Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Tim Thompson Kicks Out More Jams: Toronto Mike'd #918

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

Mike catches up with Tim Thompson before he kicks out more jams.

Welcome to episode 918 of Toronto Mic'd,ly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. ChefDrop, access top chef and restaurant prepared meal kits shipped across the GTH. Save 20% now with the promo code FOTM20. McKay CEO Forums, the highest impact and least time intensive peer group for over 1,200 CEOs, executives, and business owners around the world. StickerU.com, create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals

for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski of Remax Specialists Majeski Group, who's ripping up the GTA real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week,

returning to kick out more jams is Tim Thompson. Hello, sir. How are you? Sir, I like that. Okay, welcome back. You're welcome back here anytime with that kind of respect there. But dude, good to see you. Like when I saw you walk into my backyard here, I felt nothing but like warm, positive feelings. Like there's Tim. Ah, it's good to be back here. It's a beautiful day. It's been raining here for quite some time and now it's not. And you got a nice breeze off the lake over here. So it's, it feels like. It's almost cold. It feels like home.

It's freezing. No. Give me a, give me my parka. Do you remember the last time we saw each other? Let me see if you do recall. That would have been 2017, 2018.

No. It was at the release, the new release party for. Oh, right. Most of the low. Yeah. For Agitpop. Oh, at the studio. Yes. At the the Low. Yeah. For Agitpop.

Oh, at the studio. Yes. At the studio. Right. Yes. Agitpop. I thought you were talking about here. But yeah, at Revolution Sound in Leslieville.

That would have been 2018. Okay, 2018. And you do a lot of work with the low, right? Like you're doing a lot of videos and stuff for the Lowest of Low. Yeah. I've known those guys for a while. I guess I met Ron

and I met Steve first, Steven Stanley. We played on the same hockey team together in the downtown men's league, the Morning Stars. Who else was on that team? Dave Dini is on that team.

Wow. Alan Piggins. Musician wise, there's lots of people on that team. Johnny Sinclair used to be on the team. He was the bass player in the Pursuit of Happiness. Canadian of people on that team. Johnny Sinclair used to be on the team. He was the bass player in the Pursuit of Happiness.

Canadian rock royalty on this team. And lots of guys, Chris Topping, who's a longtime manager and Juno worker and stuff like that, and all sorts of artists and painters and vagabonds and all sorts of crazy people. That sounds like an amazing team to play for, man. Yeah, it was good.

One of the guys, Tom Patterson, who used to own the Paddock Tavern at Queen of Bathurst, and he now owns the Junction Brewery. Oh, yeah. That's like run and meet. No, but run and meet in Dundas? Is that where we're at there? Yeah, it used to be in an industrial area.

Now he's got a beautiful space. It's more up by St. Clair. I want to say St. Clair and Keelish. Okay. The meat packing, is that? Yeah, they call it the stockyards. Stockyards, yeah, sorry, that's it. It doesn't smell there anymore.

No, I heard stories. No, as a kid, I have vivid memories of the stench driving near like keel and st claire when i was a kid like it just stunk and it was all the meat packing plants and uh yeah and now and then now it's like uh home depot and uh future shop and i guess it's a best buy now but yeah it's uh like just a bunch of like stores and beer they have i think there's three breweries all within about a football field away of each other in the same little area. So it's part of a bit of a destination or it used to be before this period of time hit.

But yeah, so I met Steve Stanley on that team and I was making a, I made a music documentary about between 2006 and 2009 called Born to It. And through Steve, I had met Ron Hawkins. And so a good part of that story was telling the story of Lowest to the Low and then their side venture,

solo ventures at the time. So yeah, I met those guys back then. And so since then, we've made a bunch of music videos for Low and for Ron's solo stuff. And there's the infamous Maple Leafs Forever video. I still love it, man.

I'm hoping it comes back for year number seven. So when do you find out? About that? I was just talking to them, them being the Leafs, a few weeks ago, and I'm updating another video I did for them a couple years ago that's making a comeback that plays on Saturday nights.

And they said they're still figuring out the rest of the show. So I hope so. FOTM Mike Ross just tweeted today that out the rest of the show. Right. I mean, FOTM, Mike Ross, like just tweeted today that he signed on for the season. So it sounds like they're just now like getting things like, like sorted or whatever for the new seasons. Yeah.

It's yeah. Geez. I, when I made that, it was just for, you know, for fun and posted it. And they asked if they could use it at the first game.

And that was in 2014 of October, October, 2014 and uh wow here we are i think the only obviously during the bubble year it didn't play that season but everything else it's played for you know i think every night uh which is crazy and updates along the way right because there was no like austin matthews or mitch marner yeah it's changed quite a bit It was sort of a change over that team, I guess when Shanahan came in and stuff. Right. And so, yeah,

every year it's like, Oh, and then the last update was a couple of years ago now. So it's changed quite a bit since then. Um, yeah. So, um,

we'll see. Anyway, I love those guys. I just booked them to like, I just saw an insect kill another insect on my screen here. Like this happened in real time. It's like, it's just great outdoors. It's like, there's a, hold on here get out of there uh love it love the uh the lowest of the

low i have uh lawrence and ron visiting the backyard in a couple of weeks actually it might be next week i gotta check it out but they just said hey can we come this day and i just cleared the schedule i said yeah like we're gonna make that happen but good yeah they have a live double live record coming out. And they got lots of like concerts booked. Yeah. They're playing some COVID friendly horseshoe in Lee's palace. I think the 30th anniversary of Shakespeare,

my butt is coming up. And they're doing three nights at Lee's palace, I believe. And then a couple nights at the horseshoe to celebrate the 74th or something like that. Anniversary of the horseshoe. So to celebrate the 74th or something like that anniversary of the Horseshoe. So yeah. The Busy Guys.

I think they've played the 50th and the 55th and the 60th. So yeah, it's an old home for them, those two places for sure. Okay, speaking of great Canadian bands, what have you been doing with the Tragically Hip? Here, I got a bit of Saskadelphia here. Let me just put it on in the background. Just a little Saskadelphia in the background.

This is ouch. But what have you been doing for those guys? Yeah, I've been working quite a bit in the last year or so. I guess it started with doing some solo stuff, a video from Gord's solo record, Away Is Mine, that came out a year ago almost. And I've known, I knew Gord and I know his brothers quite well and a bunch of his family. So since all this sort of stuff's been happening the last couple of years, we've been talking about doing some things. And so I did a video for a song called No Solace from his solo record.

And that led into, at the same period of time, that was kind of happening. These tapes were found deep in the archives of Universal Music, I guess, and what turned out to be these lost songs from the Road Apple sessions, which came out of Saskadelphia. So Mike Downey, Gord's brother,

who's a filmmaker as well, he and I and a few people were working on this kind of stuff secretly. We went into the studio and filmed Johnny Fay, who went with these sort of lost tapes because no one really knew what was on them because they weren't labeled or marked or anything. So there's this whole process. It's old analog two-inch tape.

They've been sitting in some sort of a... I don't know where it was, or anything. So there's this whole process. It's old analog two inch tape, um, with net, they've been sitting in a, some sort of a, uh, I don't know where it was, but in the basement of universal music for 30 years. And, um, so they basically have to bake them. They have to put these things in an oven, bake them. And then, uh, there's, it's more technical than that, but then they digitize it within the studio, which was actually at revolution where we last saw each other for the low. Right. And then these things play out and no one has heard a lick of it since it was recorded. So no one had any idea what was on it.

So it was quite a thrill and an honor to be able to kind of be there and listen to these things that happened. So, yeah, so Mike and I, we made six sort of one minute videos, one for each of the songs on Saskidalfia, and based around Johnny and this little treasure hunt of trying to figure out what was on these things. Well, here, let me turn this up a bit because it sounds great. Mm-hmm. and cold where my skeleton has come undone

the bicycle got and lays down on the floor yeah it's that whole road apples

era just that sound that growl sounds great yeah live off the floor

yeah old school down in New Orleans with Don Smith, who actually produced Los Los Hallucigenia as well. But yeah, so these, I guess, originally they had plans at one point for Road Apples to be a double record. There were so many songs because they were just writing and touring and playing so much, and then these songs sort of got lost. And then so they found, they know there's more out there.

They don't know where they are, but they did record other songs. There's a song called Montreal on Saskadelphia where they used a live version from Montreal. The actual studio version. Oh, about the massacre. Yes. Really touching, heartfelt, beautiful sort of remembrance. But yeah, the actual studio version of that hasn't been located yet. So it may be down the road who knows

but uh so yeah it's pretty cool to kind of get a you know bird's eye view of that whole process and hear these songs there was like outtakes of cordelia and uh little bones and fight and unplugged gems and um they just released a acoustic version uh like a very stripped down acoustic version of fiddler's green yes i was able to hear about a year ago and it was very emotional to hear that and uh and they correctly released that on september 17th yeah yeah sad day um right but yeah but um but yeah there's so there's a box set coming out with a bunch of that stuff uh i think in november um so yeah it's uh yeah a total kind of trip down memory lane

to hear that stuff. Stuff that sounds like road apples, but you don't know these songs, but they fit right into that certain period for sure. All right, shout out to FOTM, Jake Gould. Ah, yes. Hopefully listening, because I tweeted a photo the other,

I do this like on this day, whatever happened. That's actually how I think this episode came to be. It was like the anniversary of your first jam kicking. And then we're like, we should do that again. And you're like, okay, I'm coming over. So this all came together very quickly. Super quick. But I posted like Maestro Fresh West's first episode when he came over.

And I'm wearing this tragically hip t-shirt. And I got the Jake Reply nice t-shirt. So Jake's out there doing his thing. Yeah, lots of cool stuff going on. So a lot of these stories I want to ask you about are going to come out during the jam kicking. So what about the Terry Fox piece? We can tell that story now?

That's not going to be, or is that one of your jams? I can't remember now your jams, but we can tell. Because you did some work for the Terry Fox Foundation, right? Yeah, this summer was crazy. The Olympics, did a bunch of stuff as usual for that in the Paralympics. And, uh, my body still is trying to, I'm used to like, I was waking up at 2am every day making coffee and, um, worked till about seven or eight or 9pm each night. So it was a, I don't remember much of August, um, into early September. Um, and at the same time as that, I, you know, get commissioned from time to time to do a bunch of stuff. And at the same time as that, I, you know, get commissioned from time

to time to do a bunch of stuff and got this thing actually through my downy again, there was a piece being done for this Terry Fox special that was airing the night after the Olympics ended. And the piece was so good. I didn't have time to, I should have said no, but I couldn't say no. So that, you know, added to the kind of insomnia and not being able to, you know, function properly, but had to do it. So just sort of, you know, pressured through and did it. And it was Mike and Patrick Downey went out to Vancouver to meet with Daryl Fox, Terry's brother. And they talked about, I guess, the similarities between their brothers, how like as people, they were just incredibly similar human beings, like shy and determined and all these attributes.

And then just, you know, as brothers of what it's like to be brothers of sort of iconic Canadians. And yeah, it was a nice, beautiful little piece, I think. Look at your life, man. Like, just think about this. I know. It's unbelievable. Like, you're working, you know,

doing these videos for Lowest to the Low, and then you're doing these videos for the Tragically Hip, and then you're doing these videos for the tragically hip. And then you're doing this thing for the Terry Fox foundation. You got the Olympics. You got to, there's another Olympics, like one year away. Like,

you don't even have to. for like five months. Yeah. Don't remind me. But it's like, you don't even get that break. Cause it's coming right up. But then meanwhile,

it's like, oh, maybe I'll, you know, need to tweak the Leafs video to be played in front of the Leafs fans at home games. Like you, I mean, I'm just thinking when I first discovered like that you exist, it was the montages that would start Hockey Night in Canada. And it was like, these things are awesome. Like the music, the edits, like who's doing this?

And then I found out about Boundless. And then I found out, oh, you played hockey with my cousin. Shout out to Mark. Mark Allen, if with my cousin. Shout out to Mark. Mark Allen. If he's listening, shout out to Mark Allen. But, uh,

dude, you got, you got the life, man. I'm just, I hope you realized that you get to do all this shit for a living. Like this is amazing. I've been grateful and lucky.

And, um, the hockey night years for sure definitely gave me an audience. I think that led to a lot of people hearing about it. And, uh, when that sort of abruptly ended, um, a lot of people kind of missed, I guess, the spirit of the stuff that I had been doing. And so we got commissioned by everyone from the Bank of Canada to Lake Ontario Waterkeeper to Terry Fox Foundation to Greenpeace and stuff to try to make pieces that sort of recreated that spirit in the heart of what was in those hockey pieces,

but to, you know, a different walk of life or area of life. And, yeah, one thing led to another, and just, you know, through connections and social media and the Internet and kind of things blow up. And, yeah, I've been super grateful and really had to pinch myself at some of the things, like if my 17-year-old self had known what was to come with this, it would have been kind of unbelievable. But yeah, I love working, and I love making this stuff. It's just, you know, I'm kind of wired that way,

so I don't want it to really stop. That's why I don't really say no to anything. And you have a good ear for a jam, which is really why you're back. Nobody gets to kick out the jams twice. I hope you know that. This you're back. Nobody gets to kick out the jams twice. I hope you know this. This is like nobody. Who gets to kick out the jams twice? So I hope, and again, this is your third visit, right?

Because you did the deep dive. And then you did the first jam kicking. This is your second jam kicking. And I can't wait to get into this. We're about to start things off with The Promise. And this is something I think very important, which I want everybody to listen up to. But because you came all this way,

Tim Thompson, for your third visit, we're going to, does anyone ever, do people ever call you Tommy Thompson? Like, do you ever get that? Like they think you're.

Oh, Tom Thompson. I don't know. Ron McLean, once when, back in the hockey night, he's Tim Thomas. During the Bruins Vancouver final,

he called Tim Thomas, Tim Thompson. Went the other way. But yeah, a few times people have, you know, been smart asses and said, oh, Tom Thompson. Get this guy a canoe. I once did, there's a whole episode out there people should check out where we just talked about the life and the mysterious death of Tommy Thompson.

There's a whole charm like that. There's a whole Toronto Mike episode. There's a fascinating story behind all that. And there's all these theories, like what really went down in Algonquin Park. Yeah. And again, if people want to hear the first jam kicking and the original deep dive with Tim Thompson, that's all in the Toronto Mike feed,

so you could do that. But here, let me give you some stuff because you came all this way, buddy. Okay. Where do I begin? First of all, there is beer in front of you from Great Lakes Brewery. Delicious.

And you can, you know, it's up to you. You can, I gave this a variety there. They have the new Devil's Pale Ale 666 that like just got canned and everything there is fresh, but you got a lager, you got an IPA, you can help yourself as you wish. But thank you, Great Lakes,

for sending some fresh craft beer for Tim Thompson. Thank you. It gets better here. And I should have asked this question beforehand, but are you a vegetarian? No. Okay, good. That's the correct answer

because in my freezer right now, in my freezer right now, I have a large frozen, a frozen large meat lasagna from Palma Pasta that you're going to take home with you and you're going to love it, man. You're going to love it. Dinner tonight. Yeah.

Basically that empty red box in front of you will not be empty when you, when you take it home. Yeah. I thought I should keep it in the freezer, but there's a sticker. You can probably reach it there. Yeah. Okay. So thank you, sticker. You can probably reach it there. Yeah. Okay.

So thank you, StickerU.com, for making up these great Toronto Mike stickers. And that's for you to take home with you. And this is cool, man, because I've only been doing this in September. So I'm kind of excited when I get to do this. But you, my friend, get a $75 digital gift card for ChefDrop. ChefDrop.ca is where you go. There's all these curated meal kits from great chefs and fantastic restaurants. It's GTHA, so maybe before I give you this, I should just make sure.

Do you live in the GTHA, Greater Toronto Hamilton area? Yes, I live right by Journey Bellwoods Park. Just checking, okay. Just in case you're like, oh no, I moved to Guelph or something like that. There's a lot of people who have. Right, yeah, well, that's it. There's a mass exodus. I see it every day. Like people, just Toronto characters that have been here forever.

I mean, Ziggy left the city. Okay, Ziggy Lawrence. When Ziggy leaves. When Ziggy leaves, you know, holy smokes. And Retro Ontario left the city and all these like. A lot of people talking about it. A lot of. Are you thinking about it?

Yeah, I have. I actually looked at places last summer. Just sort of tied to the city. I grew up here, but like work-wise, it's tough right now. My brother and his family just moved out of the city in the summer. So yeah, I don't know. It's financially, it's a lot easier on things. But, you know, my life has sort of revolved around downtown.

And then I always think, okay, eventually this COVID goes away, right? And then don't you want to be like within, you want to see a band at the horseshoe or something? You want to like stroll over? That's the thing. I walk around the city, like I don't own a bike. Well, I do. It's at my folks house outside Toronto, but I don't have it.. I walk around the city. I don't own a bike. Well, I do. It's at my folks' house outside Toronto,

but I walk everywhere. I have a car that mostly just sits there. I walk to Leslieville. You're like Ben Rayner. He walks everywhere. I've actually met in the laneways. He lives a block and a half away from me. Did you bike here?

I'm sorry. Did you walk here? I drove here. He walks here. Does he? If I had time today, I totally would have because we actually... He doesn't live far from here. He lives a block and a half and we do the Ontario Place walk a lot.

I was there today because I do my bike ride to that new park and then I go check out or usually tweet a picture. I did that today. And yeah, he's got his beach there. That's like his... We just sit in the rocks on the side and drink beer while his daughter is in the beach there from time to time.

Let me know next time you're doing that. I'll bring the beer, man. That would be fun. That is a good time, for sure. He's a musical genius, that guy. He knows everything. Yeah. Doesn't he?

Yeah, but he's not fully vaxxed. He's got the one shot, and he's hesitant. He's been sitting on that second shot. So next time you're hanging with him, just encourage him to get it done. Get the shot, yeah. Wrap that up. Come on, Ben. Yeah, Ben's fantastic. Okay, so I'm going to get back to Chef Drop because you're getting $75.

But because you're looking to relocate, I'm going to suggest to you that you chat with Mike Majeski. So realestatelove.ca How old is Mike Majeski? Because I played in the OHL with a guy named Mike Majeski. He's younger than us. I would say we got,

and you're a bit younger than me, but I'd say I've got maybe 10 years on the guy. He's a handsome guy though, like a handsome blonde man. Okay, this guy was dark, dark haired and he was a fighter. So I think his face got a bit,

you know, rearranged over the years. But okay, it's different, different Mike. So I think his face got a bit rearranged over the years. But okay, it's a different mic. So he's from the Remax Majeski Group. He's actually the number 14th Remax sales representative in Canada. And he's got these great videos. So if you do nothing else, follow him on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes. He can help you out.

But man, I'm telling you, whether you want Uncle Ray's Food and Liquor or Union Chicken or the Carbon Bar or Richmond Station, or there's even, if you like meat pies, English meat pies, you got pies by Squires and Momofuku.

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there's Gertie's Peanut Butter Pies. So many great restaurants and fantastic chefs involved. So you go to chefdrop.ca. You'll get an email from me to get your $75. Everybody listening can save 20% right now if you use the promo code FOTM20. So do that. You can do that for the month of September here.

Go to chefdrop.ca today. Use the promo code FOTM20. I'd appreciate it. You'll love it. And then let me know how it goes. That's your order of business of the day here. All right, my friend, this is a very important piece we're going to open with.

So I'm going to shut up for a few minutes and let this do the talking. And then when the music kicks in, I'll fade it down and we'll talk about it but this i guess i should ask you the uh the the question i'm supposed to ask at this point which is tim are you ready to kick out the jams i am let's do this we were promised. We live in a world that has such beauty.

Yet that beauty is overshadowed. Even our mother, the Earth, cries. We are losing any sense of connection to our planet, to each other. Our future is no longer promised. All the abuses have suffered everything that's happened through my life. It was not supposed to be this way. We were promised love, happiness, and safety when we came to this world. Yet it seems promises no longer possess the weight that they once did. No longer are they born in the heart and formed in the soul,

but are merely words of convenience that flow from unconsidering lips. You could pick one issue off the shelf, murder to missing women, education, access to healthy food, clean water. As long as we ignore them, they were going to fracture the foundation of this country. We were promised. As each promise fell, so too did we. But we still need them. Never has it been more apparent. We need to reclaim the promise that we're all born into, that we have a right to. promise that we're all born into, that we have a right to.

Stand with me, take my hand, let us remember and let truth emerge from the heart, the spirit. A commitment that shall not break nor wither with age, but only grow stronger in time. Let us build on old promises and heal wounds. There's seven generations to go to fix. These things don't just get fixed now. Now we have the chance, a chance at a whole different world. That's what's missing. That makes us a country. I believe we can build a hopeful future that is respectful of what has happened in the past. We must thoughtfully work hard towards

the promise of a better tomorrow. My heart is where I come from. My heart is in our land, in our water. Ask yourself where your heart is. Where is your spirit. I promise to be better, to do better. I promise to love, honor, and care for our mother, the earth. I promise to ensure our children grow up and do not live under the shadow of violence. I promise to embrace the things in life that make you and I different. I promise that I will love you even though I may not know you. I shall not forget the past nor the broken promises but neither shall I dwell there. but neither shall I dwell there.

I embrace this moment of truth and hope. I will carry this idea, this dream, this reality into our future. This is a truth that we can stand on, build on. Before the Creator, in front of the world, from my heart and soul, all this I promise. piano plays softly If I had nothing to my name But photographs of you rescued from the flames That is all I would ever need

As long as I can read what's written on your face. The strength that shines behind your eyes. The hope and light that will never die. One promise you made. One promise that always remains. No matter the price. A promise to survive, persevere and thrive, as you've always done. And you said the poison in the kiss is the lie upon the lips true words were never shared

when I feel like lies are all I hear I pull my memories near the one thing they can't take the one promise you made One promise that always remains No matter the price Promise to survive Persevere and thrive

As we've always done Angela Chalmers, the Canadian! Broad medal! But still open I don't want to fade it down. Do I have to? Up to you. That voice.

All right. So obviously this is from Tokyo 2020. Oh, yeah. What an effective, like, brilliant piece here. We could have just played the Cornell song, but we decided to play the video that you edited together for the broadcast. And it's just so important. It's a heavy one.

Yeah, it was a difficult time the last little while's been while has been um that song this song you're hearing chris cornell's the promise was the last song he ever released before he passed away and uh before the pandemic and everything tokyo olympics were supposed to happen in 2020 uh in about december of 2019 i found found the song I'd heard it for the first time I think and was like wow that's the Olympic opening right there I was trying to find a premise and I like the idea of what a promise is what is a promise is it a promise to yourself is it to your country is to your family is it to your teammates there's a lot to unpack there. What is a promise?

And so I started working on this thing back then and had a shell of this part of the opening done. And then the pandemic hit and everything got kind of, the world obviously did what it did. And then this song just sort of seemed to take on more meaning as the, you know, the pandemic hit and the social justice things of last summer happened and climate change and like everything just sort of pointed towards this like everything is so messed up and can you boil it back down to like do we need to make a

promise back to ourselves to each other to the world and it just sort of felt like something way bigger than sports, obviously. But then obviously just before, I guess, the residential school horror grave site started to be publicly, you know, disclosed and stuff. And I felt, wow, like we're going, the Olympics is the biggest nationalistic event on the planet, you know, like rah, rah, rah. event on the planet, you know, like rah, rah, rah. And how does Canada go there at that time when this is just sort of all kind of unfolded, um, and go, aren't we the best if we win gold or something like that, or rah, rah, rah. And just felt like, you know, on CBC to give the space, um, to this idea of a promise, because the word promise is something that's been used a lot in the vocabulary in the indigenous experience. And for the the most part it's promises that have been broken or not kept or you know completely forgotten about and i just thought wow what a can i is there a way i can sort of intertwine the two and i was talking actually to mike downey who does a lot of work obviously with

the downey wenjack fund and he i said i need i'm i want to find um someone who can write something and he's like when i told him that premise that i just mentioned he said oh you need, I want to find someone who can write something. And he's like, when I told him that premise that I just mentioned, he said, Oh, you need to talk to chief Stacy Laform. And I'm like, yes, I do. And he connected me with him. And I did some research. I knew who he was, but the more I read, the more I was like, wow. He's obviously, you know, the chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations. And he's also a poet. And so I called him or I got his number and I called him and I was nervous, really nervous about to talk to him.

So I kind of outlined, you know, this idea of what I just explained the last few minutes. And he sort of got taken aback by it. And he said that to me and he's like, you know, whether you decide to do this or not, I'm writing this poem. And like two days later, he sent it to me, what you heard at the start of that piece. And about four days later, this was about a week before the Olympics started, we went down to Hagersville on the reserve there. And we shot in the forest where he narrated the poem on camera. And it was really beautiful.

It was actually a day like today, which was kind of neat with the wind blowing in the forest where he narrated the poem on camera. And it was really beautiful. It was actually a day like today, which was kind of neat with the wind blowing in the trees. Yeah, and he nailed it. It's just like a, you know, just a beautiful wordsmith. And his delivery is spot on. It was just really beautiful. So yeah, then I, you know, decided just that first part was just going to be sort of a tip of the hat to him

and his words and to the experience of a tip of the hat to him and his words and to the experience of what his people have gone through. And yeah, somehow it just kind of all fit together. And then the other part of it is the song hadn't been cleared yet. Now to clear, to get songs on the Olympics or any channel, you have to legally clear it. And you have to clear a master recording and the publishing. So whoever wrote the song and whoever owns the recording um so it can be a quick experience but it can be very drawn out experience uh and chris cornell wrote the song so it was all

controlled by his estate uh so we have a business department at cbc that you you know kind of compile a list of songs that i'd like to use and they um you know do their work to get the clearing done and so they usually just send out like a, you know, a little blurb that, Oh, CBC would like to use this song in a montage during the Olympics, uh, and leave it at that. And if you're a Canadian musician, you might know what they are and it might be easier, but, uh, you know, internationally, it's a little more difficult. And so originally, uh, initially, excuse me, uh, the estate passed and said, thank you, but we're not interested. So I was like, oh, it was like literally the only song I wanted, you know, to use for this thing. And so I wrote a little blurb up, you know, I knew Chris was a big social justice warrior. He was always doing that

kind of, he was a band audio slave with the three guys from Rage Against the Machine. So, you know, he had the chops for sure. So I wrote up a blurb about what this whole thing was. It wasn't a sports thing entirely. And this idea of how this chief in Ontario was going to write this poem and narrate. And, you know, the first part was going to be all about the Indigenous experience and trying to, you know, get that whole thing going.

So we wrote this, I guess, a couple paragraphs and it was recent. And it got to Vicki Cornell, Chris Cornell's wife, who controls the estate. And I guess she couple paragraphs and it was resend and it got to Vicky Cornell, Chris Cornell's wife who controls the estate and I guess she read it and I sent a link to the second part using the song and then the idea

of what the first part would be and I guess word got back to me that as soon as she finished watching it and read the blurb she not only immediately approved it but said please please send me the finished product. I need to see the chief's poem as well. So pretty heavy stuff. Well, good for you, man.

That obviously was effective. And again, this is an audio presentation, so we're hearing that. But I urge people to seek that out. So it's just called The Promise from the Tokyo 2020 2020 uh yeah if you go on YouTube on CBC sports and just type the problem if you type the promise in CBC sports uh it pops up pretty much right away dude amazing now I I watched so much Olympics like I watched so much Olympics so like this this song I'm about to play right right actually oh yeah spoiler alert I alert. That's actually coming up.

But there are certain pieces of music you'd hear during the broadcast of the Olympics. And in fact, is this it? Yeah, Otamon. Right, Otamon. Okay, because that's an interesting name for that song, actually. Because if it's a song, I think it is. Yeah. Okay.

That's a good story behind it. So let's get into this one i love it and uh it'll take me back to a couple months or last month and then uh we'll hear from you here we go if i were in your shoes i live, I'd live a little, and I'd love with all this lust, forget the worst, forget the scars, and I'd go out once in a while Flash my curve, show I'm style And I'd turn this old town upside down Upside down Yeah, I would

Yeah, I would Yeah, I would So let's drive, let's pass this by Forget what we did, forget why We left in the first place. Why we left in the first place. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, There is magic on this planet's water There is magic on this planet's water I can still hear you playing I can still hear you playing I can still hear you playing

I can still hear you playing I can still hear you playing Yep, this is the song. That is. I get the title through me, though. Yeah. It's like, what this should be called? There's magic in the water.

That should be the title of this song. That's sort of, yeah, well, that was Tokyo Olympics as well. When I was licensing songs, I had this idea of like, oh, I wonder if we could make a song be a theme song, you know, for a certain section of it. So I thought... Yeah, for a certain discipline. Yeah, exactly. So I thought the leading and the Canadian women's swimming team

was supposed to, you know, kick ass, and they did. Yeah. And so this song I'd had sort of in the canon for a while now. And there was a song by a rapper called Chopé, a song called Rising, that was marked and ended up being the theme song for Andre de Grasse as well. So I got two in there anyways. And anyway, Hannah's song, Hannah George's Ode to Mom is the song. And wow, just an incredibly beautiful song.

I met her at the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Gala couple of years ago and ended up sitting next to her, uh, the dinner for the night. And she played that song with Sarah Harmer and Alfie from Bahamas. Um, and wow, just, it's a incredibly beautiful song that she wrote.

It's called Oh to mom. Her father sadly passed away years ago and she kind of wrote the first part, I guess, as an ode to her mom. And the second part, which I didn't know actually until recently was that her dad was a swimming instructor just north of Toronto where they lived and he taught everyone in the area how to swim so she was a huge swimmer growing up and actually you know thought if she wasn't a musician that maybe she would have tried her push at that but yeah it was just a crushingly beautiful song,

and the lyric is perfect, and the women, Canadian Olympic women, won a ton of medals. And so yeah, I think that song played eight nights in a row. Yeah, that sounds right, because I watched every night, and that song, and you know, I got to say this, when CTV had the Olympics,

they went with this song, I Believe. And that one, by the. Right. And that one, by the eighth time I heard that one, I wanted to like, just like delete it off the planet. Probably the second time, probably. But I know some people do love that song.

I never took to it. Alan Frew, I think, did he write that? I can't remember. Okay. Shout out to Glass Tiger. But yeah.

But this song, this Hannah George, George's, is that how you say the last name? Yes. Uh, hauntingly beautiful. Like,

uh, yeah, it's, um, wow. It's just one of those songs that just take you places. And, um,

each one of the eight videos was different. So I had an instrumental version and then the lyrics and mixed them depending on what was going on. So, uh, some had commentator calls and then it kind of kicked into the course at the end and somewhere a depending on what was going on. So some had commentator calls, and then it kind of kicked into the chorus at the end, and some were a bit longer, some were a bit shorter. So it was all a bit different.

And, you know, we just going in, we didn't know if it would be like three or four nights that they would do well, but it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, gold, relays, silvers, bronze. Yeah, it was just one of those things that just sort of worked, and no one seemed tired of it. And it worked. It got a hand of more money, so kind of worked and no one seemed tired of it. And it worked. It got Hannah more money, so kind of everyone won. Everybody wins.

Well done. And here we are, like, just minutes away, minutes away from Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. So let's kick out your third jam here. And I'm cracking one open here So this love It was a great length Superior to most The kind that you would emulate

if you had the choice and my waters are freezing and my heart at first as driftwood raffles

into a shoreline of sorts and my heart it is pounding As your hair blows in the Huron winds And this great lake of love Is happening again And as we drive through this wasteland We recall all of the times

there was sorrow and there was pain inside our homes. I've left this Michigan state so far behind. I don't even bother visiting when I arrive in my border town where I

grew in my border town where I met you and you've listened to my ghost songs I know they're eerie at times Just like the highways

That we would drive Through the darkness into the night Past all these tough signs And all of the flickering streetlights So this love, it was a great lane Surrounded by these mixed wood planes We could settle here Never worry again I could build you a life

From reforested pine I never thought that this life Could be possible Living on the edge of Lake Ontario Living on the edge of Lake Ontario Living on the edge of Lake Ontario Living on the edge of Lake Ontario I couldn't even fade that one down. Like, I don't know if it is the, there is a, like you said,

there's a bit of a wind chill coming off the Lake Ontario right now. I don't know if it was that or the song, but I got chills in that one. That's like, it's a meditation I find listening to that song. That's called Great Lake Love by Hollow Sage and the Three Mile Islanders featuring the Stephen Stanley band and Heather Cook Scala. That's a mouthful. That's a lot to take in. I did crack a Great Lakes beer during the Great Lakes love song. Good timing.

Okay, so quick, Stephen. I want to hear all about it, but I want to just share that last week, no, two weekends ago, I was invited to Pete Fowler's house. Do you know the name Pete Fowler? I don't know the name, and I'm trying to place it. He was on Edge 102 or 102.1 The Edge for years, and then he quit radio to become an OPP police officer and he's currently like a sergeant with the OPP but he lives like in Hamilton

but it's like rural Hamilton or whatever and he had like Blair Packham from The Jitters who's coming on Toronto Mic next week or maybe two weeks from now and Stephen Stanley performing in his backyard. And I was there like a very intimate show and it was just a beautiful night

and got to talk to Stephen Stanley again and was reminded what a lovely man that is. Yeah, he is talented. Like he performed, he was fantastic. But, uh,

so him being a part of that song is not a big surprise. He's a very talented guy. He's a gem of a human being and musician. And yeah, I didn't even know that song. And he sent it to me a couple months ago, maybe six months ago or something. And it was just floored. It was like, who is this?

Like, holy shit. And I just listened. It's one of those, I call them 10 players, like you need to listen to about 10 times in a row before you can figure it all out. Can we break down the credit again? Okay. So it's Hallow Sage and the Three Mile Islanders.

Like, is that a band? Yeah. I think he, his name is escaping me right now, but I think he's an undertaker or works in a funeral home or something. Okay. Shout out. We need to now shout out Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community.

Ridleyfuneralhome.com. They're actually proud. They're actually really important to this show because this show and the fact we can kick out these jams only exists because of amazing sponsors like ridley funeral home so much love to brad jones and the good people at ridley funeral home back to the undertaker there you go um yeah and i know steve does a lot of recording on wolf island yes he's always there i should have asked him but i think that's the connection here possibly um he's i think he's there this weekend he told me actually doing some stuff uh chris brown a famous toronto musician of course lives there now i believe and

uh produces last record so i'm hoping that they're cooking up some really great stuff and you know i need to get chris brown on toronto my yeah like he's all over the place fascinating guy yeah for sure but yeah this song was like. But who's Heather Cook? And Heather Cook Scala? Yeah, it was just this, I guess they're all friends and created this unbelievably beautiful song

and just spoke to me a lot. That was the one thing like during this whole pandemic and COVID and stuff is I live alone downtown and in between, you know, in the early part, especially when no one was really doing

much of anything at all, except just trying to figure out what was going on and survive. Uh, I reconnected with the lake. Um, I don't know why I never really went down there much. Cause, uh, like I'm an ambassador for the Lake Ontario waterkeeper and I would go to the islands and stuff and I have a cottage and I've lived on the water my whole life and essentially, but, uh, being downtown and connecting with Lake ontario not as much as i should have absolutely and uh so there's an interesting walk down strawn to the lake shore and we were talking earlier you hook into trillium park which goes through behind budweiser stage and then on where the cinesphere is and then there's the i guess the west side beach they call it or

west island beach um it's just really and there's a sort of a, literally there today. That's too funny. I go there a lot though. I go like three, four times a week. I can't believe I haven't seen you. I always take a cell. I like to take a picture.

That end part where you can see the Mimico waterfront. Like I always put my, put my bike there. Like I literally did this like a few hours ago. Anyway. Uh, yeah, that's one of my favorite rides.

I probably have about 5,000 photographs on my phone from that, like all different angles and stuff. And you see the city. That's funny. Beautiful angle of the city. And I just sort of reconnected with the lake a lot. And it just brought a lot of, well, it's a place to, you know, exist and walk outside and safely during this whole time,

but just how peaceful it is. And my brother, as I said earlier, him and his family just moved to just outside Coburg. Is that the, the Coburn and the Coburg mixed up? Which one has a big apple? That's Coburn, I believe. Yeah, Coburg is a little closer. It's sort of side by side with Port Hope.

And they bought a house right on Lake Ontario. So they have their own little beach and a little creek that comes out of the lake. And I was there last weekend kayaking in the middle on these big rolling waves. And it felt like you're in the ocean when you're out there. It's just been like, you know, a blessing from all this, you know, you find blessings in times of trouble, I guess. And through all this, it's been for me, I guess, connecting back with water and Lake Ontario specifically. It's been really, you know, really nice. And just, uh, I hope, you know, they're talking about redeveloping Ontario place now.

And, you know, I'm hoping that they do it properly. And, you know, I know the Waterkeeper's trying to get a pier built there so people can go and swim, much like the one in Kingston, the Gord Edgar Downey Pier. It's become a gathering place where people swim and hang out and just take advantage of this, the Great Lake love that I think we should all have. Well, dude, that's two water songs in a row you got here.

It's been a theme for me for sure. Anyway, but I dare you, like next time you go biking down there, if you go down the, I call it the lake wall, you know, the little part that looks like an old ship almost. Yeah, I've even taken my bike on that. Yeah, so go to the end of that or go near it. You can step over and sit and put that song on your headphones and just stare out and you'll have a moment for sure.

Dude, I love it. It's a meditation. I'm going to totally do that. Love it, man. And I love your jams. That's why normally I fade down. Because when someone's kicking out the Who, Won't Get Fooled Again or whatever, like, okay, I've heard this song a thousand times. I know when to fade down and let's talk about it.

But your jams are far more too interesting for all that. Cool, cool. Let's kick out your fourth jam. I was always working steady, but I never called it art. I got my shit together, meeting Christ and reading marks. It failed my little fire, but it spread the dying spark.

Go tell the young Messiah what happens to the heart. There's a mist of summer kisses Where I tried to double park The rivalry was vicious The women were in charge It was nothing, it was business But it left an ugly mark I've come here to revisit. What happens to the heart?

Leonard Cohen. I was so unholy. Talking about meditation, that's right. I was dressed in kind of sharp. Had a pussy in the kitchen. talking about meditations this is this is his final his final recording right this is from thanks for the dance post genius release

happens to the heart he's just on another level like you listen to these songs and they're almost like otherworldly in a way it's almost like you know you I a way. It's almost like, you know, you, I don't know, you learn something or you can just sit there and listen to that voice. It's sort of hypnotizing and takes you places. And you can listen again ten times and you can listen to it a thousand times

and you'll find something new in the lyric every time. His son Adam composed a lot of the music for this record because some of the songs weren't done so they put a lot of the music to the lyric after Mr. Cohen Leonard had passed away and he did a great job. It sort of feels like he's there almost you know when you hear it and this song was the first single and it sort of led me to make a... I made a piece last summer called The Heart of Humanity that I just sort of made me to make a I made a piece last summer called the heart of humanity that I just sort of made uh I'm sitting around you know living alone and trying to figure

out uh life is like everyone was during the pandemic or still is going on but like in the heart of it all last summer when things were really sort of dire and uh just sort of felt like this idea and I watched this interview there's a million interviews with him on YouTube and he's the most fascinating if you listen to them. He had this wisdom about him and this point of view that was just very comforting and very enlightening. But he was talking about the heart. That enters a lot into his work over the years, for sure.

But he was on a panel on a Swedish TV show in 2007, and Al Gore was on the thing and they were all and some other people and they're all just sort of listening intently and like listening to the maestro essentially and he talked about how uh like the social contract was sort of eroding and you know the heart he's like the real weapons of mass this is a direct quote the real weapons of mass destruction are the hardened hearts of humanity. And I thought, wow, like what, you know, a way to sort of describe what's going on. And this was 2007 and fast forward to now and with all the craziness, the divisions going on and the climate crisis and COVID and all the madness,

he just had a way to sort of describe things and, you know, this outlook on humanity. So it was sort of the basis for this piece I made. It was like a 15-minute piece on sort of the state of the world. And I just sort of went to town and posted it for, you know, it wasn't made for anyone. It was just made for everyone, I guess. And this song was sort of a guide, I guess, along the way. I listened to it a lot and you just try to pick up different things.

And I would watch a ton of interviews and I, you know, didn't clear anything. It was just sort of pinched interviews from everyone from Muhammad Ali to Leonard to, you know, people from all walks of life. And yeah, in this song, I don't know, just you can listen to this record and all of his work. I go through periods of time where I'll just listen to like 1970s Leonard Cohen and, you know, then get to the later stuff and focus on specific albums. But this one apparently was when they were late in his life, this was the one song he was sort of obsessed with finishing. He was notorious for, you know, his work ethic

and rewriting and editing and over, you know, I think Hallelujah took seven or eight years to write or something. But this song specifically was one that he was zeroed in on towards the end of his life and he finished it. And yeah, just speaks to like, I guess this idea of being an artist and the work ethic that you have is kind of, whether it's a musician or a painter or writer, or I guess any walk of life really like the, you you know there's obviously talent involved and there's a bit of luck but the one common denominator with everyone everywhere is like the work ethic and it seems like the more I read about the people that I really love and

the work that I love it's made by people who just don't stop and just are sort of compelled by it and you know and just uh sort of feel a need to do it it's not really work it's their work you know, and just sort of feel a need to do it. It's not really work. It's their work, you know. It's like a career. It's not a career. It's a work. Sorry, that's the better way to put it. It's their life's work.

It's their, you know, why they're here, so to speak. And, yeah, to just think like a guy like Leonard Cohen after all those years was like, you know, feverishly writing things and editing and rewriting to get things right up till the end just speaks to, you know, just the, you know, the genius and the credo and the work ethic of this guy that wrote this incredible, left us with a beautiful body of work. So good news for Leonard Cohen fans.

So Michael Posner has written like a trilogy, basically. He's like through the different, you know, early years of Leonard Cohen and then the middle years and the latter years. And then he's releasing like each volume gets released like every year. So last November, he released the first volume. So Michael Posner came on Toronto Mike to talk about the early years of Leonard Cohen. And he's booked to come back like next month to discuss the second volume of this trilogy, which he calls Leonard Cohen Untold Stories. So we will be diving deep into more Leonard Cohen.

That's, I guess, next month with Michael Posner. I look forward to that. That guy's like the legend, man. Leonard Cohen. Every time, I haven't been, uh, every time I, I haven't been since COVID, but like before I would go to Montreal quite a bit for work and for sometimes just for fun.

Um, and I would always do like the Leonard Cohen bit, like go up to the area where he lived. And, um, there's a bunch of places around where you can go where he used to go get his coffee or, you know,

um, stuff like that. Lunch and, uh, just sort of, you know, yeah, just,

um, yeah. Well, even when I, I recorded with Dr. Dianeiane sacks it was the last environment environmental commissioner of ontario before doug ford got rid of the okay the role because i was just telling him all the things he's doing wrong or whatever and uh diane sacks i was chatting with her and the jam i played because she's a diehard like leonard cohen fanem, because it's like that's how the light gets in, right? So there's just so many applications of the great poet. You talk to everyone.

Even Bob Dylan's like, yep, he's the guy. Just a genius. We're lucky to have him. Yeah, absolutely. Here's your fifth jam. I'll shoot you down, keep your eyes closed, hear the ground Pick up in the middle of the night, kill the silence, I can't bear to speak Head for the heart, does it break? Words may fall, the body remains And every map is blank When my words head for the cracks

We have my back We were good children, darling, let it out When my words head for the cracks We have my back We were good children, darling, let it out I hold my breath, don't ask to move When the night comes, Who will you be? Even the dead can be

Astoundingly alive I am, I am, I am I am a goddamn believer I am, I am, I am I am a goddamn believer When my words head for the cries Will you have my back? We were good children, darling, let it out

When my words head for the cries Will you have my back? We were good children, die and let it out Well I am, I am, I am, I am a goddamn believer I am, I am, I am, I am a god damn believer Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You know who has a rule where you're not allowed to speak over the jams? You know who? Dave Hodge. So Dave Hodge will send you the jams

and then he basically says, his only rule is that I'm not allowed to talk over the songs. Like they get played in their entirety. He knows what he's talking about. When you make a video, and of course we have to chat about that jam, that's Cold Specs. Cold Specs Blank Maps. Amazing. But when you clear it, so let's say you clear the cornell tune and then you how do you tell like youtube or facebook or whomever that you have permission to use the

song because these algorithms just like i get hit i get killed that's why we're not live on facebook because i get killed by it i get obviously i'm not clearing anything so there's my first mistake i guess but when you do clear something and you're allowed to use it, is there, there's a mechanism to like tell YouTube to not punish you because you're allowed to use it? Yeah. There's a whole like, uh, business side of it, um, forms like for the Gord Downey videos, for instance, it was being done by the label and management for the, you know, for him and his legacy and stuff. And you have to fill out forms basically a few days before, I think. I don't know what the timeframe is, but certainly in advance.

So when you want to launch it, it doesn't get tagged like that because it's just bots that sort of do that. Yeah, it's just bots. But my favorite is though, my favorite is let's say I'm live streaming on Facebook and let's say Rick Emmett is my guest because this happened last week.

And let's say I'm playing Magic Powers. I'm playing a Triumph song. I get hit for the Triumph. I always find it amusing to myself that I can't play Triumph for Rick Emmett who wrote the song or whatever. He still can't do it. It's all sort of, yeah, like there's not some person sitting there, but it's all done by bots, I guess.

And I guess, you know, rightfully so. No, I get it. I get it you know, rightfully so. No, I get it. I get it. I just, well, even like Ron Hawkins was doing those Tommy Douglas Tuesdays and he would play a song during intermission and you'd pick a record that he liked and play it.

And he was getting tapped on those too. So he ended up just playing the lowest of the low stuff or solo stuff or whatever. You watch him get dinged with that too. Yeah. Yeah. That heart of humanity piece I was talking about. I was just doing it for,

you know, for the love of it, I guess. And when I posted it to Facebook, it immediately got stricken. So there's other ways you can sort of get it out there. Just so you know, I got tired of not being able to live stream with music like this. So we have a pirate stream. So we go live.torontomic.com.

Now, it doesn't record, but FOTMs can come over and hear it. It sounds great. They can watch it and kind of take it in, and there's no policing, if you will, by any of the labels, et cetera. Right. So that's where we are. Okay.

The gist of... In case you're wondering why there's no recording, it's because we're breaking all the rules here, buddy. Okay, tell me about Cold Specs, though. Yeah, that was just a record that... Actually, Lawrence Nichols alerted me to a couple years ago. Another good guy. Yeah, a couple years ago.

I hadn't heard of her, and he's like, you've got to hear this. And just, again, played it cover to cover. The whole record's beautiful. It reminds me of winter a lot. I think there's a song called Winter Solstice. But the whole thing just sort of gives you kind of a nice bit of warmth on cold days or whatever. And she's got a really beautiful voice. She has a few records out now.

She's a Toronto artist and just a voice. So many great artists that you're like, oh, I didn't know this great artist existed. You need like a Lawrence to say, listen to this. Yeah, like he knows that's sort of what I do for a living is just listen to music all the time and find stuff for things. And so I'm grateful that people will think of me and say, oh, have you heard this person or this band or whatever?

And, uh, yeah, cause there's just so much out there. It's impossible to keep on top of everything. And, uh, but just,

yeah, when you hear a song like that and this voice hits and it's just like, Oh, you know, it stands out from, you know, a lot of the stuff that you might hear on the radio or if that still exists, is radio still exist?

I don't know. Um, but you know, uh, so you just hear, I love't know. Um, but you know, uh, so you just hear, I love it. Like back in pre COVID times when you would go to the horseshoe or to the Cameron house or Dakota or something and see a band play.

And, uh, it just kind of blows your mind. I remember going to see lowest of the low in like 2012. And, uh, this opening band came on and they didn't know who they were. And like half a song.

And it was like, Oh my God, like they're going to be huge. And it ended up being the Strombelas. And, you know, a couple of years later, they were kind of on top of the world with Song Spirits. But, you know, that's a beautiful thing about a music city and music clubs and why we need to get back to them.

And, you know, hopefully none of these places are, no more will go under during all this crazy time because they're sort of the lifeblood for a lot of people, I think, you know? Yeah, poor know, yeah. Poor Dave Hodge. Like I remember seeing Dave Hodge at a few shows at the horseshoe. And I remember watching cuff the Duke play one time actually.

And I was out in the crowd at the shoe and Wayne, who's a good friend of mine, the singer, I had done a video for them and he threw a song out to me from the stage. And then, but 20 seconds later, I feel this armor on my shoulder and I'm like,

look over and this is a guy with a ball cap on. I'm like, who the hell is this? Oh, Todd. So yeah, he's a beauty. They broke the mold when they made that one. Pen flip and all, man. I love that guy. Huge music fan too and he's everywhere. Doesn't just talk the talk.

Every year he kicks out his 100 favorite songs of the year on my show. I don't know. I had a hard time doing 10, just picking, I don't know. I don't think I've heard

100 new songs in 2021. And he doesn't repeat any bands either. So it's like, okay. That would drive me insane. He's amazing. That's for sure. Hey,

do you want to like preface this next selection? Cause it's like, it's off the board, as they say. But by the way, before you say anything anything i'm so glad you did this uh maybe because we're similar vintage but this guy was everything to me like i'm so glad that you've decided to give up one of your spots if you will to pay tribute to this man because yeah floored i think you know like

most people uh and spent the last you know week, week and a bit, uh, going down the YouTube wormhole and stuff. And that was something I would do all the time, every few months, go on Netflix and watch the show or the YouTube show that was on and just, uh, Hitler's dog one. Yeah. Um, I think people might get to know what we're getting at, but I won't say anything or the name, but just someone who left us recently who was like the punk rock comic, you know, who was someone who

was the epitome of an artist dedicated to his craft, whip smart, and just the funniest guy on the planet. You've been thinking about your mortality a lot lately? I mean, you turn 70 and it's you can't run from it ah fuck i was hoping you could

bob euchre is the uh is one of my best friends he's a very very funny man and uh and uh i i go off and go in the booth with him, you know. Oh, sure. So one time we were there, and John Fogarty was in the audience. You know, a fortunate son, you know. So he was talking to me. He says, hey, man, you know that guy? I go, yeah. He goes, that's John Fogarty, rock and roll singer.

So I go, yeah, yeah. I know who it is. He goes, yeah, man. He goes, but I played in a golf tournament with him. He goes, you probably think of him as some that likes to bite the heads off of chickens, but this guy can... That's exactly how I think of him.

This guy can get it out of the sand trap like nobody's f***ing business. Did you ever meet one of your comedy heroes and just were devastatingly disappointed? I met Matlock in a bookstore. He was reading a big heavy book. So I tried to get up close. Do you know who Matlock is? He used to be Andy Griffith.

He played Matlock. That wasn't his real name, right? Ben Matlock. White suits. Lawyer. He's a big, big lawyer. So he's reading a book, you know. So I don't like books.

They make me sleepy. But I got close to him. And I pick up a book, you know, because I want him to notice. And I don't know what to say, so I go, holy fuck, I didn't see that shit coming, something like that, right? And then he turns to me, and I was younger, and he said, it's nice to see a young man who likes literature. And I go, I like literature, I like TV, I like lawyers, you know, I like whites.

And then my throat got dry, and my whole being felt like I was somewhere else. I never felt such a feeling. It was not him. It didn't even look like him. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, like a singular, unique voice that, you know, unlike anyone else, I think. And in those clips, I was trying to think of some stuff and a lot of his stories are quite long and stuff and uh how do you you know you

can't trim them um but just to get a little snippet and one of the things I love about that and it happened over and over and over and over and over again is like the barrel laughter he gave to like Letterman and to Conan and to Seinfeld on his show, like these weren't his ha ha laughs. Like these guys couldn't control themselves of how funny this guy was. And, uh, just as delivery, the,

the, um, the Matlock story there, like, like he was, you know, a lot of people, I guess one of the things that came out a lot when,

since he passed was people saying like, no one really knew the real norm. Like he, you know, had all these covers to him and stuff for masks and, you know, who was the real norm. And the one thing you do get out of a lot of things, if you read a lot or see a lot of interviews, is like how incredibly intelligent he was,

how whip smart and how well prepared and his work ethic. Again, I come back to that thing that talking about Leonard and stuff is like how hard he worked at it and tireless. And he was dedicated just to the joke. Like that was what mattered. You know, there was no editing. There joke like that was what mattered um you know there was no editing there was no uh giving a shit about you know i guess the infamous reasons he was cast away from saturday night live was he uh anti-oj yeah the oj was the first after the verdict all

meyer what was this the executive at nbc was buddiesJ. He just, you know, but he, as a pure artist and a comic, he wasn't going to censor himself for that. Donald O'Reilly. Might be, yeah, that sounds about right. But also, I remember he would go hard at Michael Jackson, too. But, yeah. Anyone was sort of fair game, and I think the joke was what mattered in making people laugh.

And, like, the Matlock story there, like, just how he says he used to be Andy Griffith, like, you know. He once said in an interview, he's like, no one likes the smartest guy in the room. And, you know, most often he probably was,

but he played it up, you know, for the sake of the joke to make the funniest thing that he could and to make people laugh. And God, did he ever do that? And, uh,

there's, you know, if anything, you know, the body of work that lives out there now from this YouTube show, which was brilliant to the Netflix show, to the performance on Seinfeld's comedians in cars, getting coffee is one for the ages,

just drop Seinfeld a million times, like pure laughter and yeah, very sad. And the guy, I think who fought a lot, you know, he didn't have any, you know,

a lot of perhaps was because of his vision and being a pure artist, but like, you know, he didn't have any, you know, a lot of perhaps, uh, was because of his vision and being a pure artist, but like, you know, he was sort of cast aside a lot. Um, I don't know if blacklisted is the word at all, but, uh, he certainly, um, after Saturday live, I seemed to have to fight a lot for what he did, but he, I think he loved standup the most and he toured quite a lot and, uh, had a bunch of specials and stuff and you know just was dedicated and focused on what he was and who he was and didn't deviate from that and just wanted to make people

laugh and boy did he ever eh nobody struck my funny bone as hard as Norm Macdonald and greatest talk show guest on the planet I mean I was like a day one Conan guy because I was a big Simpsons guy and I was there for day one I would stay up late watch watch, watch, watch them live.

And that still had Courtney Thorne Smith, chairman of the board appearance. Like I watched it with my brother, Steve. We both would watch Conan together. And Norm was our favorite guest, of course. And the laughter that night when that was happening live because it's like a one two it's a geek and one one after another you know the box office poison hit and then you're you're reeling from that and then it hits you with this board spelled b i bet you it's spelled b-o-r-e-d oh my god yeah it was just so sharp and so funny. And just that delivery style of his,

like he could say, he could read a phone book and I'd be like laughing. Yeah. Like 90% of what he said, anyone else on the planet says it. It's not funny, but he says it and there's just a way. And the way he worked stories around and just,

there was the thing coming at the end and it might take. Yeah. Yeah. The moth, for example, that moth one, like five minutes to get there. The origin story there is he didn't know he was doing two segments.

He thought he was doing one. So he didn't have anything. And then he had that moth thing, like in the arsenal there with the punchline, but you could tell he sort of like just improvising the meat of that moth story that he tells Conan. And it just works. Like he's just so, so brilliant. Even the Bob Saget roast.

I don't know if you've seen that. It's just the antithesis of what anyone would do on a roast. And somehow it's just ridiculously funny. Yeah. He's doing like old, like, yeah. Corny.

Yeah. There's no, like everyone else is filthy and, you know, as filthy as possible. And he was, he might be a vegetarian, but he's full of bologna.

That's the line I still remember from that one. And then, I mean, I'll even, I wrote about this on torontomic.com years ago that I have no shame in telling you. I loved dirtyirty Work because I watched them filming a scene at Jane and Annette.

They did one at the Eglinton Theatre at Avenue Road in Eglinton, which is where I grew up. Which was directed, of course, by Bob Saget. Yeah. And Artie Lang, apparently, I like Artie Lang too. I was a big Howard Stern guy, but I think Artie Lang got that gig because Chris Farley was in Rehab, I think. This was shortly before Chris. He had a big Howard Stern guy. But I think Artie Lang got that gig because Chris Farley was in rehab, I think. This was

shortly before Chris. He had a cameo, I think. Yeah, he was in Dirty Work as well. Yeah, that was one feature I saw was a still from that movie the day Norm died. It was Norm and Farley. Oh, the fish? No, that with Farley. Just Norm and Farley together and they're upstairs now, you know, making everyone

roll over. Well, we have more here. So you want me to play it? I'd happily play this in its entirety. Yeah. Do you want me to set it up a little bit? Yeah, of course. So this is maybe Norm at his most, hmm, real?

Not real. I don't know if that's the right word or not, but he's reading. This is essentially, he released a book, which I highly recommend you get. There's also an audio version where it's basically seven hours of him reading it to you. So that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Uh, and it's part, you know, it's pure norm, but there's a lot of truths from his life in there. So it's maybe him in his most raw and honest in a way. Um, so he's in front of a crowd here reading an excerpt from this book and I just, there was something really beautiful and very poignant and sort of sad and melancholy about it but just incredibly real and from the heart uh so this i guess is from that there is the way things are and then the way things appear

and it is the way things appear even when false that is often the truest. If I am remembered, it will always be for my four years I spent at Saturday Night Live, and maybe even more than that by the events surrounding my departure from that program. As long as SNL exists, then so do I. When people come to see me do stand-up, It is because somewhere in their memory I live on SNL, dressed as a young Burt Reynolds, insisting Alex Trebek refer to me as Turd Ferguson. And they come to see me, and I am old and fat, and I don't mention SNL, and I do my answering machine joke that always does well. And they are happily disappointed. And after the show, they stand beside me and take pictures, the way you would with a donkey at the side of

a road. They tell me they are big fans, and they don't care what their girlfriends say. and they don't care what their girlfriends say. They understand me, even though they know good and well that no one else does. I'm dry, they say. The next time I come to their town, they do not show up. It can be difficult to define yourself by something that happened so long ago and is gone forever. It's like a fellow at the end of the bar telling no one in particular about the silver medal he won in high school track, the one he still wears around his neck.

The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast. And if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth. But looking back now, I can see that my life since SNL has been a full sprint, trying with all my might to outrun the wolves of irrelevancy snapping at my heels. But it has all been in vain, of course.

They caught and devoured me years ago. But not completely. Lorne would see that. My foot would still make a vague imprint. Myself would still cast a faint shadow. And years later, I would write a book. And not only write it, but be in it as well. I think a lot of people feel sorry for you if you are on SNL and emerge from the show anything less than a superstar.

They assume you must be bitter. But it is impossible for me to be bitter. I've been lucky. If I had to sum up my whole life, I guess those are the words I would choose, all right. I've been lucky. When I was a boy, I was sure I'd never make it past Moose Creek, Ontario, Canada, but I've been all over this world, except for Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America.

Oh, and Antarctica. But that's really splitting hairs. I mean, how many people have ever been to Antarctica? I never expected to be any more than a common laborer, and I would have considered myself lucky to have achieved that. But I was blessed with so much more. I'm a stand-up comedian and have been for over a quarter of a century. I've performed thousands of hours from a small club in Ottawa,

Ontario, all the way to a small club in Edmonton, Alberta. Sometimes I get big laughs and I think I'm the best stand-up in the whole world. And other times, I bomb, and I think I'm not even in the top five. Before I was famous, I had a whole bunch of jobs where all I needed was boots. People would look right past me in the street, or if they did look at me, it was with a mean look. But when I got famous, people would look at me and smile and wonder where they knew me from. If they flat out recognized me, they'd laugh and dance like they'd won a prize. And I'd just stand there and smile and feel warmth from their love. there and smile and feel warmth from their love. So the fame made the world, which is a real cold place, a little less cold. And as for my gambling, it is true I lost it all a few times, but that's

because I always took the long shot and I never came in. But I still have some time before I cross that river. And if you're at the table and you're rolling them bones and there's no money in Planet Safe, you have to take all your chips and put them on double six and watch as every eye goes to you and then to those red dice doing their wild dance in a freezing time before finding the cruel green felt. I've been lucky. There's a lot to unpack there, isn't there? We're all going to miss Norm, I'm telling you. We're going to miss Norm.

Rest in peace to a genius on the last day of my life I wonder what I will be like Will I be blue, held up with glue? Will I be strong and able? Will I awaken, oh, right then My final day had just begun I hope you're there with bed made hair And a body I can cradle

And in that morning we take a walk Through every street and every park I hope it's deep in autumn time And the leaves are like fires raging I think I would love the simple things Like holding hands and noticing The way the wind moves in between And how I never saw you aging The afternoon would come so soon Would there be time for a movie too?

I hope there's one about true love About how it hurts sometimes As it fades to black and the credits roll. Think I'd start to lose control. And all those names flash before my face. That's my bad, maybe. That doesn't sound like the proper ending. That is not.

My apologies. Beautiful ending to it. Oh, shit. Okay. We lost it? It proper ending. That is not. My apologies. Beautiful ending to it. Oh, shit. Okay. We lost it? It's gone. It's gone. Tell me about that jam, though.

That was, I guess, purposely put after Norm. A song called The Last Day by Luke Satal Singh. He's a British guy who lives in L.A., writes and performs in L.A. Amazing songwriter. My sister heard of his music through some playlist that she listens to and performs in LA. Um, amazing songwriter. My sister heard of his music through some playlists that she listens to and sent it over again, like that thing of people, you know, grateful to send me stuff that might work someday for something. And it was a song called benediction. And this guy just writes these unbelievably powerful songs, um, that are,

you know, crushingly there's about eight or 10 of them that I would say are, you know, I put up with anyone just so beautiful. I ended up using one called Nothing Stays the Same as the Olympic closing this summer in Tokyo. But that song, The Last Day, it reminded me a lot of John K. Sampson songwriting and a bit of Ron Hawkins character sketch. And he takes the interesting idea of like, on the last day of my life, what will it be like? And it goes through all these scenarios. Do you want to hear the ending and then we'll pick it up? Okay, so I've gone to YouTube

to just get the ending here. So let's let Luke wrap up the last day here. On the last night of my life Think I'd rather be surprised Now every night when I close my eyes I hold your hand so tight Yeah, it goes through all these ideas of, you know, what will the last day of my life be like?

You know, go to a movie, will it be fall, will the colors be radiating, all these scenarios, and then, you know, decides, I actually don't want to know, I just, you know, to his partner, hold my hand, you know. I actually don't want to know. I just, you know, to his partner, hold my hand, you know. So just sort of like, wow, like a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful song. There's a great video on YouTube as well that he made for the song. Just sort of, yeah, it's a morbid rap subject.

But let me ask you this. Okay, you're in your mid-40s. Do you find yourself thinking about the end or is that something you're still, you're still too young to consider yourself? I think everyone, especially the last year and a bit has thought a lot about that. You know, um, uh, I remember hearing an interview years ago with Gord Downie where he said, you know, you hit your forties and you realize this is going to end someday. said, you know, you hit your forties and you realize this is going to end someday. Um, you know, uh, but yeah, uh, I guess with anyone, the older you get, the more you, you know, you experience and more you think about it and it has to play on your mind to some degree. Uh,

I was crossing the street the other night and a car flew by and I literally had to sprint out of the way to get almost dung by a car and eight o'clock crossing the green light in Toronto. Um, you just don't know like tomorrow, I guess the last year and a bit also, you know, painfully proven that no, you know, the old thing tomorrow is promised to no one. And, uh, um, to, you know, live each day to its fullest and live in this moment. And like Luke says at the end of the song, like, I don't want to know, just hold my hand, you know? Um,

just that's what matters is, you know, your loved ones and being with the people that you love and your family and your friends and, uh, doing great work and doing, being a good person and looking out for people. And that's sort of,

I guess what Leonard was talking about too, about the hardened hearts of humanity and like, uh, not to get political or anything, but these people who don't, they would think not wearing masks is a infringement on their freedoms. And like, they're seeing it all wrong. It's like, not to get political or anything, but these people who don't, who think not wearing masks is an infringement on their freedoms. And like, they're seeing it all wrong. It's like, no, you're trying to help people who might not be as fortunate as you to be healthy and have a strong immune system or whatever it is.

It's, you know, that's something I think that's, I've noticed a lot is people losing their sense of community or their, you know, their heart of humanity in the sense of, you know, looking out for people. And that's what sort of this whole thing is based on is, you know, being a community and being looking out for each other and, you know, leading with the heart and being a good person. And, you know, I think sort of that's something that maybe another thing that hopefully will come out of this whenever we get out of this crazy shit we're going through you know is uh just getting back to people caring about each other and neighborhoods and um your sense of community and that's like a lot of the musicians like ron and aloe and gordon leonard like they're all singing about this stuff norm

like telling jokes about it but it's all about this sort of sense of camaraderie and community and looking out and being a good person. I thought of that. I think we give too much credence to this fringe. Like, like let's, I'll make, I'll use round numbers cause I'm not very bright.

So I have to use round numbers, but like, let's say 90% of this community, this society is happy to get double vaxxed and wear a mask. And you've got this 10%. It seems like we put so much focus on this 10% where you almost start to see it as a 50, 50 split or something, but it's 10%. It seems like we put so much focus on this 10% where you almost start to see it as a 50-50 split or something but it's 10%. That means 90% of people are like you and I

who are good citizens and just happy to wear a mask and to get double vacs and do our part or whatever. And what I've noticed during this is and I'll speak to a community that I'm close to, like FOTMs, okay? Like this community of people, maybe

they, they enjoy the same podcast, and they love hearing, you know, Tim Thompson kick out the jams and stuff, like, we've had a few get-togethers during the pandemic, TMLX events, and then we have a, you know, a Twitter DM thread where we communicate, and then we have the live.torontomic.com feed, and for pandemic Fridays and stuff, like, this camaraderie and this love and this, this beauty that's come from this community. Like you have to kind of remember that like most Canadians, most people are good people. Like, you know,

it's this 10% fringe that just seems to be so selfish and seems to be, you know, hogging the oxygen when it comes to media and stuff, because it's like so outlandish. Like it's, it is a 10%. Like you got to kind of remind yourself that yeah and are those i don't know like it seems that most people want to be a part of something whether

it's you know a family or a team or a neighborhood or whatever and you know you wonder like right you know does that section not have that are they you're longing for something in that regard um or is it just something completely outside yeah we need like a psychiatrist on board. Why, like why, you know, we've had, you know, truthers or like 9-11 conspiracy, you know, there's a small segment of the populace that will tell you like, oh, the shootings at Sandy Hook, that was actors. It didn't actually happen.

Like, so it's like, I don't, I'm not suggesting that's 10%, but that is a, there's just, so like, what is it that causes somebody to kind of like buy into the conspiracy theory and think everybody, they think us 90%, they think we're sheep. Like we're stupid. We're like, like, look at you doing what you're told. This is like, it's, it's, it's sound, it's, it's not as polarizing as you'd be led to believe if you kind of just follow along on social media and stuff like this 90, 10 split, you know, I,

I just try to remind myself that like even though it feels like it's a 50 50 polarization like it's not nearly that bad it's it's 90 10 yeah i guess well in terms of this it just preventing the world from getting sort of back to some sort of a new normal but yeah you know just it's not your freedoms it's you're trying to help people you know who aren't as fortunate as you, uh, to exist. My friend, I always, I always get the freaking flu shot every year because, because I always think like, oh, that's, I'm not going to carry this and give it to the immunocompromised person who might die from this. Like, that's always been my thought. Like, I'm always like, give me that flu shot every year. So that's, that's where I'm at.

Right. Yeah. Well, like to live in society, you have to put your faith and your trust in things. Like if you're, you go to whatever art you like, you go and do that and you know, medicine and you trust the doctors and the healthcare. And it's like these, these vaccines and stuff aren't just developed in the last year. Like they've been going for decades and the world's leading scientists and brilliant minds. And you know, yeah, I don't know. It's a thing foreign to me to not want to look out for people and be a good person and help do your part. Humanity's tricky

though. Human nature is very layered and very difficult to understand. And Luke, Satel Singh? Okay, so Luke is American, right? He's from Britain. He lives in LA now. But not Canadian.

I'm just, because I noticed that you led off with Chris Cornell, who was American. I can't believe he was. I forget sometimes that Chris Cornell's no longer with us. That's so devastating. Yeah, with that voice, my gosh.

These jams are bumming me out now. Yeah, there's a lot of loss. Well, it's been a heavy year. I don't know. Well, it's not going to get any better with the next jam here. Do we need to like bang out like party anthems right now?

I don't know, I haven't been really feeling that, but yeah, no, Luke, and I did know this, a friend of mine, Alyssa,

who was in that Born to It doc, who was mentioning that Ron and the lower end and Steve, she is a writing partner of Luke's down in LA, which I didn't know until recently, so small world, but,

uh, but Luke breaks your streak. So you, you had a Canadian streak going there. Yeah. Oh, and American and Norm MacDonald, of course,

American. That's the one, that's the other thing. It's like, you know, uh, for the Olympics to CBC, it's like,

I don't know. I always felt like best song for whatever you're trying to do wins, you know, and I don't really subscribe to who that might be whether they play so you don't like i mean the promise was perfect for you it was speaking to you but you wouldn't like all things being equal you would try to find a canadian artist yeah like i searched for a while and i just couldn't find anything that impacted and made something that made as much sense as that all things being equal for sure yeah like i'm pretty

much i think i'm well known for putting a lot of canadian music out there um big names small names uh new names whatever um but at the end of the day it has to make sense and make the best video um or best piece uh film whatever you're trying to do um and if you don't i think you're doing a disservice to you know if you're just using someone because of where they're from uh as opposed to making the most impactful piece you can make then uh i don't think you're doing your someone because of where they're from, as opposed to making the most impactful piece you can make, then I don't think you're doing your job. Okay, I'm wearing the shirt today. The shirt I'm wearing today is my Jaws tee.

It's for this jam. And the term we use for the third last jam is anti-penultimate. Okay, start using it. Anti-penultimate. So here's your anti-penultimate jam. jam there you are highest point in my heart there you are

the place that I could never get I worry about you As I always did No solace for solace For what I did I can climb a ladder

Or lower myself down I can't climb a ladder Or lower myself down Stroke yourself down Lower myself down I can't imagine us now I always cut back then A picture round the corner There just laying down

I can't imagine you and I always could then I pictured around the corner they're just laying I pictured around Oh They're just laying Yeah? The abrupt ending. You know, that's twice I've done that.

I don't know what's going on. I'm going to fire my assistant. Oh, that's how it ends. that. I don't know what's going on. I'm going to fire my assistant. Oh, that's how it ends. Okay, good. I only did it once then. Okay. Weaves into the next song. Right.

Yeah. All right. I'm going to fade that down next time. Oh, my friend. Okay. Talk to me. Gord Downie. Yeah.

No Soulless. That song from Away is Mine, his post-humous release. That song, I was asked by Gordordon's brother patrick to make a video for there was a video made for each song on that record and uh uh came out uh last year in 2020 and ended up making a video that song reminded me at the time of uh the horseshoe i just thought of the horseshoe um those checkerboard floors yeah Yeah. So to make a long story short, the video ended up getting made there and it ended up being like a surreal sort of POV walk

from the front door up onto the stage and all through. It was obviously a place that mental locked to Gord and many, many, many shows there, many, many nights, him as an audience member as well. He has wedding reception there. Wow. And yeah, so the song, it was just, it was a completely empty, it's a party next door,

completely empty horseshoe. Party next door is a Toronto artist, I believe. Yeah, there is some activity. Good thing with these mics is they probably won't pick it up. But if not, it's wonderful to hear like, this is people getting together and having a good time. We were just talking about it. Let it in. The this is people getting together and having a good time. So let it in. We're just talking about it all the time.

Right. But yeah, it was just sort of this idea of sort of a ghostly walk through the horseshoe. And it was obviously empty. It was 9 a.m. on a Sunday when we started filming it, which I've never been there. That time with the lights on, it's a very different experience when it's completely empty.

But made it, put candles out and did all this stuff and it was sort of this walk and there's one person in the entire video and when you get into the back, if you know the horseshoe, when you get up the couple stairs into the back music room, there's a bar there

and most often Teddy Fury is behind the bar. So he graciously agreed to be in the video. So there's one person that you see as he hit the back room to go as the song weaves towards the end. And the, the last shot is whoever might be on the stage looking out at this. You just see microphone. And that was a big one for Gordon,

the microphone stand. He had a lot of rants over the years about man and microphone stand. But anyway, it was just sort of like, yeah, who is this character? And that record is really, it was just sort of like, yeah, who is this character? And that record is really, it was the last thing he ever recorded in July, the year he passed away in 2017. And the summer after that, I was in Kingston for the launch of the Gord Edgar

Downey Pier, what we were talking about earlier, the three of the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Right. And it was a really nice unveiling, a beautiful summer's day, and the Hippoway Air Corps family were there. A ton of people from Kingston were there, and the Waterkeeper people were there. And it ended up being like the ceremony started, like to unveil this thing.

And as soon as someone started talking at the microphone, like this sort of wind picked up, and this ship goes by that looks like a pirate ship almost. And then these flock of Canada geese fly by. Then these kite surfers go through and Gord's sister Paula was like, Jesus, Gord's at the control. He was like orchestrating what was going on there.

And, um, but anyway, the point of all this is afterwards, we went, uh, a few people went back to Gord's mom's place in downtown there to have some food and some drinks and stuff and uh ended up uh hanging there for a while and then josh finlayson from the skydiggers drove me back to toronto and he said do you mind if we i

just gotta make one quick stop on the way and i'm like oh i gotta be at work tomorrow like whatever this is great so we ended up going to bath and driving into the bathhouse the hip studio there and he had to go speak with niles who's the guy who runs the place he's an engineer and producer and uh so he's like we just gotta have a quick meeting he's like feel free to just roam around and i actually never been there so i had the place to myself and just uh roamed through all the rooms and like the phantom power machine there's there and the fully completely artwork and all the beautiful old instruments and control rooms and like the phantom power machine there's there and the fully completely artwork and all the beautiful old instruments and control rooms and beautiful old house and uh anyways they finished up and we we drove back through prince ever county and then hit the 401 and just before we get to the 401 josh says do you want to hear something and i'm like i think i do and uh so this was two years

uh 2018 so three years ago now but uh two years before that record came out and he ended up playing me that entire away as mine, as we drove down the 401, which is a straight shot. And it had these insanely billowy, big, uh, white clouds in the, in the distance. And just listening to this thing, uh, that I had no idea about that, uh, it was a very sort of kind of religious experience to sit there and hear this uh beautiful beautiful record that they had finished the year before um and yeah and then this idea of like how to visually represent it uh i think at a time they were going to maybe do a sort of a performance based thing where people before the record came out you go to a theater and there'd be uh songs put to video songs put to dance songs put to some AI or something like that.

And anyway, COVID hit and some videos were made. So yeah, I was honoured to be asked to do one for that song, No Solace. Can I assign you homework? Can I give you homework? Sure. Okay, so I just recently did two episodes. They were two separate recordings with Kevin Hearn. Oh, yes.

Part two is all about the Secret Path recordings and the final, you know, final year of Gore Downey's life and Kevin's role and all that and everything. Honestly, you got to make time for this. Well, you should listen to both actually because Kevin's awesome. He is.

Part two of this Kevin Hearn series, you have to listen to this. You have to do it. I will. You just got to do it. I will report back. He's a lovely guy and he's played with everyone too.

What a musician. He played the look people with James B. Amazing. Penultimate jam. You ready, buddy? I am. It's your life So find your own solutions Strength or strife So find your own solutions

Strength or strife Oh, what's it gonna take? The queen is dead So crown this world a new one I thought she said Oh, let the mountain cake I guess it's time For the permanent revolution

Yes, it's time to blow it all away Good intent And righteous resolution To mend the fence But throw open the gate To parasites And vampire institutions So seize the day And plant that bloody stake

Because it's time For a permanent revolution. Yes, it's time to blow it all away. Ten soldiers, high rollers All right, some more Lois of the Low Talk. Big gambles take big shoulders. I love that line. It's a song called Permanent Revolution from their album Agitpop.

There was a jam on Agitpop. There is a jam on Agitpop. There's a on agitpop where he talks about 14 of them which we'll get into there but uh where he talks about uh my next votes with a brick yeah the barricade the barricade i honestly i'm not a violent man you know like i was ready to throw a fucking brick and i don't know what bank went so i had ron over here last summer just to talk basically about like what that song is riling me up. Like it's just tremendous. Great song, The Barricade. Yeah.

Protest songs are not all gone, you know. They're here. I think there was some internal discussion with the band, I think, about that line. But I'm glad they kept it, you know. Yes. Of course he would keep it. That's the feeling I think that comes out with a lot of people with all this stuff.

Again, this idea of community. Looking out for each other and living good lives and being a good person. As we hear in the background. That's what they're doing across the fence. We should join them. By the way, congrats on keeping that hair.

I know we were in our mid-40s now, but you've still got great hair. Jesus, I got it cut two days ago. I had this. Oh, you didn't hold on to it. You can't see this at home. Well, we're going to take a photo by the tree. But two days ago, I had like, it was out to here. It was a huge, I didn't have it cut in 13 months.

Mark Allen wishes he kept his hair like we did. Yes, I saw a photo of the other day. It's like a cue ball. Oh, Larry. We called him Larry. Larry Fine? Oh, Larry Allen, yeah. Oh, Lawrence, I got you.

Not Lawrence Nichols either. That's right. No, don't call him that. He's a criminal mind. He's a criminal mind. But yeah, that was permanent revolution off agitpop and uh uh what a record um yeah recorded at revolution uh no oh my gosh i'm drawing a blank right now isn't it revolution no that's where we listened to it but it was

oh it wasn't recorded there i thought it was okay i'm gonna shoot myself for saying that um but yeah i had the honor um ron and i've done a lot of stuff together and uh um but how do you get a hold of him because you Facebook message him we live a block and a half away from each other uh so you can't you can't phone ron hawkins You can't text Ron Hawkins. You can't, but you can certainly... You can text his daughter or something. Can your dad call me? Yeah, no. I love that he doesn't have a cell phone. And he's stuck to it for quite some time

since cell phones came out, actually. But now I went to Blue Rodeo and I went to see a TFC match and I needed my phone to get into these venues. There was no like, unlike with the vaccine passport, you can print it if you don't have a smartphone. Like you needed a smartphone to get into these venues.

Right. He just says, I'm Ron Hawkins and it's okay. I guess you can bring a printed copy. I don't know. That's the thing. You couldn't. Like you couldn't at BMO Field to get to this TFC match. You could not. No, no.

It had to be on your on a on your device yeah talk to him you can find out and same was true for the Budweiser stage when I saw Blue Rodeo like these your only option was to show the thing in the app on the phone like this was it really yeah so you're right because the passport passport bags, obviously for something like a vaccine passport, there are human beings in this city that don't have, maybe for money reasons or for just for whatever reason, they don't have a smartphone. So you can't, they have to, you know,

they can print it out and have it scanned or whatever. But at BMO Field, when I went to see TFC, that was not an option. You could not print. Nope. Anyway, food for thought there. That makes me wonder. So I don't know what Ron's going to do. And what's

Jerry Howarth going to do? He's the other guy I know who doesn't have the smartphone. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. These are questions I have no answers to. These are big questions. But we got to do, for that record, Total DIY, like 14 videos.

Many docs. Ron and I just went out and wandered around the city and filmed stuff and uh performed some stuff he sang under the carla bridge i was gonna say saying outside the only but some other stuff we went by their first one of the lowest first the only does serve great lakes beer oh do they yeah of course they do they have everything there that's a great bar too if people are ever over there. This is a great story. Quickly, if I may. Yeah, go ahead.

I think whatever anniversary, was it 20th anniversary of The Only or something like that? Within the last eight years or nine years ago, Lowest of Low played there for this thing. And it was like a Sunday night, and it wasn't really advertised at all. It just sort of happened. and it wasn't really advertised at all. It just sort of happened. And my friend Darby, who used to work with Strombo, he did tons of things around.

Everyone's seen the hip-hop series. Evolution? Evolution, hip-hop evolution, yeah. Brilliant guy doing stuff. Anyway, he and his family live over there, and they were coming back from a show at Massey Hall that night, and they walked by The Only, and he was like, Jesus Christ, that's a good lowest of the low cover band and they walked in and it was like oh my god but yeah again just a way to you know run specifically in the last

year and a bit like most musicians have lost pretty much their livelihood and how do you survive as an independent musician uh he did the Tommy Delcos Tuesdays and he started painting. He's a very resourceful guy. And yeah, so it's always, we have a good history of making some cool stuff and some fun stuff together. So any chance to work with those guys is a beautiful thing. No, I think he's way, way underappreciated in this market.

Like I feel like he's the man. Like he's that great mix of like punk and poetry and just what a cool musician. Anyway, I'm going to close this episode as I have for almost a thousand minutes. I'm a heck of a goalie too, I guess. Ron McLean tells me musicians are often goalies. Yeah, a lot of them are.

Ron was and we did the Maple Leafs forever. If I could actually give a shout out to, speaking of that a couple months ago we lost a guy named Skinny everyone knew him as Skinny William 10 who managed the low back in the day and he up until a few years ago

had restarted to manage Ron and the low again and he had a battle with cancer he was actually responsible for suggesting to Ron that they record garden songs, which included a few new songs and then some different versions of older songs,

which in turn were the version of Peace and Quiet that's in Maple Leafs Forever spawned from those sessions. So in a way, Skinny is responsible for the song that became Maple Leafs Forever. So I just wanted to give a shout out to skinny and he was a really sweet dude. He used to manage cuff the Duke back in the day and he's Hayden's managers was Hayden's manager as well forever. So a really sweet, awesome dude who really was doing it all for the right reasons. And yeah,

no, I'm sorry to hear that. I miss him for sure. Yeah. Sorry to hear that. Really great guy. Now we're about to kick out your final jam here. Quick word. I want to urge people to subscribe and listen to the CEO Edge podcast. That's by McKay CEO Forums. Nancy McKay has fireside chats with inspiring CEOs and thought leaders. I post the latest episode on torontomike.com every week.

I posted one yesterday. So again, subscribe and listen to the CEO Edge podcast. And here's Tim Thompson's final jam. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo No matter what I do for you It's never really enough I hope you can see that The struggles that we've had You know I tried so hard for you Just making you stay

It'll be alright, it'll be alright It'll be alright, it'll be okay Be okay guitar solo We'll be right back. Thank you. No matter what I say to you It's never really enough That I hope you can see past the struggles that we've had you know I try so hard for you just to

hear you say it'll be alright it'll be alright everything will be okay One of the great air guitar songs of all time. Anyone who's seen that live will know. That's Ballad of a Lonely Construction Worker. The great Cuff the Duke, yes.

Cuff the Duke. Yes. They're sort of on hiatus right now. Hopefully they come back and do some stuff because I think people really need that kind of live show again. Anyone who saw them, it was just a really amazing gathering of community

and sing-alongs and hoedowns and all sorts of rock out bliss on stage. So yeah, really great band from the early 2000s and up until they toured a lot up until about i don't know 2014-ish uh 13 14 and then sort of took a break as people got older and had families and stuff and um i used to go play trivia with wayne the singer and a few friends in a bar called the Wilson 96, I think it was, in Little Italy. And we do that every Monday. And yeah, nice memories. We did a pandemic version over Zoom a couple months ago,

and it brought back a lot of memories. So I've been playing that song a lot, a lot of their songs a lot. But that one, I always kind of go back to from their first record. It's got that nice two and a half minute. Yeah, there's a couple lines of singing and mostly just rocking in so if you've live it was a it was just an absolute beast like just to see and uh um yeah what a what a band that was from their first record too so it's like uh quite amazing and lawrence nichols just texted me as you bring that song in the edge ofop was a revolution they recorded over at Dubzat, but the majority of it was recorded at Union Sound.

Couldn't remember that name, so thank you, Lawrence. See, he has a smartphone. Yes, so thanks to smartphones. In fact, when I need to get a hold of Ron, I usually contact Lawrence. Yeah, pretty much. And I guess maybe throw the Cuff song out to Ben Rayner, too, because he's a big fan of them. Well, he's a great FOT them. Oh, what a guy.

Well, he's a great FOTM. You're a great FOTM. I think we got this in under the wire. It's getting pretty honest. It looks west of here. It looks dark. Okay, so we wrapped it up before the rains came down. Dude, honestly, we spent over two hours drinking beer and listening to great jams out here. I mean, I have to confess to the listenership that during the low song I went and took a leak

in the bush back here. But you're hanging in there all right. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks so much for doing this. We're going to have to do this again at some point. Yeah, for sure.

A third round. There's always new songs. And that. Take it away, Ron. That's right. Let me talk over Ron for a moment. And that brings us

to the end of our 918th show. And you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. All right. So Tim is at boundless, but the O in boundless is a zero. It is, yes.

That's the top secret way to follow. Our Tim Thompson films on Instagram. Okay. Tim Thompson films on Instagram. I got to follow you there. Mostly Lake Ontario photos. That's okay. I Mostly Lake Ontario photos. That's okay. I love Lake Ontario photos.

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Make sure I get your lasagna before you go here today. Stick're at McKay CEO Forums. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Make sure I get your lasagna before you go here today. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home. They're at Ridley FH. And Mike Majeski of Remax Specialists Majeski Group is at Majeski Group Homes on Instagram. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable

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