Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Wilner KOTJ: Toronto Mike'd #243
Episode Date: June 20, 2017Mike and Mike Wilner play and discuss Wilner's ten favourite songs....
Transcript
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And right now, right now, right now it's time to...
Take out the jams, motherfuckers! I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love
I'm a Toronto Mike, wanna get the city love
My city love me back, for my city love
Welcome to episode 243 of Toronto Mike
A weekly podcast about anything and everything
Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery
A local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer.
And propertyinthesix.com.
Toronto real estate done right.
I'm Mike from torontomike.com.
And joining me this week is host of Jay's Talk, Mike Wilner.
Welcome back for the third time.
I know, this is serious, huh serious huh thank you this is an exclusive club
the three-timer club do i get a jacket that's the fifth time all right just be glad you're
gonna end up with some beer and a beautiful pint glass in a moment but uh i'm gonna tell
the people at home who are hearing wilner wilner's gonna kick out the jams. You brought your 10 favorite songs.
But if people want to hear you and I
kick out retro J's
songs. We played a whole bunch
of old 1980s,
early 90s Blue J's
songs in episode 136.
So that's
where people go to hear that. And I apologize
for not having any of those on the list.
You know, when I do my top 10,
I'm sure half of them will be from those 89 to 92 Jays albums.
I considered Help Us Mookie.
Help Us Mookie reminds me of 1989, of course.
This season sort of reminds me of 1989.
So I'm glad you mentioned Mookie, but we'll get to that.
I want to tell people,
they want to hear the A to Z of Mike Wilner's illustrious career.
They want to hear the story of Mike Wilner's life.
That's episode 96.
See, I did my homework.
For Hebsey, he came in first.
By the way, did you hear Hebsey kick out the jams last week?
I have not had the opportunity, but I look forward to it.
I wondered if you sized up, just so you can say,
I wanted to go in blind i really did that's it's
funny i've had some people send me their list of 10 upcoming guests and they in the email they
give you a bit of a story of why they like the song and i had to tell one person i had to tell
them i don't actually want that right yeah i want to hear it live which is why i was reluctant to do
that to you when we were trying to cull the list from 18 to 10.
Which wasn't easy for you.
I had to send you the stories of the ones that I wasn't sure about
and let you choose from them.
I purposely did not really read those stories
because mostly these episodes are great fun for me
because I have to know the songs
because I load them in my soundboard.
But hearing you tell me why,
I don't want to fake enthusiasm or interest
because I'm not a good actor.
I'm going to be like,
oh, I heard that well.
And I want to hear it for the first time with you live.
So that's what we're going to do.
But first, because I have you in my basement
for the third time,
can we do like a very brief little synopsis
of where the Jays are at?
What is this, like mid-June?
Yeah, they're 69 games in right now,
so close to half the season.
And the season started horribly?
Yep.
At its worst, what was it, 2-13?
2-11.
2-11, okay.
And how many games under.500 are we now?
One.
Yeah, that's right.
We keep nibbling at that.
So my question for you is when people tweet at you that it's early,
do you have a good sense of humor about that,
or does it piss you off a little bit?
It pisses me off a little bit because they always do it sort of sarcastically.
And what's weird is that the last three years,
that's when this whole thing happened, right?
They've never started well.
It's incredible that the Blue Jays have the worst record in the major leagues in April for the last five years put together.
So every year in April, people are sort of falling all over each other to be the first one to say,
I told you the season was over on April 10th.
That's right.
I think a lot of people think that when I say it's
early, that means
they're still
going to make the playoffs. It doesn't. It just means that
there's a lot of time left to recover from this.
One would think that
in each of the last three years, I've
sort of been vindicated with this
stance that the season doesn't end in April, but people continue to take shots regardless.
This season, for example, it would be really easy, and I saw a lot of people I know and trust and love were basically calling this season over before May 1st.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Like a lot of people.
April 15th.
And to me, this team, which is primarily very similar to last year's team, it's proven it can win.
And it is early.
In April, it is early.
There's a lot of games to go.
So I kept bringing up the 1989 team in that that was a good team that started 12 and 24.
And they made a coaching change.
And Mookie came over.
And that was before wild cards, though.
To me, the fact is, it's easier to make the playoffs today than it was in 89. Oh, much.
Much. There were four teams that made it back
then. There are 10 now. And back
in 89, and the season
has reminded me of that season so much,
not just because of the crappy start,
but because of the whole
battle with 500. And I
looked it up.
The Jays didn't get
more than one game over 500
until August 16th of that year.
Wow.
And between July 20th, I think, and August 15th,
they played 20 games in which they were either at 500,
a game under, or a game over.
And I remember us killing ourselves back then,
thinking, what's going on?
Are they ever going to get over this hump?
Is this ever going to happen?
And they wound up winning the division, which is not to say that this year the Jays are going to win the division,
but we're two months earlier
than they were then having this battle
with 500, and it really
does, it feels so
much the same. It's nuts.
And as a, I mean, it's your job. You're going to be
there regardless, but for guys like me, it's really
important that when you head into September that you're in the race. I just want to be in the race. And it did look, uh, I mean, it's your job. You're going to be there regardless. But for guys like me, it's really important that when, you know,
you head into September that you're in the race.
Like,
I just want to be in the race.
And it did look like,
obviously if that trend had continued,
the whole like,
oh,
I got to tune in tonight feeling isn't there.
You got lots going on in the world,
but now that there actually looks like,
you know,
in August and September,
there'll be a race.
It's just nice that there's,
you can always tap into a Jays game,
which is a great pastime of mine. We're always nice that you can always tap into a Jays game, which is a great
pastime of mine. We're always there for you.
But yeah, you're right.
And that was some of the overboardness
of the early stuff.
When they were 2-11, there were people who were
insisting, this team's going to lose 120 games
and it's going to be the worst ever.
If this keeps up, well, how can you say
if this keeps up? And my answer was, well,
it's never.
Nobody's ever been this bad, ever.
You know, terrible teams
will win one third of their games.
Right.
Yeah, it's baseball.
But I got to say,
it did feel, in the early days,
it did feel like
we would never win again.
It's just interesting
to get that 2-11 stretch
out of the way early, I guess.
Hopefully that's the only one
that happens, yeah.
Seriously. Have you ever, I know you go to every Jays game at the way early, I guess. Hopefully that's the only one that happens, yeah. Seriously.
Have you ever, I know you go to every Jays game at the Dome,
I guess almost every Jays game,
but have you ever been to a TFC match at Beamer Field?
No, never have.
Never have.
The last live soccer game I saw was at Varsity Stadium in 1982, I want to say.
Was it the Blizzard?
It might have been the Blizzard.
I think it was Juventus in town,
and I can't remember who they played.
But I don't know if it was the Blizzard.
But I remember I had friends from Israel who were in,
and we thought, oh, they like soccer,
so let's take them to this.
And we took them, and they thought it was awful.
I guess if you're used to a certain caliber.
Yeah.
I always say, so I i went i was at tfc saturday night and i just got to say and when the jays are i've been to jay's games during you know like in 2015 in september i went to see
and it was something special like everyone's into it and it's just a different vibe it's amazing
but there's something unique about this tfc, like in terms of the, I'm in the supporter section,
and the fan involvement and the chants and the songs that come from the fans.
And you saw a bit of this like in the Nashville hockey games
that you watched in the playoffs.
But I got to say, there's something remarkable that happens
during TFC matches with that crowd.
And you got to get yourself to a game.
I think it's quite the experience.
At some point in time, I definitely will.
I've only been to one Toronto Rock game,
and I sort of felt that way at the time about that,
that the fan experience was really, really cool back then,
but that was a long time ago.
Was that back when we just won title after title?
Yes.
Yes.
And that's, for me, with TFC,
I'm really happy for all the fans
that the team is finally good
and finally doing wonderful things
and got to the finals last year
because, you know, for years,
it was the same raucous, loud singingness
for a team that was absolute, just awful.
They had protest days,
like where everybody in the supporters section
would wear black, for example,
to let management know this is not cool.
And yeah, apparently,
because I don't follow it that closely, but I saw a great
match on Saturday night, apparently we're the cream
of the crop right now, like number one.
Which is great, right? They've earned.
I mean, the fans have really,
really turned up for this
team. And I thought for a long time it
was just an excuse to go out and drink and yell
and scream.
And maybe it was, but
now they're rewarding
them at least.
Are you familiar with the email
newsletter 1236?
I have heard of
it. I've never been exactly sure
what it was. I know that
1236 has been on
your show. Every quarter he's coming
in on every quarter.
So he's coming in Thursday, I
believe. But I would never have known
who it was if I hadn't seen your tweet today.
So you've seen my tweet.
That explains that twinkle in your eye there.
I thought maybe you liked my haircut.
Mark Weisblot is the
gentleman behind 1236 and he tells
me he went to high school with you,
and I was just going to try to find out now
whether you remember a Mark Weisblot.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
No, is that true?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's a tiny high school, right?
Okay, so you do.
Yeah, so we all knew each other.
Okay.
And our year was like,
we were in the same grade, Mark and I,
but it was a weird year,
and I think only people who were born in 1969 or 70
will remember this,
but the government took out grade 13,
and they put it back in, and they took it out,
and then there were OACs.
Yeah, I had OAC.
Right, so we were that merge year
where the year ahead of us,
we graduated with a lot of the people in the year ahead of us
because we had the OACs and they didn't.
Yeah, they got rid of that OAC because my kids only go to grade 12.
Right, right.
And a lot of us only went to grade 12 with the OACs.
But only the smart kids.
Well, only the ones who wanted to take a course in the summer and a course at night, which a lot of us only went to grade 12 with the OACs. But only the smart kids. Well, only the ones who wanted to take like a course in the summer and a course at night, which a lot of us did.
But yeah, so our graduating class was a little bigger, but it was still probably less than 200 people.
We went to a tiny little private Jewish high school.
So yeah, I don't know that we were really good friends back then or anything,
but we certainly knew each other and had a bunch of friends in common.
Think about that, though. Two of my guests this week went to the same tiny little high
school. That's a small world. I know it's Toronto.
It's a crazy small world. And I've followed him since, you know, I saw when I was at CIUT,
he was doing something. I can't remember whether he was at CIUT2 a little later or whether, and then later he did like a.
640, he had some stuff at 640.
Yeah, and he did a media blog or something.
Yes, well, he did something with the Toronto Star called paved.ca, I believe.
And then he had the Better Living Centre, which was his own.
He's had a few different things I followed through the years. But now he's focusing on his 1236 newsletter.
So you should sign up.
If you want another small world story.
Yeah, go ahead.
Of course.
You ever get Danny Shulman in here?
Have you had?
I haven't been able to give him a proper invitation yet.
But I definitely want Danny Shulman in here.
He and I went to the same small, private elementary school,
which I find
to be kind of crazy.
He's like four or five years older than me,
so we didn't know each other then, but I knew his sisters.
It's a very small world.
There's only so many people who will call
a Blue Jays inning this year, you know what I mean?
You're a very small collection
of people who will do that.
And by the way, good on you.
I know Jerry had some throat issues or something.
Yeah, he lost his voice.
And you had a lot of mic time.
You were great.
Thank you.
I know you're great, but I just want you to know I'm not just saying that because you're sitting there.
I actually thought you were really good.
And I mean, I don't know.
Rogers hasn't told me.
But to me, if they need a
succession plan when Jerry decides to retire,
it should be you.
Fingers crossed. That would be awesome.
It would be
far more than a dream come true.
But don't worry, Jerry, because
it's early. Yeah, it's not happening for a while.
It's early.
Now, you mentioned earlier
Toronto Rock.
Do you know which beer company sponsored the Rock Games this past season?
This past season?
It's a loaded question for you.
Is it the Great Lakes Brewery?
It is the Great Lakes Brewery.
That only smokes.
You're good at trivia.
Great Lakes Brewery sponsored Toronto Rock Games.
So they sponsored three things that I know of.
Toronto Rock Games last year.
They sponsored the Lakeshore Santa Claus Parade.
They put a float in there.
Very nice.
And they sponsored Toronto Mike the Podcast.
Well, why wouldn't they?
They're just wise people.
But they're going to send that beer home with you.
They want you to enjoy that.
Wow, a five-pack.
I'm very impressed.
Thank you.
And if you're nice to me,
if these jams kick out effectively,
I could maybe make that a six-pack.
Five is lovely.
It's five because
I wanted an empty slot for
your new pint glass that you're taking
home with you.
Brian Gerstein has
sent that over for you to bring home.
It's lovely. And in fact,
you know what? It is the same
format as the glasses that I have at home, some of which my children have broken.
So this will be a perfect addition to the collection.
That's pretty good. He did say he did his homework, so he got it custom made for you.
So it says propertyinthesix.com on the side. That's from Brian Gerstein.
We're going to start with this
piano ditty. Brian says the current market favors condo owners over detached homes.
Now is the perfect time to move up by selling your condo for a max price
and being able to buy a house for less than a million. Call Brian at 416-873-0292 to find out
how as time is running out for this rare opportunity. So give Brian a shout again it's property in the six.com i gave you the number
416-873-0292 brian gerstein is a real estate sales representative with psr brokerage
you are you a homeowner in the gta is that a private question gta but not in the six
unfortunately i'm on the other side of the creek. Yeah. I'm closer to you than I am to, or than you are to downtown.
But yeah, I'm in the 9.
Well, okay, so the Etobicoke Creek is the border there.
Yeah.
I know it runs through Marie Curtis Park.
Yes.
You ever go for a walk or whatever?
I bike through that almost every day.
Really?
Great park, yeah. My kids both used to go to,
there used to be a daycare place
on the corner of Dixie and Lakeshore.
Oh, yeah.
Called Pippi's World.
It's gone now.
But they both went there
and there were constant walks
with the kids to Marie Curtis
and they would hang out
and there's this huge playground
where there used to be water there.
Well, there's still a water park going on there.
It didn't work then.
I saw it.
It's working.
I saw it.
And maybe they renovated it since those days.
But definitely saw it working earlier this summer.
I saw the kids all there in the water for sure.
But, yeah, it's a cool park, Marie Curtis.
And I know that's like half of it's in Mississauga
and half of it's in Etobicoke.
Yeah, and I used to, when I was on my occasional health kicks,
try to go for a five-mile walk,
and that would take me through Marie Curtis Park always.
And there's a really, you would know it,
the bike path that takes you out to Lakeshore heading west.
It's really cool in there.
Absolutely.
And if you want a really long walk, you can keep going and get the port credit if you're looking for a real long walk during a health kick.
Just the time.
You don't have the time.
I know.
That's why I bike.
It's faster.
Mike Wilner, are you ready to kick out the jams?
I have always been ready to kick out the jams.
I'm afraid they won't be hoppy or boppy enough for people.
Well, let's dive in and see.
I think they're pretty damn good, but we'll talk about it. guitar solo
Begin the day with a friendly voice
A companion unobtrusive
Plays that song that's so elusive And the magic music makes your morning moon Rush, spirit of radio.
I want you to know that I hit that post in my head when it was playing there.
This was the theme song for my first show, which was on CIUT.
This was the theme song for my first show, which was on CIUT.
It started in 1988, maybe 89, when I finally got a half-hour show.
But yeah, that was the, I always thought, the perfect intro music.
And I used it after that for years.
I would love to have it as a Blue Jays broadcast intro music, but I don't think they'll move to that.
Which is cool, because Geddy Lee is a huge Blue Jays fan.
I was going to say, he scores his own games, right?
That's a hardcore fan.
I've had the privilege of getting to know him a little bit
through Dave Bedini.
We've gone to lunch a few times,
went a couple of times with Alex Anthopoulos,
a couple of times with Gibby.
He's very cool, and he's phenomenal.
He's really into the deep, deep dives into the game.
And they don't tour anymore.
So he has more time, I would think.
Yeah, but he spends a lot of time in London.
I think he spends like half the year in London and half the year here.
And he's traveled a ton.
I think he went to New Zealand this year.
And it's cool.
You know what?
Not only is it cool because he's a huge Jays fan,
but we grew up in the same neighborhood.
He's a little older than me.
But I mean, all his spots growing up are the same spots as mine growing up.
But it's just regardless of any of that stuff, Rush is an incredible band and this is a phenomenal song.
Now, rumor has it that this song is about CFNY.
Really?
Because the slogan for CFNY was Spirit of Radio in the David Marsden era.
I did not know that.
Next time you're having lunch with Getty, ask him to confirm or deny these allegations.
But yeah, I believe the Spirit of Radio in question is 102.1 CFNY. I thought it was just a screed against
over
promoting and
begging
for listeners and compromises
and all that stuff.
But yeah, if
we should have another one of those lunches, I will
definitely ask him.
Your kids are older, but two of my
kids, one especially, is really into this movie called Trolls.
Okay, so Trolls.
Mine have no interest in seeing that one.
No, your kids are older now,
so they probably graduated from trolldom.
But one of the songs that's covered in this
is The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.
So, you know, I always hear echoing from the trolls, I'll hear, you know,
the words of the prophet were written
on the subway walls, and of course Rush takes
that lyric and it's on
the radio walls, so there's a little homage
there to Simon and Garfunkel. But it's different
prophets though, right? Yeah, it's different prophets.
It's salesmen, right? Right.
Yeah, and I think that's very cool
too, that they sort of lifted, that Neil
sort of lifted and changed that lyric.
Great first choice, Mike Willner, and thank you for some CanCon.
Hebsey was low on the CanCon, but you start off with one.
I wanted to get as much CanCon in there.
I didn't start off. You picked the order. Did I? I took it out of your email, but maybe it off with one. I wanted to get as much CanCon in there. I didn't start off. You picked the order.
Did I?
Okay.
I took it out of your email,
but maybe it was just random.
Yeah, totally random.
And by the way,
don't brag about your CanCon
because I'm looking at the list now.
I got four, no?
I see two.
Oh, yeah, you have three.
I see three.
I see three.
But no, we don't want any spoilers,
but maybe you'll correct me
and say, well, I see three,
but we'll see.
Excellent.
We cut a Blue Rodeo one, too, though.
We cut Blue Rodeo.
And maybe at the very end we can talk about some of the cuts we had to make.
Honorable mention time.
Number two for Mike Wilner kicks out the jams. guitar solo We walked on the beach
Beside that old hotel
They're tearing it down now
But it's just as well
I haven't shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me, baby
I got plans for you
This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on
I wish I had my lighter with me.
This is Billy Joel, This Is The Time.
And this is, for me anyway, this is the only song
that provokes an intense emotional reaction for me.
You can see I'm welling up a little bit hearing this.
It's just, Billy Joel has always been a favorite of mine from
Piano Man on. But even just all the lyrics of this song.
This was a song that I sang to my babies when I was
trying to get them to sleep. And just this line
here, before you came into my life, it's some kind of miracle that I survived.
At the end he says, holding you close is like holding the summer sun I'm warm
from the memory of days to come and I thought that was it's gorgeous it's a
beautiful song and you know I can't sing but every parent can so this brings back
memories of trying to rock the one, 2, 3, 4 month olds
to sleep at 4 o'clock in the morning
and not to push non-terrestrial radio
but for a while there Sirius had a Billy Joel channel
and I had the satellite radio in my rental car at spring training
a couple of years ago
and I was driving
to some road game somewhere and this song came on and i hadn't heard it in years and i literally
started crying in the car listening to this song um i don't know if it's if it's so good that it
deserves that but the the memory that it brings back.
Well, that's the beauty of music, right?
It's evoking those memories and bringing back old emotions.
I mean, I was welling up when you were talking.
You know what's funny?
Gord Depp is coming over in the next couple of weeks,
and I have it all loaded up for his episode.
I got it loaded in my soundboard already.
That's a cool song.
Romantic Traffic, too.
I tell my kids about that one
all the time
because my mom lives
at Young and Shepherd
and they filmed that
at Shepherd Station.
It's a great video, right?
Apparently it's like
a super low-budget thing
and people still watch it
and enjoy the old
Subway video, if you will.
Yeah, here's that lyric at the end.
This beach is so cold
on winter afternoon
Ah, but holding you close at the end. This is the time to remember Cause it will not last forever
I love hearing your story about when your kids were younger
and singing this song, because tomorrow, Fred Penner is visiting.
Awesome.
And yeah, I have memories too.
There's an obscure, and I'll play it on this episode tomorrow,
so no spoilers here, but he wrote an obscure song
for a show called Tippy Tales, which was about Ojibwe people and it aired briefly on
treehouse like back when my oldest was a baby and I'd watch it with him and
there's one song that this bear sings in one episode that I I've had four kids
and I've sang it to all four whenever they have a they're scared of something
or they have a boo-boo I sing in fact I'm well enough now it's my turn but
I'll sing this song.
And as recently as yesterday, I sang it to the three-year-old.
And I can't wait to talk to Fred about this,
the emotions it evokes in me, the song he wrote for Tippy Tales.
Yeah, it's incredible. Billy Joel's great. This is great.
And for me, when you invited me to kick out these jams,
I tried to balance,
but it's not about whether the song
is particularly great or not for the most part,
but for me, it's about the memory that it brings back.
And those sense memories with music are incredible.
And that's what makes this so interesting to me
is because it's so subjective,
and I love to hear,
what are the songs that Mike Wilner loves and why?
By the way,
this whole project,
if you will,
came about because of a tweet you wrote about Pearl Jam 10.
And it's just,
you probably,
you probably tweet a hundred times a day or whatever,
maybe more.
And then I saw this tweet about Pearl Jam 10 and somebody was criticizing the
album.
Like,
first of all,
I hate people who say like your favorite band sucks.
Right.
Like,
what's this?
Like,
if I want to like Nickelback, I can like Nickelback.
You're certainly allowed.
You're allowed to.
You know, to face the consequences, but you're allowed to.
That's right.
Maybe that's a bad example.
And we don't have any Pearl Jam on the list.
I was thinking about putting Black on there.
But that's sort of an old line that I've gone to a few times,
that the 10 was the last good album made.
Because music did, for me anyway,
start to suck for a while after 1994.
But it has come back
and there's been some stuff that I've enjoyed
that my kids like listening to now, surprisingly.
But I don't want to be that old guy
with the whole back in my day with everything.
I've used this line a lot lately,
but the music you loved as a teenager
will never leave you,
and you'll always love it.
It's like...
Same with baseball players, right?
When you're 12 years old.
Here's my George Bell poster.
It's somewhere here.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a good analogy.
Let's hear your third jam. guitar solo
Who's gonna tell you when
It's too late
Who's gonna tell you things
Aren't so great
You can't go on
Thinking
Nothing's wrong
What the
Who's gonna drive you home
Tonight
The Cars Drive.
It's hilarious, I think, for me.
And this is sort of a trend for me,
that my favorite songs by certain bands
are sung by not their lead singer.
I remember, I used to listen to those countdowns all the time
and top 40 lists and stuff I was
really a music top 40 music geek which is weird right because most radio right
so like you're talking like like 1050 chum back in the day. CFTR always had their
top six at six. You know but I lost a lot of respect for CFTR I'll tell you why
which is funny because it's the first place I worked in commercial radio but I
lost a lot of respect when Islands in the Stream was their number one song.
I thought, you know, what are you doing?
It wasn't even on the chump chart at all, as it should have been.
But this was, I was listening to like, I can't remember who carried it.
Probably some American station had the American Top 40 Casey Kasem's show.
And this song came on as one of those, hey, it's not on the Top 40 yet, Kasem's show and this song came on as
one of those hey it's not on the top 40 yet but it's on the way I can't remember
what he called that but I listened to it I thought wow this is an incredible song
and so I think you might think which is off the same album heartbeat city was
like climbing the charts or number one or something like that. It had that video that got constant play.
That I never knew until years later was censored in Canada.
It was?
At the end of the You Might Think video,
there's a close-up of Rico Kasich's face.
And if you were watching it on Toronto Rocks,
then you saw him just sort of click on the side of his glasses
and put his hand down and that was it.
On MTV, when he clicked on the side of his glasses,
his face came off and stuff started pouring out.
I know, yeah, I had no idea.
We never got to see that in Canada.
So that was climbing the charts.
I came to the cars really late.
Heartbeat City was the first album that I listened to
and then you go back and you hear the stuff like
My Best Friend's Girl and all that stuff.
But this song really, i thought this is very rarely have i had that sort of this is the first time
i've heard this and this is an incredible song um and this is ben or may he rest in peace on lead
vocals um sticks my favorite stick song is too much time on my hands with tommy shaw on lead
vocals and not dennis deYoung. But this was the first
concert I went to. I saw the cars
at the X in the grandstand.
Yeah, yeah. Went with my brother, I want to say
85, might have been 84.
But yeah, and it was
because of this that got me into them.
Very cool. That You Might
Think video though, whenever Much would do
these like top videos of all time thing
for the longest time, this was always
guaranteed. This one in Sledgehammer
by Peter Gabriel
were always top 10
surrounding the typical Michael
Jackson and this and that.
Excellent. By the way, when you first sent
me the list and you said Drive, you never said it was the cars.
For some reason, the first thing I thought
of was the R.E.M. song called Drive.
Yeah, and I didn't know there was an R.E.M. song called Drive. Which I always liked. And I'm like, oh, he's got the R.E.M. song called Dry yeah and I didn't know there was an R.E.M. song called Dry
which I always liked
and I'm like oh he's got some R.E.M. in there
nope I don't like them because too many people like them
that's right
that was our chat before we started recording
I'm kidding
we had a nice fun chat that once a band
is too popular there are some people who will
stop listening to them which doesn't make
any sense to me
let's hear your fourth song, Mike. I hear the drums echoing tonight
And she has only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in 12.30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me toward salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words
Or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say
Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you
Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you It's waiting there for you.
Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
I miss the rains down in Africa.
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had Toto's Africa.
Yeah, am I giving myself away too much with the vintage of all these songs?
No, it's all good.
You love what you love.
That's what I love about music.
One of the reasons I like this song is because I was a big lyrics geek too.
And this has one of the greatest lines,
and it's coming right up here,
right after he says,
I know that I must do what's right.
I must do what's right.
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus
above the Serengeti.
I found that to be a fantastic line.
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus
above the Serengeti.
And I wanted, as part of this jam kicking out,
to pick a real 80s song, and this was it,
with a great lyric.
I had to, in the email to you,
I was deciding between this and Authority Song
by John Cougar Mellencamp,
because that also has a fantastic
one line, which is
growing up leads to growing old
and then to dying and dying, to me,
don't sound like all that much fun, which I thought
was hilarious. But
this is great, too.
And another thing about the lyrics geekery of me
is I still can't figure out what they're
saying at the end of the chorus.
Because it's going to take a lot to do
the things we never had
doesn't make any sense
and I love Duran Duran and their music
makes no sense at all
but I have
no idea what they're saying
and
I don't know if the sound he makes at the end
is something else
to add to the lyric but it's really confusing to me and I dig that kind of stuff let me makes at the end is something else to add to the lyric,
but it's really confusing to me, and I dig that kind of stuff.
Let me ask you this.
Is Toto a one-hit wonder?
No, they had Rosanna.
Oh, yeah, of course.
Yeah, that's right.
And then there was one other one.
They were a super group, I think.
They were one of the first super groups,
but I don't know which groups came together to do it.
The greatest one-hit wonder of the 80s, I think.
Dexys Midnight Runners. Yeah Dexys Midnight Runners, yeah.
Yeah, because you can't name a second song.
Right, Tapao, too.
Remember Tapao?
What's Tapao's hit?
Heart and Soul?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
A bit of heart and soul.
And the thing about Africa also,
which is what put it over to get it on this list,
is that last week I was driving to work
and I was listening to CHFI,
and they played this song, but it was done by Pentatonix, which is that a week I was driving to work and I was listening to CHFI and they played this
song but it was done by Pentatonix oh yeah which is that acapella group and again that's like my
kids used to be so far into Pentatonix uh more than anything else and I got um they came and they did like a private ish performance for kiss and CHF I a couple of
years ago and I managed to get passes and I brought my children to this Pentatonix thing
this would have been December of 2015 nice and it was a tiny little
nothing. There were
maybe a hundred people
there. Wow. And we were right up close
and they got to
ask questions afterwards and
my youngest daughter,
my oldest daughter
brought some art that she'd made
for them and I know
that this is
audio brought some art that she'd made for them. And I know that this is audio only,
but I have never seen my children happier than...
I'm going to show you a picture of my older daughter
just looking at them playing and the smile on her face.
That's happiness.
Right.
And so that was, I mean...
Nothing as a fellow father.
Seeing your... I've taken my daughter to some shows. And Selena Gomez once, I mean, that was unbelievable. Nothing as a fellow father. Seeing your, like I've taken my daughter to some shows,
and Selena Gomez once, for example,
and my daughter just was screaming along to the song.
So I'd be like, nothing's better than bringing joy to your children.
Yeah, no, and that's what...
It's a way to leverage that Rogers hookup.
You bet.
Yeah, good for you.
Any chance I could do that.
All right, buckle up.
Here we go with Wilner's fifth jam. I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. the sky didn't have a care in the world mommy and daddy standing by but happily ever after fails
we've been poisoned by these fairy tales lawyers dwell on small details since daddy had to fly Oh, but I'm to a place where we can go
I'm still untouched by men
So watch the clouds roll by
The tall grass fades in the wind
And you can lay your head back on the ground Don Henley, End of the Innocence Don Henley, End of the Innocence
And I can tell you that this song came out in 1989
because the reason that it's on this list
is that year I did the Welland Pirates
and they were a short season A-ball team,
a Pittsburgh affiliate,
and I was the second chair volunteer play-by-play guy
for them and i had to get there myself and back and so i drove to welland or niagara falls or
st catherine's or jamestown new york or all these little you know little a-ball places um
and every single time i drove out this song was on the radio every single time I drove out, this song was on the radio. Every single time, whether going out there or coming back,
and I used to listen to McCowan doing Jay's talk
if there was time on the way back, if I finished early enough.
But it was this one song brings me back to that year
and doing that minor league baseball for the first time on
see how with Pete Marina,
1470 and brought to you by Seaway pools or whatever it was.
The,
the new well in sports complex and all that stuff.
And I,
I firmly believe that for every one of the 30 games,
this song was on the radio on my way there and on my way back.
Massive, massive hit and great song.
It is a great song.
You know, he had a few great ones.
I don't know if he gets the attention he deserves.
He did Center Field, right?
No, that was John Fogarty.
All She Wants to Do is Dance.
He did Boys of Summer, which has nothing to do with baseball,
but is a very good song nonetheless.
Yeah, he had some big solo hits there
in the late 80s.
Don Henley.
How come Centerfield's not...
This is a spoiler alert,
but there's no Centerfield on your list.
No, there's no Centerfield.
I mean, I like that song.
But Rock and Roll Girls is a better song
off that album from Fogarty, if you ask me.
Or Talkin' Baseball by
Cashman, right? Yeah, that's it.
I mean, that's sure. The Blue Jays version.
Or I was going to say the Simpsons version, right?
Talkin' Softball.
Wilner's sixth
jam. And in the pool, I think
some people at a pool, when would Duran Duran show up?
I think it's number six. Wild Boys!
The wild boys are calling On their way back from the fire
In August moon surrender to
A dust cloud on the rise.
Wild boys falling far from glory.
Reckless and so hungered.
On the races that you trail.
Because there's murder by the roadside.
In a sore a freight new world
They tried to break us
Looks like they'll try again
Wild boys, never lose it
Wild boys, never chose this way
Wild boys, Duran Duran.
Yeah, this is a phenomenal song.
And I'm thinking of the video as we're listening to it,
which was elaborate and crazy. And I thinkon was spinning and getting whipped on a wheel while he was upside down and
there was fire and out of some crazy devil head or whatever i mean they were big on elaborate videos
duran duran but um this is you know i knew i had to have a duran duran song in there because they
were as sad as it sounds, my favorite band.
People compared them to the Beatles.
They were the Beatles of the 80s.
They kind of were, right?
Which is nuts. But this was it
for them. I think this, and I saw
them play in,
I don't know if it was in the 90s or later,
I saw them at the amphitheater.
My brother actually won
tickets from Chum FM
to watch them in concert in 84 at the Gardens
when they filmed the Reflex video.
Right, where the water comes.
Yeah, so he's in the Reflex video somewhere.
That's a great track, Reflex.
You know, I used to choreograph breakdancing moves to the Reflex.
I didn't want to go with that song
because I thought that was too on the nose.
This is the one band that I'm going to play music snob with as much as one can for Duran Duran.
But I originally had wanted to go with Cracks in the Pavement, which might be my favorite song of theirs.
It's off of the third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger.
But nobody knows it, and I didn't want to be that guy.
But I also didn't want to do the Reflex.
But I mean, their early library, those first three albums.
So here's where I can contribute.
The very first piece of vinyl I bought on my own was a copy of Rio.
Really?
Yeah.
Very nice.
I loved Duran Duran as a young man.
How could you not?
I thought they were the coolest.
And I loved Rio.
And I loved, What's the...
Hungry Like the Wolf?
Yeah.
That track, I could play that over and over again.
I heard that the other day.
New Moon on Monday.
Yeah.
New Moon on Monday is a phenomenal song.
I didn't love Union of the Snake, but that was about the only one.
Planet Earth is a great song.
Is there something I should know?
And Save a Prayer.
It's not Save a Prayer.
Save a Prayer.
Is it called Save a Prayer?
It's a phenomenal song.
Yeah.
What's the Madonna song called then? Like a Prayer. Like a Prayer. Save a Prayer. Is it called Save a Prayer? It's a little song, yeah. What's the Madonna song called then?
Like a Prayer.
Like a Prayer, great.
Save a Prayer, which was released twice, right?
Because it was released twice.
Yeah, there was this super extended version and another one.
But the Wild Boys, I don't know if it's Wild Boys or The Wild Boys.
I think it's Wild Boys.
This is the end.
This song was released on their Greatest Hits album,
which came after the first three,
and then they broke up.
They went to Arcadia and Power Station.
Didn't they have an album?
They had an album called Arena.
Yeah.
But this is not on that?
No.
My brain, it's because I'm, you know,
the whole memories are.
Unless the Arena was a concert album.
You know, I'm going to trust you.
You're the Duran Duran guy,
except my memory bank is that the album
after Seven and the Ragged Tiger,
I remember that having Wild Boys on it.
And that was Arena.
It may have because Wild Boys was never on an album, right?
It was never on an album of original music.
But then they broke up.
They got back together in various iterations.
They had Notorious and Ordinary World, those songs.
Right.
And the White Lines, they did White Lines or something.
And there was another one
that just came out a couple of years ago
that was not half bad,
but it's not, you know,
you got to have the core five there,
the three Taylors and Simon and Nick.
Yeah, that's a great band for 80s,
if you love 80s music,
yeah, Rio and Seven and the Ragged Tiger,
you got to have those albums in your collection.
And Wild Boys is a great track.
Good job.
Thank you.
Number seven is the first time you overlap with Hebsey, by the way.
Really?
Well, not the same song, but the same band.
Hebsey also had a band.
I also had a song by this band.
Let's hear it. When I call you up, your line's engaged I have had enough, so act your age The Beatles, You Won't See Me.
And can we count this as half CanCon?
Why?
Because the only reason that I went and found this song by the Beatles
was because I was introduced to it with an Anne Murray cover.
Oh, yeah.
I still can't count that as half CanCon.
That's a good argument.
Anne Murray.
So, okay, so Beatles have, I don't know, 250 songs or whatever in their catalog.
So tell me why this one?
Because of the Anne Murray connection.
Because my father loved the Beatles and loved Anne Murray too,
but for some reason I heard her version first a bunch of times.
And I remember I can still see his album collection in his apartment
at Don Mills and York Mills.
No, Leslie and York Mills.
And he had the blue album and the red album of the Beatles,
and he had Hippo in My Bathtub by Anne Murray.
I had that too.
They're like beside each other.
Had Teddy Bear Picnic on that?
Yeah.
Yeah, I had that one too.
And I just, I remember, and I used to do on the radio,
every once in a while they would ask me to host a show
and we would have giveaways and they would say,
figure out how to give this away.
So I did it with cheesy 80s music trivia and it was like who covered this beatle song and
and this was ann murray the carpenters covered ticket to ride which was another one on the thing
um and you know i wanted to have a beatle song and i wanted to have there are so many and there
are so many awesome ones and so many awesomer than this maybe but I think this is
a fantastic song and I was
just so surprised
when I found out that it was a Beatles song
because I'd always thought of it as an Anne Murray song
that's funny
so I wanted to throw that in there
Anne Murray apparently is a great
golfer
yeah and a huge Blue Jays fan
she sang the anthem on the opener in 77
and then the World Series in 92.
Yeah, she's very much into the Blue Jays.
I would love to discuss this song with her someday
if she ever wants to.
Well, you know, if you reach out to her,
see, that's the difference between you and I.
You say, hey, I want to talk to you.
I heard you had in Seattle,
you had a caller from Seattle named Erin.
Yeah.
Is that what I heard?
Yeah.
Well, but we worked together, Erin Davis and I.
And she was wonderful.
I'm a huge fan.
She's been a huge supporter of mine since, like, the beginning. So I'm greatly indebted to Erin Davis.
It was awesome to have her on the show.
Speaking of those old retroro J songs, she's
responsible for at least three of them.
Really? Yeah, she did three of those.
I'm trying to think which three. If I could do this real quick,
it's on my head, but
Go Blue Jays Go, sort of a Johnny
Be Good version of Go Blue Jays
Go she did, and she did a couple of others
that are escaping me right now.
Since I remember that
cheesy 80s music trivia I used to do,
would you like one question?
Yeah, please.
All right.
You and I are not quite...
I think I'm a little older than you.
You've got a few years, yeah.
So hopefully...
I'm sure you know the song, but you might not.
Okay, let's go for it.
The question is this.
What cheesy 80s tune,
and it is definitely an 80s tune that reeks of cheese,
Cheesy 80s tune, and it is definitely,
it is an 80s tune that reeks of cheese.
What song advocated for the colonization of Venus in order to avoid overpopulation and nuclear destruction?
Oh, crap, Wilner.
I'm going to have to edit this out now.
Just kidding.
I have a deer in the headlight look to me.
Yeah, I can see the gears grinding.
Okay.
Cheesy 80s track.
I thought I'd be pretty good at cheesy.
It is a huge arena rock tune.
It's played at every sporting event,
every hockey game for sure.
And it's not Rock and Roll Part 2?
No, no.
That's got a whole other connotation to it.
That's true, Gary Glitter.
Poor Gary.
Well, not poor Gary.
We'll just leave Gary out of this.
We'll move on.
Tell me so that people don't have to listen.
It's The Final Countdown.
Oh, I should have got that, of course.
And it's also Job's theme on Arrested Development.
Have you ever caught Arrested Development?
The Final Countdown?
Yeah, because he's a magician and that's his
theme song. Wow.
The final countdown. Great piece
of trivia there that I totally bombed off.
I'll get the next one.
I'll get the next one. Let's
return to CanCon with your
seventh jam. You see my hands are standing
You've seen my face before
Soon you can take your last look
And they'll close the door
I stand accused before you
I have no tears to cry
And you will never break me
Till the day I die
A criminal mind is all I, all I've ever known
They tried to reform me, but I'm made of cold stone
My criminal mind.
And not the radio edit.
I like it.
This is,
I pulled it out of my own personal collection.
Nice job.
This,
I never know.
That was when he was Gowan
and we didn't have to call him Lawrence back then.
They called him Larry every once in a while.
Now it's all Lawrence Gowan.
It's fancy now.
I remember this video played quite a bit on Much Music.
Fantastic.
Tell me about Criminal Mind.
Wow.
I mean, this is a great 1980s song off of that Strange Animal.
I bought the Strange Animal album, probably one of those $4.99 sales that Sam the Record
made on Saturday mornings.
And I met Gowen a few years ago.
the record man on Saturday mornings.
And I met Gowan a few years ago.
And like I said before, I'm a lyrics geek,
but I did occasionally mishear the occasional lyric.
And this song has, I don't, yeah, it's coming up right here.
Right there.
He says,
I'm numb to pain.
And of course,
this is digitally remastered and we have a beautiful
sound system
and we can hear it
very nicely.
And when I heard this song the first time and probably the next 50 times, I thought
that line was, and I love to paint.
And, you know, because you're in prison, right?
You got time on your hands.
You can pick up a new hobby.
So I figured, hey, he loves to paint.
Fine.
So he's happy in prison.
But apparently he's numb to pain.
So I met Gowan a few years ago.
There was a Maccabi Canada fundraiser.
Danny Shulman hosted it.
I don't know what brought Gowan there, but he was there,
and we talked for a while, and I told him this.
I said, you know, I love a lot of your stuff.
He was really impressed that I knew the name of Cosmetics
because he says everybody thinks that song is called
High Fashion Model Magazine.
But whatever. So that was
kind of a cool moment. You earned points right off the bat.
I earned points. And I said in a
criminal mind, I used to think the
line was I love to paint until
I found out much later. And he
was like, you know what? That's not bad. I'm going to use
that. There's a term for this with the
commonly misheard lyrics like there's a
bathroom on the right right
and uh jimmy hendrix uh excuse me while i kiss this guy and there's a bunch and there's a term
for what that's called and sometimes bands will play the missed like it becomes so popular the
misheard version sometimes bands are known to actually play the misheard version on purpose
and i can't remember what it's called i have a couple of those books or i used to anyway
with books full of misheard lyrics,
but some of them were just, I thought,
no, they made this up. Nobody actually heard it that way.
But the fact that he said
he might actually perform it that way,
that was really cool. I bet you
he did too. He's with Stix
now, right? He did a lot of work with Stix as
their lead singer. Nice. You know what?
I'm afraid to have Gowan over
here because I won't know you.
Lawrence, Larry, can I call you Gowan?
It would be too confusing.
What do I call this?
Three options.
Yeah.
I would go with Gowan.
Gowan.
I actually have a cousin with the last name Gowan.
So there you go.
Great choice.
Great choice.
And it's good to get a second CanCon.
There will be one more.
But first, let's hear your ninth.
Let me shut down Larry.
Sorry, Larry. Let's hear
your ninth jam. I'm a ramblin' man Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can
And when it's time for leavin'
I hope you understand
That I was born a ramblin' man
My father was a gambler down in Georgia
And he wound up on the wrong end of a gun
And I was born in the backseat of a greyhound bus
Rolling down Highway 41
Lord, I was born a rampant man
Trying to make a living and doing the best I can Lord, I was born a ramblin' man.
Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can.
When it's time for leavin', I hope you'll understand.
That I was born a ramblin' man.
Awesome. Ramblin' Man, Allman Brothers.
There's a little bonus track. I thought we'd cut this one, but I'll take it.
I'll take it.
You might have another bonus track coming up,
but it was very difficult to get Mike Willner down to 10 songs,
so we've reached a compromise.
This part right here, this long solo is why I picked this song.
As we can hear, there's a good 20 seconds with no lyrics except for the all right.
This is from 1995 when I was working for the Hardware City Rockettes.
And if you go back to, I think you said episode 96, where you hear the story of my career,
you'll hear that when I got the job with the Hardware City Rockettes,
which was New Britain, Connecticut, a double A team in the Eastern League, that I believe is now the Hartford Yardgoats, they told me that I was going to be the pre and post game
show host and the fill-in play-by-play guy and get about 10 or 15, 20 games of play-by-play,
which was really, really cool.
And then when I got there, they said,
oh, yeah, and you're also going to be working in a studio off-site.
You don't get to go to any of the games.
You have to produce and engineer the broadcast,
and you have to build all the bumpers.
And this was the day before digital.
Right.
It was carts and razor blades and scotch tape.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And so I had to search through the library of this radio station because we weren't allowed
to use any music that had lyrics in it.
We could have anything at all.
It didn't have to be public domain, but there was no talking allowed.
Gotcha.
Only music.
So I searched through the library to find songs with long solos that they deemed appropriate for our bumper music
and this is the only one I remember finding.
Great track. I went through like a southern rock phase and this is one of the
tracks I would always put on my southern rock mixes because it's just a fantastic
you know, Greg Allman only passed away I think about a month ago.
Yeah, great guitar work.
Great, great jam from a great band.
It's a cool pick.
Jessica's another one that's instrumental, I think.
I think it's, yeah, it's called Jessica.
They should have just cut up YYZ and done it for all the bumpers.
That's great.
But yeah, Southern Rock is outstanding.
I'm not hugely into it, but I don't listen to a lot that I don't like
when I hear whether it's
Allman Brothers or Skinner
or CCR
sure
yeah I mean yeah
CCR is fantastic
CCR I think has a record
for most hits
that never hit number one
really
I don't think they ever hit one
but they hit two
like a dozen times
or something
that's amazing
something like that
yeah they had a good
they were like a comet.
You know, they burned very bright
for a very short period of time, the CCR.
I don't think they're, as a band,
I don't think they were around that long.
I think it was like a decade at the most.
I can't fade out of rambling, man.
That's too cool.
But you, my friend,
we've advertised this
and we promoted it as your 10 jams.
I got to be honest with the audience,
I've loaded 12 tracks into the soundboard.
So when you hear this number 10 now,
you've got to stay tuned.
There's two more coming.
But this is the 10th jam from Mike Wilner. I'm going to go ahead and close the show. I wanted to be with you alone
And talk about the weather
But your distance I can trace
Against the cloud in your face
Won't escape my attention But your tensions I can trace against the trot in your face
Won't escape my attention
You keep your distance, me the system of touch
And gentle persuasion
I'm lost in admiration,, I need you this much Oh, you're wasting my time
You're just, just, just wasting time
Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out
Did I hurt nobody?
Something happens and I'll head over heels
I won't take my heart, don't break my heart
Don't, don't, don't throw it away
Head Over Heels, Tears For Fears
Who were in town last night
Yeah, they actually played last night with Hall & Oates
And I wish I could have been there
But I'll take working at Blue Jays win over that
But yeah, this song and again we talked
earlier about how it's more about the memories and what it brings you back to and I don't know
if Lime Ricky's was a Toronto was, where I met my future wife, now ex-wife.
I have one of those, too.
Yeah.
Though she's lovely.
Yeah, mine is, too.
Yeah, perfect.
But one day, I just remember being at Lime Ricky's and working, I don't know, whatever shift it was.
And there were probably five of us wait staff and four cooks and the managers.
And this song came on in the kitchen and everybody just stopped what they were doing and just started belting it out the whole restaurant.
And this is one of those sorts of belty out kind of songs.
But that's what this song, every single time I hear it,
takes me back to the kitchen at Lime Ricky's.
Lime Ricky's.
You know, the Thor Burger and the kitchen sink
and the Sunday and all that stuff.
Do you remember Lime Ricky's?
I don't remember being inside of one,
but I remember the name Lime Ricky's.
There was one at Yonge and Eglinton,
really Yonge and Holly Street,
which is where the fan was at the beginning.
There was one at the Eaton Center. I worked at the one at young and steels and there was another one in mississauga
my ex closed down all four of them she she was she was she actually hired me to work there we
wound up getting married which was pretty cool and spent almost almost 20 years together and had two wonderful daughters.
But then when the head office started closing them down,
they would send her to each one to close it.
So she was kind of like the Grim Reaper of libraries.
She was the Grim Reaper, yeah.
That's funny.
Is this the video that was filmed at the U of T library?
I don't know.
There is a
Tears for Fears video
and I think it might be
this one
that was filmed
at the U of T library.
By the way,
is this the song?
Is this track from
Songs from the Big Chair?
I believe so.
What an album.
It's funny.
My buddy Elvis
was in here on the weekend.
He took me to the TFC match
and we were talking about
because he felt like a lot of people were overrating Tears for Fears,
which is because they were coming to town, is what happens
when a band's coming to town.
And I said, well, you know, for its time,
I don't think there was a bigger album that year
than Songs from the Big Chair.
It was a monster album.
I remember getting that as a bar mitzvah gift from a cousin of mine.
But I thought Tears for Fears was really underrated as a band because
you know the hurting was a great album pale shelter was a fantastic song so was mother's talk
uh and and when you talk about tears for fears all people want to talk about a shout right which
is their biggest song but i think maybe the worst of all the the big hits that they had
sowing the seeds of love was an amazing song. That is an amazing track.
That was like that Beatles track, right?
They tried.
They said they were trying really hard to make a Beatles song.
And it does sound a lot like it.
And the Walrus or something like that.
Yeah, it sounds a little bit like that.
But it's a great track.
Sowing the Seeds of Love is a great track.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to remember the other hits off songs from the Big Chair.
But Shout, of course, and this one, Head Over Heels.
But there were more.
There was one more really big one and I don't remember
what it was
in Tears for Fears
what does the other guy
do again
because it's
Roland is the guy
who takes all the deep breaths
that you can hear
is it like a Wham thing
as a Wham fan
as a kid
I always wondered
what Andrew Ridgely
was doing
or Hall & Oates
there's a lot of bands
like that
well Oates has a big role
to play in Hall & Oates
but yeah Andrew I wondered what Andrew did and the other guy I mean he has lead Or Hall & Oates, right? There's a lot of bands like that. Well, Oates has a big role to play in Hall & Oates. Yeah, I get to play big.
But yeah, Andrew, I wondered what Andrew did.
And the other guy, I mean, he has lead on Pale Shelter.
Okay.
And he has... Oh, Mad World is another track from...
But what's that?
There's another song from Songs from the Big Chair that...
Oh, well.
This is why we should...
People will tell us on Twitter.
We should be Googling live, but they'll tell us later.
Yeah.
We're not cheating at all. No. Otherwise, I would have got the people will tell us on Twitter. We should be Googling live, but they'll tell us later. Yeah. We're not cheating at all.
No.
Otherwise, I would have got the final countdown.
It's funny.
You played a song called Africa.
Yeah.
And then we talked about a song from Europe.
From a band called Europe.
That's right.
So we're getting there.
We're leaving together.
That's the first line.
And he means they're leaving in a rocket ship for Venus.
Now I know the rest of the story.
So that's 10 tracks, but we got two more. They're leaving in a rocket ship for Venus. Now I know the rest of the story.
So that's 10 tracks, but we got two more.
Let's play your 11th.
And Hepsi's going to be mad.
I only gave him 10, and I made him do 10.
And look, that's what happens.
Hepsi got to do it first.
Someone had to go first.
Damien Cox, last update I got, he was down to 60.
So you thought you had trouble.
He's trying to get down to 10.
But let's hear your 11th jam. We have no bananas. We have no bananas today.
We've got string beans and onions and big juicy lemons and all kinds of fruit and say we've got an old-fashioned tomato
a long island potato
we have no bananas we have no bananas today Tell the good people what they're listening to here.
I think it's Louis Prima with a little
Yes, We Have No Bananas.
And there's a lot of cool stuff about this song.
The first thing is that
as part of my trying to get my kids into music,
I fed them a lot of Beatles,
and I made a few what I called the fun CDs.
And I mentioned this to my daughter the other day
when we were talking about this thing.
I said, do you remember what was on the fun CD?
And she was like, oh, the fun CD.
And she started to well up a little bit.
That's great.
But I mean, it had stuff like Purple People Eater
and Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny, you know.
Like novelty songs.
Yeah.
And I thought they would dig that.
But there's more to it than this.
This song also, because it has become this pop culture debate,
is a hot dog a sandwich.
This song answers that question, is a hot dog a sandwich,
which we'll hear towards the end when this Woody Allen sounding guy comes in and orders, he wants bananas.
But also this takes me back to the Muppet Show because this song was performed on the
Muppet Show back in the 70s and that was my maternal grandmother's favorite show. She watched it all the time. And that was how I got introduced
to a lot of
modern contemporary really good music.
And she did too, right?
I remember vividly Elton John
performing Crocodile Rock on
The Muppet Show and a lot
of other great bands
in there.
It's a great show.
Yeah, it was a great show.
And this song was part of that, too.
But yeah, it was, I mean, it's the fun CD.
And that's what made me put this on the list.
But you'll hear.
And celery.
And olives.
But we got no bananas today.
Here, I think we solved the mystery.
Who asked you for bananas anyway?
Who asked you?
I only want a hot dog sandwich.
Hot dogs are better than bananas.
I always say, ain't it?
There you go.
In the 1950s, a hot dog sandwich.
It's definitive proof, I'd say.
That's right.
This is good enough for me.
We have solved the,
we have answered the debate
right here.
The debate is now,
I believe it's,
it is now over.
That debate is over
because a hot dog
is a sandwich.
Last jam
for Mike Wilner
happens to be by
my favorite band
of all time.
Ooh.
Here we go. Here we go. I don't know how old I am
If I'm armoring my belly
From the 16th century
Conquistador of things
I don't know how old I am
If I'm armoring my belly
Pashing out a machine I'll land if I'm armoring my belly
Dashing out of machine revving tension
Dashing out of machine revving tension
Rushing by the machine revving tension
Rush in by the machine revving tension The tragically hip locked in the trunk of a car.
If memory serves, this was the first single off of Fully Completely.
I believe you're correct.
And this takes me back to the end of my days at U of T
and my buddy Aaron Lobel with whom I did a Cable 10 show.
Let's Talk Sports.
Let's Talk Sports.
Which I watched.
Really?
We talked about this night episode 96.
Amazing.
I phoned in once to try to win like a pizza.
You were giving away a pizza.
We give away all kinds of stuff.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's amazing.
It was a great show.
We did it for five years,
and we were really good friends.
I would hang out in his condo all the time.
He lived on St. Charles right off campus
and Bay Street.
Can I tell you,
I lived at 30 Charles Street West
when I was at U of T.
Really?
Because they had family.
Family got a subsidized,
if you were a family going to U of T,
and I was married quite young,
and I had subsidized rent
at 30 Charles Street West.
Which building was that?
The one right over top the Uptown Theatre, across from the Brass Rail.
Oh, okay, so this was farther.
He lived right at the corner of Charles and Bay.
Yeah, this is Young and Charles.
Yeah, and I don't know why I said St. Charles,
but Charles and Bay, where there's a subway now in the basement of that one.
And he had a buddy, and this is all kinds of things he had a buddy who got me hired at the pickle barrel from whence i
was fired four times back in the day um but this we we heard this song while we were driving back
and forth to the the show uh we bought fully completely we played the hell out of that album you had a cousin of mine made me a mixtape of tragically hip which went all the way back to
like small town bring down um and all the way up hide highway girl on there and yeah i mean it was
it was amazing and you know i used to do public address at at u of t um everything basketball everything, basketball, hockey, football, water polo, volleyball, all of it.
And there was a player on the Varsity Blues,
just sort of a nondescript, he was a bench guy on the basketball team,
and his name was Amar El Maragi.
And every time I hear this song, don't know how old I am,
they found Amar El Maragi.
That pops into my head.
That's great.
So there are a lot of great hip songs.
I was lucky enough to be at their last concert in Toronto.
So you were at the, because I was in the middle one.
Yeah, because they announced that one late.
I thought I purposely got tickets for what I thought was the last Toronto concert.
And then they added later, they added the Sunday gig.
So I was at the Friday, I guess it was.
I think it was Thursday, Friday, Sunday that they played.
It was the only hip concert I've ever been to. And it was amazing. And it was emotional. And it was I think it was Thursday, Friday, Sunday that they played and it was the only hip concert I've ever been to
and it was amazing and it was emotional
and it was wonderful
the only bad thing is
when they played Bob Cajun
Gord's mic died
for one night in Toronto
that was the only line you couldn't hear
in the whole concert
and that would have been so cool
maybe he intentionally doesn't sing that line because the crowd sings it.
The crowd wasn't singing.
And I think the chord popped out of the mic because you saw him kind of
fiddling with it.
Okay, because as a veteran hip in Toronto guy, I think 12 times in Toronto,
when that line comes up in Bob Cajun that night in Toronto,
the crowd sings it, screams it at the top of their lungs in Toronto.
So I always wonder if that was
on purpose. But that, man, that was
an emotional concert, right?
It really was. Thanks to Joey
Vendetta for helping me find a way
to get tickets to that. See, you've got to know
the right people. I was a sucker. I'm
on Ticketmaster trying to get a ticket for me
and my oldest, and I only ended up getting one
because it was impossible to get two.
But I should have called Joey Vendetta.
Should have called Joey Vendetta.
Joey Vendetta hooked me up.
I mean, they were still $400, but he managed to find me a pair of tickets,
which was particularly awesome.
See, that story, when it was Joey Vendetta hooking you up,
I envisioned free tickets.
But then when it became $400, I wasn't as excited. I have to tell you, I envisioned free tickets, too. It's became $400, I wasn't as excited about that.
I have to tell you,
I envisioned free tickets too.
It's like, oh, I got you tickets.
That's amazing.
Yeah, $400.
Oh, thanks for that.
That's still the hip, right?
Well, you had to go.
Yeah, you had to go.
I can't believe you hadn't seen them yet.
I know.
You had to see them.
But I can't really do a lot of things.
My calendar is often quite booked up.
But bands tour in the winter too. There's lots of ACC shows that they would do in the of things. My calendar is often quite booked up. But that band's tour in the winter, too.
There's lots of ACC shows
that they would do in the winter, too.
Mike, I got to say,
this was a heck of a lot of fun.
Yeah, I had a blast.
Thank you very much for this.
I'm glad to have inspired you to do this.
I think when Hepsey listens to this,
he's going to be,
uh-oh, Wilner also brought his A-game.
Well, thank you.
By the way, Nick, you've got to come back.
Maybe, I'm thinking, maybe your brother
has to come in and kick the jams, too.
He would have some very interesting jams to kick.
Absolutely. And we could do a whole other show
from the Honorable Mentions, too.
Oh, you're right. We could do a part two for you.
By the way,
tomorrow, I'm going to say this right now,
tomorrow's Fred Penner.
Then the day after tomorrow is Mark from At 1236
catching us up on everything.
But then I have Bob Makowitz Jr. coming in Friday
to talk about his new podcast with Matthew Cause.
He's not going to kick jams out?
No, here's my rule.
You don't get to kick jams out your first visit.
We need to do it. Yeah, you have to come back a second time to kick Jams.
So Cox is coming back a second.
Sofia Yurskovich is coming back a second time.
She's wonderful.
That's another reason she's coming back.
She's fantastic.
She's fantastic.
She's coming back.
And that brings us to the end of our 243rd show.
You can follow me on Twitter.
I'm at Toronto Mike.
And Mike Wilner is at Wilnerness590.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.
And propertyinthesix.com is at Brian Gerstein.
See you all next week.
And your smile is fine and it's just like mine
And it won't go away all next week.