.

Oh, that's a big question. I woke up this morning And I felt sick There's something inside me Something's gone wrong Something's gone wrong I've got a bad headache And I've got the shakes Nothing seems to soothe this tummy ache

Can it be so? No, it can't be so Has your voices come down, I guess? Live at the Danforth Music Hall. Has your voices come down, I guess? Yeah. Canada Kev wants to know if you ever had that baby, Stephen Page. Yeah, well, I have three kids of my own. I'm not telling you where they came out, but they did.

There's Joe Louie. I'm not telling you where they came out, but they did. There's a Joe Louie. I hate that baby. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this was the B-side, I think, of Enid, maybe. I'll call him Gordon. And if it's a girl, I'll call her Gordon. I just like the name Gordon. This came before the album.

Really? That Gordon reference was what the album came from. Really? Yeah. But this is an uncle of yours, or is it? No, it's my dad's middle name. It's Gordon. But we just decided that Gordon was kind of the quintessentially Canadian name.

Canadian name. It really is, actually. It really is. Steve Cole says he had tickets for opening night of Here's What It Takes at Stratford. But, of course, COVID threw a wrench into those plans. Will we see this musical surface in the future, either at Stratford or elsewhere? I hope so. We're still in development with it.

It kind of went away for a while, obviously because of the pandemic. We were ready to open this thing, this musical, in May of 2020. So it's a musical I wrote with Daniel McIver that was called Here's What It Takes Then. It's now called Walker Roads. And my hope is that it will end up on stage at Stratford in the next couple of years. But it's back in back in development again which is nice i want everybody listening to know that you can go to trans canada highway men.ca to find out the 2024 tour dates there is one tour date this week it's on wednesday it's

sold out though it's at the horseshoe tavern. But you can grab tickets for TransCanada Highwaymen shows in 2024 across the country. And you should go to TransCanadaHighwaymen.ca to see dates and locations and to get your ticks. And if you don't see your town, just be patient. We're going to add more. I think it's amazing what you guys are up to. Very, very cool. Love it so much. And you guys are up to very very cool love it so much and you guys are both great

in your own right with your other you know your trio Steven Page and with Sloan but you made a few jokes about Sloan

will there still be Sloan in our future Chris Murphy I think we're gonna try and get at her in January February do some writing and recording

how do you decide who you're gonna do what with you got so many bands on the go. I try not to push the Sloan guys too hard. I would make a record every year if I could, but everybody's people are dads, and Andrew likes to paint. So I just, instead of driving myself crazy,

waiting and feeling like I have more energy to do things, I just inflict it on other people. So one last question for you, Stephen Page, from Mark Weisblatt. Hey, Mark. Long time no hear. But first, very briefly, I need to shout out a few sponsors here.

So I mentioned that I got Palm Apostor for you guys. I have a wireless speaker, one for each of you. It is a quality Bluetooth wireless speaker courtesy of Moneris. Oh, check that out. Because with that speaker, you can listen to season five

of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast from Moneris hosted by FOTM Al Grego. He went out to the Maritimes and Newfoundland and he collected stories from independent, like small business owners

and entrepreneurs, these inspiring stories and he shares them on season five of Yes, We Are Open. Awesome. So enjoy the speakers responsibly. Also, Ridley Funeral Home

wants to give you the measuring tape. Nice. Oh my God, that's a great piece of merch, the Undertaker's measuring tape. Yeah. I need this.

Are you sponsored by Joe Louis? No, absolutely. I would not accept his sponsorship. Oh, man. I didn't even think about him. Canadian class. I forgot about that. Idiot.

You know, Joe Louis, I used to enjoy eating Joe Louis. The thing is about Joe Louis is he's gotten smaller and smaller over the years, hasn't he? Yeah. What's that called? Shrinkflation? Something like that. They call it. In America, they call that bi-denomics.

It shrinks? Okay, Joey Louie is shrinking here. All right. And I do quickly want to- He was just saying what he believed. Sure. Sorry. I actually told him on Saturday.

I'm glad he had access to us. He came on the mic on Saturday, and I told him Saturday at TMLX 14. That I'm going to make Stephen Page cry. No, that I thought he was being a troll. Like, he's basically found a song we all collectively adore, and he's going to go at it just to rile us up and get us all like, argh. Sometimes I meet people,

and they want to say something like, you know, you guys used to be cool or whatever. It's just some kind of it's basically a way that they might think that they're not being sycophantic or or that they might be remembered whereas i everything else would just be like can you sign this for my girlfriend she really likes you guys i don't i don't know i don't see what the big deal is yeah i don't get it but her name's joe louis i like the bernie Lady stuff before the before the

Bruce Coburn cover yeah exactly one more podcast to tell you about are those yellow tapes I'm sorry you're in the middle of no I mean are those yellow tapes like

were there so many like it was so successful that they're not rare now like do you find one now when they cost like 100 bucks or there's so many there was a time when they were actually

like you know 100 bucks or whatever on eBay and I think because of Discogs and eBay and whatever else, and probably just because it's not as hot a commodity now, like I think they still sell for maybe 35, 30 bucks, that kind of thing. Well, Andrew Ward wants to know, did you ever find out like how many copies of the yellow tape you sold?

I think the official number was 85,000. Wow. That's crazy. By the way, that's higher than any Sloan record. Really? Still. Seriously? I mean, it's possible that one chord down there has sold more now,

but I think of our commercial Apex as being $80,000. Wow. It's possible it's sold more by now, but... Right. Canada Kev sold his yellow tape for $50 on eBay. There you go. That's a good deal because I think they cost, depending on where you bought them. You know, if you bought it at a mall store, like a mall, send the record man, you'd be

paying, you know, 14 bucks for it. But, you know, you bought it from us off the stage, maybe eight bucks. And it was the same, same both sides? Yeah. Five songs, same both sides. Okay. The Advantage Investor is the podcast you guys need for your investment needs. Okay.

Chris Cooksey is the host. Whether you already work with a trusted financial advisor or currently manage your own investment plans, The Advantaged Investor provides the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. And this is key for Chris, less so for Steven, who I know lives in the United States right now. But Recycle My Electronics, Chris, is where you go if you have any old cables or devices or electronics

that needs to be thrown in the garbage. Don't throw it in the garbage. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. They'll tell you a place near you. You drop it off to be properly recycled so the chemicals do not end up in our landfill. And last but not least, I'm not sure, Stephen, I don't think you drink, do you?

I will have a drink occasionally, but not often. And Chris, do you drink? I do not. You do not drink. Okay. Well,

you know what? I'll send you home with some Fresh Craft beer. You might have a neighbor at the holiday season. We have a Craig Northey and a Moe Berg. Okay.

And I'm sure I will, if I'm going to bring these home, if we're going to have a rehearsal tonight, I will have one of these with my friends. They look so nice. tonight, I will have one of these with my friends. Okay, so yeah, so that's. They look so nice.

I feel, I would feel bad opening one of these. It's like a piece of pop art. You can keep the cans. But I do have beer. So that's for one of you. And I have the equivalent around the curtain there for the other. You bring them home. I love Moe Berg.

Love Craig Northey. Moe actually let the cat out of the bag when I was talking to him on Toronto Mic a few months ago. And he mentioned there was going to be some music from Trans Canada Highwaymen that we could stream soon, and I got very excited, and I loved what I heard. Congratulations to you guys on what I hear in Explosive Hits Volume 1. It sounds great.

Thanks very much for having us. And I urge everybody again to go to transcanadahighwaymen.com and get tickets. They're going to Saskatchewan and Alberta and Manitoba. And then they're coming back to Ontario and they'll be as close as Burlington.

And if you're lucky enough to have tickets for Wednesday, oh, I teased the Mark Weisblot question. This was for you, Steve. Can you sing about the basil box? Well, now that I live in the United States, I have to sing, I have to call it the basil box. Have you noticed that from American television?

They call it basil. I don't know. You know what? Did Mark see me walking today on the street? Because I think I actually... This is not from today. Because seriously, today we were crossing the street by the horseshoe, and I saw the basil box, and I sang something about the basil box.

So I thought maybe Mark Weisblatt would happen to be walking past me. He's everywhere. So yes, I can. Will I? No. Not unless there's hard cash on the table. Is this basil from Blue Rodeo at the horseshoe? No. That's great. That's great.

But do tell us, what is the bad? Give us the reference. Oh, I don't know. It's just a restaurant. It's like a fast food place where they might have you know, like a rice noodle dish. Maybe something else with some... A healthier choice. Yeah, you know, like a stir fry

of some sort. There's one right at Spadina and Queen. But I see them all over Canada. Where it's like, oh, where can we eat with my vegan and gluten-free celiac tour manager? Oh, Basil Box. Here in this, as Craig would call it, Puss World, outdoor mall, Walmart kind of place in Victoria. That's where I'm eating at Basil Box. Chris Murphy, thanks so much for returning, man.

This was great. Yeah. I'll see you next week. I'll come in with somebody else. I would love it. You're welcome anytime, buddy. Honestly, I would talk Sloan to your years come on. I'm just kidding.

This was fun. You're going to have to make a third appearance, though. And you, Stephen Page, this is our first time meeting, and I'm just so... Not our last. Better not be our last. We'll finally get our photo together by the trees. Excellent.

That'll be great. And that brings us to the end of our 1,389th show. Congratulations on the show. It's doing really well. Yeah. Thank you, man. Well, thanks for good people like you who come by and tolerate my ridiculous questions.

The Brock Lonahan. Brian Lonahan. Well, that's Brian, but Brock's cool too. I prefer Brock. You know who gave me that? It was the Watchmen. Oh, yeah.

They wanted me to know that Brian would be proud of me Yeah, that's good That's a nice sentiment How do you know this, is what you say Have you talked to a medium? How did you know this? I went into the future and looked on your Wikipedia

I went to the future, there's a thing called Wikipedia And I read it there You? What scares you, Count Floyd? Incidentally, your face scares me. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky. I'm at Toronto Mike. Steven Page is at Steven Page.

Steven's got a V, not a PH. Chris Murphy's not on Twitter. Sloan is on Twitter. TransCanada Highwaymen are on Twitter. But you are on Instagram. I'm on Instagram more. I don't understand Twitter. It sounds like sad news there.

Yeah, you can stick with Instagram. At least we have a place. And you're a Sloan dude. Yeah, man. Love it. Okay. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery.

That's Palma Pasta. That's Raymond James Canada. That's Moneris. That's Recycle My Electronics. And Ridley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow when Alan Frew drops by to kick out the jams 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 rosy and green yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow We'll see you next time. Rosie and everything is Rosie and Grace