Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Watchmen's Sammy Kohn: Toronto Mike'd #448

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

Mike chats with The Watchmen's Sammy Kohn about the most underrated band in Canadian music history.

Welcome to episode 448 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Camp Turnasol, and our newest sponsor, Sticker U. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me a member of the Watchmen, Sammy Cohn.

Mike. Welcome, Sammy. Thanks for having me, Mike. See, now all those things I said to you before I pressed record, I'm going to say them again. And that is to say that I straight up have always absolutely adored The Watchmen. I can't believe you're here. Thanks for doing this, man.

My pleasure. Yeah, it's good to be here. Good to be here. I'm glad you're still listening. And here I am. This is how new I am to the board. I've been fading down the USB input for the last five, you know, 20 seconds. Where is it? But actually I'm not playing that from the USB.

There it is. Okay. Lots to learn here. And we're doing a few other things here. Like I got a periscope set up. So if anybody's watching, hello, I flipped this studio. It used to, it used to face the other way. And I said, I'm video. Like you just see the back of the head. to we used to face the other way and i said on video like you just see the back of the head that looks stupid so you're here like a guinea pig of sorts uh so i i still don't know like where should this be that how do i make eye contact with you uh i want to you know lots of things here i'm ironing out but uh it'll all come together we're here you've got your coffee yes how's the coffee it's good coffee yeah thank you for that. I appreciate it. I'm not usually a past 1 p.m. sort of coffee guy,

but it just felt like it was the time. It was the place. I like the setup down here. I was saying that off mic a little bit as well. Chalk circle right out of the gates here? Right out of the gates, because what day is today, Sammy? April Fool. There you go.

This is actually a nice time for Can con and we're gonna do a lot of you know watchman deep dive and then we're gonna talk about some other 90s bands etc but like it was only a couple of weeks ago i got to play uh the gandharvas first day of spring yeah that's heavy heavy duty 90s rock there you know i thought you were playing chalk circle because the watchman yeah okay did some work i'm not gonna sort of control the arc of your conversation here but i well there's two two reasons you're at sammy we're on the exact same page i love it so of course it's april fool's day yes this is april fool by chalk circle i was gonna tell my kids that there was 20 centimeters of snow when i got up today but i I was going to say school was canceled, but I thought they'd just be completely.

Kids are savvy now. Like how old are your kids? 13, 11 and eight. The eight year old might bite on something like that. Maybe the rest. Yeah. It's like fish in a barrel with her though.

I've got to be careful though. But, uh, okay. So tell me, you'll tell me you're the watchman man you are the drummer for the watchman yeah i i am the drummer for the watchman i mean it's funny to say that because the watchman is it's not uh something that any

of us do full time right now but there is um something we do do that I can get into that has been something we've been a part of for the better part of like 10 years or so since we quote unquote reunited, which we can talk about. Of course, yeah. For sure.

We're going to talk about everything. Do you want to do that now and we can frame it where you give that now and then we'll kind of start it. Sure, whatever you like. I mean, I was going to say

the reason that I like this song in particular, I believe this song was produced by a guy named Chris Wardman. Yep. Who I know you probably know. Blue Peter. Yes.

In Chalk Circle. Yes. And I knew at some point he did some work with you guys. Chris did some work with us, yeah. He's a guy who I still stay in touch with. He's a very talented guy. When we were first starting in the,

it was 89 actually, 1990-ish, we were approached by a few people to do demos. We did a few demos. It wasn't until we did a live off the floor recording with Chris that things really took shape in terms of our recorded career. So that's why I know of this song,

because I think Chris might have produced this record, this Chalk Circle record. Here's a fun fact for you, Sammy. And listeners of the show probably already know this one. So for all I know, Al is going to add a bingo square for this one. But the very first concert I ever saw was Chalk Circle at the Ontario Place Forum. Oh, wow. the very first concert i ever saw was chalk circle at the ontario place forum oh wow very first one were they headlining yeah well those are the

free shows at ontario place and yeah they were the headliner yeah they were sort of a a cool kind of um i'm not gonna say new wave but but they were kind of a an 80s band same with same with blue peter i always uh i remember saying to to Chris Wardman a few years ago now, because I see him from time to time, and I heard a track by Blue Peter. It wasn't Don't Walk Past, which was their kind of big single. It was another song. Maybe it was called Radio Silence or something.

And it had very old sounding drum machines on it. And I said to Chris, God, that sounds like just such an 80s song. And he looked at me and said, such an, such an 80s song. And he, and he looked at me and said, well, it is an 80s song. Right. So,

but they were, they were a cool little band too, Blue Peter. So shout out to Chris Wardman. I, I've always really appreciated the work he, he has done from a production standpoint. He made some great records.

He worked with a guy called Art Bergman, who I quite like. It's probably my favorite stuff that he did, is the art records. He did three or four albums called Art Bergman, who I quite like. It's probably my favorite stuff that he did is the art records. He did three or four albums with Art Bergman, and I still listen to those albums. I reached out to Chris once about coming here. I believe Chris is West Coast guy. Yeah, I saw that.

I think I might have seen that on Instagram or something, that he had moved out west, so yeah. Vancouver, I think. So it's not easy for him to just pop over uh but you you live in toronto this is uh you're coming from the 416 yeah i i i um i'm a real estate agent in toronto right now i've been doing that off and on for about 10 years or so uh doing it full time uh for roughly about a year as well like we can kind of talk into that, talk about that if you want. But yeah, I've been in Toronto since 2000 with my wife.

So originally from Winnipeg. Spent a lot of time in Winnipeg and had family there as well. Oh yeah, I want to get there too. Okay, so this song, April Fool by Chalk Circle, of course, got a lot of airplay on CFNY 102.1. Yeah. And here's a little fun little clip I pulled. CFNY 102, The Spirit and the music of Chalk Circle, their first single release set on Duke Street Records.

And Chalk Circle, as some of you may or may not know, were the 1985 Caspian Award winners for Best Non-Recording Band. And here they are, their very first single called April Fool, and a great one at that. Looking forward to a lot more on vinyl from this band. And just a taste of what you can hear every Sunday afternoon between 4 and 5, The Streets of Ontario with Liz Janik and Peter Goodwin. I met Liz last year.

They preview some of the best of the non, shall we say, non-recording big-time tours and all massive things like that. Is it possibly Dave Charles? I'm not 100% sure. As I mentioned, some good stuff I heard every Sunday afternoon between 4 and 5 with Liz and Peter. And Echo and the Bunnymen with Bring On

the Dancing Horses. And Bring Them On every Thursday night to Club Domino. If you want to get an early start in the weekend, every Thursday night between 08 and 130, I take to the stage, or actually the closet up there that they have, and lock myself in the closet and play tunes for a great five hours or so, getting an early start in the weekend.

And I hope you can drop by and say hello. Thursday nights, Club Domino with Nick Charles. Nick Charles. I call him Dave Charles, right? Close enough. That's pretty damn close. Close enough. That was in 1988 or something?

Maybe earlier. Like, I feel like they just won the 85 Caspian Award. It could be late 85, maybe 86. That was before I moved to Toronto. And I wasn't as invested in the scene in the city. I certainly knew about it. It wasn't until the band, until the Watchmen started performing here in the early 90s that I really started to understand the whole Queen Street scene

and the bands that were here and did all my research. Well, just before we get there. Oh, boy. my research. Well, just before we get there. Sammy, we have a mutual friend, Cam Gordon from Twitter. Yes. Do you still do the podcast? Yeah, it's funny you should ask. I was thinking about that. I have to ask. Oh, I know why you're playing dug in the slugs

now now i get it okay now i get it okay so it's a very very inside joke mike why don't you explain that all right cam gordon i said cam your buddy sammy's coming on toronto mike cam's been on a couple of times yes yes and cam said uh ask him what his beef is with dug in the slugs so i'm like who could have a beef with well the late doug bennett uh dug in the slugs. So I'm like, who could have a beef with the late Doug Bennett, Doug and the Slugs? But apparently you have a beef. I need to hear the details. I don't have a beef.

And let the record sort of be set straight. Cam and I do a podcast. Cam Gordon from Twitter. He's a guy I met when I started working with Twitter, which was about three or four years ago now. which was about three or four years ago now, he and I immediately hit it off with a mutual love of all things music. He's a big sports fan too,

but he told me that he's got this blog called Completely Ignored. Yes. Which is very, very good. And I thought, okay, another guy writing a blog, but I had a close look and he was, and I tease him about this, he is savant

ask in his detail he'll talk about things like the number top 10 bands that played at the horseshoe on a tuesday or something along those lines and and it was so specific and so well researched that i was very impressed and then when we had a conversation, I immediately thought, okay, here's a kindred spirit, a guy who lives and breathes and has a real passion about music. And we thought, why don't we start a podcast, speak to people locally, different musicians, talk about their favorite records.

It's called the Completely Ignored Podcast. And as a matter of fact, we're starting it up again in May. We'll have to have you on, Mike. I'd love to. Yeah, we're not breaking any records in terms of fact, we're starting it up again in May. We'll have to have you on, Mike. I'd love to. Yeah, we're not breaking any records in terms of downloads, but it's a couple of guys who I feel know what they're talking about to a certain extent, and then we have different guests, guys like Alan Cross and Moe Berg was on and Steve Cain from Warner Music and just people who talk about their favorite records,

and inevitably the conversation flows to what we're currently listening to. So to answer your question about Doug Bennett, if I may, we often talk about Canrock and 80s Canrock before the sort of explosion in the 90s that you're probably well aware of when much music sort of took over. These guys represent a time when there weren't record deals handed out left, right, and center. They're a West Coast band.

We just started joking about these guys for some reason. The Watchmen opened up for them, as a matter of fact. I'm remembering now in probably 1990, we played a show in Winnipeg. And I seem to remember, and I don't want to throw anybody under the bus here. They weren't all that friendly to us. I seem to remember that. Doug Bennett, maybe he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. They weren't all that friendly to us. I seem to remember that. Doug Bennett, maybe he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

I don't know. In 1990, I feel that's like the start of the downward spiral for Doug and the Slugs. Like I feel like mid 80s, they were all over like top 40 radio. I know CFTR, 680 CFTR was my all hit station in the mid 80s. And they played a lot of Doug and the Slugs,

like Too Bad or the one we just played was a big one they had a third single that was really popular i know the one you're thinking it was like sort of a ballad or something i mean it's probably pretty difficult for them to get taken seriously after that video and that song which i'm sure they did a lot of good business they were a bit of a canada's answer to huey lewis in the news yeah that's a good yeah true but huey and I don't know the level of musicianship in Doug and the Slugs. Huey, as a matter of fact,

those guys are phenomenal players. Huey was a great harmonica player. And so just back to, back to Doug and the Slugs, they sort of represented an interesting time in the band. And if you want to talk a little bit about the arc of the career there was a time around 89 90 pre-record deal for the band that we opened up for everybody we had really very little identity in terms of our own band we were doing a lot of covers at that time we had an agent a guy called ralph james who was a uh who is a winnipegger he was in a band called harlequin that did very well in the 80s. And he sort of took us under his wing. And he had us opening up for everybody from Colin James to Jeff Healy to Doug and the Slugs. You name it.

It was just the pre-90s alt-rock boom. And we were cutting our teeth with shows nationwide in front of decent crowds, cold audiences that allowed us to hone our craft. Here's the song, Day by Day. Here's the song. There you go. It's in my collection because I legit like this song.

And it's a good song. Yeah, it is very Huey Lewis. That's a perfect description. A little bit of Day by Day here. It's better than making it work. It would make a good like a Cialis or Viagra ad. Day by day, I'm feeling stronger. Day by day, I'm lasting longer. I would venture to guess that these guys would love to get a big fat check based on a

Vagrad of a song that's written 30 years ago now I know you've got us in Winnipeg and we're getting right back to Winnipeg I got so much Watchmen queued up and I got so many questions there's no fakery here like when I had Andy Kim on the show I hopey kim's not watching but i loved having

andy kim because there's he's got big mega hits and he's kind of a music legend he was in the tears for fears video not tears of fears tears are not enough that's cool by the northern lights like he's a big deal andy kim uh but you know you're doing a bit of fakery like i was never into andy kim music like you're kind of you're playing the songs they're big songs everybody knows it and you're getting the stories but like with you here no fakery like uh and i can point you to entries i've written on my blog since 2002 but straight up ask my brothers that's what i would say uh loved your sound and always felt you guys were highly underrated.

Like maybe the most underrated band in this entire country. Wow. True story. You know, it's funny you say that. I mean, we had a 12-year career originally, which I often say is about twice as long as the average career of any band. We managed to stay together through a lot of ups and downs, from no record deal, two record deal, an independent record deal,

to a fully-fledged Canadian record deal, to American distribution, to European shows, festivals, Australia, the U.S. Everything was just so gradual and so evenly paced that it never felt like we sort of made it per se. And I've had a lot of people say to me, Mike, over the years, they'll say, it's a shame you guys never got bigger or why didn't you get bigger? We thought you'd be bigger. Yeah, it's such a strange thing to ponder. I mean, I always thought that there was always going to be bands that are bigger than us and not as big as us.

We made it our livelihood for, again, north of about 10 years. Which, remember, this is Canada. We'll talk about this. Yeah, it was Canada. I think we were not an insignificant thing that you could live off your art in this country. Yeah. Yes.

I mean, granted, I was in Winnipeg. It's inexpensive to live there, relatively speaking, to Toronto. But we were very, always incredibly smart about how we ran our business. We intuitively knew from day one that we wouldn't have tour buses. We wouldn't take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the record labels for tour support because back then, that kind of money was being thrown around. We were doing expensive videos

and part of the game, but we were always very smart about it. We took a small draw from our shows that we made collectively to allow us to do it full time. And I'm real proud of the records still and proud of what we've sort of done. The second chapter that

we can get into, if you like, since we again, reformed, is something that I'm also proud of. We've done a nice job, I think, of keeping the plate spinning with things that are allowing us to continue to be of interest to a number of people out there, it seems.

And it's, I'm just listening to this song and getting distracted. Yeah, well, you're from Winnipeg. This is my go-to Winnipeg jam. I don't know. Randy Bachman. This is Chris Wardman who produced this as well get out of here

yeah this is Wardman he did this record oh and drop fun facts like that all day long here man I live for that shit so yeah

this is we I think this might have come out in 93 or something this is I forget the name of this record

that Randy did but it's definitely a record he did with Chris this album was bookended I think this might have come out in 93 or something. I forget the name of this record that Randy did, but it's definitely a record he did with Chris. This album was bookended by an acoustic version of this song, and then he put an electric version of this at the end. I remember the video I would see on Much was actually Randy Bachman and Neil Young. Yeah, yeah. We went down to the studio,

and Randy was recording this song. Not this song, excuse me. This album, because we were buddies with Chris Wardham at the time, but we met Randy and we subsequently went and we played American Women with him a couple times on stage which was very exciting. We did that at a

it was a Sleeman's Beer event a few years ago. Maybe I don't know if I should mention them on air. Ah, it's too late now. It's okay. Edit that out. Not that I drink it. I typically have Great Lakes Brewery myself, but Sammy knows how to play the game here. In a moment, I'm going to give you these gifts, but I'm not from Winnipeg.

I've never been to Winnipeg, but when I hear this song, I feel proud of my Winnipeg heritage somehow. I don't know, man. It's like the anthem. It's like the anthem. It's like the anthem. That was good on the headphones. Yeah. And this is attributed to the Randy Bachman band,

if anybody's hunting this down, Prairie Town. So what's it like? Tell me, let's rewind. What's it like growing up in Winnipeg? Well, it's all I ever knew. I mean, I lived there for how long? Many, many years, 30 years. So I love Winnipeg.

People have negative things to say about Winnipeg, the weather, the mosquitoes, what have you. And my kids tease me because whenever we go there, I marvel at the fact that the sun is always shining. Yes, it's cold, but it's beautiful that the sun always shines and it is a dry cold. But I guess the best thing I could say about Winnipeg is the art scene was always one that was incredibly supportive

of what we were doing as a band. That must have been a live version or something. I'm clapping for Randy. Yeah. So we always took a lot of pride in the fact that we were from Winnipeg. When we come to Toronto, it was clear that we were a Winnipeg band and we were sort of infiltrating the Queen Street scene in the fact that we were from Winnipeg. When we come to Toronto, it was clear that we were a Winnipeg band and we were sort of infiltrating the queen street scene in the early nineties.

And we kind of led all our biographies with Winnipeg band. And we, we took the, the guess who in BTO and, and, and Neil and a lot of the Winnipeg talent, uh, as,

uh, as a, as, as the benchmark of where we should be headed. Well, I'm trying to think of a timeline. So Moe Berg came from Edmonton. Okay.

So he's an Edmonton guy. He was on the show this summer. And yeah, he came from Edmonton. And I'm trying to think of like prairie bands, but of course the Northern Pikes are from Saskatchewan, right? Right, yes. They were Saskatchewan. Grapes of Wrath, are they from?

Grapes of Wrath, I think they're also from Vancouver, I think. I mean, Crash Test Dummies were Winnipeggers. Right, right, right. That was a Winnipeg band. Like you punch above your weight, I'd say. If you look at the quality of artists coming out of Winnipeg, you're punching way above your weight, I think. I'd like to think so. I mean, we had this sense of confidence when we first started. We had sort of hit the ceiling in terms of Winnipeg and the scene in Winnipeg. We were playing bars and selling out bars and it felt like it was a logical thing for us to get out of Winnipeg and play out West, out East. Uh, we,

we toured dozens and dozens, dozens of shows pre-record deal, but it was always in Winnipeg where we were allowed to sort of, uh, improve our, our songwriting because what we would do is we'd have a set that would be half covers, half originals. And then we'd sort of slip in one more original, take out a cover and workshop them in Winnipeg. And we still draw in that city very well. We have a few markets that we focus on and have focused on for the past few years. But not just the music, film, television,

I mean, Winnipeg Symphony, it's really, it's known nationwide as a city that has a very, very robust art scene. The name The Watchmen, are you named after the comic book characters? Yes. That is

true. Okay, so exactly, almost exactly 10 years ago, and I pulled a clip just to give us another piece of audio, but this movie was in theaters 10 years ago. And I pulled the clip just to give us another piece of audio, but this movie was in theaters 10 years ago. You don't know what it's been like being a superhero. This world, it's like walking through a mess. I really don't give a damn about human beings.

What happened to us? We were supposed to make the world a better place. You can save this world. Watchmen, we are in theaters on IMAX March 6th. It was a big deal exactly a decade ago. So who's the comic book fan? All of you? As a matter of fact, the joey serlin who is a founding member he came up with the name and yeah i i yeah i i to be honest i've never even read the

comic i'm kind of embarrassed to say that i've never seen the movie you never saw the comic it was just i'm in the same boat i think i've never seen the movie and i don't think i've ever seen the comic no yeah i've seen the comic it's a graphic novel i've seen it in bookstores i've never read it so yeah okay so let's do that then the founding members uh why don't you run off in addition to yourself run off the the founding four members of the watchmen well it's funny you should ask that i mean as a matter of fact i'm not an original member of the band. You're not? No, I'm not. Get out of here, Sammy. I joined about two weeks ago. They needed somebody.

No, they were, the history runs pretty deep. Joey, Danny, and myself, Joey Serlin, Daniel Graves, who is my first cousin, we were in our first band together when we were about 15 or 16 years old. Joey and I, in particular, got our first band together when we were about 15 or 16 years old. We got, Joey and I in particular, got our first instruments together. The same week that he got a guitar, it was the same week I got a set of drums. And it was at a time when everybody we knew had instruments. But we were just a little more serious about it at that time. We practiced, we studied, we listened to heavy metal.

At the time, it was the 80s. And so we started a band, and that kind of went south after we, some of us went back to school, and the Watchmen formed, I think, this was pre-me joining around, I think, 1989, with a guy named Grant Page, who played drums, and then bass player Pete Lowen, who was the original bass player who played on the band's first album,

on the Claire and Furtis Room. So it was all pre-record deal that they had another drummer that they ended up getting rid of for a variety of reasons. I don't think... I don't think this is widely known. I feel like the internet has decided

you're a founding member. Well, I mean, from my perspective, he didn't play in any of the recordings. He did some demo work with the band. I'd go see them and I was always very impressed with them. I thought immediately and I'm not going to get too much into this because it'll go to their heads

but I always thought that Joey and Danny had a very good chemistry together, those two guys. Joey was writing original songs at that time that were great songs. Most of them at that time never ended up on McLaren Furniture Room, but he was clearly gifted in terms of writing songs. And Danny is an exceptional vocalist as well. I know, exceptional vocalist.

Perhaps the greatest rock vocalist in the country. I think Danny, I mean, I know, I'm trying to think of who's better in this country, but what an incredible vocalist, Danny. Yeah, he is phenomenal. He's great. I mean, he's passionate. He has a diverse library of music in his head. It's not just sort of what's flavor of the moment.

He has things like Simon and Garfunkel and just good songwriters, good vocalists. And he had that ability to sing the hell out of any song even when he was a teenager when we first started. So I saw something in those guys, the two of them especially, that I wanted to be a part of and they ended up parting ways

with their original drummer and it was pretty seamless. I remember my audition with the band. It was funny. It wasn't funny. It was in Joey's parents' basement and the first song we played was a song called Exhuming McCarthy by R.E.M.

It's on their Document album. And Danny wasn't there because I think his cat had just died. I haven't thought about this in years. But it was just Pete, Lavin, Joey, and myself. And we played the R.E.M. song. And I remember them looking at me and saying, that feels great and it's just so quiet. Because their previous drummer was a real pounder,

and I was a bit more of a finesse sort of groove-oriented player. Right. Yeah. So it was Pete Lavin, Joey, Danny, and myself. Pete left in about 92, no, 93, after the first album was recorded. He had had enough, wanted to sort of settle down with his family, wasn't interested in touring. we were touring all the time again pre-record we were doing hundreds and hundreds of shows we would drive to toronto for a half an hour set at the horseshoe for the sky

opening up for the skydiggers or something along those lines i mean and i'm not exaggerating we would literally drive through the night to play a little, shitty little opening slot on a Tuesday or something. Just very, very driven. And Canada's a tough country to tour because it's so spread out and vast, right? Like, I have bands in here that are telling, they had to stop touring because it was costing them so much money. Yeah. Well, we would never make money.

I mean, this wasn't a money-making venture back then. It was an exercise in living on the road learning how to become better songwriters learning how to live with each other and um searching for that sort of elusive record deal that happened we can get into it it was very organic and very sort of uh step by step it wasn't just one day we were offered some big record deal. It was, it started with an independent deal and you know, so.

Okay. So that's the story I want right after I make a big announcement and give you some gifts. Cause you've, you've come all this way. And I came, I came with a gift for you as well, which I highly encourage all guests to bring me stuff.

So firstly, I want to welcome, this doesn't happen every day, but there's a brand new sponsor on the program, StickerU. So StickerU.com. That's StickerYOU.com. These guys are in Liberty Village. I met with them on Friday. I biked over. They got a really cool office. You can see it from Dufferin, right at Dufferin and Liberty Street. Basically, if you can stick it, they do it. So I would say customized stickers, labels, decals, et cetera. They do temporary tattoos.

You can order one or you can order as many as you want. Magnets, what else? Any size, any shape, any quantity. Sticker you. Very cool. In fact, I was just today talking to the guys at sticker you, and I'm like, this is my wall. And now I'm pointing to it.

Usually it's just for you, Sammy, but there might be somebody there. Hey, this is the wall. And I said, hey, maybe you could make up something. Yeah, sticker you, sure. But also I'm thinking like Toronto Mike, like stickers. Imagine guests come and I give them stickers. Like I got all these ideas. I'll have to get yours later because I don't have any yet.

But I have so many ideas. And then I started thinking like if you have a band or any art or a brand that you're responsible for promoting, like getting these stickers and these custom stickers over the internet at stickeru.com, like what a fantastic idea. Now that I've met the people behind Stick you in liberty village uh great toronto people i'm like i'm all in with these guys so sticker you.com welcome uh thank you for fueling the real talk we'll hear more from sticker you shortly but welcome aboard that's that's amazing joining the likes of uh for example great lakes brewery there's a six-pack in front of you sammy here from great lakes it's all yours joining the likes of, for example, Great Lakes Brewery.

There's a six pack in front of you, Sammy, here from Great Lakes. It's all yours, my brother. All right. Excellent. Put that in the fridge for some guests. Over my dad bod.

You're a dad, but I'm looking at you. You don't have much of a dad bod going on. You keep fit. Thank you, Mike. I try. You work out?

What do you do? I'm a jogger. I like to jog. I started jogging when I was on the road. I used to jog two times a day just to be alone because i was in everybody's face all day so i like to jog my buddy uh mark hebbs here he was in here today doing hebsey on sports and he goes oh i'm going to do a race and i'm thinking like what's he going to do like some 5k or

whatever but he's like no him and a bunch of guys are going to do a one mile race and like they're taking it really seriously like hebsey he's in his 60s, lean and mean, though, and he's ready to go race somebody in a mile. That's far. That's a long race. That's a long race. Well, thanks for the beer. That's great.

It looks really, the packaging is really nice, actually. So, yeah, thanks. Yeah, they do a great job on the packaging. What's this red box here, Mike? Yeah, that's... Did we get into that, or... My friend, are you kidding me? That's courtesy of Palma Pasta. This looks good. This looks good. That's a meat lasagna, Mike? Yeah, that's... Can we get into that or... My friend, are you kidding me? That's courtesy of Palma Pasta.

This looks good. This looks good. That's a meat lasagna as per your request. Thank you. In fact, I had a veggie and I'm like, I called up my contact at Palma and I'm like, Sammy wants a meat lasagna. Like we had a rush order.

Like that got delivered like an hour ago for you. How many of those do you have in your freezer? I can only fit four at a time. I know you've done north of 400 podcasts here, so I envisioned you having this warehouse of red boxes. Here's the thing. So, to a beer, okay? Although, I need more beer.

You got the last six pack, and I got Ben Rayner from the Stars coming over on Thursday. I got to get more beer for the man. He's probably been to a Watchmen show or two. Could be. He's been to lots of shows. He might probably been to a Watchmen show or two. Could be. He's been to lots of shows. Might have written a poor review one day or something. Let me know.

And honestly, I'll rough him up a bit. I'll take care of him. Ask him. So ran out of beer. I got to get more. But I can only fit four of those amazing, those are large lasagnas. Yeah, that's good.

And my freezer only fits four. But I need like a freezer down here full of like lasagnas and it would make life a little easier. But yeah, my friend, honestly, fantastic, fantastic Italian food at Palma Pasta. Where are they located? Mississauga and Oakville. They have a location called the Palmas Kitchen. So that box is the new Palmas Kitchen box.

It's at like I would say the closest major intersections like Burnhamthorpe and Mavis. But go to palmapasta.com to find out exactly where they are and visit Palmapasta and consider Palmapasta if you have to cater an event. Like, I don't know, any... I'm thinking they're going to cater my hockey pool draft on April 8th, okay? Like, any event, large or small, they catered my wedding, like, straight up. Contact Palmapasta and check them out for uh

for catering so you got your beer and you got your uh lasagna and we've got the origin story for the uh the watchman here and just before we dive into the watchman and i always i'm curious if this is at all awkward tell me it's awkward because awkward makes for a great podcast okay all right but uh you're currently a real estate sales representative. That's correct. And you service Toronto? Yes. With a specialty in resale homes.

We've been working a lot in the Cedarvale area, the Forest Hill area. I work with a team. We're called the Faith Zversky team. Faith has been in real estate for about 35 years. And she and I work with a guy named Daniel Engel and we're doing a lot of really good business right now. So look us up.

Go to SammyCohn.com SammyCohn.com You almost spelled your name wrong there. I was just looking at the beer and getting excited about the beer. What could be awkward about that? That's fantastic for you, except there's a- I think I know where this is going.

So there's a sponsor of this show who's also a real estate sales representative. He's with PSR Brokerage, and he has recorded a fantastic question for you, and it's not about real estate. And I think there's room in this city for two real estate agents. Maybe.

Given the fact that there's 50,000 of us in Ontario, I think that him and I could get along just fine. PSR actually, they're not colleagues, but we consider them colleagues at Forest Hill Real Estate. They have an office down the street, and they've got some very nice people at PSR. So they are nice. I want to confirm that.

They are nice people. We've done some deals with PSR realtors. It's a good shop. There's a few of them. And yeah, let's hear the question. Here's Brian. Hi, Sammy. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Now's the time to contact me for a free home evaluation if you are considering selling your home and are looking to buy during the busy spring market.

You can also call or text me at 416-873-0292. If you're interested in the Gallery and Mall condo redevelopment, my brokerage is exclusively selling. Sammy, in September 2004, you guys got together in Winnipeg to host a fundraiser for the Israeli bobsled team in order for them to get to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy. The band's lead singer, Danny Greaves, has a brother, David, who has dual Canadian-Israeli citizenship and joined the bobsled team the previous year. At the time of the concert,

$100,000 had been raised for the $500,000 needed. Did you reach your fundraising goal and did David make it to the Olympics? Good question. And I have to say that I'm a little ill-prepared for this question because I'm trying to remember. I don't think I played at that show. I don't think I was a part of that.

That was when I wasn't in the band. And hopefully we'll get into that too. You want to talk about awkward and juicy stuff. Right, because the last album does not have you on it. Well, if you want to call it an album, I think it's more of a demo myself. I do know one song made it to Edge 102. Yes, I think I know where you're...

Yeah, I know. It's called Absolutely Anytime. It's a great song. Great song. Right, right. So in terms of the question, we did a fundraiser for David. We did help raise funds.

They did end up going to the Olympics. David is still part of the Israeli bobsled team. I don't know what his role is exactly. I know he has a very senior role and it's been something that we've been helping him with for a number of years off and on. So yeah, good question. Yeah. Yeah.

a number of years off and on. So yeah, good question. Yeah. It's on the Wikipedia page for the Watchmen is this reference to the benefit there for the Israeli bobsled team. So it's sort of stuck in there and it begs follow-up questions. Yeah, the Wikipedia page is pretty weak.

I mean, I have to take responsibility. I've never added to it or anything like that. Well, Wiki's tough. Like I've worked for B2B software companies and stuff and you'll correct something and you'll just, there'll be no like, oh, the greatest software, basically new release, here's a name and stuff.

And then all of a sudden it's not there anymore and you go into the audit trail and it's a very tricky beast with, who's policing the police, if you will. Like it's sort of a very tricky beast with who's policing the police if you will like it's sort of like everybody sort of is an editor and then that main makes it so nobody's an editor like it's kind of quality control is out the window yeah it's uh if anybody is interested in in any history on the band tour dates archival videos links to social pages we do have the the-watchman.com as the sort of central place for all of our information,

if anybody cares. Speaking of old things, I'm going to just show you, speaking of stickers too, I was recently going through some stuff. I was the guy who kind of held on to everything and still do in terms of the band and I didn't want to come empty-handed.

I heard you say in a recent podcast that you're not a big vinyl guy because you don't have... Well, I play it so i have it you'll see it's here yeah it's great but it's there is like decoration i can't play it yeah so what i did is i brought you a sticker a watchman sticker because i think stickers are really cool and we used to give these out at shows and if and on the back of the sticker you peel it off and it has a an opportunity for somebody to fill out their name and address and get on our mailing list it's got an email list at the email um line at the bottom

so this was really pre-internet when we used to be very guerrilla in terms of our market remember there used to be sign-up sheets at people's shows totally yeah yeah and and it was we we i've got in my basement in my house i've got hundreds probably thousands of fan letters from people who used to write us P.O. Box there might be one for me in that pile maybe people used to put pen to paper which is kind of a remarkable thing right now

but anyway this is a sticker that I thought might be cool it's got our sort of logo on it are you kidding me? yeah of course it's very cool put it on your wall of fame here. No, I totally, totally dig it. The Watchmen.

I love it. P.O. Box 203, Station C. There you go. There you go. I think we can attribute the fact that there are people still buying tickets to see us play to the fact that we did all that work in the 90s, pre-internet. We were just a band that was a working band in our van playing hundreds of shows a year, which started off to the tune of three people in Toronto, to 12 people the next time, to cut to sold out the next time. And it was just brick by brick by brick brick. Uh, there was never

any sort of a big moment where we quote unquote sort of made it. It was all just a lot of, a lot of hard work. And, and I really feel that the reason why we're still able to sort of do some shows is because it wasn't a quick and easy sort of, uh, um, America's next talent approach. So the grassroots were laid in such a way that they're sort of firmly in place still to a certain extent. I mean, we're not playing the Scotiabank Center here, but we're still able to, in certain markets,

have the ability to fill rooms, which is really kind of remarkable to all of us right now. Well, let's start cranking out some Watchmen hits here. So 1992, the McLaren Furnace Room is released. So let's start with this. I built the wall and stripped away your rage Showed me all the parts that hurt I fixed it with the love that I've had with you Even when I see your eyes

I wonder who are you Even when I hear you sigh I wonder where Cracked. Sounds good. Sounds, and the headphones, I haven't heard it in headphones in 25 years.

It only gets better, my friend. So, tell me how you guys ended up, you kept, you know, you talked about getting that record deal. Like, what's, tell friend. So tell me how you guys ended up. You talked about getting that record deal. Tell me the origin story of how you were able to make your first album here,

McLaren Furnace Room. Again, it was kind of a brick-by-brick sort of story. Ralph James was the guy who was booking shows for us. He was pretty instrumental in getting us introduced to Jake Gold, a former guest. Like two weeks ago or something. All around sweetheart. It's funny, just a quick sidebar.

Jake and I, I think we've become better friends since we moved out of working together, Jake and I. It's kind of our little inside joke. I call him Irv for Irving Azoff, and he calls me Don because of the Eagles, Don Felder, or Don Henley for that matter. So he's the manager and I'm the talent. That's what we've sort of broken it down to. He's Irv, I'm Don, he's manager, I'm talent.

But Jake was, after some prodding from Ralph, he was interested in working with the band and expanding his roster outside of The Hip at the time. The Hip were really ascending in terms of the work they were doing and he wanted to bring in some more acts. And I'm trying to remember the actual time. What basically happened was we went to every label in Canada and were turned down, which is kind of the age-old story.

We had a bit of a cleaner sound back then. We were still evolving as a band, but we literally could not get arrested in terms of a record deal. And Jake, to his credit, decided with Chris Wardman and a guy called Aubrey Winfield, who is a studio owner, he said, why don't we get the producer, I'll be the manager, and the studio owner to invest in a label called Sumo Productions. It was an independent label, an imprint that he started

that was distributed through, at the time, MCA Records. You want to know the story? I'm giving it to you. This is as boring as it can be. I don't know if you're interested. I want the story. You want the details. Okay, so Jake, again, to his credit, said, let's just get something out there. And I have a relationship with MCA,

and you've got 12 good songs here at least. We whittled it down from probably 20 with Wardman, went into a room and decided he was the guy. We recorded it at, it was called Winfield Sound, I think it was downtown Toronto. This was 1991-ish, a long time ago. And it was a very good introduction to the recorded output of the band

with MCA, with proper infrastructure of a PR department and promotions department at the label. And we released Mclaren Fern's Room. And I'm fair to say that's the biggest, biggest single off the, the album. What's your opinion?

No, no, I think probably Run and Hide was. Yeah, Run and Hide was, we, we did videos for both of those songs. And it's funny,

Run and Hide was a song Joey Sterling wrote. McLaren is effectively, I think it's Joey's album. He wrote all those songs. And that was the collection of the 12 best songs that had been written to date, which is not uncommon for a first album. It's a perfect first album, as far as I'm concerned. Usually first albums, to me, they encapsulate where a band is at a specific time, their early years, it, it, it calls together their, their songs, their hits.

It shouldn't be coming out swinging with a perfect album as your first album. I don't know too many bands that have done that and, and, and who are still around. So it was a, it's in some ways it sounds, it may be a little half baked, maybe not all the songs are really fantastic,

but it's a great first album. And then you got to follow that up. Yeah, well, we followed it up with a proper sign-to-a-label record called In the Trees, because at that point, we had proven ourselves to MCA, and we had sold enough records by way of that independent album to have them trust in us enough to provide a proper budget. They were listening to demos.

They moved us from what was that one-off, the Sumo Productions. I don't even know if Sumo put any other albums out. Maybe they did an Andrew Cash album or something. Jake would know about that. But yeah, and then it was sort of, I guess if there was ever a kind of a moment where we felt we were catapulted to the next level,

it would be going from McLaren to In the Trees where it felt like, whoa, we really have the infrastructure of a record label behind us right now, which was very exciting at the time. All right, we're going to play a few jams from In the Trees, which, for what it's worth, is my favorite Watchmen album. Thank you.

For what it's worth. But these all kick ass, so I'm going to turn this to 11 here. guitar solo Little girl, I love you so much Why you gonna give away your touch To something that's hanging down on the bony outer tree This was the first single, right? Yeah. Yeah. I need to know how important was it,

how important was much music to a band like The Watchmen? Huge. It was an opportunity for us to gain a national audience almost overnight. On the cycle of this album, we did one of their snow job events. I think it was in Banff. one of their snow job events in, I think it was in Banff. And I remember, as a matter of fact,

Ralph James, I'm not dropping names here, these are people who work on our team, but... But I like name dropping, so don't hesitate. I mean, he's a, we're very loyal to people

that we've worked with over the years. We've had the same sound man for 25 years, so Ralph is sort of a fifth member, but I remember him saying to me shortly after he saw Snowjob,

he said, it looked like Woodstock on TV. And it did look great. There was a massive audience, and it was an opportunity for us to show what we could do live, which was a strong thing that we had at that point, something we felt very confident with. And that was on the cycle of this album. But yeah, this was the first single, and we sort of came out swinging with a rock song.

And it's a good song. Joey Sterling wrote this song. It's a great song. And it's a great lead single for a follow-up album. This is a game I like to play with. I'll be like, okay okay name that lead single from the follow up album we went through a big

metamorphosis from McLaren to In the Trees we went through a period where we really matured as a band and I'm going to caveat everything I say in this interview with the other guys in the band might have different opinions and different memories but my memory of this was

Pete Lavin, the original bass player, left. It was the three of us auditioning bass players. Ken auditioned and I'm not going to get into all the sort of minutiae of how he ended up volunteering or excuse me, auditioning rather but he came to the table with a number of ideas based on stuff that he'd been working on over the years,

one of which was Lusitana, which is a very bass-heavy song. And same with All Uncovered, which I know that you're a fan of, Mike. You've mentioned that. Big fan. Which, what it did is, Ken's arrival, it pushed us into writing songs as a collective and having one more area, one more tentacle, if you will, in terms of the ability to produce and create music.

So we had Joey Serlin compositions from start to finish, and then we also had this great opportunity now to build up Danny as a vocalist and as a lyricist. And we had in Ken a guy who was composing music. So it was a very, very exciting time for us to be collectively writing music. And half of In the Trees are Watchmen compositions, which for any band is really the best thing you can ask for, is not have to rely on one method of songwriting.

We were talking about the importance of much music, and then I remember we mentioned Moe Berg a few times already, but when Moe was telling me about dropping off the VHS recording of his I'm an Adult Now video, which is just in an empty park, which is now we're mech Okay, so I don't know if you ever go to mountain equipment co-op to buy any bike gear or anything I know I mean it's that was the place back then in the night Danny still the play I mean go ahead sir

Yeah I was gonna you know Danny and I when we were pre record deal we used to go to Speakers corner and we'd I pull out the brushes and we'd sing songs and I remember, you know, Bare Naked Ladies were kind of the purveyor of that. They did Yoko Ono? They did Yoko Ono

and a little bit sort of funny history here. I heard Tyler Stewart's episode recently. I listened to it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, he was great and he was talking about the early days and I was sort of reminiscing

in my own mind one of the first bands we played with when we were in Toronto as a Winnipeg band, again, probably 1990, was Bare Naked Ladies. Wow.

They, I think they might have even, and I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was a place called Cadillac Jacks on, maybe it was Spadina?

You probably know better than I do. Queen? Okay, you might be right. There's like, yeah. Anyway,

they opened up for us and there was 10 people there and they played i remember they played yoko ono they had all the songs just sort of pre-yellow tape and uh and then the next time we came back they were kind of a household name and we were still playing shitty clubs on queen street yeah their their rise was yeah meteoric at least the yellow tape but um much music so I'll just but just quickly

because it did for Moe Berg and the Pursuit of Happiness it was everything well they they are the primo example of a

$5,000 $500 video on Queen Street they use them as the kind of the the example

of bring your video in we'll play it I mean I'm sure thousands of bands have a story where they tried to get in there and didn't get it past security but mo mo listen it's a great song and it was a crude version of i'm an adult now they did it with todd rudden grin a few years later which was incredible right for love junk yeah yeah but um much music was was was i'd say pretty instrumental but but it was part of the game back then i really didn't know a lot about

what was happening. But behind the scenes, you had record labels buying advertising on Much Music, and they were maybe obliged to play videos. And Much Music would often look at radio, what was happening at radio. They were very smart. They wanted to be on top of things.

And we just happened to be ascending in terms of our career at a time when a lot of the labels in a lot of Canada relied on Much Music as their eyes and ears of what was happening. So we were definitely a part of that, that huge sort of tsunami of Canadian bands that were all over Much Music.

Now Much Music, of course, national. So you're right, you can now tour the country, right? Because you're big on Much Music. It introduces you all across from sea to sea. And labels were, sorry to cut you off, just to that point, Mike, and this is also remarkable in terms of how much the industry's changed. Labels were spending $180,000 to $100,000 on videos for Canadian only bands. I mean, we, we, we're still paying those videos back.

Somebody is. It's like student loans right there. Yeah, pretty much. But, uh, so that's, that's that's how different the industry was back then. Actually, I'll save my follow-up question. Let's play just another song from In the Trees here. Here we go. guitar solo She'd take me from this stare out of place With several minutes and I'm dead Years ago I played this show

That's all I think of in my head You're the wiser You're the wiser one than me You're the wiser You're the wiser one in me You're very biased and you're way too close to it, but name a better rock vocalist from, okay, we'll say from the 90s in this country. You know what?

I'm not going to give you false humility here. I agree. I always felt, and we felt, that the band, in certain ways, was as good as some of the other bands out there that were possibly in front of bigger audiences. I'm not going to name any names, but we had a lot...

How about name one name? Ah, no. We had a lot of confidence back then as a foursome. We moved in and out of being confident. There were times when we weren't as confident in our abilities, but this was a good example of a song we wrote as a team. We used to call it Squeezing Blood from a Stone. We'd sit in our rehearsal space, and we'd be there at 10,

and we'd have lunch, and we'd have coffee, and then we'd bitch and talk about this and that. Then we'd try to write a song and if we didn't, we'd walk out kind of feeling depressed. But in most cases, we'd walk out with some sort of framework of an original composition. We did that for years and years and years. And this song is a result of that.

Danny wrote the words on this song. I haven't heard this stuff in a long time. It sounds great. I mean, it's funny that you pick things apart when you were the one who recorded them. I remember something specific about this record, a bit of a nugget that maybe fans would be interested in. The producer we had was very detail-oriented on this album,

a guy named Mr. Colson, who was a Seattle-based producer. Anyway, this song, and Boneyard Tree in particular, I remember that song probably has about 30 drum edits on it. That is a Frankenstein of a song. And most of this album was very, very edited. And I hear the edits, which is kind of not so good. But anyway. You hear them and we don't.

I hear them in Boneyard Tree. I hear there's distinct cuts of tape and again i feel like i'm demystifying the whole thing no this is all about actually this podcast is all about demystification to be quite honest like i let's peel back that uh pull the curtains back and let's see the wizard and what's going on there but that um belaboredored is the word. Start to finish, I agree, it's a solid album. I'm proud of this album.

It sold more copies than anything else we recorded. We had hit sort of a valley by the time Boneyard Tree and Wiser were released. I think Wiser was the second singer. And they thought it was time for us to go back into the studio and do a third album. And then somebody had the presence of mind. I don't know who, pardon me, who can be the one to, to, to take credit for this, but they released All Uncovered as a single, which is to me, I, I, I love that song. I love playing it. I remember writing it as, as the four of us, and it felt like something special when we wrote it. And is it, it's a completely unconventional song. It's, it's in a three, four in terms of time signature. And, and, and I don't think you can name a song around that time period that, that is, that, that sounds like that. I mean, it's a,, it still sounds pretty good if I do say so. guitar solo Lying in bed from season

It's not like five years ago The leaf leer hole for my body Is that just the place that I want you to be Look at the pictures you've gotten Like signals from oncoming cars We're covered in a cake from the last time I know it sounds weird, we collected in jars Is that just the place that I wanna be?

Oh, can't you see it's a life I don't need? Please don't make this thing up for me The way that I wanna be Oh, can't you see it's a life I don't make this thing up for me The way that I wanna be Oh, can't you see it's a lie for me Please don't make this thing up for me I think it's a stunning song. I would say very subjective, but one of my favorite songs of all time.

Forget Canadian songs. One of my favorite songs of all time. Forget Canadian songs, one of my favorite songs of all time. Thank you. It's nice to hear that. It's the song that kind of stops the show when we play live. Definitely hit a struck a chord with people, and a good example of a composition that, the germ of the idea was something Ken brought to the table with that intro. I remember we were at the McLaren furnace room, sort of hammering it out, trying to put a song together and feeling immediately very,

very good. There's actually, we did a 20th anniversary of In the Trees out a few years back and there's all the demos on there. And there's a nice demo of this song. I don't think a lot of people ended up hearing it. We didn't really do a lot of promotion on that reissue, but we did the 20th anniversary of Trees, and there's a great demo of All Uncovered on there. It has a completely different ending on it. If you check it out, Mike, you'll like it. It was pre-going to a producer and having him sort of trim some fat.

I'm going to hunt this down. Yeah, hunt it down. It's sort of the companion disc to the end of Trees. But going to hunt this down. Yeah, hunt it down. Yeah, it's on the tree. It's sort of the companion disc to the trees. But I quite like this part. I mean, I was going to turn it up, but... Now, part of it is

I was listening to a lot of Neil Young at the time, and I had this great appreciation for Hayden, for example. I had this whole, like... Trees for example. And I had this whole like... Tree's Lounge? Yes.

Is that the time? Right, with Steve Buscemi. Circa Tree's Lounge. Right. Or Everything I Long. I'm going to play some later, actually. Because whenever I was into like, oh, the harmonicas here in my 90s alt rock from CanCon. And it just, it was like perfect.

alt rock from CanCon, and it just is like perfect. There's also something that I feel like Danny brings to the mix. He has this innate ability with his harmonica playing and his vocals to have a certain sadness about what he's singing and what he's saying and what he's playing when he plays harp. There's always this melancholy to what he's doing. Did he write these lyrics? Yes, he did. Buckle me in on the highway to sin?

He did. That's right up there, man, with Bruce Colburn in Kick at the Darkness Till It Bleeds Daylight. Are you kidding me? That's great. By the way, where's Danny located these days? Danny's in Toronto. He runs a bar called Motel. He owns a bar, actually, in Parkdale. He's in Toronto. He runs a bar called Motel. He owns a bar actually

in Parkdale. He's doing great. Doing very well. He's got a wonderful partner, a wonderful wife. See now though, I can't have Danny on

because I'm doing the Watchmen episode now. I'm just kidding. I'll have Mon. You can have Mon. I'm sure he'll be happy to talk about himself for two hours.

Who wouldn't be? No, but he, things really gelled around this time from a group standpoint we recorded this album we felt like we had a bit of an ace up our sleeve before it was released and uh turns out we were right it did well commercially it allows us it allowed us to play bigger shows and um not have to just live on the road i remember we were, we just had tours planned and we'd have some time off and then back on the road.

And it was a very exciting time. We're going to come back. So we're going to come back to the Watchmen, but I'm going to take a pause to listen to a couple of non-Watchmen. Listen, listen to a couple of non-Watchmen tunes for a moment here. Some Nana Muscuri for you, Sammy. You pull her out here and there.

I still haven't been able to figure out why. I only pull out Nana Muscuri. Is this Nana? That's Nana, yeah. Le Tournesol. I only bring out Nana Muscuri for Camp Tournesol. Camp Tournesol is the largest French camps in the GTA. Tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14 attend Camp Tournesol camps.

And if you have a child between the ages of 4 and 14, you need to send them to Camp Tournesol. So go to campt.ca to learn about the overnight programs and the day camps that are available for francophone children, French immersion children, and even children of no French experience. So if you want to watch their French skills blossom over the summer, Camp Tournesol is where you send them this summer. Again, camptea.ca. When you make your purchase online, when you register your child for a Camp Tournesol French camp, use the promo code Mike2019. Mike2019 and you save some money and it lets Camp Tournesol know that it pays to sponsor and fuel the real talk. So thank you, Camp Tourasol. And now that's Nana Muscuri. Here's something completely different. We're going to pop into the time machine here.

Let's see. Where will we go? Why Nana Muscuri, though? Because the camp is called Camp Ternasol, and that song is called Le Ternasol. Ah, okay. I know that my mom used to like Nana Muscuri, and she had those big black glasses ahead of her time. She rocked the glasses in the 70s.

Pre-Lisa Loeb. Right, yeah, yeah. I think Ethan Hawke directed that video, I believe. Yeah, he definitely did. Not the Nana Muscari video, but the Lisa Loeb video. That would be so nice. And also, I've seen it. I mean, speaking of much music,

how many times did they play that Lisa Lowe video? But it was always very good. But it was, Please stay. I only hear what I want to. I don't even remember the words anymore. I don't feel hard. I don't pay attention to this something.

Yeah. But it was all the time on Much Music. But it was shot to appear as if it was all one take. There was a cat, right? That's cool. As I recall. You know, I saw a movie last night. I rented it called Stan and Ollie.

Have you heard this? Yes. But yes. Is it Will Ferrell? It's with John C. Reilly. John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan, who I love. And they played Lauren LaHardy. Anyway, the first opening scene is about a three-minute uncut shot,

a la kind of Goodfellas and it's very well done speaking of uncut shots. Well, the song that plays, of course, the wall of sound song that plays during that Goodfellas scene

was covered successfully by the aforementioned Andy Kim. Which song was that? I'm trying to remember now. Be My Baby? Was it Be My Baby by the Ronettes I think so it was one of those

but okay so let's go on the time machine Sammy 30 years ago this week this was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 30 years ago this week 30 years ago this week.

It sounds funny after listening to all that Watchmen, but... This is... Do you recognize this song? Is this The Bangles? This is The Bangles, yeah. I follow Susanna Hoffs on Twitter. She's great. Yeah, this was Eternal Flame, which was the biggest hit I think the Bangles had.

They had a bunch of hits, but this was the biggest one. Don't you think it was bigger? That was Semantic Monday. But they didn't write that song. That's a Prince song. Right. And what about Walk Like an Egyptian? I hate to call you on your research.

I know you're very well researched, Mr. Brian Linehan of podcasts. Thank you, sir. That's all I want you to call you on your research. I know you're very well researched, Mr. Brian Linehan of podcasts. Thank you, sir. That's all I want you to call me from now on. But I will say the biggest hit is hard to kind of quantify. But you're absolutely right. But Eternal Flame was a big hit. Speak to Cam Gordon.

He'll tell you. I was going to say it earlier during the Cam Gordon part, but I'll say it now, which is that I instantly liked Cam Gordon because he cared about the details and the minutiae. And this guy played on that with this. Which I'm wired that way. Although I get most of my facts wrong, unfortunately. But the people who dig that stuff, it's not everybody. Most people don't care about that stuff.

But I do. And when I meet someone else who does, it's sort of like you're in the club you know what i mean and you have it too like i can tell you i like you already i i uh likewise i that's why i like your podcast because it's well researched and you dig in to the to the details i something cam and i would often talk about in the podcast we did and we're getting a little off track here but no that's okay we'll come back the kind of artists that i really appreciate are ones that have long careers with sort of fallow periods of what the hell is going on with this artist what's going on with bob dylan right now what's going on with neil young what's going on with lou reed why are they putting out such

bizarre records where they completely seem to have lost the plot right and that's what i'm the most interested in i mean the Watchmen never got there because we only had 12 years of recorded output. Right. We certainly had, you know, there's one record in there, Brand New Day, that's certainly a conversation topic that we can get into as far as my opinions

on where things kind of went. A little bit south on that album, but that's what interests me the most are the details is kind of the point I'm trying to make on these artists. You know who else is in this club of ours? Tyler Stewart. So for example, I'd never met Tyler.

He came over, he said a few things that I could tell he listened to the show and he appreciated these things that told me right away, like, oh, he's one of us. Yeah, I listened to his podcast, too. I liked him more after. I don't know him, but I went back and I actually listened to some Barenaked Lady stuff. I thought what was really interesting, what he mentioned, was he talked about the whole Stephen Page thing that was obviously a sensitive subject, but he talked about how nobody in

America cared about that. And I thought that was really, really interesting. It never occurred to me. It was like the first news story, headline news, front page news, that Steven Page was no longer in Barenaked Ladies. And nobody cared in the U.S. And I have a pile of respect for those guys, just given how hard they worked.

And I kind of learned that from your podcast, what they did to make it in the States. For sure. And my buddy Elvis, we record like once a quarter just literally to shoot the shit, actually. And he told me I've got quite the collection of drummers lately because I mentioned you were coming on. Because I just had the drummer from the Jeff Healy band.

I listened. I heard. He was great, too. He was good. Yeah, he was good. Because that guy's got a bit of a bad rap over the years those those side men to jeff healy but uh i learned a lot on that podcast i was i think i might go buy that guy's book uh jeremy taggart's been on the show yep i saw that tyler stewart uh yourself now i'm trying to think there's probably yeah i mean that alone you got some pretty pretty good stuff going on there. But let me tell everyone listening, of course,

that Remember the Time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years. If you want to save, yeah, it's a long time. They were in the Sears Canada stores forever when there were Sears Canada stores in this country. And then Sears up and left and then these guys, this great business that knows watch and jewelry repairs

for 30 years. They started opening their own locations. They have a new one in Richmond Hill. If you go to FastTime watchrepair.com, you can find it where they are. If you want to save 15% off if you have a watch that needs a new battery, bring it into FastTime and say, Toronto Mike sent me and you'll get

15% off and I think that's pretty damn cool. So thank you Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. That album you mentioned, Brand New Day, came out in 96. Is that right? Let me play

a jam from it maybe and then we'll talk about what you think went south there ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. So in love with the great escape It's all around her hopes and in her dreams Of one day just transporting Where would all the young girls go If they wandered around like me

I wish I knew of a better place A kinder place, a more gentler place to be. Just living the best that you knows how, living the best that you knows how, yeah. Yeah, say shut up. Yeah, say shut up. Yeah, say shut up. No, she can't even bother. Yeah, say shut up. Shut up, Sammy. Talk to me about this album.

It actually sounds pretty good I haven't heard that in a while And I had to wait for it I had to wait for it There's a long wait Until you get to the Shut up part For much music audiences

To appreciate And radio for that matter We just got really bogged down With group writing at this time And I think That some of the songwriting just kind of suffered. I mean, time is really the indicator of all, and we don't play any of these songs live anymore. Maybe one or two of the songs.

So that's really very telling for us, is if we don't really feel inspired to play the song, then maybe they're just not the best songs. You got to play this song live. Come on. I remember we did this on the Rita McNeil show. Remember that show, Mike? It took over, I believe, when Ralph Ben-Murgy, I believe,

when his Friday night show was canceled after a couple of years. I believe it's Rita McNeil's show that took the spot, I think. I'll never forget how crushed I was when I found out that Rita wasn't in the building when we were taping. She was just, she's not here. She does her stuff on a different day or something and I was just, Rita's not here? I've just got to meet Rita. I was always the

guy who'd hunt people down if we were playing with them. Can we get a photo with you? Can we jump on stage with you? Can we get an autograph? Just kind of playing fanboy when we play festivals in Europe or something. And I wanted to meet Rita, and I never got a chance. Well, I get a sense that you're a natural-born archivist, which is why you have that sticker you gave me. Everything.

Well, I mean, let me tell you something. One thing that we've decided to do, and I don't want to take you away from, again, your arc of conversation. Dude, trust me. I yak enough on this show. This is all about you, buddy. Okay, well, you know, we've always decided, and I've been a real stickler about this,

since 2008 when we started playing shows again, I always say to the guys, I make them crazy, I just say, if we're going to do a show, if we're going to play, we have to have some sort of story. We have to have something that accompanies the fact that we're just getting out there and playing. Otherwise, we're just simply scraping the barrel and cashing in. We have to have something that accompanies the fact that we're just getting out there and playing. Otherwise, we're just simply scraping the barrel and cashing in.

We have to offer something. So since we reformed, we have put a book out that I was pretty instrumental in helping facilitate with a local publisher called Eternal Cavalier. Do you know the guy who owns it? You probably know this stuff. I don't know the guy who owns that. Who owns that?

I forget his name. His name is Josh. You wrote a book about the hip too called Escape Is At Hand. You wrote a, it's a self. Oh, it's funny. I have a different hip song to my,

I mean a different hip book to my right here, but it's Michael Barclay. Yes, I've got that on my night table. But in any case, so we thought we're not just going to play shows we want to have something to offer. So we did the book. We had somebody do a documentary on the band, about a 45-minute documentary based on primarily my...

Who did the documentary? A gentleman named Riel Monroe. He's a Winnipeg filmmaker. This was probably about eight or nine years ago now. I gave him about probably 60, 70 hours of camcorder footage of mine. I used to be, speaking of archivist, I'd walk around with my camera in everybody's face. Like a mini DV or something? It was,

it was like a little, little mini tapes. Yeah, I think they were called mini DVs, I think, but yeah. And he digitized everything and, and said,

and I had a bunch of photos too. And he put together in a very cohesive little documentary. He was interested in film and we did it on a shoestring budget. He did a phenomenal job with it, hunted down. It's on Vimeo, maybe YouTube. It's called all uncovered and um perfect title yeah so my my point is that that coincided with us playing shows then we did the trees reissue which was a selection of our demos and we we supported um some some the the the cd around that with some dates. And we want to make it a little bit more interesting

to the people who like the band as opposed to just getting out there and playing. Because one thing I've seen in the last, especially the last 10 years, the Watchmen do not have casual fans. People who like this band love this band, which we're incredibly lucky

to have and really proud of and again i think that harkens back to the whole point of pre-internet and working hard and playing in front of people people remember when they were in their frosh week or something seeing the band so there's a lot of those memories nostalgia is a very powerful thing who for people who buy concert tickets and um so that's kind of the the mo i suppose when we're playing shows now is to get out there and offer something a little bit different for people yeah some some value add for the the loyalists yeah exactly so because i know people come up to me at shows and say oh i've seen you 20 times i mean i'm not kidding like 20 times and i often say how can you manage to see us 20 times?

We're not like a jam band who plays a different set list every night. I mean, we have a framework. We do try to keep things interesting for ourselves by adding a song or two, a cover. We're always very creative with our covers. Something, and it's remarkable, you add one or two songs to a set list and suddenly the whole set list can kind of feel a bit fresher which is something we like we often like to do i saw you guys uh open for the hip in i think it's oh three i want to say 2003 but bottom of my i i know that my first born had just been born his name is james and a big reason i like the name james is because i love the song sweet baby james

by james taylor yeah so i think it's most in amphitheater. You guys were kicking ass opening. It was a great night. You're outside. It's a beautiful night. The music is gorgeous. You guys are kicking ass, and you guys cover Sweet Baby James.

You know, that show, I wasn't at that show because that was by the time I was out, and we can get into that. I'm happy to talk about that. We're going to get into that. But Danny, from day one, Danny would sing acapella songs at our shows, and that was another thing that I felt set us apart.

It was a little thing, but it became sort of his trademark, and we've done it. I really think it's probably been every show we've ever played where we take two minutes and we showcase him, and we showcase him and we have him sing an acapella song it just shows that we're digging a little deeper than just grunge rock or something and that was something we we would often open shows i remember we played

the um ontario place forum it was an edge fest and it was i think lemonheads were on the bill and who else i think i think I think Radiohead might have even been on that bill oh that's an early yeah again this is a Cam Gordon thing and we keep referencing Cam Cam let us know was Radiohead on that bill they might have been this was it must have been 1991-92 or so but in any case we opened our show with Danny singing an acapella song so if you could just imagine a whole day of bands, here's this Winnipeg band. We had a chip on our shoulder. We're not a Toronto band.

We're a Winnipeg band. And he opened the show with one of his, he only has about four of them, but he played, he sang, and it sort of just stopped everybody in their tracks. Remember Jake, our manager, would often say, get Danny to open the show with the acapella song. And it would immediately get people's attention and and we love

that stuff we loved uh just kind of um trying to be unique in a very uh difficult business where where canadian bands at that point there was a real commodity element to what was happening every band got their own their heavy rotation and it was a four minute song and it was tailored to sound good on the radio and we were really looking for different things and back to brand new day i think we we just went over the cliff a little bit trying to get a little too fancy a little too creative and then by the time that the cycle of that record was done because we literally had to say at one point after a couple of singles this record's done it's not selling anymore yeah incarnate and uh incarnate and shut up with shut up yeah so we have

to go back and i almost pulled incarnate but i wanted to get to the next album yeah no problem i mean we just we just basically thought to ourselves or we were told by management that time's time to start getting back to songwriting because this record's done and it's not selling and uh i remember being i remember that meeting very specifically but at the same time it kicked our asses a bit to have a uh a goal to write songs that can be sung on an acoustic guitar. That was what we thought. Now, a couple things. Shut Up is not that song.

Shut Up is like, it's kind of, it's a bit of a, it's got lots of different parts, it's very clever, but you can't just sit on a guitar and strum that. So let's dumb things down a little bit

and write more concise songs and that was the process that got us to Silent Radar. Well, you got a beautiful one on Silent Radar, but a couple things you said. One is you mentioned the Lemonheads, and I just find it interesting that the most known Lemonheads song,

probably, if you were listening to 102.1 throughout the 90s, is a cover of a Simon and Garfunkel song. That's right. Which is just kind of always bizarre, and I always remember, I guess he was dating Julianna Hatfield. Right.

And the Julianna Hatfield three. My Drug Buddy. Yeah. Yeah. The. They had a song called My Drug Buddy, didn't they? Possibly.

That's possible. But if anyone wants to know the Lemonhead song that we're talking about, of course, it's just a cover of Mrs. Robinson. But I just, it was played all the time. And I wanted to ask this earlier, but now's a good time.

I think I was going to ask it during the wiser part, but we talked about the importance of much music for a band in Canada, trying to, you know, get exposure. What about, you know, Canada's largest market by far is the one we're talking in right now, Toronto and 102.1 as a station. I mean, that's your, that's your, like that, they played a lot of Watchmen, you know what I mean? Like, so how important was it to get earplay from a station like Edge 102? It was huge.

I mean, it was huge. And we had promotion people at labels who would try to pull those levers as much as they could. And in some cases, we did very well at Rock Radio. I don't know the stats and all the minutiae, but it was a long process to get a Winnipeg band on the radio in Toronto. This is kind of like, I know Neil Osborne from 5440 would often say that he felt that they were ignored in Toronto

because they were from out west. He felt that they didn't get the credit they deserved. There was certainly, I think this might be a Pandora's box here, but there was a bit of bias, I think, towards Toronto talent around that time. For sure. With too much music. For sure. And we had something to prove. We're from Winnipeg and we want to get played on the radio.

We're as good as these Toronto bands and we needed to really get an understanding of how the politics worked on Queen Street early on because we were very green. We didn't know. But we literally,

the first time we played Lee's Palace, Mike, there was three people there. Three people. I've got a picture of three $2 bills. Remember $2 bills? You're old enough

to remember $2 bills. Of course I do, yeah. So I've got a picture of it and it's funny Remember $2 bills? You're old enough to remember $2 bills. Of course I do, yeah. So I've got a picture of it, and it's funny because it says beside the picture, it's got an envelope, and that's where the money was. So I took the money out of the envelope to take the picture, and it said, there's not a lot of money here.

We have to pay the door guy. So they paid us $6. That was net proceeds. Right, that's amazing. Yeah, and then cut to, I think, maybe less than four years later, we sold Lee's Palace out. It was on the Trees Tour, and I remember feeling very, very gratified at that time.

Very exciting. Are you familiar with the promoters, the Garys? Of course. Of course. But one of the Garys was on the show and told the story of the first time they brought the police to the Horseshoe Tavern. Yeah, it's like six

people or something yeah nine i think but oh no nine over the two nights i think combined sting i just saw a picture of sting a tweet you probably saw it because he's doing the ship right now right was it called the ship i think something about the something about the shipyard or something yeah something that he's like he's become a torontonian this year exactly you know i saw he's on the Junos. He's at hockey games. Yeah, they're just sort of... Raptor games, talking Eric's name. Squeezing every ounce of the fact that he's in Toronto.

I saw him in the Raptors game getting interviewed, but he had a picture of himself in front of the horseshoe because that's become something of a legend. And when I saw the police reunited a few years ago, he mentioned that. And it's probably a bit far-fetched. There was probably 20 people there, but now there's four people that were there i know uh funny gary swears nine people

but of course three months later rock sand breaks and everything changes for the police but uh we were talking about like cfny's bias towards like toronto bands and stuff like so i this is all the top of my head because i listened to a lot of 102.1 in the 90s but uh there would be bands like for example the waltons like where they'd pick a song uh naked rain yeah and it i it felt like that was on high rotation and i loved that song but that's so but then there were like i'm gonna play this because mike to that point what was happening at that time was and this is perhaps a bit cynical but i mean it's just the truth of the matter, is Naked Rain was probably on a major label. I think they were on Warner, the Waltons,

and Warner were paying the bills. I mean, so they had to... That's the real talk I'm looking for, Sammy. Yeah, well, I mean, that's kind of what's... It's no secret. I mean, you get some promo guy in who asks to get a certain song played, and I just know that there's a lot of that behind the scenes stuff going on

that the labels are paying the, the record, the, the radio stations to, to not, not play the songs, but it's thinly veiled payola in a way. I mean,

I hope I don't get any hate mail because of this, but it's just, it's the nature of the beast, you know? No, no. I've heard this stories like from Canadian artists who like, I think there's an, I'm trying to, who was it that was told basically,

you know, we, we need X dollars to play this on us radio or something and they didn't want to pay up and. Could be. Yeah. The whole us market is one that I, we spent time in the U S and some of the loneliest months of my life, you know,

just after getting used to playing decent audiences in Canada, then going in New York or, uh, wherever and playing in front of half a dozen people, it was very tough. So, um, but to answer your question, I mean, yeah, there were those, there was those politics, but just to, to give them the appropriate credit, they were a powerful radio station that had a really good handle on what was hot and they had their CanCon requirements that they needed to adhere to. And the good news is at that time, there was a lot of very good Canadian talent

and it wasn't as if it was quote unquote CanCon. It was just good stuff getting played. There was such a massive amount of Canadian bands, a Tea Party and Moist and Our Lady Peace and the Watchmen were in there and Odds. For sure. The list goes on. Love that stuff.

Now, before we, so Silent Radar, but first, one of those Toronto-based bands that got a lot of 102.1 airplay, just a little bit of that to talk about this band because it ties into something I want to tell the people about. ¶¶ We'll be these cold, gray days. Yeah, it's no longer news. Henry needs a new pair of shoes. So, Henry needs a new pair of shoes. And then, like, I'm having flashbacks. We talked about

the cover of Mrs. Robinson. Yeah. By Evan Dando. What are they called again? Lemonheads. Lemonheads, right. You'd hear that and then you'd hear

Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes by Lois DeLoe. And this album, Shakespeare in My Butt, one of my favorite albums of all time. So I guess I'm curious of a couple of things.

One, did you ever cross paths with DeLoe? Well, as a matter of fact, we just played at the Danforth Music Hall. The Watchmen played there in November. And our first choice in opening acts, and if I do say so myself, this was my idea, I said, let's approach Ron Hawkins to do something, maybe a solo thing.

And he did it, and he was awesome. He came on stage and did a Billy Bragg song with us that night. Now, this is the show that Cam Gordon, I can't remember what was going on in my life but I told Cam Gordon

I had massive regrets that I wasn't there. Well, next time Mike. Let me know. I need a time machine. I have to say it was a great show. There was something

in the air that night. It was a sellout at the Danforth. I hate to rub it in, but Ron set the stage beautifully, played about 45 minutes. Stephen came by and did some songs with him that night. Oh, yeah, Stephen Stanley was there. I remember that. He played all the hits.

He's got a great voice, phenomenal voice, great songwriter. It's funny you mention these guys because we come from Winnipeg, and these guys were kind of a household name in Toronto because they were, you know, Caspies and CNY. Because of the 102.1 played the shit out of Shakespeare, my bud. They did. But from what I remember, they didn't do a lot of business out west, and that was something.

One thing about the Watchmen is we're pretty even all across the board. We're in the center of Canada. When we were in Calgary and Vancouver, we did good business. And same thing when we headed out to the Maritimes and whatnot. But there was a selection of Toronto bands that were getting a lot of support by CFNY. And there was a disproportionate amount of support that would kind of prevent them from gaining an audience in other provinces. And this was not a much music band. Like,

uh, that's right. That's right. So that, you know, this, yeah. So you're right.

And because I'm born and raised in Toronto, I just assume the whole country is listening to Shakespeare. That's a very Toronto centric little thought there, my friend guilty as charged. That's kind of exactly what we wanted to sort of poke holes in when we were a young band. Like not that these guys weren't great, but we wanted to sort of get an understanding of the power that CFNY sort of yielded at the time. And it was kind of a case of we wanted it, but we also wanted to understand it too.

Because this is the quintessential CFNY band. I would say yes. This and the yellow tape, so before they break or whatever nationally or whatever, the Barenaked Ladies, but yeah, that's very quintessential CFNY band. Why am I playing Lois DeLoe? Well, of course, we're going to play

some other 90s bands. Why wouldn't I want to find out what Sammy thinks of Ron Hawkins? And it's all great things, but I want to tell everybody that there's a big Toronto Mike listener event taking place on June 27th, June 27th from six to 9 PM TMLX three. In fact, Sammy,

you and cam should come into this thing. You guys would love it. It's at the great lakes brewery, which is 30 queen Elizabeth Boulevard, which is down the street from the Costco here in Etobicoke, like near, like, I'm going to say, Royal York and Queensway kind of area. But playing this event on the patio.

First of all, Great Lakes will buy your first beer for you. Okay. Okay, so you come. Hopefully Mother Nature cooperates and we're having a great sunny night on the patio. You get your beer, your first beer. They have a great food truck, $5 pints. Headlining this event is the lowest of the low.

Is this, that sounds great. Is it open to the public? Just come down kind of thing? If you are a listener of Toronto Mic'd or a guest of Toronto Mic'd or both, you are invited to this event on June 27th. What night of the week is on thursday perfect it's also my 45th birthday but that's not why the event has happened that night yes in fact that's funny because so i've this will be the third toronto mic listener experience and my

teenagers avoided the first two because they didn't want to go okay but this one's on my birthday and they i guess that was sufficient guilt that they're both want to go. Okay. But this one's on my birthday and they, I guess that was sufficient guilt that they're both going to make an appearance. Two kids. Well, I have four kids, but two that will be two teenagers.

Okay. Four kids. Yeah. That's exhausting. So I beat you. You're three. How old are the kids? 17,

14. It's a stumper. His birthday is, his birthday is. He's in therapy now. Mike doesn't know his birthday. That's a stumper. His birthday is, his birthday is. He's in therapy now. Mike doesn't know his birthday. That's right. He's turning five on April 9th.

So I was trying to think, are we there yet? Cause I've been kind of thinking it's already happened, but no, it hasn't happened yet. So almost five and three. Oh boy. Lots going on.

That is a lot going on. So let's get into a fantastic album. let's get into silent radar and and the last episode i recorded with my buddy elvis i wanted to promote your appearance and i said you know i'm on the record it's a fact i really love all uncovered but if i want to just rock out to a song it might very well be this kick-ass song from The Watchmen. ¶¶ How loud does it go? What songs do I know? Whatever happened to my plans Whatever happened to life I thought I had My life is stereo

Kind of cheaply made though How bad does it show Whatever did become Of all my friends Whatever happened to The likes of all of them My life is a stereo Turn me on and let's go

Turn me up louder I'll scream as loud and clear as I can scream. And if you like what you're hearing, please hang on to me. I like being here, I'm all at the top You're all that hang on to me For I'm one of a million One of a million One of a million Gets my heart rate going.

Yeah, I have clear memories of whining in the sound room, and now the snare is the loudest thing in the mix, and I think my whining paid off. So stereo, and there's even, you put out the remix or whatever of stereo, because I have the other version too, which is also cool and fun, but man, what a great jam. Another sort of collective composition i remember writing it in toronto we had two members of the band living in toronto two in winnipeg for about a year we wrote this album we'd spend two weeks in winnipeg

uh writing and then two weeks in toronto writing again locking ourselves in into a room and doing what we called the blood from the stone method and right we just piece this together as a team and uh production is is great on this if i i'm listening this is again a guy called adam casper he's an american guy who we approached to produce the album there was a good budget this time around and we had access to some American producers. And he liked the demos and it was a very, very positive recording experience doing this album at Studio Litho, which was Stone Gossard's studio in...

Pearl Jam. Yeah, Pearl Jam. So I remember we were all super excited about doing this record and we were told on the first day, somebody said, guys, you're not going to be as big as Pearl Jam just because you're recording in the studio so you know don't get so excited

but it was a beautiful studio with a great board and Adam was very very low key this was almost fairly antithetical to the In The Trees experience where it was that was all edits and studio experimentation this was live off the

floor more or less these two three track two three uh takes of all these songs were so well rehearsed going into this because we had spent so long writing meeting producers and the demos of in the trees are effectively the same thing as the album just that they don't sound as good in terms of arrangements. So you have rockers like this one. I like this part too. So I'm going to play some Hayden later, just because I always liked Hayden. Do you remember the new music search? Maybe it was CFMI. Do you remember liked Hayden. But do you remember the new rock, the new music search? Maybe it was CFMI.

Yeah, yeah. Do you remember when Hayden had a, in fact, I think it's the year Head, remember Head with two H's? Of course I do. Of course you do. Brendan Canning, shout out. They used to tour with us. They used to tour.

Brendan and I, whenever I see him, we always laugh about those days when we were teenagers touring out east. And it was Head, him and Noah Mintz. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, yeah. touring out east and it was Head, him and Noah Mintz

and yeah, that was fun. One of the, so the year that Head won, what was it, like $100,000 or something like that, something crazy like that?

This is pre-Polaris. Yeah, so yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I remember the year Head won, there was a,

they put out these cassettes, right, of like all the competitors or whatever and I, CDs, I think I bought the CDs. I think,

um, I don't think I even bought it. I think handed them out at shows or something, but, uh, there was a song by Hayden. It's, uh,

called take. And there's elements of take, take a part of me, take all of me. And I won't kill people. Cause I'm not a singer. I just play one on podcasts, but there's a part of take that reminds me of the end of uh

that song stereo that whole there's anyway this is i'll check it out i mean you have it queued up no i i could though i should i should queue that up hey you want me to do it i can do it let me talk you said you did your research mike it's true but then i didn't know how into a seven hour episode you were i have to be considerate sometimes. I had Roger Ashby come on, and he says, I was so honored that Roger's here. What a radio legend in this city. And I'm like, this is great.

And he's like, oh, I've got to be downtown. I got exactly 30 minutes. And I was thinking, 30 minutes with Roger. So you do what you've got to do. And I was honored he was there. It's the beauty of this medium. Just unadulterated, unfiltered, unedited, verbose chatter. Do you have any thoughts on, like, so every once in a while I'll do what I think is an amazing two and a half hour episode where there's not a minute in the episode I would want to cut out.

And then I'll get the odd tweet like, no one's going to listen to a two and a half hour episode. And it, like, really deflates me like I listen to listen I love podcasts I was a very early adopter of podcasts there's a few I've been listening to for 10 years and if there's a good one that I like I will listen to every minute of it and it'll be just in chunks I'll be driving for half some of you I listen to Tyler Stewart episode two and a half hours right it took me three different occasions to get through it, but it wasn't a question of quality. It was just time. Who's got time to just sit for three hours

with 11 kids or whatever it is you told me. Yeah, right. Personally, I have no problem with that. Okay, this is the song Take that was on that New Rock Music Search CD I had where Head won. And the Head song was called Happy.

And it was really good. This is Hayden? This is Hayden. What happened to Hayden? Where is he now? I saw he did a benefit at Massey before they shut down Massey Hall. He did something for,

I want to say for people on the autism spectrum, I want to say. It's a very short song, so we'll take this in and tell me, hold on, it's only the convenient of it. Guided by voices or something.

Please agree with me. Disagree with me. Come with me. Get away from me it'll shock you how many times i stuck this song on like a mix a mixtape or needed a little two minute thing at the end just yeah well then i can there's always a sloan song too or a song two by blur or something but yeah where's the part that reminds me of? It's coming up.

So it's in there. In there there's an element. It reminds me of the end of stereo. Oh yeah, I do. No one else will hear it in the world except me. I got it. I totally got it. Take all of me. Take a part of me. Stay away from me.

Take a part of me. It sounds like Nirvana. Tell me I'm insane. I'm insane. Take all of me. Yeah, a little bit. Just that angst. Or angsty.

I hate everybody sort of thing. You don't love me. Please agree with me. You hate me. Disagree with me. You despise me. You're killing me. Come with me. You're leaving me alive. Please agree with me. You hate me. Disagree with me. You're killing me. Come with me. You're leaving me alive.

Get away from me. Jesus, that was a downer. That's true, that's true. Now, I take it... This sounds like Hayden. Now, here we go. This sounds like the production that I know as Hayden, that droney bass.

Oh, yeah, that was before he... So I mentioned, what's your jam with the harmonica? Is it all uncovered that has the harmonica? Yeah, there's harmonica in that song, yeah. Anyway, there's, again, if you're into Neil Young and modern music or whatever, then you're like, this song came out. Well,

Much Music played this a lot. I think that might be where I first heard it or Edge 102. I conflate those two, which source came from. But I said something similar about Watchmen or maybe I meant to say it,

but Hayden was another, I thought like he would be the next Neil Young, you know what I mean? Well, everybody did. I mean, in his case, I feel like they might have just built him up

a little too much, too quickly. I haven't thought about this guy in a while, to be honest. I mean, there's no question there's talent, but I seem to remember

there was a big bidding war and then it was one of those kind of sparks that never turned into a flame a little bit. Right. But, you know, the guy, you know, we used to say, as the Watchmen, we used to say, would you rather be Tom Waits or Collective Soul?

Yes, and any artist. And we would always say Tom Waits. Right, of course. Because who wants to be Tom Waits? Who wants to be Collective Soul when you could be Tom Waits? With all due respect to Collective Soul, I think people who are at all astute out there know what I'm referring to. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I'll bring down Hayden because I want to play another song from Silent Radar, which came out in 96, right? Silent Radar. 98. 98. My research staff will be let go after this episode. But here, we talked, so the Watchmen, they'd have like these songs that rock.

And then they had these pretty little ditties too, like all uncovered or whatever. But I really like this song. I'm touching down It's a frozen town Look around I grew up Look around After all I fell down Nothing changes

Nothing changes At the red light Nobody changes Nobody changes, nobody changes Wanna see them tonight Everybody got around Everybody drank it down. I'm feeling like a one-legged man.

Always made to take a stand. Any day now it'll come Any day now it'll come Any day now it'll come Boy, that sounds good. I know. You know what's beautiful on that song? That's Ben Montench on Hammond Organ,

who is the keyboardist and piano player for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Wow. And that was a coup. I remember the producer said, this needs an organ, and I happened to know Ben Montench. And Danny went down for the session, and I think it maybe was Seattle or Los Angeles or something, and he adds a really nice touch to this song.

It's a gorgeous tune, man. Yeah, it's, again, a group composition. Danny, Joey wrote the words, and we still play it, and this is a good example of us making a concerted effort to sort of simplify things a bit with verses and big choruses and songs that you could sort of strip down to an acoustic guitar. Because I still hold on to that belief that a good song is one that you could just play on an acoustic guitar with a voice. And it's... I used to joke around sometimes, you know, I'd say this is our Phil Collins song.

This was kind of a little ballady, but this is a part of what we did. We did stereo, we rocked, and we also like a bit of the melancholy. I think we get that probably from R.E.M., Billy Bragg. Those are some real early influences, and you can hear a real sadness in and amongst those artists, getting people to think a little bit, and we often did that, tried to do that.

Also, I like when a song like this sprinkles in just a little profanity, you know what I mean? Just like a little, you got a big jam you already played at that job, it's the Neff Bomb early or whatever, but this one you got a little bullshit.

This song has a lot of space and that was another thing we had made an effort to think about was not being on top of each other with our music and allowing the songs to breathe a little bit and not overdubbing like crazy. This song is three chords, three, four, it's a very simple song and these are the songs people remember. Somebody sent me a clip yesterday, a son of a buddy of mine who was in a bar in Toronto.

It was about a 30-second clip of somebody playing stereo in a bar last weekend. And that is the biggest compliment there is right there. So when I played stereo for my buddy Elvis to say that Sammy's coming in, he was freaking out. And he said on his drive to my house from Oshawa, stereo came on. I guess he listens to Sirius Satellite Radio, I think. He heard stereo. And he jacked it up to 11 and he started singing it out loud. And he was thinking he needed to talk to me.

He had no idea you were coming on the show. But he needed to talk to me about He had no idea you were coming on the show, but he needed to talk to me about what a great fucking jam stereo is. And coincidentally, I played the song. That's funny. And that's the song I chose to play, just coincidence. So that is funny.

Now, this is the last album you record with the band. Yeah. So yeah, we did a hefty touring cycle on this album. We went to Europe on this record we played in Germany and we're in England we made some inroads in Australia played many cities in Australia

and got some radio play out there cut to three years after this record came out we were in dire need of putting out another album. And we were getting a lot of pressure from the label. Again, this is such a bad cliche, pressure from the record label. They wanted us to basically reinvent our sound. They felt like they tried to push us into a niche

where we sounded and looked sort of like the wallflowers. They were sort of the kings at that time. When Any Day Now came out, One Headlight was a big song. I remember them thinking that was going to be our path. And not to put any blame, we take full responsibility for the career we have and had. But it was a difficult time because truthfully, we weren't really getting along all that well at that time. We were already 12 years in and we were getting a lot of pressure from the

label to continue to write songs, better songs. And, and, and also to, frankly, to completely reinvent our sound. They, they said, we want to hear you guys as a more updated artist and with a more updated sound. And they were partnering us with people who, producers who primarily remixed electronic artists. And at the time, it was very alienating to me because we were making demos of songs that I wasn't even playing on. It was a drum machine and it caused a lot of friction. Right. Cause if you're the drummer,

right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, basically. I mean, it's a, so is there a drummer on a slow motion?

There is not. Uh, you know, this is, it's funny. It's slow. I have never listened to slow motion. I've never listened to that record.

It was, it was a very, we were not speaking at that time. But that's like saying the woman I loved, uh, is dating another guy and I never wanted to hang out with that time. But that's like saying the woman I loved is dating another guy and I never wanted to hang out with that guy. Yeah, it was a breakup.

And, you know, a lot of, we tried to reconcile. We had a few conference calls at that time after we kind of, you know, decided. You know, there's kind of different stories. I feel like I really sort of, I quit the band at that time. I remember a meeting we had and I wasn't happy with some of the options that were put in front of me I'm not going to get too into the weeds here but my main source of frustration was the fact that we were doing demos that didn't have drums on them and in hindsight if I do say so I think it was a bit of a misstep because we always took pride in the fact that we we're not going to listen to record labels. We're going to have sort of a four-piece rock sound

be the kind of the heartbeat of what we want to do. And certainly nothing wrong with experimenting, but completely turning it on its head and listening to a label who wanted us to be a different band was something that I feel we were kind of forced into to a certain extent because the label wasn't going to release money for a record until they heard what they wanted to hear. And that was something that I feel we were kind of forced into, to a certain extent, because the label wasn't going to release money for a record until they heard what they wanted to hear.

And that was something that I feel we, we were not. And, uh, the, the, the, you know,

the other guys might have, again, different memories of this, but this was really when I felt it was enough for me to just say, see you later. So you leave the band, they record one more album without you. Yep.

Uh, electronic, uh, yeah. drum tracks or percussion i guess was electronic it was loops and stuff i think you know they also they they released it uh with a uh another disc that was effectively a greatest hits and i remember reading press around that time because i couldn't stop reading press it's you know you sort of look on facebook at old girlfriends and things like that. So I remember reading a lot of reviews saying it was almost as if the band had anticipated that there would be difficulty selling this album. So they put together a greatest hits disc along with it. And I thought that's very astute and it felt very apt at the time.

There were some great songs on slow motion and we play about two or three of them now, but they're completely reworked as a rock band. Right. And I think they're reworked in such a way to a degree that they were originally supposed to sound. Does that make sense? No, it totally

makes sense. Funny time for the band, Mike. Very funny time. So Slow Motion comes out in 2001. And then in 2003, the Watchmen announced their farewell tour and that they're disbanding. Right. So I got my timelines right. Yeah.

And in 2010, you guys reunited the horseshoes. So tell me what happens in 2010 that you guys come together and play, play together again? Sure, yeah. Well, we, what was the kind of catalyst for that? I don't remember. Was it 2010? I thought it was 2008. Your memory, I don't know. I took a note of 2010, but I could be wrong. You could be wrong. I could be right. In any case, what happened was, and I'll give props again to mr j gold he was having a birthday party a surprise birthday party i think it was healy's at the time i don't know if it's called healy's it was in that same area and you mean my second cousin jeff healy

is your second okay okay i mentioned it in the episode oh yeah you did you did you did right okay how could you remember that yeah yeah it's a six hour episode, so I don't know. But yeah, no, we played, we reunited at his birthday party. He was having some of his bands play at his party, surprise party. And it was, Joey wasn't there. I think he was out of town. So we did All Uncovered with Ian Thornley from Big Wreck. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. We did that song and it felt great. And we were kind of just right back to joking around and we had a meeting with Joey shortly after that and approached our agent to book shows.

And since then, it's been kind of six to ten shows a year that make sense for us that tick off a few boxes in terms of the geographics of a show and the ability for us to rehearse and if we can make a few boxes in terms of the geographics of a show and the ability for us to rehearse and if we can make a few bucks and have some fun.

And that's really been the mandate since then. With that, again, that caveat that we're going to do something interesting to accompany each show, be it a reissue or a book or a CD or something. Right. That's kind of the plan right now, and we've been kind of doing that ever since. Listener Michael Lang, he says that the Watchmen had just finished playing the horseshoe about 10 years ago and we hung around and started talking to people.

Turns out one lady was Sammy's mother and we told her we thought her son was great and it was obvious she was so proud of him. If that isn't the most Canadian rock anecdote I've ever heard, I don't know what is. My mommy was proud of me at a show. Yes, she was. Thank you, though. Thank you for remembering that.

That's Michael Lang. We always have very supportive parents all across the board. Good, good. And Kid Remington on Twitter was asking, can you ask Sammy if they ever recorded the song The Warrior or if there are plans to release any unreleased demos? Do you know what Kid's talking about? You know, I saw that tweet come through

and I recognize Kid Remington as a fan. I think he's referring to a song that we played at Snowjob. We had the audacity while we were promoting In the Trees to open up a show on Snow Job, open up the show with a song that wasn't recorded. It was this new song that we thought we were super clever playing. And I don't really remember it.

It never got recorded. It was just kind of a jam. It wasn't the best song. So to answer kids' questions, not going to see the light of day. As far as the unreleased stuff, we did that with the Trees reissue. We have, again, that companion disc

that has about half a dozen songs that didn't make it on In the Trees that are in fully fleshed out demo form. So check those out. Is it Pat Benatar had The Warrior? That would be Patti Smythe. The Warrior. That's Patti Smythe.

Is that right? Married to John McEnroe. I am the warrior. Okay, that's Patti Smythe. Is that right? Married to John McEnroe. I am the warrior. Okay, that's Patti Smythe. Because I am the warrior. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one. That's the one.

That's Patti Smythe. Okay. Close. I was so close. Wrong Patti. I know my cheesy 80s. No, I love that shit. A question from Ian.

He wants to know if you're ever coming to Vancouver. He wants you to come to Vancouver. So when you do these shows, of course, I guess there's always going to be a Toronto show, but did you get out to Vancouver? We have played in Vancouver in the last 10 years. It was a show at the Commodore Ballroom. It has to make sense on a lot of different levels,

as I had alluded to earlier. Flying out to Vancouver, it's a long haul. And, and, uh, frankly, we need to be mindful of, of,

of expenses and that sort of thing. So if, if we can make that happen, I mean, Ted, you say Ted, uh, his name is Ian.

Ian, speak to your local promoter, make it happen. Help us make it happen. We love Vancouver. I'm not even sure I'm allowed to ask this question, but this came in from Mark Weisblot from 1236, the newsletter.

I know Mark. We interviewed him for our podcast. Yes, okay, yeah. Another fanatical, detail-oriented gentleman. He's the poster child for what we do, right? He comes in every month and we do two and a half hours and we leave a lot of good stuff on the cutting room floor.

There's just so much spilling out of that brain. But he wants me to ask you what it was like being in Canada's most Jewish rock band ever. Now, Mark is Jewish, so he's allowed to keep track of this. There's no racist undertone here. Nothing anti-Semitic.

Well, I love, you know, Gene Simmons, Lou Reed, David Lee Roth, the guys from Phish. All jokes aside, there is often a sense of pride when people who are Jewish come to see our shows. We started in Winnipeg playing in front of friends and family. That's how you start.

And so I marvel at the fact that Joey Ramone was a hebe, if I may. Or slash, right? Slash, yeah. And that's not derogatory by saying that. So what's it like being in a band? You can actually answer it any way you want.

What's the question again? What was it like being in Canada's most Jewish rock band ever? I remember one time trying to have a Seder, which is basically the equivalent of sort of an Easter dinner in North Bay, Ontario. And you eat certain kinds of food, and we were walking around North Bay trying to find something called matzah. I'm really going off the rails here.

No, but I'm also interested in this. We were trying to, I'm going to make this very easy for people to understand, we were trying to find the tools going to make this very easy for people to understand. We're trying to find the tools needed to have this special Passover dinner in a very, very small town in Ontario. And they were looking at us like we had three eyes and we didn't really make it happen. But no, listen, those guys are very,

I'm very tight with the guys in the band still. I grew up with those guys. And again, like I said, Danny's related to Danny. guys are very I'm very tight with with the guys in the band still I grew up with those guys and again like I said Danny's related to Danny so we're we're family too now I mentioned uh I saw you open for the hip because you open for the hip a lot right yeah we did early on what during the up to here days and then there was a sort of a down period where i think we tried to sort of separate ourselves from them a bit got a lot of press early on that we were sounding like them and i think it was it made it we made a bit of a concerted effort to not

play with them and then that kind of went away after we established ourselves a little bit more and we ended up doing quite a few shows with them around the Fans Empower time frame. Always learned a lot from these guys. Love watching them. Well, I'm actually curious, so, what they were like, and particularly, more specifically, what it was like touring with Gord Downie.

Well, just to be clear, I mean, we never tour with them. We did, we played at times handfuls of shows together. We'd be on the road and then it would be a situation of we're meeting up with a hit for six shows in this part of the U.S. and then we're back on our own after that.

So it was never a full-blown tour akin to Rio Sadix nationwide in Canada or something. It was more just they were always very generous with their support bands, and they reached out to us because we had the same management, and we played shows. So all I can remember really was just a lot of camaraderie with their team and their crew, and they were always very generous with sound checks and dressing rooms and just no no ego really and it was always so inspiring to see

them play because they would night after night just make it happen and create some energy out of out of nothing and you often there would be times when i just say to myself you know i've seen the hip six times this week. I think I'm going to go back to the hotel. And lo and behold, they'd start, they'd open with Grace 2, and I'd just be, I've got to stay. I'm feeling this energy. Once again, I've got to watch them.

Now, I had this conversation recently with Jake Gold, whatever that was, a few weeks ago. And, you know, it all depends. He takes umbrage with the definition of, like, breaking right like what does that mean exactly but when i had tyler stewart on we we were very we talked about how one week changed everything because suddenly they had a big us hit a number one billboard hot 100 hit and that's a game changer if you're uh you know touring the states so um was there Was it ever close? Was there ever...

I'm kind of rambling, but even the Sky Diggers, I talked to Andy, and there was times where it was really close, and then some screw-up with a record company, and then there's a band I'm going to play next where it was really close, and then there's a screw-up with a record company, and it didn't happen. Was it ever close for the Watchmen in the U.S. of A.E.?

Well, I mean, as far as the Baronica ladies are concerned yes one week broke them wide open but they had probably been touring for 10 years before that laying the groundwork and they had a top 40 hit with uh old apartment yes what it's yes so they had a little groundwork they did well you know they they would do and i think this is their management team at the time had this this strategy. It's not rocket science, but I think Jake also did. If there was an audience or a pocket where they were getting some attention or getting some radio play, they would immediately go to that market and play the hell out of that market,

even if they were getting stiff necks and whiplash from going back and forth and just cashing in on where there was something happening. So Jake wanted to do that too. And frankly, there wasn't a lot of uh near misses because we never really got a lot of shots at it i guess the closest thing would be we did a residency once at a place called the metro in in chicago we lived out of a crappy hotel on the outskirts of chicago just so we we can play every Tuesday night at a very well-known horseshoe CBGB-like club called The Metro. And it was, you know, 10 p.m. every Tuesday. And that was the sort of the kind of the anchored show that we'd build around. And that was the closest we

came to Jake dealing with an American label, I think at that time, and trying to get us to break. We didn't have the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was going to break us in America. And we didn't have Biff Naked's tattoos. And we didn't have nose piercings and the sort of the hallmarks of what kids were listening to at that time. I sound like an old man here. But we had songs.

And I think at that time, they just, they wanted to uh they wanted a single they wanted something on the radio they thought that on the strength of a single uh stereo or any day now we would we would uh make some some headway and it never never happened happened in australia we got a hell of a lot of radio plays of stereo in australia and as per the the the the mandate we went down there three times in about two years and did good business out in Australia, down in Australia. I always wonder, though, like when I listen to The Watchman,

maybe because these are my only ears I have, and they're born and raised in Toronto, and I don't even realize how Canadian my perspective is. But when I listen to The Watchman, and I've been listening in my headphones for the last couple hours with you, I don't hear anything uniquely Canadian. There's nothing, I didn't hear any like... Yeah, well, I mean...

You just sound like good Brock. Yeah, I think so. The thing that maybe was Canadian was the fact that, again, there wasn't that danger, that sex, drugs, and rock and roll element that I personally, I respond well to. I like artists that have that.

And that was not something that we did. We were all just about really good songs. And you're right, it wasn't particularly Canadian. I was very sensitive to the fact that we didn't break outside of Canada. And I think at the time, this is a big conversation here but to to to feel legitimized in in canada you had to break in other markets especially the u.s and uh and that was something we we really wanted at the time if memory serves does that make sense i mean it makes sense except that i feel like the hip

changed that like because we love them anyways like we did but but their the part so so much of their story was the fact that they didn't break in the u.s it was just became a lame headline after a while and uh i think relatively speaking they they did do very good business in the states they just didn't do u2, but because it was so disproportionate and they were a household name in Canada, that ended up being sort of a mark against them. What's so good about this band? I don't get it.

I mean, which is, that was kind of unfortunately part of their kind of legacy now, but still what a remarkable career. But yeah, we never just got into that, but I was very, very hypersensitive to the fact that to make it and feel legitimate about what we were doing, we wanted to make it in other markets. We're very proud of the fact that here's Australia, they seem to care and we're growing our audience in a different country. And I think it's an important thing for any artist to move beyond just one country, enjoying what you're doing.

Here's a band I listened to a lot of in the 90s, and I'm curious if you cross paths with them and what you thought of them, etc. Et cetera. She was underwhelmed, if that's a word No, it's not, cause I looked it up That's one of the skills that I learned in my school I was overwhelmed, I'm sure of that one

Cause I learned it back in grade school Underwhelmed Sloan. That was great. Oh, we were on the same label as them in Canada, MCA. I love Sloan. Oh, we were on the same label as them in Canada, MCA. I love Sloan. I think what they did right is they stayed together, which is very hard to do for north of 25, 30 years, whatever it is. They also had an incredible sense of identity about them.

They had the four members. You could pick your favorite member. Like the Beatles. Yeah. Well, I mean, Cheap Trick did that. Kiss did that. If you could get to that point where you've got

sort of four characters, they had great artwork. I always loved their artwork. I used to say to the guys early on, I'd joke and say, I'm going to go to Joey and Sloan.

They're my favorite Canadian band. And it wasn't just because of the songs. They had great pop songs, but they also just, I love the production of these records, that lo-fi production. They had...

There were kind of a... There were warts on these records. They weren't perfect compositions or recorded pieces, but there was so much character there. And I've felt lots of respect for these guys. there and I've lots of respect for these guys I'm glad because

I never know like how how will Sammy respond to Sloan like no I think they're great and the best

thing I could say about them is what I mentioned earlier is how they just there's four songwriters and they

managed to make that work in a very difficult business with not to mention internal egos and all that nonsense

but they carved out a very unique business with not to mention internal egos and all that nonsense, but they, they carved out a very unique little niche for themselves. I don't know if I, I would assume they, they do well in the States. You probably know better than I do, Mike. Do they,

do they? No, no, same story. And I've heard it all too many times. Maybe, maybe because excluding Tyler Stewart, although I did,

you know, Jeff Healy had a number one hit in the USA with Angel Eyes, so there are exceptions here. But typically, like maybe the Canadian musicians who will come into some guy's basement and have these amazing conversations, maybe it's because they didn't, I don't know, they didn't strike it big in the States and then, you know, Bryan Adams isn't coming over here.

You know what I mean? I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, have you invited him? I don't even get that Brian Adams. It's a bit of a down period for Brian. Chris Murphy. So we're listening to Chris Murphy right now. This is his song.

Man, he came over, you know, he came over for an episode of Toronto Mic'd. And we had a long talk about this. And, yeah, they were supposed to break it with that sub-pop kind of Nirvana wave. And they were like Seattle North or whatever Halifax was being looked at as. And then something with the record label fucked things up, and then... Well, what immediately gave these guys credibility is they were on the Geffen label for a short time frame. I think that's what you might be referring to.

Oh, didn't sub-pop come... Were they on sub-pop? I think that's what you might be referring to. They were on, oh, didn't sub pop come? Were they on sub pop? I think it was DGC or something. There was a, there was an imprint of Geffen that was this, their cool Sonic Youth sort of Nirvana imprint DGC or something.

Okay. But I guess the point is they, they got that stamp from the U S to say, yes, these guys are cool. And that helps spill over, I think into other countries if anybody cares enough

to sort of look into that stuff but cool but they just these guys just put cool records out

I mean that Twice Removed isn't that like voted the most favorite record of all time or something with Chart Magazine

I remember that chart thing yeah it was named number one best Canadian album of all time because it has Coax Me on it.

But this is the first album which I quite like, Smeared. And this was a big radio single. This was right around the time that McLaren came out, McLaren Furnace Room. We were on the same trajectory in terms of releases. We're on the same cycle of putting records out every couple years as Sloan. we're on the same cycle of putting records out every couple years of sloan and i do remember very clearly um this being on the same wall in in certain record stores i used to walk into in 1992 well that same uh like that same evening when i'm listening to the radio and i'm hearing uh you know uh i'm hearing the cover of

mrs robinson and i'm i'm hearing henry needs a new pair of shoes by lois de lo I'm hearing the cover of Mrs. Robinson and I'm hearing Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes by Lois Leloe. I'm hearing Underwhelmed by Sloan. Like it's all- It's a great time. It was a great time in Canadian rock. Now, I mentioned I had had a few other drummers on the show. The first drummer I had on was this guy.

I'm just, I'm curious about this band because Sloan, okay. So musicians, they like Sloan for some obvious reasons and you like Sloan. But I want to ask about this band here. Our Lady Peace. I let go of the world I was holding A passenger who could not fly In search of souls, in search of something

Let it go and let it fly Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That rain to his yell there. What do we think of Our Lady Peace? I was never a big fan. I just never listened to their records. I know the singles. We crossed paths with them a few times here and there.

But it was not something I'd throw on. I think by the time these guys were making records, I was pretty jaded in terms of the Canadian music industry. And I had seen what was happening behind the curtain with bands that were priorities at certain record labels and songs getting rammed down your throat. If I can read between the lines, you probably felt that the Watchmen were a better band than Our Lady Pease.

You said that, Mike, not me. Well, you know what? I'm going to say again, we did have what I felt was a phenomenal vocalist and four guys that dug a little deeper than what was just happening at the time. We weren't just listening to Pearl Jam. We were also listening to, I mean, R.E.M. and Billy Bragg, I'll say him again. Just really good songwriters.

I remember driving to recording sessions for McLaren Furnace Room and listening to XTC, who are a very quirky American band, wonderful band arguably very underrated as well and our producer Wardman used to say, why are you listening to XTC? Listen to stuff that's on the radio now.

Like Senses Working Overtime? Yeah, I mean that was a hit. That was a radio song but primarily that band was never one that really made any real inroads in terms of charting and such. I remember Jake saying that to us as well. We still love the Jayhawks, and he would say,

why are you listening to the Jayhawks? I mean, those guys get inspired by stuff that's making it, and we just couldn't do it. But no, listen, nothing against these guys. I just never listened to them. I never found them that interesting, if I'm being completely honest. I actually suspected,

I felt like you made an allusion to this band earlier in the episode without naming the episode. And I'm like, I know who he's talking about. No, no, I wasn't. Maybe not. I'm trying to cause some trouble here.

Honestly, I see what you're doing leading me to something. I wasn't thinking specifically of these guys. Right. I always like bands like Sloan that have sort of a sense of humor about them they always struck me as sloan um i i love that they incorporated humor humor into what they were doing not taking themselves that seriously did you ever uh play with rusty i think we did. I remember we played with One Free Fall,

which was the band after Rusty. The guy, the singer, I forget his name. Ken? Ken, yeah. And this is a Wardman production as well, I think. Is this Fluke?

Is this on the album Fluke? This is on Fluke, yeah. So Chris produced this. I remember their video with the gay porn video. Remember that one? That was called, but that wasn't Groovy Dead. That was a Bruce LaBruce movie.

Misogyny? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Because Fluke had a lot of big singles off it, like Canadian successful singles. You want to talk about a band that much music helps orchestrate. Well, it works on me, man.

Yeah, well, gay porn, right? So who doesn't like it? I had the whole band in here. They were doing a show at the, I think the Horseshoe, I think. And Ken lives in like, he lives in, well, where's the nickel mining? What's going on? Sudbury. I mean, what's that place called?

It was in Sudbury. Obviously, we've gone two hours deep here. These guys struck me as... These guys were the real deal. I felt like the rough edges around what these guys were doing was genuine, and they had sort of a... These guys are kind of a punk rock band, and I like Rusty. Glad to hear it.

And I could tell... I could just listen to the drums and hear that that's a Chris Wardman production there, too. Just wide open and big. Glad to hear it. And I could tell, I could just listen to the drums and hear that that's a Chris Wardman production there too. Just wide open and big. I could play anything off Fluke and it'd be like, oh, I know that from the radio. Yeah. A little different, but he came on recently and kind of blew my mind with his appearance. Much like you're doing Sammy. So you're in the same book there.

I have to tell you, I listened to Stephen's episode. Stephen Furing. This is Junkass, right? This is Junkass, yeah, yeah. Because he's black in Rodeo and Kings. I was never a fan, and not because I disliked the guy. I just never knew his stuff. But I am now a fan of Stephen Furing.

I just was so impressed by, first of all, him and his stories and his candor and the songs you were playing were beautiful. Yeah. Really nice. By the way, that's what you have to do at some point if I can get you back here. I can entice you with more Palma Pasta lasagna. You should come and kick out the jams at some point.

I'd like to. Let's do it. Quarterly. Yeah, for sure. You know Cam's friend, Stu Stone? Does this name mean anything to you okay he's like a childhood friend of cam so where you met cam at twitter this is so they're different you know when the worlds collide or whatever but it's just the guy who he does a podcast with from time to time i don't know if he does a podcast with stew but he introduced me to stew as this

character he grew up with who did some interesting things and I had Stu on Stu's in our little club and Stu like he did a baseball documentary about his dad he used to run a store that sold baseball memorabilia and like there's a cameo by Toronto Mike's regular Mike Wilner shows up and then we find out that the story is about something completely different

with Stu's dad but Stu also does like pro wrestling stuff and he did a rap song with like Bob Saget. Like, there's such a, it's, and I'm all over the place

except to say that people like yourself and Stu Stone and Cam Gordon and Mark Weisblatt and Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario and Tyler Stewart

from Bare Naked Ladies, I would record every day with guys like you. Every day. Thank you, Mike. I don't need a reason to have those conversations. That's why I love your podcast. I recognize quickly where your head is at.

So Stephen Fierian's in Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. We have Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson. This is Tom Wilson's band, Junk House. And I'm curious, like, any Junk House interaction? Yeah, yeah. We did quite a few shows with these guys. And Tom was always sort of this older kind of guy,

you know, kind of voice of reason. And this, to me, this was kind of his stab at commercialism, this band, from what I could tell. Yeah. He tried to, you know, make it with Junkhouse. But he had so many other ambitions from from what I could tell you know in this day and age you kind of have to diversify as an artist and with him doing his Lee Harvey Osmond thing and then the Black and the Red Ogre Kings and then Junkhouse and he just

that's what you have to do that's what Ben Harper does and that's what Neil Young does that's what good artists do and and he he's carved out a really nice little sort of niche for himself. Very respected guy and good songwriter. Remember that song, Shine, that he wrote? Tremendous, yeah. I mean, that to me was such a travesty because that was such a beautiful song and it was almost too clever for Much Music.

Much Music wanted something like this, kind of like a dumb, sort of cool, but memorable song. Shine is my favorite song. Probably my favorite, by far my favorite Junkhead song. I remember him

playing it at a show. They used to open up for us from time to time. Tom used to jump on stage and do acapella songs with Danny, our singer. But when he played Shine, I remember getting chills

and saying, that is an incredible song. That is an absolutely incredible song. He might have done it acoustic. He just wrote it or something. Yeah, it gives you the chills. Yeah. And have you heard his Burned Out Car with Sarah McLachlan?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, Burned Out Car. I mean, that's great stuff. I mean, the kids, I keep saying the kids, the kids were not ready for Burned Out Car. They wanted Moist, you know? Right, yeah. Push just a little bit too late.

Burned out car. Would you rather be Tom Waits or Collective Soul? Would you rather be Tom Wilson or Moist? That's so amazing. Does that make sense to you? I'm going to be stealing that line from you. We're almost done here. I know it's one more CanCon song I'm going to play,

but just in case I don't get to it, you were awesome. This was the episode I wanted to give love to what I think is Canada's most underrated band of all time, The Watchmen. And you were incredible, just honest and forthcoming with the stories. And I really, really dug this, man. Me too. Thank you, Mike. Sounds like I'm playing yo, but I'm not because I want to play one more CanCon song here.

Oh, Travel Charger. Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah, good. Great song. Boy, what a great song. Saw you looking for a light Face painted cigarette white You asked the cleanest boy you found Why was this not a monster hit?

Tell me, man, because I don't know anymore. Yeah, the chorus will stick with you I'm here and the evening waits When you get caught up to your own mistakes Made up of different lines I wouldn't want to keep in my mind Yeah, Trouble Charger Red. That sounds so great. That is such a great song. And there's nothing uniquely,

there's no Canadian to this sound. This is just a killer song. So I don't know anymore, except I still love this song. But anyway. I think these guys would probably have some stories, Mike, in terms of kind of that elusive brass ring that almost happened. I think these guys were given a lot of shots from what I remember. Don't quote me.

But they were looked at by a lot of American labels, I think, and had some soundtrack opportunities and kind of almost made it, you know? Almost famous. Right, right. When are the Watchmen playing next? We are playing in close to Edmonton in a city. I can't.

You're going to kill me. I don't remember the name of the city. Is it Athabasca? No. It's about half an hour out of Edmonton. It's a. I'll have to email you the information. Sure would.

You know, my wife's from Edmonton. It's not in Edmonton. It's a festival. Matthew Goode is headlining and we're playing on the same bill. It's. Oh, my God. We have like two dates this summer, and I don't know them. I think it's like June 19th, June 20th or something. It'll be on our website, and also follow us on social media. Find us on Facebook and Twitter.

So we're doing that, and then we've got a Calgary show around Stampede time. I think it's July 5th and then another Winnipeg show possibly in the fall When's your next Toronto gig? That's what I need to know

We don't have it booked That I can bike to I can't bike to Edmonton We have to figure that out We have to be smart about Toronto We don't want to play in the same room

every year But you can do it like Sky Diggers They're good for those Christmas concerts at the Hors horseshoe their fans come out and love it like you just gotta kind of yeah but we're we're careful of that skydiggers are still putting records out we're not right so you have to not just be blatantly doing the same thing over and over that's just my opinion i mean it's it's important. But we'll do something. We will. In Toronto.

We love playing Toronto. Thank you, Sammy. Amazing. Yeah, that was great. And later I get to find out whether this actually recorded to Periscope or not. But we made great podcasts regardless.

Wait, we're recording this? I actually did forget about the camera. I thought we were just warming up here. And now I'll press record. Could you imagine if this whole thing didn't record?

Dude, I have nightmares about this. I've done 448 episodes and I have that nightmare. I look over all the time to see squiggly lines and I keep telling myself, well, if there's squiggly lines, like waveform, something's recorded somewhere, but then I have these, like, what happens if it crashes? Must have one big hard drive, that's for sure.

You're going to jinx me and and this is going to lose me. I better end this before I lose this episode. Let's end it. And that brings us to the end of our 448th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Sammy, what's your Twitter handle? At Sammy Cohn.

At Sammy, K-O-H-N. And don't forget to go to SammyCohn.com to answer all of your real estate related questions. Shameless plug. Brian, he did the plug, not me. Brian, I love you, man. Let's do a deal together, Brian. That's right.

I'm going to hook you two up. You're going to make deals together. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is Raptor's devotee. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Fastapasta is at palmapasta. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at fasttimewjr.

Camp Turn a Soul is at campturnasoul. And Sticker U is at stickeru. Welcome aboard, Sticker U. See you all next week. Bye. Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true Yes I do I know it's true Yeah

I know it's true How about you? They're picking up trash And they're putting down roads And they're brokering stocks The class struggle explodes We'll see you next time.