Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jane Siberry: Toronto Mike'd #1314
Episode Date: August 26, 2023In this 1314th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with musician Jane Siberry about Mimi On The Beach, getting banned by CFNY, duetting with kd lang, getting on The Crow soundtrack, selling all of... her belongings and changing her name to Issa, and more! Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.
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Welcome to episode 1314 of Toronto Mic'd.
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of the community since 1921 today making her toronto mic debut is jane sibory
hi jane welcome to toronto mic'd hi beautiful backdrop i'm just looking through your Sibri. Hi, Jane. Welcome to Toronto Mic'd. Hi.
Beautiful backdrop.
I'm just looking through your many windows there,
and it's like a beautiful blue sky.
There's like trees swaying.
Whereabouts in the world did we find you today?
I'm on Manitoulin Island.
And if I turn my microphone, you can see me, I think.
Beautiful.
You know, way better than Etobicoke.
So I'm connecting with you from Etobicoke,
and I understand you're an Etobicoke gal.
Yep.
So what part of Etobicoke are you from?
Two places.
One was where Humber Valley School was at Kingsway and Royal York Road,
and then further north.
So two places.
I'm not far from you.
I'm at Lake Shore in Islington right now.
So hello from Southern Etobicoke.
Yeah.
I had a few notes come in.
I'm just going to sprinkle these through at our chat but uh
jeff burrows drummer for the tea party uh when i said you were making your toronto mic debut he
wrote me to say jane is a gem of an artist oh um well jeff thanks that's that's nice. I like the word. I like being called an artist, I guess, as in that I care about what I'm doing.
Maybe just strike that, Mike, because that wasn't very significant. I can't explain it.
Oh, listen, listen. This is just a casual conversation here.
So, yeah, don't worry about significance.
We're just going to shoot the breeze for a bit.
Hawksley Workman wants me to say to you that you are so cool.
So shout out to Hawksley.
Yeah.
Hawksley, I can't, I just, I'm sorry,
I can't just be blasé about it.
Cool.
What is, what do you mean cool? I'm cool. I can't just be blasé about it. Cool. What do you mean cool?
I'm cool.
I guess that's good.
I'm so boring that way.
I'd have to hear every single word and what they mean.
But I'm fascinated that you could consider the word cool
to be anything other than a positive attribute.
I would just love someone to find me cool.
Huh. I don't know if you're cool I would
love to do that service for you but I can't say I'm so sorry no listen I don't think I'm particularly
cool but I do want to shout out the very cool Blair Packham because he's the reason we're talking
today uh Blair connected us so thank thank you, Blair Packham.
Yeah, Blair, I guess I know you better than the other two people, but from experience, I think you're a big hearted person who gets nervous when you see me getting ready to ask
you a question on stage. I love the idea of Blair Packham getting nervous. He's performed
a million times.
Not much makes him nervous, but Jane Sibury does.
I may be wrong.
I'm often wrong.
Well, we'll find out during this chat here.
Would you mind, again, I don't know when the last time you were asked about Java Jive,
but would you mind just help me understand the Jane Sibury origin story?
I mean, back in Guelph, you were in a group called Java Jive, right?
Do you mind sharing a bit of that story with me?
Yeah, that was where I first started playing.
I played alone and then met Wendy and we both love doing harmonies.
So we played together for a while and then we added a bass player
singer, John Switzer
and then I guess it went downhill from there
until I was on my own again and then added John again
and then Ken Meyer from Guelph and
more people. I'm being facetious and i should be careful
because i don't want to i loved playing with wendy so it was just it was just how things evolve
and when i worked with john i had a huge change because um all of a sudden I was playing with really good musicians and I didn't have to, I could write beyond my guitar or piano ability.
So that was huge.
And yeah, but playing with Wendy, we both loved harmonies.
She was a really good songwriter
and we had a lot of fun just driving around in her Volvo
to like little local things like Ottawa was as far as we got and then Kingston maybe and Guelph and Toronto. It was really fun.
Okay, that was Java Jive and then you went solo.
Yeah, solo plus.
Yeah. Solo plus.
Solo plus here. Okay. Now, as you can imagine, and I'm wondering how you feel about this as an artist, but when I said Jane Sibri was going to come on Toronto them and then i want to hear you speak about this song
but tom for example said i've always wanted to know why the first record is not on spotify
i loved mimi on the beach so again mimi on the beach on the second album so we'll address tom
before i move on to paul myers you might remember from the scene but why is the uh first record not on spotify
uh i just haven't got it together haven't had the headspace or a lot of these things i have
sort of been without a safety net so i either have to figure it out or if i have money to hire people
but um uh i actually have just moved everything to a new company,
and they've been scrupulous going through the catalog,
and they're just about to put everything everywhere.
But there were complications because some of my catalogs
are on Warner Brothers, and they didn't have my other stuff,
and then I couldn't get into my account because there was confusion.
And, yeah, that's just how it works.
And people think things are done magically,
but often it's a lot of, like, manpower on the end of the artist.
And I just can't do everything.
And I've sort of, like, lost interest in a lot of the stuff of the stuff it's like oh I got a typo on that page well forget it I don't care do you find this
this these business parts before I get back to these questions about uh your your the first big
song I suppose in your catalog but these business parts interfere with the artistry of what you're trying to do?
I had the luxury of not having to do as much of that when I first started because I was signed by a few different companies.
But then when I left Warner Brothers, I thought,
oh, great, I have full creative control again.
Not that I ever didn't have it, but the reason we came to an impasse
is because they wanted me to work with a producer.
And I knew what that meant.
I couldn't sort of work to the nth degree of what I heard,
which is all I care about.
I wouldn't bother if it was something other than what I liked.
So I left, and there was enough momentum
because I wanted the freedom to learn all this stuff.
So it gave me energy to do it.
So I took business courses.
I learned how to program websites and inventory software,
all these things that I kept realizing,
uh-oh, I better learn that too.
Uh-oh, I better learn that too.
So I did put a lot of time into it.
And then at a certain point, I just let it all go.
And I don't want to splay my focus on that too much anymore.
And I realized a lot of it didn't really matter, you know,
didn't make that much difference.
This hesitancy to work with a producer, is that all about control?
Oh, yeah.
If it, from where I'm coming from, other people, it's perfect, you know,
because I'm not sure what the difference is.
But for me, I hear it in my head,
and there's a pressure in me to get exactly that kick drum
or have the piano at a certain level of the mix
to be felt in the heart.
All these little things, it's hard for me to let go of.
So maybe it makes me sort of hard to work with or
um not as open but i have experimented a few times with producers and reconfirmed that it's not really
the right thing for me anyway much as i may love their work yeah i think that would be a difficult
position to be producing j Sibury, because,
you know, you have this very specific vision of how you want the song to be arranged and how you
want it to sound, etc. And who would want to pollute that process? Lots of people. I mean,
especially the, I don't know, different times people said if you had just turned left instead of turning right
you know you could have blah blah blah but to me it wasn't an option it's sort of I think a lot
of musicians it's like a it's just not an option you just you hear it and you go to the end I don't
know I do anyway.
Interesting.
Fascinating.
Okay, now I mentioned Paul Myers because Paul Myers wrote me to say,
ask Jane about eating at Mimi's on Bathurst
back in the golden days of Queen Street West.
Oh, yeah.
I loved, it was a musician's hangout.
Mimi and Mark, her husband,
had the coolest place at the Oakley Steam Bath.
And sometimes when you go down to the bathroom, you can see these big guys, you know, who've come in for their sauna and with towels and stuff.
I don't know if they were like, I mean, they must have been from a different country than ours.
You know, they saw it as part of their routine. It was really cool, you know, to sweat.
Who knows if they were working somewhere where they really needed to have that afterwards.
You know, like, I don't know, chemicals or whatever.
So Mimi would cook us whatever we want.
She would smoke a joint.
If you were from Scarborough and read about her on like top blah blah blah
breakfast place in toronto um she would do her very best to be rude to you so that you'd leave
her with her friends and artists so it was just a vision she had and she carried it through
so i went there and often um took my dog wolfgang and he sat under the table, which meant I could be like an old shepherd who would walk his dog to the pub, giving the dog a good walk.
And then, you know, being able to eat and have a drink.
So I would walk Wolfgang and then have breakfast.
Well, you know, this Mimi who's basically being rude rude to people, because just sort of like, it's sort of a punk rock mentality. But hearing you talk about doing everything
yourself, like learning how to, you know, maintain your own own web page and learning
business and etc. It sounds like you're cut from that same punk cloth of DIY.
Yeah, I would say it's the same cloth as you know farmers and um other people are cut from you
don't you don't have a choice so you just like figure it out it's um just what you do i think
it's a healthy way to be personally what do you think mike oh my goodness you're preaching to the
choir here uh absolutely but i gotta ask the big question because we're talking about Mimi's on Bathurst and you're talking about Mimi
is that the Mimi from Mimi on the Beach?
No
No
It started as
a song where I'm looking at an old photo
and I'm saying to myself I guess
that's me on the beach
those are the people that
I had such a strong reaction against but then
i don't know some at some point that's it became mimi on the beach to shift it from just i don't
know about me or whatever so no it wasn't it came from the sentence what came first the mimi from
mimi's on bathurst or the Mimi from Mimi on the Beach?
Maybe it's...
No, Mimi on the Beach was when I was still in Guelph.
Okay.
Okay.
I ask the tough questions here, Jane, so you got to get comfortable.
Now, again, now you're explaining it, but DJ Dream Doctor and Megan both wanted to know who's Mimi, But if I could play armchair psychiatrist here,
which I probably should never, ever do,
but Mimi, the name Mimi is literally,
like it's M-I-M-I, but it could also be M-E-M-E.
So if you were writing about me,
Jane Sibury being the me,
Mimi would be a very excellent name for such a subject.
Yeah, it was sort of natural. Yeah.
But the thing about Mimi is when I did a video for it
and had to sort of move
into greater visualization of it,
I realized that
the right balance for me was
Mimi should be a guy.
It should be an androgynous boy.
And I knew the perfect one,
but the pressures of the record company,
the directors, they didn't understand.
But it was distracting that she had to be a girl
because in fact, she was like neutral androgynous.
Right.
Actually, I'm going to ask you about the video
because I only recently learned
kind of a fun fact about the video.
But first, if you don't mind sharing the role of CFNY,
102.1, and MuchMusic, but particularly CFNY,
in the breaking of Mimi on the Beach.
I mean, that really suited, that sound really suited
the station CFNY at the time. Well, this is not a locker room
And that's a surfboard, not a yacht
The arrangement's not quite, quite there
One girl laughs at skinny guys
Someone else points out a queer
They're all jocks, both guys and girls
Press the button, take your cue
And see a girl with perfect teeth
She picks up lonely guys in bars
She takes off when they bought her drinks
Don't you have money, I ask?
Of course I do
Don't you have money, I ask? Of course I do.
This is not a locker room here, and that's a surfboard, not a yacht.
The arrangement's not quite, quite there.
The day was flawless in beauty Pitched on tropical scenery
Stretched from white sand up to the open sky
And out of the shining sea again and back to me
And Mimi on the beach, Mimi on the beach, Mimi on the beach, me, me on the beach, me, me on the beach.
Me, me on the beach, me, me on the beach, me, me and me.
Lime's just sitting over here.
Yeah, Liz Janig, who was a host then, she's the one who heard it and sort of pulled it into limelight.
And it was, I think, already sounded derivative of Laurie Anderson's Oh, Superman.
Is that it?
Yes, that's it.
It was the usual like knee jerk thing, I think.
But that's OK.
Flukes happen and the universe definitely works through radio stations.
But that's okay, flukes happen and the universe definitely works through radio stations. So they started my career and they also ended it in a weird way.
So I got a lot of airplay which was really fun.
And then I was one of the first people with videos so that was a bit of a fluke because
the song was not that usual.
So I got a lot of video play for an unusual song.
And then to just explain the sort of cryptic thing I said at the end,
I was at the Caspys, or was it the Junos?
Maybe it was the Junos.
And I was supposed to receive Corey Hart's award,
and I was supposed to receive Corey Hart's award,
and they made such derogatory comments about him,
whoever wrote the script for it.
These were other musicians, I think, or people, comedians or whatever. I was just so horrified by it.
I just couldn't stomach giving him his award after that hypocrisy.
So I said, I'm sorry, I can't accept it on his behalf.
And then I think that, you know, David Marston,
that very night he pulled me from the CFNY library
forever and ever, I think.
Really?
Okay, so, I mean,
David Marsden has been on the show many times.
It doesn't sound like him.
So why would he,
because obviously if it's an award for Corey Hart,
it's not a Caspi, it's a Juno Award.
Caspis are like a David Marsden invention,
a Canadian artist selected by you.
They were the Yunos.
But why would he, you know,
punish you, the artist,
for that stance at the juno awards uh
very interesting well i think it might be good to verify it because it's been a long time but
cory was very pleased i do know i didn't do it to please him but i just i just couldn't stomach it
i like a lot of people although i wish more people couldn't stomach things and said something i feel like a bit of a fool sometimes um but uh maybe we're heading towards that wouldn't that be amazing where
the predominant type of people are like getting pulled from radio stations
saying what they think rather than being such a big gap. And then it sort of becomes like a snowball.
I think it can.
I think it's supposed to.
And different times in history, I guess we've seen it.
But anyway, I feel quieter now.
I really don't want to draw attention to myself.
I didn't mean to then either, but it's like, I got other things to do.
Yeah, well, you went about it in a very poor way
because you will draw attention to yourself
with a successful single on an album that sold 40,000 copies and a video that got on much music.
That's a very bad way to stay quiet. You're so right. No one's ever pointed that out to me.
Thank you, Mike. I'm here to tell you how to stay quiet. You don't make the video. Oh, I have the
fun fact about the video coming up, but I do want to ask,
it sounds like this is a negative experience in your life
when you're removed from the 102.1 airwaves,
but you did win a CASB award
for best female vocalist, right?
Like, do you still have that?
Or is that something in the past
that you don't hold on to?
No, but that was the most useful award I've ever had
because they gave me a gold-plated microphone,
which I used for years until it fell apart.
What a smart, is that something you can,
you know, something functional that you can use as an artist.
That's a great idea.
That's great.
The other awards, you know,
they either have to soak them overnight or,
you know, it's really,
microphones are a good idea. Great idea. I've heard stories about people winning, I think overnight or, you know, it's really, microphones are a good idea.
Great idea. I've heard stories about people winning, I think Junos, et cetera, and then
they have to get an award, they have to pay for it. Like, these are the stories I've been hearing,
like, oh, they send you an invoice. I'm like, wait a minute, that's not how it should work,
but that's not what they did for you. I think a lot of people don't know either that to be
even in the Junos, you have to pay to submit.
I just found this out because I was just told recently that I should enter this podcast award.
They said you could win.
And then I said, oh, I would like to win, maybe get more listeners.
That's a nice idea.
And then I found out you pay to be considered.
And then I completely just walked away because even if it was one penny on principle i'm not paying a penny to be considered
for your podcast award yeah i agree okay we're in cahoots here okay now i uh one quick side is i find
it uh fascinating that this song which i've i've known my whole life almost me me on the beach
it's seven and a half minutes did anybody ever uh ask you at the label or something hey what if we had a three and a half minute version for radio yes and they did okay they did i'm not
surprised and you were okay with that as an artist uh no that was my first experience with that you
know and and then i'm thinking well then this won't make sense and then the people will hear it and say, that person doesn't make sense, you know.
But I did.
I tried it for them.
And whatever.
I don't know if people really listen to the words that much.
But it bothered me.
But then I did it.
I've done a lot of things just almost for the experiment of it.
How will I feel if I let London Insurance use one of my songs and because of the song it opens people's hearts and when their hearts are open they get tricked into buying
insurance. So I didn't want to but then I did.
And then people wrote and said oh I love that London Insurance
remembering the company's name.
So I do think we're here to learn more than anything else.
So I do things where I'm going to learn,
even if it might seem crazy sometimes.
I've been a bit too precious in my past.
Live and learn, right?
You need to go through that to realize whether it suits you or not.
You have to live it.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
All right, Megan, who said,
who wanted to know who Mimi was,
but we've discussed that,
but she also wanted to know
what it was like working with,
hope I pronounced his last name right,
Bob Bloomer?
Uh-huh, Bloomer's correct.
Oh, well, it was a dream.
He is a fantastic guy, really creative.
He had a business degree from Western.
I was looking for a manager.
I sort of talked him into it after talking to different managers,
and it worked out amazingly.
And I think he really loved the challenge of it, the creativity of it.
He got a school bus at the beginning and decked it out like a tour bus and he's really artistic
creative great energy so that was a huge gift to me in my life yeah he uh was host of the surreal
gourmet am i correct in that yeah he's done a lot of tv work now on his own for his chef and ingenuity,
prowess,
genius,
prowess,
whatever.
Do you Jane remember who directed the video for Mimi on the beach?
Um,
yes,
it was Dick.
I think Dick is some,
uh,
some name that I,
I can't remember.
I'm sorry,
but let me jog your memory just because I was watching it recently.
And I saw the last name Oleksiak.
So Oleksiak.
And then I did a little Googling because I know an Oleksiak.
I know a couple of Oleksiaks.
One happens to be the most decorated Canadian Olympian of all time.
And then another is an NHL player.
But it turns out the director of that video is the father of Penny Alexiak, the Olympic swimmer.
Wow.
She wasn't born when we needed a Mimi.
No.
For the surfboard, that's too bad.
No. But that's kind of a wild little coincidence, right?
It's kind of wild that the person who directed your biggest,
well, it's debatable, but your first big single
eventually would father the most decorated Olympian
in the history of this country.
Okay.
I don't find it that interesting.
No?
Okay.
Okay.
It's moderately interesting, but not a huge thing, I wouldn't say.
But I don't know if you'll find this interesting,
but we were so new to the video scene that we actually had Mimi drinking
from a can of Coca-Cola in the video
until finally I said, I think you have to check that out because I don't think you can just do
that. So it was cut. That's how new we were to it all. It was a frontier.
Amazing. Gord writes in to say, I'm a huge fan of her going back to her first
self-titled album and i still enjoy listening to above the tree line regularly her musical style
has evolved a lot since then i'm wondering what's her relationship today with those early works? Some of them, I still love the curly hue of the melodies and the lyrics.
And I was remembering,
It was a starry night and the snow had stopped falling
And I think that I heard someone singing Fly Me to the Moon
Okay, that sounds sort of cute.
But high above
our upturned faces blooming in the brights and some good things down on this earth tonight
and i i love the tracing that melody it's sort of long it doesn't repeat so quickly like
i have done more recently some melodies are just a bit too, I don't know, repetitious.
I think it's because I would write them on the computer
and just grab, copy and paste.
But then I was like playing them on the piano
till they sort of unrolled.
But yeah, I think there's a through line
from the first recording up till now
that I really, I'm so glad to see.
You know, it's not like I changed a lot.
I've grown a lot, but there's a certain core that I see all the way through it,
which pleases me.
Well, I'm glad.
Even though you didn't think my fun fact was that interesting.
But again, I'm often, I will tell you,
I often get kind of fixated on little trivial things
that really don't mean much of anything. But I just think like, oh, like will tell you, I often get kind of fixated on little trivial things that really don't mean much of anything.
But I just think like, oh, like, you know, my brain just sort of blows and like easily possibly.
And you're probably right.
It's not as significant as I like to think it is that Penny Alexiak's dad directed the Mimi on the Beach video.
ex-dad directed the Mimi on the Beach video.
So I want to ask you why you do that,
why you grab something less than what you at this moment think is significant enough and follow it without stopping yourself.
Is it like a lack of gut guiding you in time?
Do you find you do that in other ways too?
guiding you in time do you find your you do that in other ways too or is it a goal of yours to like fine-tune to up the ante so to speak or does it not really matter i don't think it really matters
i'm just um right i'm just process of how your brain works well see yeah i think we're i'm
interested in how your brain works you're interested in my how my brain works but i i
happen to consider mimi on the beach one of the great you know great canadian singles i don't
even know why i have to qualify it like that because all i really know is canada because i
was born and raised in toronto and i'm still here goodness gracious but mimi on the beach
this popular video when i was kind of just coming aware of music around me and when i was first
discovering you know videos and to to just draw that line many
years later to, I happen to
be a fan of the, I had Donovan Bailey here today
who won a couple of gold medals of Canada
and to consider that
we're still active in
Penny Oleksiak's career, so she's got another
Olympics coming up, she's only like
21 years old or something, but she's already
the most decorated, so I just think it's fascinating
to take a thread from this single, Mimi on the Beach,
which we would hear on CFNY and on Much Music,
and then suddenly it connects
many years later to the
most decorated Olympian in the history of this
country. See, I should just move
on, but I still think that's a fun fact.
Well, when
you say most decorated, all I see are
twigs and
stuff. I mean, what do you mean most decorated, all I see are twigs and stuff.
I mean, what do you mean most decorated?
Maybe I should explain that.
So in the history of this country's participation at the Olympics,
both the summer and the winter games, nobody has won more medals than Penny Oleksiak.
So that's what I mean by most decorated.
So she has won the most medals in the over 100 know, the over a hundred year history of this country
participating in Olympic games.
And this is all silly sports stuff.
So maybe you've just, you know,
that doesn't matter because it's just sports.
But then there are people out there saying,
oh, that doesn't matter because it's just art
or that doesn't matter because it's just music.
Like these are all things that sort of, you know,
inspire us and stimulate us and, you know, help us kind of escape any harsh realities in this world we live in.
I think the through line for both Penny and myself are our love of something, you know, it doesn't, the awards, as you know, are often the product of some kind of distortion or politics or something.
So to lots of people that don't mean that much, you know, and as a matter of fact,
having too many awards can be psychologically hard on a person, you know,
then they have to deal with maybe power that comes with it or to accolades they feel they don't deserve.
So their self-esteem goes down even lower
and then they they uh i don't know it's it's um it's not uh it's not what many people think it is
it's just all right but jane if i may uh so art all right pardon me i i think i said if uh maybe i do maybe i did i think i said i um like i is an i but i uh
you know art we shouldn't even be awarding for art like it's so subjective and it shouldn't even be
a competition in art but the difference is with athletics right with athletics it's uh we're
gonna swim 50 meters the first one to get the other side is the fastest. Like it is a objective measurement of success as opposed to art where we're
ranking,
you know,
Oh,
I don't know.
Uh,
Martha,
Martha and the muffins versus Jane Sibury.
Like this is ridiculous.
Exactly.
Well,
most people see that are definitely musicians don't relate to it,
but,
um,
I have a way of seeing music now that satisfies my understanding
that art isn't good or bad.
Do you want to hear it?
Oh, yes.
Because I struggled with that for a long time,
and nothing made sense,
especially all the academics speak at art galleries.
It's like this is disconnected from reality.
Can I say what the reality is i don't know but it's separated
from it from something very important which is that you know the artist can be a pipeline
well okay that we create things that become batteries and the more present we are, the more powerful the work, the more you can plug into it
and charge up with inspiration, which is how we connect, I think, to the greater. Inspiration is
the big pipeline. And so if you are inspired and you write it and you're present every moment,
you charge up every single molecule of tape or sound or, or canvas or film.
And then it's not good or bad.
It's just really more how much energy the battery can hold and the,
how much it can hold relates to how present you are.
And when you're present,
completely present,
you know,
you're absorbed in it.
You,
you're a lot of your own shit just is far, far away.
You know, you're inspired or something.
So then it's not good or bad.
It's just useful or not useful.
And it makes room for all kinds of batteries for different people.
There.
But when did you come to this realization?
Like, is this something you've believed for a long time?
Or did you just have this epiphany, like this morning, getting a bagel?
No, no, it's me puzzling over it for a long time, you know, and wondering, why am I doing it?
Why am I doing it?
And now musicians, like, why am I deciding to go into really heavy debt every time I do a record?
Like, it's crazy.
It's nonsensical.
Is it a vanity project?
That's what I would say to myself.
Is this just a vanity project if it's not being pulled naturally into the air?
You know, if I have to decide to do something bad, like go into debt or other musicians.
So it's come from a lot of thinking
and periods of being jaded and maybe bitter.
I could even use that word.
But then knowing that I can't stay that place,
I have to keep going
until I find a healthy, positive way of seeing it,
which I believe is the truth of it.
Music's healthy, it's positive,
it's a privilege, all these things.
And in 2023, surely you can create this art, which is music,
without going into debt.
Yeah, so you think.
So you think.
Like I'd done a lot of the writing and arrangement all on my computer,
but still I didn't have the oomph to like go to the next step till i finally asked a friend to work with me as a co-producer and we
listen in a studio her studio so that doesn't cost money but then we want to start adding strings and
we can't we want real strings because they're beautiful and they have a different vibration
than fake strings and then the
standards start going up and you can't do it all in your bedroom and sometimes i just need to be
in a studio with someone to hear it on big speakers to know what the heck i'm doing right
so you can do it but you do you can end up with a very rigid musical product if it's, I don't know, I feel it.
I think a lot of people smell a rat.
I do it really as efficiently as I can, but I know where it'll take away from it.
And I just keep going till it's done, which means I never have a budget.
Because I won't stop till it's sort of done.
Does that sound crazy?
No, no. In fact, hearing you talk about it's sort of done. Does that sound crazy?
No, no.
In fact, hearing you talk about, because who am I?
I'm no musician, but of course, if you want strings and you want real strings,
well, there's an artist that needs to be compensated there. So I can see it, you know, you think you have a shoestring,
like you said, you don't have a budget,
but if I were to start a shoestring budget,
I'm going to do all this myself with friends.
I could see that getting away from you
because you have a very particular idea of how you want it to sound and i don't get the sense you would want to compromise
that vision yeah and i'm sick of telling people i have no budget for like i really like to pay
musicians and i really you know often say what's your standard rate not for corporations but for
you know an artistic project instead of asking for freebies from the very people who can't make any money anyway.
So I do try to pay where I can properly, or the best I can.
But Jane, this is why artists like you...
I heard a bank commercial, and it had the Tragically Hips Ahead by a Century in it,
but obviously not their performance of it,
but they had a little version of it or whatever.
And I had this moment of like,
oh, I don't like hearing Ahead by a Century in a bank.
And then I realized that you could finance,
and this is now, that's a Tragically Hip song,
but a Jane Sibury song in a bank commercial
would give you the funds necessary
to hire these artists these
strings etc and create the art that you want to share with the universe so like at some point you
got to get paid to produce your art i don't know mike is it is it the devil you know the temptation
or can you just wait it out a bit longer or i i don't know i don't have an answer for that but yes it's true
and that's and i've done that you know pay it forward paid me a lot to do a version of calling
all angels with a choir at the end right and that that was for a movie so that was okay but
yeah it's a it's a in in the long run who cares it's just a life. We're just a life.
And if you believe that we create our own realities,
we are either God and our humanness,
or whatever word, greater,
to learn and to return to the light
in some beautiful blend that we already know so it doesn't really matter if we
you know if it bugs our stomach or whatever just have fun experiment learn from it if you can
don't be too precious um yeah sometimes i think i just i do a lot of things if it meant I could, you know, pay cash bail for a whole
jail, no problem, I'll do it in a
flash, you know, or if my family
needed help
so it's flexible integrity
I don't know what that means
but
I mean, do you have it or not?
Well, you have to eat, right?
At some point you need to eat, so I mean
artistry and this punk DIY,
no sellout mentality is all fine and good.
But at the end of the day,
you deserve a lovely space on Manitoulin Island
and you deserve to be able to buy the real strings.
So you're not, you know,
pulling some strings through some keyboard
that aren't actual musicians playing.
Like, I mean, you deserve that, Jane, right?
I don't know if we can say that but i want it um i i want it and i i won't um release the record till it's right so it just takes longer but yes what everything you're saying yes yes yes
and also no no no no and also finally, let's just have a great time.
Captain Phil Evans was the promo guy at CFNY
back when they were playing Mimi on the Beach,
and he wrote in when he heard you were coming on Toronto Mike
to say, Jane Sibury played a solo show
at the Ontario Place Forum,
and I think that's a remarkable achievement,
and I wonder what local faves
would be able to put thousands of people in a venue that size now. Now, you don't have to answer
that question. I think it's more rhetorical, but his point is, there was a moment with your song
all over the radio, your songs are on much music, you're selling out the, I believe you're selling
out the Ontario Place Forum. You can't sell it, but you're selling out the uh i believe you're selling out the ontario place for you can't sell it but you're filling up the ontario place forum like this is quite the moment for you
jane i don't think i was solo but yes it was my own show yeah i don't even know if you sell that
i remember i attended a few shows i saw chalk circles some other bands there and i think it's
just like if you were at ontario place you could go see uh performances at the Forum that's how I remember it but regardless
he says it was full with thousands of people
yeah yeah that was fun
that was the first time I experienced
a young girl showing up looking like
me which was I found
horrifying
why?
that was just the learning process
well why would they you know
I don't know oh you know it was just new for me. Well, why would they, you know, I don't know.
Oh, you know, it was just new for me.
But I do remember the chords, you know, getting all tripped up in the chords.
It's amazing what they did there. And so many people remember shows at the Ontario Place.
I guess it was a pretty spectacular thing.
And seeing things move is always very moving.
So the people behind the stage, they'd be slowly moving.
And then, yeah, that was amazing.
For those who don't know what we're talking about,
if you're a younger person who doesn't remember the form,
it rotated, the stage rotated.
And that was pretty cool.
It was.
That's cool.
And by the way, they could come looking like you, Jane,
or they'll come looking like Madonna.
This is what teenagers do.
They emulate their musical heroes.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I was just a
young thing too, so I don't know.
Okay. Cooking with gas
here because I realize I might take
six, seven hours of your life here.
I'm sorry about that, but I do
love the video for One More Color.
It's got you walking a cow
and you win another
CASB for that. Like these are before the falling out with CFNY, you're collecting these CASBs.
So I guess I'm curious about what your thoughts today are on One More Color. And then I'll
just do this very quickly. But earlier today, I recorded a episode about covers of Tragically
Hip Songs because there's this event I'm promoting
on September 1st
and one of the covers is
Courage by Sarah Pauly
and it's in the great movie
The Sweet Hereafter. I think that's
from 97 but also
on that soundtrack is
Sarah Pauly covering One More
Color. So talk to me
about One More Color if you don't mind.
Yeah, I never heard her version.
But One More Color, I learned something huge
because we did a video at first with a Toronto photographer.
And A, I realized that photographers aren't used to working across time,
that actually a filmmaker or a musician would be better
directing videos they they work across time so and it was so literal that it was like whoa if you
like the song you're not gonna like it now so um when warner brothers didn't like it either in
reprise in la so we did one they asked me to choose a director. It was amazing. They'd send reels of directors.
They'd send portfolios of amazing photographers,
waste a lot of money on FedEx packages going back and forth.
Anyway, most of the photographers didn't have what I think is really important in photographs.
They didn't have a light in the eye.
There'd be no tiny white speck. They didn't have a light in the eye. There'd
be no tiny white speck. And to me, that makes everyone look dead. I think that's like a
super basic thing. So I learned from just looking at all this applauded work. Sounds
like I'm being judgmental, but I guess I'm just, you know, refining my aesthetic just
from what I learned. Secondly, well, zeroly was that, you know,
photographers don't necessarily make good videographers.
And then secondly was the second point I made that I've now forgotten.
And then thirdly, I chose Jerry Casale from Devo to direct it.
And that was okay, although he had created a puppet with cows, udders, huge udders,
and I made him cut them off because they just were silly.
They were silly, and it, for me, fell into the category of cool, you know, cool,
experiment, wow, but it wasn't sensible in my mind.
And the fourth thing is, what was the third thing well just you know working with different people
it's wonderful but it just wasn't great and i don't like being the bad guy you know but often
i seem to be in that position because whatever it's my work and i have to say something um not to negate all the times when it has worked and things have exaggerated with hilarity and
exuberance and excellence but um the final point i want to make is that sometimes you just have to
have a video of the person singing the song in something that's not a bad background you know
you don't have to interpret it you just have to see the person singing it.
So I said, can I just walk down the road with a cow?
And I think that worked better in my mind, you know.
I mean, there were a lot of bells and whistles
and they had Hollywood extras there.
They're like, oh my God, you know, and the house falls apart
and these people are, okay,
the most beautiful man who was handicapped was the inspiration for the middle
part where he's full of wonder at everything.
And so that was interpreted into a lot of strange looking people.
So I forgot about that, but nevermind.
The point I wanted to make finally was sometimes you just have to, you know,
if it's a good song, just sing it
and don't take away from what people are already imagining in their heads. And to follow you, you must make a jump each time
A dotted page, a dotted hillside
A blast of dots
A blind reader and a clock machine
And a blast of trumpet shots Here, all we have here is time
All the sky is, is blue
All the blue is, is white, all gone
Now Now A basket of apples
By the back door
Beneath the sweater
Pigs
The auto-waves
Lift along the street
A pair of dancing
Legs
Save us the vendor
Who likes to sing
As loudly as he can
And all these desires
It suits me fine
That's the way I am
Here
All we want here is sky
All the sky is blue Here, all we have here is sky.
All the sky is blue.
All the blue is, is one warm, better blue than now.
Warning, warning.
Mimi on the Beach is a bit of an earworm.
I've been singing it all week.
What a jam.
What a chat with Jane Sibury.
Wait till you hear what happens next.
But first, if you drink beer and you're in Ontario,
you drink Great Lakes beer. That's an order.
Family-run, fiercely independent craft brewery they're hosting tmlx 13 on september
7th 6 to 9 p.m that's the southern etobicoke location be there and you'll eat for free
because palma pasta is feeding every fotm who comes to this free event.
If you have old technology, old electronics that you need to dispose of,
don't throw it in the garbage.
The dangerous chemicals end up in our landfill.
Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca.
What are you doing September 1st, 2023?
I hope to see you at Getting Hip to the Hip.
There's a promo code to save you 10%. It's FOTM10.
Go to gettinghiptothehip.com
and listen to the previous episode in the feed
to learn details of what's going to go down.
All Tragically Hip fans should be there.
While you're buying tickets for cool events,
get your tickets to Pumpkins After Dark now
and you save 15%.
This is an early bird discount
with the promo code TOMIKE15.
Go to Pumpkins After Dark right now,
buy four, five, six, seven tickets.
This is an award-winning event in Milton, Ontario,
and you're going to love it.
Pumpkins After Dark.
Pop quiz, hotshot.
Who have been pillars of this community since 1921?
That's right.
Ridley Funeral Home.
Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.
Let's get back to Jane. The gold-plum sludge we eat, the hot blue skies in the sky.
The sky.
The sky.
I pray.
I pray.
I pray. Wow. Okay. So I mentioned, and it's interesting to me, you didn't listen to the Sarah Pauly cover.
If someone covers my song on a soundtrack, I'm going to be curious about their interpretation
of it, their spin on it. But then again, I've never written a song worth covering. So
what do I know? But that is interesting. You never listened to the Sarah Pauly version of One
More Color. Did you ever hear the Rheostatix version of One More Color? Yeah, I think I did.
That's on Introducing Happiness. And I'm going to ask you a question from Rainer here,
now that I've said the R word, rheostatics.
But I also, as I go very quickly here,
I want to just point out that you're,
I would call it an anti-pop approach.
You might disagree with me,
but it's very commercially successful at this point.
I mean, I see that the Speckless Sky
sold like over 100,000 units,
as they say in the industry,
which is kind of fascinating when you consider your,
it sounds like you're not trying to create a product
that is commercially successful.
Or am I completely wrong on this,
in which case you should let me have it?
No, I think I've had an awareness
of what might be most pleasing sometimes, Mike.
But I think I'm always trying to make it feel good on several levels.
So the body, even if you don't listen to the words, it feels good, you know, best I can.
And I think I do have sort of a populace bent in my writing.
I certainly don't want to smoke people out if I can help it, although I have,
I think. Yeah, that it's got to feel good on some level. So yeah, I don't want to be called elite
or acquired taste or anything like that. I do want it to be like, you know, work in the, I'm part of the populace too.
I would want it to work for me too.
There's nothing like a pop song that is like, you can hardly wait to get to the next part, right?
And it's like, honey, it's a great pop song.
It's like, oh my God, I love this song.
So I'm always aware of that too.
I like that feeling so rayner wrote in
and this is a segue off of the the real statics covering one more color for introducing happiness
now rayner writes in hi mike i see your post for questions for jane sibery take note of this article
and then there's an exclaimed on ca article read the 1993 section on jane working
with the real statics dave bedini described it as being quote tortured by jane end quote and quote
a musical marriage made in hell end quote please peel back the onion layers on that one what would
you say to rainer about this uh supposed uh j Sibury real statics feud from the
early to mid 90s?
I didn't have a feud with them.
This is all a mystery to me.
I was pleased to have them
back me up for one show.
I think it was Guel Festival.
And, you know,
I do remember one point in rehearsal where
I did feel
and maybe gave a look that I was
finding it frustrating working with different musicians than I was used to you know sort of a
refinement or something that was the only thing I remembered and then I remember calling the
drummer up about something after our show and I was shocked that he thought we had a falling out.
So I don't know what that's all about.
They thought I deliberately held up my show at the Guelph Festival
so that they couldn't go on, which was totally bizarre.
I would never do that, and who would do that?
But it was like they were all in a different world.
So that's in their mind, not mine.
They were fine.
Well, I'm glad you're clarifying this because that gets out there,
and then people maybe don't hear your side of things,
which is, as far as you're concerned, there's nothing to see here.
You don't know where this comes from.
Yeah.
It's just sort of
surprising and ultimately
boring, so no energy there.
In better news,
Tess writes in to say, I still remember
Jane Sibury at the Wiltern
in Los Angeles back
when I bought vinyl. Her song
explanations were exquisite and her performance memorable.
Red High Heels being my favorite.
Yeah, that was a fun show.
Red High Heels is about getting drunk in the high plains of Newfoundland near Twillingate.
of newfoundland near twilling gate um and uh yeah so at the end she gets drunk and lies down in a snowbank and and freezes to death it's a very beautiful comfortable death she's just wandering
off in her thoughts about what love is and she's pretty sure she could make anyone love her if she
really wanted to but um yeah that's so nice that, you know, the cool thing, Dave,
is that people come forward with memories of shows I've forgotten about
and lovely moments, and that's more what it's all about.
It's not awards.
It's not anything else.
Those are like a string of moments that makes the
life you know beautiful and good on both ends mutual usually here's another moment from uh
from scott who says uh looking forward to your interview with jane sivery i've got a couple of
questions if you can squeeze them in one my favorite jane album is when i was a boy just
wondering why it's not available on itunes and i think this is
probably what you explained at the beginning where you're getting that shit together now
or my uh well it is on itunes it is yes i think isn't it i'm sure he's right but it's a um i own
the rights in canada warner brothers owns the rights in the US. That's part of the problem. But I think that this company is going to have my complete
catalog up very soon and
complete. I hope so. I also want to
say I changed a couple covers and I'm dropping
one record which was Angels Bend Closer because it was
done not for the reasons
it was um someone who really wanted me to be submitted for a grammy but you couldn't have
already released the record but she wanted to change it and she wanted to foot the bill and
she was a dear friend and so i said all right you do it but I can't be involved or I'll have to be totally involved so she did it on her own she did a great job but it's really not the director's cut
I don't like the artwork I don't like um certain production things that were added like big drums
big guitars like so I'm it wasn't nominated it it did its job whatever and now i'm dropping it
as is your right it's not well yeah i've heard some feelings but it just started to bother my
stomach so that's that's a sign to cut it if it's bothering you when i was a boy by the way
scott here says,
what was it like working with Brian Eno?
How did that come to be?
Do you have any interesting Brian Eno stories?
Yeah, Brian had written to reprise Warner Brothers
and said, why have you not done more with this artist?
Because he really liked Bound by the Beauty,
that whole recording.
And so in typical record company assessment,
they thought that could be good for the next, you know.
So they asked him to produce my next record, which wasn't his goal.
He just wanted to support another artist.
So we did work together on three songs in England.
We did work together on three songs in England.
That was interesting to work.
We're both self-produced in a way, so I enjoyed working with him.
It was interesting.
I learned a lot.
He liked to get home by seven every night to kiss his little girls.
He was really into his children.
Good night before they go to bed.
And it was lovely.
And he added some beautiful things.
But we haven't really stayed in touch
since then.
You mentioned you
Pay It Forward wanted you
to re-record Calling All Angels,
the Pay It Forward soundtrack, I guess,
the movie. And that, of course,
is a Katie Lang duet when it
first appeared. I guess it was
Will, I always get that. Wim Wenders
Until the End of the World is where you
first hear Calling All Angels, a duet
with Katie Lang. But what was it like working with Katie Lang?
She
showed up in Vancouver at Mushroom Studios
with a kerchief
on and her tiny little dog who marched ahead of her, barking at everybody. It was really funny. Her scout. And it was lovely. And we've always had a harmony between us. And we were in different vocal booths and we knew it wasn't as good as it could be. So we just, you know, without discussing it really,
just moved on to the main floor together and sang in proximity,
which is huge as all musicians know,
because you're working on different levels, not just sound.
So that was wonderful.
And we've continued to stay in touch.
And she covered some of my songs on one of her records.
And we did an,
another duet.
Um,
let me be a living statue,
which I think is beautiful,
though really wasn't heard cause it was on a record I just released with an
email.
Um,
and it's,
it's a nice sister.
Nice.
Nice.
Uh,
Hamilton,
Matt,
and now you,
you know, we talked about pay it forward. That's a, that was a. Nice. Hamilton, Matt, we talked about Pay It Forward.
That was a pretty big movie
with big stars,
but that was no The Crow, okay?
So Hamilton Mike wants me to ask you
about doing It Can't Rain All the Time
for The Crow
and being part of one of,
and this is Mike talking,
and I don't disagree,
one of the greatest alt-rock soundtracks.
How did that come to be?
Graham Rebell in LA was involved in it,
and I think he'd heard when I was a boy,
and he really liked, I think, the song The Vigil,
because to me the vibe of It Won't Rain All the Time
is very similar to The Vigil.
And so he asked if I would come and write a song with him,
so I went to
Hollywood went to his fancy house felt sort of that fancy unhappiness worked in
the studio and we wrote a lot of the words and he and he was involved in some
the chorus yeah I could not sing it it can't rain all the time, which is what they say in the movie, it can't.
So I changed it to won't
because I didn't believe it can't rain all the time.
So there's a bit of a
thing. And then it got remixed with Warner
Brothers because I said the keyboards are out of tune
and they're making the vocal sound weird, which was true.
So I went into the studio with someone else too.
I'm telling you way more than anyone else knows.
And we fixed it and I re-sang the vocals.
And yeah, it's a synth you'll hear if people listen to the original version.
It's flat, but it wasn't flat when I recorded it,
so it's something he added later.
I love the details.
Now, Stephen Hillier, ha, ha, ha, said,
is it true that it can't rain all the time?
Ha, ha, ha.
But what Stephen wants to know is, I'm throwing in the ha's, but okay.
Stephen wants me to ask you,
basically wanted to know how you ended up with that gig,
but you've already explained that.
And then Stephen wants you to know that he loved the movie,
loves the song, and he particularly loved that movie
because it introduced him to Alex Proyas.
I hope I pronounced that right.
But that was a lot of exposure to be on the Crow soundtrack, for sure.
Yeah, I saw the rough cut and I wasn't
sure if I wanted to do it and I watched
it again and I realized I had been so
wrong. It's an amazing film really.
The caricature,
the storytelling in it, the acting
in it, incredible. And then of course
that extra
thing that Brandon
actually died during the making
of it, that mystery, et cetera. But yeah.
So young, but what a great movie, like you said, and that's a great song. Now,
when you signed into the Zoom for us to chat, and you probably signed in thinking,
this guy is probably going to take 15 minutes of my life, and here I am totally exploiting you by
taking much, much longer. But you were signed in as Issa Sibri, I-S-S-A. And of course, I remember
reading in the Globe and Mail about you changing your name. Would you mind, now you also respond
to Jane, I've been calling you Jane this whole time, but would you mind telling us succinctly here the story of like, why did you change your name to Issa?
Yes.
I felt Jane Sivri had finished.
I had certain quirks and vocalizations and this and that,
and I completed it and that everything else would be repetition.
And I needed to stop feeling so heavy.
It was the same time that I decided I was looking at my door,
locking it at night, as I watched someone across the street in the park
try to get comfortable on this park bench and I felt so stupid,
felt so silly, I thought, I don't want to live like this anymore.
So I sold my house,
got rid of most of my stuff, and
changed my name.
And put my catalog, I guess,
14 records in
order, archived them,
fixed some of the artwork,
and then went on tour and stayed
where I landed, which was Brussels.
Am I telling you more than you want?
Quite the opposite.
I'm all about the detail here.
I love it, actually.
I'm very interested in this.
I played my final show.
It was a real love fest, you know, of warmth.
And the next day I was an unknown in Brussels, you know, no friends, no nothing,
no warmth from anybody.
It was interesting to experience that.
And then I thought, what am I going to do?
So I ate a lot of chocolate at night, probably gave myself sugar poisoning.
And then decided, okay, I'm going to find someone with a little studio,
and I'll write, I'll just go in and create music with no limitations of Jane Sibriac,
whatever I please.
So I did that. i wrote about 30 songs a lot of them ended up on my um three queens trilogy of records and then um i have
maintained that lightness for the most part since then um i think a lot of people know
heaviness possessions are heavy and they they require a certain amount of your energy.
So when you let everything go, that energy sort of tiptoes back to you in many ways.
And we're not meant to be so heavy.
We're meant to become conscious beings that can help the earth realize its own beauty so to speak
and we're now in like real difficult circumstances and more needed than ever so
that I think I hope that all makes sense that I said it together, but now I'm, when I changed my name back to Jane Sibri,
or forward to Jane Sibri,
I changed my name because the light was shining in a certain way.
I changed it to Issa after a lot of thinking.
And then I changed my name back to Jane Sibri three years later
because I was walking down the street in California
and the light was the same way and it said, it's time to change your name to Jane Sibri three years later because I was walking down the street in California and the light was the same way and it said it's time to change your name to Jane Sibri again so
I did and now not so magically I'm just thinking I want to be Issa Sibri I like the sound of that
I like all the s's I like the two r's so sorry to bug people with trying to keep up,
what's her name?
But whatever.
People are welcome to change their names too.
Okay, just to understand something here.
So this is in 2006 when you sell all your possessions,
I guess you hold on to a few things,
like a traveling guitar.
And then I know some items,
precious possessions like your Miles Davis CDs are put into storage.
But that's 06.
Have you, in the time since, have you recollected things?
How light are you these days?
Well, a pretty typical response for me when people want to give me beautiful things is thank you.
I receive it fully.
I really appreciate it now, but I can't keep it.
Can I pass it on or will you take it back?
So I try to make them feel really my gratitude.
But I saw how quickly things built up, Mike.
And I had so many beautiful gifts from people and books that I hadn't read, like hundreds of amazing books.
I just thought my to-do list is so huge. I have to either get rid of everything, sweep it off the desk, or just drown in it.
I'm up on Manitoulin here now, and I have an Airbnb.
And I keep things pretty limited.
Tyler Campbell wants me to shout out your temple
because it's quoted by Gord Downie
in the Live Between Us version of Nautical Disaster.
Did you ever hear that?
I think I heard something like that.
Something about Gord Downie, yeah.
This is so cool that people have written in i like the idea of your show oh thank you it's a community
well exactly we're actually going to have an in-person we it'll be a 13th time we've done
this but on september 7th from 6 to 9 p.m we're all collecting in the flat well not all of us
because some have geographical limitations and have to work whatnot, but many of us will collect in the flesh. We're going to have food from Palma
Pasta. We're going to have a beer from Great Lakes Beer, all free, I should point out. And
we're just going to like be together. And, you know, it sounds a bit like a cult, but I assure
you it's not a cult, but it is a sort of a community and BS the resistance is the name of
somebody in this community and BS the resistance wrote.
Awesome.
I got to meet Jane after her show in Washington,
DC at the original nine 30 club BS to resistance,
which is a name that makes me laugh.
It says you are very sweet.
That's nice.
It's nice.
I like the name to BS.
Oh my God. That's hilarious. BS. And. I like the name too, BS. Oh my God, that's hilarious.
BS, it was.
And winding down now,
and then if you have any questions or whatnot,
because you've been amazing
and I've thoroughly enjoyed this
because I find you interesting.
You know, I don't apologize for that.
But Connie just wrote me to say,
and I always butcher this
and I should know because I know this song,
but it's Bedge Alert and Falling Snow.
Let her know that line is amazing.
This is from, of course, Let Her Know.
But how do you say the name of that place?
Bade Gillard.
It's Welsh.
Bade Gillard.
I think it means faithful dog.
Bade or Gillard means, Gillard maybe means dog, but faithful dog.
It's a beautiful story if you look it up.
Well, and I did butcher that, and I apologize.
I recently was visited by Bob Wiseman,
and there's an artist, an interesting guy,
and it was quite the chat,
but I would just ask you what Bob's like
because you sing on his Presented by Lake Michigan Soda, his song from 1991.
And what do you think of Bob Wiseman?
I love him.
He's original.
I always appreciate that.
I don't think we made a good musical pair because he likes to shock and dissonate or whatever.
And there's no room for that in my music.
So it felt like a bit of a conflict there,
which doesn't mean I don't like dissonance, et cetera, et cetera, and tension.
But it just wasn't a great musical balance.
But I really, really appreciate him and the way he thinks.
And he has a big heart.
And yeah.
Yeah, definitely an interesting guy for sure.
I just chatted earlier today with Chris
Tate because he's going to come on. He's from
Chalk Circle and
I pulled Blue Heaven
to play for when
he comes on because you really make
that song. You're on Blue Heaven and it sounds
beautiful.
I'm reminded of all these things I've done
instead of come and go. Well, Jane, things I've done instead of come and go.
Well, Jane, I feel I should let you come and go.
You've been amazing.
If you have any questions, of course, I'm here for you.
But I got to say thank you so much.
I'm checking the clock and it looks like I took an hour of your time.
And to be honest, I could have taken much longer.
But you were very giving with your time and I appreciate it.
You know when I really don't appreciate having my time taken is when I'm figuring out instructions that were poorly written.
I'm really appreciative and impressed by your show and the way you are pumping through all these questions.
And I'm pleased to say hello to all these people too that's really cool
when it's good when and how can we hear new music be it by jane sibry or isa sibry
where will we hear this i don't know i'm just working on the record i just did a week of
recording um a week of touring um which um helped fund the next few spates of recording.
And I'm just going to keep going.
I don't know when or how I'll release it or if.
I just feel I have to take one step at a time, keep myself anchored,
and it'll be surprising to me and others who might like to know what happens.
But life is better than it ever has been because of how I am now, I think,
or how I'm working.
Really, really grateful and impressed.
I love people like I never used to.
I think people are amazing and the depth and the good work that's being done
silently just in a lobby with a stranger, who knows, but I just feel in love with people most
of the time. And I wish everyone the very, very best. That's my final comment and I'm not taking
it back. Perfect. Thank you so much.
You're fascinating
and continued success
and just,
you seem happy
and that's what makes me happy.
You just seem happy.
So that's everything.
That's beautiful.
Well,
I wish you all the best, Mike,
and I didn't know about you before,
but I'll be watching for you
and I wish you the very best.
Thanks for what you're doing.
And that brings us to the end of our
1,314th show.
You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.
Jane is at Jane Sibury.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.
Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.
Getting Hip to the Hip is at Getting Hip Pod.
Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada.
Pumpkins After Dark are at Pumpkins Dark.
And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH.
Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH.
See you all Monday when my special guest is Claude Fague. Well, I want to take a streetcar downtown
Read Andrew Miller and wander around
And drink some good ass
from a tin
cause my UI
check ass
just come in
ah where you been
because
everything
is coming up
rosy and green
yeah the wind
is cold
but the snow
wants me to dance and your smile is fine Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow, snow warms 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
Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years
It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears.
And I don't know what the future can hold or will do for me and you.
But I'm a much better man for having known you.
Oh, you know that's true Because everything is coming up
Rosy and gray
Yeah, the wind is cold
But the smell of snow
Won't stay today
And your smile is fine
And it's just like mine
And it won't go away
Because everything is rosy and green.
Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day.
But I wonder who, yeah, I wonder who.
Maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of gray.
Cause I know that's true, yes I do.
I know it's true, yeah.
I know it's true.
How about you?
All them picking up trash and them putting down roads.
And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes
And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can
Maybe I'm not and maybe I am
But who gives a damn because
Everything is coming up rosy and gray
Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today
And your smile is fine, it's just like mine
And it won't go away
Because everything is rosy and gray
Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in France
and I've kissed you in Spain
And I've kissed you in places
I better not name
And I've seen the sun go down
on Sacré-Cœur
But I like it much better
going down on you
Yeah, you know that's true
Because everything is coming up
Rosy and green
Yeah, the wind is cold
But the smell of snow
Warms us today
And your smile is fine
And it's just like mine
And it won't go away
Cause everything is rosy now, everything is rosy and everything is rosy and gray Thank you.