Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The History of 80s and 90s Dance Music in Canada: Toronto Mike'd #1074

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

In this edition of the Progressive Past of Modern Melodies, Mike, Brother Bill and Cam Gordon are joined by Scot Turner as they dive deep into the history of 80s and 90s dance music in Canada. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

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the lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me for another progressive past of Modern Melodies, as always, is Brother Bill and Cam Gordon.

Welcome back, guys. Hello. Thank you for having us back, Mike. It's been a while since we've done one of these Cam you bailed on toast With Stu Stone and I I want to know how you're feeling Yeah this is

Toronto Mike exclusive I actually came down with COVID as we were about to record For the Second time And let me tell you the second time time was way worse than the first time. Really? It fucking sucked.

Yeah. Really? I was like really kind of wrecked for definitely for like about 48 hours. It was like pretty gnarly. And I'm pretty good about not getting sick. But yeah, it kind of fucked me up. Are we, Cam, are we talking about like, were you in bed? Like couldn't get out of bed kind of thing?

Yeah, more or less. Like the whole kind of poo-poo plot or symptoms. Like I kind of ran through them all. Like the chills. And then I got all sweaty, and I had a headache, I had a sore throat, and a lot of phlegm, a lot of horking was going on. That's enough. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

Also, for the second time, neither my daughter nor my girlfriend got it. So I don't know, unless there's, you know, some kind of like biological warfare in my household or something. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm grateful at the same time. Cause so I, I, I asked that question because I, I haven't, I never got COVID, uh, so far knock on wood. Um, but I had H1N1, I had bird flu about 10 years ago and it knocked me on my rear end for a week and almost put me in the hospital a couple of times. So that was a,

that was a bad one too. So I, I hear different things about COVID, you know, people say, Oh, I, I had a cough and then,

you know, my girlfriend had a cough and she was fine for, for, you know, the, the duration, the seven days or whatever, she stayed home and I never got it.

And, uh, yeah, it's God. What a she stayed home, and I never got it. God, what a one-upper. I had bird flu. Trust me, I'm not bragging. Scott's going to say he had SARS. No, but I was going to ask you, Cam, about how many shots did you have? Just curious.

Three. And you, brother? I've had three. Me too. I had three and I got COVID. Oh, you did too? Not until about three months ago I got it. Scott, I haven't introduced you yet.

People are like, who the hell is this guy? So, stand by, stand by. So, Cam, are you feeling, what are you now, standby so cam uh are you feeling what are you down 95 where are you yeah like i'm pretty much back to normal and like working out again and doing tons like yourself mike as you know i'm pretty avid biker so i've been biking around downtown again for like last week so yeah it's all good now but yeah we'd rather not get that again if if I can help it. It's amazing, Mike. You have all these like literally strangers coming down to your basement all the time,

low ceilings and like no ventilation. You've never got it. As far as I know, I've never got COVID. I don't believe in knocking on wood or I'd be slamming my head against it right now. But Cam, I don't want what you got. And I don't even know if I'm being careful anymore, but I get all my shots.

If they let me have a fourth, I'm going to run and get a fourth. I can't wait to do that. But I'm glad you're feeling better, Cam. Can't wait to get you back here for toast in July. It's coming before you know it. Brother, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. Went for another job. didn't get another job.

That's a song. That's a song. Yeah. There was a new smooth jazz slash AC station starting here in Vancouver, and I managed to get a couple of interviews in before they decided that they didn't want to go with me, which is fine. I won't lie to you. I fucking hate jazz. It's my least favorite music of all time. Johnny hates jazz. Yeah, right. But I was hoping to get back in the industry and I still am. And I'm not in the industry right now. I'm currently working for something called BCL, which is the people that

supply you with your liquor here in British Columbia. And it's a pretty good gig for me. So it's going to take a lot for me to get back into the radio business at this point. Okay, that's the LCBO of British Columbia, essentially. Correct. It's British Columbia Liquor. Now, you can't buy Great Lakes in BC, but you can buy them at LCBOs here. In this fine province.

This is Toronto, Mike. So I'm going to crack open a Sunnyside IPA right on the mic here. Yeah. Now let me introduce this guy because I know he's got things to say. He doesn't have a great microphone, but you know what? He's full of good content, so I'll put up with it. he's full of good content so i'll put up with it uh this month gentlemen this month we're diving deep into dance music and toronto's club scene of the 80s and 90s and to help us do that we're bringing in a subject matter expert someone who was there right see what i did there brother

that's for you man welcome back Welcome back to Toronto Mic'd, Scott Turner. Thank you, Toronto Mic'd. Hello, guys. Hello. Nice to be here. Thank you. Hi, everybody. And nice to be back, Toronto Mic'd. When you listen back, Scott,

you're going to be like, I wish I had a mic as good as Brother Bill. You know what? It's the only time in my life where my voice has sounded better than Scott Turner. Only time, man. You're too kind,

too kind. Thank you. Yeah. This does sound awful. Isn't it? You know what though? On with the show. How is your ticker?

How's the heart? Really good. Thank you. For those that didn't know, I had a quadruple bypass just over a year and a half ago. You know, I thought I was okay, but I had known that I had high cholesterol, but I thought, fuck, you know, I'm a vegan, I'm cycling, I'm good. I knew clearly there was a family history, but I ignored it, so it's partly my fault.

But then I had some, you know, issues cycling where i felt something wasn't right went into the doctor bunch of tests later i had uh four blockages you know one at one at 90 two at 80 one at 50 uh and you know my cardiologist had stopped cycling immediately immediately i went in for surgery quadruple bypass uh and you know's quite a surgery, so it took me a while to recover, but I'm back to normal now. On medication, I've got to be on this cholesterol statin. I have to. Yeah. If my doctor told me to stop cycling immediately, I'd give him the finger, tell him to fuck off, and I would just die.

Exactly. off and I just I would just die exactly so it's a family history is you know they talk about hereditary factors in health and and you've got to pay attention to that because it was very very clear uh that I was kind of ignoring and you know uh altruistically I wanted to just oh I can beat this and you know sometimes you got to pay attention to the doctors was there any symptoms at all Scott like did you feel faint after you rode a certain distance or anything like that? Nothing. No, the weird thing was I had done a couple of 100K rides at a pretty decent pace. And I always felt fine.

It was a few weeks after I went for a shorter ride. And I thought it was a lung infection because my lungs felt kind of cold. It's weird. And I just, you know, I kept going back to the doctor, and they said, well, try this puffer. And I said, yeah, I still, and I was completing the rides. I was not, like, gasping for air. I was not like, oh, my God, that was killing me. I was still doing the rides, but something didn't feel right.

And I had a series of tests. Some of the tests were okay. And then the conclusive test was a, what they call an angiogram and they stick this fluid through your body. And, and they're really that way they're able to tell where the blockages are, which they did. And it was like,

you know, all the red, you know, the red lights went off. It was like, whoop, whoop, whoop.

So, uh, yeah. And I guess because maybe because I was a vegan, maybe because I was exercising and cycling so much, looking after myself relatively healthy, it probably saved my life. But at some point, had I continued without the medication, I probably would have had a heart attack.

So this was 100% like a hereditary thing that said nothing to do with, like, overworking your heart or, like, blood pressure no no i did never had high blood pressure blood pressure never no so yeah and i mean it was there all the signs were there my dad died of heart attack his brother died of a heart attack like all the all the men down the family tree like they barely made it to 55 60 paid attention right you know so yeah you know know what Scott you should have preemptively had it checked out if everybody's dropping dead in their 50s yeah you think eh yeah but anyway

well Scott I'm glad you're better are you back to bike yeah seriously I don't have time to do a micumentary on the life and times of Scott Turner so I need you to live a long life but thank you for asking. I'm doing fine. Thank you. So are you back to biking though? Like are you back? Yeah. Okay. Good. I'm not

Toronto Mike biking. Well, you know, I don't, I don't do a hundred at a time. Like today I did 42. I think I did 57 yesterday, but I never go for a hundred. I don't have time. Yeah. I haven't done that in some time, but I do 30, 40k rides, but you're out almost every day, right? Yeah, I am out every day, actually. I had 1,200k for June 2022 because I just came back. I will say,

Mike, we've talked about this in the five, around five years I've known you, not counting the 10 years you ignored all my PR emails to you. Completely ignored. The most fucked up bike ride you ever did is when we went to see Ron Hawkins at the Only in

February. That's like 11 o'clock. You're like biking back at like 11.30 from the East End here in Toronto to your home. Oh, and there was a snowstorm. Psychopath. And there was a snowstorm. Yeah, yeah. That was about I don't know what that was, around 50k round trip,, it was a snowstorm. Psychopath. And there was a snowstorm. Yeah, yeah. That was about, I don't know what that was, around 50k round

trip, but it was a snowstorm. But you know what? I don't have that, you know, sensible, like, switch that says, oh, it's bad conditions, don't go. Like, I go rain, shine, snow. Like, I just fucking go. And I love it. And I love it. I love a late night ride home in shitty conditions

after seeing a great show. Like, that's my a great show. That's my high, man. That's my heroin. And only one fractured wrist. One, yeah. So far. And a chipped pinky, but okay. So guys, we got to get to business here. In the past,

we've gone deep on the subjects of punk, metal, new wave, and hip-hop in Canada. Today, it's dance music with a focus on Toronto's club scene of the 80s and 90s. It was going to be rave culture in Toronto, but that, it turns out, was a much bigger fish. And we're going to save that one for later when Scott can round up even more subject matter experts for us. So that one's going to be coming soon. But our very first episode, guys, was entitled CF and Why Not?

So in the spirit of that episode, I do have a lingering question from that one. And I think with Scott Turner here, who, of course, was at CF and Why Not? Actually, Mike, sorry to interrupt, but can I just make a comment? This is mainly for Bill's sake, but this is actually a callback to a past episode. A final comment about why having COVID at this time was shitty. It meant that I missed a concert from Canadian hardcore punk legends, DOA,

that we discussed at length on the episode with Ralph Alfonso. And knowing that Joey Shithead and friends, mainly Joey is not getting any younger. I was very sad to miss that because who knows when they'll be, although they'll probably play like three more concerts. They play all the time out here. So they're Cam. I'm glad he's on the road. I'm glad you interrupted me mid sentence of that important,

important information here. But here's the question that came in from Will. Did CFNY play Glass Tiger? No. One word answer. No. Just no. Wait a minute. That was

into the 90s, wasn't it? No, late 80s. 80s. Mid to late. Mid to late. I want to say for that two or three month period when we were playing top 40 there scott we may have played it once or okay we won't count that that's like a that's like what that is yeah we won't count that okay okay but you know but that is it that is a good important question and and uh and you know what uh as brief as that period was it really sticks out.

And when people, when you talk a CFNY story of that era, that spirit of radio era, that comes up all the time. And people confuse the dates. They definitely confuse the period of time it was. But it was brief. I think it was in all, it was maybe a year yeah a little more like a couple of months more than a year very brief and we went right back um even probably you could argue we went back more alternative and more uh free form than we were before that uh but it sticks out it sticks out

because yes we played madonna you know and we probably maybe we did play Glass Tiger so perhaps that way all I remember is Johnny Kemp just got paid and I was like oh my god and I had just started at CFNY at that time so it was right in the heyday I mean I wanted to work at the Spirit of Radio instead I worked at CFTR

yeah they were playing like George Michael's Monkey yeah I did at Jackson yeah and I think Def Leppard because some Yeah, they were playing like George Michael's monkey. Yeah, I got it. Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Def Leppard, because some people keep reminding me of that. I go, really?

And I think like, and I go, okay, maybe. And you're right. Glass Tiger. I'm like, no, there's no way. But you know what? Maybe at that, in that period of time. Yeah. But it partly good point, Mike, it probably shouldn't count.

I don't think we should count. I think that's like an outlier. We just won't count that for any of our CF and whatnot. But this is not... Go ahead. I'm just trying to think, could Glass Tiger at all be considered alternative? Like, they did that song with Rod Stewart.

No, their biggest hit has Bryan Adams on it. That's not alternative, right? Don't forget me when I'm gone. It's got Brian Adams all over it. Yeah. What about this on Diamond Sun or something? Remember that, Jan? Yeah.

Of course, but no. Was that alternative? Like the Celtic? It's like, oh, it's not. If that's alternative, what's not alternative? Then it's like, okay. It sounds like the Pogues. Then I guess Phil Collins is alternative.

I guess everybody's alternative. Yes. Yes. Genesis. Genesis. And you alternative. I guess everybody's alternative. Yes, yes. Genesis, you know. And you know, you were confused back then. You should hear what it sounds like now. We just launched a new radio station here today called Sonic. Well, I didn't personally.

And it's the third alt-rock station in the market. Wow. And I'm listening to it today. And with the exception of the stuff that I remember from the 90s, the stuff they play now, I don't know to it today. And with the exception of the stuff from, from that I remember from the nineties, the stuff they play now, I don't know what it is. I don't know if they, you like cam asks, I don't know if I'd consider it alt.

I'm like, it's just kind of drone music to me. It's all one level kind of Mumford and sons and that. Hey, Hey, whole band or whatever. Lumineers. Yeah.

That's stuff. I'm like, okay, that's alternative now okay that's that's cool but it's not my thing that's for sure okay so i'm gonna do a very short rant about this new vancouver station which is called sonic okay very short please do please do yeah and then i'm gonna pass the mic to you guys to get us started here because uh shout out to blair packham i'm gonna recede into the background and i'm ready to be educated because unlike the hip-hop episode we did which i felt so educated on the subject matter that i felt i could do it myself i can be the subject matter expert i knew where we were going i knew every beat this time i gotta say i don't i'm pretty out of my comfort zone so my quick rant is this. So they laid off all their staff including the morning show because they were

flipping formats from the KISS format, which we have here in Toronto, to Sonic, which I'm guessing is a lot like the current Edge or it's a lot like... Indie 88. Indie 88, okay, right. So I know they have one in Edmonton where my wife is from. There you go.

Okay, So they, what it's, they basically tried to do another version of it. Right. Sorry. No, no, absolutely.

Glad you pointed it out. Another version of Mike's wife. There's only one brother. There's only one. It's not what I said. Monica, don't put words in my mouth. You know,

I mean, I never, I'm the only, oh, Cam, I guess we don't, we never worked in radio, but I know the stunting in radio. I know something you'll do in your I guess. We never worked in radio, but I know the

stunting in radio. I know something you'll do in your flipping format. You'll stunt. They started playing the radio edit, of course, because they don't want to get in trouble. They played the radio edit of Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine on a continuous loop. I think I'm tweeting, oh, they're flipping to alt.

Brother Bill, you and I were DMing about this. They're flipping to alt rock. This is the stunt. They're going to alt rock this is the stunt they're gonna play rage against the machine we'll find out when what the lineup is i know it'll include carly myers who is here in our market and fotm j brody and we'll find out what else is going on but then i start to people are like sending me like a rolling stone article and something from the uk and the guardian and like what i thought were kind of like legit mainstream media news sources are talking about how oh my god it's like airheads like the engineers are so mad they fired this popular morning show they've gone rogue pitchfork wrote about this like think about this is what i think people are like mike you have to write about this this is

the coolest thing ever they've gone fucking rogue the engineers are playing rage against it and they're getting they're just they don't care what management wants they're like we're gonna fucking play this all over and over because you fired this popular morning show and i'm like what happened to like what happened to like critical reasoning and and looking at something and trying to find out what's the real story like are these people just looking for clicks does anybody give a fuck about the what's going on here what's the truth this is this is not rogue this is not protest this is a promotion and it worked it fucking worked because the world's gone stupid and it worked but why the hell is rollingstone.com writing about the rogue engineers are protesting the firing of the morning show playing the radio edit

as if they play the fucking radio edit, right? And as if Rogers couldn't stop them if they were doing that for 20 minutes, you guys can speak to that in a minute. And as if I didn't tell the world already that they were flipping Alt-Rock and this was their thing to get your attention and it worked.

What say you radio vets? So first of all, can I just say this, Mike? That was your best Mark Weisblot ever. That was a Mark Weisblot moment. Oh, wow. Okay. So Christian Hall is the brand director there who is from Calgary where he worked. I think actually maybe he was at Edmonton.

He might have worked at Sonic at Edmonton. And he brought the format here, basically. And so the people you're referring to, first of all, are two wonderfully talented human beings named Kevin and Sonia, who were the morning show at Kiss FM. And Christian had so much respect for them, and rightfully so, that he actually allowed them to say goodbye, which Scott, as you know, never happens in our business or very rarely. So he

allowed them to say goodbye a couple of days ago, which I listened to and which they did. And then they went for the rage against the machine angle. And, you know, being in the industry, I knew it was all a ploy, but I was walking through White Rock yesterday and a friend of mine I ran into said, hey, you're about the engineers taking over the radio. I'm like, see, so it obviously worked what Christian would wanted to do work. especially those of us who are very close to the radio industry, is the fact that, like most major companies that own radio stations these days, they'll go in, but they're not going all the way in. What I mean by that is,

if you're going to play Rage Against the Machine 24-7, you better include the most important part of the song, which is what says, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me, and then motherfucker. And they didn't. They played the edited version, which has been okayed by the band and the label. do you think it kind of come across kind of lame to me?

Yeah, because they didn't have the balls to play the unedited version. No, because they need the CRTC to make some rulings in their favor. They're not going to fuck with that. They're not stupid. I'm with Neil, and I think they could have taken it to another level, and you They need the CRTC to make some rulings in their favor. They're not going to fuck with that. They're not stupid. Of course. I'm with Neil, and I think they could have taken it to another level. And you said it worked.

And maybe the whole thing of the engineers is a cute little angle. And maybe they just sent out media releases and connected with the right people to tell the right story. But they could have taken it to another level to play that version of the song which could have got them in trouble which would have like tripled the attention they could and you can always play the you know what a cease and desist you know we were told the authorities told us to take this off the air so we did because we were told to, but look at us rebels. You know, that is alternative. But we all know how risk averse Rogers is. So that's never going to happen.

No, no. I mean, but the thing is too, we have, like I mentioned, we have three alt rock stations in Vancouver now. One of them is going to change formats. Everybody pretty much is assured. And that's a station called the peak. And I feel bad because it's a, it's a, it's a station that many of my friends work at right now.

And unfortunately when there's format changes, there's employee changes and the on-air staff gets blown out 99% of the time. So that's unfortunate. And then CFOX where I was working for 10 years has been a powerhouse of that format in this market still still to this day is. It's number one or number two consistently in this market with the key demos. And they've got a powerhouse morning show there.

And you take Kevin and Sonia out, who are well-established here, and you put in a virtual unknown. It's a female, which I think is a great deal for radio. The fact that it's a female-fronted morning show, which is another rare thing for this, you know, just say this in 2022. Yeah, in this day and age, it still is. We got Josie Dye doing Indie 88 mornings. Yep.

Yeah, absolutely. Good for Jos. Yeah, you know, and good honor. And I know they, you know know she seems to be holding her own I don't know the Toronto market anymore but I can tell you that you know the person that's on there that I heard this morning wasn't great

I'm not going to lie to you coming in after Kevin and Sonia going to be tough shoes to fill this is on the new so they've stopped on Sonic. Fuck you. They stopped. This morning they stopped and they're just playing the same old, same old alt rock.

I'd be curious what the first song they played after that. And now Lumineers! Hey ho! Like awesome. Back to this. I'm not sure I'm a Lumineers fan

they're okay I think it was Elvis Presley's a little less conversation I did see one article that kind of called them on say hey this is a publicity stunt and the Taiyi which I think

makes sense, being what they're pulled out of, political leanings and whatnot. I totally agree. The Guardian, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone. But no critical thinking, right, Cam? What happened? I feel like they didn't

say if this was a stunt or not, but that's almost besides the point. I'm like, I just don't think it's that interesting. Although I must say as a PR person, I'm very offended by your visceral reaction to PR stunts. I'll let that slide. I'm allergic to bullshit, Cam.

You know that. I got some great Twitter data if you want to. At the end of the day though, guys, I mean, they did what they felt they had to do to get the word out and you know not a lot of people talking about terrestrial radio these days i'll be the first to say it worked like it worked yeah uh absolutely it absolutely worked i just think it's ridiculous how uh people have stopped thinking critically uh in 2022 it's like just you know it's like it's like what is the movie uh

uh the what's the movie where he's like uh selda balls just just a random random movie my step mother's an alien where they get they basically uh when when when the story is what the the community needs the story it'll come later i'll Google the name of the fucking movie and I'll get back to you. I just had to do it right here. Okay, look. Apocalypse Now. Come on. Come on, Mike.

Well, Cam, we know you haven't seen any movies. It's time for the Great Lakes promo. Oh, the man. I just remembered the name and I haven't Googled it yet, you guys. The man who shot Liberty Valance. Has anyone seen the man who shot Liberty Valance? No.

Yeah. I have not. Watch the movie and get back to me. Which one of you gentlemen wants to start a... It is a great song, actually. Is it Glen Campbell? Liberty Valance.

Is it Glen Campbell? I don't think so. Maybe Scott, you're the subject matter expert here. Do you want to start us off here so we can go on our little journey here? I'm looking forward to this. back to those 80s CFNY days, that part of the definition of alternative originally was that it was not what, it was the music that mainstream was not playing,

that mainstream radio was not playing this music. So it didn't definitely, it did not define a style of music. It was just like they weren't playing this, they weren't playing this, so we'll play it. And that's part of where it started. Then years in, people started to come up with their own definition because stations like CFNY in the 80s were playing, you know, Depeche Mode, New Order, Smith's, Cure, etc.

And then all of a sudden, oh, so it's got to sound a little bit like this. And so that's where it became funny because, you know, somebody like Paul Simon came out with Graceland. And mainstream radio were like, what the hell is this? We're not playing this. So, you know, we had a big meeting about it and going, this is fucking cool. This is a great record. And so we played Graceland, Paul Simonon you know months months many months before mainstream radio decided they thought well we got to play this uh and that was alternative you know and there's many examples of that so it's really hard to define you know what is alternative

certainly what is alternative today so i'll leave that for another discussion another day though it's a good conversation it's a great argument right at some point the alternative becomes mainstream like i'm thinking it smells like teen spirit right like at some point that's not the alternative right and that's the funny thing a song starts a certain way and it might be you know sweet dreams by eurythmics and when that first came out it's like this is weird it's different this is very alternative and then fast forward when like everybody in the world knows the song and it's like well this is very alternative and then fast forward when like everybody in the world knows the song and it's like well this is commercial crossover bullshit stream well i'll

say like what the song never changed it's the same song you know exactly i'd argue tom morello retweeting this rogers publicity stunt this morning is an example that because like rage when they came out they were like oh my this band's crazy there's nothing like these guys and now I mean they're just like a censored version of the song is being used for like a format swap in Canada right yeah and I don't think anybody told the guys in the band that oh by the way they're playing the edited version of the song which is you know which people go, what's the big deal? The edit is such a significant change in that song.

Yeah, fuck you. I won't do what you tell me. That's the heart of this song. You can't just rip out its heart. It's the build up and the money shot. There's actually a segue back into the club Yeah, good. We need to get back there, Ken.

But Club 102 would play the unedited version after 9 p.m. Yes. They would play that. 100%. And closer, yeah. Beep, you like an animal. I want to fuck you like an animal. Absolutely.

They would do it deliberately. Stuart Myers told them, play the unedited version of it that's say you know stewart myers was a was like i've talked a lot about stewart myers hopefully one day we'll get him on um yeah just knew all the the right button buttons to push and when to push them and his daughter's on that new station she is oh that's cool i didn't know that that's good for her she's the co-host of the afternoon show with Jay Brody. Right. With FOTM Jay Brody.

They got to know each other at CFNY. Follow the money. And I heard them today. And you know what? I'm going to be honest. They were the best I heard all day. And I'm not just saying that because I know who Carly is. Well, that's your future morning show then.

There you go. I would say. I would say. Look at us. There you go. I would say. I would say. Unless you're deep and you're deep. Yeah, if you're deep, you can pooja and you're deep. Come on, Cam, get it right. Mike's more obsessed

of a show he will never listen to, but there are... I think it's more wise blood. I think it's more wise blood. Oh my God. It's you. It's all you, bro. Let's talk about dance music. Are we ready to rock? I guess we're dancing.

We're not really rocking, but go ahead. Yeah, so this is the radio guy in me. I feel like this is a perfect time for some mentions of some sponsors, and then we can go right into the topic. Who's producing this show, Scott? I know. I can't help it. Executive producer, Scott Turner. I've been a program Scott? I know. I can't help it. Executive producer, Scott Turner.

I've been a program director for too long. Okay, so we talked a lot about Vancouver here on Toronto, Mike. Did you know the headquarters, the first retail store for Dewar is in Vancouver? Did you know that, Brother Bill? I did. Yes, I did know that. I've never seen it, but

I think I heard it on another podcast featuring some friends of yours, Mike. I've never seen it, but I think I heard it on another podcast featuring some friends of yours, Mike. I got to find out which one that is. Okay, so I actually... No. That's another show. He said friends. Friends, he said.

H&F. H&F, Mike. By the way, shout out to Liz Braun. I love that line because I was thinking Dewar is the Scotch too. And you mentioned that, which is a great podcast. Wasn't Liz Braun great? Oh, my God. That was brilliant.

Just a quick side story. Have you listened to it, Neil? Yes, I did. Let's do it again. I loved there was the part. It was just kind of a side story. But she's like, oh, and I had to take Peter Gabriel to go see the Ramones at the New Yorker. And the Ramones, their first two shows in Toronto were 76 and 77 at the New Yorker.

Like the Garys. Yeah, and she didn't even know who Peter Gabriel was. And she's like, oh, I had to take this guy, Peter Gabriel, and I take him to the New Yorker. And the New Yorker had these posters of Genesis up on the wall. And I didn't even know that was him. I'm like, holy shit. It was beautiful. Between that and the shade thrown at Joni Mitchell.

What was up with that? That was weird. That was real talk. Who saw that coming, right? No, that was real talk. That was great. I love that. I was going to say, Scott,

you mentioned Peter Gabriel to the Ramones. It's like an Ivor Hamilton story where he had the guys from Yellow come to the studio and he took them to the S&S, which was a strip joint in Brampton. Yes, I remember that now. On this note, do you know who my guest, maybe you guys know this gentleman, but my

guest on Saturday actually is going to be a guy who calls himself promo man. Oh yeah. Is that the Duff man? Is that Duff man you're doing? Or is that this Duff man? Isn't that yellow? That's yellow. Yeah.

Oh yeah. But I thought you were named Duffman because I said Promo Man. No. Promo Man. Anyway, this guy's got stories about everybody from Liberace to Keith Moon to he was there when Keith Richards got arrested.

This guy's got the stories. Freddie Mercury stories. And he's got the stories. Freddie Mercury's stories. And he's got Johnny. He's like a publicist? Yeah, exactly. He's a promo guy for musicians. And who is it? Well, his name is Nick.

And I'm going to butcher his last name. Nick P will call him. And he goes by Promo Man. And he's going to come tell stories. But anyway, we're off topic here. Save 15%. Oh yeah, I forgot. This show has been produced by scott turner save 15 at the toronto retail i don't know if it'll work in vancouver

check it out for me brother but it definitely works uh on queen street in toronto and at doer.ca d-u-e-r.ca say 15 with the promo code toronto mic do it get your cannabis and cannabis accessories at canna cabana all across the country they've got over 100 locations great people uh that's where we get our uh get our weed from if you're a good fotm so thank you canna cabana sticker you.com available across the country at sticker you.com. Get your tattoos. Not your temporary tattoos. Your stickers, your decals. Palma Pasta. Brother, when am I going to meet you so I can give you a lasagna?

You owe me a few. I don't know when I'm going to be in Toronto next. I can't tell whether we should talk about it. There's a whole thing. I feel like there's an elephant sitting there. I thought maybe we'd keep it off this episode. But maybe we'll talk about it afterwards. Why I won't come to Toronto?

Is that what you're asking? No. No, you know what? I hope to be there one day. You were first on my list, Mike. Airport, Mike's. Okay, good. For my food.

And you're going to get your lasagna from Palma Pasta. We're going to have TMLXX on September 1st, if you can come for that. Scott, you've got to make the trip to Southern Etobicoke for TMLXX on September 1st if you can come for that. Scott, you've got to make the trip to Southern Etobicoke for TMLXX on September 1st. September 1. September 1, 6 to 9 p.m. It's at Great Lakes Brewery. Okay. So shout

out to Great Lakes. I know this is audio only, but Scott, I have to ask you because we're on a Zoom call here. Are you at a certain wing of your cottage somewhere? What is that? It's all wood.

I'm seeing wood. So for those that are listening on the podcast. I took a screen cap. Take a look at the picture. Yeah, there you go. Broadcasting from the Turner Ranch that has been affectionately called over the years. I've had various parties here, raves and all kinds of events. I'm on two acres in North Burlington.

Beautiful spot. 26 years. I just sold it. On the way. Just sold it. Sad story. Another story for another day. Did you have to sell it? It's a tongue-and-groove pine cottage

in Burlington. If you were here, you'd feel like you're up in cottage country, but it's beautiful. That's what it looks like. I could bike to you. Did you have to sell it, or is this something you wanted to do? It was part of the family plans for the future, and it'll be sad to leave here, but we're leaving for the right reasons

and for the future. Are you moving back to your wife's hometown of Bramalee, Ontario? No. We're actually very quickly moving to Paris, Ontario. This little nook that is a really sweet little place. That's the plans right now. There's some family reasons behind it all with aging parents that need some help that sort of thing which happens to people of our age right

um so that's part of it and then you know future retirement but you know retirement means me to do more of what i want to do stuff like this um you know and uh you know just spend more of my time cycling and get a better microphone better microphone you could do more and a better microphone i changed microphones or this one still sucks right no this is better okay i think it's better it's better you know what it's funny you mentioned that scott about your family with old people getting older this is the reason why i haven't been to toronto for those who don't know, I have a 94-year-old mother who I have to see every day and I take care of.

So that makes it pretty impossible for me to spend any time outside of British Columbia. So I have not been anywhere. And I hate to word it this way, but I will. When she goes, it's going to free up a lot of my time

and you will see me a lot more in Toronto. Well, brother, you fucked up my next line. Now I can't say shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. So thanks a lot. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Scott. Let's dive in, buddy. It's a part of life.

And I just I got a text just this afternoon from a good friend whose mother just passed away. And it's, you know, anybody in and around. Yeah, maybe not your age. Mike and Cam, I don't know your age because you look kind of young like Toronto Mike. Neil's kind of old like me. Cam, are you 40 yet? Oh, come on. No, I'm 44. You know that, Mike. Our friend Stu is 39.

It's still young. Brother, you look amazing. You don't age. I'm the old guy in the group. But what happens is is 39. It's still young. Brother, you look amazing. You don't age. Thanks, man. I'm the old guy in the group. But what happens is in your 50s and certainly your 60s, aging parents, those that are still alive, it's just a fact of life. They either need help or at that

point where they're passing away. Just a part of life. It is. Well, you're good sons. Now, Scott, producer Scott, just a part of life. Absolutely. It is. Well, you're good sons. Now, Scott, producer Scott, I've done the mentions. Are you ready to rock and roll here? Absolutely, yes. So you want me to lead this?

Yes, please. Yeah, I thought, you know, we first talked about the raves, and I think it needs, honestly, to do it right, it needs a two-, three-part, you know, podcast episode and bring in some people that were there. Sounds like a lot of work, Scott. To tell some of the stories. Maybe it is, but there are so many stories involved with it.

Like any story, any history of any particular entity, you can break it into certain stories and parts and pieces. And I thought we could talk about where we could kind of center this a little bit. And Cam, thanks for bringing this up, is maybe 80s, 90s clubs in Toronto, dance music in particular, which you could frame under electronic music. You know, the interesting thing when I tell people and I talk about dance music in the 80s,

particularly 90s, you know, the term that we used at the time was dance music, which included everything that you played in a club. And that could be hip-hop, that could be house music, that could be alternative music. It's all those different things but you know we had um uh uh certainly powered by i would say you know cfny and some of the college stations and some of the music at the time you know there were a lot of alternative clubs that supported the music and other mainstream clubs in the 80s but there was also in the 90s an explosion of new clubs because there a time, and I'm trying to remember the exact time, that when the Copa came around, it was one of the first sort of really upscale nightclubs. And there were only a few of them around at the time.

But then when the entertainment district opened up into the 90s, just the explosion of clubs and music, dance music. And then, you know, you could argue that energy went away. It was part of that, the helping the explosion of music. A lot of different things happening at the same time. So, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, Scott, like maybe what were the clubs, either if you're like working live to air type stuff or producing

or just as a patron what were the clubs you personally spent the most time at I'm so curious and I referenced it in our email I have it right here it's not because you wrote the blurb on Denise Benson's book which is so Mike I should bring this over next time I come you would love this book

because it's as much about like architecture and the art changing city as it is about like well it's as much about architecture and our changing city as it is about, well, it's also about music and a lot of great war stories. But I'm curious, you wrote, you blurb there on the back from Scott Turner. Scott, which of these clubs, I'm sure a lot of them are featured in here, were your go-to places, either personally or professionally? You know, there's so many in the book,

and that's a great book, again, to repeat that, then and now, Denise Benson's book. And she's got, all series are online, too. Anybody can just Google it, and you can read the stories, extensive stories of the club scene in the, particularly 80s and 90s. And she covered everything, you know, from the more mainstream clubs to the,

most I'd say the underground alternative clubs and the gay clubs that were part of the scene in Toronto, and all of that and in between. It's a really great collection of the club life. I would say it's mostly 80s, wouldn't you? Late 70s, 80s, I guess, mostly. And I just love, like she talks, remember, from the person doing the coat check to the owners, just some of the patrons, the bartenders, the bands playing there.

I think it started as like a column in bi-weekly and then she collected it all. Mike, she'd be a great guest too because she has an awesome resume. She's just a cool person. Sold. I've gone to Nora a little bit over the years. Another sale for Cam Gordon. to have gone to Norway a little bit over the years. Another sale for Cam Gordon.

You know, and I just, Cam, there's a couple of favorites, not necessarily that I DJed at, although I did DJ Domino Club, had a couple of, you know, resurrections. There was the Domino Club, and then it moved location. There were Twilight Zone, which I also DJed at,

which is legendary in Toronto because it was, you know, one of the, one of those after hour clubs that, you know, did not serve alcohol. And there was a few of those, and Twilight Zone is one of them, you know, they were known know, late teens, early twenties, I think Twilight Zone or one of the other ones I went to, maybe it was Voodoo Club, which is another really cool club. You know, one of the first, you know, you, you went there for the music and the, and you, you so went there for the music because there was no booze. Like these were after hour clubs for the most part. And nobody was in there at midnight. It was empty. It was, you know, it was tumbleweed going through the club, you know, and then when the bars closed, the people start coming in and then, you know, 4 a.m. is when it was on. It was and it was very cool to be there. But one of the funny why this sticks in my head is the first time I saw a, you know,

co-bathroom, you know, I meant just remember, I got to go to the can. And it was like what's going on yeah unisex what's going on unisex you know it was like okay and there's that one moment like for like 10 seconds i'm just going what's this and then you realize everybody's normal and everything's cool and you go okay and off you go uh and you know that was the scene and nobody was in it wasn't necessarily about picking people up it wasn't necessarily about the drugs although i'm sure there were drugs involved but there were a lot of people that went there to dance and they were into the club music and that

was that and um admittedly fashion was you know the the culture of fashion and how people looking cool and being able to be themselves and that's you know the gay culture is part of that too is that people had a chance to go and feel normal um in a world where they wouldn't normally be normal you know and that that speaks for cf and y and alternative music too because you know a lot of the people that connected through that station and music just felt like they were weirdos and people are called them weirdos and then there were those spaces in toronto clubs helped you be normal um and that was important thing i think for a lot of people in those years growing up right before we get to the music i want to see maybe brother bill you'll have some insight into this but ma i i wasn't a

part of this rave scene but i understand ecstasy was a huge part of it right like wasn't wasn't the drugs kind of a key ingredient here right to the drug question i love it yeah going right to me too that's fantastic um so let me just by saying this before i line up my comments yeah um So I must have ignored your email threads talking about shelving Toronto Rave. That's all the homework I've done. It's based on the rave scene. It was a late breaking

decision by Scott. I'm not sure because Scott's the producer. I didn't feel I could push back. I can hold my own, but I will tell you that obviously CFNY had that one sound in the 80s and in the late 80s, early 90s, we kind of branched off in two directions. So you had the guys like Scott who were more on the dance side of things,

along with Hedley Jones and to an extent Chris Shepard and Don Burns as well. And then you had the people like myself and Martin Streak and people like that, Pete Fowler, who were sort of the next wave and Nirvana kind of defined us. So I didn't like dance music that much. I didn't mind the new wave stuff of the 80s. That's what got me listening to CFY. Because as Scott mentioned earlier, it was playing non-mainstream music. That was what attracted me originally to it. You know, and yet when this was all happening, when the rave thing was starting to break in the early, early 90s, I was first put on the air. And I remember I used to play a lot of that, like the techno side of things, just to kind of get myself immersed because I knew there was something coming with with the rave scene and I

ended up going to a rave I didn't go to lots of them I wasn't entrenched the way Scott was but I went to a rave in 1992 on May 31st because I looked it up it was called nitrous 13 do you remember that Scott yes so was that the mud mud rave sorry what was the date? It was May 31st, I think, 1992. It was at a warehouse somewhere. That was one of the early ones. Yeah, was that the one with Two Unlimited? Yes. Okay.

And so that was my first taste of rave music. And frankly, I didn't like it. I didn't find that. I found it all this like hyperactive beats. And that's, I don't know. Yeah, but were you doing the drugs there, brother? Well, there's where I'm going next. Okay.

So, you know, there was a lot of drugs in those days and I was for certain partaking. But let's be more specific though. It's ecstasy, right? There's drugs and there's drugs. It's ecstasy, right? We were doing ecstasy. Yeah. You'd go to a tab of ecstasy, like a pill or whatever,

and then you'd just drink water all night because you were so goddamn thirsty all the time. And it just gave you this super shot of energy. It almost was like a euphoric caffeine buzz, you know? Yeah. And so it was there. I mean, it was definitely there. Scott knows that too.

And it was part of any movement, any musical youth movement is going to have drugs. It's going to be there. So what year are we talking, like, Bill? What was that experience, Bill slash Neil? So 92. Cam Cameron? I'll never get it right.

There's no Neil on this Zoom, okay? It's all good. It's all good. 1992 was when I went to get it right. There's no Neil on this Zoom, okay? It's all good. It's all good. 1992 was when I went to that rave, and it's the only one I remember going to. Although I remember, I think, Scott, seeing you at a Moby rave somewhere downtown that Shepard took me to once. I think we ran into you along the way. And then, obviously, I knew what was going on with, with shepherd, who was DJ dog whistle. And I knew it was going on with specifically with one of the greatest human beings that ever lived. And that's Don Burns, who was Dr. Trance,

who was this older guy that was into this music. So like that was Don though, right, Scott, he was just a guy that he was so passionate about music that when he fell in love with something, he was going to tell everybody about it. And that's, you know, and that's what I remember about that scene. I remember rave music had this grip on people and in a positive way. And unfortunately, like I mentioned,

the drugs come with it too. That's just a fact of it. But I would say that comparatively speaking from a guy who came from punk rock and into the nins and the alternative stuff i don't think there was any more drugs than anywhere else and it wasn't the dirty stuff like it sounds like it was primarily ecstasy yes that's all that's all i knew yeah okay yeah because you know okay go ahead scott yeah i was gonna say the and you know i went back just talking about some

of those clubs in the 80s, and especially after hours when there was no alcohol being served. So you knew that there was a certain percentage of people that were there just for the music. They were maybe to socialize. There are other factors, fashion and those things too, and certainly drugs. And it would be really hard to say, and I would be naive to think that at Twilight Zone there weren't a certain percentage on drugs. But, you know, and the same thing with the raves, and particularly the early rave scene, is that, you know, boy, you know what? I went to a lot of raves.

I would hesitate to guesstimate, but I would say maybe 50% were on ecstasy. And that may be high. Like 5-0? Yeah, 50%. But that's just a guesstimate. I don't know. I don't know what the numbers were. I clearly knew who you could tell just by looking, talking, and

the group that you surrounded yourself with. But it's really hard to tell. But it's a factor, as Neil said, in any scene, any music scene. And even the punk scene, when I read deeper stories of the punk scene, I'm really surprised to see, because I thought punk was maybe a bunch of beers and music. But it was like, oh, shit, there's coke and there's heroin. And heroin is like, ah, shit. So it infiltrates

every sort of scene um so the drugs are a part of a scene for sure and it's it's cool brother that you were that was one of the earliest raves um because really the the first raves um and that could be argued that's why we need a bigger panel because they'll all argue who was first but that was one of that was one of the first ones. 1992, 30 years ago, was sort of ground zero for the beginning of the scene in Toronto. I read somewhere, and I'm glad at least a couple of you were there, Cam. I don't know when you started attending your first raves.

I know you were awfully young in 1990. I was in high school still. Although I guess people go to high school. Because I read Toronto was considered to be the rave capital of North America. Is that true? It's a good argument. If you compare the other...

At the scene of that 30 years ago in 92, there was not much happening elsewhere. There were just some pockets of it in New York and a bunch of us and Neil would remember this is that and there was a connection and Neil pointed that out is there was

when you go back especially the late 80s there was and particularly you know some of us that you know from Shepard, and, you know, just about everybody at the station, at the time, it really played a really vast selection of what was alternative, and it went from, you know, the electronic industrial sounds to, you know, the, you know, the REMs, and the Smiths and the the more guitar based stuff um and everything in

between and so and that's kind of the divide there that that neil talks about that you know the late 80s early 90s where the station you know started and that's where i was fighting for the continuation shout out some of these bands that would be on the dance side of the alternative movement here yeah well you know from Depeche Mode and New Order you look at those sort of um and you go back you can go further back to Kraftwerk that sort of drove all that but there were other bands you know like Cabaret Voltaire Pet Shop Boys Cabaret Voltaire and that industrial harder sound that was out there um Nitzer Eb and bands like that it was always part of the music of CFNY,

so there was the alternative, harder, industrial, and techno music. And that sort of brought us into the late 80s, early 90s, where techno just really took off from Detroit, from Belgium, from Germany, from the UK, from Leeds and the Warp label and that shit. And that was like a whole new burgeoning scene that people like, yeah, like myself and Shep and that were really getting into. And I thought that needs to be part of the future of CFNY. Right. Where there was a divide, where it was like, no, Nirvana, grunge, that's the future.

And nobody was wrong. where it was like, no, Nirvana, grunge, that's the future. And nobody was wrong. You know, they were all right. And it just, it went in a certain direction. And that's kind of where I went, ooh, I'm out. I, you know, I need to support this side of the music. And that's kind of where I went. And the station did not necessarily go in the wrong direction, which just wasn't the right direction for some people. Right. And, and, and, you know,

you could argue this, we could argue that for days, but yeah, there were, that was kind of a turning point. The Nirvana was kind of the, you know, ground zero for the new direction, right. The new direction. So up until then, so I got put on the, put in the, on the air. I mean, Scott was there a lot longer than I before i was there not aging it too much scott but i got put on the air in the winter of 1990 so that was nirvana's never mind didn't come out until 1991 september of 91 so you know for me the dance music more towards the dance side of things bands that i like were like a band called beloved um yeah And there was Depeche Mode, obviously. Loved Depeche Mode.

They were the godfathers sort of of the new wave, kind of heading in that direction. Erasure, I remember being a big fan of Erasure. Electronic, was it Electronic? Yazoo, absolutely. Like all this, that kind of sound. Yeah. You know, and had Nirvana not happened,

who knows what would have happened with cf and y i don't know i presume it probably when it would have gone in the direction that scott you're talking about and the electronic side of things and and maybe if that happened energy 108 wouldn't have happened right yeah you know a weird this actually this is a weird question then i'm actually to want to parlay this into our favorite game, CF and Why Not, because I do have a list of bands. I'm curious if CF and Why played them. Yeah, every band you just mentioned,

I'm just curious, because the only band I can sort of think of that might fit the bill is that band Information Society, and I'm not even sure that's like a dance. Like, nothing is like American. There's no like American bands really in this mix. Like Moby came along and was semi-mainstream,

I guess from the start, but not even really when he was doing like Go and stuff. It's just like, well, some people know it was like Twin Peaks song and stuff. But like that was pretty still subterranean. Like late 80s early 90s there's no like US based artists really in the mix here

unless I'm wrong I guess like Nine Inch Nails and shit would like filter. Well that and more of the industrial side of things a lot of the industrial bands were European like Front 242 and Nights Arab and Nights Arab whichever you want to go with things like that. But interestingly on that note cam is that sort of the pioneers were, you know, a lot

of American underground DJ producers, Joey Beltram, the Plus 8 label, which is actually out of London, but, you know, they kind of, everybody thought they were out of Detroit, and then Detroit. And so there was these underground producers, DJs that were a lot of you know Europeans and British people were picking up on those sounds going wow this is cool shit let's take it to another level which they did and there's a lot of stories about you know British producers artists you know picking up on American you know sounds from you know whether it's the deep south and rock and roll and blues and that

and turning it into a whole new thing. That kind of happened with electronic music. So a lot of electronic people always point to Detroit, Detroit, Detroit. And it was these house music people that were fiddling around with new technology coming out and giving it more of that kind of techno-y sound. And that's kind of where a lot of it, some of that, not all of it, but some of the inspirations came from. So, you know, you could point back to America as being the influence

for some of these artists. But, yeah, good point. I'm thinking beyond, wow, yeah, beyond Moby. I was going to say, that's where part lays into one of my questions, and I think I'll just filter these in as they come up, but yeah, like, so you got the Detroit guys, you got

Derek May, you got Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, and then hop over to Chicago, you have more like House and Jungle, I think, but like Frankie Knuckles. Did CFLI play any of this stuff? They probably did. Yeah, and you know what?

And here's a way to best understand that, and I see this so many times on social posts and that, when people, you know, I'll post something or somebody posts something going, that's not CFNY, that's not Alternative. They didn't play that. And then a few of us will step in going well yeah kind of sort of but here's where as neil just pointed out what happened was you remember we have so many live to airs and so many club um events or and shows specialty shows like headley

um that did play that stuff and you have to think about this in terms of listener audience. So CFNY tended to have a higher audience as you went through the day. You know, going far back as Pete and Gates, their numbers were okay, but not through the roof. Middays were okay. Afternoons started to go up. Evenings were incredible. Yeah, evenings and overnights and

then weekend numbers you know according to the ratings were just through the roof and that's kind of where people you know would tune in those people that weren't mainstream hardcore cf and y listeners would listen at night and weekends and what would they hear in those times shit you didn't normally play during the day. Right? And that's where you hear there were certain songs that were not played till after six, and then certain tracks, you know, and that's club stuff. A lot of club stuff were only played on weekend shows

like Headley, like Shep. But that had such a huge audience, certain people go, yeah, they played that. And other people go, well, wait a minute, I didn't hear that. I want to piggyback on this. We mentioned a band. I think that rave that Brother Bill went to in 92, you described it,

Scott, as the Too Unlimited rave, I think you called it. What do you mean by that? Was Too Unlimited there? Yes. Hey, do you have the song queued up? No, the music happens in post, but I am setting you up for that story.

Okay, yeah. I remember listening throughout the 90s to CFNY, and you're kind of making a good point here, where during the day, you guys would never ever play 2 Unlimited during the day. I would not hear it. Oh, God, no. No, Get Ready For This was not going to get played on CFNY. But is it possible that during a live to air,

two Unlimited could get in the mix? Yes. In the air. Sockham Techno with Don Cherry. He could score a number for Bobby Orr. Right. Where's Stu Stone when you need him? Clear the dance floor.

To put that in perspective, the context that goes back to the Sweet Dreams and What is Alternative is that when Too Unlimited Get Ready for This came out, it was an instrumental track done by club producers for the clubs.

They put this thing together and it was very ravey. You know that whatever the you know the technology they were using at the time i can't remember all the different samplers and the names of the 303s and 808s and all these different things they used but it was like a very very rave driven techno track built for the clubs um that just took off and took off in the clubs and took off in the raves but it was make no mistake when it came out a underground 100 underground track that nobody would play on the radio first of all it

was instrumental so it had this brief period that it lived as this really cool club underground track and played at raves and you know they were booked to play uh that shep had brought them in through his arrangement with quality records to play uh that shep had brought them in through his arrangement with quality records to play i think they played the week before at rpm or something and um and they were booked quickly because they were in town for a week they were quickly booked for this rave when it was like nobody it wasn't played on radio it was this underground you know club rave track um and it wasn't until like a year later that it crossed over. And then the band, when it started to take off,

that's when the label stepped in going, we've got a hit record here. You need to put some, you need to rap on it. You've got to put some vocals on it. You've got to come, and they're like, oh, fuck, okay. And they stuck some vocals on it, and it just went crazy. And that happened many, many times. Wow.

Many underground tracks, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Outro Music But that's really it. So certain tracks start as an underground thing that nobody thought would go anywhere, and then it builds a life of its own. That's a classic example. Love it. Look at it now, right? What is it?

It's a hockey stadium anthem it's absolutely an arena jam i'm sure they're still playing it probably although i did notice when i went to a game this year they finally retired caught an eye joe oh god well yeah shoot me thank god for that yes that reminds me of another track and this is also on my list and i don't know if you guys remember this, because this was a big song. The song Swamp Thing, and let me quantify, not the chameleon song, by The Grid. Was that a song?

Which is a great song. Yeah, which I feel like without The Grid's Swamp Thing, there's no Cotton Eye Show. Rednecks, I think, was the artist behind Cotton Eye Show. Yes, from Sweden. Well, they all were. Were they Dutch? Where were Two Unlimited from?

Two Unlimited were from Holland. Yeah. I think. Yeah. The track that Cam, you speak of, Swamp Thing by The Grid, to me, that was just a brilliant track. A really good, catchy, instrumental techno track. Good Viking song, too. Yeah, with a banjo in it. If you haven't heard it,

it's hard not to like it. That's where Mumford & Sons got it. That would have been like, I think that was 96. There's no way in the world that Edge would have played that at the time. We played it on Energy.

It was a huge track. But, you know, it did start at the raves. I remember, you know, being at a particular rave at a particular night, you know, where there may or may not have been ecstasy involved. And, you know, one of the DJs dropped that. And, you know, seeing, you know, 4, four or 5,000 people at four in the morning on E, you know, when that drops and when it breaks into the banjo and the kick drum kicks in, it's just a moment, right? It's very cool. It's pretty unique. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� See you next time. All right. We'll be right back. Thank you. Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot

Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot Bigot

Bigot Bigot We'll see you next time. can we talk about i i mentioned this in the email talk about can con one of our favorite topics um i'm curious how many like we i mentioned sort of you know there's kind of the chicago and the detroit guys so that's ticking a box i suppose for us i'm curious like late 80s early 90s same deal like canadian artists filtering in here i'm just gonna say a few names was anybody here in the mix so we got i i'd be shocked if this guy made it there but like richie hodden like any of the plastic man stuff which is a bit more like kind of minimal but then all these more mainstream bands we got con can we got john james we got lisa loheed and then a bit later these are more energy 108 fans but mj and capital sound who i think were out of ottawa so we can go through them individually but yes and no

on some of those and and brother would remember that uh i started a show with may pots oh yeah and those late 80s like 89 90 91 with cf and y called beats per minute yep and it was a feature show again yeah feature show on the weekends and part of why i did that because you know the dance music was just really starting to grow and i i just wanted to you know i obviously my interest in that stuff was growing uh and i thought man we here's a chance to uh expose some of that stuff wasn't playing in normal rotation on the station so um yeah there was a few things that you mentioned there that we would play on that show again weekends features only um and go ahead brother so i was just going to throw this in it's a bit of a side tracker so i'll hopefully bring it back

but you know this is the difference between the era now of broadcasters and the era when i'm listening to scott talk about this and the era of broadcasters that we were we were more like djs than we were like announcers because as you can hear in scott's voice and it was the same with me as well the number one thing we wanted to do was introduce people to new music and wanted to get music that we loved out there so people could hear it yeah so we'd be like you know so scott's created a show in maypods called beats per minute the reason why is is because Scott loved that dance shit. Pardon me for using that.

Really wanted people to hear it. You know, listening to, I haven't listened to alt rock radio in a long time. I'm listening to it today. The two things that really stand out for me is, is how much the people that are on the air now don't understand like the importance of telling a little story about a song or a band, something like that. They don't seem to know the music at all. They just come in with these little 30-second or 45-second blurbs about some event that happened somewhere that, frankly, I don't give a shit about. I want to hear where that band's from.

I want to hear a story about that band. And that's why I got into radio because of that. Not because I wanted to come in between songs and just say, hey, it's your buddy, Brother Bill, here to tell you that someone in Toledo, Ohio drank some poison or something like this. You know who's the last guy who seemed to do this was Bookie. Bookie? And you know what? I always missed, that's what I always craved okay i i still listen to ongoing history new music as a podcast because i get this music in there but i get to like fun facts and mind blows and i get to hear the story behind the song who influenced it what you know

this that the other i want to be educated by people who are passionate about the music and knowledgeable about the music and let's face it right cam that's why ppm exists and i was just gonna say that that you know uh radio thanks to their ignorance and stupidity um opened a huge floodgate for podcasting right where people want to hear the story they want to hear um the extra dialogue that radio said, shut up. You go look at the analytics for episodes, for toast episodes of Toronto Mike. They're fucking through the roof. Is that true?

Would I lie to you? You know who's good? I don't know why this guy came to mind, but some guy who's keeping it real, and most of the stuff he's into is not really my thing, but Errol Nazareth. Chuck D shouted him out when Chuck D was on Toronto Mike. I feel like he's one of the

few guys remaining who's still just... It's about the fucking music. It's funny. Cam, it's funny because I was an anti-CBC guy for years and years because I always felt,

well, I knew a couple of guys that were, a couple of people who worked there, and they had like six producers for every show. Meanwhile, I had to do everything myself, so I was a little jealous, I think, more than anything else. But at the end of the day, in 2022, when I go to turn on the radio for information about stuff, it's guys like Errol Nazareth that I'm looking for. You know what I mean?

Like the people that tell stories that that have something to say uh and unfortunately alt rock radio and and you know shoot me down if i never get another job in radio again but frankly alt rock radio does not tell any stories it's it's just repeating what you already saw on your social media feed let me just shout out you know errol Nazareth does a great job. Absolutely, Cam. But, you know, when I invite over, and it's not about me here, this is about Michael Barclay, but if I invite over Michael Barclay and we're going to talk about these 10 Toronto jams or whatever,

I listen closely, I absorb, I'm educated, I'm better off for it, and I start parodying these facts to everybody I meet it's like I'm a jukebox or whatever it's like and then you hear that song and then it's like I go into that piece of information that Barclay gave me when he was in my backyard I love having you know Ben Rayner was tweeting at me this morning

you know he'd be good for a rave episode because he was a raver Scott can we put Ben Rayner on the rave episode? Absolutely. And he was, you know, certainly mainstream media. He supported it, wrote about it, and was there. We're going to do the Avengers of rave.

It's going to be amazing. And bring Brother into it too because... Brother and Cam come with the fucking title. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Yeah, because I think that's important you guys are there, but I just wanted to make sure there were some really key people in the scene

that they've got, and they've got great stories to tell, too. Can I just quickly go back on one of the points Cam made, you know, talking about CanCon? Yeah. And I think it kind of— Not CanCon. ConCan, not CanCon. Oh, no, just CanCon.

I do want to talk about Con-Can a bit more. Yeah, two things. It's Con-Can. Actually, CFNY was the station, the mainstream station, if you will, mainstream alternative station. And I say mainstream because there were always college radio. And I talk so much about different music scenes and scenes and how radio did so much. different music scenes and scenes that how radio did so

much, but I always sometimes. Oh, CKLN you mean? Yeah, I forget. But the thing, the thing is that when I speak about it, I mean, it's really truly, although there were great shows on college radio, and they did have a very passionate listener base, the numbers compared to, you know, a CFNY audience, and that is you just can't compare the reach and the power of a CFNY

versus, you know, a show on CKLN. Not to diminish the power of those shows too. But so just to go back to Con Can, I beg your pardon. That's why they hate us, by the way, Scott. That's why they always hated us. College Radio always hated CFNY. Like, hated us. Yeah.

Oh, I know. Yeah. And that's a whole other chapter. But on CONCAN, I beg your pardon. You know, when we started playing that on CFNY, that exploded. It absolutely exploded. It's like a worldwide smash. Absolutely.

There once was a time and there once was a way We had something going and to my dismay Attention to me seemed to drift though I don't know where And when we're alone, see, there's nothing to say I bring up the topic, you push it away You say that you do, but I think it's just you don't have anything to say. I bring up the topic, you push it away. You say that you do, but I think it's just you don't care. Why do I feel you're using me? Are we an item or are we just two?

I need some commitments, all I ask of you Your lifestyle can change, don't be afraid What you think's in store I know what's on your mind. You've got lots to lose. Your shallow acquaintance is what's there to choose. It won't get too deep, even though I'm worth so much more. So think about it carefully.

Smile for a while and let the speed drive. I'm a little bit of a mess. Smile for a while, let's be just Love should be so much Come along and share the good times while we can Do you want to hustle? That's right Do you want to hustle? That's right Do you want to hustle? That's right

Do you want to hustle? Hey! If that's how you want the hustle? Right! That's right! Right! Do you want the salsa? Right! If that's how you want it, that's how it'll be. There's no use in trying or making you see. That love don't come easy if you don't know what it's about. To get things together won't take anything Need to see it running ever again From this day on, lesson learned

No more heads down in the aisles And you know what I'm talking about Smile for a while, let's be jolly Touch and feel the love of your life Come along and share the good times I kind of forgot it because I was watching the video on YouTube that has like 6 million views and I actually did a poll with FOTM's James B in the video

which wasn't him, it was a guy who looked like him. Did you guys ever encounter that band? Very famous. I always said they were Canada's attempt to have their own Pet Shop Boys, like the image of the band, because it was the two guys, the one monotone guy and the other guy doing

the keyboard. Barry Harris would be a great guest. He's got a great club history in toronto and he's he was also thunderpuss a producer that did huge remixes for like whitney houston he did a i forget the song but he did a whitney houston remix the thunderpuss remix which became the hit it was massive he was a canada ship pettibone yeah yeah and he's still doing remake he's still getting doing uh big remixes for big artists um huge barry harris and he he will tell you the concan story great great great story i know everybody now he's not living in paris ontario

but you don't know that you don't know that. You don't know that. The other story that came on Canadian content is that there were certain artists that you would have to say, not only CFNY but other stations, would play that they wouldn't necessarily normally play because you needed CanCon. And if you go to the 80s, there are X number of artists available that are supported certainly by major labels

and there's some obviously indie label stuff. But there's a limited selection of quality material. It has gotten better through the years. Certainly, hip-hop would be a great example. Hip-hop and R&B in Canada, like quality hip-hop and R&B in the 80s. In the 90s, it was ooh. But boy, after the year 2000,

what a difference. So I think there were tracks. But can you name them? What were the songs you mentioned again? We got MJ. Something about sleep. I like the specific details when you're trashing King Kong.

That was Energy. I was going to say, I know these artists too because I was working at Canada's Wonderland in this era, like in the mid-90s. They would always have the energy 108. One who would always be on the radio because every time I worked with

it was either like Italian folks or like Brazilian folks and they all loved like all that music. So like 108 was always on. But you must have encountered like some of these artists like you must have met like MJ at like the Canada's Wonderland Kingswood.

What was their background because it just it's such a different type of music versus like indie rock where we're like we're playing lee's palace like were these people that like were these like theater kids like i was there a profile of like people who get into this music yeah i'm curious because i don't know i know it's a weird question but i'm just curious not really i you know i think one of the things that happened uh certainly happened with energy 108 that in the and energy 108 started we're coming up on 30 years it was 19 september 1992 when we launched energy 108 and one of the challenges at the time and i talk a little bit about this in one of my previous episodes about the rules of the crt the challenges at the time and i talk a little bit about this in one of my previous

episodes about the rules of the crtc rules at the time which was the non-hit they were protecting am radio because am radio could play any hit doesn't matter what and you know and they saw the demise of am radio so crtc put this rule into fm stations saying you can only play so much um so many percentage of hits um so that forced fm radio to you know play some album tracks or not the big hits so we kind of protect am to play all the hits long story short from cfny i came from cfny to energy 108 and one of the things i learned from from CFNY is that we played a lot of imports. We played a lot of imports that were, you could say, well, you know, this is kind of a top 40 hit. That might be Howard Jones. It might be Yazoo. It could be Depeche Mode.

Some of these stuff was like, you know, they were pretty poppy, you know, well-structured pop songs that we would play on CFNY. And people will call them, wow, this is a cool CFNY alternative track where it's actually a top 10 hit in the UK. A dance song, yeah. Yeah, or whatever, right? And you're just ahead of the curve because probably in three months' time, then it was going to be on 104.5 and everywhere else or whatever. Exactly. So that was sort of what we did.

And I'm getting to your answer, Cam, I swear. So what we did at Energy 108 is I started picking up European hits, not just UK, Italy, all the different European countries. I would look at these songs, listen to them going, wow, this sounds great. And that's kind of where the Euro sound came from. It was a pop, dance, Euro sound. And so that's where we started playing a lot of the Real McCoys.

The Venga Boys. The Venga Boys and all that kind of stuff. But it was really catchy pop stuff. And so I think where the Capitol Sound is a great example because they basically emulated. A lot of these producers in Canada picked up on, and I would credit energy 108 for really opening that up listening to this music going and remember technology this is 19 early

90s where technology you know where you're starting to get into the age of somebody got on a laptop with with the right equipment could you know put a production together that sounded like a big studio then it was what did you need? You needed a singer. So you really, you got a good singer. You could put the dancey elements together on a laptop. And thus you had your sort of dance pop down. I was just saying, in that era, you also needed the gravelly guy to come in about two minutes in and do like the rap.

Oh, that's the aqua. Talk, talk, talk to you. That's it. Come on, Barmula, let's talk to you that's it so yeah come on barbara let's go party that's it that's why that's kind of why i didn't like it because it was very formulaic it was absolutely oh for sure hell for sure what was gonna go down i mean i i you know oh yeah i mean alternative rock in those days was pretty straightforward too you know it wasn't you know if you weren't sound gardener pearl jam you wanted to sound like sound gardener pearl jam right uh but with that kind of music yeah that's another thing especially the euro uh euro stuff it's so uh just to me it's just so surface right it just there's no

depth to it at all it's it's just a big exception course, The White Room by the KLF is still a killer album. I thought you were going to say Robin S because now Beyonce is like sampling. Show Me Love. Because remember, my wife got confused because there's a Robin S

with Show Me Love and there's a Robin with Show Me Love a couple years later. A lot of confusion there. That's a fucking mind blow. They're both great songs too, that's true. You know what, you mentioned KLF and their movement was beyond a marketing

genius, if you ask me, with all of the Illuminati references. Yeah. And KLF got played on CFNY in that era. I heard another band who were very good called 808 State, Yeah. Yeah. And, but, and KLF got played on CFNY in that era. I heard another band who were very good called 808 state, um, who were, I don't know, just Scott, were they a commercial band?

Would you call 808 state like the commercial rave stuff? I mean, what would they be? Yeah. And you know that, I don't know how much I mentioned this before. Did I mention the new music seminar? Cause that was a key part of the late 80s. It did not. Yeah, so late 80s, this is part of this era, late 80s, early 90s, where, you know, and you could, Manchester,

the whole Manchester movement was happening. And these bands were incorporating some dance stuff into their sound. And that, you know, and that's where some of the ecstasy started in the uk was coming in and like 89 90 and um the hacienda club was kind of you know uh epicenter for what was happening as was you know 23 hopper 318 richmond in toronto which i'll talk about in a second and so that was going on and the the new music seminar, which a bunch of us from CFNY were going to,

88, 89, 90, 91, 92, and years beyond that, I believe it kept going. But we would go there, and that's where we'd meet all the people from the UK, and 808 State were one of those bands that were right into, they were an alternative band, but they were really into the new techno, the new techno rave culture. And they were one of the pioneers that really started that sound. We're right into what the scene was doing, where it was going. They were, you know, they were early, early adopters of that sound. They seemed like a band that probably had like top 40 hits in the UK.

Like that Pacific State was a pretty big jam. I feel like a guy called Gerald with Voodoo Rating. Well, talk about Pacific State. Scott's got a story about the original extended version of Pacific State. Oh, Pacific State. No, maybe it's a different one. 808 State, right? Yep, that is the track, Pacific State.

But that just goes with that story of those guys. And I have got an old interview with them in New York, and those guys were just on fire about the technology. Again, they were one of the guys, the early bands, to figure out the technology and use it to their effect and incorporate alternative mixing in with techno and stuff. They were definitely one of the first bands to do that. So before I pass the mic to my main man brother, Bill,

I'm hoping Scott could tell us a story about Raving I'm Raving, Shut Up and Dance. Yeah, so quick story of that. And that came out in 91, 92. And this is another story about tracks that producers were doing, you know, purely for the club. Like, nobody's thinking about a hit record. Nobody's thinking anything beyond that. This is also, if you remember, early 90s, late 80s, early 90s.

This is when sampling was on fire. And nobody had thought it through. Nobody was thinking about the legal ramifications. You know, the lawyers and the labels and all those people didn't know what the fuck to do. It was just basically when you got an idea, just sample a piece of it and just put it out. Paul's Boutique. Yeah, it was absolutely amazing creative time. And there are people that will argue that oh

you're ripping it up and it's like it's not original like fuck you of course it was original right because you're taking a small idea a very small idea and making it like into something different and and like who can blame that that idea no public enemy rebel without a pause go listen to it then come back absolutely come on let me let me jump in here for a second because you're you mentioned manchester we got to talk a little bit about that because oh but we got to get the story then we go to manchester okay i haven't passed the mic to brother yet okay so finish that story then manchester okay so funny they're raving i'm raving it's uh i forget the artist that did it, but it was basically, let's sample.

And it was, you know, what was the song now? I've forgotten it for a second. The original sample of Raving, I'm Raving is Walking in Memphis. Who was the guy? Oh, Mark Cohn. Mark Cohn, thank you. So he uses the piano riff from that, and they basically take the lyrics and they transfer it into kind of a rave experience.

I'm raving, I'm raving. And when you listen to it, it's so brilliantly done. And they add just this really, really strong kick drum, and they add a little bit of breakbeat, a little kind of jungly breakbeat behind it. And it's absolutely, absolutely perfect for the rave scene. And, you know, they played it in the clubs and it's huge in the raves. But what they weren't expecting was it actually took off like crazy. People were buying the record like mad. And it got to like number two in the UK charts. And then, of course, somebody, you know, knew somebody who talked to Mark Cohen and said, do you hear this and he's like what the fuck and it's like yeah this is like number two in england and of course he called his lawyer and they put a big cease and desist on it it was such a a kind of landmark case that they actually had to destroy

they had at that point i don't know how many thousands hundreds of thousands of copies of the record and it's a record at the time uh had they had produced they had to like destroy all the copies and that's it no more copies existed lawyers ruin everything scott yes yes and then somebody came out with it they they kind of redid it with the with it somebody recreated sample yeah yeah and it's never as good it's never as good as that original that uh no if i can dig so if I can dig it up on YouTube. It's there. Okay, then. Peter Bouncer, I think it is.

Peter Bouncer, then people listening to this episode will have already heard it. It's a great track. Put on my Raven shoes and I boarded a plane. Touchdown in a land where the skies are blue In the middle of the pouring rain Everybody was happy Ecstasy shining down on me Yeah, I bought a first class ticket

Feeling as good as a boy can be I'm raving, I'm raving I'm raving till the sweat just falls out of me I'm raving, I'm raving But do I really feel the way I feel? សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា For me For me Flippin' up Flippin' up

Flippin' up Flippin' up, don't Flippin' up Flippin' up Flippin' up Flippin' up, don't For me For me For me, for me, for me, for me Put on my Raven shoes and I boarded a plane Touchdown in a land where the skies were blue. In the middle of the pouring rain. Everybody was happy. Ecstasy shining down on me. Yeah,

I've got a first class ticket. Feeling as good as a boy can be I'm raving, I'm raving I'm raving till the switch just falls down, okay I'm raving, I'm raving All right, brother, I pass the mic to you. Sure, so I wanted to talk a little bit about Manchester because it was a movement that came right at the right time for CFNY because it was at the end of the 80s and it was pre-Nirvana. And so you had this musical movement out of Manchester, England, which was based on dance music, for sure.

It was based around a club called the Hacienda, which I know New Order was a regular frequenter. Part owners. Part owners, there you go yeah and there was a drug dealer who worked at the hacienda who realized that he could put a band together make some music i guess maybe get some women yeah go ahead who do you think i'm talking uh noel gallagher no all right no no pre noel gallagher and without his band there probably wouldn't have been an oasis no i'm referring to a guy named sean rider yeah so sean was the lead singer of a band called the happy mondays and he was a drug dealer from the hacienda from what the stories i know and i created the happy mondays and then in 1989 sidetracking them for a second there was an album

that came out by another band out of manchester called the stone roses and it took the best of indie pop and dance music and combined it and no one had ever heard that kind of sound before and the stone roses were a legendary band for a number of years mainly because they wouldn't put out a second album because they had no ideas apparently um and they got paid a shit ton of money these were all a bunch of kids that hung around this club. And then along with, and I don't know why I still remember this, Scott, but I always remember you in the Cool As Fuck t-shirt, which was a band called the Inspiral Carpets, another Manchester band. And that's where Noel Gallagher got his start.

So Noel Gallagher was the drum tech for the Inspiral Carpets. So he traveled the world with them and got some ideas i'm sure how to create his own band which became oasis and i kind of want to just kind of tie this and so the manchester scene was fantastic there's a great movie called 24-hour party people that you should watch yes if you if you haven't seen it because it features some of the people that were that were there um and it's a great movie but anyway one band we failed to mention and i think it's important that we do or our dj group that went under the handle the chemical brothers yeah the chemical brothers were this this duo of djs who managed to keep themselves on the radio even after Nirvana broke.

So, and how they did that is they got people like Noel Gallagher. Right. Let Forever Be. On one of their songs, Let Forever Be. So you still remember. Which sounds a lot like Tomorrow Never Knows. Like listen to that and then go listen to Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles. True.

Very true. So I wanted to make sure we mentioned the Chemical Brothers because, you know, they managed to survive the grunge movement and not a lot of bands did, especially on CFNY. But we played the Chemical Brothers right through, Cab, right through the 90s, basically. Yeah, that's a random question for Scott. Just because you're in Burlington, have you ever encountered Gary Whelan from the Happy Mondays

who lives, randomly lives in Burlington? Alan Cross's buddy, right? You're kidding me. Yeah, Alan Cross. It's just such a, like he just moved there with like his wife. I have no idea. I heard this from the ongoing history. Was he the drummer?

Who was he? Yeah, like he was the drummer. Yeah, like Alan Cross just mentioned on one of his podcasts. I heard it too, Cam. I had the same mental note, yes. So he moved to Burlingtonlington and one of the guys from Teenage Fan Club moved to Kitchener. Norman Blake.

He had family in the Kitchener area. I remember Teenage Fan Club. The only... The Spoons, of course, Burlington band. I don't know if any of them still live here. But the only other ones I know, Sarah Harmer, uh, uh, doesn't live here anymore, but her folks live just up the road.

And when I do on my little cycling routes, I pass dead mouse's house, dead mouse. Shout out to a melody, melody, melody, melody, dead mouse lives just up the road, just north, just north of me. Shout out to Melody Fresh. On the rock side of things too, Jamie Stewart, who was in the cult, lived in Toronto for many years. I don't know if he still does or not. Oh, then we could say Ashbury's from Hamilton.

He was into high school in Hamilton. He did. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. Were either of you gentlemen at the disastrous Stone Roses gig in Toronto? Yes. Like Legendary is like one of the worst

concerts ever. Worst concert ever. I wasn't there. Was it really as bad as everyone says it was? It was horrendous. The venue was a warehouse that they had put one show on previously that was in excess, and they knew that the sound was awful in this warehouse.

It was right down on the docks. And so the sound was awful, just completely awful. But the thing that really pissed everybody off was Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, their lead vocalist, showed up two hours late. It was like after midnight by the time they got there, and it wasn't a Friday night. I think it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday.

He could not sing a note. He was so hammered. They also couldn't do any of their dance year numbers because for some reason, I guess, they didn't have the sampling tracks prepared. So it was just a nightmare of a concert. And I've been to two concerts in my life where the band was booed off stage.

One was a band called Discharge at RPM. And then the Stone Roses were booed after they played for half an hour. And then they walked offstage. It was brutal. I thought to myself, everybody's going to ask for their money back. I heard about some of their other shows in the UK went a bit crazy too. back. I heard about some of their other shows in the UK went a bit crazy too.

I think I heard about a recent Liam Gallagher show at the Rebel Nightclub or something where he did like 30 minutes and then got booed off or something. Like this happened in the last few years. I think so. I heard this.

Before I forget, we haven't mentioned, but is going to parlay into another like see if and why not just because this band has a tie in I think to Pandemic Fridays Utah Saints seem like one of these like UK bands who tried to capitalize on the sound but like in a very

commercial way but they Mike I'm trying to remember we had some kind of like yeah I'll help you the night the Blue Jays won the World Series, that crowd noise is in the song. Yeah, and for some reason this came up because something else. Something Good.

Something Good. Yeah, Something Good is the name of the song, right? And it's their big radio hit. Their big radio hit. And there's like... It's sampled Kate Bush, I believe. Right, yes. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, and by the way's sampled Kate Bush, I believe. Right. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

By the way, shout out to The Orb, too. There's a great Orb song with... Oh, no. Minnie Riperton's in this Orb song, not Kate Bush. Okay, never mind. I thought it was Ricky Lee Jones. That's the Fluffy Clouds is Ricky Lee Jones.

Orbital is... we're mentioning these bands again, late 80s, early 90s. Orbital was another band. We're doing electronic music, Head of the Curve, doing some very cool stuff. And we can laugh at them now, but just because we talked about Ecstasy earlier, but EMF stood for Ecstasy Motherfuckers,

if I remember correctly. Correct. They will deny that, but,uckers, if I remember correctly. Correct. They will deny that, but, you know, there's stories around, yeah. They were drug boys. They were. One of them is dead. I think the bass player is dead. He died at like 24 of an overdose.

Unbelievable. Can I give Scott and Neil, this will be a quiz for you guys, and also a test if you listen to the last toast, that although I was sick with COVID, I did record. I did like a computer voice of my fun facts. But this is one of the fun facts. Okay, and this is going to parlay into a CFNY not about two bands. But first a quiz. Do you guys know who wrote the song Love Sensation by Lolita Holloway?

Who wrote that song? Love Sensation by Lolita Holloway. Who wrote that song? I certainly know it's one of the legendary most sampled tracks, but you know, you got me on who wrote that. It was written by Dan Hartman. Get out,

that's awesome. Which is very random. Who also wrote Free Ride for Edgar Winter. Talk about range. Wow. Yeah, there's a guy who wrote, and if you Google him, I can't think of his name right now,

the guy who wrote Thriller and a few other really big R&B. You have to actually Google him. And again, you shouldn't judge somebody by their cover, but you look at his picture and you go, this nerdy-looking guy. Oh, that's vincent price scott come on he didn't write yeah no no but it's anyway but i guess he was like a studio kind of songwriter and that and he wrote some great r&b hits but he's a really nerdy looking white guy that you just

you know well that's when you like when you find out why he wrote songs yeah and you find out all the good christmas songs were written by people of the Jewish faith. Yeah, it's all just math. Okay, CFNY not. Did CFNY play these two bands? The Lolita Holloway, you can probably guess, partying into Black Box? No.

Like right on time, no? Oh, no, no, no. That would have been Beats Permitted on Sunday. Again, a feature show and maybe Shep, you know, late at night, but no. The other track, this is a monster jam and a real anomaly for the charts,

but I bet CFY played it. Mars, Pump Up the Bell. I think so, yeah. Glad you went there, Cam, because that's the first song I remember hearing Shep play that was that type of music. That would have been around 87 or 88, I want to say.

I want to say earlier. Am I wrong? I want to say. I feel like it was 87. Was it? I feel like it was 87, 86, 87. I'll find out why you guys talk about it. Because it sampled like Eric B. and Rakeem.

And that was only 87 or so. So the Shep used to play that too chef used to play uh he played grandmaster flash 87 87 eric b and rakim uh but there was two songs that came out at around the same time mars pump up the volume was the other one steve silk early was that the song scott oh you remember two there were two songs that came out at the same time that were i guess technically known as house music yeah there were definitely again you know pointing to headley and and shep again because of their huge numbers that you know when they played those tracks they're like a huge audience you know, got to know those tracks and would identify it as a CFNY track.

And again, although it's a feature show, it still got played on CFNY, but not a, you know, playlisted song per se. And that's where a lot of these feature shows, feature programs, you know, had their own audiences, right? You know, from Ivor's import show that he played some tracks that weren't in regular rotation and to, you know, live from London and et cetera. But Cam, to answer your question,

Mars Pump Up the Volume was in regular rotation. Absolutely. I kind of forgot it was a 4AD track because I think there was a big part of the sample was that band AR Cane, who were like Kevin, also ran in the 4AD catalog. Right.

Because it was Ivo Watts, Russell and the... Yeah, what just like a fascinating for like, if you're a music nerd, just the whole backstory of that song and the sample. That song also was a mind blow. I remember like my mind would blow when I heard Mars pump up the volume. It just sounded so different from everything else.

And the video was just all stock footage of the space program and shit. But yeah, the Africa Bambaataa, who's one of the worst humans. If you know it, he's been up to the last 20 years. We won't get into that. Cool and the Gang, Public Enemy,

James Brown, The Barkeys. What a sample. Is there ever mentioned Eric B. and Ricky? years we won't get into that uh cool in the gang public enemy james brown the bar keys like what a sample is eric their aforementioned eric biannuali yeah from that one song yeah yeah because i think they got sued too for yeah it was a great sampling uh time you know uh everybody was going sampling crazy and then it's typically one way it's you know it's kind's typically when the internet and streaming happened is that laws can't possibly keep up with technology and all the lawyers are fumbling over each other to try to make sense of it

and then try to get it into law. It just takes forever. I feel like Cold Cut was another fan because they did the Eric B. And then all that shit with... CFY didn't play Negative Land. What was that one that the motorcade rides on?

What was that? Steinstein? Oh. It was like sampled the JFK assassination. It was kind of like a novelty hit, but it was like a dance song. Don't remember that. Have you written all this stuff down, Cam? Because you're bringing

up songs that I haven't remembered in 25 years. Yeah, good for you. Oh yeah, that one. Where did that one go? I forgot about that song. Because that was like a very early... Steinski and the Mass Media. I think that's what they were called. Yeah, it would be one of the first

with just all samples. Just all samples. Yeah, anyway. That's another show. It would be one of the first with just all samples. Just a sample. Yeah. Anyway. That's another show. That's how Cam Gordon got... That's how he got the co-hosting job on Progressive Past of Modern Melodies

because he knows his shit. Yeah, I feel like that was the last band on my list. I got Con Can. Do we need to go into Lisa Lohi? I don't know. No, that's... Yeah know did we drain the swamp I have a question quick answer to Lisa Lohied is like

when I touched on earlier just about late 80s going into the 90s for Canadian hip hop and R&B is that you could argue that the artists were out there but there was no support from labels.

Like, you know, and there might have been individuals that wanted to support, but just there wasn't the infrastructure of, you know, the Canadian music scene and the labels and the companies, you know, grew up, you know, on a lot of, you know, folk and rock and roll. And, you know, trying to get, you know, everybody to understand hip-hop in that culture. Exactly. Maestro is one of these grandfathers. And that was 89. Yeah, grandfathers. And that's an anomaly. But just getting that music a chance, both by labels and the infrastructure to support these people

and nurture them and get them on the radio. And a lot of them would argue, well, nobody's playing it on the radio. Well, then that was true. And so it was a fucked up scene until energy came on board. You had the college stations, but energy came on board and that pushed it forward a little bit.

And we supported urban music, black music that was not getting supported. That certainly helped. But look where we are today. If you look at the junior awards because when i was going back to do some research on this like best dance recording of like 92 93 it would be like the celine dion dance remix of love can move mountains or jan arden if i could be your girl dance remix like this is the award-winning stuff in canada there was a period of time when

that was happening everywhere wasn't it They would take rock songs and make dance versions of them. But it was a start. Yeah, you know, it worked for Biff Naked, right? She had a big, a spaceman. There you go. Can I tell you a quick story? So I went to Humber College for broadcasting and I was in

English class. We had English, English was one of the classes we took. And I was in this classroom with people that were in like journalism and every other different courses, business, administration, whatever. There was one girl there that I ended up sitting beside, and this is the late eighties. And she had a song that she had gone into the studio and recorded and did a video, paid for it all herself. And I don't remember her name, but the song was called let's talk. And, uh, I took it to Chris Shepard and I said, Hey, this girl has tried everything to get label interest. And you know, is there, would you

listen to it? Just give me some feedback, what I can tell her kind of thing. He ended up playing it on his show one Saturday night. He just, I don't know, it wasn't a great song, but it was good enough. And he ended up playing that song. And because Chris Shepard played that one song once, she got label interest. She got much music airplay. It was incredible. And that woman's name was Candy. And she.

No, it wasn't Candy. No, she went to York University. I wasn't smart enough to go there. I don't remember her name, but she had a song called Let's Talk and got a lot further down the road thanks to Shepard. I just wanted to throw that in. I'm surprised we haven't

talked about Chris Shepard more. I mean just like a bullseye for all this stuff well i'm trying to remember when did he like crossover of doing like i'll just call like original music would it be like bks like when that band yeah that was his band i can speak on that uh very quickly and just um just it's just uh just the time here is i've got about 15 minutes. Okay, let's talk Shepard, and then we'll drain the swamp, and then we'll say goodnight.

Okay. So actually, funny enough, because I love to do this day in history posts. So 30 years ago, basically 92, while he was at cfny chris had started bks um and that was you know where he uh yes i think the first bks record was you know around may or june 92 he had started a compilation a techno compilation um shepherd's Techno Trip, one and two, both in 92. So that's kind of where he started that. But the BKS project with Shep started in 92. And then after that came Love, Inc., which was probably, I'm going to guess, around 94-ish, 93, 94. ish 93 94 um but yeah the whole bks project um started with um and it was through a guy at at

quality records marcus who just unfortunately passed away just about a year ago he kind of put you know a couple of session guys there was um henny becker who was doing sort of yeah becker cavanaugh shepherd yeah exactly and uh he anyway he anyway put them together and that's where that started BKS can I ask a weird question like because Love Inc. was like a very obviously more mainstream than a lot of the stuff he'd done prior when I was at McMaster in the late

90s for example Love Inc. was like the headliner band during Frosh Week the super rave with Love Inc. even though they were all over Much Music do you guys think shepherd found this like artistically fulfilling like touring across canada with this like was he into this because i just know his tastes were so eclectic and he really obviously very passionate about the music and then moving into just a bit more mainstream you know you're touring canadian campus it's i don't know if this would

be the goal for like a lot of artists like it might be not beneath them but just like this you know i'm playing at mcmaster like who cares brother you go first brother yeah so my take on chris shepherd in that era was a guy that knew his time was finite as far as his popularity went he was getting a little older and i frankly think that he was in a sense and i can't speak for chris i can only speak to to what i knew about chris and what a wonderful human being he was too but i think if i had to if he is if yeah as far as we know he's still here yeah yeah sorry about that costa rica somewhere whatever yeah anyway i think to tell you the truth cam at that point it sort of had become his retirement plan to stick around make as much money as he could with his love inc and and even maybe bks was a

little more of a passion project for him but I think that love ink was just he wanted to go out on top and he wanted to be able to not have to work for the rest of his life and and I think that that had a lot to do with it yeah because he wasn't really he wasn't really a guy that played well with uh with record labels um you he would, he would do things to piss people off on purpose because it always drove the brand that was Chris Shepard, you know? Um, so,

you know, I mean a lot, there's a lot of things I can say about Shep, some inside information, but his myth is so great that I would never, ever want to spoil that myth. The man who shot Liberty Valance. It was a print the legend.

That's what they said. Print the legend, print the legend Valance. It was a print the legend. That's what they said. Print the legend. Print the legend. Absolutely. It finally came back to me. Just to add, I'm with what Brother's saying, and Chris,

if you're listening to this. So I think my take is a couple of different things. I think Chris, you know, a quintessential rock star and an ego that wanted it all, wanted to be able to do it all and be part of it all and to be bigger than life. Very smart guy, but also, you know, driven by ego and fame. And that also included money.

And I think he definitely wanted the money but he also wanted the cool too but he was you know there was a side of him that that loved both sides the popularity of being more popular and that you know drove him towards the more pop music and and creating that you know that side of loving and his other you know his other you know persona was dog whistle. And he, you know, performed at raves all through this time, playing, you know, the most underground tracks you can imagine as dog whistle. And people were losing their minds because it was Chris Shepard, but he was dog whistle. So he had it all.

Like, he had it all. And, you know, all the power to him. I was going to say, like, a real, like, one of one of, like, what he managed to pull off. it all. He had it all. All the power to him. I was going to say a real one-of-one of what he managed to pull off. It's not the same thing what this guy did. The only person who sort of comes to mind having a similar career in Canada

at least was that guy MC Mario. He had that whole chain. Sure. I don't think it was eclectic. It wasn't eclectic like that. Chris had a little more integrity, I'd say.

Yeah, and you know what? Mario didn't have that underground. And like, you know, we didn't get deep into the rave stuff today, but Chris was at ground zero on the rave scene, you know, and he was, you know, part owner of, on the lease anyway, at 23 Hop, 318 Richmond, which was a club where a lot of the rave scene started and where a lot of people gathered and chris was very instrumental in the scene and helping it get get started and growing it and you know dog whistle and everything else so he was very very much in the underground and you know that goes through all the bands that

he connected with and that with from the cult to you know um supporting yeah supporting beastie boys when nobody was giving them airplay and all those things so he was right there but he also he also understood fame and and uh and loved money and nothing wrong with that no no disrespect for that let's get uh shep on our deep dive into the rave scene. Good luck fighting him. On that note, DJ Dwight came over. This is a couple of months ago. DJ Dwight came over. It was really an interesting conversation, actually.

He kind of promised to get me Chris Shepard on Toronto Mike. He said he knew where he was. He could reach out to him. He says he would get Shep on Toronto Mike. I will just update the FOTMs and say I have not heard back from DJ Dwight. So we still don't know.

When was the Humble and Fred interview? That was like 2014. Yeah, that might have been the last public interview. As far as my research tells me, yes, that was the very last public interview. I really give him credit

for how subterranean, for a guy who was just so in the limelight for such a long time, has completely gone off the grid. Kind of what I said, Cam. I mean, I think that was his plan all along to disappear one day. The greatest game.

There's another movie I want to drop that's probably my favorite movie of all time. And it's a story of a DJ in Ibiza, Spain, and it's called, it's all gone. Pete Tong. Yeah.

Oh yeah. You know, Shep's story. Although this guy in this, in this movie goes deaf, he's a DJ who goes deaf, which is a great sub story within the story of itself in this movie. You know,

Shep kind of reminds me of this guy. Just one day he all of a sudden just said, I'm out of here. Peace out. And he was gone. And that was it. Love it. Fair enough.

And now we're gone because our time is up. But I will say, I love these progressive past of modern melody episodes. I love that I get to do it with my friends, Cam Gordon and Brother Bill. And I love that we always have a kick-ass subject matter expert. And there's no one better

than Scott Turner. So thank you guys. Thank you. Thanks, guys. I will say this quickly. Scott, when we do talk about rave, I want to know one fucking question. I'm going to throw one question by,

and that question is going to be what was with all the fucking soothers and the fucking glow sticks? I'll fill you in on that. There's a story behind that. I cannot wait for the rave spectacular episode of the

Progressive Past of Modern Melodies. And that brings us to the end of our 1074th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Okay, let me see if I can do all this from memory. Brother Bill is at Neil Talks. Apparently his real name is Neil.

Neil Talks. Cam Gordon is Cam underscore Gordon. Don't forget the underscore. You'd think he could pull strings at Twitter and get Cam Gordon, but he has to be underscore Gordon. I'll DM Elon and see what he can do. When's the edit feature coming?

I don't want it. Stay tuned. I don't want it. I don't want it. It might make the decider. I don't want it. At Scott Turner is interesting because there's only one T in Scott,

but there's a T in Turner, so there will be two Ts there, but not three, so figure that out, okay? Yeah. That's how you find him. Okay. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery

are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all next week. I've known you.

Oh, you know that's true. Because everything is coming up rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold with the smell of snow. Won't be today.