Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Punk: Toronto Mike'd #1051

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Mike chats with Al Nolan, frontman for The Almighty Trigger Happy, Brian McCullough, drummer for Youth Youth Youth, and Shawn Chirrey, author of Tomorrow Is Too Late about Toronto punk. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

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guaranteed over 100 stores across the country. learn more at canacabana.com joining me this week to share toronto punk stories are al nolan frontman for the almighty trigger happy and here that bell is brian mccullough drummer for Youth, Youth, Youth, and Sean Cherry is here, author of Tomorrow is Too Late. Introduce yourselves, Sean and Al. I'm going to let Brian into the Zoom. He's going to join us here. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here.

I'm Sean Cherry. I'm the co-author of Tomorrow is Too Late, Toronto Hardcore Punk in the 80s, and also just we put out in the fall, Eve of Darkness, the same parallel book for 1980s underground metal in toronto amazing and al who the hell are you buddy my name is al nolan in the 80s i sang for a band called deep end that used to rehearse about three or four blocks from where we are right now just at royal york and lakeshore uh just a couple of blocks i also sang

in the 90s and still am singing in a band called The Almighty Trigger Happy, and I run a brand new independent record label called Cursed Blessings Records from Toronto. Okay, amazing. Now, let me just check in on the Zoom. So you two are live here in the TMDS studio, and joining us on Zoom is Brian.

Brian, can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me? Hey! Loud and clear. Say hello to Al and say hello to Sean. No, I'm not plugged in. You're not plugged in? Hey, Brian, how's it going, buddy?

Can I get a little more of me in the monitors, Brian, please, if you don't mind? Maybe next week, not today. You got it, buddy. Welcome, Brian. Okay, Brian. Thank you. You're the drummer for Youth, Youth, Youth. That's true. Thank you. You're the drummer for Youth, Youth, Youth. That's true.

FYI. Yeah, it was only 40 years ago. Yeah, tell me a little bit about your brief bio. And then I'm actually going to just play a little bit of Youth, Youth, Youth and a little bit of the almighty Trigger Happy just to introduce the audience to our two special punkers. And then we're going to talk to Sean more about his book. And then hopefully we're going to capture a whole whack of great stories here.

Super, yeah. When I was very young, I joined a band called Youth, Youth, Youth when I was about 16 or 17. And we managed to make a record and hang on for a couple of years and do a bunch of opening slots with bands like GBH and UK Subs and Dead Kennedys and DOA and on and on. We had a great little run. And I continued to play over the years in different bands,

and parallel to that, I've worked as an audio engineer for 35 years or so, touring with the Good Brothers, better known as the Sadies' father and uncles, and I worked at the Horseshoe for 20 years and I'm at the Phoenix these days. Rest in peace, Dallas Good. Yeah. Oh man, I was watching the Junos yesterday

and they had a memorial segment, if you will, and then still seeing his face and then seeing his name on the memorial reel, it's still difficult to believe. He's in the intro for the new Kids in the Hall. I heard that. Yeah. Now we're back to the Kids in the Hall.

Right. So Brian, before you showed up, it was a lot of Kids in the Hall talk and a lot of Bob and Doug McKenzie is what we were chatting about. So the Kids in the Hall dropped the new episodes on Friday, I believe, on Amazon Prime. And Friday night, so this is actually a way of me to say thank you to all FOTMs who came out for TMLX9.

We had it Friday night, and it was a great turnout, and it was just great to see everybody. So all you wonderful, sweetheart FOTMs who came to a public park to meet me last Friday evening. You're awesome, and it was great to enjoy some Great Lakes beer with you all and catch up with you. Yeah, so I'm a bit behind on my kids in the hall. I've got to check it out. Yeah, I've only got the first episode. Right on that mic there, too.

I know you're going to want to face out. Okay, so again, thank you for joining us, Brian. It's awesome to have you. Thanks for having me. So let's start with a little, just a taste of Youth, Youth, Youth, just because we're going to educate people. There's no assumptions here that anyone knows anything about who the hell you guys are or what the hell a Youth, Youth, Youth is or what is this almighty trigger?

What are we talking about here? So here's a little taste If you can find this record right now, the original pressing of Youth Youth Youth is going for about $75 to $80. That's before shipping, if you can find this record right now, the original pressing of Youth Youth Youth is going for about $75 to $80. That's before shipping, if you can find it. I found this record at Sonic Boom on Spadina about two years ago. And I was surprised to see that it was only $60 there. Wow.

I'm resisting a strong urge to air drum right now. I did. I already started playing guitar. Hey, what's going on? Do you want to shed some light on this reissue that's possibly happening, Mr. McCullough? I don't know a whole lot about it. It's an initiative of Brian Taylor. It was the legendary vocals.

I filmed a couple of pictures and so on. Yeah, and the front man that rotate this. So, yeah, I think it man that rotate this. So yeah, I think it's in the vinyl clog up after COVID. So it's going to take probably a number of months for him to be able to get it pressed. But I think it'll be essentially a reissue of Sin and then different outtakes that were not on the other reissue. So yeah, he put a lot of effort into it and they dug up a lot of old rare cassettes and demos and remastered them as best they could to sort of give an overview of the missing parts of the story, hopefully. Nice.

For the listeners at home, there's a repackaged Youth, Youth, Youth CD that is available as well, along with the original pressing of the record and this brand new compilation that's going to be available soon. Right on. Yeah, Reek Packaged was actually a vinyl record and a cassette. It never came out on CD. I think maybe Brian made something available digitally

from Youth Youth Youth, but yeah, no, none of our stuff ever came out on CD actually. Right on. Very nice. I'm going to turn this up a bit, and we're going to go into another jam. What do you want? Velocity and grit! What do you want?

Velocity and grit! What do you want? Velocity and grit! It's funny, every Toronto recording, you can always hear the winter. Oh now after 9th of September's Christmas Hatred and its progress to negative shape Misery verse My fear of silence and cursing and faith. It's your time to walk and you're late, you're late.

I'm passing it in and you're late, you're late. Why don't we walk and I'll take you again? Oh. Why can't we run? Wow, if it's too loud, you're too old.

Al, what are we listening to here, buddy? This is a song called Blood Red and Forever Blue by the almighty Trigger Happy that we wrote in 1996 at the corner of Royal York and Lakeshore, just a couple of blocks down the street. No, man, I know that corner. I mean, I'm a cyclist. I'm literally on that corner every single fucking day.

Well, God rest his soul, Mark Klucznik, also known as Mark Gibson, was the guitar player when we were teenagers in a band called Deep End, that I mentioned earlier, and then in the 90s we changed our name, or evolved into this band called The Almighty Trigger Happy, which Mark passed away about six

years ago. Excuse me, Jesus, nine. Nine years ago. Jesus. And we have a current version of it. I started the band, so I'll fucking finish it. And yeah, so I'm sure Brian can relate. Oh, yeah. And it's very nice of you to include us in this.

Thank you. But yeah. Well, we're going to turn it over to Sean. So we're turning it over to Sean. We're going to talk a lot about this book and the scene, of course. But I wanted to introduce the listenership to you two. So I have a nice note for you from another FOTM. Elephants and Stars.

You know Elephants and Stars? Yeah. I'm an idiot. I should have worn one. I have an Elephants and Stars t-shirt I could have worn. I've got to think more. But this is what he writes. Oh, my. I gotta think more but this is what he writes oh my

Al Nolan never fails to bring the goods have known him forever he is nothing if not genuine he also coined the term cardigan rock when referring to our band and then he also points out that

you share his affinity for early kiss please give me give him my best band and then he also points out that he uh you share his affinity for early kiss yeah it's man please give me uh give him my best thanks manford you're a nice guy nice cardigan rock is uh i used to refer to the english uh bands in the early 90s like uh teenage fan club and uh all that all those jangly bands i was gonna ask you what was your definition of cardigan rock certainly wasn't youth youth youth it wasn't what i heard i mean honestly okay so so i'm gonna pass the mic if so to speak shout out to the beastie boys i'm gonna pass the mic to you sean so tell me a little bit about like you know why you wrote the book and maybe can you help guide us on like a tour here?

Because you know these two special guests best. And I'm here just trying to absorb like Toronto punk stories. Yeah. And you sort of have like three layers of the 80s here. So Brian would have been here into the hardcore scene before me. I get involved around 83, 84. And you came about a couple of years after me. My first show was COC DRI, November 27th, 1985.

And for us, there was, the last few years there's been, the last decade really, there's been some really great books. So the Treat Me Like Dirt book that Ralph Alfonso was involved in and Liz Worth wrote, that, you know, was sort of, there's a famous book about New York City punk called Please Kill Me. That's sort of the template for oral histories. And so Liz Wirth worked on that along with Ralph and put that great book out. There's the Trouble in the Camera Club that Don Pyle from Shadowy Men put out.

Back to Kid in the Hall. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Completely, completely. And, and then, uh, Colin, Colin Brunton, who's,

who's the producer on the kids in the hall, Colin, Colin Brunton, who, who did the last pogo and last pogo jumps again. So there's a shout out to the Gary's too. They're also at the teams and Kevin, Kevin McDonald,

my first show. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is going to be a fun chat. Yeah. So, I mean,

there was all those great things about 70s punk. And I was, you know, a product of 80s hardcore. I, you know, my first concert was I went down to the C&E in 81 to go see Triumph. But Teenage Head was opening because they were on the same label. They were on Attic together. And that took me down the route of punk rock. My next concert was devo after that but brian were you at that show were you at the uh that uh i know you've been at a number of

teenage head shows i was not at that particular one no luckily i actually do sound for them now hopefully they'll get back at her but i've been lucky enough to mix their audio a bunch of times in the last five years. No, I didn't see that one. They were part of a lot of legendary shows over the years, probably about ten that you could think of. It was the show after the riot. They let them play there again?

Well, it's C&E after, because the other one's Ontario Place. Yeah, that was the grandstand, right? The C&E grandstand show that you're talking about. Can you tell me about that? Somebody educate me on this riot. The Ontario Place riot for Teenage Head? That's 1980,

right? Oh, so that was before. Yeah, yeah. So they had, I don't think Teenage Head knew the riot was happening, but the riot happened outside. The forum performance, if you remember, it was a rotating stage. First concert I ever saw was Chalk Circle at the forum. Oh, yeah, totally. I i saw that show i know which one you're talking about

uh and yeah and teenage head didn't know they were they were just this band at the time that everybody was happy about and people started going to the show and it got did it get unruly on like in the park first well what happened was the capacity of the venue is about 7,500 people and it's free with admission. So they didn't stop letting people into the park until close to 20,000 people were in the park, although they blocked the gates to the venue. So there were people rocking the gates, there were people swimming the moat, and most of the riding was people that were paid to get into the park, but then were not allowed into the venue.

So it was a bit of a pressure cooker, not the fan's fault, really bad planning. Because it spilled out onto the subway too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I remember it made it on the news. It wasn't like the Alice Cooper riot. No, we were notorious for riots. That's usually between the C&E and Ontario place.

I was at that one, so we can loop back to the other ride if you want. I didn't make it to the Teenage Head one. You were at the Alice Cooper Riot? Yeah, I was. Oh, cool. I remember that old music. I was 15 in the summer of 1980, and we were down at the X with my buddies,

and we noticed that the doors to the concert were open. So we just wandered in and they were attempting to get the crowd to leave but they hadn't made the announcement yet. So we just wandered into the concert. Zahn had already played. And Alice said he wasn't going to play at 6. Alice told them at 6 he wasn't going to play

but they decided to put the opening act on and not tell the audience till nine 30. So they could get enough police cars there to quell the eventual riot. Such a Republican. So again, it was a bit of a kettling incident. And yeah, I saw police on horses with batons beating the Christ out of girls that

were attempting to peacefully leave. So that would be like a radicalizing moment for me when I opened up the paper the next day. All the shit that I saw was completely different from what was being written in the paper. So I looked for another path and it wasn't long before I found Youth Youth Youth. Wow.

Great segue. It was a nasty night. The powers that be really made a mess of that, much like they did at the Teenage Head thing. But at least the band got the publicity for it. And the blame. Yeah. They always do.

If you read Gods of the Hammer, the book about Teenage Head, that's the first opening chapter. It's about the Ontario Police Fiat. It's a great book, by the way. It captures the feeling of it. It really really really does it's funny um oh i thought you know i was i was i didn't want to take over i was just gonna say that

there was a teenage head tribute band like when i was a youngster called teenage kicks oh from north york yeah and i saw them on the new music and i remember saying to my dad i want to be in a band like this is ridiculous like because i was i think i was 11 and i when i saw them play and jd roberts who's now john roberts on fox uh brought in frankie benham and i think steve man or marshall was his stage name but man is his irish name he brought him in and i my head exploded i'm like whoa they're getting to meet these guys and stuff and i was i think i was just going to grade seven and i knew i wanted to be in a band ever like even kiss and all that kind of crap but when i saw actual people my age and

they like it's funny how just teenage head without even knowing is just so instrumental if not it's like just part of the osmosis almost oh yeah yeah. You just can't get, just by being on the 401. Yeah. They welcomed the little tiny lead singer up to sing with them on the simulcast. That's right. I was at that show. Cornette theater. God bless you Brian. Cornette theater on young street. I think it was 83.

But yeah, that was a big deal. And teenage had never sound better rocking out of your stereo with the TV going. Oh yeah. And with, and with your, put your radio on top of the television for simulcast. That was a big deal.

Yeah. That was killer. And you could feel like you're at a show. Yeah. I knew you'd never get into, it was pretty heavy. Okay. Sean.

So we don't, we know Brian's, you know, uh, connection to the punk scene and now Al, but like what connects you to punk? Like for me, it was,

I started doing radio interviews at CKLN, Ryerson's radio station. So me and a buddy, Calvin, I think we were 16 in high school, and we started interviewing bands for a show on there, and then we turned that into a fanzine. So I had a fanzine called Still Thinking, and then we had a record label that did the same

after that. And it was, to me, I think watching CDTV, you saw that this stuff was happening here. Like I always assumed like you'd see The Clash coming through or something. And then they started covering local bands. So like I remember Direct Action showing up on New Music and they were, you know, one of the local hardcore bands. And it's like, oh, this stuff's happening here.

Like I was probably too young to go to shows at that point. We mentioned the Gary's earlier and there was, there's, there's, you know, there's that theory that it went New York, London, LA,

that's bullshit. It went to New York, Toronto, then London, then to Los Angeles. Yeah. Because we were like, even though we didn't matter,

you think we weren't going to hear that? Or sorry, the elders weren't going to hear that. Yeah. Cats like Brian, Brian McCullough, Brian Taylor, et cetera, et cetera, Jill Heath. Yeah. The other elders of the Mount Rushmore of Toronto Hardcore.

Well, and like we were really, I think. Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Brian. Yeah. Sorry. Long before my time, the Garys brought all kinds of the seminal artists. Yeah. Starting in 75 or six 6 like the Dead Boys and

the Ramones were at the New Yorker Theater in Toronto in 76 so a lot of the teenage head guys and the people that got you know pulled out of the basement and on the stage after seeing those kind of performances was all due to Gary Topp and Gary Cormier. Were those guys

running the Rio at that time too? Cultural grandparents of all of us. That's perfect. The Roxy. Roxy 99 Cent Roxy. Yeah, that was before the New Yorker. Yeah. Yeah, and they ran the horseshoe during a pivotal eight months

that developed into Colin's film of The Last Pogo and all that. So yeah, the Garys are intertwined. Very important people. Love it. Well, we're going to talk about a lot of these venues, the last pogo and all that so yeah the gary's are intertwined very important people love it well we're going to talk about a lot of these venues but maybe we start with you know some unknown name some of the bands that were part of this scene in the in the 80s i just want to leap back to direct action since al brought them up i would never say another band was better than my band

but they were the most powerful you fucking they were at first being reckoned with a wall of power and sound and even when members changed the fucking the thing just never could be derailed by anything and they are

probably the most underappreciated of the greatest bands of Canada of all time I think luckily their cassettes have been pressed. Schizophrenic did a great job to make that stuff available and some overseas reissues and stuff too because the original album didn't catch the same fury as the cassette did. But by God, any time you got a chance to see them, they would blow the fucking doors right off of whatever they were in.

Terrifying looking individuals. see them they would blow the fucking doors right off of whatever they were in yeah terrifying great songs great songs great great songwriting great pop inspired songs that were just going a million miles an hour yeah yeah yeah al who do you like yeah let's hear somebody else missed uh for the older bands yeah like from toronto i well i can't like the first the first local band that i actually bought a cassette of was Sudden Impact. Yeah, they were great. And because I knew who Micro Edge were, because where I lived in Pickering, in order to listen to like radio shows like Aggressive Rock,

I mentioned this in the book, I had to tie, my dad was a semi-pro soccer player on the weekends. So I had a soccer lace from one of his boots that I would tie to a radio and I would hang it out my window for as long as I could so I could get CKLN's reception. That's amazing. And hope to God I pressed record on the cassettes. Because that's the only way you could document any kind of culture

back at that time. Because there was no youth culture for anybody that didn't like, you know, like Iron Maiden wasn't enough. Right. You know, and the Sex Pistols was already 10 years old, gone by that time. And it was a $3.99 cassette. So there wasn't really that much of culture for anything.

Would that be Brian Taylor's radio show? Brian Taylor, no matter what he's done to you, what he said to you, he is one of the most valuable, most important people in this city, in this country. Oh, absolutely. For both of those books.

He can be a little, you know, at the till of a record store like anybody can, but he's a great supporter of local music. Oh, yeah. He actually produced and financed and made all of that happen. And again, I would, you know, bring my courage and sudden impact as well as the metal stuff you wouldn't have sacrifice you wouldn't have slaughter and and brian is very passionate and

emotional defender and publicizer of music as well so um yeah i i he would never give you a hard time if you were discussing something not at work no but no he he'd give you a hard time if he knew you were qualified to a certain degree yeah yeah i mean every they all he learned from the best the people that worked at record peddler when he joined there you know were classic record store employees if you bought something else that they liked they would help you out for sure like if you're hip enough to buy the sonics they'd be like oh yeah well maybe you should be listening to this too which in 1980 the sonics were completely obscure yes for example but i'm getting away from hardcore but yeah brian can't be underestimated he's super equal of the

gary's and jill heath he's very gory tireless promoters it's just like oh fuck oh fuck but brian just happened to be in a band and it was our our band so um but yeah his f his estimate his influence and help cannot be under us did you did you you played the concert hall with the dead kennedys yeah we opened for them unfortunately brian wasn't at that one there was a bit of a communication breakdown but uh okay yeah we took the stage and mike mccurdy from the young lions gamefully filled in for us there was a multi-camera shoot yeah yeah audio and everything and the dead kennedys got wind of it and inadvertently swiped the young lions and youth youth youth masters and ended up not getting their own tape so it kind of floated around as a bootleg for years at the concert hall but our stuff

disappeared and ended up somewhere in a box in california jeez louise yeah there was the two shows back to like a year apart there was like dead candies played the concert hall 81 and it's first wave punk bands opening or sort of the in between i was there it was uh screaming sam and the problems and le trange isanget is Charlie Angus and Andrew Cash. Sure. Your local NDP rep in North Park. I think Bob Ray was on drums. But I think that was like September 81,

and then the show you guys opens August 82. The Toronto hardcore scene really the wheels started spinning like hell after that first ted kennedy's show and uh a lot of bands came out of the woodwork in a very short period of time and they were all ready to go you mentioned micro edge and sudden impact that was the one the other one that i don't want anyone to forget is chronic submission because they were damn near as chronic submission anybody and they were like fucking 10 years old i mean i'm exaggerating a little bit yeah we we we ended up with rustin uh the drummer for chronic submission playing in trigger happy and he brought a huge amount of professionalism and insanity and terror to our

band but at the same time uh uh you know when you were a young kid going to these shows like um first and foremost in in the 80s like punk rock was supposedly dead but whatever was still lingering it was still dangerous to go to one of these shows like no matter how much unity there they were fucking going on about it wasn't there unless you were in it so you like being a kid from pickering or even a kid from north york you took your life in your own hands going down there whether you were going to get rolled by rustin and his fucking buddies in chronic submission at the twilight zone for whatever you had in your pockets or either brian taylor was going to give you guff or something like that or buzz from direct action would try to hit on your girlfriend or whatever or something like that like it it wasn't just

about the music like it was about these fucking people and that's's why sometimes, you know the chicken and the egg concept? I don't know if the music came first or if the people came first or if it comforted each other. But then again, like you said, Brian, earlier, I wasn't the friendliest guy either when my band got rolling. It's like, fuck you, you earned this. I'm not going to give it away or anything like that. So I can understand completely how older dudes would have been

not welcoming or friendly to anybody coming up. Cause like you said, you're passionate about something that's yours that you helped create. So why the fuck would you want to give it away to just any asshole from Pickering and a dead Kennedy's t-shirt? Like, yeah, it definitely was an outsider's movement.

So you'd have to qualify as an outsider in some way. And sadly, that either, it either meant being from a broken home uh early drug addict or you just acted like an idiot like it didn't matter about fucking songs or all the above yeah exactly if you're looking for another path i really think it's all it took when you look back at the wide variety of people that were around the non-violent ones coalesced together you know and your comments sort of reminded me of, I think it was an article in Toronto life that attempted to make a distinction

between the bunch of fucking goofs, the street gang, a bunch of fucking goofs, the band. It's like, there's no place where that stops and starts. You know, the only difference is that some of them are less prone to breaking out in unprotected violence than others yeah yeah i remember an example of something that brought a whole different part of the scene you know that became the fort where they live and they did shows they ran bars they ran their own alternative universe

and they kind of acted as a vigilante crime control in the in kensington market if you're trying to sell crack or fucking street cocaine look out i remember the the matchbooks how to explode a glue head do you remember the match yeah yeah they were there were any certain drugs coke glue and they had songs about it but i have no argument here i was i was in uh jesus i remember was in grade seven and i remember somebody going do you know there's a band called a bunch of fucking goofs in toronto and i was like uh what who would call themselves that? And then, because my mom worked at a bank downtown and she would see all this stuff and everything.

She would call it culture. That's the thing that made me laugh or whatever. But she even, I didn't know you were involved in Still Thinking because I thought that was Morgan Gerard and then he went on, or that was One Solution. One Solution was Morgan, yeah. And Steve Goof, he set up a, was it DMZ?

Yeah, there was a couple of DMZs. Yeah, a couple locations. One was the old club without a name at Dovercourt where we youthy thieves played with bands like the Effigies. Wow. Don't recall where they were from. Boston. You had a hell of a single called Body Bag.

It was a hell of a record at the time. And Ian Perkins, who ran the early Drake Hotel and a bunch of a record at the time yeah and ian perkins who ran the early drake hotel and a bunch of different clubs there was very uh not just punk there'd be all the various alternative and post-punk and reggae bands etc anything out of the mainstream but he was a great supporter of us at those clubs and then the second dmz was uh where the liquor store is on Spadina there in Kensington market. So it used to be the Paramount hotel. And that was a hell of a place where I saw lots of crazy shit and killer

shows. I don't know how they managed to convince the owners of the liquor licenses and so on, how to make that all happen. But again, it was a huge thing. And because of the goofs street level of communication they also brought a lot of artists to toronto that would not

come and they are also cultural ambassadors and i met them when i was 15 or 16 so they were always great friends of mine they'd been to high school with my cousin and all this other shit so um i never had any difficulty with them. And Steve is the only person I know that's really kept his stick on the ice for 40 years. The rest of us have done different things and always loved punk music and remained true to a lot of the attitudes and ideals we formed back then, but he still walks the walk.

Amazing. Now, before we talk about, I want, I want to hear about all these lost venues that would host the underground scene, but you guys mentioned direct action. Who is best able here to tell me the story of, I guess, the accidental self-stabbing? I know that one. All right, Sean, let's hear it, buddy. Well, there was a film being shot too called Not Dead Yet that was a documentary, and there was two shows. One was at Larry's Hideaway, which we'll talk about, but the infamous stabbing show was on New Year's Eve at the Turning Point, which was Zig had this guitar with shattered mirror on it

that was all reflective, and he had a bayonet, and he used to stab at the guitar. And this was during the shooting of the documentary, and he just stabbed himself. Yeah. Yeah. This was during the shooting of the documentary and he just stabbed himself. He was on acid. It was New Year's Eve. I was there.

You were there. It was pretty gnarly. Nine hits. Was it Anthony that stopped the bleeding? It's entirely possible. He'd be strong enough to stop anything. Just with his hand. Yeah.

A great contributor also to the scene and supporter. One of the first people of color as well. We talked for many hours through the book, so I don't recall off the top of my head what made it in or not. But Zig was a very gentle soul, and he just came alive with the guitar in a way that I never saw anyone else fucking do ever before or since and uh he uh the story where when buzz joined the band and he found zig sleeping on his fucking doorstep to give him the pedals he'd need to be in direct action i cried when i read

that story you know 40 years later i was just like holy shit that reinforces who I thought he was back then. And yeah, they were... Direct Action brought a lot of things to the table. Obviously, there's a lot of Stooges and New York Dolls and MC5 and a lot of stuff in there that little kids who formed hardcore bands wouldn't have been exposed to yet. But they sure didn't be afraid to speed it up. The old rock and roll guys in toronto when they would see them at the turning point stuff they just could not believe that they

would attempt to play that fast they're also one of those within a year everyone was doing it they were also one of the first bands to cross over into the metal scene uh direct action open for exciter a few times and yes and they actually did it without changing their sound. They didn't know. It's not like they went like Discharge or TSOL. There's nothing wrong with it, but Sudden Impact evolved from a skate punk band into a thrash band. But direct action didn't change. The people just came to them and their sound, like Panasonic, they were just slightly ahead of their time.

And people caught up with direct action. It's too bad they couldn't stick around for you can reap the glory trapped in the world is is gone usually you can get that for about 75 if you can find it a real like there's a german one and there's the canadian one i think the german one is half and half yeah one side a is the album and side b is the cassette yeah so um yeah man if you're looking for it try to track down demo 84 on schizophrenic records i just got one myself and it was hell to find but that's the one three three real quick points here one is i fucking love this like keep keep on telling these stories cap just keep sharing i love this and secondly sean maybe this is a good opportunity

to just remind the listenership like like, the name of the book, how they can get it. It's a direct action song. It is. The title, Tomorrow's Too Late, is a direct action song. Right, okay. And the press we created to put the books out was called UXB Press, so Unexploded Bomb.

That's also a direct action song. Okay. As much as, you know, direct action and Youth, Youth, Youth, I'd say were like the prime bands, and Sons of Ishmael would be the other one, but. Well,

micro edge, micro edge were crucial just because they were skateboarders and every song was about skateboarding. And the only other acts that were doing anything about skateboarding was this little act you might know called suicidal tendencies and aggression in California in the early eighties. Right. And micro edge also were,

uh, they were the first band that uh well when they became sudden impact they were you know they were our band they were like you guys had your bands and then from my time period i was buddies with a band called missing link that lived out in pickering really brian you know robert fripp of kind of weirdo punk rock kind of stuff and uh but you know when we saw those, those bands, you couldn't help,

but just look up to them. And then sudden impact was just so organized and they were, they had vans. They, you know, Mitch worked at a cycling shop. Like they were really the most, they were really active in what,

what we were doing. They looked like us, you know, and, and like they had guitars and stuff like that. And just read the artwork on those sudden impact cassettes was just the wildest thing ever. And,

you know, and also they, they were, they were functionable because they weren't unfortunately afflicted by things. That's cause by that time, direct action were dying off. Yeah. You know,

buddy, when Paul Newman joined the band to play drums, one of the guitar players just disappeared in New York. Like when they were like, that's some story. Yeah. They tried to tour and they tried to go and it just wasn't working. And then,

you know, even youth, youth, youth had stopped by that time and when i got into it punk was dead like it was the vile tones like you'd see stephen lecky being interviewed on television and and but you wouldn't even know what the fuck he was talking about and it was like there was nothing like everybody wasn't using the name anymore at that point even lecky's disciples yeah yeah but even like even given up on the vile tone well it's like you said everybody went from a mohawk to a cowboy hat and and went there is that yeah and then they started wearing cowboy boots from doc martens and they started you know it got like discharged because you didn't wear a t-shirt you wore a

chemise or a blouse or something it was every 20 years, something is made, and then it destroys itself, and it eats itself. So it always happens, like all the time. And I did the book with Derek Emerson, who was in a band, MSI. And we worked with a bunch of people, Steve Perry from CIUT. Another very valuable gentleman.

Yeah, he's very much a punk historian. And we interviewed people for like a year. We were interviewing. We did about 130 folks that we interviewed from all the bands and like you know we had brian and and brian and uh the whole youth youth youth crew on the radio taping it and it was just the and it was funny every time every band uh had a cathartic moment too you guys did as well like there was always some apology or or some sort of like emotional moment you know same thing happened with direct action um every band had these sort of cathartic

moments because i think many of you had probably seen each other but not collectively as a band and so it was it was very interesting but um just the the you know just phenomenal stories coming out. And how does someone get this book? It's actually, good luck. We, we,

we print, we printed it back in, in, in 2018, 2018. And we had a show as part of the not dead yet festival. And it, it sold out in three weeks.

Like we burned through the first edition and it's got steve goof was on the cover of the first edition then we put out a second one with with brian taylor from youth youth youth youth youth in his um leafs jersey uh his tiger williams jersey more importantly yes and and that sold out about just before the pandemic started it's that sold out then we haven't reprinted it. So Toronto Public Library has it. And occasionally you'll see it show up at a used bookstore. Okay.

And I mentioned there's three things. The last thing is I just need to crack open a Great Lakes beer as I continue to absorb these stories. So shout out to Great Lakes who sent over some fresh craft beer for us. Brewed for you, Ontario. It's a burst. Brewed for you, Ontario. That's right burst. Brewed for you, Ontario. That's right. That's one of their

tank tent numbers. Put one in the transporter and send it over here. I wish I could, buddy. I would. Hey, what's the story about a gun-toting intruder? And again, a lot of these band names, I'm learning a lot about a lot of these bands. Blibber and the Rat Crushers oh nice they were in the i was around for blibber

blibber uh was evan taylor and they were uh i don't know maybe i'm not sure if they'd agree but it struck me as inspired by the forgotten rebels pretty yeah i used to think it was a comedy and sarcasm to it and the lyrics were frigging hilarious. Because he's got that same kind of voice. Oh, yeah, Jolly Tambourine Man, which was more of the same, but with a drum machine and so on. And Stuart Orr was involved in a lot of the things. But, yeah, Blibber played a lot.

I think Travis Goode from the Sadies did a little time maybe playing with Blibber. He did, yeah. I'm not sure if he's actually in the band, but he was around those guys. And yeah, they would have... Wagga wagga hey, wagga wagga ho. They had the first skinhead bowling song before Camper Van. Nazi punks go bowling at the Bowlerama.

Lisa Berger works at Burger King. That's right. I'm sure I have the tape somewhere. All this shit's on YouTube. I couldn't believe it. Amazing. So there's a blibber and a rat crusher gig, and then there's someone with a gun intrudes.

What's this story? You've got this one. I'm trying to remember this one. So it was at the turning point. So the turning point was it's the McDonald's. It was across from the Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM. Upstairs, the turning point was above the McDonald's. Every venue in Toronto.

I went there maybe once, and that was it. And you would have been there more often. It was this old Irish couple ran the joint. And it was a holdover because they had punk shows, but the backdrop was Jose Feliciano. It was red, though, wasn't it? Way larger than life. I only knew it from Not Dead Yet.

That's all I only knew. Yeah, take Jose. Jose Feliciano wallpaper was the stage. Yeah. It had been an Irish pub, and they had sort of run the course of that. And when the 77 punk bands started coming in, they started selling beer again.

So that's where I saw the Vile Tones first and the Forgotten Rebels and where our very first show was, in fact, too, in November 81. Which band was first, Youth Youth Youth or the Lions? The Young Lions were around before us. They were kind of an established I would say more of a street rock band And a rock punk band And they had been moving along in that direction With the same influence as a lot of us had

With the 70s punk bands And then the hardcore kind of came along And they were already in mid-stride And they picked up and ran with it along with us And we ended up rehearsing in their house And doing tons of shows with them long and they were already in mid stride and they uh picked up and ran with it along with us and we ended up rehearsing in their house and doing tons of shows with them and schizophrenic also put their stuff out too who got you your own your first show we got that ourselves by talking to the folks at the turning point joe joe and ann the owners and uh brian our singer was four or five years older than me.

So for a number of years, I used his ID to get into shows. That's why he didn't have a photo. That's right. It helped to have the same name too. But I remember showing him his ID, which said I was something like 21 when I was 16. So for the next three or four years, when I didn't know what to do,

I would just go to the turning point because they'd always let me in. Oh, I know Brian. He's okay. So it wasn't just the punk shows. I saw fucking a hundred bizarre shows, everything from blues bands to fucking 80s retro keyboard shit, which was not retro yet, I guess.

And again, things like I said, the Vile Tones and the Gun Club. Oh, fuck, really? So, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, wow. I think that would have been a different club. I'm getting that confused with the upper lip because they have the same dimensions. But the Turning Point was a real home away from home for us and the fact that it was the highlight of Not Dead Yet

and the punk wedding and all that shit, that was really true. That was our home for a couple of years and not just hardcore, great bands like the Raving Mojos, who I was lucky enough to play with later that were kind of like the Ramones meets Chuck Berry or something. You know, those guys couldn't believe direct action playing so fast or why someone would cut their hair. They kind of wanted to beat us up, too, but we became friends with them because of the intensity of the music. And the turning point was kind of like a clubhouse for us.

And it was a real shame when it got rolled over. John Borough was here recently playing live here. Actually, it was cool. And he was telling me about the turning point. And remind me, where was it again? It was right at Avenue Road in Bloor, just a little west up above. I think it was Mary Church's chicken at the time right mary mary brown's chicken that was the around there's still a lot of land company that restaurant would be shaking to death with direct

action when you went down to get some fries or something before 11 so this turning point that's funny this turning point chatter is the perfect segue to talk about, please, I need to hear about all the lost venues that I never had a chance to visit.

Well, do another SCTV tie-in while we're talking about the Young Lions. Oh, yeah. Do you remember the Queen Haters? Have you seen

the Queen Haters sketch on Mel's rock pile? Yes, yes, yes. That's Young Lions. Yeah, the music was recorded by the Young Lions, even though lip-synced by Eugene Levy and John Candy.

Right, and Mark Short. So, you know, once again, I was there. Oh, fuck. Wait, shout out to Brother Bill. Okay, I wanted to know Brian was there. By then, the Lying Lions had become a trio, and the contract for the session came from Ian Perkins again at Club Without Name and and and the Drake Hotel so they required a four-piece punk band and there

was only three of them so they called me up and said will you come and play rhythm guitar to satisfy the contract so I'm in there playing along you can't really hear me much but when Mike goes for his guitar solo you can clearly hear me holding down the A and G chords there for the Queen haters. So, yeah, that was – and we didn't know what it was. We all showed – I wore my Youth, Youth, Youth t-shirt. We all showed up like we were going on TV. It was just a recording.

And did you know the lyrics when they were doing it or no? Oh, we had – he was just – the director was just kind of thumping it out and yelling shit. So not really. We didn't have of thumping it out and yelling shit. So not, not, not really. We didn't have a clue that it would be that funny. So you didn't hear Martin Short's lyrics? Didn't really, no. In my recollection, I don't think we knew at all.

I don't even know if they were written yet. I remember even my mom and dad laughing at that. Yeah. Well, and it was, like, you listen to it and you go, oh, this is like totally crass. Like, it's like screaming about the fog gl or whatever times like brian i know you were there front row and center but you don't know how many times my band later on would impersonate that fucking crap and i would even say i would even as a joke go uh make me laugh like like i would impersonate that and you were fucking front row and center jesus

luckily it didn't turn out to be eternally embarrassing but yeah somehow they nailed that one yeah but even the the oh like those are killer yeah or even john candy no i know the drummer from the exploited yeah yeah yeah definitely up the exploited or crass as ali for sure maybe they pull it off a little better. Who wants to talk about Larry's Hideaway? I know we referenced it a few times. Larry's Hideaway. I got to go once, but I think Brian McCullough is probably the more authoritative. Who did you see, Al?

Maybe I was there. Well, it's a good one, but it's not very punk. I got to go to, I stood on my tippy toes and I put my head down so my long hair would go into my eyes so the creepy bouncer at the door who was letting the 14 15 year old female prostitutes in without a hassle he wouldn't hassle me I got to go to the razor evil invaders video shoot oh and I think they the reason why they let such youngsters in was because the band was

filming during the day or close to doors being opening. So they just wanted as many people as they could get in there. And I went with James from Mal Havoc. And I remember that day at the Peddler, somebody saying, you've got to hear this band called Corrosion of Conformity. It's going to change your life. And then we got those records after that Razor show. And I remember then going to see see brian taylor played coc and dri this is on the same night of the same episode of arg rock and then within two weeks it was

november 27th and we were at i'm changing the subject i'm sorry i'm going to ildico is the other other location that is closed back to larry's hideaway and now to brian yeah i didn't make it i saw a bunch of razor shows but i wasn't there that day they were again on the cusp of something new that's for sure larry's was an incredible place it was huge whereas the turning point was confined and there was no place to hide you were kind of in the barrel of a cannon especially when direct action or chronic submission was ripping it up but at larry's it was huge and uh i mean i saw hanoi rocks there i saw husker do on the new day rising tour i saw that one yeah you know i saw the king bees which might not be as exciting to you guys

but it sure thrilled the fuck out of me when i was 16 and i had those those two records and the rockabilly revival was starting to come down the pipe oh yeah larry's was uh you know i met friends there that i had for years the bar staff was awesome uh they had a real sound system and ken mcneil who was the house guy actually didn't hate punk rock he had he had long hair and shit and he'd probably be rather mixing you know izod tribute to priest was a fucking huge don't make fun of izod and it was rocking but he would have rather been doing that i think but he didn't treat us disrespectfully and if it was direct action or the forgotten rebels he understood that it was

in the same family as Teenage Head which the headspace was named after they played there so much they kind of semi-renamed the name after them so we were very lucky, a lot of the older punks and guys that were part of that scene did not identify at all with hardcore but some of them did and could see

the continuance and yeah having a sympathetic sound guy with a kick-ass PA and a booking policy that would allow you to play through your set and not get yanked off the stage that was larry's hide yeah it was another venue fucking huge fucking joint yeah and the gary's were booking there too wasn't exclusively gary's but it was like dwight yocum and the violent femmes played there oh yeah really yeah yeah and even like we like ornette coleman played there. Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And even like, like Ornette Coleman played there. Yeah.

Like Suicidal Tendencies, their first gig in Toronto was there. For slightly younger people, the Apocalypse Club is a pretty good simulator of Larry's that had that same kind of Ildikos similar was Downstairs and any shit could happen.

Yeah, Ildikos too. Ildikos was like that too. Well, see, Ildikos Anything could break out. Ildikos was a Hungarian dinner or dancing club out ildikos was a was a hungarian dinner dancing club yeah and i like i don't yeah like i'll never forget going in there and seeing the little copacabana lamps on the tables and oh yeah they had a guy in a satin fucking one yeah doug that was spectacular and he would he had and tonight here's the bunch of fucking goofs and

you know it was just like spectacular right out of vegas he had congas vegas he had congas up at the sound board oh yeah i forgot he would turn the mic on and while the band was playing he'd start joining in with his congas like what the fuck dude and then uh but the i tried to tell the story in the book i don't know if it got in there but um there was one night at dildo because i can't remember it was fair warning um sudden impact and countdown zero uh we're playing together and doug obviously knew this this couple came in and they were still in a suit and they were there for dinner okay and i don't know if i don't know if doug owed this this gentleman money or if it was someone someone like a little a little more important and tad sinister but he sat them down as if it was that scene in goodfellas the way henry hill like greased everybody which is the best scene yeah

and he sits them down and he gets them a drink and brings it over and buddy's sitting there watching the kids run around in a circle like doing the like doing the circle pit and i swear to god he gets up takes off his suit jacket puts it around the missus's shoulders to keep her warm and comfortable and he rolls up his sleeves and he waits for a fucking opening in the pit and he fucking gets into it and there he is in like skanking in like some brown polyester like 1980 86 it had to have been and there he is going around in the circle like with fucking various berries of people that are in that book and stuff it's like such a weird place but then you know as brian mccullough probably reminded everybody once when you start a band very young

you're you get into you're exposed to a lot of stuff and even the word exposed is even creepy to say because you know you learn about bikers you learn about drugs you learn about sinister situations and it it like it takes years off your life physically it adds years to your life mentally at the same time it's just like it's it's a whole other world like you go from mickey mouse to mickey spillane overnight yeah well and and larry's was like upstairs was a nothing was a hotel yeah and it was and still on that land nothing will grow on it yeah like it's beside a church and there's a bunch of trees and still to this day, nothing will grow on that patch.

And it was just drug dealers and ladies and ladies. Prostitutes and cockroaches. Oh yeah, it's a real eye-opener. And of course, of one summer, you go from hanging out at Sherway Gardens to hanging out at the Retiree. Like Al said, it was a real full-on everything sheridan mall things there that burned right into your memory that you'll never forget going upstairs to hit the band room

was always an adventure just what you'd see in the hallways and the fucking open doors full-on freak show all right what about the edge the edge so that was before larry's so that was the the club that the gary's ran betweenorseshoe and going over to Larry's. And it was 79 to 81, I think it lasted. I was 10. Yeah, so it was before my time. Did you ever make it there, Brian? Yeah, I saw my first couple shows there, actually.

The first one wasn't too thrilling. It was an afternoon matinee with Martha and the Muffins. I think I was 14 or something. But I was pretty excited to get in there and hear Echo Beach. one wasn't too thrilling it was a afternoon matinee with martha and the muffins i think it was 14 or something but i was pretty excited to get in there and hear echo beach well they're here next week mark and martha are here next week killer i will i will really cool shit and again gary and gary booked all that stuff and i love that the first real show i saw like in the night time was the hardcore 81 tour by doa with the original four-piece lineup when i was i was 16 at that show and i was just like blown away i was again

uh unlike direct action doa with the proper lineup can fucking create a wall of sound that no one else can step to and again that was one of the formative experiences for me biscuits and rampage yeah yeah and there was a billion shows i would have loved to have gone to there but again it was just before uh and it let me in i probably could have drank but i was so afraid that i was even in there i was just like holy christ there's my sister i hope she doesn't see me i better not drink or i'll get kicked out before doa plays or whatever you guys were lucky. You could get home on the TTC. We had to walk home from the Metro Toronto Zoo

through the Rouge Valley to pick her up. It was crazy. Being from Etobicoke, I could walk to the subway in 10 minutes and be downtown in 20 minutes. Really, the biggest thing for that was hitting the record stores as soon as your parents would let you go down there for Saturday afternoon. Hey, Brian, what part of Etobicoke were you from?

I grew up on Bloor Street between Kipling and 427. Okay, yeah. I'm thinking like Mill Road? Or no, am I? No, you're west. It's more like Shaver. Shaver is the lights there. Sure, that becomes like

Shorncliffe at Dundas or something like that. But I know what you mean. I know that nickname. There was a club down there, too, actually. What? It was long known probably more for exotic dancing. When I was in high school, though, it was called Great Gilmore's Roadhouse in Helmuth. 600 people, and it had two stages.

And at one point, they were booking the bands from downtown. Richard Carstens from granny and madhouse and off hawking and all that shit i forgot what band he was in at that time but he played there i'm like this is very strange that i can go south 10 minutes to a place where the people from downtown are playing and david baka was another guy that's a very talented guy what high school did you go to brian i went went to Burnham Thorpe Collegiate Institute. All right. Yeah, I know that neck of the woods.

I'm in New Toronto, just kind of south of... I think our most famous alumni is Catherine O'Hara. The O'Hara family went there. And Mary Margaret as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Right. I don't think there are any other musicians besides me and Mary

that made it out of there. Gowan came from somewhere around there. Well, I saw her. Don't think Larry Gowan actually went to our high school, but he was in the neighborhood. I saw Mary Margaret a couple years ago when they were doing the benefit, I guess, for Freddie Pompei when he was in hospital, and she was singing with... I think it's his anniversary today. Is it his anniversary of his passing? the benefit, I guess, for Freddie Pompei when he was in hospital.

And she was singing with... I think it's his anniversary today. Is it his anniversary of his passing? Yeah, we probably did a last interview with him, but she was doing Surfing on Heroin with the Forgotten Rebels at a little club on Dundas Street. So that's the last time I saw her. Wow.

Yeah, Mary is an incredible treasure. Any other venues, lost venues, that we should shout out at this time? So that's the last time I saw it. Wow. Are there any... Yeah, Mary is an incredible treasure. Yeah. Any other venues, lost venues that we should shout out at this? The Upper Lip was another interesting one. So that was, there was a place called The Lip, and then The Upper Lip was above it. It was Kitty Corner to the Gasworks. Oh, that's on Yonge Street.

Yeah, and it was probably one of the first places to do all ages shows. So Pete Jones, who was in quarantine, started doing all ages shows there. He called them jailbait shows. Pete Jones, who was in quarantine, started doing all ages shows there. He called them jailbait shows. There wasn't a term for all ages. He was the guy who started Hardcore Sundays at Larry's. Sean Pilot was

the main booker there. He goes that far back? Yeah. There was a couple. I don't know if you were there for any of them, but we heard stories of two riots between the upper lip and mostly the Gasworks bouncers and patrons

coming over to beat the crap out of people at the upper lip. It's like the five points. Yes, I was definitely there for that one. I think I fucked it up in the book interview and said it was Chicago's Subverts, but it was actually Channel 3 from california that were playing that night and the bouncers mistook the mosh pit for a riot and went across the street and got all their buddies from the gasworks and then it turned into a real fucking riot when all the gasworks bouncers came over and uh it blew over with a

i don't recall the cops or the ambulance is, but there's a good fucking Donnybrook for a while. And I basically just hunkered down behind Steve Hemme from the Young Lions. The Young Lions drummer was a few years older and had a pretty good reach. So he wasn't inclined to be violent, but if violence broke out, he would stop it dead in its tracks. So, yeah, that was a wild night and again in 1982 this would probably be uh not just the sound man but everyone from the bouncers to the bartender no one knew what the hell was going to break out and they really thought that the place was going into a state of war

and it was just kids having fun it's funny every documentary that you watch there's always that story the bouncers don't understand what everybody's doing yeah it's yeah it's they're kind of busting for a far spoiling for a fight too right so i mean when they see violence like this is our cue i remember bouncers saying to each other i didn't take my meds tonight so let's have a good night like that kind of shit i remember that stuff like fuck so i hear you guys talk was the upper lip also uh did tons of punk we we had a side band with some guys from the young lions and we opened for doa there that was the club that i saw the gun club in wow and and that was like 1982 and no one would accuse them of being hardcore but

they certainly fit into the if they were from toronto we would have been playing with them a lot just like the jolly tamarine man or corpus or these other fucking outsider acts that weren't really hardcore but were still just side by side with you you know i dare you to call corpus not hardcore well here you guys referencing uh gasworks, right? Which Mike Myers famously references in Wayne's World. But now I gotta ask you about much like Upper Lip, but Start Dancing. What was Start Dancing? So that started as an

all-ages DJ night thing and Mike Myers shows up at that as well. He was one of the kids who would have shown up. But that was his brother's parties, weren't they? Like Peter? Which one? Or Paul? I thought they did ska parties. I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm sorry.

I'm trying to think of the names. You might know, but then they started booking some shows. So there was a venue called Deschbaguette Hall and there was a few handful of shows where it was DJ night and bands. And Acoos Cardu was supposed to

play there and that show got canceled jill heath was going to book that one but that ended up being there's someone we should mention jill heath is very valuable person um promoter promoter uh just just and also a woman like just you know and and it's it's not oh i don't know why we have to describe women to put them up to a level. We think that's our equal by saying tough as nails, you know, she was just a good person that could recognize good in other people. And even if you were a fucking dick to her,

she would find the time to help you out, to get you to the next level of not being a dick. And she was just a really valuable person, just as valuable as Brian Taylor, just as valuable as the Gary's. She was a road manager for Black Flag's last tour which was pretty much just the Greg Ginn show at the time. She worked on the Warped

tour for many years. She helped us sign an international deal. Before that all happened in her career, she also promoted a ton of shows, not just in Toronto, but in Oakville. We played many times with her and she's a very dear friend yeah she stands out like most of the people who hit the ground running were in a

band and they had a motivation to get all the shit going like brian and there's nothing wrong with that but the people like jill and the gary's and so on that took it out of the love of the music without actually being an artist was very helpful. And we couldn't have done it without her. And Sean, Jill Heath had like a private photo collection, right? Which you've got a bunch of these in the book, right? Yeah, probably at least like I'd say like a fifth of the photos or more are all Jill photos.

And we've been working on potentially another book with her of her shots of shows outside of Toronto but yeah she was phenomenal and it's funny there was some like Oakville there was something in the water in Oakville because the two promoters besides the Garys were Ruben Kincaid were Ruben Kincaid

and there seemed to be rules between the Garys, Jill and Ruben Kincaid productions because they all sort of would, and sometimes they'd trade off shows, like Jill gave Husker Du to the Gary's because they wanted a bigger guarantee and things like that.

And there seemed to be rules of, like, Jill's team seemed to get the bigger, hardcore bands, and Ruben Kincaid would get the sort of more medium-sized bands. There was a couple of bands out of that time that were always enjoyable, and that was Zero Option, who were great friends of Jill's,

and we played a bunch of shows with, and Section 8 was the other one I'd want to remember from Oakville back then. Hype came a little later. They were great. They did a record and all that stuff, but they were kind of the next wave along. To us youngsters, Hype were very impressive.

They had a record, they had a tour, they had a manager, and his name was this guy from the partridge family yeah and they toured more than probably anybody i think most of the toronto bands made it to ottawa montreal a couple made east coast tours well even like vatsis los had like remember those guys they had a tech guy who was a guy from pickering and he he used to bring me along to shows like he i had to take acid. That was the only punishment. But I would get a ride back to Pickering after those things.

And it was really eye-opening just to see what goes on in the office of Ildikos or what goes on in these other places that I was allowed into or whatever. Amazing. Before, I would like to talk about the role of record stores in this scene.

But you mentioned dropping acid. And can we have a frank discussion for a moment just about like the drugs that were part of this scene it's i mean it's less than like the first wave of punk and and heroin is is a thing but whatever whatever drugs we did we brought from the suburbs yeah because you didn't know and like what you were going to get you didn't know what you were going to get from whoever was downtown yeah i made the mistake of grabbing a hash at the arcade on Yonge street as a teenager and it was laced with PCP. So you like, you know, I made that mistake once. Or it would be shit. Yeah.

Like it would be, it would be molasses, you know, but, but at the same time, like I found out at an early age that most of the drugs were outside of the city anyways. Like most of that kind of stuff. But, but when you get into something as a kid, you're only into it for the music. that most of the drugs were outside of the city anyways like most of that kind of stuff but but when you get into something as a kid you're only into it for the music you don't know anything like i didn't get high to a record until i was like in my 30s like like even sabbath like i like remember like even like figuring out the diminished fifth and all that kind of crap under the influence of hashwell and then and then you didn't do nothing until like later yeah because you became lazy and gross because you were so into the music that every second even if it was like someone that

you didn't like you wanted that pit you wanted something to go off to well even within hardcore then there's the straight edge movement and so there's like a whole group of people and derrick was one of the guys and and his band were a straight edge band uh more stupid initials so there was those elements by the mid 80s, straight edge is all over the place. But there was also like the goofs, as Brian was saying, they, you know, they were anti glue and coke and heroin. But you bought hash or weed off those guys. Yeah. So that was.

Yeah. So I consider that a consistent position. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever go to the fort and use the gas mask the bong no like i that was my my first trip to the fort i remember i told my mom and dad i went to see the monkeys in ontario place forum where we were talking about earlier i was at that one too oh and i went i went with lee ryan uh he's still alive and we went in there and they they had a

double tape deck and i remember God love him. Uh, uh, Godzilla was, that's what you called him at the time. He was still alive. Uh, nine fingers,

nine fingers was there. And, uh, Steve, Steve, yeah. Steve said, uh,

if you go buy a cassette. So I went and bought a $3 cassette or buck 99 or whatever, brought it back and they taped me everything. But while I was waiting, they said, here, you're going to try the gas mask and i'm like okay what's the gas mask so literally out comes this fucking gas mask like darth vader's helmet and it goes down on your head and then they packed it full of so much hash like i floated home on the go train with my bfg cassette and i remember getting inside the house my dad god love him goes your eyes are very red son what's the story and i'm like i was in a house full of cats that's not bad that's not bad yeah yeah i mean when we got to it at the beginning you know i was literally 16 or 17 years old when we started so we weren't really looking

for drugs we were trying to find a beer yeah you know like getting liquor was quite a challenge when you were that young and it didn't take a whole lot to get through a a practice and like unlike when you'd be older but uh you know i i hardcore doesn't scream acid to me it's like pretty intense already you're at the front of the fucking subway going off a cliff before doing any drugs of any sort and even once we started smoking more weed and hash and stuff it took a while before you could actually play hardcore on that shit yeah and uh mostly quite frankly you know there's a bit of speed around but no one was doing coke and no one was doing acid particularly. I mean, the other thing about the direct action show

with the bayonet and everything, it was New Year's Eve, 1980 fucking four. Yeah. And they had that song called 1984. So maybe if I was in direct action, I might have strapped nine hits on two and just fucking hit the afterburners. But it never seemed like I was going to get through the show if I did that. And once you expand a little, sure, listen to Piper at the Gates of Dawn or certain things.

It's a no-brainer. Lamb Lies Down. Do that with your high school buddies. But really, we were broke. We were putting our money together. We were spending a lot more money on records than we were on dope. How much were drumsticks in 1982? Yeah,

they probably weren't that because again, you're buying them out of the shit barrel at long McQuaid's at that point too, for like 99 cents a pop. Cause you don't even know what size you use yet. And so on or how to tune the drum kit. But, uh,

it wasn't, cause I was $4. We're trying to get together and get a bit drunk and, and get high and have fun. And it didn't really, as much as it might seem from the outside that it was all fueled by drug fucking abuse, it really wasn't in my experience. And really, like, when you're just learning how to play and you get good and high on weed or hash, you could fucking can't barely play hardcore.

It's a counteractive drug. And certainly doing mushrooms or acid, you just fucking can't barely play hardcore. It's a counter active drug and certainly doing mushrooms or acid, you'd just fucking head off into the field. Last thing you'd want to do is go into the club at that point. Coffee and hardcore makes more sense. I didn't drink coffee until I was 21. I don't think I'd even... I didn't drink coffee until I was 21.

Didn't drink tea house. Alright, Brian. It was like a cultural explosion. It seemed like being part of it was the drug, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Well, the last thing you were short on was energy, and especially being a drummer, too. Yeah.

It didn't seem like speed or anything like that was going to be necessary. All right. Brief intermission here, just because I need to give the guys here some gifts. I wish I could get something for you, Brian. But whereabouts do we find you today? Whereabouts are you in the world? I am at Pinnacle Hill Trailer Park in Centerton, Ontario, in the living room of my trailer. Nice.

Nice. I found a weekend getaway. Nice. Okay, wish you were here. But here, I got a... So Al's here, and Sean is here. Do you guys eat Italian food? Hell yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I have in my freezer, just was just delivered today. I've got a large meat lasagna for each of you. Oh, thank you. You're going home with some Palma pasta.

Nice. I feel like. Tell them what they've won. Exactly. I'm giving you guys gifts. So thank you. Palma pasta. It's actually,

I want to say happy birthday to Anthony Petrucci from Palma Pasta. Today's his birthday. Happy birthday, buddy. And lasagna going home with these gentlemen. Happy birthday. There's a Toronto Mike sticker

for each of you. I got to get a second one here, but from stickeru.com. So thank you, stickeru.com. That's where you guys get your stickers. We use them as well

for our book stickers. Okay, very punk. All right. Very cool. Love those guys. They're in Liberty Village, but it's e-commerce. Anywhere you got an internet connection, guys get your stickers and we use them as well for our book stickers all right very cool love those guys they're in liberty village but it's e-commerce anywhere you got an internet connection you can get stick i live in liberty village okay so it's right there on the agenda and dufferin there yeah and it was also home to a great booze camp and also home to brian liberty street booze camp brian we're the alliance and believe Youth Youth Youth were rehearsed on Dufferin.

Yeah, it was at Gordon Street. The building still stands. The Young Lions lived in, like, basically it was a garage. It didn't have any heating or anything. And it was, again, like a clubhouse. Great fun, direct action, 20th Century Rebels, which were a great reggae band that probably brought the reggae influence into the Young Lions. Letron J was there in their early years.

Prisoners of Conscience, Sudden Impact, I'm pretty sure were there at some point. Most of the bands in our immediate scene were there, and bands would sleep over, like the the suburbs from Chicago would come through. They had a great EP seven inch EP to the one that sticks out was radiation nation. A lot, it's a lot of these bands that never caught on. They'd come to town and then they'd sort of move on and disappear.

Unlike, you know, I saw a black flag when they first came to town and wall, they caught on they sure did it was before henry was in the group the one thing that that was mentioned in the hardcore book i'm excuse me for interrupting that that kind of killed our whole scene here was the fact that cassettes started to be the way that people started to release their music because strangely enough american bands were still having vinyl pressed in canada but up here you can only

get accepted if you were like a cassette and and independent cassettes still weren't really recognized completely by chain stores except only places like the record peddler or vortex or even records on wheels at the time was the three places that you can only really go to for this kind of music at the time yeah and um it just it didn't cassettes for some strange reason you i don't know you can't present someone with a gold cassette unless you're the bare naked ladies because even i find the bare naked ladies that was cultural appropriation the uh yeah the sandwich tape i thought i found that was cultural appropriation that they stole that from us and then and ended up and ended up like kind of taking it and run. Yeah. Whereas like, like we said, freaked out that cassette should have been gold or just even see,

I, I don't even recall because it was so hard to get Toronto hardcore, any kind of it that wasn't just mass manufactured. Like you just couldn't get anything from the city. And then there was that weird void period of like 86 to 89 that there was nothing like just, you know, like not even reissued. Most of the bands were broke and no one stepped up to. Yeah. Yeah. That too. But if no one stepped up and said, I've got 2,500 bucks,

let's do this, which is how a lot of the young lines. Okay. Yeah. Well there, here we go back to Brian Taylor. God love him for starting Diabolic Force. You're already there, man. Cause we were going to talk, I talk i was gonna ask you about you know elaborate on the the role of the record peddler but that's also yeah fringe product huge as important as any of the people we've talked about it was not just mecca obviously finding the records but uh it was a meeting place and uh you could get your clock cleaned culturally, or actually your ass beaten,

or you'd get a really rad record, or Ben or Pete or Brian would be nice to you, and they would tell you what you wanted to get or what you could get. By and large, the punk rockers would get a free pass there because at least you were in the right direction. Well, I interviewed Dan. it was a rare day. You'd have to go somewhere other than Record Peddler to get what you want.

Occasionally, you might have to go to Records on Wheels because of the different distributors back then. Yeah, and when Ben chose to earmark the money to start Fringe and start releasing local bands, most of whom were related to the store somehow. Most of the records that came out were employees of the store, like Andrew Zeeley with TBA and Brian, and I forget a lot of the other ones now.

But Fringe didn't really do it. Did Fringe put out the Jellyfish Babies? Or was that on Jill's? I'm trying to remember. Oh, excuse me. I'll be quiet. Jill also put out the Articles of Faith record that wouldn't have come out otherwise without her

and a bunch of other stuff. What was William New's band? Groovy Religion. Fringe did the Groovy Religion record with the Milton Brothers or Milton Brothers. Yeah, so not a lot of it was hardcore, but Fringe supported all the bands that

definitely wouldn't get signed anywhere else. They licensed a lot of records like from Alternative Tentacles, SST, like Black Flag. Captain Kennedy's. Famously responsible for the day glows here today, Do you want to tell the listenership about, this is the obscenity trial, right?

The one and only obscenity trial in Canada. And the tie-in here, too, is I interviewed Daniel Richler, who was on the new music, and Daniel, I didn't realize at the time, but he was the expert witness for the court case. Oh, wow. So he talked about that. But Ben put those out and it was years later after

they'd come out, some cop's kid had bought them. And it's a Dayglo abortions album. Fetus of fetus. It was the two of them. And two dogs fucking. I thought it was here today, guano tomorrow. Oh, you're right. I'll tell you the story of what really happened on that album cover after

sean tells this story yeah but even like so so so so daniel richler also talked about how he was intimidated by brian so i'm like yeah like here's daniel richler the epitome of of the cool british guy his dad mordecai one of the greatest authors the country's ever had. Yeah, and he was the cool guy on the new music. Like, you know, the regular staff at the new music. The other funny story was that Ben told us that the staff of the new music would, when they were side by side on Queen Street,

would come over literally 30 minutes before they were going to interview a band and go, tell us about X. Their research process was going to the record peddler. Wow. Wow. The, um,

here today, guano tomorrow, uh, trigger happy was like every other Canadian band. You're, they're lucky or it's a sentence you have to tour with the day glows. Um, and so we,

we, in 96, we did a tour with them and here today, guano tomorrow is one of their best records it has mike jack on it um like spud like like it's here here it's a real og record if you know who the jacks are in victoria vi13 um the cover is this beautiful it was it was uh spuds the bass player spud had a gerbil or a hamster excuse me a hamster and he loved the thing and it was it was blah blah blah but you know they're they're frontiersmen at the same

time and he has a gun he has a gun collection so we had the little gerbil set up if our listener our listeners at home do not know the album cover it's dear god it's this it's this beautiful little gerbil hamster uh sitting down is it chocolates or it's a wedding arrangement or something kind of fancy? I think it's a box of chocolates. Yes, a box of chocolates. And he's nibbling on it and there's a gun pointed at it. And then when you flip the record over, there is what appears to be the scattered remains of a gerbil, blah, blah, blah, being shot. Now, what actually happened was, that is Spud's pet gerbil.

I can't remember the name right now. spud's pet gerbil i can't remember the name right now when he was pointing the gun at the gerbil on on the uh the table for the photo the gun slipped out of his hand and dropped on to the animal he knocking the animal unconscious he picked up the animal and breathed air into its little rungs and pressed on his chest to get him going and god love him the thing jumped up again it was totally fine so in order to make the messed up dead animal in the back that's black forest cake and um like ground beef i think or something like that with chocolate smeared around on the thing because i was a vegan at the time when we toured with them and i remember going hey what the fuck man like what what'd you do to this fucking thing like what

the fuck and he was laughing his ass off like watching me get riled up. And he told me the story. And yeah, it was, do yourself a favor, tour the Deglos if you can. Yeah. And this was, the Deglos was after the Dead Candies obscenities trial. Yeah, after the Franken-Christ. The H.R. Geiger poster. That's right.

And I was a pen pal with Jell-O Biafra at that point, because he wrote, he would, there was Maximum Rock and roll was sort of the Bible of hardcore. And you put your, your record in for review. So when I, our compilation seven inch came out, he,

he, you know, sent me some mail. And so we, we were chatting for like, you know, two or three things. And he was sort of,

you know, it was during the height of his trial for the obscenities trial. And it was just, you know, well, they the height of his trial for the obscenities trial. And it was just, you know. Well, they took him to the cleaners. Yeah. Like almost destroyed him personally too. Because he even references in tape heads at the end of that movie with John Cusack. When he gets, John Cusack gets arrested by the FBI because Jello Biafra plays in the FBI.

He goes, what did he say? It's nothing like we did to Jello Biafra or something. So what's the result of this obscenity trial for the Dayglo abortions album? It was thrown out, but it was an expensive process for Ben. It bankrupted. Yeah, it killed the label.

Yes, the song on the next album was called Ben Gets Off. Yeah. Actually, even to go to Victoria, I have a fringe records patch on one of my vests, my jean vests, and I was told by the guys in Fully Crazed, who are available on Chris Blessing's records,

told me, you don't wear a fringe records thing or talk about fringe records on Victoria Island. Don't mention anything like that at all. Wow. I want to talk about the role of media. You guys mentioned the new music, and I want to run down basically

what media would give you your hardcore punk fanzines. Even Now Magazine are the running ads. But pause because I do want to shout out it's not very punk of me but I need to shout out

a few more sponsors so I can send my kids to university. Money keeps the world going. I think I saw a tweet from the, I don't know which kid in the hall was tweeting about how our punk roots, we're violating our punk roots with all this promo and press that we're doing to try to sell this new show. And I was thinking, okay, I'm doing the same here. Okay, so I want to shout out Ridley Funeral Home

and let the listenership know that uh brad jones the funeral director at ridley funeral home he's got a great new podcast called life's uh undertaking and i urge everybody to subscribe and listen it's fantastic so shout out to ridley funeral home anyone on this uh episode be it via zoom or in the room here, consume cannabis. Any cannabis fans here? Oh, yes. What about you, Brian? Yep. Okay.

Yep. All right. So I urge everyone who loves cannabis should be patronizing. I thought you were going to set us up with a cannabis lasagna. Yeah. That is an idea, man. I have a client who actually, he does, he cooks cannabis-infused food. His name's Chef Jordan Wagman.

We were looking for a dispensary before we came in here. Okay, well, Canna Cabana has over 100 locations across the country, and they will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. And they're great, you know, sponsors of the program, so they help fuel the real talk over here. So this long-form conversation about Toronto Punk, not a lot of outlets would do it, man.

We're doing it because of Canna Cabana. And last but not least, because Canna Cabana, great, we got some new Canna Cabana fans here. Last but not least, I got no style, okay? I don't know how to dress, but I recently received

some pants and shorts and shirts from Dewar D-U-E-R this is all straight up I've never looked better

I'm finally getting compliments on my style this has never happened before you look amazing no one's ever said that to me before although this shirt is actually not Dewar

but I would basically urge everyone listening to use the promo code T-M-D-S to save 15% at Dewar, D-U-E-R dot C-A. Or they have a retail store in Toronto and you can go in there and save 15% with the promo code T-M-D-S. So thank you, Dewar. Okay, zines. I got you here now. You know, focus on the zines.

And you can talk more about the zines. But like, what about, you know, you the zines and you can talk more about the zines but like what about you know you mentioned uh ckln and the ciut yeah so like the college radio stations were the prime place so ckln obviously with arc rock and brian show there's two shows there was arc rock on tuesday nights at 11 and then there was in my was it in my was jill show called in my head yeah yeah on sat Saturday nights at around 11 o'clock. She was, she was, Jill was very kind and happy. You could come down and if she trusted you and you had a band, you could go down there and peddle your wares.

Brian, on the other hand, you'd have to be arranged. I think he had sacrifice on a couple of times. Yeah. But he would interview bands at Larry's and then broadcast and stuff. Like Brian interviewed fucking Celtic Frost the first time they came to town, like at the world war iii festival yeah and uh we're jumping i just did like a deep dive into the origin of hip-hop in this city and then i had mastermind on friday and you know everybody talks about dj ron nelson on ckln oh yeah the fantastic boys yeah it's interesting how all these like sub

genres it's the college on the way here i here, I went to high school with Ivan Barry. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's so weird. And he came up in the Mastermind conversation. Oh, interesting. He organized Rhyme, Tom Green's band, and then... Check the OR.

And Dream Warriors. Yeah. Well, Dream Warriors, and now The Legacy, which, by the way, was recorded in DJ Ron Nelson's house. Yeah, that's boring. It all comes back to CKLN.

But what about the new music? And what about Brave New Waves? I had Michael Barclay over here last week, and we were kind of talking about, you know. They were good for post-punk stuff. See, that's where I'll see. In 1985, I was 16, and the last thing I wanted to hear was somebody's fender Mustang.

I didn't give a shit about it. I wanted a Dan Armstrong or a less Paul and SG. I was that focused on what I wanted. I wanted black flag. I wanted LA, Boston, New York, not even New York.

Cause there was no real New York hardcore at that time. It was just Boston and Los Angeles. Yeah. Hence the, the album. This is not Boston or LA and I liked I liked heavy metal so I liked a good chugging angry guitar but I you know I didn't end up in a band like Kiss because I couldn't look like those guys you know what I mean like so when you when like the monkeys when you see the monkeys for the first time it it starts your maledom going you see three other dudes and you you want to play music or chase girls to hold like all the time that's like that's a lifestyle to to a little kid something like that but then when you get into like brave new waves for instance was too jangly for me it was too folky it was it was the stuff that i was over and you but you still couldn't get black flag or like the

descendants or like any of that stuff like regularly like because brian wouldn't brian would play flag but it was done by that time yeah and he wasn't into the descendants like he hated that shit so like anything that had a melody or stuff like that because also you know the older people got sick of the younger people and the younger people wanted something different they didn't and and the last thing i was was respectful to anybody that was older than me and music especially now i've fucking you know i've eaten my shorts i've eaten crow so many fucking times because i've been treated like garbage by young people myself i'm 53 i'm still in a band like i i know my place now but also i was smart i a label, so people still have to be nice to me.

Why don't you shout out your label right now? Tell us a bit about that. It's called Cursed Blessings Records. We specialize in punk rock and heavy metal. It's a local label, but we also have international acts. Here I will present you mike with this four song flexi that we're currently giving away with every word thank you so much records.com love it when i get a gift from the guests love it but like like i was saying brave new waves was

too jangly and also when you're a teenager and probably brian when you were a teenager and like even american bandstand had an adam and the ants on it but it was still structured, you know, and like Toronto Rocks on every day after school. Right. They didn't go, they went from this formula. You watch John Major in a thing or you watch Jonathan Gross on videos.

Channel 47 was the first TV station to have a video show here. They would show old broadcasts of the old gray whistle test at 3.30. Yeah. And then at four o'clock you would get Jonathan Gross. No,

Samantha Taylor was the first Gross. No, Samantha Taylor was the first host. No, I feel like it was Joel Goldberg. Am I crazy here? Jay Gold? That's later.

Something else? Because it was called Toronto Rocks. Not Toronto Rocks. It was called Video Singles. It was called Video Singles. And it was Samantha Taylor who was the program director

of QN07 first. Then they got Jonathan Gross. Then they started Toronto Rocks with John Major from 10.50 Chum all the way back to Chum fm or chum am whichever one had well yeah i mentioned you 10 fit you're 10 51 right now 10 50 we talked about and john major and the the toronto rocks and eventually went to the open format um electric circus thing where they brought kids in yeah there

was ladders there you know it made it look like one of the uh co-creators of so he was yeah because then didn't and this all comes back to maestro because he directed the videos that's right but didn't he go on to do something with mike myers and awesome powers no he wishes he wishes that's a different goal very good no but the guy from the guy so there's a cfmt i know we're it's okay trying to just try to mic this is what we do but on cfmt there was a show i thought it was know we're... It's okay. This is Toronto Mike. This is what we do. But on CFMT, there was a show. I thought it was called Something Else. Like one of the first video shows in the city. Something Else.

And Jay Gold, Joel Goldberg was going by the name Jay Gold at the time, was the host of this show called Something Else. And he just... Then he moved on to City and he started up Electric Circus. And then because of his affiliation with Electric Circus, he directed those early Maestro videos. And, by the way, and the Dream Warriors. Like, it's actually, it's all coming full circle.

But anyway. There was also something called Rock, Pop, and Soul on Channel 47 for us older people that was on just in the couple years before you're talking about. And you would see things like the Stones or God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols. And so it was a kind of a why i don't know who was responsible for it did you know the host what the deal was it wasn't

really hosted i thought it was like a cfm was maybe a franchise thing from europe because there was a lot of weird frog shit but the punk stuff was the first time i saw the sex pistols on tv was that show also i'd like to to mention Jonathan Gross from the mainstream media because he was one of the few people that would pay attention to local bands. He reviewed our record in the Toronto Sun. I don't think it made the star, but he was nice enough to review us in the Toronto Sun, and that made a big difference.

And he mentioned, I believe, the cassette also when it came out. So Jonathan Gross didn't look like he was tuned into everything all the time, but he really was and was very supportive. Like Daniel Richler, not, you know, pretty cool as a VJ and not the coolest guy downtown by any means, but he made an effort to promote obscure and underground music that maybe neither of them really completely understood, but they knew it was something new and exciting that people cared about i just thought it was weird that the

new music would cover a band that a label wouldn't even sign like oh yeah totally yeah it's so fucking strange like because it was almost like the the reporters were being like like rebelling against the labels that were kind of keeping them like biting the hand that feeds them you know like yeah oh absolutely that's also where the fanzines were free of all kinds of influence of any sort which we sort of got sidetracked off and there there was a four or five people that did the interviews and fanzines back in the old days there was no cause for concern there was shrick uh i forgot it's so long i got a box of them at my house in the city but um those people again many of us that did them were in bands but it was the people that weren't in bands that were really uh activated to help and be part of the scene and do what they could do which for them

was creative writing and publishing on a street level and the fact that you could go to the record peddler and the odd other store and there'd be a rack of these fucking things and they wouldn't even be consignment they'd give you your dollar yeah yeah each one and when it's you're just paying for photocopying and trying to get back to your parents house on cab on on ttc fair or whatever it was pretty cool that the record peddler would do that and um well that's like it's it was youth culture yeah people boosted it because we were kids and we were looking for our way and they were well we were kids but we weren't treated like kids we were we were treated like fucking criminals

toronto has a history of tolerating things it doesn't necessarily agree with or understand and punk rock was one of those things that's really interesting there's all kinds of cultural things in toronto that happened that would have got stomped out in a in a city with less tolerance and um you know going back to the days of the crash and burn and the diodes having their own nightclub in a in their rehearsal space and shit that was in the basement floor of the liberal party of ontario's headquarters yeah at the exact details that that wouldn't have happened in other places um the police yeah and the old guys were quite capable of turning a blind eye if what you

were doing didn't involve the bikers and a ton of cocaine and violent fucking offenses or whatever because the cops in mont Montreal were psychopaths. They were nuts. You get warnings from the police. Can you turn it down a little? Or can you pour that one beer out and go home? It was a bit of a cultural renaissance in Toronto to be allowed to do all these things.

And it's reflected in the gay community, which not everyone in Toronto to be allowed to do all these things. And it's reflected in, in, in the gay community, which not everyone in Toronto was part of, but they tolerated it for a long time, a lot better than other places were capable of. So Toronto is a unique place for that. Obviously monoculture waters everything down, but we got away with a lot of things that people let happen, even though they

didn't agree with it or even understand it it's like well they're not really causing any harm so let's get out of their way we got a great song by uh chronic submission called cops ain't tops too do you remember that pin that remember that pin but those guys were fucking little skinheads they were concrete bricks that streetcars yes you're right yeah yeah agreed and shit i remember them dearly i remember but their relationship with the police Oh, they were assholes. They would throw concrete bricks at streetcars. Yes, you're right. I remember a cop giving a piece of that. Their relationship with the police was more confrontational than mine. It's funny that you mention that, though, because by the time I got into it, I guess whatever examples had been set by characters like yourself and Rustin and those guys,

we were immediate instant targets. Like if we had a can of soda or something that they the cops would come up and take it out of your hand and sniff it or just take it your hand and throw it like and these were cops in pickering and cops downtown as well just when you were hanging outside old clothes like on bluer street or whatever whatever gathering places you could go by then they had figured out what the uniform meant but when i was a little kid they didn't really i mean the guys in the lumber jackets and kodiaks sure knew they were supposed to beat us up because our knees were out of our jeans and you had either black leather or

military jacket on we'd have to run like hell all the time to avoid that track stars police were police were more likely to stop a beating than start one in those days it's so weird it's such a odd twist wow it's it's a pivotal moment uh everything got mean around 1980 not just the cops reaganomics rich people became unbelievably greedy and selfish and everything fucking hinged there in the beginning of my band and me being a kid turning into a grown-up seemed to just felt like it just catched last call before the cameras, the clampdowns and everything else that happened since. Yeah, and the politics.

Gentlemen, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Before I place the lowest of the low to play us out here, can we maybe just one by one maybe let us know how we can follow you and specifically what you're up to these days. I know Al, you mentioned you're still performing with the almighty trigger happy and you

got your label. How can we follow your endeavors? And you can find curse blessings records at curse blessings, records.com on Facebook, on Instagram. Yeah, we've got 20 releases right now of local bands and international acts.

I encourage everybody to check it out, please. And Manfred was right, man. Great stories. You were a great guest, so. Thank you very much. You're now an FOTML. Brian, man, great to meet you. I know it's via Zoom, but your contributions,

like as my good friend, brother Bill would say, you were there and it really added a lot to meet you. I know it's via Zoom, but your contributions, like as my good friend, brother Bill would say, you were there and it really added a lot to this episode. Drummer for Youth, Youth, Youth, how can we follow your antics? Well, I still have a group after Youth, Youth, Youth. We're called The Strap. We're somewhat in hiatus, but you can find us on Discogs.

We're available there. They're a great band. Good band. And The Strap will play again at some point. We had many shows with Al's band, The Down Below. We played at least a couple times. And Al is always quality music, no matter what the name of the band is. So don't be afraid to go if he's there.

Very kind. But yeah, you can catch The Strap. And we had also a lot of success with andre williams uh backing him up who was an american r&b guy yeah so we did a bunch of recording with him he's unfortunately passed away but that'll come out at some future date and uh yeah there'll be some recording activity but i don't know and you can see brian at the phoenix concert theater phoenix concert theater for tension come come to front of the house and say hello i'll but I don't know. You can see Brian at the Phoenix Concert Theatre. Come to

front of the house and say hello. I'll probably be there mixing sound. That's funny. On Saturday I've got DJ Dwight and DJ Dhingra in my backyard kicking out jams from their CFNY live to airs that they would do and of course many of those were from the Phoenix. Cool. Shout out to the DJs.

Oh right, Sean Cherry, author of Tomorrow is Too Late. How can we follow you and keep up with your endeavors? Yeah, so we have a couple social pages on Facebook for the two books. So the new metal one is Eve of Darkness. And then Tomorrow is Too Late you'll find on Facebook as well. We've got a page on Instagram, UXB Press, and a UXB Press YouTube channel. Derek is an avid video collector,

and there's a ton of amazing vintage videos up on YouTube of mostly local shows. Derek Emerson has been videoing music since the 80s. He was one of the first people that I knew that documented shows, and he's also a very, very valuable person in this music, metal and hardcore. Hear, hear. Amen. Glad you said that.

Now, Sean, do you think this city does a good enough job of sort of celebrating its history like this? Is there enough coverage of this? Well, I mean, we were lucky in that we won the Heritage Toronto Book Award for the first book, putting that out. And it was a complete shock that we had won that. So that was sort of a nice kudo, and we'll submit the new book for that. I know, I think, I consider myself a pretty savvy guy with his ear to the ground.

He's always, you know, very curious cat too, which is half the battle, you know. And so much of what we talked about today is new to me. Like I'm absorbing so much new information in the last 90 minutes. And that's a guy whose ear is to the ground and gives a shit.

So I always wonder like, like how do we educate? Well, I mean, that's why we spent the years doing this. Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, before we, yeah. Yeah, hold on. This is nice. I'm getting more gifts.

So this is the new book, The Eve of Darkness. Eve of Darkness, okay. And then this is some of the promo stuff that came with the first book. And this is my own copy because we're out of it. So I couldn't give you a copy, but I just brought a copy. What if I roll you for it? I'll defend him.

Sorry. I'm in trouble. And there's the 7-inch that came out with the original. That's very rare, actually. And then there's that flyer insert. Oh my god. I love this shit. That Eve of Darkness book, just a side note to the metal fans out there,

there's a really fascinating story in there that involves a local band called Sacrifice and a very heavy international band called Slayer. Check it out. Loved all of this. Loved every minute of it. Thank you all so much. I just wish Brian could join us

for the photo we're going to take by the magic tree. Someone hold up their phone. Hold your phone up for an iPad. We'll figure something out. But thank you guys so much i just just love this thanks for dropping by and thanks for zooming in brian thank you thank you for the opportunity to go down memory lane and that that brings us to the end of our 1051st show

you can follow me on twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Don't leave without your lasagnas. That's an order. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar. They're at Dewar

Performance. Dewar again is D-U-E-R and the promo code is T-M-D-S. Ridley ridley funeral home they're at ridley fh and canna cabana they're at canna cabana underscore see you all next week Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow wants me today And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green