Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Scot Turner: Toronto Mike'd #930
Episode Date: October 13, 2021Mike chats with Scot Turner about his quadruple by-pass, his new gig, music and concert anniversaries, the passing of James Baby Scott, classic CHUM-FM, classic CFNY, the CFNY documentary, cycling and... more.
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Hi, Mike, from torontomike.com.
And joining me this week, returning to the program,
is Scott with 1T Turner.
Hello, hello.
Scott, good to see you, buddy.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm thrilled.
And did Peter Mansbridge sit here?
No, because he zoomed in, actually.
Very disappointing not to get the bridge back here.
I thought because this was yesterday,
and I haven't listened to the show yet.
Right.
Did you ask him about his weather girlfriend?
Do you know about that story?
No, tell me.
Well, do you not know about that?
He had this weather girl he used to flirt with on the air all the time and it was it was so obvious right it was like
get a room it's a true story oh man see i needed that info before i would just make the whole hour
about the weather girlfriend but he's on wife number three so i felt like maybe you know
he had the well he had a starter wife okay then he had wendy mesley oh yeah right and
now he has cynthia dale okay so you know he's in the three club like me so you married three times
yes okay because very happily now i should add yeah you have to add that caveat because then
we'll be wondering who's lucky number four no no more no more. No more. I think you're lucky.
I'm going to tell you,
today I saw you
and every time I see you
I get warm feelings.
Like,
there's Scott Turner.
He knows his shit.
He's a great guest
but he's a good human being.
But today I felt like
extra happy to see you
because I feel like
we almost lost,
you almost became like
the first Toronto
my guest to die.
That's a funny honor. Someone's got to be the first it hasn't happened yet not over almost uh what are we nine plus years it hasn't happened
yet but the I have a 90 year old who's a guest like at some point this will inevitably that's uh
Brian McFarlane but uh yourself who's not near 90 and we're going to talk about your biking, like you're a fit guy. Can we open with the true tale of your quadruple, quadruple.
I know.
I think Homer Simpson had a triple.
Quadruple bypass.
Tell me everything, man.
Yeah.
You know, and somebody asked me whether, is that the max?
I think there's one more.
I think you can go to quintuple.
What's five? Yeah, quint to Quintuple? What's five?
Yeah, Quint.
Quintuple?
Right.
Because the Quintuplets, the famous five children.
I can't remember the full story, but in Quebec or whatever, but yeah.
Quadruple bypass.
So this is bizarre.
So the story, and I'll kind of keep this as short as I can. And I lost my job, fired,
or as they like to say in radio,
I was, how do you say,
what did they say, repurposed?
No, they have a name for it.
You became a redundancy?
Restructured.
Restructured.
Restructured.
So I was out of a job.
And you know what,
this is a funny thing in this business
because sometimes they do things like that.
Even though you're successful, I had brought the station their best ratings in 10 years and things were going really good.
And sometimes things change.
Before we get to the heart story, I've never worked in radio.
I just play one on the Internet.
But you, I guess I'm curious because when when i look at your career i really do i see
you know the cfny and i see the energy 108 and there's full episodes by the way in the archives
of just scott talking about these areas and then there's the flow and basically everywhere you go
you do something wonderful and you're you're awesome at what you do like for my money thank
you yes well i skipped a few there but for my for my money, if I'm starting a radio station,
I'm phoning Scott Turner.
I don't understand how if you can't keep your gig
and you're also responsible,
like you're not like Scruff Connors style,
sleeping in and not showing up for work or whatever.
What is it about radio that does that
to quality people who do great jobs?
I don't know.
I do stand up for things and I can be a little outspoken that's what it is you know you're not a controllable
asset yeah i suppose so that may be part of it yeah i suppose but anyway so i had some time off
right so i'm restructured i have some time off right so uh there's part of me that's going ah
damn but there's the other part of me going ha cycling yeah right that's what that would be my
first thing.
Oh, I got to go cycling more, which I did.
And I did more cycling, and I was doing a fantastic year.
And then it was, so this was not just this past summer, but the previous summer.
2020.
Yeah, I'm out doing some rides.
And I'm doing some great rides.
Like I did a couple of 100K rides.
I did 100K at an average speed of 27K.
That's amazing. That's not bad. And I'm 60 at the time. I'm 100K at an average speed of 27K. That's amazing.
That's not bad.
And I'm 60 at the time.
I'm 61 now.
You know what?
You look great for 61.
Thank you very much.
All these compliments coming your way.
You must send money to Mike.
This is why you visit.
You don't come for the lasagna, the beer, the chef drop.
You come in for the compliments.
Oh, I like it all.
It's all good.
It gets through.
Good use.
Anyway, so I'm doing these rides.
It's all good.
It gets to good use.
Anyway, so I'm doing these rides, and where I am in Hilly Halliburton,
or sorry, Hilly Halton.
Sorry, Haliburton.
Halton.
I've been to Halton.
Okay.
It's a little hillier there.
So I did a 100K ride that had about 700 meters of climbing.
So it's good at 27, and average speed is not a bad pace.
Anyway.
It's actually, just from a guy who does what you're describing,
that's incredible. Well, it's not incredible, but it's not bad. bad okay i don't know what kind of bike you ride but on my bike i do have a nice bike right i can tell you i would be proud of myself
if i did 24 clicks an hour average on that ride yeah that's a decent you're up you're up though
anyway so uh doing some great rides everything but i'm starting to feel something's not right
and uh it's just like
an inflammation i'm feeling it felt like just the breathing you can't get your breath well no it was
just like you know i'm just something's my lungs feel inflamed a little bit that's what it felt
like right so uh i you know but i complete the rides you know so i'm doing other rides and again
i'm feeling this funny thing so i go, because my regular doctor wasn't available.
I go into a walk-in clinic.
I said, I'm feeling this thing.
And she goes, you know what?
You might have exercise-induced asthma.
So she gave me a puffer.
This is a popular thing.
Not a popular thing, but a common thing.
So she gives me a puffer, and I check that out.
And still, it's happening.
Nothing's really working out the way i wanted it to so
i go to my regular doctor we have a conversation and here's the story is i have a history of high
high cholesterol right it's in the family okay so she says let's just so we can rule it out
so it's nothing to do with the heart let's send you to a cardiologist and just for sure for sure for sure so that's where it started a
series of tests and some tests were okay and then my cardiologist said i went to a stress test at
the hospital and he said you know there were some warning signs there at the stress test but we need
to find out for sure so we're going to send you for an angiogram have you heard of this thing
angiogram so what they do is they stick a tube up your,
one of your veins in your arm.
Oh,
I was wondering where you were going to go there.
Way up your arm.
And they shoot a dye into your whole artery and vein system.
And so they can tell if there's any blockages.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Cool.
So I said,
okay,
we'll go do for that.
We'll go for that test.
And the whole time I'm reading up on,
and I'm thinking,
oh,
they're going to want to stick a stent in me,
which is quite common that people have some blockages and it's this little thing they stick inside.
Ralph Ben-Murgy got one.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they kind of open up the artery a little bit.
So if there's like a.
Like it prevents the heart attack.
Basically.
Yes.
And,
and they put it,
or if there's the kind of an area that has some plaque,
they put it in that area.
It opens up the artery a little bit so blood can flow better.
Right.
And I'm terrified of this.
I'm reading up on it.
Oh, they're going to try to.
And usually when they do the angiogram test,
if they find a blockage, that's when they stick the stent in there.
Right?
Right.
Ah, damn, it's gonna happen so i'm really really scared and annoyed and all the rest because i don't like invasive anything invasive right
right anyway long story short i go to the hospital they do the end and you're awake for this thing by
the way which is it hurts so uh but they do give you some sedative right and at one point i'm like yeah and he's
more sedative more sedative right so i'm a bit of a suck that way right anyways long story short
they wheel me out back and i'm sitting there and the guy comes with the uh the whole thing and he's
taking his mask off and everything he says yeah yeah uh, Scott, it's not good. The good news is the heart surgeon
is here. You're going to need heart surgery. He's here. He happens to be here right now. Dr. LeMay,
he's going to come and see you. And basically he said, Scott, you've got one artery blocked at 90%,
two at 80%, one at 50%. Wow. Yeah. And you were still doing the hundred kilometer ride. Yes.
Like that means you're a super athlete. Yes. So, well, I was still riding. Well, not quite. I was still riding
at this point and the doctor said, do you need to stop immediately? Right. You need to stop
immediately. Is that because like literally your next ride, you could have just fallen off your
bike of a heart attack and died? Possibly. Wow. Possibly. Yeah. Now they say, you know,
the whole thing was that I was in good shape. The heart was in good shape. I just had these blockages and it's all family history. Look at, at that point last
summer, you know, I'd be 35 years vegan. Um, you know, never a smoker, you know, I've been cycling
the last 12 years in that. Um, it just, it's all family history. It's family history.
Yeah. There's nothing you could have done to avoid this. It's not like you had a quarter
pounder with cheese diet, uh, and people will say, well, what nothing you could have done to avoid this. It's not like you had a quarter pounder with cheese diet.
And people will say, well, what did you expect was going to happen?
Because you're definitely
thin.
I just remembered you're a vegan,
which is good because I'm going to give you 75 bucks
to spend at chefdrop.ca
and they have vegan meals that will be
sent to your home, which is awesome.
And I'm going to have to
owe you the lasagna from Palma Pasta
because I realize I only have meat lasagna in the freezer right now.
That's okay.
I have a wife at home that will love that.
Oh, she'll eat the meat lasagna?
Absolutely.
Okay, good, good.
So you get the chef drop, which will be the vegan meal,
and she gets the lasagna, which has lots of beef in it.
Okay, please, yeah.
But they did the surgery.
So what if, like, here's my thought on this,
is that you're doing these very lengthy, 27 clicks an hour,
and you're going up the hills and everything.
Like, you could have easily ignored the symptoms and just said,
oh, it's because I'm 61 years old and I'm doing something
that less than 1% of people can actually do,
which is go for a 27-kilometer-an-hour, 100K ride.
Well, I was at just short of 4,000 kilometers before the cardiologist said,
you have to stop cycling.
For the calendar year?
Yeah.
So that was.
You're talking to one of those less than 1% people who does measure every ride.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
I'm nowhere near where you're at.
You know, I have a buddy, Jason Wood, who he was part of the Pleasure Force,
not Pleasure Force, sorry,
Better Days Rave Company in the 90s.
Oh, cool.
And he's at like 7,000K this year already.
I can check it in two seconds here.
You're probably at four or five, aren't you?
Well, I'm going to tell you right now, actually.
I do measure every ride.
This is very important to people that I do this.
I'm going to just quickly...
While you look that up, I'll give you my current stats.
Nobody cares,
but I'm at 2,300 so far this year.
But just under
4,000 meters climbed.
No, the climbing.
I know because I switched because my hybrid
bike needs a part I can't find right now.
I bought a
Fuji Feather, which is
single speed. So I'm actually avoiding
the really steep hills. I can do hills. So I'm actually avoiding the really steep hills.
Like I can do hills.
I just can't do like the crazy steep ones. It's hard to get bike parts, bikes, period.
What's going on?
I know.
I'm still waiting for my bike.
I ordered it in February.
I get it March 22nd.
I told that story because I'm, I mean, I almost have the same length of weight just for a
part, but okay.
Yearly here.
I'm looking at it now.
Quickly.
This is quickly.
And this means this is boring everybody.
They want to get back to your heart, but it's just it now. Quickly. This is quickly. And this means this is boring everybody. They want to get back to your heart.
But it's just loading up the stats.
This is the yearly bike stats.
If this ever... Here it goes.
Okay.
I'm sitting at for 2021.
Here we are.
This is October 13th.
8,500.63 kilometers.
Yes.
So I'm at 8,500.
That's awesome.
So last year, I did take six weeks off because I broke my wrist last year.
And I took six weeks off. Yes, I remember that. but i finished up just a hair under 9 000 clicks and i'm just going
to go back to 2018 which is my all-time record when i i biked 10 937 kilometers that calendar
year that's fantastic that really is no you're fantastic yeah i guess we could just pat each
other on the back for cycling here but you do what you do is i don't do because of my uh because of the just i don't have the time so i do a daily ride and it's usually about
80 minutes or 90 minutes and it's about 30k or so and then uh i like what you do which i wish i had
the time for which is you you go out for a long ride like i wish i could say okay i'm gonna bike
for the next five hours it's tough the longer rides do take time they do right you know it's
so when you have the time yeah once a year i did, I do this ride now with my buddy Mark around the perimeter of Toronto, which
ends up being about 140K, I think, when you add it up.
Yes.
But that's once a year.
That's crazy.
See, when I get to like 80, I just want to go home.
It's just like 100K rides, kind of like, yeah, yeah.
You know, 80 is a good ride for me now.
Yeah, 80. You know, 80s, 80s is a good ride for me now. Yeah, 80s sounds fantastic.
But give us like, so because you had the quadruple bypass, what's the prognosis going forward?
Like, will you get to see your 100th birthday?
What's going on here?
Yeah, so look it, I'm on medication.
I'm on a statin now.
That's basically, and look it, I knew it's partly my fault because I knew, first of all, there's family history.
And I knew there I had high
cholesterol. Look at my cholesterol before surgery was the bad cholesterol for the people that know
about this. And you can skip through this part if it's really boring, because there's some really
good audio coming up. We've got some great stuff coming up. Although this is interesting. But
anyway, yeah, for those, but yeah, skip ahead. But otherwise, if you're, you know, getting,
you should listen to this if you have any family history,
because I have a little advice for you, first of all.
But also that my cholesterol was, if you know anything about this, the LDL,
which is the very dangerous cholesterol, the bad, so-called bad cholesterol.
My level was 5.2 before surgery.
It's 1.7 now.
And what's the range of?
Well, they say about two.
You want your LDL around two or less.
And if you've got any sort of family history, it should be less than two.
Well, it's pretty much the medication.
And what it is, is just, you know,
what people don't know,
a lot of people don't know,
is the liver creates or manufactures
about 75, 80% of the cholesterol that's floating
around in your body. You make yourself, the liver does that. And my problem is there's these things
called the lipid proteins. That's what the LDL is and the HDL, their lipid proteins, they carry
around the cholesterol. Well, my liver just makes too many of these things. So that's what the
statin controls. And so it's in control right now.
But there's some issues about statins too.
But look, it's a choice of what do you want.
Do you want the risk of you don't like statins
or you want the risk of a heart attack?
You've got to pick your poison.
That's kind of it, yeah.
So I'm in a better place right now.
I'm still going to continue with the healthy diet,
healthy lifestyle. And some plane overhead. Oh, yeah. better place right now. I'm still going to continue with the healthy diet,
healthy lifestyle.
And some plane overhead.
Oh, yeah.
It's nice to hear planes.
I can't believe I do that.
Now, when I see a plane,
I go, oh, wow, a plane.
That's so cool.
Life is coming back. Sometimes you see
the Lancaster bomber.
Oh, yeah.
From Hamilton.
There's only like two
in the world.
I think there's only
one flying now.
Oh, really?
Shout out to Brother Bill who's going to listen to this episode. I believe his dad flew a Lancaster two in the world. I think there's only one flying now. Oh, really? Shout out to Brother Bill who's going to listen to this episode.
I believe his dad flew a Lancaster bomber in the war.
And I'm also 99% sure that Peter Mansbridge's dad, no, dad, yeah.
Peter Mansbridge's father flew a Lancaster bomber in World War II, I believe.
My Aunt Ida, who's 95.
Good for her.
She put the rivets in a Lancaster over in Scotland. That's Avro, right?
Is it Avro that made it?
Yeah.
Yes, Avro.
Shout out to the Avro arrow.
Who knows where they're hiding?
I want to go out and see it at the Hamilton.
Amazing.
It's there.
I think you can actually, for I think about two, three grand,
you can actually take a flight in it. Well, you've got to get in line. I think you can actually, for, I think about two, three grand, you can actually take a
flight in it.
Well, you got to get in line.
I think Shatner wants to do it first.
Yes.
Yes.
He's up there today.
When does he take off?
I think he took off like right now.
Oh, okay.
So, uh, text me.
I'll go over to YouTube and we'll just listen in on the call there.
But I, yeah, he's up there for a short time, not a long time.
Uh, but, um, okay.
Quadruple bypass.
Yes.
You're looking good.
You feeling okay?
Yeah, no, I do.
Are you back to the biking?
I am.
I'm back.
I started back in April.
So like I'm at just, what did I say there?
I'm at about 2,300 so far this year.
So I'm back to normal that way.
It's just, you just don't know, right?
I don't know what the future holds,
but you just have to do what you have to do. I don't think it, I don't know, right? You don't, I don't know what the future holds, but, um, you just have to do what you have to do. I don't think it, uh, I don't think, uh,
I'm hoping you won't be the first Toronto, my guest to pass away. I hope not too. Shout out
to a proud sponsors of the program, Ridley Funeral Home. So here, this is my blessing for you. I,
you know, I work with Ralph Benmerge on his show and he likes to give blessings for things.
My blessing for you is that you do not require the Ridley Funeral Home fine services anytime soon.
That's my blessing for you.
But it's good to know someday, right?
It's all going to happen.
Everyone dies, right?
It's just too early.
You have too much to give back to this world,
including these awesome audio clips.
But before we get into these awesome clips,
although there is one here,
but I want to ask you about your new gig
because you said this heart trouble was discovered when you were on hiatus.
Yes.
But you're back now.
Yes.
So and just before I tell you about that, the one thing I wanted to mention for anybody, when you're going to get your blood work, your blood test, and if you do have any kind of family history or your cholesterol level is a little bit high, ask for a LP little a test.
You actually have to pay for it. It's not in the normal test. It's only like 35 bucks.
It's the lipoprotein small a, LP little a, and it's an indicator that you may have an issue,
family history issue. It's something to ask for and get tested, the LP little a. It's little known
and a lot of doctors don't put it in the test. have to ask for it and that's one to grow on Scott Turner now what's the new gig
so new gig I'm working for Evanoff Communications which um you know is so I'm after looking after
their Brantford properties there's three stations there um one is uh light 92 which you can actually
pick up in Toronto, right here.
It's got a huge signal.
It's fantastic.
And light,
is that going to be like,
sort of like...
It's like light favorites.
Of course,
yes.
Toronto mic,
it's light favorites.
Well,
and you spell light,
L-I-T-E,
right?
Yes,
that's it.
I can see it now.
There it is.
Okay,
what else you got there?
And there's also a country station.
I actually,
you know what?
And there's a Christian, an AM Christian station.
I'm program director for the three stations.
Wow.
What a mix.
So what's cool about this is because I've done so much CHR and other things in my past,
and I've been doing radio over 40 years, so I just needed something different,
and I haven't really done the AC format before, which is the light station.
A country station, that was my first station I started at, CHU in Ajax,
and I only did that for a short period of time. And country's a fun format. So I'm kind of having fun with that.
And I've never done, you know, a Christian AM Christian radio station. So that's a new challenge
for me. So it's really, and it's really cool to be working with people like, you know, Paul
Evanoff along, you know, with his dad, you know, built that Evanoff radio empire. And we go back
to Energy 108. And there's some really good people there. Lars empire. And we go back to Energy 108.
And there's some really good people there.
Lars, who I worked with at Energy 108, is there.
And Carmel and other people.
And you know what?
It's a small radio group and company, a growing company.
But it's not, you know, I'm tired of corporate radio.
This is so not corporate radio.
I'm tired.
I'm done with corporate radio. So this is a great place for me right now. Careful what you say out loud. What if you get an offer you can't refuse from one of those large corporate radio. This is so not corporate radio. I'm tired. I'm done with corporate radio. So this is a great place for me right now.
Careful what you say out loud.
What if you get an offer you can't refuse from one of those large corporate media companies?
No, no, no.
Not happening.
Not happening.
I heard they wanted you to.
This is your last gig?
This is my last radio gig.
Absolutely.
Okay.
It is.
Because I was talking to the good people at Rogers and they said, you'd be perfect to
take Maureen Holloway's spot on CHFI Mornings.
They were like, we need a Scott Turner thing.
Oh, no, I learned about that, you know, mornings.
And I was thinking, you know, and tomorrow is the anniversary for Humble and Fred, right?
Yes, tomorrow at 7 p.m.
Howard, you know, if you're listening at all, it's like, you know, I was thinking,
I wanted to leave a message for Howard.
I was thinking, you know, and I maybe played a small part.
I was that suck on CFNY mornings between when you left to go to the mix, right?
And then came back.
So I think, in a way, I helped him out.
You know?
I was listening back then.
So I definitely remember the Scott and Fred era.
Yeah.
Right, when Howard was at 99.9.
And I'll play that clip for them.
Oh, no.
Because I can pull that.
And I am firing off clips tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
on their Facebook page.
So, yeah.
But you know what?
The quick thing I just wanted to say,
those guys absolutely doing things before anybody else.
They were just pioneers.
Like you've been,
pioneers doing what you're doing right now.
And I heard their story.
I listened to that podcast you did with them.
It was great.
You should go back and listen to it.
You get not the whole story, but you get good chunks of their story.
And it's like how they persevered through that
and all those changes and the challenges
and all the shit they had to deal with.
I mean, that's incredible.
And they kept together as a team. An incredible. And they, you know, kept together as a team.
An incredible story.
And, you know, good for them.
Yeah, that last 10 years, from the, I'm thinking the Kingston experiment,
to the SiriusXM, to the funny 820, to the 1010 best ofs and everything in between.
And now it's funny, where they're at now is right exactly
where i'm at now where you're just a podcast like this is this is where you end up uh podcast you
realize you actually and i say this to a gentleman who just proudly announced he's uh working in
brandford for the evanov communications people but uh you don't need radio anymore it's just
a cumbersome distribution platform.
Not convenient at all.
But I digress.
I have a, what do I have here?
I have a jingle.
I think it's a jingle.
I have a 790 CKMW.
Oh, yeah.
So this, and this goes with the Evanoff story.
So, you know, my story going back to how I met Bill Evanoff
and working with, you know, his son today, Bill,
passed away just a couple of years ago. And Paul now is, you know, leading the company,
Paul Evanoff. And he was like, just, you know, just this little kid when we did Energy went away,
way back when. But when I first met Bill, I was working at CKMW, which was 790 ckmw it was the am station of cfny they were owned by the same
company and it used to be chic so that am station used to be chick am and then cfny before it was
cfny was chick fm chic fm right anyway so the call letters were changed to C-K-M-W for Metro West.
It was down the hallway,
and that's how I got into CFNY. I was just
down the hallway working at this radio
station. Is this a house in Brampton?
No, no, this was in a
strip mall. So it's after the house.
Yes, after the house. Oh, because Fred Patterson
has a picture of the house.
Yeah, and the AM station was still there
at the time. This is like
1980, 81, 82.
Somewhere in there.
I guess this is me on
CKM. This is my top
40 style.
I can't wait to hear this.
Here we go.
Metro West weather today, beautiful.
Tomorrow, beautiful. On the weekend,
not looking too bad either.
Sunshine and a few clouds around this afternoon, same story tomorrow.
However, in the morning it'll still be a little hazy and the fog which we've had previous mornings will be around as well.
High this afternoon near 22, a low tonight of 9, high tomorrow near 24.
Little chance of rain for today, tonight and tomorrow.
Currently in Brampton it's 18 or 65 at CKMW.
Still got to give the Fahrenheit back then.
How old are you approximately there?
Oh, so 21, 22?
I don't understand how you have those pipes at 21.
Oh, thank you.
Processing.
Compression.
Is that it?
So is it too late for me, or could I also?
Yeah.
I was asking Jeff Woods this.
He told me I had to start drinking and smoking at a young age.
That's a good one.
Like eight years old, he said, you've got to start.
Well, you know, the compression they put on, especially on AM radio back then,
and that station today is AM530.
It changed frequencies again.
It's CHLO, which
is a multicultural station owned
by Evanoff, and it still
exists. The stations were sold off.
The FM and the AM
were split back in those days.
That's where May Potts, I met May Potts
at 790, and we did the Rhythm Radio
790 for a little while with that
frequency.
Craig Venn came out of there
as well and is this you previous visits to toronto mike you talked about the uh the big uh like disco
party or disco gathering oh yeah that was the break dance uh break dance yeah so right yeah
for that and that's where you know where i where with with bill when bill you know purchased um With Bill, when Bill purchased this CKMW, the AM station of CFNY back then,
he purchased that station.
He wanted to turn it into a multicultural station,
but he didn't have all his ducks in a row yet.
And I said, listen, can I do something with the station?
I think we could do this rhythm radio thing and play urban contemporary music.
And so we played a lot of, you know, uh, you know,
I don't just trying to think of some of the artists back then, but, um, uh, Jermaine Stewart,
the word is out as a song that comes to mind. A lot of those things were, you know, it wasn't,
you know, a lot of, you know, Canadian radio weren't playing, you know, urban music at the
time. And so we were doing a lot of that and some dance stuff. Anyway, we had a break dance contest.
So I was wearing 1983, 84 at Chincoozie park in Brampton. It was like 7,000 people showed up.
And this was just an AM radio station and it was huge. Anyway, that
sort of concept was the birth later on that became Dance 108,
Energy 108 way back when. And this is a good time to let listeners
know it. Just in case this is your first time hearing Scott Turner on Toronto Mic'd,
you got some great episodes to catch up on. In fact, there's like entire episodes like devoted
to CFNY and there's an episode for 108 and Flow. It's like the ongoing history of Scott Turner.
Is that title taken? I think we're going to borrow that title if we can. And also, I should just tell
you, Scott, that i follow you on social
media and i urge everyone to do that because you you commemorate uh like music and concert
anniversaries and i always consume the content and think i wish this was a podcast like i would
love a scott turner podcast even if it was weekly or something to recap all the music and concert
anniversaries that you share via social media?
Well, you know what?
And we talked about this back before I had this little incident with my heart.
Right.
That I was going to do a podcast and I sort of had it planned and set up and I was looking at all the gear and everything.
And then, you know, a quadruple bypass happened and that really set me back big time.
It took a while to recover from that.
Right.
Even though it's a kind of standard procedure,
it's still a pretty big deal of an operation.
And I'd never had any operation in my life before anything like that.
So it did derail things.
And I was looking and I thought, oh, there's so many people in this space,
so many people doing it so well like you.
And I thought then COVID hit, right?
So what a year, right?
First I have heart, quadru and i thought then covid hit right so what a year right i first i
have heart see i would say bypass then covid covid hit i am trying to do a little of it like i do a
monthly with mark weisblatt and i do something about this i'd say in this arena definitely but
i don't think uh i'm i know i'm not doing it the way that you would do it uh having been there and
i just just throw i'm not even saying I'm not even saying this as a producer podcast
I'm saying this as a consumer of
podcasts that
maybe one day we'll get lucky enough that we can
subscribe to the Scott Turner
podcast you're very kind and on that note
it's funny
I just booked David McPherson
for his return to
Toronto Mike to discuss the
anniversary there's a Massey Hall book yes so and he I just for his return to Toronto, Mike, to discuss the anniversary.
There's a Massey Hall book.
Yes.
And I just booked him,
like literally we confirmed the day and time this morning.
So there will be like an entire episode devoted to Massey Hall, essentially.
But share with us if you don't mind.
Okay, yeah.
So I do have a story.
And by the way,
if you want to follow me
and get some of these,
every day I post some great, you know, music anniversaries and milestones and artists of, you know, singles and albums released, blah, blah, blah.
You know, that's the other thing I had with this, you know, the heart surgery and COVID not working.
I had all this time and I love doing research.
So that's where a lot of this stuff came from.
I did tons of research, which I'm still posting every day.
Follow me, Twitter, at Scott Turner.
It's Scott with one T, at Scott Turner.
And I'm also on Facebook, too, and you'll catch the stuff there.
Anyway, so one story, because I was talking to the guys that are putting this book together,
this Massey Hall book, which kind of fits into the, I love that're you know putting together um this history of of
massey hall you know one of the greatest venues not just toronto and canada and the artists and
and shows and experiences that people have had there so that book's coming out i think you can
order it online you can just google it i think they have pre-orders right now i think they were
asking me for a story and the only one i could think of but i thought it's not really appropriate
for the book but i'll just tell you it here for a quick second.
So I'm thinking back, and I don't know the years around mid 80s.
So I'm working for CFNY.
And back then we got to MC concerts.
Different, some not see, some bands were okay with it.
Some weren't.
And often what would happen is like, okay, you're going to, you're going to MC the show,
but you're going to go out five minutes before the band.
So it's not like, and here they are, you know, because some bands don't like that.
I could, there's some cheesy DJ up there introducing them.
Fair enough.
Okay.
So you'd go out five minutes before whatever.
And I thought, okay, so I'm going to be at Massey Hall.
And you know what, for the life of me, I can't remember who the artist was, but it's Massey
Hall.
This is a pretty big stage.
Of course.
So what's happening at the time I'm doing doing live in Toronto, and there's a lot of controversy about tickets that radio stations have are the primo tickets.
Like front row, you know, middle section, second row, you know, first 10 rows, best seats.
And people were complaining because the radio stations got
the best tickets to give away and it's not fair to the general public well i actually knew because
you know i talked to the promo department go wait you know the tickets that we give away are they
how good are they you know it's like well they're not bad but they're not from you know from 10
rows they're like to the side a little bit and back 20 rows and that sort of thing i'm like oh
okay okay so i thought because everybody's saying oh you know we're being ripped off anyway so so silly silly stupid me decides and my mc opportunity
i so five minutes to go before the show you got a full massey hall there's scott turner on stage
going hey you might have heard about this controversy about radio stations they have all
the best tickets so listen stand up if you won tickets from a radio
station right so sure enough people and massey all and they're in the left side and some on the right
nobody in the front row is right right i'm like yeah great okay cool cool anyway you know five
minutes from now so-and-so is going to be on stage love you thank you i just got 200 for cfny
the spirit of radio all right great so uh'm going backstage, and then I hear this big
boom around the stage, and there's this guy
looking at me going, come with me.
I'm like, what?
So he pulls me back in this small,
I don't know who this guy is.
He's this kind of short guy, but very angry, very angry.
He's like red in the face, like angry.
And they go to this back room.
He closes the door behind me, sits me down in a chair,
and proceeds to walk around me like just yelling and swearing.
You fucking, what are you doing?
You fucking, you have no right to fucking.
Yeah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.
I'm like, holy shit, right? And that was it. no right to fucking yeah right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right somebody big up in cpi and if it if you don't know arthur fogel is now like he's i had to look it up because he's pretty big in live nation i think officially now he is the ceo of global touring
division wow of live nation there's actually a documentary called who the fuck is arthur fogel
that's where i know the name from right okay so he's hanging out with joey vendetta now is that
the deal i don't know maybe yeah that Yes, yes. Anyway, long story short,
I had to write a letter of apology and everything
and don't do that again.
Who do you think you are kind of thing.
I'm like, well, I just thought I was helping.
Don't do that again.
Anyway, that's my Arthur Fogel story.
Love it.
Love it.
And I just want to let people know
exactly when this Massey Hall episode is taking place.
I have a date here.
It's happening on November 3rd at 10 a.m.
So in this backyard,
David McPherson talking about Massey Hall.
That's awesome.
I look forward to that book, yeah.
Yeah, me too,
because the Horseshoe Tavern one was very good too.
So this is like the next one.
And the reason we're hearing all these planes,
I realize is because on these overcast days
with the low clouds, they fly lower.
Like normally you don't hear this many planes,
but I think it's because of the clouds. They're flying
at a lower altitude.
Look, we're outside.
It's October 13th. We're outside.
You're in a t-shirt and shorts.
And I've been in this outfit
forever because
it's interesting. On Thanksgiving,
I went for a bike ride and it was hot. It
was hot. It was humid and hot. It's Thanksgiving day. And I remember there, I still remember
this day. It was like, uh, in the mid nineties, there was a Thanksgiving day when we all went
in t-shirts to play football in the park, me and my brothers and my wife at the time
and everything. And I remember like, Oh wow wow, it was like in the 20s on Thanksgiving. Like this
felt like a really rare thing. And now I'm looking at a photo of Peter Gross back here
last year on this day, and he's in a t-shirt. And now I think it's not uncommon at all anymore,
I think, to be in a t-shirt on Thanksgiving. I think things have shifted on us over the last
couple of decades. Well, global warming, right?
That's right.
It's real.
Shout out to Dr. Diane Sachs, Green Economy Heroes. All right, talk to me about Humber
College.
Okay, so I think this is a little audio we're going to play here from, I went to Humber
College, took radio at Humber College, and I was, of course, really into punk in a new
way. This is like 1980, circa 1980, maybe 79.
And I interviewed, I just found this audio the other day
and I actually sent it to Ivor Hamilton for those that are CFNWires.
You might remember Ivor Hamilton, Brad McNally from the early days.
And this was me, I guess, interviewing them
because I was doing a college, some sort of special on New Wave or something.
Anyway, go ahead.
One station that does give airplay to New Wave is CFNY.
Brad McNally of CFNY gave us his reasons
for why other radio stations shy away from playing New Wave.
They just don't want to upset anybody.
Play what we get off the telephone there.
And, you you know it should
be played you know I mean it's it's fresh some most of it is fresh it's new
you know it's just fun rock and roll and Ivor Hamilton of CFNY adds his comments
of why Toronto's two major FM rock stations play very little new wave music
what they're doing is just a major trend that they see in the States.
They're just so tightly formatted
and they're going to have to change.
They're just so narrow-minded.
They're afraid.
Chum didn't play Talking Heads before.
And we've played a lot of it.
We've played the hell out of it.
And now they're playing it.
And, you know, they're finally seeing the light in a lot of it. We played the hell out of it. And now they're playing it. And, you know, they're finally seeing the light in a lot of things.
They're playing a lot more than they were, say, a year ago.
And so is Q. Q plays the police now, too. But they're still
very skeptical about a lot of things.
I'm fascinated by, you know, why certain, you know, acts
were played by CFNY. In in fact there's a i'm not
even going to reveal any details but i was let's just say i was chatting with ivor hamilton about
this yesterday oh there's something brewing i'm just going to say that and i don't want to say
anymore because i think it's going to drop as a bit of a surprise but oh do tell i'll tell you as
soon as i press stop i'll tell you exactly what's going on there. Okay, cool. In fact, your name came up in all this
because when I think about like,
who would be the authoritative voice
on why something would have been played
on CFNY in the 80s
and why something would not have been played,
two names jump into my mind right away.
Like I think first, I think of Ivor Hamilton
and then I think of Scott Turner.
Like that's, and I know he's ahead of you
because you're at Humber College
and you're talking to him.
Ivor's huge.
He is really a huge factor of, you know, a lot.
You know, you could say most of the music that you heard on the station.
And I didn't start till 84, so he was very, very influential.
And I was just one of those, you know, carrying, waving the flag about, you know, pushing for music and songs.
If I may, didn't you tell me,
I believe when we did our CFN, our 80s,
I should point out the 80s CFNY.
So if we did like,
we did a Spirit of Radio episode or something.
And didn't you tell me
there was a CRTC promise of performance
or something where CFNY could not play
over a certain number of songs
that are in the top 40 or something?
Wasn't there something?
Oh, I think you're thinking of, and this was kind of the energy.
No, it's okay.
It was the Energy 108 story because it was one of the reasons that,
you know, AM stations, sorry,
FM stations in the 80s couldn't go top 40 because there was a regulation.
You had to play so many non-hits.
So it was protecting the
government just said we need to protect am radio because fm radio's here and it's the future
everyone's gonna listen to fm because this would explain to me why cfny would look to uh britain
and see what's what's being what's successful there that hasn't appeared in like the u.s
billboard hot 100 or whatever and then you, you would go strong in that direction,
sort of would put you on the, uh, on the, you know, the edge, uh,
no pun intended of things because you'd be kind of ahead because you would be
playing, you might be playing, you know, this, I don't know this,
I'll make it up,
but you'll be playing this Elvis Costello song or whatever that maybe hasn't
been picked up by American top 40.
That's certainly part of it. The imports, you know,
it was really down to the music.
Honestly, it was about the music.
It's finding great music.
Whether it was imported or not, it was great music.
And if there was something,
obviously a lot was coming out of England.
There's a huge amount of stuff coming out of England
and really good stuff.
And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't on the,
first of all, it wasn't being released in North America
or they weren't releasing it for another year.
And, you know, the station played imports
because it's just a good piece of music.
We're going to play it, and that's that.
And, of course, what's interesting about some of that
and related to what you're saying is that, you know,
some of these things, like, you know, like The Cure and Depeche Mode,
where songs were going in the top 40 charts in the UK,
they were, like, top 40 hits, but not top 40 hits in North America,
you know, in the early days.
And so, but they were, you know, which means they were accessible.
You know, some of them were, you know, quite melodic and like, you know, it's not like they were weird.
It's just, you know, to some people it was, who's the cure?
Right.
No, for sure.
Absolutely.
Without a doubt, for sure.
But then on this note,
because these are thoughts I've had over the decades
and I finally have an opportunity to ask.
So let's take a band that was big here,
an English band that was huge in North America.
Let's talk about Duran Duran.
Okay.
Sure.
So Duran Duran, I don't know,
let's say 82 or whatever,
like Rio or something is a hit.
Like that's a bonafide hit on both sides of the ocean.
Yes.
And you had
q107 wouldn't touch it right like so so like what was that just it wasn't rock enough because i had
a synth i think so i think it rock you know the station's at a certain position i think q was
just you leaned more rock where cfny back in those days um the music was you know the variety of
styles was all over the place you know and that
was that was a big part of the 80s early mid uh to i'm watching that squirrel you know squirrels
rarely fall like they just jump around from branch to branch and on wires and with like that guy
there like most of the time they make it i have seen them miss a couple times i think i've seen
it once it's pretty funny yeah once in a they miss, but you always wonder why they don't miss more often.
Like those little claws or whatever.
Oh, yeah.
Is there some stickiness to them or something?
It's like a jungle back here.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah.
There you go.
Beautiful day in October.
Beautiful October day back there.
I had a groundhog show up just the other day.
Okay.
I always am interested.
It just showed up in the front of the window.
What animals show up in the,
where like you ever have a deer show up or no?
Yeah, I have deer.
Yeah, where I am.
I'm in North Burlington.
So I get a bit of wildlife and coyotes and deer
and things like that.
Well, the most exotic animal to be on my property
in the last, since I got here eight years ago,
is a fox.
So there was a fox showed up.
That was a big deal.
Like, oh my goodness, there's a fox.
Okay.
But just to wrap up, back to the 80s.
So the two stations that were rock stations
are Chum FM and Q107.
And they have their rivalry. And we'll
get into some Chum FM stuff. And I would say back
then, you know, Chum FM was just probably a
little bit more,
they were starting to get a little more commercial.
And Q did, you know,
take some chances. They weren't first, Q. Q did, you know, take some chances.
They weren't first, but they would play, you know, the police and they picked up on some other stuff too.
But I think they kind of leaned it a little more rock.
Sure.
And wouldn't play, you know, like they wouldn't get into Howard Jones
and things like that, you know, or Depeche Mode.
So I think if the synth, it sounds like if the synthesizer shows up,
they tap out.
Yeah, kind of, sort of.
But so CFNY would go heavy on such
things but what about chem fm like just because i actually i don't have a memory we're going to
talk more about i don't have a memory of listening to chem fm before it went uh top 40 or whatever it
went in the mid 80s there yeah well we're going to hear a couple of examples of that yeah because
there was a very very cool time of you know before cfny became the cool station right there was
chum fm a very progressive cool rock station we're gonna play well yeah and uh shout out to
hebsey when we get to that section i know first we're gonna talk about the ramones but i know
hebsey massive whenever i had like um uh brian master or you know geats romo who of course was
at cfny as well but any any of these Chum FM guys,
Hebsey gets there. Yeah, that was his station.
That was his station back then. Okay, talk to me,
my friend. Talk to me about
the Ramones. Oh, it's just a clip
I did while I think
I was at an AM station
in Guelph.
It's still there, Sea Joy.
Yeah, somebody
Oh, you know what, who didn't show up
Bruce Barker, that's who it was
so Bruce Barker, I had done my
homework for his arrival and he
postponed his visit, but that's
where I was reading my Cjoy stuff
sorry, yeah so that's just
I guess it was 1980
the Ramones, of course
again I'm into all this music
punk and new wave that's happening and the Ramones are playing course, again, I'm into all this music, punk and new wave that's happening, and the Ramones are playing Guelph. There's a photo
of me with the Ramones. It's pretty funny. The Ramones are
standing on the front of the radio station. There's a picture of me, and I'm wearing this tie because
during the office hours, all announcers had to wear ties.
So I somehow talked to the Ramones to come out
to this little AM station in Guelph,
and they were fantastic.
It was a great interview.
And I guess this is a clip from a show I did.
I did this show called New Wave Friday Night.
I mean, you just thought about the things that you always hated
about going to see other people.
Right.
And the things that we hated were the long, boring solos.
Watching them tune up.
Watching them tune up,
wasting your time. You know, watching them yell, let's rock and roll, let's get up and clap our
hands. Some people have this thing about tuning, they always feel like they're out of tune, they
have to tune up every song. They always feel they're out of tune. I miss those half an hour
drum solos. So I have a guitar tuner which tunes by with the machine and then whenever I feel
like I'm out of tune
I just switch to guitar.
We started about
six years ago.
We grew up together
and we lived
in the same block.
And,
you know,
something we always
wanted to do
being a band.
That was 74.
That's been a long time.
Yeah,
it was around
early summer of 74
and we played
August of 74
for the first time
at some
bar in a
skid row section of New York called CBGB's.
And we continued
to play there for about a year and then about
after about a year
we had built up a big following and all
that and record companies came down
and we signed.
Then we went to
Europe in July of 76,
and in England at that time all they were listening to
was pub rock and Dr. Feelgood music,
and we kicked off the whole new wave pretty much.
Wow.
Great guys.
Absolutely super guys.
I can't believe they went to Guelph.
Because it was hard enough to get them to Brampton.
You know, they played a lot of small gigs.
These guys just slugged it out.
They played all over the place.
I think they played Burlington.
They were like, okay, sure, we'll play. Amazing. Yeah. That's a great clip, man. out they played all over the place i think they played burlington yeah they they were they like
hey okay sure we'll play amazing yeah and that's a great clip man uh i'm glad you uh i'm glad you
shared that and now let's get to the uh the chum fm chatter yeah so this is uh i don't know which
did i play a couple here which one is it i have a i have a couple like uh, I have, I'm checking my notes here. Does this one say, what does it say on it?
Jim Bauer.
Jim Bauer.
This is about John Lennon.
Oh, okay.
So, yeah, this quick story here, let me just see which one this is.
Right.
He called the station in the mid-70s, John Lennon.
Yeah, so, yeah, around 74, 75.
So, unfortunately, I actually don't have the interview clip of John Lennon.
I haven't found that yet.
So I don't know where it came from, but look, this is partly a story,
and Chum FM is part of that, the story of how connected Toronto,
how this city has done so much for music in the world.
And there's something about Toronto and the people of Toronto
and the ears of Toronto that are just ahead of a
lot of places in the world and get music before any place else. And where a lot of this stuff,
and artists know that. And I think that's one of the things that Chum FM was known at the time,
you know, this is the mid seventies into the late seventies that, that, you know, they were
known around the world for, very open-minded to music
that not everybody was into.
A lot of artists, the albums broke here, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, so John Lennon, I guess there was some connect with Toronto.
Well, I think I know the connect.
John Donabee.
Yeah, that is one of them.
Yeah, somehow they...
Wasn't he at Shum FM at this time?
Yes, and he did the interview.
So for whatever reason, he reached out, I think, to John Donabee and said, look, I want
to call you guys...
Yeah, like he was bedside at the bed-in for peace.
Yeah.
Like John's at the side of the bed.
Yeah.
Because I had John on the show, so I grilled him on all this.
I need to listen to that.
See, Scott, my whole role in this whole thing is to get all the parts and all the pieces
on the table so I could finish this puzzle piece
it all together yes we'll never finish that's the joy john donabee absolutely so he and he was one
of my idols listening to chum fm as was you know david marston was at chum fm at the time yes and
so was uh you know pete and geats were right were there at the time anyway right so uh so i guess
john lennon and they don't know why he says i'm gonna want to call you guys i want to talk to you
guys for whatever reason and so i guess the clip talks about what they think why john Lennon, and they don't know why, says, I'm going to want to call you guys. I want to talk to you guys for whatever reason.
And so I guess the clip talks about what they think, why John Lennon is going to call Chum FM the next day.
I think this is it.
I think what it is, is John's going to make the announcement that he's going to finally get involved in raising tangerine trees.
Oh, really?
Yeah, right. A tangerine tree.
Is that anything like dental floss?
No, no, no, no, no.
It's a different thing.
Dental floss is a thing of the 70s.
What are you in the 60s?
John is still hung up on tangerine trees.
Tangerine dream.
Tangerine dream.
I don't know.
Do you have a real prediction?
I mean, have you thought about this thing?
Well, you know, you think about all of the things that are involved in John Lennon's life the last few years.
I think that...
Should I say what I really think?
Of course.
Everyone should.
I would give it away.
I think for sure he's going to say, well, I'm moving to Toronto.
That's funny because that's what I said earlier tonight, too.
Yeah, he's going to say that because, you know, he's going to be booted out of the United States any time now if he isn't here already.
Yes.
Well, I didn't.
Hi, John.
Hi.
That's what I think is.
We both predicted the same thing.
That's really nice.
That must mean there's something in the wind here.
Well, you know, we're like Avis.
We try harder.
John, I know we're second choice, but good night to you.
Have a good night, Jim.
I'll see you about 6 tomorrow.
We'll see about 3.15 tomorrow what he's really going to say.
So that's David Marsden talking.
I think that's Jim Bauer he was talking to.
And I can't tell you because I did hear the interview,
and it was the weirdest interview with John Lennon.
And half of the interview he talked about seeing, he was convinced,
this is John Lennon, convinced he'd seen a UFO at his apartment in New York.
And he talked a lot about that.
And I don't know if he was just, you know, smoking something.
And there was no announcement, there was no, you know, smoking something, but he, and there was no announcement.
There was no coming to Toronto.
He never moved here.
He never did move, but it was, it was very interesting.
Anyway, that's a good, that's an interesting little taste of Chum FM,
you know, mid seventies.
And I was thinking, oh, you know, it's a shame that like terrestrial radio,
it's all about, I guess, maximum ears or whatever to,
to maximize revenues and profit.
And as a result, you have stations like Chum FM and CFNY who have to make these big programming decisions at some point that they can't be so cool anymore.
There's no money in being cool like that.
Well, they do what they do.
They sit in these boardrooms and they're convinced that we can still be cool and, you know, and grow this thing.
And that's the challenge is like to grow it, but maintain what you have already.
And it's so hard.
It's just a battle everybody goes through.
And then you got a bunch of the people who love you because you're cool will hate you because you're popular.
Like go ask like, you know, R.E.M. or you can name it.
Absolutely.
Oh, yeah. We're all guilty of that, right?
We just want it for ourselves and nobody else.
But, you know, you want success,
but then only so much.
And, yeah, it's, yeah.
You're doomed.
Yeah, you're damned if you do.
You're damned if you don't.
So that's why I think podcasting
is where it's at now
because there's a lot of great podcasts
where it's literally done
because of love of the game,
great passion,
and there's no thoughts of, thoughts of how do we get these shareholders more bang for their share buck.
That's what money ruins everything.
I love that quote from Fred Patterson in that last podcast you guys did together where he said,
and Fred was like, you know what, if I was retired,
I'd do this, you know, as a hobby.
Right.
You know?
Right.
And that says it all.
That says it all.
Okay, we're going to stick with Chum FM for a bit.
And then before we segue from Chum FM
to classic CFNY,
because I know a lot of listeners now are like,
where's the classic CFNY?
And it is coming.
I will make sure I give you some gifts for making your trek here to New Toronto.
But let's pick it up with the Elmo.
Okay, yeah.
So this is just a clip of Brian Thomas.
I think this is Brian Thomas of Chummi Family.
I think he did the news or was a reporter.
So he's calling from the Elmo combo.
This is, of course, that classic moment when the Stones played March 4th, 1977,
the Stones, and this is just him calling from the club.
It's an album called Night After Night, Bill Quaitman,
and Back By The River.
Also Aerosmith with Dream On from their first album
and Janis Joplin's Summertime, a Gershwin tune. Aerosmith with Dream On from their first album.
And Janis Joplin's Summertime, a Gershwin tune.
A couple minutes now before 11.
This is Chum FM, Stereo 104 in Toronto.
Just truckin's the spot for... Well, we have Brian Thomas on the phone.
Hello, Brian.
Hi, how are you?
Not too bad. Have an exciting night, I understand.
It is one of the most exciting evenings in my life, I would say, yes.
The Rolling Stones are, in fact, here performing for a very small, select audience
at the El Macombo at College in Spadina.
And this is the first time they've done anything like this in about 13 years
when they came out of the club circuit back in England.
How many years ago was that?
And tonight, over 300 people, mostly CHUM FM contest winners are participants
in a live album, which is being recorded tonight.
The stones are appearing in about, oh,
five or six minutes from now.
And this is a treat for the people here,
and certainly for myself, and unexpected, I might add, too,
on the part of at least the 300 people here
who came down to see April Wine today.
This is one of the most closely guarded secrets
probably in the history of recorded music.
You know, I talked to Miles Goodwin about this on Toronto Mic.
Oh, did you? Cool.
Recently, yeah.
I'll go back and listen to that. I'd love to hear it.
Yeah, you've got to listen to Miles Goodwin on Toronto Mic.
But, again, just piecing it all together,
because Mick Jagger won't take my call. But luckily... Not piecing it all together because Mick Jagger
won't take my call.
But luckily...
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Although,
I heard he did Howard Stern,
but then someone said
it was just,
there was nothing new revealed.
There was nothing special about it,
but at least he did take Stern's call.
Come on,
I'm coming for you, Stern.
All right.
Keep trying.
That was awesome.
And that's a moment
I feel like Weckerle is just trying to make that
happen again.
Like that's sort of the, you know,
get the stones back to the newly
refurbished.
Have you been to the new El Macombo?
I have not.
I have not.
I'm surprised.
I was disappointed that I was not on
the media list because I know Alan
Cross and some other media personalities
were invited to, you know, come on in, take pictures, check it out.
I didn't get the invite.
But now I'm upset for you.
I didn't either.
Because where was Scott Turner's invitation?
Yeah, what's going on?
But now I feel better about me not getting the invitation.
I'm a good company.
I just posted recently.
I was there for the first Duran Duran.
So we were talking about Duran Duran.
They played the Elmo 1981, 40 years ago.
Yeah, and that was really cool.
And I love those anniversaries,
especially the 40 years ago ones,
because I was too young to take note in real time.
And it was just before I would realize these things
because I'm living in the city.
So I love a hearing like 40 years ago,
and I'm like, oh, you know, I feel like i just missed that it just seems weird that 1980 was
40 years ago and what's this somebody said the other day you know friends don't tell friends
that 1990 was 30 years ago it's just like what it doesn't seem like that that's a yeah that's
like when they tell you oh you know the time period between i don't know 1990 and now would
have been when you were in 1990, if somebody said,
Oh,
1942,
like I'm just thinking about,
but,
and it's like,
it's just the way time works.
Uh,
and I will say,
I'm going to feel very strange when the drive of 85,
the 1985 Blue Jays season turns,
uh,
40 because,
uh,
I remember it like every night vividly.
Right.
That's going to be a strange one.
It's coming.
It's coming.
Yeah. It's amazing. It's coming. Yeah.
It's amazing.
Time just doesn't
stop, does it?
Time stands still.
Good segue here.
Let's talk about Rush.
Okay.
So this is another
Chum FM clip.
Do we have time for
all these clips?
I don't want to eat
up all your time today.
Who's watching the
clock?
I'm always so conscious
of that as a radio guy.
I'm like, Jesus is
going live.
I have a chat with
people like Gene
Valaitis and Fred Patterson all the time. Throw the clock in the garbage. Yeah, I know. I guy. I'm like, Jesus is going live. I have a chat with people like Gene Valaitis and Fred Patterson
all the time. Throw the clock in the garbage.
Yeah, I know, I know. I'm always conscious.
Unless you have like a dentist appointment. No, no.
We got beer and food here.
Let it breathe, brother.
Great Lakes and Palmer Pastor.
Well, play the Rush. Talk to me about Rush.
I'll play it and then I'll give you your goods.
So I think there's two things mushed together.
One is just a Rush commercial from January 1977.
I just love this commercial.
I was a kid that loved radio,
so I taped all this stuff off the radio.
And then I think it goes into a call
from Larry Wilson on Chum FM talking to Geddy Lee,
who just finished a new album.
So before I press play, I meant to ask you,
so these are clips from your personal collection?
Correct.
That's an important detail.
I just taped shit off the radio.
So this is Scott Turner taping shit on the radio and keeping it for 40 plus years.
So even that chat, so you're recording, it's wild to think you're recording David Marsden on Chum FM, and then one day you'd work for David Marsden.
Yes, yes.
That's wild.
Bizarre.
Do you realize you're living the dream?
Yes, there you are.
Yeah, absolutely.
So here's some Rush.
Rush.
A second show of rock and roll.
January 3rd, 8 p.m., Concert Bowl, Maple Leaf Garden.
Slide my lights away from you.
A ship is a-coming and I just can't pretend.
Rush.
Alex Lyson.
Neil Peart.
Geddy Lee.
Driving rock and roll.
Heads up, Toronto.
It's night at 11 with Rush.
Rush on Chum FM's Night at 11 program.
I'm Larry Wilson. Good evening.
Tonight we have Geddy Lee on the telephone from London, England.
And Geddy, you're over there mixing the album that you've just finished recording in Wales, right?
That's right. We're not in Wales now.
We're at Ed Vision Studios right now in London, mixing.
Just got four more tunes to mix, and the album will be complete.
Uh-huh.
Have you got a title for the album?
Yes.
The title of the album is A Farewell to Kings.
Wow.
I love how that Larry gentleman, Larry Wilson?
Larry Wilson.
Sets it up, and Gedty just repeats all of that again.
Yes.
Yeah, that happens a lot.
Oh yeah, Larry just said that actually.
That happens a lot.
That does happen a lot.
People do that.
Yes.
All right.
Amazing, buddy.
That's awesome.
Now here, so I've already referenced it, but I want to give the promo code to the listeners.
So you are getting a $75 digital gift card at
chefdrop.ca and there are vegan
items there and it's easy to sort and everything.
So, Southern
Ontario, you live in Southern Ontario.
Yes.
I forget, there's always a...
25 years. Yeah, Burlington's for sure covered
by the Chef Drop.
So, chefdrop.ca
and I'll send you an email of how you do it but for
the listeners buy one get one 50 off the promo code if you go to chef drop.ca use the promo code
f-o-t-m uh b-o-g-o buy one get one so f-o-t-m b-o-g-o and you will get one uh 50 off with your
order and that's awesome.
And thank you to Chef Drop.
Thank you, Great Lakes Brewery.
They sent over some craft beer for you.
Scott, you're going to bring that home with you.
And again, for your wife or partner, do we have an official title for the woman you live with?
Wife.
Right, number four, right?
Stacy.
Stacy.
Stacy's going to enjoy the meat lasagna.
Yes.
And she's going to have leftovers.
She's going to have to invite friends over, I think.
It's in my freezer.
Don't leave here without it.
There's a Sticker You sticker on top of the red palma pasta box.
Thank you, Sticker You, for making the great Toronto Mike stickers.
And you're going to put that on your car before you drive out of here.
And if you want decals or stickers or temporary tattoos or anything,
go to stickeru.com
because it's a great company
and they make great products.
I have this on a sticker,
one of my computer stickers,
computer, sorry, speakers at home.
Amazing.
Very nice.
I still, when I was at the party for Marty,
we're going back,
I guess that was 2019 at the Opera House.
DJ Craig G had a Toronto Mike sticker
on the back of his MacBook, and
I felt very proud to see it there.
It felt good to see that there.
Okay, I also want to say to the listeners that there's a great new podcast from the
McKay CEO Forums.
This podcast is called the CEO Edge Podcast, and I'm actually going to post a new episode
later today on torontomike.com.
I urge you to subscribe and listen. And if you're looking to buy and or sell in the next six months, I urge
you to chat with Mike Majeski. He's in the know in Mimico, but he's actually kicking ass in the GTA,
not just Mimico. And you can go to realestatelove.ca to reach out to Mike Majeski. Just let him know that Toronto Mike sent you.
Okay, Classic CFNY.
Please set up the Morrissey audio.
Yeah, and these are all really short clips
because, again, because I'm so conscious of time,
I try to keep it, you know, nice and tight as we were.
Do you think we're on the radio right now
and that there's going to be another show starting?
You can't get the radio out of the guy, right?
It's still like you're still feeling those things.
You're right.
You've been programmed, essentially.
You're right.
And it's not easy, but because I was never programmed,
because I've never worked in radio.
That's a good thing.
So it's a different completely.
It is a good thing.
I'm a different animal.
Absolutely, and that's a good thing.
That's a good thing.
So here's a couple of clips that Morrissey,
he didn't do a lot of interviews and this was a,
these clips are from an interview backstage at Kingswood music theater.
This is 86,
which I think was the second and last time the Smiths played in Toronto.
And this first one is just a little clip about how soon is now,
which,
and again,
the really cool thing about this for me anyway
is that I remember the band coming to town,
and I was asking, okay, how do I get an interview with Morrissey?
And as it turns out, like, there was only the Globe and Mail,
I believe CBC, and me.
Wow.
Out of all Canada, because really nobody played the Smiths.
And there's another clip about that in a second.
It's like, you know, but here they were playing Kingswood
and hugely popular.
But I had to ask about How Soon Is Now, a little clip.
I think that's the first one here.
I just want to make sure I play the right one
because one of them I have is called,
it's named Morrissey Kingswood, 1986.
And then the other one is named Morrissey How Soon Is Now interview.
So he hit How Soon Is Now.
This is just him talking about that song.
All right, here we go.
Here in Toronto anyway, your most popular song is How Soon Is Now. This is just him talking about that song. All right, here we go. Here, in Toronto anyway,
your most popular song is How Soon Is Now,
without a question of doubt.
Maybe you can tell me a little bit about that song,
the making of that song.
The making of the song, really,
I think it really simply deals with
the very disturbing situation of
being on one's own and going out
and trying to make friends and going
to clubs or wherever which i used to do a great deal as a as a teenager and i think it struck a
common chord with many many people going out hoping to meet people hoping to meet friends
simply but yet not really quite managing it and so that really in a nutshell is the song did you have any idea it would be
as popular when you were making it no no because we put it as an extra track on a 12 inch record
in england and no we didn't think it would be quite so popular but then people began to write
write of it as the the most important song we had done. And I'll agree with that.
And who knew later, you know, some consider it, you know,
one of the biggest tracks of the 80s, you know,
one of the coolest tracks anyway.
And a jam that when you hear it, the opening riff there,
you think of CFNY, like, you know what I mean?
Well, that sort of leads into this next clip because,
and you'll hear me talking about this,
that the year before, 85,
the Smiths play for the first time.
They play Kingswood, and it's like 12,000 people.
And that's the biggest audience, the band.
And this is going back to Toronto and how cool,
you know, how cool you are, Toronto,
because it's the biggest audience they'd ever played for,
12,000 people.
And yes, CFNY was a big part of that.
But just how Toronto just knows their music.
What about the state of radio in America?
I mean, the Smiths are yet to be played on Top 40 Radio, haven't they?
Yes, which again is very, very confusing,
because it doesn't really quite seem fair.
But nonetheless, I mean, I half expected it expected it I suppose so just a million
other battle but really as long as people come to see the group we're quite
happy because ultimately that's more important because I do know people I do
know groups who have become successful in a chart sense in North America yet
when they arrange concerts people don't actually turn up. So it seems like there's
several different worlds that a group can exist in and therefore if we must be, if we must have one,
or not rather if we must have one, but if we can have one, I think I'd rather have the one that we
have now because it's really most important. Because I think it takes a great deal for
somebody to come out and buy a ticket and spend
a night and sit and listen.
I really do. It takes a lot.
I think tonight is a good
example of Kingswood because if you remember
last summer you were here and I believe
up until that point
Kingswood was the largest audience
you'd played for. I think it was 12,000 that was
here last year. And you get limited
radio airplay in the area
and that says something, doesn't it?
Well, what does it say? I mean, isn't it a strange
situation? What exactly
do you have to do in order to gain that
A-listing or whatever it is?
What do you have to do? I think
it's political. I really do think it's political.
But that's okay.
It just gives us something to fight against, really.
Awesome. Morrissey, yeah. Yeah, that's okay it just it just gives us something to fight against really awesome wow morrissey yeah yeah that's that's fantastic i know a lot of people it's like you know people
like morrissey the the guy he is now and uh you know rubs people a lot you know the wrong way but
he treated me he was really nice guy and very cool guy back then for sure all right well we're
sticking with the CFNY classic clips
here and you've got some audio from the
Thursday 30. Yes, so
this I believe, which one is
I think this
I'm glad I found this because
I, for some reason, I keep a lot
of shit, but there's stuff
I don't keep and for some reason I didn't
keep the Thursday 30 charts, you know.
And, uh, That's a shame, man.
Yeah, I know.
I would love to, you know, host those or archive those.
That would be cool.
Yeah, I wish I could.
I wish I had them, but I don't.
But I did, you know, I do have the note that Thursday 30 started September 24th, 1987.
And this reveals the very first, I guess this is a clip from, I'm thinking
the Spirit of Radio Sunday, which I did in
2014, 2015.
I think this is talking about
the Thursday 30. Anyway, I think
that's where this clip comes from.
Hi, this is Scott Turner. Well, 20 years ago
tonight was the
very first Thursday 30, and the idea
actually came from the fact that
we didn't have a countdown
show on CFNY, which for a number of reasons, I think some people felt, well, that's maybe a very
commercial thing to do for the radio station. So it was really avoided. Yet at the end of the year,
we would do countdowns. And I found it really frustrating that, you know, there wasn't a
countdown for alternative music and we needed to have this showcase.
And plus, I wanted a new feature for my show.
So part of the idea was to have a 30 countdown, because 40, we felt, a lot of strange reasons,
but we felt 40 was a little too commercial sounding and too much like, you know, top 40 radio.
So we'd make the countdown 30, and it also happened to rhyme with Thursday.
So that's the Thursday 30. I also felt it was a countdown where for those
that couldn't keep up with all the new music that CFNY was famous for, here was a place they could
go and keep track of things, at least tune in, if anything, once a week to find out, okay,
these are the coolest songs around right now. These are the coolest alternative songs. This
is what CFNY is all about.
Catch it every week.
So it was a place for people to go that perhaps weren't always up on all the new music.
So I thought, you know what?
There's a show for those people.
So if you go back 20 years,
20 years tonight, 1987,
this was the number one song
on the very first Thursday 30.
The album was Electric,
the cult love removal machine from CFNY.
Now I want to hear that
song. Well here, I want to
hear, I told you that we were going to play all
of your audio and I was going to throw one in because I
want to just chat about it. Okay, so this is
similar. Okay, we'll just call this
similar. Okay. But here we go. drums in this
well I'm gonna want to know
if you remember all the personnel involved
like here
well let's let
Fred Patterson get going here.
Check this one.
Oh, yeah.
Hooked under my tree.
Oh, yeah, yes.
And it was there.
Love this.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
The Christmas present.
I want it all year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I said, look out your whps, cause I'm coming through.
I got my engines revving.
Look up you women and your children too.
I'm on my way to heaven.
With my snow removal.
Brady's got a snow removal machine.
Brady's got a snow.
Noise maker. Brady's got a snow. Noise removal machine. Brady's got a snow. Rip it up. Noise maker.
Brady's got a snow.
Noise maker.
I love that line.
I played this last week with Mark Weisblot.
Oh, did you?
When we were talking about the tenure of Humble and Fred.
I love this.
Let it finish here.
Hold on.
Yeah.
Look out, here I come.
Look out, here I come. Look out, here I come. Look out, here I come Look out, here I come
Look out, here I come
Look out, here I come, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm gonna make noise, my baby
A whole lot of noise, my baby
Gonna wake you up, my baby
My snow's blowin' out, my baby
We go neighbors, my baby With my snow blowing down, my baby We go neighbors
My neighbors
Get up, neighbors
Oh, yeah
You know, Fred did some funny shit.
And, you know, I mean, there was Mr. Goo Head,
but I think that had to be his absolute moment,
funniest moment doing that.
And I don't think it gets the love from Humble and Fred
because it's pre-Humble.
Like this is my feeling because this is 87, right?
And Humble shows up in 89.
Right.
And it is probably the most memorable thing of anything,
and it's pre-Humble,
and I don't think Humble loves that little detail.
So I don't think it gets
like love on Humble and Fred.
But, you know,
when I listen back to that now, you know,
Freddie's singing the shit out of that, but do you,
because you were there, and I
have become very friendly lately with
Captain Phil Evans who appeared in the
show and I know he's a fountain of information
in all of this. He's got a good memory. But what do you
remember about that?
Like, do you remember, you know, who was
involved?
No, I do not.
Was Nash the Slash involved?
I don't know the answer to that.
I think it's pretty much the bed track of,
you know, of the cult.
And we had some really good producers.
I was going to say, you don't have, you
didn't have a band that tight that would
sound that strong.
This is actually a backing track and then
just. Yeah, only some wizard producers, John Massacar and people like that. And that tight that would sound that strong. This is actually a backing track.
Yeah, some wizard producers, John Massicar and people like that.
And there's background vocals.
Do you have any idea who was singing back up there with Freddie?
No.
Like Darren Wassiluk maybe? It's possibly that it is Freddie just tracked on himself.
I can hear a woman voice on the right side,
and there's a different male voice on the left.
I can't believe you haven't asked Fred this yet. Look, I can hear a woman voice on the right side and there's a different male voice on the left. I listen very closely.
I can't believe you haven't
asked Fred this yet.
I know I have.
In fact, I probably,
it's one of those things
where at episode 930,
I cannot remember that detail.
But I know Captain Phil Evans
will hear this
and then he will Twitter DM me
all the facts.
Although, you know,
who might beat him to it
might be Mark Wiseblood.
So it's going to be a race
to finish here.
And it's good we have those guys because it's shit I
forget all the time. Why do you think I stick a microphone
in their faces all the time?
Because get this down now
because there's not a lot of people who
give a shit to share this info or retain
it even. Good point.
That's why people like you
and Ivor and Ed Conroy
from Retro Ontario and Mark Wiseblood from 1236 and the Captain Phil Evans and even the Brother Bills and all these people who care to share.
And Alan Cross and all these other cats.
Let's keep sharing because we're building something here.
Alan's got a crazy memory too.
Alan's just amazing.
And he's very, if you write him now and just ask, can you talk about this? He will find a time to do it.
Like, how many people will do that?
So shout out to Alan Crouch.
And Ivor, too.
So many people, yeah.
And these are all people that we can talk to today, but we have, there are some members of the Spirit of Radio family that are no longer with us, Scott.
Oh, is this the clip here with Don Burns?
Yeah. Oh, and Martin Street, Scott. Oh, is this the clip here with Don Burns? Yeah.
Oh, and Martin Street too.
You know what?
I wasn't even, you know, I wasn't thinking of that,
but this is a clip from Spirit of Radio Sunday,
the show we did Sunday just for a couple of years back.
Which years?
2014, 2015, I think.
Because that doesn't add up with the fact you were,
no, I believe those were the years of Spirit of Radio,
but when you said that you don't know where that clip was from, when you're saying 20 years ago
today, we did our first Thursday 30.
Well, I can do the math and tell you that puts that at September 2007.
Oh.
Like, so your, your, your own math is not working here.
So you, whatever that recording was from, and I know you don't remember, it was not
Spirit of Radio Sundays.
Interesting.
It's too early for that.
Yeah.
I wonder where that would have been.
Interesting.
Yeah. Good question where that would have been. Interesting. Yeah.
Good question.
Don't know.
So this, I believe, I believe is from the Spirit of Radio Sunday show, 2014, 2015.
But anyway, it was, I think it was anniversary of the passing of Martin Streak.
And I think we did a little feature and I had some people say some things.
And this is a clip from Don who of course later,
and I guess Don,
it's been five years now for Don,
five and a half,
coming up on six years maybe.
You know, on a side note there,
so I mentioned off the top
that no guest of Toronto Mike
has passed away
and that is actually a fact.
I never got,
I never had Don Burns on the show,
but because we're doing
the 10 years of Humble and Fred
and I'm,
I'm turning 10, my podcast turns 10 next August.
So Humble and Fred are getting there first.
Cause that's actually what inspired this show.
So Humble and Fred, we were talking about guests.
There are guests of Humble and Fred who have passed away.
And sadly, one of them is Don Burns.
Right.
Yep.
So I think it's like around five, just five and a half years ago. But this is a great clip and this is why we all
miss Don so much. There's so many other reasons, but he's just his sense of humor and he's
just a great storyteller. But this is Don talking about
going to the New Music Seminar in New York, which a lot of us at CFNY did
and where we picked up on new things and what was coming up next
and this is him
talking about martin streak all right the first thing you need to know is that marty was a great
guy to hang out with always had fun with him um whether it was at the road show which is where we
first met when he was helping to run the cfny video road show or it was at a club where he might be hanging out helping or DJing
or hosting, or at the New Music Seminar in New York City where we all were at the beginning
of the rave era.
Now, you have to realize that Marty was there at the beginning of the rave era, and he was
going to all the raves along with most of the other staff, And it was all because Chris Shepard was involved in the scene
and we all wanted to hang out and see what it was all about.
So Marty was there too.
And we all went to New York for the New Music Seminar.
And raves were the big topic.
And we were staying in some really neat hotel
done by one of these fancy designers.
And when you walked into the lobby washroom, it was all wall to wall,
chrome and mirrors, mirrors everywhere. I remember having to go to the washroom while I was in the
lobby of this hotel. I can't remember the name of it. I remember having to go to the washroom
and walking in and Marty standing at the urinal, his back to me, but his hands behind his head while he's peeing,
and his junk on every mirror in the room as I walked in.
It was like, I cannot escape this, even if I wanted to.
I could not escape it.
And he's just standing there.
I've never seen anybody pee with his hands behind his head before.
I know I certainly couldn't.
But that's for some weird, odd reason.
When you mention Martin Streak's name, that's what comes to mind.
I know I'm a sick puppy.
I have to go now and have my treatment.
Wow.
Yeah. That time they were talking about it had to be, I think, 1990, 1991.
Actually, we're coming up on, which if you follow me,
as I mentioned earlier on Twitter and Facebook,
and that'll be telling some of the stories of the Toronto Rave scene
because we're coming up on 30 years when the scene started in Toronto.
An incredible time in Toronto, the scene here,
and there's so many great stories to tell, so that'll be coming up.
We do live in a, I know you don't technically live here,
but you worked here for many years, and it is a damn cool city it is it is it really is a lot of
cool shit has happened here it continues to happen here uh it's really the people and and you know
southern ontario just the in the greater toronto area there's just a cool collective of people
with some pretty good ears by the way do we do we have any idea where Chris Shepard is?
Yeah, same thing.
Same update?
Costa Rica.
Still looking for that guy.
That's what we believe.
Yeah.
All right.
And that's on good authority, but that's all I know.
Okay.
Keep trying.
Tell them we can even Zoom this summer.
People need to hear from the guy.
We all miss you, Chris.
And geez, dude.
It's been a long time, man.
Just come and talk to us.
In fact, that's another reason you should listen to the most recent Mark Weisblot episode.
He talks about Shepard.
We played a clip of Shepard's last public anything, which was Humble and Fred show in 2014.
2014.
So we're talking seven years.
You know, when I run into Chris, he's going to kill me.
He's going, you know, dude, will you stop telling me everybody, everybody's coming down here looking for me.
I'm going to expense it.
Like it's going to be CRA just so you know, this is a work trip.
I got to go to Costa Rica and find Martin Streak here.
I mean, I'm sorry, the late great Martin Streak.
No, but I wish.
Chris Shepard, of course, is who we're hunting for still with us.
I should mention very quickly that there is that documentary,
the documentary on Martin Streak, his story, his story, you know, in and around.
Be clear, because there's now two documentaries floating about.
So Will Dunlop is his name, and he's working on a documentary about,
it's about Martin and his story.
Yeah, but he's been working on it for a long time.
Yes, that's true.
I'm starting to feel like I'm waiting for an update. I i know i tried to get an update i reached out to him um actually sent him that clip that he can use
um but i know he has other jobs and he's busy but he um he had he sent me a bit of a sizzle reel
that he had it looked really good and he's piecing it together but you know sort of
involve obviously cfny will be part of it but it's, you know, so to involve, obviously CFNY will be part of it, but it's really, you know, Martin
focused. Where the other
documentary, just a quick update right now
is that... Yeah, this is the sanctioned one, right?
Now we're talking about the chorus
sanctioned CFNY documentary. Correct. Yes.
Yes, yes, yes. So that is,
it's still happening, and, you know,
I'm involved in, Alan Cross is
a big part of this, Ivor Hamilton's a big part
of it, and we have a couple other people that know what they're doing when it comes to documentaries and stuff like that,
and there's a lot of pieces to it, but funding's a big part of it,
and so we're still in the funding process, and there's going to be the sort of sizzle reel or the demo reel that's being built right now.
We have a lot of material, thanks to everybody who sent in photos and stories and video.
a lot of material, thanks to everybody who sent in photos and stories and video.
So it's going to take some time because it needs funding,
and that's the process that it's going through right now. And, of course, because it's chorus-sanctioned,
and they have editorial privilege or whatever the term is,
you just got to hope it's objective.
Yeah, yes.
Especially when you're dealing with stuff like Marty Streak.
Like I noticed when they did their memorial, which was very good.
I know Robbie Jay worked very hard on it.
It sounded very good.
I recorded it.
I think I still host it on one of the Toronto Mic servers here.
Yeah.
But, you know, it's convenient to skip the fact that Streak was fired two months before
he took his own life.
Right.
It's easy to just skip that little detail.
Yeah.
And I can't speak for the exact storyline.
And part of that is you could go on for hours.
It could be a series, right?
But if you're doing a documentary and it's going to be two hours
or one hour or whatever it's going to be,
there's parts you have to cut.
So I don't know if that will necessarily be,
certainly won't be the focus of it.
But yeah, should that be part of it?
Absolutely.
You know, I really can't speak for the final cut, you know.
And, you know, this should be a mini-series.
Well, true, yeah.
There's a lot here to cover here.
Okay.
We have a couple of audio IDs.
Yeah, and I'm not sure that these might have been played before,
but I just found these.
I thought we'd play a couple of these.
I think they're around mid-'80s. I thought we'd play a couple of these.
I think they're around mid-'80s.
All right, here's the Spirit of Radio ID.
FM-102.
The Spirit of Radio.
And I think his name was Earl Mann, just super big voice. You know, I preferred actually the IDs that ran, I think, more of the early 80s.
And it was actually Don Burns was that voice you heard, you know, the station voice guy.
Before he worked there, he was the voice saying CFNY, the spirit of radio. I actually preferred his style and read than these ones,
but these were around, I think, 85, 86.
Okay, here's the Thrill of Variety ID.
The Thrill of Variety.
Not the agony of repeats.
FM 102.
That guy has some voice.
I mean, he's just...
You know, that voice, whenever there's a similar voice I hear on,
I think it's Flo, actually,
I think has a similar voice over a guy.
And I always think of Optimus Prime.
Like, I think Peter Cullen
is the guy who does Optimus Prime.
And I always think,
oh, it's like if Peter Cullen were doing your IDs,
like these are big voices.
They're big radio voices.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
And we have one more clip before we recognize another fallen soldier from the spirit of radio days.
Set up, please, the Chrissy Hine.
Oh, yeah.
So just I forgot about this.
So I just I just put this in there because of all the interviews that I did in my CFNY days.
This is perhaps my favorite
interview it was just like you know some people are just oozing cool and Chrissy Hynde of the
Pretenders was that person in every which way and you know it's one of those persons that when
you're doing these interviews often there's a sort of a handler or a you know record company person
or something say okay you got 10 minutes okay go in there now and then you get in there and these
people and you think they're all they're really mean this person's going to be like oh I don't record company person or something. Okay, you got 10 minutes. Okay, go in there now. And then you get in there and these people,
and you think they're all really mean.
This person's going to be like, oh, I don't want to talk to you.
Get out.
And it's like, oh, my God.
I think we were like an hour and a half or something,
and she just went on and on. The stories, and she was just so cool.
And in every which way, but she has a fantastic history.
Not only just that she was there when punk was happening, but this is a clip.
She actually went to Kent State University.
And those that are old enough to remember, there was some, you know, Vietnam protests at Kent State.
I forget the year.
Well, you might know the Neil Young song.
Yeah, exactly.
Ohio.
And it got out of hand.
The National Guard just ended up opening fire,
and four people were killed.
I think 16 were injured.
And what I didn't know until I did my research,
that she was attending Kent State.
She was there at that time, and this is her talking about that.
Yeah, I was walking to class, and I was standing there,
and I heard these bangs.
I guess everyone thought it was fireworks or something.
And then I walked over the hill, and there was a hell of a scene.
There was all these National Guardmen standing around what had been a building.
It was just like a sort of, it was completely leveled anyway.
In the middle of the afternoon,
and they were just all standing around
with rifles, loaded rifles.
And then we realized that some people had been killed.
Actually, I knew one of the guys.
And they tried to get everyone off the campus.
I mean, I actually had to be picked up and carried off
because I just refused to walk away.
Wow.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, that's wild.
That's wild.
And again, we've discussed some, as I mentioned, fallen soldiers.
So Don Burns is no longer with us.
Martin Streak is no longer with us.
Of course, there's others from the Spirit of Radio days who have passed on,
but we lost somebody just in 2021.
Yeah, just recently, James Scott, whose real name, David Marston, this is
a bit of confusion for some people,
because there's David Marsden, but actually, you know,
David Marston, his on-air name, James Scott, was a step-brother
of David Marston, but he had a long illness that he just succumbed
to, and this is just like a month ago.
And just to help with that confusion,
because it took me a while to graph the story too,
but David Marsden was put up for adoption.
So like he was adopted.
Okay.
So that's why a mother had two sons named David.
Okay.
So you know more than me.
Marsden, the name Marsden was because,
was really because David was changing his name
and knew his,
because I believe the adopted name David had was McKee.
And that's where Dave Mickey comes from.
Okay.
So McKee.
Very good.
Where did you get this?
This is good.
This is good.
His name is Mark Weisblatt.
Okay.
Yep.
So David Marsden was actually because David wasn't sure how Marston was spelled.
So Marsden.
And then the whole David Marston, who went by, of course, had to go by a different name, James Scott, because there was a David Marsden.
And that's not going to work on the radio.
But yeah, they were brothers from the same mother,
but David Marsden was adopted.
Interesting. Okay. I did not know that.
And I will say, if you could share some thoughts on James Scott,
I know that his daughter is listening right now
because when Mark Weisblatt and i memorialized james baby scott
uh i got the loveliest note from her and she was just really wanting to absorb everything she could
uh so anything you could share now i know she would appreciate it that's cool and she's uh
shared some uh some video and some material for the upcoming documentary so she's and her name
she's in calgary because I've been chatting her up,
Allie Mars.
So she's kind of changed that last name to Mars, what they said.
Yeah.
And I think this is a clip of audio for those that may or may not remember
the voice of James Scott.
Great voice.
All this audio may not be up to par, but.
Here we go.
This is one of the most talked about groups in the music
industry today and from fm 102 on the four o'clock modern rock preview that's 13 engines uh john
critchley mike robbins jim hughes and grant ethier are the nucleus of 13 Engines, and it formed when John and Mike met while attending York University here in Toronto.
In the spring of 1985, they formed their first band known as the Icons
and did a couple of years of playing at clubs all over Toronto.
Great voice. Great guy.
No, I've only heard great things.
So remind us, what years did you work with James Scott?
So I was there 84 to 92, and he was definitely there in 84,
but I just don't remember when he departed.
And I'm going to guess around 87.
Well, 13 engines I feel helps us a bit.
Am I?
Yeah.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Again, I was a little bit younger in 87.
But were they doing stuff in 87, I guess?
Maybe.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm listening to that clip and I'm realizing
I need 13 engines on Toronto Mike.
This is where my brain goes.
There you go.
Helping out anytime.
You're helping anytime.
But James Scott passed away.
And our sincere condolences to his brother David and his daughter and everyone who knew him and loved him.
Just sad to hear that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Those are all the clips I have.
Scott, I think
it should definitely be, and I think it actually
is, if I look at the schedules,
but it should be an annual event, like you in the
backyard, you get a whole year to collect
new audio to present, because
that was awesome! Thank you.
It was fun. It was fun. It's good to
share that stuff, you know. What am I going to do with
this stuff? I know!
Toronto might! So now you have a year to collect
more rare audio so you can
come back and share it all
next year. Absolutely. See you next year.
Continued good health.
Glad the surgery went well.
Yeah, it was a scary one.
Cholesterol level is down below 2.
Yeah.
Let's hope.
And that brings us to the end of our 930th show you can follow me on twitter
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Group Homes. Scott,
it's literally hot now. Like I'm in a t-shirt
and a shirt and I'm hot. The sun came out. Incredible.
What a day. It's beautiful.
See you all
next week.
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