Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Flyer Vault: Toronto Mike'd #560

Episode Date: December 15, 2019

Mike chats with Rob Bowman and Daniel Tate about their book about 150 years of Toronto concert history.

Welcome to episode 560 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Bryan Master from KW Realty, and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. I'm Mike from torontomike.com, and joining me this week are the authors of The Flyer Vault, Daniel Tate and Rob Bowman. Welcome, gentlemen.

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever you might be across this planet. Hello, hello. All right, so that first voice you heard was Rob. Absolutely. That deep, resonant, raspy, too many bars voice. Professor of rock and roll. Oh, we'll get into the bios here in a moment.

Just want to say thank you to my friends in Lowest of the Low. Great show last night at Lee's Palace. Like, fantastic. And every time I see Lowest of the Low in concert, I feel like I'm back in high school. It's like a time machine. It's unbelievable.

And they were on point as usual. And I also want to say, Sky Wallace, who's also been on this show, opened up and she's a rock star, man. This Sky Wallace. This is Sky Wallace unopened wallace who's also been on this show opened up and uh she's a rock star man this sky wallace i just this is this is sky was unopened because i have don't play cds anymore but uh sky wallace unbelievable lowest of late low unbelievable and i want to say uh hello hello to a couple of people i was chatting with fotm michael lang who i think has been to maybe every single TMLX. I got to confirm that.

And Becky Dinwoody, who I hadn't seen in 27 years. So Becky tells me she's now in FOTM as well. So thank you, Lo. But have either of you guys ever seen Lois DeLow in concert? Of course. God, they're a great band. We got a 50% turnout there. So, yeah.

So, Rob, how many times would you have to guess? Probably three, maybe four. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they were around a long time. Since, well, he was, yeah,

91 or something like that. That makes sense. About 30 years, yeah. And I mean, yeah, it was nice to see him at Lee's Palace. Nice and intimate. You can get right in front of the stage there. It's not a bad venue. Was the place packed?

It was packed. Absolutely. It was not very big, right? Like, so, yeah, you were jammed in there. It was... Cool. Cool. Now, you guys, I got to say, the moment I learned about the Instagram account.

So, which of you two gentlemen started the Instagram account? I did. So Daniel, are you the... Okay, so I want to find out like a little bio here. So Daniel, tell us like who you are and what led you to, you know, put together this book, The Flyer Vault. And then we got to talk to Rob Bowman. You came up in a conversation recently with Bernie Finkelstein, I think. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. So it's like, we know you're the academic here, but yeah, Daniel, let's start with you, my friend.

Yeah. So I started The Flyer Vault in 2015 as an Instagram project. I guess it was a bit of an art history project. I just wanted to basically share a lot of the flyers that I'd saved over the years. There was just a few years where I was like really into the Toronto music scene, like sort of behind the scenes working on the promoter side. And I basically saved this pretty massive collection of flyers. Long story short, I just wanted to share them. So I opened up the Flyer Vault Instagram account when Instagram started popping and uploaded them, shared them with people. Stories started pouring in.

And the account kind of grew arms and legs. And fast forward like four years, here we are, and we turned it into a book. It was screaming to be a book, I'll tell you right now. People were telling me, I'd be getting DMs from people. They'd be like, man, you got to do it. Like, put this in a museum. Do an exhibit. Put it in a book i'll tell you people were telling i'd be getting dms from people to be like man you gotta do like put this in a museum do an exhibit put it in a book please like so i'm glad it finally came to fruition well the moment like i i the moment i discovered the instagram i'm like i had to scream it from the mountaintops i'm like on this show i'd be like okay you guys need to go to instagram and search the flyer vault but the the one thing i remember i'm not too far

from mimico here and it was the poster for james brown i knew that was when you're gonna bring up because a i i literally bike by that strip mall or whatever the hell it is now and i had no idea the mimic combo do i have this right yes mimic combo roller rink there it is yeah wow okay so and and and i see this and it's first of all so two things one is that that's james brown's first what year was it you guys 65 65 so that's the first time james brown played canada and they played toronto probably canada yeah i guess assume if you played toronto as your first stop what do i know usually true usually that's a safe assumption so it's the mimicomombo Roller Rink.

This is a legendary place, actually. A lot of people say their parents used to actually skate there in the 60s and 70s. It had a pretty good run. It wasn't one of those blip-on-the-radar venues. They did a lot of stuff for at least a couple decades. And yeah, just to find this poster in a record shop by chance was incredible. So I immediately had to purchase it and put it in the book. Yeah, thank you.

And you've been selling reprints, right? I did a very small run. I mean, a lot of these I don't want to sort of mass produce. It kind of cheapens the value. I did a small run to a few people. All right, Rob, tell me, actually let me ask Daniel, how did you hook up with Rob? And then Rob, we need to hear all your credentials.

You'll need to, all the initials and stuff. We're going to be here for a while then. Listen, we might, we'll make it. It's going to be a six hour podcast. I love Rob's shirt, by the way, his sweetheart of the rodeo. That's, that's beautiful, man. It was at the reunion show down at Nashville,

at the Ryman Auditorium. Wow. It was an amazing show. I feel Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium. Wow. It was an amazing show. I feel like we could do another book just on rock and roll t-shirts and you would kind of- We'd just use my collection. You would, yeah, we'd just use your collection.

That could be another book. Like, for real. That's next Christmas, man. There's hundreds of them. I'm serious, that's next Christmas. We'll get to work on that one. We'll get you back here one year from now to talk about that thing.

So, Daniel, how do you hook up with Rob? Yeah, so, you know, I'm in this rabbit hole called the flyer vault. I'm starting to, you know, it really started on hip hop and electronic music, but I was starting to get a little antsy and I wanted to go into other areas of, of expertise in music because the wide world of music is so vast and wonderful. So I started getting interested in the history of Yonge Street and the history of like the 60s Yonge Street scene when it was in its heyday. And I realized that while I listened to the CBC podcast where I found out that George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell lived here for like a period of time, like three, four years, which to me was like

incredible. I was like, holy shit, these guys actually lived in Toronto in the late 60s. So I wanted to learn more about that. And somebody gave me a lead that, you know, Rob Bowman here is a sort of local authority on everything Parliament Funkadelic. You should reach out to him. So Googled the man, thanks to the internet he's all over google you can find him no problem uh reached out just kind of like cold emailed him like hey i'm

just some random schmuck who's you know learning about music but hey i have a question for you and he's like yeah let's talk he was very um very polite and you know you you weren't you didn't kind of push me away which i appreciated and in fact um we suggested to have a coffee uh in a starbucks somewhere in high park or wherever it was anyways long story across the street from the running room maybe uh that's the uh that's the starbucks i used to go to i ran there to make a long story short um i i did a little bit of research on rob so i kind of knew like what his credentials were and i knew his background and so i definitely wanted to kind of impress him with the project

that i was working on so i brought my laptop which was fully loaded with like 4 000 of all these crazy flyers and posters and and newspaper ads that i'd collected over the years and i basically put on a little demo for him and i said hey let me show you what i got cooking over here wow and i started showing him crazy stuff like you know van morrison in 1974 and alice cooper and and black sabbath and all this other stuff but i was going into all those shows all those shows that he had been to um and then so rob was just like wow this is really impressive who are you let's talk and then we just continued to talk. We formed a friendship out of that. And we just talked about doing some projects together.

And he was doing a lot of stuff on his end, like documenting concert history. And we both eventually realized that a book was in the works. So, Rob, what makes you an authority on this subject? Who the hell are you? You're asking a big question. I'll try to be succinct. I'm obviously a professor of music,

first person in Canada to ever teach about popular music at the university level. I pioneered it. One of the first in the world, but the one in Canada. I started writing for magazines when I was 15. My first cover story was interviewing Pink Floyd at the Dark Side of the Moon tour. When I was 16,

I've done over 300 CD reissues, won a Grammy, nominated for six. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Slow down. Don't bury the lead, man. I made 15 documentaries, built the Stax Museum

in Memphis, Tennessee, write for the last 23 years part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction program. And that's just the beginning. Been on the road with the Rolling Stones,

spent three days with Bob Mar Stones. Spent three days with Bob Marley. Daniel, I need you to leave. I need you to vote this night. That's with Lou Reed. Did three CDs with Funko Dall. You forgot.

You were also friends with Isaac Hayes. Isaac Hayes was one of my best friends for a long time until he died. But anyway. Well, okay.

That gives you a sense. I've done a few things. Where's this Grammy coming from? Like you mentioned in that wonderful spiel that you're a Grammy Award winning individual. I've done a few things. Where's this Grammy coming from? Like you mentioned in that wonderful spiel that you're a Grammy Award winning individual. I won a Grammy. Third time I was nominated was a loser first two times.

Much better to be a winner. Third time I won four of my liner notes, which were 47,000 word monograph to go with the 10 CD box set that I co-produced called Complete Stacks Volt Soul Singles Volume 3, 1972 to 75. Do you think I've said that a few times? That rolls off the tongue. I prefer The Flyer Vault.

That's a title goes. Yeah, The Flyer Vault's a great book. It might not win a Grammy, but maybe it'll win a book award. I'll tell you something. I'm probably one of the few people that actually has seen Rob Bowman's CV, and it is a book unto itself. That'll be the next book. It's about 60 pages.

And Mr. Bowman, you're in the Blues Hall of Fame? Oh yeah, I forgot my book's in the Blues Hall of Fame too. And I'm getting another award in Memphis in January, Lifetime, Keeping the Blues Alive award. You guys make a dynamic duo, actually.

I'm just riding his coatt guys make a dynamic duo, actually. This is a good... You know what? I'm just riding his coattails. No, no, no. You know, Daniel, I mean, it's kind of interesting because we're about 20 years age difference, maybe 22, I'm not exactly sure. But we actually have an amazing amount in common.

Both of us have wide interests and deep curiosity about all things musical and that's why this book goes back to actually 1840 we say 1850 on the cover but we got a you know we had to go back another 10 years but it goes right up to 2000 and we could have gone up to 2018 but it just seemed like a weird year to end the last show i think the first the first image that we included was jenny lind at st lawrence hall 1851 right the last image we included was the up and smoke tour dr dre snoop dog uh ice cuban eminem july 4th 2000 at the molson amphitheater and if we could manipulate it we'd put jenny lind with dr imagine that And just see what came out. Crazy.

We're going crazy about finding rare country shows. We're going crazy about finding gospel shows. We're going crazy about finding details about hip-hop in the city that nobody knew. Both of us have that kind of wide, deep-ranging, intellectual

curiosity. I always say this, as a guy who's on episode 560 like half the battle's curiosity like really like uh it ain't a battle it's just a drive right you got the curiosity and the passion the rest uh yeah it's just uh blood sweat and tears let's go and we see each other i mean there's a division of labor in a certain sense. There's 70 chapters. I wrote 14. Daniel wrote three.

Daniel got together all the images. But at the same time, I'm sending Daniel chasing after certain images. He's finding details about shows for me and sending me down rabbit holes. The two of us were back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, we had a good thing in the production of this book. Me and Rob, as you said, had a good division of labor. And it's hard to find people that you just work with well, where it's just kind of easy.

Everyone kind of knows their role. They can consult with each other. There was just that level of respect putting this book together that I found working with you. And that was refreshing. It's a breath of fresh air. Well, and you know, we did know our respective roles, but at the same time, we both helped each other with our respective roles.

Yeah. Like, it's clear basically what we were doing. And we weren't messing with each other, but we were certainly feeding great stuff to each other, which helped bring this book to the level that it came. Fueling each other. Yeah. So it was a great partnership.

And the book is fantastic. Whoa, whoa, what's this? What's the sound I hear? Forward by Geddy Lee? Okay, how does this come to be, Geddy Lee writing the foreword? Geddy Lee? Who's Geddy Lee? Geddy, Geddy, Geddy.

Daniel gets props in this one. Yeah, just some band name rush maybe you've heard of them maybe you haven't I've done three box sets with them but we're still giving credit to Daniel on this one absolutely this is again me

utilizing my inner chutzpah that I have a lot of chutzpah and I get that from my grandma anyways I just, I just, yeah, I just, well, first off, I knew he was following me because I was posting a lot of Rush stuff, right? Yeah. I love Rush. And Geddy got wind of some of the stuff I was posting. He started following me, which was super cool.

And then I just had this idea that the perfect person to introduce this book to the city would be the guy who loves this city, who makes this city proud. And who would that be other than Geddy Lee, in my mind? And you know what's kind of cool? Geddy was following Daniel. He stumbled on Daniel's Instagram account one day because Daniel posted, I believe, the 76 Massey Hall show. Yeah, the 2112 Tour. But Giddy, of course, like all of us, there was a time before he was famous. And there was a time he was growing up,

and for him to see Cream or Led Zeppelin were like seeing the gods. And he loved when you'd post Led Zeppelin stuff. And he actually told us great stories for this book about his, you know, passion and adventure at certain shows. No different than anybody who isn't making billions of dollars, just passionate about music. And so he loved the Instagram account because Daniel, again, started with hip hop and electronica, but kept expanding backwards. And still, if you go to his instagram account every day he's posting stuff and one day it'll be johnny cash one day to be public enemy

but it was really cool when you post a lot of these stuff these things like you you see how these artists influenced like an entire generation these artists influenced not just regular folks, but musicians. So tying the Led Zeppelin show to the sort of evolution of Geddy Lee's musical journey and the creation of Rush, putting those together in this book was really rewarding for me, for both of us, to just

see that. It's super cool. And you know what? Rush played my high school very first high school dance as a four-piece. That's when they had two guitars. Very rare dance, as a four-piece. And so they had two guitars, very rare. Rush as a four-piece. And of course, they were nobody.

We didn't know who they were. And they were playing Cream and Led Zeppelin covers. It was, you know, absolutely. But it was also cool to see how all these rock bands were doing the high school circuit in the 70s.

That was like a big thing. Like, guess who was was playing Northern Secondary? Rush was playing Newtonbrook. They even played churches and Lighthouse. Pete Funk also played high schools in this city. Alice Cooper played high schools in this city. Alice Cooper. Imagine Alice Cooper

played your lunchroom cafeteria at high school. It's crazy. The reason was the drinking age was 21. So high schools were effectively all ages kids. When the drinking age went down to 18, it killed the high school circuit for those kinds of bands. Because now, although technically it had to be 18. Was it 18?

Yeah, it dropped to 18 before it went back up to 19. I didn't know that. Okay, cool. So as soon as it dropped to 18, Rush stopped playing high schools. They began just playing bars and all their 18-year-old fans could go, but probably the 17- to 16-year-olds got in with fake ID too.

Right. Right? So it changed everything. But before that, the high school circle was really important. So did you just, you saw he was like a fan

of your Instagram, so you just messaged him and say, I'm writing a book. Would you write the foreword? Actually, well, the way it really started my first I had this idea to do this uh mini series on Instagram uh called like just

you know major moments in concert history that impacted you as a person right so I had a few people I invited them in Elliot Lefkoe is one Rob um Danko Jones um and Geddy Lee so I reached out to get him like hey I'm doing this little series on Instagram. You want to share a story of Toronto concert history that impacted you? Like what show did you see that profoundly impacted you? And he said, yeah, no problem. I'll tell you about my Led Zeppelin story. And then basically a couple months after that, I reached out to him again.

I said, hey, I'm putting this book together. Would you be interested in maybe writing the foreword? right and he's like you know yeah it sounds interesting let me get back to you i'm on a book tour myself because he's got his uh book a big beautiful badass book of base which is great book which is an amazing book and and i love the fact that this book in like when i go on indigo and i like i hold that book in this book in both hands they just feel like a natural gift a natural pairing his book is heavier though his his book could be on the book of baseball getty lee's at all those jays games he's a baseball dude too do you know that uh he donated his collection of negro league baseballs to the negro league hall of fame in kansas city. Their whole collection is predicated

around what Getty had built over those years. Amazing. So he's also like a hoarder collector like us. He's a natural born archivist. We're all cut from the same cloth. He's a very sweet man too. So you reached out to him? Yeah, so I reached out to him

and a little poking and prodding, but over time he relented, wrote something very nice, and we appreciate him for it. And not only did he write write something nice what really impressed me is he did it in a hotel room while he was on tour yes so it wasn't uh you know it wasn't just okay i got some time today i'll go do this but he'd obviously really looked at the pdf of the book we sent him because his intro or his forward really does summarize so much of what the book is all about. This wasn't just, oh, Fire Vault's great.

These posters are cool. This is going to be a great book. He really had thought about it. And I really love the last statement he makes in this forward. It's a record of the musical life of a city that, thanks to the Fire Vault, is gone but no longer forgotten. Beautiful. Well done, guys.

By the way, my friend Mark Weisblot, he writes at 1236, this is his daily newsletter. He comes on once a month for a two-and-a-half-hour deep dive into everything. He tells me that the flyer vault has, like, how does he word it? Over ten times the holds at the library compared to the number of copies they ordered. Like, apparently, he monitors this kind of stuff. Oh oh i've been monitoring that kind of stuff too yeah like so people want to like you know ideally they go and they they buy a copy of course but uh people definitely want to get their you know mitts on this thing and uh check it out yeah there's still

like 130 holds i think and i think they ordered like 12 and the 12 are circulating throughout the system i feel like they need to order more oh for sure they but i guess like it's also kind of cool it's sort of like when they do a limited release of a sneaker and they only like because they want they want that lineup out the door that's right that's right that's right okay so here's the structure for today i'm going to give you guys some gifts in a moment here we're getting gifts you're getting gifts yeah oh my god although it looks like there's only gifts for one of you because for some reason, I guess it got lost in translation.

I remember chatting with you, Daniel, and I remember Rob, I had the note that Rob couldn't make it. So I know, I know. So it doesn't matter. I'm so ecstatic that Rob is here. Maybe that was a different date. I didn't offer to leave.

We were shuffling dates around. I didn't offer to leave when he told me that, but he said no. And I said, no, Daniel's leaving. I said, no, come on, just kidding. So I will have gifts for both of you. But the way we're going to structure this

is like the chapters in the Flyer Vault. I mean, they're kind of, they're not just by genres. Like there's one for festivals, for example, in different chapters. But like there's a chapter for jazz, the blues, country, folk, 50s rock, classic rock, soul and R&B, reggae, metal, EDM.

That's how it's broken down. But for the purpose, to keep this a reasonable time, because this would be an eight-hour episode if I had my dithers here, we're going to drill deeper into two of the chapters that I'm most interested in. One is called Punk, Hardcore, and Grunge, and the other is called Hip Hop.

So we'll play some jams from there and tell some stories from those two chapters. We talked about the Mimicombo that is no longer in existence. It was a roller rink in Mimico, like on Lakeshore. No, yeah, on Lakeshore. Yep, yep.

On the south side. What other venues, just real quick off the top, what are some other venues that maybe a 40-something-year-old guy like me was never able to visit but was kind of key in this city's culture? Well, the casino. We always go to an unbelievable place at Queen and Bay. There is also Shea's Hippodrome, which is right at the same corner,

but on the opposite, if you will. Those two were fabulous, fantastic places before either one of Daniel's or my time. The shows that played those places were remarkable. Club Top Hat, Palace Pier. Yeah, that was just a parkside of Lakeshore. I'm always, okay, Parkside, hold on. Club Top Hat, Louis Jordan played there.

Yeah, so that was in the Sunnyside Pavilion. And Sloane's book played there. Because I biked home from Lee's Palace yesterday along the waterfront, and I'm going by, as I do all the time, the Palais Royale. Still there. So was it near there? Yeah, just west. Just a little bit west of the Palais Royale.

And there's also the Pier Palace. Yeah, so it's interesting because when you go back in time, the way Toronto was geographically laid out, everyone went to the west lakeshore area to have fun like sunny side was like the canada's wonderland of like the 20s and 30s my grandparents used to go there and go swimming and there was like a circus whatever so a lot of action in our city and of course nightlife and entertainment right happened in that western flank of our lake shore.

So starting from the Palace Pier, which is pretty much at Humber Bay, and then you move east to Sunnyside Pavilion where we had this club top hat where Louis Jordan played and tons of other... Thelonious Monks first came here. Thelonious played there. Wow.

And then you go further east and that's where Palais Royal is and tons of legendary shows there. So very interesting. I was just talking to Mark Miller, who's written a lot of great jazz books about jazz in Canada, and he was saying, you know, somebody really needs to do the sunny side,

you know, west, lakeshore history of jazz in Toronto. We cover a lot of it here, but he's talking about a whole book. I'm sure there's crazy stories. And Mark's the guy to do it. That'd be cool. It was an amazing scene. Lots of stuff like that in this city.

It keeps changing what was going on. Amazing. I mean, I'm still remembering that learning a Mimicombo existed and that James Brown played there. And you know when he played, that was the night there was a great blackout on the eastern seaboard. All of Toronto, New York,iladelphia boston blacked out more babies born nine months after that than any other date in the last 45 years but there was power somewhere where could that be at the mimico

they either had a generator yeah or there's some weird screw up on the power grid that this one little area of Mimico had electricity. People were driving to that show without streetlights from Scarborough, risking their lives and then seeing the lights on and James playing. Well, he was the hardest working man in showbiz. So that must have something to do with it. There you go. By the way, let's talk maybe a quick moment here because I'm going to talk to people about banjo dunk here but Stompin' Tom Connors

I mean I've had I've done an extensive episode on the Horseshoe Tavern for example and sort of no pun intended his stomping grounds for a long time there but 68 to about 71 right that's right and then pre Gary's I guess because the Gary

you know the funny about the Gary I had both Gary's on separately, but they only did like nine months at the Horseshoe Tavern. But when we talk about it, it's like a run. Those nine months were insane. I was on the guest list permanently for the nine months and went every week. All right, save it because I will play some music from one band that played the Horseshoe

during the Gary's run when we get to the... Stranglers, Talking Heads, Para-Ubu, which band? It's a bigger band than all those, actually. Bigger band? The Police. Oh, my God. The one that nobody went to. Right.

Okay, so Brian Master tells me he was there. Brian Master Radio. I guess he was at Chum FM at the time. I can't say he wasn't but I know about a thousand people who say they were and there's less than 30 I was there

that I know is not true I did the math on that my Daxon was there but I wasn't I can't take credit Sting was there Sting he did the encore

in his underwear he did the encore is what I was told by Gary Cormier I never heard that story that's a good one yeah apparently and there's a photo somewhere

there is actually. I've seen it. He played in his underwear, yeah. Oh my goodness. And I think they both say approximately 16 different people combined for the two shows is what I've been hearing. I've heard 25, whatever. But hardly anybody knew about it.

Speaking of playing naked, actually a couple weeks ago on Instagram, I posted some video of the Chili Peppers' first show here at the Palace. And they were wearing their socks. Yes. Socks on cocks. That was the move. I can one-up that. At the edge of Gary's show, the Cramps played the evening finish. We tell the story in the book. Lux and Tears hanging from the pipes,

totally naked. Totally naked. Sweating like a pig. It was June in there. That plays at New Eric and That's Rock and Roll. So people love what we're talking about, they really should just, I mean, it's not too late to get this for somebody, a music lover in your life for Christmas. You should pick up the Flyer Vault.

Yes, you should. In fact, I have a copy, but I have a second copy upstairs because I'm one of those guys who got it on hold from the library and it's upstairs. I better bring it back so someone else can enjoy it

because I have multiple copies. Well, it depends how many coffee tables you have. That's right. There should be at least one per coffee table. All right. If you're going to buy it today,

apparently Indigo Bay and Bloor has it, but Eaton Center sold out. Yeah. So go to Bay and Bloor. Or Sonic Boom. What you guys should

do is you guys buy half the copies there and then you return it to the other location. Maybe that's how you get it there. I don't know. Just trying to think

out loud here, but trying to figure that out for you. Okay. So everybody is invited to Doogie and Dunn do Christmas with guest Deborah Grover. Now, Dunn is the Banco Dunk. I've been, Banco.

You know, you said Danko Jones. No, Banjo Dunk, who I've been talking to you guys about for all month now. So Banjo Dunk is the Dunn. Doogie is actually Douglas John Cameron. So this is Banjo Dunk's musical sidekick. They are at Free Times Cafe. That's at

320 College Street. They're there Thursday, December 19th at 7pm, but you can come for dinner at 6pm. And if ever there was a time for joyful music and playful banter, it's now. So join Banjo Dunk at the Free Times Cafe as they set the musical table in anticipation of a happy and healthy 2019 Christmas. And their guest, by the way, Deborah Grover, she's the star of

Anne with an E on CBC and Jan, which is on CTV. So to reserve your seat, call for a dinner reservation at 416-967-1078. It's $20 at the door. I mentioned Brian Master. He swears he attended one of the police concerts at the Horseshoe Tavern. There is a photo of him

with the police that some were floating around. I have seen. But he is also a salesperson with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage, and you can write him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com to get on his excellent monthly newsletter mailing list. I have stickers for you, gentlemen.

Each of you gets a Toronto Mike sticker. All right. Limited edition, right? Limited edition, courtesy of StickerU. If you guys ever need Flyer Vault stickers, I highly recommend StickerU.com. They even have a bricks and mortar store on Queen Street near Bathurst,

and stickers make great stocking stuffers at this time of year. I have a lasagna. Before I said it, I want to make sure I actually did, but I do have a lasagna for each of you, a frozen lasagna from palma's kitchen so palma pasta's a proud sponsor of this program and they've sent over uh when when you guys uh cook these up and eat them you will tweet at me or email me or instagram me

and say this is the best lasagna you guys have ever made that is a most thoughtful gift no one has given me a gift of frozen lasagna. This is the first for us. You're a sweetheart. Well, not just lasagna from Palma Pasta. I also have fresh craft beer for you guys from Great Lakes Brewery. So you guys are leaving with lots of goods. Amazing. You didn't know that, did you? No. I would shower you.

We do all these other interviews and, you know, they give us nothing. And they give you squat, right? Yeah. They smile at us. Just makes me angry. You get a swag bag at Toronto Mike. You get a swag bag for sure. So you got beer, you you a squat, right? Yeah. They smile at us. It just makes me angry. You get a swag bag at Toronto Mike. You get a swag bag for sure. So you got beer, you got a sticker, you got a lasagna. Now we're going to... I'm going to start.

I'll start with that band we've been teasing there. Why not? Okay. So we're going to play some tunes for the rest of the show, and you guys can bury me in great stories. Now, the police famously played that horseshoe tavern for the two nights and whatever 25 people show up or whatever and i guess shortly thereafter roxanne breaks right my uh and then the rest is history but you know they play the edge as well

with very few people more than 30 but it still was an under-attended show. It's not until the next round that they finally hit Massey and then of course the Garys do the police picnics, which make their life and make the city so rich. So the police were like a slow simmer before they really blew up. A couple rounds before they blew up. And really unknown on that first round.

Yeah, the first round unknown, and it sounds like the way the Garys worked, if they would get imports and they would be kind of in touch with what's yeah the first round unknown but and it sounds like the way the Gary's worked only extensive conversations is if they they would you know they get imports and they would be

kind of in touch with what's going on overseas and stuff and if they liked it they booked it like it was really 100% based on their personal interest

one of the great lines is they booked out of their record collection if they loved it they would book it if it made money great if it didn't well

we try they were also in the know gary top was in the know because he's quoted in the book and and when he was getting hip to this new hip-hop phenomenon coming out of new york city um there wasn't many avenues to figure it out and he was subscribed to the village voice right so he was reading new york's alternative newspaper circa like 81, 80. But understand. To see what's going on.

And you've got to give them props for that. You could buy The Voice in Toronto bookstores. You could. I bought it every week, too. Oh, so it was widely available there. Oh, yeah. Like anybody who was interested in culture was buying The Voice because it was everything going on in New York.

There was also a time when music rags were part of the culture, weren't they? You'd buy NME Melody Maker every week. You'd get The Voice to see what was going on in New York. NME Melody Maker to tell you what's going on in London. And there was that one you wrote for in the 70s. Remember I once found an article and I sent it to you? Which rag was that? There's tons I wrote for.

The first one was Beatle, but I don't remember what you found. Stage Life, Roxy. I think it was a Roxy music review. No, but those were the magazines. Those were three actually the same magazine, kept changing names, owned by Michael Cole. It'd be really cool to get a hold of all those old music magazines from the 60s,

70s. They had charts, awesome articles. This guy wrote for a lot of them. That's another whole world of music that I'm interested in. I just love soaking in the history I have before me here. Because I love music and I love this city. And you guys smash them together

like, what is it, the peanut butter and the chocolate. Or smash together like the mosh pits at some of these shows. I just gave about 3,000 magazines. Oh, yeah, so talk to me. So we're in. To U of T.

Oh, yeah? Media Commons. Nice. Even though you work at U of T. Well, yeah, because U of T's archive is the archive in Canada for popular music. Oh, yes. And actually, I do a lot of work for them, even though I'm a full professor at York. And York's archive doesn't specialize in that.

So I love York, but U of T's got this thing happening, and York's Archive hasn't specialized in that. So I love York, but, you know, U of T's got this thing happening, and that's where I'm coming from. Yeah, U of T was a big resource for the book, too. A lot of good stuff in those libraries and archives. Okay, so this is the

punk, hardcore, and grunge segment of the Flyer Vault episode of Toronto Mike. One, two, three, four. Okay. Man, I'm saying, my two favorites, I like a lot of different musical genres, but this chapter, and then, of course,. One, two, three, four. Okay. Man, I'm saying my two favorite genres, I like a lot of different musical genres,

but this chapter and then, of course, the hip-hop, which we'll get to in a bit, and we can revisit those early. Because I do, I'm very interested in the hip-hop section as well when we get there, because one of my favorite episodes of Toronto Mike was with DJ Ron Nelson.

Oh, Ron's important. You've had Ron on here? He's really important. I've got to listen to that episode. You're damn right you do. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Ron's important. You've had Ron on here? He's really important. I've got to listen to that episode. You're damn right you do. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah,

because I had to get him on because Maestro was a good friend of the show and so was Mishy Mee. Oh, I love both of them. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, they're there. That must have been

a fascinating conversation. Honestly, I, and I'm, you know who else has been on the show and this is me now bragging, but Chuck D's been on this show

so I'm, yeah, I know. Chuck's a good friend of mine. I'm as surprised as Daniel is. My jaw just dropped. What a wonderful, what an accessible guy. Chuck bought my Stacks book, 200 copies,

gave them to everybody who worked for the PE organization at Christmas that year. That's unbelievable. Yeah. And then he reached out through Errol Nazareth to put,

so he could have dinner with me. He shouts out. Because Errol knew me and Errol knew Chuck. Well, every time Chuck talks Toronto, if you will, he shouts out Errol Nazareth. Because Errol's one of the first people to ever interview and review PE. Shout out Errol Nazareth. He interviewed us too. Well, you do know, you will learn this from the Chuck D episode, that the title, It Takes

a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, it was originated in this city. It was written in now, I think? Yep, yep, yep. Like, yeah, maybe Errol. I don't know. Maybe he wrote it in now. I don't even remember.

So you're saying that's a quote from an Errol article? It's from an article in now. I'm crediting Errol maybe erroneously. I'm going to have to dig into that. I'm going to dig into that. Okay, lots will spill. Look at this. We're going to have a nice collaboration here. So, going to dig into that. Okay, lots will spill. Look at this. We're going to have

the nice collaboration here. So, okay. So, the police, so you mentioned, yeah, so the first time is legendary, but that second time I think people think

maybe it was sold out at the edge. I'm not sure if it was sold out or not. I know it had a pretty good audience, but it wasn't like pandemonium like Elvis Costello

at the El Macombo or the Stone Surprise shows. It was still not that insane. But Outlanders was a smash record, wasn't it? It was a big record, yeah. So I guess after that record, then they moved up to the stratosphere of arena shows. Wow, then Massey Hall first, then arena shows.

See, if you don't dig into the details, you'd think, okay, Massey Hall? I knew that, right? I believe, yeah. You'd think there's pre-Roxanne and there's post-Roxanne, like really that this would be the moment. But you know, if we want to talk punk in Toronto, we really got to go to September 76.

We got to go back. Okay, go back to New York. I'm going to play a little bit. I want to hear, I'm sorry, I pressed play before I even heard where you were going there, which is a bad production on my part. So let's see, if you're not going there, let's do Ramones now

and then we'll dive into where you were heading. Well, Ramones is where I was heading. Okay. The very September 76th at the New Yorker. The Geary's brought the Ramones for three shows. Changed the cultural life of this city. Everybody who's in the ugly, the

vile tones, the b-girls, the curse, the diodes, they were all there. And all of us there witnessed something that was unlike anything. And you were there.

Of course. I witnessed something unlike anything we'd ever seen before. It was one massive teenage lobotomy. It was extraordinary. It felt like,

it felt like this was the new world. And it was the new world and it was the new world in many ways for the next several years wow at the new yorker which was at young and bluer yep young just south east side okay hold on south of bluer east side which the uh it's the what is it panasonic theater now yep yep wow there's a lot of shows there. I lived at 30 Charles Street West for a couple years when I was going to U of T. Talking Heads played there. Dead Boys played there.

John Cale played there. Lightning Hopkins that Gary's brought there. Carla Bley, lots of great people. Before they're at the horseshoe. This is why you guys are here and this is why everybody needs to pick up the phone. It was a Gary's show. Yeah.

Right? All in New York shows were Gary's shows. And Gary Top told me that he actually sat in the booth, the box office booth at the venue, or at one of the venues, and just drew this. Drew the flyer. With a marker. With a Sharpie, I guess. I don't know.

Wow. New Yorker. Pretty cool. No, super damn cool. It's a sick flyer. It is. Like seeing the shards of glass breaking out of the sunglasses. Like you know this is going to be a shit show.

You're going to go there. Your heads are going to rock. Five bucks, too. Everybody who was buying the Village Voice in the city knew to go to that show. And so how many bands came out of the show? Because you said this show influenced, again, a whole generation. At least six or seven. Members of six or seven

of Toronto's core punk band. So this lit the fuse for Toronto's nascent punk scene, which for a period of time in North America was a major epicenter, global epicenter of punk rock. Yeah, Toronto's one of the top three cities, right? After New York and L.A. for punk. Or New York and London, I mean. Yeah, Toronto's one of the top three cities, right? After New York and LA for a bunch.

Or New York and London, I mean. All right, pro tip, Rob. Just remember to stay in front of that mic because, yeah. Got it. A bit amazing. Yeah, I'm tired of waking up tired. Like, I'm trying to think of, like, Toronto. They're Toronto or Vancouver?

They're Toronto, right? Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's see. Got to make sure I don't claim some Vancouver bands here. All right. So there's a whole bunch of places, and we can jump around anywhere you want. I preloaded some favorite jams that I thought applied to the chapter or whatever.

But again, go anywhere you guys like. But I thought we'd play a little Iggy. Iggy Pop. I saw Iggy and the Stooges at the Victory Burlesque on the Raw Power Tour. And that was one of the great shows in this city's history. Iggy in full performance art regalia, spitting on the audience, bleeding on the audience. This was a dangerous show to be on. Dangerous.

Absolutely. That man's a survivor, eh? Like, I think he's a survivor just, you know, what he's done for his craft, if you will, and he's still out there doing it. He's definitely a survivor

as much as Keith Richards. So you had mentioned that you also went to this Iggy show at Seneca College. With Bowie on piano. Where, hold on, so Blondie was the opener. Yeah.

Another, like, wow. Yeah. Iggy's the headliner coming up, you know, playing Seneca College. Wow. Promoting the Idiot album. The like, wow. Iggy's the headliner coming up, playing Seneca College, wow. Promoting the Idiot album. So you're already kind of blown away by just that. And then on

top of that, Bowie's playing piano. Right. Which we knew, by the way, before we went. Bowie produced the Idiot and the whole tour was advertised as Iggy touring with Bowie on piano. So this wasn't just like a one-off. No, he did the whole tour. The whole tour, they were together.

But it was a great show. Iggy's best solo show as far as I'm concerned in Toronto. I like the Stooges even more, but this was the Iggy album and the Iggy show. And Blondie opening up was just sort of icing on the cake. That's unbelievable. That's 77, right? Okay, so this is March 14th, 1977 here. That's incredible.

It was Be There or Be Square. Andth 1977 here it was be there or be square and I certainly was going to be there damn right you were there man you're walking slice of Toronto music history hey so many years earlier I've seen Janis Joplin 77 Bill King's been on this show he used to

he played with Janis briefly yes he did can I ask you where your Grammy is right now? Where is my Grammy? It's on top of my gramophone. Where else would it go? I've got, you know, I wind up cranked gramophone with,

you know, you open the door and the speaker's in there. Nice. Next interview we do, you're bringing the Grammy. All right. I want to sip out of it. I want you to go get it

and bring it back here. Did you drink any, like, fine scotch whiskey out of your Grammy or some champagne? The Grammy doesn't have a cup. It's not like the Stanley Cup. It's like a gramophone. I once saw Drake sip out of his Grammy.

I think you could do the same. More props to Drake. I didn't even think about it. Can this book win Daniel a Grammy? Is that even possible? Is there a category for music books? There's not, but it. Can this book win Daniel a Grammy? Is that even possible? Is there a category for music books? No, there's not. But there should be, so we can win it. It could win Daniel and myself a couple of awards,

including the Historical Toronto Heritage Society Awards. Yeah, Heritage Toronto. They have their annual... Juno doesn't have a book category, Junos. No. I feel like they should, because there's so much amazing music books coming out. I feel like, you know, despite living in the internet age,

there is a renaissance of amazing music books that are out, memoirs, biographies. And I know this because these are the books that we're sharing the charts with, right? Because I'm always looking at the charts. Of course you are. And there's a lot of amazing music books, and they really should have an award for it. They don't even have a liner note award. I always check the liner notes.

Can you call the Junos and give them an idea? Hey, if they had a liner note award, I have about 20 Junos, but they don't, so. Oh, that's the velvet. I did an episode with Stu Stone and Cam Gordon on Friday where we commemorated musicians we lost in this past decade because a decade is ending. And Lou Reed, of course, we played.

What did I end up playing? Perfect Day, I think I ended up playing. But yeah, we lost Lou Reed. But tell me about Lou Reed. I did a box set with Lou Reed. He and I worked together for months on this. It was fascinating. But you know, the Velvets played Toronto only once.

1969 Toronto Pop Festival June, on my birthday actually. June 21st. And for whatever reason, we didn't get them. Although Hamilton got them on the Exploding Plastic Inevitable Tour. But Lou Reed, of course, started coming in right after Transformer and Walk on the Wild Side.

Played Massey Hall twice that year. Genesis, believe it or not, an unknown band from England using black light and all sorts of effects and flashpots and stuff opened up for Lou Reed. What a weird mismatch. And that was Genesis with Peter Gabriel.

What an extraordinary show. And Lou came here regularly., virtually every tour he did. He loved Toronto, Toronto loved Lou. And I probably saw him 25 times maybe here. I see one of the posters in the book is Lou Reed and Jim Carroll at the Danforth Music Hall. A very rare, rare show. I think the only show Lou ever did where he just read his lyrics. And it was advertised as such.

Yes, as a reading, right. Yeah, Elliot Lefkoe put that together. Elliot's a really cool guy who was young at the time, trying to break into the concert promotion scene. And he had this left-of-center idea. What if I approach Lou Reed? i'm never going to be able to book lou reed as a band that's going to go to you know cpi or somebody at that point right but what about a reading and lou loved the idea jim carroll was up for it basketball diaries and this

is this is such a legendary and rare, rare show. Wow. Lurid collectors around the world would want a tape of this show. This ad, by the way, is framed in the restaurant called Sidebar, which is right beside Danforth Music Hall. Right, yes. So Adam Gill from Embrace, shout out to Adam, reached out to me, said, hey, man, you got any music hall stuff, Danforth Music Hall?

We could put it at the venue. So if you do go to the restaurant right beside you'll see this hanging on the wall very cool amongst other flyers well I just realized actually we have two Lou Reed flyers and one Velvet Underground in our book and so we should well represented one of the most important artists in rock history. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt. I wonder if Elliot Lefkoe is related to Perry Lefkoe. I know you guys won't have the answer to this question, but Perry Lefkoe is an FOTM, and he writes sports books. And yeah, I wonder.

I have to reach out to Perry and find out. Well, if he does, Elliot's never told me. Maybe it's a cousin or something. I can help you fact check that. Yes, that's right. I know people. Okay, so talk to me a little bit about like,

okay, so I see great posters for like Dead Kennedys, Black Flag. Wow, I'm just checking out here. Yeah, so maybe... Yeah, when the hardcore scene arrived. Yeah, tell me a bit about the hardcore scene

before I play something. You mentioned So on cocks. I'll play that after Lou here. I don't know. All these West Coast bands started coming here from that L.A. scene in the early 80s. Black Flag and T-Soul. We had a couple. Again, there's always a couple of heroic individuals who decide to become promoters when there's a new music ron nelson is

one of those people which came to hip-hop you mentioned him earlier jonathan ramos of course and jonathan gross in hip-hop the gary's were doing punk and a ton of other stuff but when it came to hardcore the gary's did a few shows but jill heath under jill jill productions brought a ton of great things to this city. And some of the finest hardcore shows are a result of her just deciding, I'm going to do this. I'm going to figure out how to do it. Going to find out how to contact these bands. Going to put up

some money, take some risks. And she helped build the scene here. So more props to Jill. And there's a great book, Tomorrow is Too Late. Have you had them on the show? Which came out about a year ago. You should talk to them. Derek Emerson is one of the main authors of that.

And they put together this incredible, oversized, beautiful book about the Toronto hardcore scene. And they're working on one now in underground metal. So sort of part of, in a way, analogous to what we're doing, there's a zeitgeist of people trying to document what had happened in Toronto. And there's a lot of books about different scenes. And they did the hardcore top to bottom. Our book

covers a much broader range of territory. Blackface minstrelsy to electronica and everything in between. But their book for hardcore is the book. Talk to me about the peppers here. Red hot chili peppers in there. I mean, I don't, what was the first album?

Was it the MoFo? Is that the, what's the first? I know the first album I bought from Mothers Milk was with Mothers Milk. Yeah, Mothers Milk. And primarily because in the Q107, they kept playing the Stevie Wonder cover, and I was too stupid to realize it was a cover.

And I said, what the hell is this? Higher Ground? I'm like, holy smoke. And George Clinton produced it. George Clinton produced Freaky Styling. Oh, sorry, that was Freaky Styling. Yeah, absolutely. That's right. I remember hanging out with George in a studio in

Detroit and it was about four in the morning and George was snorting coke and there was a TV on up there and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the TV. Might have been MTV it was on. And George goes, those guys, they're really freaky. I mean, even to George, he thought the peppers were pushing the envelope. Yeah, and it's actually cool because this book right now, Fleas Memoir is out as well.

So I look at the charts and I see my book and then Fleas book. And it's just good company to be in. And I really want to read Fleas's memoir because he has an amazing story. Crazy story. Excuse me, our book and Flea's book. Yeah. Is that what I said? You said my book.

Oh, oops. Freudian slip. So I see one of the posters here. You thought we had a good relationship. It just went downhill. I see Red Hot Chili Peppers. This is way back in 1986 when they played Lee's Palace. Got to catch.

It's always great when you catch these mega, mega big bands on their way up. Famous show. Anybody who was there that night will never forget it. And they came out with the Sox. Or the Encore. And I love the quote here. This guy went to the Oh, this is, so the quote here

actually is for their show, the Blood Sugar Sex Magic Tour. And I just, so this is one of the Flyer Vault followers. And I love this quote so much. I had to get it in here. The place was packed and jumping for the two and a half hour set. I counted nine ambulances outside after the show. My life was changed.

My identity found. The yearning in my soul met. Red Hot Chili Peppers, 91, October 30th, which was also a crazy show because the Pumpkins and Pearl Jam were there. Pearl Jam in their debut Toronto show at the legendary concert hall. And you know what? That passion in that quote, it is a great quote.

But you can find people who will give you analogous quotes who talk about when cab calloway first played this city or when they first saw muddy waters or in getty lee's case when he saw cream or led zeppelin or in my case seeing bob dylan for the first time it's so cool the way every, not just generation, but every taste proclivity, whatever it leans towards, these shows happened that changed people's lives or revelatory moments. And these posters that Daniel sold lovingly and beautifully is collected and documented. Bring back those moments. And then the text that we put together helps to amplify them and tell a lot of those stories.

Give context. And it's an amazing, amazing journey. Toronto has been this musical city that people have had these eureka moments since the mid-19th century at least, and it continues up to 2019, and I'm sure in 2020 there will be some seminal shows that will blow people's minds. to 2019, and I'm sure in 2020, there'll be some seminal shows that'll blow people's minds. I'm sure, I'm sure. Daniel said the P word, Pearl Jam.

I'm personally a big-time fan. I love Pearl Jam. A little band out of Seattle. Yes. Their first show here was supposed to be at the Rivoli. Can you believe that? For $4. I just had a kid in the hall here.

Kevin McDonald was here last week, and we were talking about kids in the hall playing the Rivoli way back in the day there. But that's amazing. So what was the first Pearl Jam concert in Toronto? Yeah, it was the one with the Chili Peppers and the Pumpkins, October 30th, 1991. That's unbelievable.

And they canceled the Rivoli because they got offered the whole tour with the Peppers. And 10 was already out for a while. But Pearl Jam kind of blew late because it took the Jeremy video to be everywhere. And that's when they kind of went from this little band from Seattle with this new record out to the Stratosphere. So this is only me living it remember i remember that it was like um uh smells like teen spirit breaks and it sort of pulls them up like it pulls them up with it and then suddenly like much music is playing even flowing alive like all the time like absolutely

pre-jeremy i'd say you know it kind of happened all around the same time because here like the so nirvana second show at opera house was uh it was in 91 it was around november 91 which was like just right when nevermind came out now i don't know how long i don't know if smells like teen spirit was out as a i'm sure it was a single yeah before the lp came out but so basically what i'm trying to say is one week you have Pearl Jam playing the concert hall. And then literally I think it was like 10 days later at Opera House, Nirvana's playing their second show in support of Nevermind. Like this is an era. This is a time and space. I need to linger.

The difference is Pearl Jam's opening up, Nirvana's headlining, and then both of them are going to be hockey arena sized acts next time they come. Super cool. I need to linger a little bit on this because I guess we'll call this the grunge. The grunge.

I'm sure Pearl Jam loves that. Soundgarden played here at a club called and maybe you've been there The Apocalypse Club. Of course. I was at The Apocalypse.

And I don't know who was doing the booking for this club but wow. Wow. They brought in some major acts. Jim Carroll, The Pixies, Soundgarden's first show. Was it on College? Yeah, it was. And a lot of people, I think that venue wasn't one person booking it.

I think it was the sort of thing where the Garriots could do a show, anybody could do a show there. And so different people bringing shows in. What kind of space was it? It was very small. Like a dingy room kind of thing was it? It was very small. Like a dingy room kind of thing? Very dingy, very small.

And not a place you actually remember fondly. But it had some great shows. But it probably had that grittiness to it, right? Sort of like Larry's Hideaway. Right. The place was a pit. But I saw R.E.M. play there for 300 people. Wow. Saw John Martin there.

What would you say is like your favorite sort of grungy grimy music venue that maybe what it lacked in aesthetics or decor made up for in just raw energy wow like a room I could say the edge where the washrooms always leak so badly in fact

there was one show where water's coming from washrooms onto the stage I can't remember who was performing. That place was such a crunch pit. But unreal. Who played there? When Nirvana first played Toronto, where was it? Lee's Palace.

And that's like 1990? What was it? Yeah, April 1990. About 100 people were there. Crazy. Although, again, about 1,000 say they were there. That's like Joe Carter hits the walk-off in 93, and you could probably find 300,000 at least Torontonians

who tell you they were there to watch. I was. Now I believe you. It's a true story. But I wasn't smart enough to be at the Nirvana gig, which I regret. Such a fun story, the Nirvana's first show. There's just so many fun different angles about why that show is super unique i love this i'm following along in my

this this is great okay so i'm looking like like was the headliner the doughboys i mean first time yeah you look and you're like holy crap no that's a different show you're right but most but most people who look at this the first thing they're caught by is the doughboys because people right the doughboys right they get the bigger fun it's in bigger letters and and and you you all yeah and Most people who look at this, the first thing they're caught by is the Doughboys, because people love the Doughboys, right? They get the bigger fun. And it's in bigger letters. And you all, yeah, and you just see like, I guess in the early 90s, just all these West Coast bands that just started to really come here. Well, the Doughboys were out of Buffalo, right?

No, weren't they Montreal? Sorry, they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chemical people from LA and, you know, Nirvana from Seattle, like. And five bucks to see Nirvana at Lee's Palace. They were paid $1,000 that night. Now, you think only 100 people came, so only $500 was taken, and that was a losing show.

And a different drummer, right? Yeah, Chad Channing. Right. And who Kurt was very unhappy with all night to the point between the audience who he was unhappy with and Chad, that Kurt started hurling beer bottles from the stage. But even before he did that, he was so pissed off throughout the whole show for various reasons that he also did this thing called behavioral mirroring.

When he sat down at the table? It's a psychological trick where you mirror someone's behavior that you're not pleased with. So basically, he wasn't happy that people were sitting at tables at a rock show, or at least at his show. It's a psychological trick where you mirror someone's behavior that you're not pleased with. So basically, he wasn't happy that people were sitting at tables at a rock show, or at least at his show. And so as sort of a big fuck you to the audience, he went into the crowd, took a table and a chair, brought it to the stage and said, if you're going to be like that, I'm just going to play from this table and chair. And he just sat down and played at this table and chair on the stage okay you ready for a small world fun fact right here okay this is kind of unbelievable to me but

i'm now looking uh you know i'm checking out whole played uh the rivoli and i'm just yeah that poster probably 100 people maybe 150 backs there's a quote you pull some quotes right from fans and uh there's a quote about scenes speaking of dave grohl seeing the foo fighters at the opera house and the quote goes as an emerging high school music okay let me try to get this right as an emerging high school music dark dork dork yeah see i need my glasses uh this show had everything in terms of real noise and fake danger that the suburbs lacked it offered moshing the the guy from Nirvana on guitar, the guy from Pearl Jam under a wig. Fun night.

That quote is attributed to Cam Gordon, who was here Friday with Stu Stone talking about musicians we lost over the past day. There you go. And that's one for sure. So shout out to FOTM Cam Gordon, who's at Twitter Canada. Yes, I just played.

So I actually purposely played I Got Id because that's the Pearl Jam Nirvana era. Pearl Jam Nirvana, did I say that? I meant the Pearl Jam Neil Young. Right, right. Yeah, see, I'm so excited to have you guys here. Booker T and the MGs as the backup band? Wow.

I mean, that's one of those shows I wish. Booker T backed up Neil. That was a great show. I could go see back in time. And that's at Exhibition Stadium. Yeah, Pearl mean, that's one of those shows I wish. Booker T backed up Neil. That was a great show. I could go see Back in Time. And that's at Exhibition Stadium. Yeah, Pearl Jam had the place flying, and then Neil Young came on after that with the MGs backing them up.

It was just an amazing double bill. I love that collaboration. You know, you had Mirrorball and Merkin Ball. Yeah, they made the album Mirrorball after this. Right, so Mirrorball is the Neil Young album, but you had Merkin Ball, which was like the EP from Pearl Jam, and it was the, yeah, it was just,

and I was a big, upstairs you'll see I have Neil Young upstairs. Not literally. You have Neil Young upstairs? He's actually upstairs? He's captive up there. I'm going up there. Don't tell anyone, okay?

But I'm a huge Pearl Jam fan and Neil Young fan, and those two guys together was unbelievable. This lineup is incredible. Yeah, Soundgarden, right? Neil Young, Book And those two guys together was unbelievable. This lineup is incredible. Yeah, Soundgarden, right? Neil Young, Booker T and the MGs, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Blues Traveler. Wednesday, August 18th, 1993. I enjoyed that evening.

Time machine, take me there, please. Oh, you were backstage, weren't you? I was backstage, yeah. Wow. Because I'm friends with Booker T and the MGs. Quite close to Booker and Steve and Duck back then. So yeah, I was backstage with them. That must have been a trip.

Always. Before we move on to hip hop, one more band I want to talk about. And I love this poster. Rage Against the Machine. When did they first, is this the first concert? Rage Against the Machine in did they first is this the first concert of Rage Against the Machine in Toronto at the concert hall no

the first one was first was at Opera House I believe in 93 I need to bang my head a little bit here where's the mosh pit when I need it yeah first one was

definitely Opera House yeah they've reunited they're doing some shows next year they're doing like 7, 8 shows I was supposed to see them at Molson Park in Barry with Beastie Boys.

That got canceled. That got canceled. Yeah, because I think it was Mike D fell off a bike. Broke his collarbone, I think. Yeah, he broke his collarbone or his ankle or something. I mean, it's funny you think of it. One man's collarbone caused heartbreak for hundreds of thousands of music fans across the continent who are still pissed off and bitter because that tour didn't happen.

Because if it did, it'd be the Beastie Boys and fucking rage. Don't remind me. Queen was supposed to open up for Monta Hoople. Ryan May got hepatitis. Canceled the tour. Otis Redding almost played here. Yeah, 67. Wow.

Okay, speaking of guys. John Coltrane, which we found out since the book came out, was actually going to come for a week in March 67. You don't even know this. I haven't told you this. And he canceled because of health problems. The show was actually never announced, but the cancellation was announced.

Wow. And he died a few months later. We didn't even know that until the last year. I love it. Honestly, I feel like I wish, I know I think I scheduled 90 minutes for you guys. Do you mind if I make it nine hours? Is that okay? You got nothing else to do on your Sunday, right?

You know what? I bill by the hour, so you know. Happy to send you my invoice. The lasagna. You don't want to know how much. I don't think it works that way what was my rate you have to figure out your rate I don't know whatever you want

but I'll tell you what mine is probably unaffordable let's move on to hip hop I could spend all day on the punk hardcore and grunge here but hip hop awaits and hopefully we get some DJ Ron Nelson the punk hardcore and grunge here, but hip-hop awaits. And hopefully we get some DJ Ron Nelson stories in here.

I'm sure he will come up here. You know, just as you were saying that, Daniel's flipping the book, and I see a picture for the Talking Heads as the three police playing A Space one night and the AGO the next night. But anyway, enough of that. Or OCA the next night. No, listen.

I know we're talking hip-hop, but if you talked about non-hip-hop, I would not mute your microphone. I would listen to any fun facts from you guys. Would you say that Blondie and Debbie Harry's involvement with Flash and getting into the hip-hop scene, was that the first cross-pollination of a a new wave act or artist mixing with hip-hop absolutely it was absolutely yeah yeah and you know when when um the sugarcoat gang put out uh

rappers delight in september october 79 tons and tons and tons of people bought that 12 inch but they were buying a novelty record. People didn't, in Toronto at least, most of them did not realize that this was like an actual scene happening in the South Bronx. Going to become a cultural phenomenon. Let alone there's going to be a lot of other things like it. It was like, you know, M by pop music.

It was just considered this weird novelty record kind of fun. Did they consider it disco though? Rapture by Debbie Heria was considered that, too. But when Rapper's Delight first came out, did people just lump it into the disco category? Like, this is just some kind of disco rapping. Like Earth, Wind & Fire or something? No, no, no.

Sheik's Good Times was the backing track, right? Was the break, yeah. So, not only the break, the basic track, the whole thing. And so, you know, everybody knew Sheik's Good Times, Massive Hit in June 79, disco record. So four months later, you know, suddenly Sugar Hill Gang comes out. It's the same damn song, but with people speaking over it. And it's a novelty disco record until within about a year,

we begin to hear all these other records including records like Flash and so on. Yeah, it just lit a massive fuse. So let me ask, I see a poster for, oh, I saw my first ever concert at the Ontario Place Forum.

I'm sure there's a lot of us out there. Sure. The price was right. But there was a Sugar Hill Gang concert at the Ontario Place Forum in 1980.

Their second show here. Yeah, so according to my research, and if anybody out there knows something I don't know, that was the third rap show in our town. Okay, that's my question. What was the first rap show in this? Sugar Hill's first, well, okay, it's kind of, well, it's a bit debatable, but basically

the first one was, that we know about, Was the Sugarhill Gang At the concert hall January 12th, 1980 The only reason I say Maybe not 100% Is because two weeks earlier

The Fatback Band Played the O'Keefe Center In late 79 And they had a song called Personality Jock With this rapper named king tim the third yeah and he was rapping on this on this track and this is really the first many people say it's the first recorded rap verse ever it's a funk song but it's a rap verse on a funk song right anyways so the

bottom line is if he played that show that's the first rap show in our city. After that, two weeks later, Sugar Hill Gang came, and I include it in the book. Jonathan Gross reviewed it. A couple other people reviewed it, and that was a pretty crazy show. They only had one song. Well, who was the promoter? So it was some dude who just, I don't know, made a phone call.

Maybe he called Sylvia Robinson or something. Be like, hey, I want to bring Sugar Hill Gang to Toronto. I don't know, give you $1,000, whatever it was. We don't know who did it. What we do know, based on the review of the show in the Toronto Sun that Jonathan Gross wrote, was that it was just some guy going around record stores in the city and just by word of mouth, January 12th, 1980, come see the Sugar Hill Gang perform Rapper's Delight at the concert hall at Young and Davenport. And it sold out like within days. And pretty amazing. So there's no poster for it.

There's no poster for it. There's no flyer. I've never seen a ticket. But I know what happened because the toronto sun sent a reviewer to review the show and why probably because jonathan gross who's an important dude in this city had just knew he was like plugged into what was going on some people they just they got their ear plugged to the street he knew i gotta go and see this show and the fact that he wrote about it to me is a contribution to.

The historical document of this city. Because if he didn't review it. And if Peter Goddard didn't review it. He was representing I think the star at the time. We would never know about these shows. Right? So the bottom line is. I wanted to give a lot of props.

To a lot of the critics and reviewers. Who were a big source of research. For this book. And Jonathan went on of course. To promote a ton of the critics and reviewers who were a big source of research for this book. And Jonathan went on, of course, to promote a ton of hip-hop shows. Yes, very important hip-hop shows that we mention in the book. All right, so I'm... Because I'm like, well, man,

your book is a bit addictive. Like, I could get... You can get lost in it. It's a lot, yeah. It's damn easy here. There's counseling for people. I think it's a good thing to be addicted to, probably. But 1983, I see Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five at the concert hall.

Amazing. And that's a Gary's presentation. Yes. The quote from Gary about this show is amazing. Have you got it there to read, or should we just paraphrase? Which Gary? You guys. Oh, you guys.

Did you guys talk to Gary Cormier? Or just talk? And Tom. Okay, cool. to read or should we just which gary you guys oh you guys did you guys talk to gary cormier uh or just talk and talk okay cool yeah so i was very interested in this show because although it wasn't the first sort of rap show in our city it was sort of the first real you know gritty new york important one new york right like sort of the first act to come here to really talk about what's going on in the streets what's going on in inner city life in New York City, telling those stories, telling those narratives, right? The message, the black CNN.

And so this to me was a really important show to include in the book, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. And I mean, 1983 and 82, when they came out, they were a smash. The message really kind of crossed over into many other mediums. Right, Rob? It was hip-hop at a whole other level. I mean, Sugar Girl Gang was fun. Even, you know, Fatback Band was the King Tim's third personality job.

They're fun records. But suddenly hearing things like The Message, this is like Bob Dylan, but it's another era. It's a different ethnicity and it's a whole different set of beats. And this was an important record. This is no longer novel. That's the first hip-hop song I ever heard in my

entire life was The Message. And that song has influenced the genre big time. Yeah. Gary Top talks about this. It was like the turntable work of Flash was like Hendrix. yeah he's the hendrix of the turntables yeah um and uh they lost money on the show um and you know there was some you know logistical issues but the show went on um and there it is 1983 january 7thth, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five at the concert hall, and it was packed, and it was a cool crowd, very mixed musical crowd,

people from all different scenes. Like Gary was saying, there was punk rockers there, there was people with mohawks, just a total smorgasbord of people at this show. Wow. Now, we mentioned the Beastie Boys when we talked about Rage Against the Machine, but let's go back further. What was the first Beastie Boys show in this city?

It was actually a couple, it was a few hours before the flyer you're looking at right now. So the flyer you're looking at right now is the after party for the madonna virgin tour uh and madonna also being somebody who always knew what was going on and had her ear to the new york underground in the early 80s and she knew these three these three kids from queens were making some noise so let's invite the beasties to open up for for me which was really kind of daring and experimental for her because her crowd at that time were all like like teenage girls right she's bringing this like hardcore you know uh trifecta to come in and do that real rap right real punk and all the other stuff so that was actually their first show which was may 85 at maple Leaf Gardens. But what's cool is that they stuck in town

and Jonathan Gross, who we mentioned earlier, I guess had a great idea because if the Beasties are in town, let's do a proper Beastie show for Beastie's crowd. And so there's actually a story in the book where he calls up Mike D in Florida and just like on a whim, they come. They're like, oh yeah, we'll hang out and play the Twilight Zone,

which is another incredible venue. Underground club at Yonge and Bloor. You can talk about. So basically that's one of the reasons I wanted to put this flyer in the book because even though Beastie's first performance was at the Gardens, this was like the first real show. And Jonathan Gross produced it. And I love how it says like Def Jam recording artist. Because this is 85 85 so i don't know how long they'd even been signed to def jam maybe like

for all we know maybe rick rubin just met them a couple months earlier right this is super early and license to ill wasn't even out yet right so this is really going for a fight for your right to party yeah it's 85 so whereas the public enemy said party for your right to fight right and i gotta correct myself i said as the public enemy said, party for your right to fight. Right. And I got to correct myself. I said Underground Club at Yonge and Bloor. I think Heaven. This was actually

on Richmond Street. Well, Heaven's also a cool venue because that's where Run DMC started. Right, right, right. Well, yeah. Well, here. It doesn't stop.

It's just like everything leads to something else. Yeah, man, let's break it down here. Okay, talk to me about Run DMC. Where to begin? Oh, my God. It all started in Queens. Yes.

The Simmons family. There was a reverend and a DJ and an MC. And two turntables and a microphone. And a lot of adidas and black leather. Kangol hands. Yeah, so Run DMC. I mean, what can you say? Their first show was here in September 84, I believe,

at a club that Rob is not fond of called Heavens. Oh, it's a horrible space. Heavens. That was a club underground where the subway is at Young & Bloor. Young & Bloor. So you know that concourse at Young & Bloor? Yeah, of course. They used to have rock shows.

A lot of metal bands played there. Rock and rap shows at this club called Heavens. Anyway, so yeah, Run DMC played there. I think Jonathan Gross, yeah, he did actually. That was Jonathan Gross's. So the theme here is this guy Jonathan Gross did a lot of important shows.

And so we wanted to give him some recognition in the book because this guy broke a lot of important artists in our city pre-Ron Nelson. Like Ron Nelson, we know is a legend

and that guy put the city on his back. But even before Ron, there were these unsung heroes. Again, Ron Nelson, we know is a legend, and that guy put the city on his back. But even before Ron, there were these unsung heroes. Again, guys like Gary Topp, Gary Cormier, Jonathan Gross, who broke hip-hop in our city, and we wanted to give them props in the book. No, thank you. The history of hip-hop is really the story

of Jonathan Gross, Ron Nelson, and then Jonathan Ramos bringing in these incredible shows between the three of them. With Sunshine Crew too. Yeah, so Jonathan brought, he brought Run DMC to Heaven in 84. It wasn't a big show, but this was when Run DMC really came out hard in Toronto.

This was sort of like their coming of age in Toronto. It was the second show that Sunshine Sound Crew produced in March of 85 that Russell Peters went to and it profoundly affected him and we quoted him about his experience at this show

and again I wish I was there thousands of people hanging from the rafters a total sweat box Jam Master Jade doing incredible turntable solos and people left this show completely changed. Ten bucks with Flyer. They were insane.

It was a game changer. Yeah. People still talk about this show till this day, and I would argue that Toronto's hip-hop scene, definitely this was one of the things that lit the fuse. Unbelievable. Now, I did see in the Beastie Boys, for example, the Beastie Boys Flyer it said brought to you by uh one of the also one of the presented by ckln uh fm 88.1 of course at this time that's

when uh dj ron nelson has his uh fantastic voyage yes a radio show which comes up on this show well anytime i have like a mishimi or a maestro freshwiz. Very influential show. That show was listened to by everyone in the city who cared about hip hop. That show was a linchpin for the whole community. Yep. And the only place in the city

you could hear it, right? Basically. Outside of record shops. Yeah, pretty much. Or your basement. Ron broke it on radio for sure. He broke hip hop here on radio. And doing his radio show

eventually led him into promoting shows. I mean, it was sort of a symbiotic relationship. But it's really cool because you look at this ad and you see Jonathan Gross' company, Gross National Products. Okay, I was going to ask, so that's what GNP stands for, right? So Gross National Products, which is Jonathan Gross, and CKLN 88.1. So him and Ron were hanging out. They were buds.

They were working together. So Ron, and he mentions in the book ron was sort of a student of jonathan in many ways and he was learning about what he was doing and he credits him with being a major influence on his life talk to me about the the smooth operator that gets the job done big daddy came daddy came i mean that. I mean, that's the first flyer that introduces the hip-hop chapter. And I love this flyer. And Ron Nelson gave it to me.

I went to Ron Nelson's house. God bless him. He let me go through his collection. Is that the same house where And Now The Legacy Begins was recorded? Because Dream Warriors record that album at Ron Nelson's house. I'm not sure.

You'd have to ask Ron Nelson that. But it was super cool for him to let me into his home and to go through his artifacts which are also unbelievable. And when I laid my eyes

on this flyer I knew it had to be in the book because it just looks so badass. September 86, right? Like the baddest back to school

concert and dance for 88. Right. Big Daddy Kane, JVC Force, Tough Crew, D-Shantz. We have all these crews and cliques

and posses from all over North America I mean you got New York City represented you have Philadelphia represented Toronto of course but Ron Nelson

did all these like monster jams and battles where he would invite crews from everywhere this is what made Michi me Buffalo crews

would come up like Montreal crews would come up and it would be all love. They would just battle. Break dancing battles, turntable battles, MC battles. And again, you think to yourself, I was born in the wrong time.

If I could have just been born maybe 10 years earlier, maybe I had a chance to go to these shows. I know the feeling, brother. I know the feeling. Amazing. So is this an appropriate time to uh so share a little more about the ron nelson so because he's it's he's doing it primarily i guess at the concert hall right this is his uh and he's bringing and and maybe uh who does he

bring just do you remember some of the artists who make their toronto debuts thanks to Ron Nelson? Public Enemy. Yeah, Public Enemy. I'm trying to think who else. EPMD. He did the first EPMD show. KRS. He did the first Boogie Down Productions. KRS-One show with Scott LaRock too.

Right, which also ties in with Mishimi as well. Yeah, he did the first Arena tour in Toronto. So the Run's House tour, which came here in with mishimi as well yeah he's he's he did the first arena tour in toronto so the runs house tour which came here in 88 which was the first packaged arena rap tour to hit toronto and i played varsity arena that was varsity arena and that was headlined by run dmc um public enemy yes and epm chuck talked about this i actually took i took exams in that damn arena. They would have desks in there and I took exams

in that arena. That's a cool show because Ron was like super nervous because that was his biggest show. Like, you know, he had a lot on the line

with that because again, he's like one guy. He's like an independent promoter. He doesn't have support from like the mainstream concert industry or music business.

He's doing it all on his own. So he's probably really exposed having a lot of money out on this big tour. And he said actually in the book, if it wasn't for the white kids, he would have lost his shirt. Can I ask you, did he share this story?

On this program, he shared an anecdote. And I can't remember if I read it in your book, but I'll tell it really quickly, which is after one show at the concert hall, and I can't remember who performed there but uh some guy comes up to him and says gave him a bunch of money like a bunch of cash ron so it gives ron nelson a bunch of money and ron goes what's this for and he goes oh that that's your cut of the t-shirt sales yes okay so he took okay then ron said he that's when

he realized um it was now white kids were now so because he said and he speaks as a as a proud black man that uh the black audience he said didn't buy t-shirts so he said that's when it changed and then yeah and and the white kids loved public enemy like you're looking at something about you're looking at when i'm serious like their whole i'm obsessed with them like fuck the system and and and it was politically charged. Politically charged. And that's what, like, it just galvanized everybody. Even if you're a white kid, especially if you're a white kid from the suburb. Because you know what?

When maybe the public enemy was talking about the government and systems of oppression, if you're a white kid in the suburbs, that's your parents. You know? You're like, you're the state of oppression, mom and dad. It's keeping up at the same point. And that's why P.E. was so big in the burbs, you know? At least I'm talking from my experience. Well, I mean, I will tell you now. It is interesting as a teenager how I tapped into that,

like almost into that anger. And as a white man, it's interesting how you can tap into the oppression and the anger of the black community. And you know what else? It was those beats by the Bomb Squad. Oh my God, yeah. The layering. Because when you got hit with those boom bap beats.

Well, listen to this for a second, okay? You weren't the same after that. Listen to this for a second. Listen to this for a second. This is a line that gets him in trouble, actually. Potentially some anti-Semitism spills out there, but we'll blame Professor Griff. It's okay.

They had Liar Cohen behind the scenes. He made it all good. Right, right. Again, when I had an opportunity to speak to Chuck, I knew you could hear a Chuck interview anywhere. I said, this is going to be all about Toronto. So that's all I wanted to talk about was... We should get a book to Chuck. I think he'd appreciate it because you know what he loves the

city public enemy played here several times we should get a book he does love the city done okay we'll talk after and i what i like about chuck is that and to me to me chuck is like to me he's my paul mccartney okay whereas but i can get i can have a one-on-one conversation via twitter with chuck d like he's so accessible for a guy of that stature like i think it's amazing that you know chuck d will actually say this podcast and i'm happy i can say i've seen public enemy live when we brought them to the Opera House in 99. And that's when I was, I'm 19 years old. And I'm like behind the scenes working the writer and production on a Public Enemy show with John Ramos and all these guys. So it was really cool to also sort of be behind the scenes and see legends like P.E.

And he's really supportive. And again, I keep mentioning them because they're FOTMs. And I know, I mean, he's a friend of Toronto Mike, by the way. You guys are now FOTMs. So congratulations. But I keep mentioning them because they're FOTMs. And I know, I mean, it's Friend of Toronto Mike, by the way. You guys are now FOTMs, so congratulations. But I keep mentioning them. But Maestro is so super supportive of like Mishy Mee. Chuck D and Public Enemy are super supportive of like Maestro Fresh West and Mishy Mee and Ron Nelson and the whole scene.

He did that in every city. He was always supportive of local hip-hop. Chuck has a real sense of hip-hop as a culture that was really important everywhere, and he was into promoting grassroots artists in every city. And because these guys toured here in the 80s, all these New York guys came back.

They would come here. They would come back to New York and realize that something's cooking in Toronto right and so this connection between Toronto and New York in the 80s that Ron Nelson helped facilitate opened up a lot of doors for this like musical partnership between these two cities and you saw it a lot like Maestro would go down to New York he would produce with like Buckwild Mishimi would go down to New York and record would produce with Buckwild. Mishy Mee would go down to New York and record with Queen Latifah and

some other artists down there. To me, that was also super interesting to see. For sure, buddy. Biggie Smalls, baby. Talk to me about Biggie Smalls and this city.

Notorious B.I.G. Yeah, so one of those iconic artists where it's like, I don't know, for me and a lot of people my age and my demographic, we put Biggie on. He's like our Beatles in many ways. Like just an iconic, gone too soon. But, you know, the small period of time that he was with us, his musical output was incredible. And so to also see that he played our city one time, one time, is also really fun to think about.

And the fact that me finding this flyer and putting it out into the internet galvanized a lot of people to the point where I had people reaching out to me and sending me all sorts of footage, like rare footage of this show in its rawest form.

And when Biggie Smalls performed here in 95, it was incredible. He was surrounded by like maybe 60, 70 people. It was a sweat box. He was rapping. He wasn't even making money yet. This was only like a few,

maybe three or four months after Ready to Die came out. So he was still street biggie. It was a weird venue. And it was at a weird venue. Oh yeah, like a byway or something. It was underneath the Big Slice at Young and Gerard.

They called it the Apollo with two Ps. No other shows we know about we know about a blip on the radar venue maybe it was only there for a couple months but right biggie smalls went in there there's a crazy video of it that just came out and i had to put it on a full page in the book and it's a great flyer too and i love how you know elite squad is there uh djx from 88.1 carl allen so you had a lot like a Toronto contingent who was supporting legendary show yeah

so again at the Apollo which Wise Blot tells me is a vacated byway store is what he tells me wouldn't be surprised

yeah byway wow yeah I think he used to buy socks there and that footage like that rare footage

apparently this did air on like Much Music at some point. Yes, what's really interesting about this is there is a Much Music clip where Biggie is playing pool with Oliver Walters from Rap City. And it's a cool clip. Biggie Smalls, he's playing pool

and he's talking about the music industry and coming up in the streets of Brooklyn. And there's only like five seconds of footage from the street in the streets of brooklyn and there's only like five seconds of footage from the show in that segment right until i posted this flyer on instagram and this guy in era music reached out to me and said hey man i've been sitting on some dusty old footage that is still on magnetic tape wow and i And I said, how about, do you need help? I'll do whatever it takes

to get this footage from tape to digital. I will run 100 miles in sand in the Sahara. I'll swim 10 kilometers, whatever it takes. Yes. And somehow,

by the grace of God, it came to fruition. He sent me this video and it is amazing. It's an extraordinary video. And if, by the grace of God, it came to fruition. He sent me this video, and it is amazing. It's an extraordinary video. If we ever do, like I really want to take this book and do an exhibit one day. I want to take this book and bring it to life. And if I do that, I'm actually going to take that concert footage of Biggie Smalls and put it on the big screen. On a loop.

Right above the poster. And it's going to be very loud. Have either of you two gentlemen ever met Ed Retro Ontario Conroy? I thought you were going to say Ed the Sock. Absolutely. Ed the Sock's been on this program. Oh, really?

That's another one I got to listen to. Steven Kersner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was great. Yeah, Ed Conroy. Shout out to Retro Ontario. Yep. Just curious if you had ever crossed paths.

I said the same thing to Stu Stone on Friday because he was making these documentaries about like Toronto stuff. And, you know, that's what Ed is doing, the exact same thing. And there's a lot of synergies here. A lot of synergies here.

Okay. Couple more acts I'm going to ask you about here in the hip hop segment here. Tribe Called Quest. When did Tribe Called quest first play uh uh tribe called quest first played here in 1990 as part of the carabana varsity stadium reggae rap extravaganza i was which i believe was put on by it was either lance ingleton or jones and jones are you sure it was varsity by, it was either Lance Ingleton or Jones and Jones. Are you sure it was Varsity or Lamport Stadium? It might have been Lamport.

It was Lamport. I was there. Oh, you were there? Oh, yeah. So they had like a wrap night and then Saturday and Sunday, I think, were like regular nights. And seeing Q-Tip on the wrap night was amazing. Yeah. So how many people?

Yeah. Yeah. How many people? Oh, I think it's fairly full. Maybe 9,000, 10,000. So this is Lamport Stadium in the stands and the floor, in the ground? Yeah, but it was set up not in, like, think of the end zones. It wasn't the end zones.

It was set up midfield, the stage, and then people on the grounds from midfield in the stands. That was wicked because they came with Jungle Brothers. So you have the Native Tongue Posse coming up, and this is Trap Call Quest off their first record. It was a great hip-hop show. I think Mishimu was there. Yeah and this is Trap Called Quest off their first record. It was a great hip hop show. I think Mishimu was there. Like, yeah, this is 90, so really early. But then afterwards they came,

John Ramos brought them, as you can see here, in 94 with De La. I think they came another time with Craig Mack. But it's starting to all become a blur. Oh, man. Rob, real quick question.

If you had to guess just approximately, how many live shows have you seen in your life? I can't really guess. It's easily over 1,000. Could be 2,000. And you've got to remember, these are just the Toronto shows. I fly to London, England for shows.

I fly to L.A. for shows. I go to New York all the time for shows. I've gotten to the point now where my concert going is very international. It includes Toronto, but LA, New York, they're just suburbs. How many times have you seen

a Toronto show and looked over and said, oh, there's Dave Hodge? Never. Oh, you're not seeing many Horseshoe Tavern gigs there I don't know I feel like

Dave Hodge comes in once a year to do his top 100 of the year you're kidding me I used to live at the Horseshoe especially when

the Gary's did it and no Dave Hodge he's out there all the time but maybe there's only so many

that's the thing about the city so many shows like last night for example there were so many options depending on your genre of choice or whatever.

There's multiple options. Well, that's great to hear. I'm glad there's still a lot of options out there. And it's always been that way. I mean, one of the things about doing research for this book, which didn't really surprise us, but still blew us away when we saw the depth of it, was this has been a music city forever.

As the gateway to Canada, even in the 1840s let alone the 1890s the 1930s the 1950s the 1970s the 2000s this was the place where people came you play new york you play toronto and you play chicago or then it became New York, Toronto, L.A. You're only going to do three cities. Those are your showcase cities. We get so much more than other cities of our size. And now we're the third biggest city in North America. It's even more insane what comes here. Amazing, amazing.

Okay, here, we'll close the hip-hop with something, I was going to say more recent, but I guess it's not that. I don't know if it's not that recent but see I see the last the last poster you've got is Dr. Dre's Snoop Dogg Ice Cube and Eminem

the Up and Smoke tour I was there crazy show 2000 okay in 2000 I saw Eminem but I please don't

throw anything at me or laugh at me but I saw him open for Limp Bizkit in 2000 at the Dome. Oh, at the Dome. I know he was on Van's Warped Tour. It was definitely the Dome.

I feel badly for you if you stayed for Bizkit. Not only did I stay for Bizkit. I like Bizkit, actually. It's so easy there. It's one thing we disagree about. I will say this. I loved Bizkit Live. Because Fred Durst ordered all of us in the

cheap seats to get down on the floor durst actually commented on the flyer vault well recently because i put i posted yeah i posted the woodstock 99 bill yeah right which is crazy like cheryl crow uh tragically hip limp biscuit corn rage yeah yeah yeah all these crazy bands and what did fred durst do at that show? What did he do at that show? I remember. Well, a lot of shit went down at that show. But they were going to play break stuff anyways.

What about Sgt. S? Well, look, when he went out, look, his music is thrash music. You know, if he says break shit, people are going to break shit. And even at the Dome, he said, all the guys in the upper bowl, whatever, he's like, get down here in the flake. He kind of creates chaos, if you will. Yeah, that's what you're going for. If you're into chaos, you're a Limp Bizkit fan. So I have no shame in telling you I thoroughly enjoyed Limp Bizkit in 2000.

But I saw Eminem. Actually, it was Papa Roach, then Eminem, and then Limp Bizkit at this show. I think I'm the flyer for that. Maybe I'll post it. That would have been phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was Eminem's first show here. Okay, tell me what was the first show here. Okay, tell me what, yeah, what was the first show here?

Yeah, April 10th, 99. There it is. And I worked that show. That was Opera House, right? I worked it. Yeah, I was working that show with Jonathan Ramos and Jeff Bramman. It was a co-pro, R.E.M.G. and House of Blues, when House of Blues was in the mix here.

And I think they were working with Elliot, actually. Oh, makes sense. And that was at the Opera House, and it think they were working with elliot actually oh makes sense and uh that was at the opera house and it was slammed absolutely slammed and eminem was on molly and god knows what else he was on but he put on a killer show i bet he did i have distinct when when my name is broken much music okay so they were my name is was playing a high rotation on much music i actually and it was based on that song, which I quite liked, except it really did seem like one day we'd be talking about that one hit wonder, Eminem.

There was that feeling around that song. Well, when Eminem first came out, we were all just like, who is this guy? His rhymes are scary, but they're so tactical and they're so scientific and the bars and the wordplay. But the content was also out of

this world like this guy was crazy he was from a trailer park in detroit like something is different you know so super exciting when eminem came out have you ever seen eminem in concert rob believe it or not no and i really regret it because i adore eminem and was going to go see him in London, England. And I was, it's a long, long story. But I ended up at a dinner that I could not get away from for really important reasons and had to miss Eminem that night. One of my

few, few, few concert regrets. But it's... So you know, thousands of concerts. If you had to pick, I put a gun to your head right now and say you can only pick one Toronto concert. You know what I'd do? I'd pull out my gun quicker and shoot you. Because one is ridiculous.

What am I going to say? The Stones at the El Macombo. Sure. The Ramones at the New Yorker. Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review. The Airplane at the O'Keeffe. Joplin at the CNN Stadium. Public Enemy at the Concert Hall

Rush at Massey Hall I mean it's been all of those things are extraordinary I wouldn't want to give any of them up just seeing Ronnie Hawkins on a Yonge Street stage maybe at Le Coq d'Or in 1964

like having a beer and a smoke on a late Thursday night I saw Muddy Waters when I was 13 at the Colonial. I mean, these things are mind-changing. There's no right answer to this question. Guys, this is a... It's a very unfair question, and I don't know about any of you people listening to the show,

but maybe you want to boycott this show. This man has crossed the line in terms of trying to melt us down. End of the series. Guys, you have a fantastic book here. And again, what are we at here? Oh, Bob Marley and Massey Hall.

June 9th, 75. That might have to be the show. Sorry. There's just too many. So jealous. But do you want to pick one? If I only... Daniel, one concert

that you've been to in Toronto. Oh, that I've been to. Like your favorite concert in Toronto. That's all I've said once I've been there. Because Rob named, I think I counted 30 concerts he rang on there. I've been to a lot of concerts, but I would say my recently one of the most favorite concert experiences I had was seeing the entire Wu-Tang Clan and Old Dirty Bastard's son who was filling in for his father. Right.

And he's like a spitting image of him. And this was at Sound Academy. This was two years ago. And it was a movie because it was the 25-year anniversary of Protect Your Neck. Right. It was a movie.

It was a two-and-a-half-hour just mind melt. And that was the Wu-Tang Clan live in Toronto. I'm happy I was there. That's an inspired choice. Inspired choice. Again, the book is called The Flyer Vault. 150 years of concert, of Toronto concert history.

I guess you can get it just about anywhere you get books. If it's sold out, go to somewhere else and find it. Amazon, Indigo, Sonic Boom, Soundscapes,

Tight Books, and the Spacing Store. So you can find it. It's out there. Okay. Don't sleep. You guys are Instagrammers, but do you guys tweet?

I couldn't find. You're not Twitter. Nah. Because that's where I live and that's fine. I'm not in the Twitterverse. Me neither. All right.

That brings us... Yes. You both send emails really well. Well, here. I'll let you share what I share. So that brings us... We both send emails really well. Well, here. I'll let you share what I share. So that brings us to the end of our 560th show. And you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

So, Daniel, where should people follow you? The Flyer Vault on Instagram? Yeah, pretty much. We're also on Facebook. So, either or. And Rob Bowman, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, music has thrown, what a, you know, you, I need to get you back here, actually,

is what I'm thinking here. But how can people reach you? You can Google me and find my email address in two seconds. I'm very public. I'm also on Facebook. And people reach out to me all the time with all sorts of interesting projects, believe me.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Again, Brian Master is at LetsGetUHome at KW.com. And Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a C. See you all next week. is coming up Rosie and Greg well you know my problem is I kept looking at you and so I go like this yeah yeah yeah

your smile is fine it's just like mine it won't go away right yeah it's straight back there yeah yeah sorry about that I should have

and I'm usually great with mics because I do a ton of interviews, but...