Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - #TOAST21 Accordion Jams: Toronto Mike'd #1352
Episode Date: October 27, 2023In this 21st episode of Toast, Mike is joined by Rob Preuss and Bob Willette as they kick out accordion jams, or good songs with an accordion in the mix. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by ...Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at mike@torontomike.com
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Go.
Just toast?
I'm going to think about it some.
FOTMs, do you know what time it is?
It's toast time.
Toast!
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Today, returning for this 21st episode of Toast is Rob Pruce.
Welcome, Rob.
Great to be here.
Now, normally I'd say, and Bob Ouellette, and I will do that in a moment, but Bob, one
of Bob's children was feeling unwell, so Bob was unable to make the trek to New Toronto,
but he will join us via Zoom.
He did join us, right, Rob?
He was here and then he's gone.
Well, because we kicked him out.
Yeah, we did actually.
We said, hey, Bob, don't you host Bob's Basement?
Like we know you have a good microphone set up
and he's like, oh, it's not set up right now.
And he was just-
But he said it like this.
And I'm like, no, this is Toronto Mic'd, okay, Bob?
We have the same standards as Bob's basement.
Like you wouldn't do that shitty audio for your podcast.
Why would you do it for Toronto Mike?
No.
Okay.
So he's coming back any minute now.
He said, oh, it takes me 10 minutes to set up.
We basically said, Bob, get your ass into setup mode and join us.
Yeah.
How are you doing, Rob Pruth?
I'm doing good.
I'm doing good.
Glad to be here.
I'm, uh, I did a couple of, well, I did a gig at the Moonshine Cafe on Wednesday night
and I'm playing there again tonight.
Tell me how it went at the Moonshine Cafe.
It was good.
It was a thing called Planet of the Loops.
And a friend of mine, a guitar player named Andrew Aldridge has done this thing over like
the last 25 years.
He's had this ongoing, uh, thing that he does where he gets different musicians together
basically with loop pedals and effects and sort of it becomes like an ambient sort of experimental
improvisatory it feels to me like you're doing more gta gigs is that just my just because i'm
noticing more or have you been doing more i am doing more because i've never done done them
before so yeah definitely this year has been a time for me to come out and just try doing some
stuff um which i've you know i've been doing shows in new york for so long right and then in the last done them before. So yeah, definitely this year has been a time for me to come out and just try doing some stuff,
which I've,
you know, I've been doing shows
in New York for so long.
Right.
And then in the last couple of years,
well,
then there was the time of COVID,
but during that time
I kept thinking,
oh,
I miss doing like live shows
and stuff.
And so having done my,
my few solo shows this year
as a sort of a starting point,
yeah,
just doing other things.
Tonight I'm doing
with some friends.
We're going to play
the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Amazing. At the Moonshinehine yeah and they throw toast in that
they sure do and this is toast yeah happy toast day and this is the anniversary of street bands
uh toast release 45 years ago today isn't that a great coincidence it really is and we open every
episode uh who did i learn that scott turner yep he does his i love his like on this day stuff me
too eat that up you know like toast and uh I subtweeted it and I'm like,
we're going to play it today
because it's toast.
Amazing.
I find it interesting
that New York's own
Rob Bruce
is here in the studio
and East York's own
Bob Lillet
is joining us remotely.
I was thinking
the first couple of toasts
that I did,
it was the other way,
remember?
That I zoomed in.
Yeah.
And it always felt weird.
We always said,
oh, you got it.
And then we said,
no more zooms.
But we had this,
like it was so organized and arranged and Bob's excuse was really good. Yeah. remember that I zoomed in and it always felt weird. We always said, Oh, you got it. And then we said no more zooms, but we had this like,
it was so organized and arranged and Bob's excuse was really good.
Yep.
So we said,
we're working properly though.
My mic was working good when I zoomed in.
Yeah.
You almost,
sometimes you were over modulated actually.
Like you're almost,
you're just so hot.
It's my enthusiasm.
That's from the Toronto rocks day.
We knew that Rob Bruce,
I had Brad Giffen,
but he says he never talked to spoons.
It was all John major doing the spoon stuff or maybe JD Roberts. But did you ever talk to Brad Giffen, but he says he never talked to Spoons. It was all John Major doing the Spoons stuff, or maybe
J.D. Roberts, but did you ever talk to Brad Giffen?
You know what? Actually, now that you say that, in my mind,
I would have thought we had Brad, but I don't think we ever did.
It was always John. Yep. John Major.
Yep. Coincidentally, there's a name
that's been popping up lately on
Toronto Mic, particularly with Catherine
McClanahan, who's the first female VJ
in much music history, and again with
Jonathan Gross. This name has been popping up. Farberman. What about Jonathan Gross? Oh, Jonathan Gross. who's the first female vj in much music history and again with jonathan gross this name uh has
been popping up you should farberman what about jonathan oh jonathan gross that was an award
winning episode okay which award am i gonna win because only uh the most entertaining
episode of the month only al grego wins awards for his podcast um yeah paul farberman was a
manager in my spoons era too okay can i can okay i want to feel but did you know he
managed very early in his career like literally like teenager uh jim carrey yes okay tell me more
about what you know about paul farberman because i talked to him yesterday because he manages
a rapper you might have heard of named snow and paul phony in fact brad jones from ridley funeral
home witnessed this phone call
because it was just before we recorded Life's Undertaken
and he could hear Paul on the other line.
Paul basically saying,
I want to get snow on Toronto Mike.
But how do you know Paul Farberman?
Well, this is the funny weird thing
that in my memory of, you know, it's a long time ago
and we were dealing with lawyers signing record contracts
and like, you know, negotiating things for us and all that stuff. And in my
mind, I now
don't remember if Paul Farberman represented
us or our record company
because I knew I knew him really well.
Was it Sony who you were with? No, this was with
our label Ready Records, our indie label
when we first signed. And I think
he might have been one of our first lawyers.
We had a few over the years, but definitely I knew Paul
in those days.
Yeah.
So I talked to him yesterday and he's a mover and shaker.
Oh my God.
He's been around and he's done everything.
Yeah.
It's so cool.
And he's going to get snow on Toronto Mike, which is exciting.
Are you going to talk to Paul himself too, though?
Do you want me to?
Yes.
I'm sure I didn't yet offer the invitation, but maybe I should.
Maybe talk to him.
I'm going to shout out quickly just before Bob Ouellette joins us.
And we're going to do accordion jams today.
These are songs we like
that have an accordion in the mix.
Yep.
So you're all excited about that, Rob?
When you first mentioned it,
I was like, really?
Accordions?
And then as time goes on
and I started thinking,
actually on the way home
from the last episode,
all these songs started
sort of popping into my head.
So I realized it's more than we think.
Well, I'll elaborate more
as we get closer to kicking out
these accordion jams.
But I found this very difficult
because I'm not a musician
and my ear is not sure
if I'm listening to an accordion.
Right.
I'll elaborate on this later.
I will quickly shout out five FOTMs
that I just saw lit green on the live stream,
live.torontomic.com.
That means they actually logged in to comment.
That's HeyRef, Leslie,
sorry, Leslie,
Moose Grumpy, Tobias Vaughn, and YYZ Gord, who says he hears some, they're all tuned in.
YYZ Gord is saying he hears a bit of weird feedback on the live stream, but I can just say on my end, everything is operating normally.
So I don't even know what to change.
Although I suppose I could unplug and plug in again.
Do this very quickly while we wait for...
So he's here now.
So I'm going to do a quick little live stream trick
where I stop it.
So guys, I'll be back. So we're not
on the live stream for a moment.
Let it clear out.
And now I'll bring us back on the live stream.
This is a lot of inside baseball here.
And while I do that, I'll bring in Bob Ouellette
because we want to talk to Bob.
And let's see how he sounds this time, Rob.
You ready to hear his acoustics?
All right, we're going to angle it like that a bit.
Okay, gentlemen, this is the host,
the esteemed host of Bob's Basement joining us
with the proper microphone.
And he's now connecting to audio
to join us all the way from East York.
He's not actually connected yet.
He's shaking his head, everybody.
He's going to be back here.
So can you tell me,
here's a question for you, Rob,
while we wait for Bob to realize
he can't get this thing working here.
So it's fine.
We'll take the underwater Bob Willett.
But my question for you is,
because this has been coming up lately,
what are your memories
of playing the ontario place forum oh so many memories first of all um before i played there
i had gone there like as a kid my mom i think the first concert i saw there was patsy gallant
you know who patsy gallant is no come on i know patsy klein patsy gallant she was from quebec
i'm a star in new york i'm a star. You don't, it's before your time.
She had a TV show for a while.
Oh,
Bob,
can you hear us?
Yeah,
but you're going to,
my computer,
because I use Teams at work
and Teams messes things up.
I may have to,
you're only hearing me through my computer.
I'll take,
I'll take this,
I'll take this Bob over,
no Bob.
So hang it,
you can just,
just do this. Are you sure?
Let me at least try the
iPod headphones.
And Rob's telling us a story about
Ontario Place Forum. So I saw Patsy
Glant, who you don't know, but listeners
I know Patsy Glant.
Hi Bob.
So she was like the first one I saw.
So he knows those French Canadian
singers.
But then we played there. I think the first one I saw. Well, that's a French name, you know. I know. So he knows those French Canadian singers. That's right.
But then we played there,
I think the first time was the summer of 84.
This was a long time ago.
But we played three nights
and it was kind of magical, you know,
like just spinning around
and the whole, the day,
the event of like having people come
and hanging out all day long
when we're doing soundcheck
and you pay admission to get in and stuff. we played there two years in a row which was
super exciting and then i played there uh one time with honeymoon suite as well and then i the last
time i played there was in the 90s i played with the moody blues wow yeah i was part of the orchestra
in your wildest dreams in my wildest dreams uh i was not wearing white satin um but i was part of
the orchestra and because you know as they did these tours and they would pick up a local orchestra to beef up the sound.
And I was doing a show at the time and the contractor was like, hey, you know, come and play this.
So it was super cool to like be on the stage again.
And like that was 94.
I think the forum closed either that year or the next year.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Around then.
Bob, what was the first show you saw at the Ontario Place Forum?
Does this sound any better or
is this worse? The same. But it's fine.
The same. Alright. It's fine.
Sorry. It's fine.
Alright. Well, hang on. Let me try one more thing.
Because I want to hear about your trip to Disney World
before we get into this thing. Oh, yeah.
And Rob's
very excited to hear about your trip to Disney World.
Yes.
In the meantime,
I will play a clip of me talking to,
you mentioned Amy Milan moments ago, Rob.
I think that was before we pressed record.
But Amy Milan,
what did you think of her appearance
on Toronto Night?
Loved it.
She was good.
The guest appearance with...
You forgot his name.
Sam Roberts.
Yep, Sam. Another Quebec artist. Okay. So Samberts so she was on two episodes in a row like literally recorded
back to back but she amy was telling me about the fact she was playing hayden's event which
is called dream serenade the proceeds go to a special needs school that uh his daughter attends
very good cause very good event and amy's like, oh, there's a special
guest. And off the cuff,
this is what happens. I'm going to play a clip of me
talking to Amy. This is on like
a Friday afternoon and Dream Serenade is
on a Saturday. You ready?
You can tell us there is a surprise guest
or two that will be on the bill. Yes,
there is. Can you give us a
clue so we can have some fun trying to guess?
I mean, rock icons. Oh you give us a clue so we can have some fun trying to guess? I mean, rock icons of Canada.
Glass Tiger.
I don't know if that's the truth.
Anyway, you'll just have to see.
See, it can't be Glass Tiger,
because there's no way I could randomly pull a Canadian act
and it be correct.
But wink if that's right, and I won't say it.
I have an NDA.
I have an NDA.
I could be sued
by the Dream Serenade.
Taken to court.
Did she wink?
No, she didn't wink
but I could tell
by her face.
I nailed it.
Of course.
And it's funny
because the only clue was,
I don't know,
what did she say again?
Rock royalty.
And without, there's no editing in that clip, okay? It's not like I thought about it. I just, the first, The only clue was, I don't know, what did she say again? Rock royalty.
There's no editing in that clip.
It's not like I thought about it.
For some reason, because they seem very accessible,
like they're here.
I just saw them at this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
I feel like if you ask them nicely, they'll play TMLX14.
So I spit out the name Glass Tiger.
It turns out that was the correct answer. Glass Tiger was the special
guest at the Eternate.
So what do you think of my prediction skills?
You were spot on. Actually, when you
said it, I could tell too by the
pause in her reaction, I thought, oh, that's totally what it is.
Let's check in with Bob Ouellette joining us
live from East York. Bob, you there?
You sound like a TV news show now.
You're muted. I can't hear anything from you.
Let's check. Let's try this now. How about that that this is like ted knight on the mary tyler moore
show reporting the news in a snowstorm i didn't you know what i just i didn't have my student i
apologize very unprofessional of me it's quite all right um i am not all right with me this guy's
too nice you know you know me where are you i am uh technically in the original Toronto. East York starts north of the Danforth.
I am south of the Danforth.
I've been wrongly saying bomboulettes from East York for about 10 years now.
You said it again today too?
Not from East York.
But you know what?
East York is fine.
Nobody loves a Canadian flag more than an East Yorker.
Oh, that used to be a good thing, but now it's concerning.
Yeah, it's something.
I am fine.
I apologize. I, it's something. I am fine. I apologize.
I was ready to go.
I've been, but you didn't like my setup.
And so I apologize.
And I'm telling you, I probably, if I did one more restart,
I could probably get my proper mic going.
Maybe during a song.
Maybe during a song try, yeah.
Yeah, maybe during a song.
But can you tell us about your trip to Disney World?
Yes.
So I went to Disneyland in California.
Oh, California.
I get all the
details wrong right yeah so yeah investigative reporter mike boom um uh we uh so it's been on
the books for a while um i think i told you guys i actually used cameo to get one of the voice
actors from uh from from uh uh the that what the hell's the one i called with it we don't talk
about bruno anyway oh right
the incantos the incantos right so we had we had that last christmas that was their christmas gift
we had this woman we paid the the actress who from the show she sang the song with that on
a cameo saying that we're going to go to disneyland in 2023 so we decided we picked the first week of
october beautiful weather for the most part in anaheim. We had an Airbnb in Anaheim.
It was a $9 Uber ride to the park. We did, aside from there being some family drama of a sickness
nature, the Wednesday before we left by an eight-year-old who is sick today again, started
throwing up the Wednesday before we left on the Sunday. And weold who is sick today again, started throwing up. The Wednesday before we left on the Sunday.
And we thought, okay, well, this might be who knows.
Hopefully it's just nothing viral.
But until the Sunday morning we woke up, my 13-year-old woke up throwing up.
Oh, jeez.
And then my wife threw up on the plane.
Oh, for God's sake.
Oh, yeah.
No, it was bad.
It was really bad.
But we all rallied.
Monday we went to Magic Kingdom, Classic Park.
A lot of fun.
Paid for the genie pass so we could get right a line bypass the um star wars um uh
rise of the rebels or is absolutely one of the most amazing things i've ever been on wow um and
we did that and then tuesday morning we were going to go to universal studios hollywood and who threw
up i threw up oh correct oh mickey who threw up? I threw up. Yes.
You're correct.
Oh, Mickey Mouse threw up.
No, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Bob Willett threw up.
I gave something to Mickey Mouse.
So anyhow, long story short, I missed Universal Studios Hollywood.
However, I was talking to the PR person there ahead of time, saying that I was coming.
And I was going to dedicate an entire, I still haven't done it yet. We're going to dedicate an entire episode of Bob's basement to,
to,
to the,
to the show.
She's so for that,
she's like,
Oh,
you know what?
Here's free parking.
And here's line bypass for the Nintendo ride,
which is the big ride.
And I was like,
cool.
Thank you.
However,
because I didn't go,
they didn't give it to me.
So they didn't give it to my family because I wasn't there.
So I emailed,
I emailed her and I didn't. So we paid a lot of money to go to this park it's with the line bypass
universal studios is 200 a person american yeah holy with line bypass without line bypass it's
100 so i emailed my person there and i said hey this was going to be a thank you for everything
yesterday however nothing happened i was hoping i could get my ticket that I didn't use on Tuesday transferred to Thursday.
And we'll buy another one.
And she said, well, does your family want to go again?
And I said, maybe we do have a free day on Thursday.
She gave us seven free passes for the Thursday.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wasn't that kind of her? Um, well you are Bob
from Bob's basement. That's right. That's right. You know, um, she was wonderful. I, and of course
I will, uh, it's a, it's a terrific park. The Harry Potter and the Simpsons lands are just
insane. Um, the rides are cool. Uh, I, you know, we were in the, the fair, I was in a theme parks
for four days there because there's also
disney california adventure yes so they were there for four days i was there for three we were there
for seven days total uh i'd love to go back to california do some california things i did go to
the comedy store which was cool um but uh universe i highly recommend of course not just because she
was nice to me but universal Universal Studios Hollywood is amazing.
It's got the classic Jaws ride.
It's a lot of fun.
Nice.
And, yeah, it was, besides the entire family throwing up at a certain point,
it was a very good trip.
And at the Comedy Store, of course, which is like the mecca of comedy,
we went on a random Wednesday night in the old room, in the original room,
and our walk-on was Sebastian Maniscaliscalco oh cool i love him so that was pretty cool to see him do 15 minutes
in front of like 60 people yeah um and uh and it was and then the rest it went all night like it
was a very long show wow they would it started at eight and i don't i think the last comedian
finished at midnight.
Like it was long.
Like they just kept going and going.
And it was people just coming on and working out new stuff.
But the most recognizable name was Sebastian Maniscalco.
All right. All right.
Amazing.
Okay.
So on that note, so congrats on a successful trip.
But Rob and I, I know you're not here, Bob.
I'm not.
But you crack what you want to crack.
But first, Rob and I are going to crack our Great Lakes beer.
I got to go get it.
Okay, go get your thing.
Can we pop without you?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay, so Rob proves what he got there, a Canuck Pale Ale.
That's probably the most popular Great Lakes beer there is, I think so.
They're all good.
I'm going to crack open a Octopus Wants to Fight on the mic.
Three, two.
Cheers to you, Rob.
Cheers. And cheers, gentlemen. Virtual to Toronto's own Bob Ouellette
Cheers Bob
Cheers, cheers, thank you
Feels like you're right here
You know what that means? Bob Ouellette's in old Toronto
And I'm in new Toronto with Rob Bruce
That's right
I'm the OG
Yeah, I can't afford to live in the real Toronto, okay?
Your area's really cute. I got here a little early
and I drove down Lakeshore a little bit
and like in the actual Ridley
home, Ridley Funeral Home. Ridley Funeral Home is
14th and Lakeshore. Yes, it's so nice to actually
see the building. It sort of surprised me to run into it.
You can go in and pre-plan your funeral.
You can pay for it and plan it all now
and then when you die, we just make one
call and they take care of everything else.
It's just done.
In fact, let's do that after the recording.
Let's do that.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll walk over together.
But not for you, for Bob.
I'm worried about his health.
Okay.
So, okay, gentlemen.
So we're going to get to accordion jams.
What are you drinking, Bob?
So my first jam actually has something to do a little bit with this beer, which is called
Iceberg from Kitty Vinny Brewery in St. John's. my my first jam actually has something to do a little bit with this beer which is called it's
it's uh iceberg from kitty vitty brewery in st john's so do you want to hold on to that story
yeah yeah sure of course but so um yeah this not really has much to do with it but this beer
supposedly so this you can't get this at the lcbo that's why i'm not i'm not stepping on glb's toes
by by drinking this well that's good to hear sponsors um but this beer is supposed it literally says right on it
bought brewed with pure iceberg water harvested from our shores okay and it's iceberg beer and
you can only get it newfoundland it is the crispest beer i've ever had in my life crispest
okay so you newfoundland i just gotta say i mentioned him earlier because
that's what we do in the show we mentioned him a lot but fotml grego just went like fairly recently
went to newfoundland to talk to small business owners in newfoundland and he he recorded the
stories and they're part of season five of yes we are open yes we are open and uh shout out to that
great podcast and everybody should subscribe.
Also, that speaker is still killing it.
Well, you know what?
Since, I don't know,
Bob's got his out there.
Not that anyone can see Bob except me,
but this stand you gave me last toast,
I use it so when I record,
I now stick my phone right on top.
It's changed my work life. But you can move it anywhere you want.
Sorry, I didn't move the whole thing.
He's very passionate about this, Bob.
I know. It works great with my OnlyFans. Yeah, and you can turn it sideways you want. Sorry, I didn't move the whole thing. He's very passionate about this, Bob. I know.
It works great with my OnlyFans.
Yeah, and you can turn it sideways when you're watching.
How much money do you think Bob makes in OnlyFans?
You'd be surprised.
I'd be surprised.
I'd like to know.
No.
I wish.
I do not have an OnlyFans.
Okay.
I got to get serious for a moment.
Before the accordion jams,
I do have a fun little string of songs related to the season
we're in right now which is halloween but we're not kicking out halloween jams because we had the
fotms do that and if people recently i just dropped that episode thank you i was gonna do that for you
but you were gonna get mad at me because for my choice well i love getting mad at you like more
reason for you to do that i love getting mad at you but here's for you to do that. I love getting mad at you. But here's a little song because I want to talk about somebody.
We never tested
if Bob can hear this.
Bob, can you hear this?
Yeah.
You know, us three guys,
three Gen X guys,
grew up watching the boob tube.
Three's Company was a big deal for me.
I thought we could spend a moment just talking about Suzanne Somers,
who passed away since our last recording.
Who wants to go first?
Any thoughts on Suzanne Somers?
So Three's Company for me,
I think, what did it end in?
Like 82, 83?
Something?
Something like that.
I feel like it was a four or six year run.
But in syndication,
it seemed like it was on all the time.
And it took me a while as a kid
to get the premise is always something
is misunderstood yeah somebody has misheard something right and uh and the big actually
you know who's a big three's company fan is danko jones he has a podcast about three's company yeah
yeah it's called the regal beagle podcast oh funny yeah he reviews every episode in it. And we had a heated discussion about Mr. Furley versus Mr. Roper.
Who do you like?
Look, I was a kid when I liked it.
I kind of related Mr. Furley a little more.
I thought he was sillier.
Yeah, yeah.
I wonder how many seasons was it before he finally came in?
Because I think when I was young enough that I started watching from the beginning.
Okay, I have a story real quick here
which is that
the Ropers got a spinoff
called The Ropers.
So they took these
main characters
out of Three's Company
for The Ropers.
Mr. Furley came in.
That's right.
Famous from
Andy of Mayberry
and all that.
Don Knotts.
Don Knotts.
And many other things.
But Don Knotts comes in
and then The Ropers
pilot, not pilot,
the spinoff fails miserably and then The Ropers pilot, not pilot, the spinoff fails
miserably and then the Ropers
are not invited back. So it's like,
go do your spinoff. When it fails, they don't
get to come back to Three's company.
So they kind of got screwed over there.
It was the era of spinoffs. It really was.
I mean, Mork & Mindy was a spinoff from Happy Days, right?
Which is the weirdest thing ever.
Yeah, that is weird because the Happy Days is
a show that takes place in the 50s,
filmed in the 70s,
and then suddenly...
An alien shows up.
But Mork is definitely from the 70s.
Oh my God, yeah.
So if you think about it,
so we're supposed to be in the 50s in Happy Days.
So what is the spinoff taking place in the 70s?
You remember they age backwards
if they're from Mork
because remember Jonathan Winters?
Oh my God, that's right.
He was just a kid.
Right. Diapers. Oh my God.ters? Oh my God. That's right. He was just a kid. So,
you know,
diapers.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Right.
That's right.
So Suzanne Summers,
Thighmaster.
Was that her?
Yep.
That's her.
Yeah.
That's my,
that's my memory of Suzanne Summers.
Thighmaster.
What about she's the sheriff?
Does anyone here remember?
She's the sheriff.
I remember that.
I vaguely remember it.
I didn't watch it,
but I remember the name.
And of course the,
uh,
step-by-step,
not,
was it called step-by-step?
Yes.
Right.
With the guy from Dallas. Yes remember the name. And of course, the Step by Step. Was it called Step by Step? Yes. Right, with the guy from Dallas.
Yes, Patrick something or other.
Patrick.
Patrick Ewing?
Yeah.
Patrick Duffy?
Patrick Duffy.
That's right.
He was also the man from Atlantis.
So Suzanne Somers was a big star.
Like all these big things, she just seemed to be omnipresent.
And of course, she was great on Three's Company until she was replaced by the dumb one.
Why did I not take notes on this? So there were three girls, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah replaced by uh the dumb one why did i not take
notes on this so there are three girls right yeah yeah terry's the last one chrissy snow yep right
who was like a cousin and really dumb and then terry comes in she was a she was a nurse yes
oh yeah there were three yeah there were three yep and then later we'll rank them in order and
like i started watching that show when i was fairly young. Like when it started, I was probably 11 or 12 years old.
So I, you know, saw it when it was a new like once a week show.
And then it was many years later.
How old are you, Rob?
I'm old enough.
It was many years later when I finally saw American Graffiti for the first time.
And she's got that cameo.
And I was like, oh my God, there's Suzanne Somers.
And I didn't, you know, working backwards, she was already so famous from Three's Company.
You know who else?
Because I saw that on Late Great Movies, American Graffiti.
And not only is Richie Cunningham's in that thing, but it's Laverne and Shirley.
Shirley's in that thing.
Shirley Feeney, yeah.
And that's where I learned about Wolfman Jack.
And all of a sudden, hey, I know Wolfman Jack is in that American Graffiti.
Right.
And yet I knew Wolfman Jack from the Guess Who song, Clap for the Wolfman.
Right.
Because that was on the radio
when I was like nine years old.
I think.
Yeah.
I thought that was cool.
I love it.
It all comes together.
It all comes together.
Eight seasons by the way.
Eight seasons.
Yeah.
77 to 84.
Wow.
But like you Bob
I'm with you.
I knew it as a syndicated show
after school.
Right.
I never saw it weekly.
I remember the joy
of when I was young enough
to watch TV shows
that I had to wait once a week
to see the shows.
Yes.
That then became syndication where you could watch them every day after school. Like when I was coming home
after school, I was watching Gilligan's Island because it was already 10 years old. Right. You
know what I mean? And like, it was also on when we came home too. Yes, exactly. So for so many years
they were syndicated, but it was, I remember that feeling of like watching the Brady Bunch like
once a week and like, Oh my God, I can't wait. I remember Bob, you might, I remember when much
music started airing the monkeys. Oh yeah. And there was like yeah in the mid to late 80s there
was like a resurgence of monkey mania yes that's right because our parents were like the baby
we'd never seen it yeah that's right we'd never seen that and then the hello world let's come on
get happy partridge family kind of piggybacked on the heels of the monkeys thing. And that became a big deal too.
Yep.
Okay.
Speaking of shows,
uh,
this one's for Rob Pruce.
Come on.
Is that you on keyboards,
Rob?
Nope.
I played that the other night at the moonshine.
I'll bet you did.
So I watched the documentary on Mr.
Dress up.
It's on prime.
You guys can all watch it right now.
And I just,
I'm just here to say it's
beautiful and I cried.
I hear everybody's crying. Have you seen it yet, Bob?
Not yet. No, I haven't.
I'm going to watch it with my wife
and kids because my kids were bought
a DVD,
a three DVD box set from
the CBC store by
my father-in-law for them and they
grew up watching Mr. Dress Up
even though it wasn't on. So they love Mr. Dress Up.
They have their own tickle trunk downstairs.
That my father-in-law made for them.
Has Rob Pruse seen the Mr. Dress Up?
I have not. Dude, it's amazing. I know, I'm so excited
to watch it and I just like, as I was coming up this
week, I thought, because it's available on
Prime in the US as well, which I'm even more excited
about because I thought, do I have to watch it in Canada?
But I don't. So when I get home, I'm watching it
for sure. Okay, so it's highly, I
recommend from yours truly is the
Mr. Dress Up Dog. And there's a lot of FOTMs in there
like Nina Keough and other people of that nature.
It's pretty awesome here. Okay, so gentlemen,
we are
kicking out accordion jams,
but we are like a week out, less than a week out
from Halloween. And the,
as far as I'm concerned, the
definitive Halloween jam
is probably
this one.
We'll give it a moment to brew while I drink my
Great Lakes.
I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly, to my surprise
He did the match
He did the monster match
The monster match
It was a graveyard smash
He did the match
It caught on in a flash He did the match Rob Pruess, name that artist.
Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crip Kicker Five.
Well done.
So I mentioned earlier there's an FOTM KOTJ on Halloween Jams,
and Steve Cole did kick out this song, Monster Mash.
You know, my kids, like my youngest kids,
know this song because it's in that Simpsons episode,
the Valentine's Day episode,
where they keep playing the Monster Mash by mistake or whatever.
Bob, you're a program director for stations in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Are you guys playing Monster Mash this week?
We will be only playing at halloween related jams on
halloween day and really only on well that's not true both fresh and big will be doing it
um but i would not say that uh i don't think monster monster mash might be in there i have
to check with my music director i give him pretty good free reign on those days. But, you know, I don't...
It might get one spin on the
classic hit station, not on the
hot AC station. Not even on
Halloween day itself, though. Not even
then, you don't think? I feel like this is...
That's the one day every station in
the world can play Monster Mash.
Well, they can, but they can also not.
Every day is Halloween.
You could play the song every day.
I bet you they won't play that in King Kong.
No, not every day is Halloween.
I would like to play that.
See, you'd like to play that, but seriously, every day is Halloween.
Because if you like monsters and stuff, which I did growing up,
and Halloween, it's like people who celebrate Valentine's Day,
and they're like, you should have love every day of your life.
There's one day to celebrate.
I look at Halloween the same way.
Every day is a monster day for me.
So there's a method to my madness here, though.
Okay, so I'm playing the original Monster Mash
because this, again, it's, what is his name?
Boris.
Bobby Boris Pickett.
Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crypt Kickers.
So they've been dining out, and he's no longer with us,
but they dined out on this song forever.
For example, listen up, my friends.
It was the night before Christmas in the castle.
My monsters were having a yuletide hassle.
The tree was all trimmed in ghoulish things,
like werewolf fangs and vampire wings but they were up to no good
he did like he must have done all the holidays so i'm just warming up here guys again we will
get to accordion jams here but uh bob you can add this to the christmas playlist in kingston
oh yes for sure we are the original, we are Kingston's original Christmas station.
Okay, so you're like, okay,
what's the call letters again?
CKWS Fresh Radio.
Okay, I expect to hear Monsters
Holiday when I go to Kingston
this December. Okay.
So I'm, again, I'm just warming up here.
So that's the Christmas version of
Monster Mash that Bobby
Boris Pickett released. But listen closely, my friends. There's the Christmas version of Monster Mash that Bobby Boris Pickett released.
But listen closely, my friends.
There's the bubbles.
It's going to be Aerosmith.
This way?
No.
God. Still working in the lab late these nights
With eyes grown used to itty sights
I created a monster who could dance and walk
But I couldn't teach him how to talk
My faithful assistant, that hunchback fool
Who wastes his time in DJ schools
I have to get in, don't be a slap
Eight degrees, the Monster Rap.
You've got to shock the body.
Shock the body, body.
Shock the body.
Shock the body, body.
Shock the body.
Shock the body, body.
Shock.
Igor, you idiot.
Yes, master.
This is a rap version called Monster's Rap.
Wow.
Yes, master.
I'm guessing this is sometime in the 80s.
Yeah, this has got to be mid to late 80s.
That drum machine.
I mean, you can even find Fred Flintstone rapping in the mid to late 80s.
Everybody was rapping.
But here's a little fun fact about the original Monster Mash.
It came out in 1962.
Did you guys know it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100?
Yes.
I actually did, yeah.
Crazy.
Wow, okay. And it's still charting on the Billboard Hot 100. Yes. I actually did, yeah. Crazy. Wow, okay.
And it's still charting.
But it's timeless.
Like, that's the funny thing
about a thing like that.
Like, it's not really
of a moment.
It's just because
the holiday comes around
every year
and that song,
it's like a Christmas song
in that way, right?
It's evergreen.
Yeah, but somebody
on the live stream
points out that
Monster Mash is fun
for the first minute
and then...
Unless you're eight years old, or nine years old.
And Canada Kev, he wants to state
that those bubbles you hear at the beginning of Monster Mash
are actually his bong.
Yes.
I saw a great...
And I wish I knew the person who did it,
but if you listen to the lyrics of Monster Mash,
the song is about the song monster mash it's very bad if
you listen to the lyrics yes it's actually he's singing about the song oh right but you know what
that was the thing in the now that you say that you're right because that was like the chubby
checker saying about the twist same it's what it was right yeah 1962 they sang about the dance they
were doing all right guys we're still just warming up here. So you've heard Monster Mash, the original, went to number one.
Then you heard Monsters Holiday, which is a Christmas version.
Then you heard the rap edit, which they are.
Let me turn it up for a moment.
That keyboard is killing me.
What's this one called? It's called Monster Rap. I can't compete. Cause I got to rap with a monster beat. You see, North, West, and South.
It's called Monster Rap.
It's Monster Rap.
When I party rap, I control the room.
Grandmaster Flash is turning into a grave.
That sounds like, um, what's his name?
Tone Loke.
A little bit.
Does that sound a little bit like Tone Loke?
A little bit.
Oh, I thought it was, uh, Wolfman Jack doing that rap thing.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so we'll let that fade down.
I'm going to play something that'll blow your minds here.
I want to shout out the background singers for that original Monster Mash
because this is a mind blow, I think, of sorts.
You know, I like to blow minds.
But the backup singers for Monster Mash are the Blossoms.
Do you know who's in the Blossoms?
Nope.
Nope, sir.
Darlene Love.
Oh, wow. Wow. That that's amazing music yeah which makes
sense for the christmas version but so darlene love can be heard in monster mash and here is
another version from bobby boris pickett we were hiking in the forest late one night, when our eyes beheld an eerie sight, our president appeared and began to frown.
Then he and his friends cut the forest down.
They did the forest slash.
It was brutally brash.
Public opinion was mashed.
And they did it for the cash.
The lobbyists
were having fun.
Very political. And this is about
George W. Bush and his
environmental
policies which were lacking.
So what do you think? This is called Monster Slash.
X-Day on that one.
I'd prefer to hear
Nash the Slash.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Well, he shows up.
There's a guy who does murals in Toronto,
and he always hides a Nash the Slash in his murals.
Really?
He just unveiled a new one.
Wow.
So you can go,
and I got to find out geographically
exactly where these are,
but you can go to these
and try to find Nash the Slash.
That's cool.
Isn't that cool?
Like his logo or like the-
No, him.
Like a silhouette or him.
He's in the murals that this artist is doing.
It's very cool.
I got one more for you guys, okay?
Oh, no.
So you just heard Monsters.
Jesus, man.
I know.
One more.
I know.
I just think it's wild.
He took a song.
It went to number one.
And he dined on it until he died.
Wow.
Here you go.
We were hiking past the White House late one night When our eyes beheld an eerie sight
The privilege appeared with folks very strange
The zombies and vampires of global climate change
It's not still environmental
Still warming, say oil company disciples
Power math tells us it's natural weather cycles.
These claims from industry heavies let the president rest behind his own protective levies.
They're doing the climate mash.
Oh no.
Wow.
Real science is bad.
The climate mash.
Solutions are prime.
The climate mash.
And they do it for the cash. anyways, this is called the elected ones. I would say they're late 2000s.
But anyways, this is called the Climate
Mash.
It's about climate change
and there were some deniers that
upset Bobby Boris Pickett.
But isn't that wild? We heard
four different remakes of his Monster
Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett.
This makes me want to do
the
he did the 407-7 mash!
Like, it's just like
an homage to mash.
Do radio stations ever do
parody songs anymore, Bob?
Yep, yeah.
Not as many as they used to.
But this was a big thing. We hear like Jesse and Gene
would have this. Oh, Humble and Fred
used to do a tone with Scary pete yeah i mean obviously and uh freddy you know did voiced
a whole bunch of them so wow um snow removal machine no removal machine fly uh bandwagon
sitta uh the version of harvey dangers of course oh wow harvey rob do you know that uh bob willett
is probably the biggest uh harvey Danger fan you'll ever meet?
No.
Really?
Yeah, I might be the only one.
The only one?
Yeah, well, to everybody else, Fly Full Sitta is a one-hit wonder.
That's right.
I remember that.
Yeah, that album to me that came out in 97 is actually one of my favorite albums of all time from beginning to end. It is just, it's a great piece of post Seattle pop grunge pre emo music.
It's a,
I mean,
I could,
I could tell you why it's just one and it's not available on any streaming
service.
What's the name of the album?
It's called where have all the merrymakers gone?
And it is,
you could listen to it on YouTube.
That's it.
Okay.
I think Bob's going to leave this toast episode and just go listen to that right now.
I have the CD in my car
and my car still has a CD player in it.
What year is that automobile?
2015.
Smart. I'm doing some quick math here.
Not as old as I thought.
Not quite 10 years old.
If you have a modern SUV or a new car,
it might get stolen out of your driveway.
I feel the solution is to
yeah drive a shitbox that's my uh tip yeah there's no shitboxes anymore though i think i haven't
told my theory that their shitboxes don't when we were kids there were always cars with like
rusty doors and that's true but bob i only got rid of my shitbox in june 2020 during the pandemic
21 years old i drove nothing but
my first car cost me a thousand dollars like it was i drove nothing but shit boxes my first car
cost me 200 cash nice 1985 ford escort wow so i want to just put a bow on the whole monster
thank you for that thank you for that diversion okay so this is not bobby boris pickett but it's
all about him i'm gonna play a little bit of this song,
and then see if you guys can guess the artist.
You ready?
Listen to the lyrics.
Listen to the lyrics.
Imagine Bobby Boris Pickett in a parking lot
Sarasota, Florida
The evening air is not too hot Pickett in a parking lot, Sarasota, Florida.
The evening air is not too hot.
It's Halloween night, 1992. Bobby Boris Pickett with a pickup band.
We're hoping just to make a splash.
But thinking not tonight as they all shake hands.
And crank up the chords to the monster mash.
20 people and so glance up from their beers.
As Bobby is introduced.
And for the millionth time in 30 years.
The monsters revived and let loose.
years the monsters revived and let loose and they clap for the one hit wonder laugh at the tune they know and they dance and they sing
to the song that they first heard so many years ago
any guesses as to who wrote
and performed this song called
One Hit Wonder all about Bobby Boris Pickett
based on a true story? Who wants to go first?
I was going to guess Barenaked
Ladies only because it's vaguely Barenaked Ladies
ish. But whose voice is that in Barenaked
Ladies? Well, it sounds like Ed a little bit.
Here's a clue.
This gentleman, not only is this gentleman an fotm but his voice is heard
in the chorus for if i had a million dollars by bare naked ladies oh these are big fucking clues
bob do you have a guess i have another guess well no because i was gonna go with like somebody like
marcy plate round or something like i was something. I have a second choice.
What's your guess, Rob?
It's a little Moe Berg-ish as well.
A little bit. Good guess, but Moe Berg not heard in the chorus.
What do you say there, Bob?
It's a little of our Ron.
It's a little Ron.
It sounds a little bit like Ron.
A little bit?
Clearly it's somebody Canadian, isn't it?
Ron is visiting in early November, by the way. It sounds a little bit like Clearly it's somebody Canadian, isn't it? Ron is visiting in
early November, by the
way.
It sounds a little bit
like Ron to me, but
is it a member of the
trans, is it a member
of the trans Canada
highwayman?
It is absolutely not
a member, but that
would be a member of
bare naked ladies
because you're thinking
Stephen Page, right?
No, but okay.
Yeah, you're right.
Cause Moe Burr, it's
not Moe Burr.
If it's not Moe Burr.
That's true.
And it's, that's half of the Transcended Highway.
Yeah.
Does sound like a Queen West voice, though, that's for sure.
The voice you hear, he wrote, he performed,
and I have a note on additional detail here.
Let me go to my notes.
This is recorded in 2004,
about the later years of Bobby Pickett's musical career
and his relationship with Monster Mash,
which we've kind of explored here.
We're about to get to accordion jams.
This is Blair Packham.
Oh, it is?
Oh, Blair, that's amazing.
Wow.
And Rob shared a stage with Blair Packham
at TMLX...
Wow.
XX.
X, TMLXX.
Right.
This is Blair, huh? That's really cool. There's a quality to the voices X. X, X, X, T-L-X-X. Right. Okay.
This is Blair,
huh?
That's really cool.
There's a quality to the voices.
That's so nice.
Hey,
well let them take us home and then we'll thank some partners and get to
these accordion jams.
Yeah.
It's also got a bit of a, it's also got a great big seat.
Yeah.
So thank you, Blair Packham.
I hope you're listening.
I did let him know he was getting a big shout out.
He's actually going to return to the basement to kick out.
He says his first round of kick out the jams were like softer, more soulful songs.
But he wants to kick out the harder songs that he loves.
Nice.
So he's coming back to do that.
And when he does come back,
he will leave with a large lasagna
from Palma Pasta.
And I want to thank Palma Pasta.
Bob, are you able to join us?
I'm putting you on the spot here.
For TMLX, luckily no one can see your face.
No, no, no.
I'm grabbing my phone.
I'm not looking at you either, but people would read your face. No, no, no. I'm grabbing my phone. I'm not looking at you either,
but people would read your face.
I know if you're lying.
TMLX 14 is taking place December 9th at noon
at Palma's Kitchen.
This is actually interesting.
This is December 9th.
It's a Saturday at noon.
If you brought your daughters,
they could eat for free
because Palma Pasta will feed everyone
who comes to T to tmlx 14
so i i could probably come uh you have children so i'll explain to you what saturdays look like
for us because saturdays are back-to-back dance classes and for the one and act in a three-hour
acting class for the other so uh both all here in the East End and close by. But can you come?
I think I can make it. I will put it on.
It's at noon? It's at noon.
Okay, done. I'm putting it in there. It's in my calendar
already too. And okay, Great Lakes
will make sure you, since all of you are over
the age of 19, you get a fresh
can of Great Lakes beer as well.
I'm a fan. But here's a question.
How do you two feel about the fact that
here we are recording Toast.
It's the 21st episode of Toast.
I think we established that,
am I right,
the first 11 were Stu and Cam,
and then now,
am I right,
that now we're at like all the rest of-
Are we about to pass the OGs?
Yeah.
But how do you feel about the fact that
Toast came out of Pandemic Fridays.
We're actually going to have a Pandemic Friday reunion at TMLX14.
And that means we're going to, for the first time since last November,
we're going to have Stew Stone and Cam Gordon together on the mic
doing a Pandemic Friday thing, which has evolved into what we're doing right now.
And I think it'd be awesome if somebody from the new Toast
came on the mic to address the original toast.
I will, as far as I can tell, I will be there.
I would like to be there as well.
Rob, what would keep you away? The borders?
No, no, nothing really. Like my scheduling with work that I'm doing with my wife at home
is always like, we can always shift schedules around.
And I've already got this in the calendar and we've sort of started talking about
seeing if there's a way that I can make it happen.
Because I'm always looking for an excuse
and a reason to come back to see my family
and be up here anyway, so.
Love it so much.
Yep.
Love it so much.
Cliff Hacking is dropping by next week
and he's going to kick out recycling jams.
And I just remind everybody,
recyclemyelectronics.ca is where you go.
Remember that URL. And while you're going to websites, go to pumpkinsafterdark.com is where you go. Remember that URL.
And while you're going to websites,
go to pumpkinsafterdark.com.
Get your Pumpkins After Dark tickets.
This is the big week
for Pumpkins After Dark,
an award-winning event
in Milton, Ontario.
And while you're subscribing
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like, yes, we are open,
make sure you subscribe
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So you got your marching orders.
Yep.
Bob, we're going to start with Rob Pruce.
I will just preface this to say, I don't know if you felt this, Bob, because Rob is a musician,
but my ears struggled to know when I'm hearing an accordion or not i found this actually very difficult
yeah go ahead i i didn't but i also went with pretty pretty obvious ones so okay well rob yep
do you want to say any words before we kick out your first accordion jam um well no this was the
first one that came into my head though only because it was such an
unusual sound i knew it was an accordion in this song when i first heard it when i was a youngster
and i remember thinking this is weird that there's an accordion all of a sudden in the song but it
sort of it it sort of introduced me to the idea of like european music and it's like it's got
accordion has like a french sound depending on the context sometimes you know and then in this i think if this is the one you're gonna play well it's the
order you sent okay so it has this feeling when the accordion comes in with the little melody
to me it's it's got some kind of a parisian thing to it so are you ready rob pruse to kick out the
accordion jams take it it away, maestro. Hit it, maestro!
You could talk up this opening because I see there's a very long opening here.
It's a beautiful opening, though.
You want to talk it up?
Sure. It's just beautiful piano. Nice intro.
Can you play this?
Uh-huh. I learned it when I was 10.
Of course he can play it.
What am I gonna do Of course you can play it It's not that long Here we are
What have I gotta do
To make you care
What do I do
When lightning strikes me
And awake to find What do I do when lightning strikes me?
And to wait to find that you're not there?
What do I do to make you want me?
What have I got to do to be heard?
What do I say when it's all over?
Sorry seems to be the hardest word
It's sad, so's sad so sad
with the sad
sad situation
and it's getting
more and more absurd
It's sad
so sad
why can't we talk it over Oh it seems to me So that's an accordion right there. Well done.
Shout out to Basement Dweller, who's on the live stream,
and he says, fantastic pick,
and one of the best tunes on an underrated double album.
Leslie also guessed this on the first note, of course,
but what say you, Rob Pruce, about this Elton John classic?
It's funny that I loved this song from the first time I heard it,
and I never really had the album, which is weird because I only love the song.
And I was young enough.
I was still buying a lot of 45s,
not so many albums.
I had a couple of Elton John albums,
but I just loved this song on its own.
And I had the sheet music.
I learned to play the song,
but I always thought of that accordion coming in there.
Like it's because it starts off with strings
and it's just a beautiful arrangement.
Do you know who's playing that accordion?
Yes.
So I Googled it, of course, to find the information.
Well, I'd be so impressed if you knew it like off the top of your head.
I didn't.
No, I didn't.
But the world that opened up in my knowledge of who this guy is, his name is Carl Fortina.
Okay.
So spoiler alert.
I'm also going to play a song with Carl Fortina on accordion.
So mind blow, like this guy, turns out that he's played on like all these film scores
and he's done, I'm not even gonna say the names of a lot of the things he's done because it might
be one of your songs. You can do that because it'll be fun to call back and I won't take,
no, I'll be like Amy. I'll hold my cards close to my chest. Okay. Okay. That's right. Don't,
I'm not gonna look in your eyes. He played on, no, no glass tiger. Um, he did the beach boys.
God only knows as well. He did the themes for The Godfather, which is like iconic accordion shit, right?
Um, he did, uh, like, like, um, TV shows.
He was on TV shows, like as an accordionist and stuff as well, like on the Carol Burnett
show and stuff.
So he was like considered like in Hollywood.
And as far as session musicians, he was a guy.
So for Elton to have him on this record, I just think is super magical because it's,
it's just a tasteful moment. Was he like the go, was he goat was he like uh the the go-to accordion player if you wanted to throw a
little accordion for sure because it was i mean i the more i learned about the days of session
musicians working in new york and in la there was a small core group of people that made accordion
player in the wrecking crew might have been him it probably was do you know what i mean like that's
the thing did he play on any moby grape do you know what i mean like that's the thing did he
play on any moby grape albums you know that episode was really interesting i enjoyed it it's one of my
favorite episodes in a very long time and the little video of him playing guitar out in the
front was beautiful super cool um but the fact that he played on uh god only knows means he was
in the wrecking crew right so i think that as a as a textural sound that would come in i'm brian
wilson used him on this stuff
and you know he did all kinds of stuff but um wow yeah I just love it it's a beautiful sound
Bob what do you think of uh Rob's first choice I think it's terrific and he's just opened up my
mind I kind of went quick to the first three things I thought of my three my three choices are
all very similar genre or at least in the in their core but as soon as i heard that i was like oh
and then i'm thinking and maybe i'm gonna you know now i'm thinking like billy joel scenes from an
italian restaurant yeah right like there's so many songs and then um you mentioned french music and i
or italian music and i was like oh my gosh like levion rose like edith piaf right like all these
things that didn't i went straight to celtic kind of so there's so much there's so much
stuff that i didn't even think of thanks rob that's great i've seen edith piaf's grave
shout out to ridley funeral home in paris i went to see jim morrison in the same graveyard yeah
she's buried and it's uh also very well attended and memorialized yes yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean
i have this great i loved cd compilations of random things, you know,
and we have this one and you don't get them anymore because, but there's this cafe Paris CD,
all this classic early forties, uh, French music, you know, kind of like the same era as the rat
pack, but in French and I I've, that's a, it's great to make brunch too. Like I just love it.
And now that I think
about it there's like so many songs on there that I could have picked for this that I love I didn't
even think of it yeah got to open your mind there great start Rob thank you I'm glad you started
with that one actually it's like it's I think you put that first on the list I did but I didn't know
you were gonna start with me so oh wait no who do I normally start with I don't know okay my brain
started last time I think I think it's rob bob and then i close oh
yeah ah coffee's for closers only do you want to say do you want to say anything before your first
jam uh bobby uh no no because i'm uh except for going back to newfoundland um this particular
when i you know this this particular song i've always been a fan of this band.
I found it very interesting.
You can go to George Street any day, any time,
and there are live musicians doing music all the time,
both Irish and Newfoundland and anything with a little bit of a Celtic vibe to it.
And this one I heard a lot.
And what I loved about it was when there's a full cover band doing like full full
stuff people still dance there like couples they get out and they dance like it's like you're at
the legion on a friday night and uh this was one of the more popular songs uh that i heard and i've
always loved this song and uh before i press play i played the song last week on toronto mike because
the producer of this album was my guest
and we talked in great detail about this band and this song.
So let's kick it.
Oh.
Oh.
Jesus hangs behind the glass Above Venetian doors
His window box boasts
Crimson flowers fresh cut the day
But before and you couldn't find a smile
if you nailed it to his
face
Jesus Christ
hangs his head
with grace
and if Venice
is singing
I'm going on
to love her
cause beauty's religion
And it's christened me with wonder
There it is.
Yeah.
Why can't I record?
That's clearly an accordion.
What's wrong with me?
Bobby, talk to me about
And If Venice Is Sinking.
And If Venice Is Sinking is
a single off of Faithlift. Of course, they kind of came And if Venice is sinking. And if Venice is sinking is, well,
I'll wait,
is a single off of Faith Lift.
Of course they,
they kind of came,
or 93,
91 was political,
was their first big single,
Spirit of the West.
John Mann,
of course,
we unfortunately lost him to Alzheimer's far too young.
The song is about him and his wife doing their,
having their honeymoon in Venice.
And if you listen to the lyrics,
you can really hear,
it's actually about like a, a sculpture that's in the middle of the town and uh and if you've been to venice it really is as touristy as it is it still is a pretty magical city oh like no
other city in the world yeah getting lost in venice is like a rite of passage yeah yeah it's really
amazing um it is uh um you know i've had the opportunity to see Spirit of the West a few different times. Saw them at the Horseshoe, saw them
at Edenfest 96. Wow. Yes.
Shout out to Cam Gordon and Stu Stone. Yes. And I also saw
them open, not open, they did the Great Cup. Last time the Great Cup was
at Skydome, I think. The 100th Great Cup, I think. They played outside
with, actually, our friends, the Mahones.
They were
there. And I want to let you know, I
actually asked Katie Kaboom,
formerly of the Mahones, who is the
accordionist, to
join me, to accompany me
on this
visit. Unfortunately,
she works for Unifor
now, and she's in Detroit
doing some major events.
Yeah, but she can zoom in if you can zoom in.
That's true. You know what? She was just a little too busy.
She was very flattered to be asked because I really wanted to
pick her brain about
this. And I'm
still waiting to kind of bring somebody on to surprise
you, Mike, but it hasn't happened. I've tried a
couple times now.
So I wanted to
ask her about her favorite her favorite you know what how do you start the accordion when you are
a woman who's like you know when in born and bred in East Toronto how do you end up playing the
accordion of all things and uh how does she make the accordion look cool but uh this particular
song is uh well obviously if you know Spirit of the West, you think of another song.
I think most people our age, if you say Spirit of the West, they think of this song.
First featured, I think, really, it was already big, but when it was on those compilation CDs, the Frosh CDs.
Right, right.
You got it did you know i think of both songs together though like like yeah but i will tell you this
spirit of the west never a hit never a single really actually home for arrest i mean home for
rest but bobby you were at cfny at time. It was played regularly on 102.1,
right? Yes, but it
has never charted.
It has never charted.
This is my
mind blow for this one, that this song has
never charted in Canada
or in the world, and that
their highest charting
single of all time is
And If Venice Is Sinking. It topped at number 30 on the Canadian charts, which is really crazy when you think about it.
And their catalog is so amazing.
If you haven't seen it, Save This House, by the way, this album, the album Save This House that this is on, I have the vinyl and I can listen to that from beginning to end any day of the week.
So it's a perfect album.
It's terrific. Well, shameless plug for last week's episode
of Toronto Mike
with Michael Philip
Voyavoda.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny.
When I say the name
Voyavoda,
I actually have to picture
the spelling
and like my brain
will translate
that the W is really a V
and the J is like an H
or something.
It's like you'd spell it,
I would spell it like
V-O-Y-A
Voyavoda.
Right, but it's a very Polish name. Let's like you'd spell it, I would spell it like V-O-Y-A, Voyavoda. Right,
but it's a very Polish name,
let's put it that way.
But he produced
a lot of Spirit of the West,
including Faith Lift.
He's amazing.
He's a real cool cat.
Yeah,
the conversation was great.
He rode his motorcycle
over here.
But yeah,
this jam for our,
for Gen X Canadians
means drink more
Great Lakes beer.
That's right.
A little of this.
Back in the early, the mid-90s,
like, again, that Frosh CD really had it all, right?
Like this, song two,
just people losing their minds on the dance floor.
Yeah.
Bob, since we're closer in age than old man Pruse here,
were you surprised when you first learned
this was a West Coast band?
Yes, of course.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
I mean, they are called Spirit of the West, but yes.
I know.
If you listen to Crash, it's funny.
Just the other day, for some reason, I went on a bit of a jagged down old Crash Test dummies stuff from their first album.
And God Shuffled His Feet?
God Shuffled His Fe feet is the second album the first album with superman's dead on it is ghost that haunt me right um and they're from
winnipeg and the celtic influence on that album is crazy yeah so i mean you can get celtic influences
all across canada yeah for sure i still remember being shocked shocked i tell you to her british
columbia i said they're not a maritime or Newfoundland band.
Yeah.
They're not from Cape Breton.
The West,
my friend.
I thought it was West Cape Breton.
That's what I just said.
It was a,
all right.
Great choice.
I love it when we can play some spirit of the West here and it's my turn now.
So the first song I thought of when I thought of accordion jams is this song,
which is kind of like,
it's kind of like,
uh,
some people say,
Oh,
it's too on the nose.
Well,
I say,
give me the nose.
Damn it.
Let's,
let's play what might be the accordion anthem here. Mama's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest
And when Daddy comes home he never gets no rest
Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeezebox Daddy never sleeps at night
music
music
music
music
music
music
music
music
music
music music Cause she's playing all night And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
That she never sleeps at night
She goes in and out and in and out
And in and out and in and out She's playing all night All right, guys, I got to confess.
I don't think they're talking about an accordion in this song.
I think I'm just catching on now.
I think this is about sex.
Let's just wait for the accordion.
You'll have to tell me when I hear it.
You'll have to tell me when I hear it Just in the background
Bob, do you know who's playing that accordion?
I was just thinking about it, and no, I don't.
Bob, do you know who's playing that accordion?
Wait, there's a banjo in there, too.
Yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Well, the guess is, it's an obvious guess.
Carl Fortino.
Pete Townshend is playing this.
He's playing the accordion.
That guy's a multi-talented freak.
That's right.
Squeezebox might be the go playing the accordion. That guy's a multi-talented freak. That's right. Squeeze Box
might be the go-to
accordion song.
Like, it's about a squeeze box,
which is, like,
another term for accordion.
But as I listened to it
in my late 40s,
this is about
sexual intercourse.
I'm telling you right now.
Here's a, you know,
Bob was bringing up, like,
chart anomalies, you know and uh i would say a
great chart anomaly is that the who internationally forget the u.s they never went to number one in
the u.s but internationally the who of it only once gone to number one with a song in any country
yep can you believe this and it happens to be our home in native land canada they went to number one with this song squeeze box in 1975
is that a mind blow or what i well 1975 was peak era for me as a kid you know wanting to be in a
band and stuff so i remember loving this song didn't know much more about the who based on my
top 40 radio listening in years previous um because it's so it is sort of like out of their
wheelhouse in a way right and there's not much accordion really in it like it's sort it is sort of like out of their wheelhouse in a way right
and there's not much accordion really in it like it's got no there's not a lot of accordion but
the accordion you do here in squeeze box is pete it's actually in those parts yeah love it not a
big mind blow except i just thought it'd be fun to play an alternative version a cover just a
little taste of this you love your unknown yeah love that. I want to know if you
can name the band.
It's Peter Tosh.
That's a good guess.
Michael Franti is spearheading.
Toots. Is it Toots?
Is it Toots and the Maytals?
And the Maytals.
Covering Squeezebox.
Just a little something to bridge us to.
We did a spoon show once with Toots and the Maytals.
Tell me about that.
How weird is that?
That's why you're here, Rob. We opened for them in, it was a long time ago, in London at Western University.
At like one of their pub night kind of things.
And we were just doing whatever gigs we could get, you know?
And we had just released our first album.
And our manager was like, oh, we've got this gig in London.
You're going to open for Toots and the Maytals.
And we're like, okay, cool.
That's amazing.
Weird combination, but it was fun.
You know, Sam Roberts was here last week.
I saw that.
I got to drop these names.
So Sammy, one of the questions that came in,
actually, she was at the most recent FOTM.
Lauren sent in a question
like she said i saw you at um western university or something like what's the craziest university
concert of your he says western one yeah western was amazing is that your experience like nobody
parties like the western student and we had friends uh gordon had had uh derrick had friends
who were going to school at the time um and would just sleep in their dorm and stuff and it was amazing.
It was crazy times.
A great TV moment, this is according to
1236's own Mark Weisblatt,
a great TV moment was Donald Trump on
Saturday Night Live. He introduced
this band.
Really? Yes.
Yes.
You can find that on, there's actually a Twitter
account that is just all day.
All they do is retweet.
Oh yeah.
Celebrities introducing bands.
That's right.
That's amazing.
Yes.
And I saw that way.
Boo fighters.
You know,
like the story of Patrick Stewart.
Right.
But yeah,
that's on there too.
Yeah.
That's cool.
And before I pass the baton,
Donovan,
now Donovan never had to pass the baton.
It only got passed to him, remember.
Is that true?
Yeah, always the anchor.
Okay.
Always the anchor.
Never had to pass that baton.
But before I pass the baton to Rob Pruce,
just checking in on the live stream,
Basement Dweller says there's an unheralded
hair metal cover of Squeezebox from Roxy Blue.
And Moose Grumpy reminds us in the old Toast days, Cam
Gordon right now would be crapping on The Who.
That was sort of how it rolled with the original
Toast crew. You two don't crap on
anybody. No, the good old days of crapping on people.
I don't know if this will play
for the live stream, but it'll play on the recording.
I'm going to play
from Twitter.
Standby.
Hold on.
I actually have to put a vote.
Featuring Ben Harper and Jack Johnson.
Oh, geez.
We'll let him go again.
Hold on.
Ladies and gentlemen, Toots and the Maytals featuring Ben Harper and Jack Johnson.
So there you go.
He didn't butcher it as much as I wanted him to.
Johnson.
Wish somebody would butcher that guy.
Okay.
Okay.
Rob, any words before your second jam? Nope.
I love it. Okay.
This band's been mentioned already in this
episode. That's the teaser. Here we go.
Tears
in the morning
in the morning
Ain't gonna
tell me what to do
Don't know
those tears
I know they're just a warning
Reminding me I'm missing you
So you moved out of your house
That's an accordion.
Yeah, it is an accordion.
I hear it.
Very French, right?
And you took your soul I hear it. Very? We're not together.
A canceled future, well it's hard on me.
Gone, gone, are you gone forever?
Hope you love the baby, I'm never gonna see. And I've got tears in the morning
They ain't gonna tell me what to do
No, no, those tears
I know they're just a warning
Reminding me I'm missing you
Well, you know I lit a candle
Listen to those strings.
You're like the conductor, Rob.
If you say bring it up, I bring it up, okay?
Me and Bobby Weiser.
Yeah.
That's right.
Good callback.
This man listens, everybody.
Rob won't let me bring it down, Bob.
Not yet.
Not yet. guess i'll keep a hold rob won't let me bring it down bob not yet not yet i've got to feel now all that you see and i've got tears
i hear it back there i hear it i hear it
rob pardon my ignorance.
Do you know I
Okay, the band is
The Beach Boys.
Yeah.
Big fucking band.
I don't know the song.
No, good.
What album is this on?
I'm telling you,
it's not a lost era,
but the late 60s
into the 70s
like prime era
beautiful recordings
and songwriting.
Who's singing on this band?
So this is Bruce Johnson.
Bruce Johnson
wrote the song. He was in the band.
He's still in the band now, I believe.
The few guys that are left. The Mike Love version.
Right. But Bruce
joined the band at some point into the
era of the band, but he's
just the most fantastic songwriter.
Is this the era of Sail On Sailor? Yes.
I love Sail On Sailor. 1970.
This was the album Sunflower. And
there's a couple of other fantastic songs,
but it's the combination between Bruce making his contributions
and Brian doing his weird experimental stuff as well.
Bruce also is the songwriter of I Write the Songs for Barry Manilow.
Oh, wow.
Does that sound better, by the way?
Yeah.
What did you do?
I just changed my mic.
Nice.
You had time to reset.
It only took you, let me see how far into the recording are we.
Okay.
You're only an hour and 14 minutes into this episode.
That's amazing though.
So I have,
all right.
So I have a shitty fake SM58 that it does not work.
And then I have this classic SM58,
you know,
the kind of,
kind of mic that the more you drop it,
the better it sounds.
And I found it. Nice. And on Bob's basement, he drops the mic off. Is that the better it sounds. And I found it.
Nice. And on Bob's basement, he drops
the mic off. Is that the song still playing
in the background? Yeah. I didn't realize it had that little
tag. Yeah, Bruce Johnson is a
genius. But the accordion
in this song, again, it's Carl
Fortino once again. Remember that name,
everybody. There he is again.
All your songs, all your jams are going to
be Carl. They're actually not.
Spoiler alert. The other people playing on this song, of course, it's the Wrecking Crew 14 it's all your songs all your jams are gonna be carl they're actually not well my spoiler um the other people playing on this song of course it's it's the wrecking crew because
it's still beach boys era how blaine who you've talked about before is on the drums we could do a
whole you know if we kicked out our favorite how yeah we should do a toast episode with how blaine
uh but the reason he comes up on this is the um rawnets that's right which ties back to beach
boys of course because brian wil Wilson was obsessed with that song.
Yeah, he wanted to sound
like Phil Spector, really.
Well, he wrote a song,
yeah, he wrote a,
a Beach Boys song
was written for the Ronettes
and because Spector
didn't have any
writing credit on it,
he poo-pooed it all
because Spector was an asshole.
Crazy, yeah.
Okay, we, this is,
we could do a whole episode
on this.
Quick, unsolicited opinion
from basement dwellers
that that's,
this is his favorite era
of Beach Boys.
Oh yeah, for sure.
And Bruce also wrote the great Disney Girls, which ties back to Bob Willett's recent trip with the family.
Disney Girls is one of my favorite songs.
And the first time I heard the song was actually recorded by the captain in Tennille, who connected to this song.
Daryl Dragon, who is the captain, is playing vibraphones on that song as well on Tears in the Morning.
He was a member of the Beach Boys, like the touring band at that point.
So this was like one of his early contributions to the Beach Boys.
Have you ever heard the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore West with the Beach Boys in April 1971?
No.
Canada Kev highly recommends it.
Ooh, okay, cool.
Gotta check that out.
Bob, do you know that Beach Boys song?
Wait, Bob, are you there?
I do. No, not at all.
I'm not going to pretend that I'm there.
Okay, I just want to make sure you're there.
Why, now can you not hear me?
Now we can, yeah.
Yeah, this album, Sunflower, is amazing.
Okay, sorry.
Leslie points out all opinions are mislisted.
There was a little lag there for a second.
That's okay.
It's funny because it's better but not better in a way.
Do you want me to go back to the old?
You know why? You know what's different? What's different? It's deader. It's more muted. Oh, there not better in a way. Almost, do you want me to go back to the old? You know why?
You know what's different?
What's different?
It's deader.
It's,
it's more muted.
Oh,
there's less range.
There's less room sound.
Yeah.
Okay.
Or do you know what,
Bob,
do you have noise cancellation
on somewhere?
Maybe just,
and also maybe boost your volume
like 15% or something.
Sure,
I can do that.
No problem.
How's that?
Is that better?
Yeah.
Do you have noise cancellation
on or something?
Cause it's like,
you sound like you're like. Well, Zoom does that. Oh yeah, you can turn it off. The top left, you got to hit that. No problem. How's that? Is that better? Yeah. Do you have noise cancellation on or something? Because it's like you sound like you're
like... Well, Zoom does that. Oh, yeah. You can turn it off.
The top left, you got to hit that. That's right.
In Zoom, it's called
original sound for musicians.
Maybe you've got high-def noise cancellation.
So the top left of Zoom where it says original
sound for musicians, if you hit that...
That's not on my
Zoom screen at all. Okay.
I don't have that. Well But you're fine, honestly.
We will proceed because you sound fine.
If it's bothering you,
I honestly just thought it would be better
if I was on record.
Rob's a musician, okay?
Everything bothers him.
It's all good.
I love everything at the same time.
Okay.
Any more fun facts about that Beach Boys there?
No.
I would just recommend listening
to the whole record, Sunflower.
And there's another album before
or right after that called Surf's Up,
which is great as well.
An early jam kicking was done by the great Jim Van Horn from 1050 Chum and TSN fame.
And he kicked out Sail on Sailor.
And that is a song I remember as a kid, Sail on Sailor.
And it kind of, once it gets stuck in your head, it bounces around in there for a long time. It is really an underappreciated Beach Boys jam.
Yeah, for sure.
Because it's not an era people go to. Bob, any words before your second jam?
No. Is this better? I took all the processing off the microphone. I think you're fine.
Yeah, you're fine. You're great. It's all your content that we're here for
anyways. Oh, yeah. I apologize that I'm not there.
Well, your kid got sick. No, let me think.
No, this is a pretty obvious
one for me. It came to mind right away.
And it was mostly, I think
most people know this from a movie trailer.
Let's kick it! Thank you. I'm a sailor, hey, and I lost my leg
Climbing up the top sails, I lost my leg Home for a rest got me drinking, but now I'm really drinking.
Wow.
Way to go, Bobby.
I'm ready to kick some fucking ass. That's right. Pruce, you looked at me a little funny there. I don't drinking. Wow. Way to go, Bobby. I'm ready to kick some fucking ass.
Pruce, you looked at me a little funny there.
Yeah, I don't really know that. Let's go. You don't know that song?
No, not really. Oh, good. I'm not even
shocked he doesn't know it. This would be a black hole
for the great Rob Pruce. Yeah, I like
these kind of black holes in my life because I like discovering
things, though. But do you ever listen to music that makes
you want to just break stuff? Shout out to
Fred Durst. Yeah.
Yeah. Early. Yeah.
Early Metallica.
Okay. Talk to us,
Bob,
about Dropkick Murphys.
Dropkick Murphys,
and I'm shipping up to Boston.
And so they're out,
they are,
of course,
out of Boston.
Kind of came to prominence in the late nineties,
early two thousands.
They toured a lot with bands like Mighty Mighty Boston
and a couple other ones.
I'm trying to look at these bands here that they...
But here's the thing.
Speaking of Katie Kaboom,
our friends in the Mahones have opened for them.
This song is their biggest hit by far.
It actually charted in a couple different
countries but uh it's uh it was it was out for a few years my my brother-in-law is a huge fan of
celtic punk cool so i've seen these guys with uh they did at echo beach they played with somebody
else it was great just a it was just a nightmare of a show in loudness and craziness.
They really have
an underground following. A lot of
university radio play,
but they can fill...
If Dropkick Murphys came, they would fill history.
For sure they would.
I agree.
Most people know this. It was featured in
The Departed. The movie
The Departed with Jack and Leo.
Marky Mark's in that too, right?
Marky Mark is in that as well.
And yeah, great movie.
I need to Boston, which they wrote the music to, but they did not write the lyrics.
Oh, is this time for the mind blow?
Here's your mind blow.
So the lines are from the same writer who wrote this song.
This land is your land and this land is my land.
From California to the New York Island from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters.
This land was made for you and me. That's a mind blow, Bobby. That is my that's one of my favorite
mind blows, actually, is that Woody Guthrie, the lyrics, check this out. They were taken from a
fragment of paper that one of the band members, Ken Casey,
found looking through Woody Guthrie's archives.
Wow.
So he took and he gave credit to Woody Guthrie.
The lyricist is listed as Woody Guthrie on that song.
And for me, that's just amazing that they did that.
I don't know the story of how Ken Casey got a hold of Woody Guthrie's archives.
I don't know where that was, but he turned it into shipping up to Boston.
Well, before we hear what Rob has to say about this, guess who's in town?
Or at least maybe he's left town now, but guess who was in town last night?
I know.
It wasn't Woody Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie was not here, but a guy inspired by Woody Guthrie was here. Bob Dylan played in Ossie Hall last night. It wasn't Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie was not here,
but a guy inspired by Woody Guthrie
was here.
Canada Kev says this is a winning mind blow
and Ian Serbis loves the fact
that Rob Proust does not know the
Dropkick Murphy song.
I know the band vaguely.
Celtic punk is a really fun genre of music yeah there's a ton of bands out there um
that and again a bunch of them are canadian you know uh i i love i love it i love listening to
my i have an indirect uh understanding of this music based on where i worked on this musical
called once which was the music from glenn hansard falling slowly slowly right i love that
and so when we were putting that
together like in 2011, 2012,
we were digging, we had accordion in the
musical. Like we were arranging music for
like a nine piece cast
or 11 piece. But one of the instruments
featured in our orchestration was an accordion
and trying to make an accordion work into
these settings. And we were listening to bands like
the Dubliners and Glenn's
old band called The Frames from Ireland. I feel like at that point somebody had mentioned the Dropkick Murphys
as well as like something that I should pay attention to so the name has always been around
but it sounds so cool to me there's like they did a cover of a like an Irish standard like folk song
called Fields of Afrony okay that I would throw on my playlist forever I just love the way they
punky Celtic eyes that Fields of Afrin.
It's just, yeah, Dropkick Murphys.
They're too punk as sort of as House of Pain is to rap, okay?
You got your Boston Irish American guys paying tribute to the motherland there.
Why aren't we kicking out any House of Pain today?
All right.
Is there a...
Some of those songs,
I was a big,
I'm confessing to you all,
I was a big House of Pain guy
and there were a couple
of punky, harder,
put on your shit kickers
and some of this stuff
on those, yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
Enough about Everlast.
Everlast, that's my name.
My unique rhyme style
is my claim to fame.
Okay.
My turn,
actually no mind blows to this.
I'm just going to kick it a song, and I think
it might be cheesy that I'm kicking this out, but it is
a song that the accordion is
prominent in, and we'll
talk more about it on the other side.
Get those lighters going, guys.
Ballad time.
Speaking of Austin.
There goes my old girlfriend.
There's another diamond ring.
And all those eight-night promises.
I guess they don't mean a thing.
So, baby, what's the story?
Did you
find another man?
Is it easy to sleep
in the bed that we made?
When you don't look back, I guess
the feeling's not to fade away
I used to
feel your fire, but
now it's cold
inside, and you're back on the street
like you didn't miss a beat
tell me what it takes
to let you go
there's the accordion
that's the accordion everybody
tell me how it is that you can't sleep even now That's the accordion, everybody.
Okay, more confession time, which is, I don't know if I was the right age.
It hit me.
I was listening to a lot of Q107 and they played like every song on this album.
This is from Pump.
Yeah.
And I owned Pump on CD.
Did I have the cassette?
I can't remember.
Yeah, I guess it was CD.
But bottom line is I played the hell out of Pump.
So that's how you remember the accordion came right to you.
Well.
You're like, there it is.
Well, here's the thing. And I desperately searched the World Wide Web, Robbie,
to find out who the hell's playing accordion.
Is this Carl Fortina?
It's uncredited.
I couldn't find any confirmation of who's playing this.
Okay.
But I did get a quote from Joe Perry.
So this song is written by Stephen Tyler, Joe Perry, and Desmond Child.
This is a power ballad off of Pump.
It's called What It Takes by the rock band Aerosmith.
And Joe Perry says that the accordion in this song gave it the flavor it needed.
Otherwise, it would have just been nice chords and nice changes.
So this song peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100.
What say you, Robbie?
Well, it's funny that within three seconds
I was like,
I think this is Aerosmith.
Just by that drum sound
because I mean,
Pump was everywhere, right?
So, you couldn't get away.
But I did not remember
the accordion in this sound.
It's beautiful.
Bob?
Yes, sir?
This is the third single
of the four singles
released from the Critical and commercial smash Pump.
You want to take...
I mean, in real time, I'm thinking back.
So do you want to try to do it in order?
Well, did I not kick out Angel?
Was that off of Pump?
No, that's a previous album.
That's the one with Dude Looks Like a Lady, I think.
Oh, right.
Well, is Pump... Pump is Jan Dude Looks Like a Lady, I think. That one. Oh, right. Well, is Pump...
Pump is Janie's Got a Gun, right?
Yeah, so Janie's Got a Gun is the second single from Pump
released in late 1989.
But the first single, because they started with a rock song
and it was a huge hit.
Yeah.
Do you know what it is, Robbie?
Well, only because I just looked it up.
Oh, well, don't cheat.
I cheated.
Totally cheated.
I'm not going to say it. Okay, say it. I haven't cheated. No, I don Well, only because I just looked it up. Oh, well, don't cheat. I cheated. Totally cheated. I'm not going to say it.
Okay, say it.
I haven't cheated.
No, I don't because Get a Grip was next.
I could name amazing, crazy clients.
I'll give you a clue.
Okay, but I'm going to ask a question,
then you can give a clue.
Bob, I have one question for you.
Going down.
Yes, dude.
Loving an elevator.
That was going to be my clue as well.
There you go.
So, Loving an Elevator, Summer of 89.
Lingerie.
But very dude-ish, right?
Very dude looks like a lady-ish, that song.
Maybe it's the same song.
Great opening single from the album.
Yes.
And then Janie's Got a Gun was a great follow-up.
I've seen Aerosmith twice, and they're amazing.
Wow.
Well, that's not true.
I don't know if I've ever put an Aerosmith album on at home, but I have.
I think I had
Get a Grip on CD
and I would have had
The Greatest Hits, I think,
on CD as well before that.
Yeah, I love Aerosmith. It's great.
Tobias Vaughn wants to say it's not a great song.
I don't necessarily agree with that.
I sing along to this whenever I hear it.
If I any find there's allusions to other songs
on the album, I think it's a cool jam.
But Tobias Vaughn says it's not a great
song, but it's a great pick for the topic.
Basement Dweller thinks
it might be John Webster playing accordion
because he played keys on the Pump album.
So there's a lead on that.
And Canada Kev says this is
a country pop song.
In his opinion,
this song.
Country pop song.
You know what?
It could pass as like
one of those like mid-90s.
Like a Boots or Hearts
type thing or whatever?
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh, Steven Tyler too.
They're on their farewell tour.
Of course,
he might have some legal troubles
because they removed
a statute of limitation
on some crimes
he's admitted to
in his book, okay?
Shout out to ray don chong
who came on toronto mic and accused mick jagger of the exact same crime so uh you know we'll see
what happens but poor mick there but oh yeah there's a little tag at the end do you hear this
in the mix here hold on here just a little tiny like a false bottom here okay and it ends up
roughly like a little violin just Just a little something there.
Okay, what else can I tell you
quickly about this song
before we go to our final jams?
Oh yeah, the final single.
So, what it takes
is the third single,
February 1990.
The fourth and final single
from Pump was
The Other Side.
Take me to the other side.
Take me to the other side.
I would have thought
that was later.
I actually thought
that would have been
on Get a Grip,
but I didn't know that was on Pump.
There you go.
There you go.
So, shout out to Pump and Aerosmith.
Well, I was just looking,
because when I went to that page to see the singles,
I mean, in those days,
you would squeeze the singles out of an album too, right?
Which is nice,
because Lovin' in an Elevator came out August 89.
Other side, June 90.
Yeah, you could get over a year.
Well, you know who did that a lot?
Remember Def Leppard, of course,
when they released, let's say, Hysteria.
Right.
I feel like I was hearing new hit singles from Hysteria
like two and a half years after the album came out.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, it's a different era now.
It's a different era.
And that was also different
than what was happening 10 years earlier
where you would release a couple of singles
fairly close together within a year
and then get another freaking album out.
And to bring it back to Moby Grape,
one of the great mistakes in the career it back to Moby Grape, one of the great mistakes in the career
and management of Moby Grape,
which is why when I was on Humble and Fred yesterday,
I just said, so these are three guys in their 60s.
Humble, Fred, I think Bob's heard of these guys,
and Dan Duran, okay?
Three guys in their mid-60s.
Have you guys ever heard of Moby Grape?
0 for 3, not having a clue, who is Moby Grape? Meanwhile for 3. Not knowing, not having a clue who is Moby Grape.
Meanwhile, if you ask any rock critic who was around in 1967,
they'll tell you that Moby Grape's self-titled debut
was one of the most influential in avant-garde releases or whatever.
But they released four or five, I think it's four singles
at the same time.
Oh, wow.
So they released...
They just put them out.
The only singles released from that critically acclaimed self-titled debut of Moby Grape were all just thrown out. Oh, wow. So they released... They just put them out. The only singles released from that critically acclaimed
self-titled debut
of Moby Grape
were all just thrown out
like a strategy
that completely backfired.
And it's the opposite
of what Aerosmith
did for punk.
That's right.
That's right.
Interesting.
I only knew them...
And now people hardly
put albums out at all.
Yeah.
And I only knew them
in hindsight.
Like, you'd hear...
I would hear the name
Moby Grape,
like, referring to the era of the sixties and the sound.
And then I thought.
Yeah, with Crosby, Stills and Max.
Even Beach Boys are kind of in the mix there.
But what's Neil Young's Buffalo Springfield.
Yes, that's right.
Right.
I think of them in that kind of context where if you were there and you were
really paying attention to all the music,
you would know the doors in that scene too.
That's a kind of.
No, because they were on the radio though.
I think, I mean,
the difference is sort of what's lasted over the years.
So were Buffalo Springfield and so were Mamas and Pops.
Okay.
That's true.
All right.
Bob, will I?
Oh, no, it's Rob Pruce's turn.
Oh, sort of connected to your song there.
I call Robert Pruce.
Like, we're hitting arrows.
Two Roberts on this program gets me confused here.
Want me to just kick it?
Just kick it.
Wow.
Come on.
Wow. Wow. Come on. Wow.
Wow.
Yeah. There's the accordion. I hear it, yeah. Dancing with everything We were young and we were improving
I'm kind of hijacking this.
Do you know who the background singer is on this jam?
It was the woman who sang with him on her...
Okay, you talk to me and I'll go Google it.
So this is Cherry Bomb from John Cougar Mellencamp.
She was quite featured in all of his songs in this era.
Because this is like 1987 era John Camp Cougar Mellon Camp. She was quite featured in all of his songs in this era because this is like 1987 era
John Camp Cougar Mellon.
Right?
And I feel like
I was just thinking
that this accordion
probably inspired Aerosmith
which came like
a couple years
after this, right?
Only a couple years.
So what year is this?
This is 87.
Right.
This was out in 87.
So yeah.
There she is.
Okay.
Yeah, it's buried in the mix
only because I can't use the physical
fader because then I bring down Bob Lillette.
That's right. It's all Bob's child's fault
for getting sick on Toast Day.
There you go.
The accordionist was a member of his band
so it wasn't like a featured
extra guy.
It was somebody who was just with John all the time.
And his name is John Casella.
Crystal Taliaferro is the singer we hear on this song.
Okay.
Continue.
Yeah, so I just had this.
Oh, that's it?
You don't have any more notes for me?
No, not really.
This was just another song.
Along with the Elton John song,
this was the other song that immediately jumped in my mind. What's a song that I think of right off the top of my head that's it? You don't have any more notes for me? No, not really. This was just another song. Along with the Elton John song, this was the other song that immediately jumped in my mind.
What's a song that I think of
right off the top of my head that's got a recording?
It was a top 10 US Billboard Hot 100 hit.
Peaking at number 8
on the charts.
Bob, you and I, we remember this song was fucking everywhere.
Yeah, everywhere.
We've talked about this before, and Rob, you were part of it,
but that mid-80s,
mid to late 80s
pop scene was so diverse between you know prince madonna yeah and uh john cougar mellencamp and
holland oats and bruce springsteen and uh tina turner all having these bob seger
bob seger all rock and rock pop the the the lines were so blended then. It was amazing. It was a beautiful thing.
And this guy was a big part of it.
Yep.
You know, Jack and Diane
and Hurt So Good
were massive, massive hits.
Oh, yeah.
Pink Houses.
Yep.
Yeah.
Some people think of him
as like a...
Go ahead, Bob.
Well, here in Toronto,
I would just, you know,
I would go back to Chum FM.
Right?
Chum FM was that station
that played those...
That's when they stopped playing their non-hits
and
that really was the beginning of the end
for 680 CFTR, I would say
which was a true top 40
at that time and
you know, and AM was dying
so, you know, I think
if you got an ad on
104.5 Chum FM with
Ross Davies running the station in the beginning of Roger, Rick and Marilyn, just to bring it back to radio because I'm selfish.
That was huge.
It was massive.
And all those artists and these songs were being played.
And on the Canadian side, it would have been Bryan Adams and Corey Hart and Glass Tiger and all that.
And we were actually this.
At this point, I was in Honeymoon Suite and we were recording
our third album at this point.
And like,
I was just,
it was just occurring to me now,
like this was,
this came out in 87
just before we released our album
Racing After Midnight
and we had done the song
on the Lethal Weapon soundtrack
and it's the same thing.
Like this variety of sounds
was just all,
everything was merging together.
It was such a great thing.
I actually texted Mr. Rob Pruce. Sorry, just quickly.
Sorry, I texted Mr. Rob Pruce.
I was near Prince Edward County
getting on the Glenore Ferry.
And I took a picture because the
Honeymoon Suite wave babies
video was recorded.
I love that video.
So I was on the ferry
and they're on the ferry and they're at the sandbanks
and I asked if Rob was in that, and he was not.
I apologize.
Just before your exact timing.
He's more of the lethal weapon guy, Rob Pruitt here.
But I love that video because there's that fantasy, and again, inappropriate, shouldn't do it, but topless women on their stomachs where you take that cold pail of water and you pour it on their backs.
That's right.
Don't do this at home, kids.
Not cool at all. But we thought it was cool in the 80s, on their backs. That's right. Don't do this at home, kids. Not cool at all. But we thought it was
cool in the 80s, right, Bob? That's right.
What a wild west
the 80s were. I can't believe it when I tell my kids
stories. Okay. There is a song I'll
play later. It's actually somebody in the live chat
is demanding it and I have it now loaded up. That's why
we heard a little weird sound for a moment there.
I have a
fun fact for you. I just sent you a song too. You sent me a song too.
I emailed you a song. Okay. So let me collect my thoughts here. I have a mind blow for everybody, courtesy of Basement Dweller. I think it's a song too fun fact for you you sent me a song too I emailed you a song so let me collect my thoughts here
I have a mind blow for everybody
courtesy of Basement Dweller
I think it's a mind blow
so I mentioned Crystal T
is that voice you hear
in Cherry Bomb
we heard a woman there
she's also the voice you hear on
you ready for this?
Girl with a Problem
from Northern Pikes
really?
wow
process that
see Basement Dweller
gets it
gets it here
Canada Kev says john mellenkamp
fooled us all telling us he was a cougar not until later in his life did he reveal so this is a bit
like buffy saint marie's we won't go too deep into this i have tom wilson on the show next week and i
will have a deep dive i will have a well i won't do the whole episode on it because i need to talk
junk house but i do want to have a serious adult conversation about, and I say this as a guy, have you heard more Buffy talk anywhere than you've heard on Toronto Mike?
I bring up Buffy St. Marie is a white American woman
whose sole verifiable claim to being Indigenous
is being adopted by Pia Pot First Nation as an adult.
Like, doesn't matter if she's actually an American of European descent
instead of what we've been told for the last, you know,
since I learned about her,
which is that she was born on a reserve in Saskatchewan
in his indigenous descent.
Like, doesn't matter.
Like, I know this is a big convo,
so we don't have to dive into it now,
but I've been noodling it all day.
All week, really, when I heard this was coming.
I did too.
As soon as you started talking about it on the chat,
I was like, oh, and I got very interested
in what was going to be happening.
Because to me, and again, I need to talk to Tom about this,
because Tom's almost the flip, right?
The exact opposite, which is he lived his whole life
thinking he was of European descent.
Yeah.
His words, I thought I was a big sweaty Irishman.
Yeah.
And then he finds out in his 50s,
he's actually of indigenous descent.
Wow.
And he was adopted by an Irish-Canadian family.
And now the question to me will always, of course,
come down to like, what did Buffy know when?
Yeah. Like, did Buffy intentionally mislead us into thinking she was of indigenous ancestry and born on a reserve in Saskatchewan, as I was always led to believe?
Bob, these are heady, real adult conversations to have.
So I have a very good friend of mine who I went I went to high school, I went to school from junior kindergarten, um,
all the way,
um,
uh,
till high school.
And she,
uh,
she and I are still,
uh,
still good,
still good friends.
And she's actually been on Bob's basement.
Her name is Jennifer Sylvester,
and she's actually working on her doctorate in indigenous studies.
And she is a part of the Anishinaabe nation.
And she's,
uh,
she,
she's also,
she'd been on Metro morning.
She's as a,
as a,
as a,
as a,
as a,
she's an advocate for the indigenous community. And I always turn to her when it comes to this kind of thing, because I follow her Twitter account quite a bit. And, you know, the term pretendian is a common term out there. with Joseph Boyden, who he's a novelist, and he wrote a bunch of books
that are supposed to be about First Nations culture,
and it turns out he's not Indigenous.
Does it matter?
I think it does to them.
I think it does.
Now, I don't know what intentions matter,
but it is a heady, heady subject, man.
That's for sure.
It's a big one, but I think Tom
is the perfect guy to have a little conversation about
it with. For sure. Again, almost
the exact opposite. So we basically live our whole lives
thinking Tom Wilson,
Canadian with parents of
Irish descent, and then Buffy St. Marie,
indigenous woman. And
she's Italian, right? So Buffy St.
Is it the Santa Maria? So it is Santa Maria.
So they anglicized it, if you will.
I don't know if that's the right term for this,
but after World War II,
being Italian American was not a,
it's like when they renamed Berlin Kitchener.
So they changed the name from Santa Maria to St. Marie
to make it less Italian
because of course they were the enemy in World War II.
So what a fascinating time we live in
to consider that she might not be indigenous.
Yeah, and I mean, it's interesting that it comes out now.
It's like a TV thing that's going to be on tonight or something.
It's on tonight, Fifth Estate.
So you can tune in.
This is good journalists of integrity
who care about their craft and do their due diligence.
And there are lawyers on this show
that you know comb through everything before it makes it to air so these are very these are
verified claims sure that are going to be presented on fifth estate tonight so does it matter well it
i don't think it diminishes from anything she's done in any contributions she's made creatively
for 50 60 years i don't think that this takes away from anything about her.
It does seem like, you know,
she came up in an era where people wanted to reinvent themselves
and the world did not exist at the touch of a keyboard on a screen, right?
We have all the information in the world in our hands right now.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
Yeah, really.
And this doesn't make her a villain either
because I don't, like I said,
I don't think this takes away.
It depends.
Well, that's where intentions,
I think, that's where intentions matter.
Bob's right.
What did you know when
and did you intentionally, you know,
this came up with much less important topic,
but the Barenaked Lady's TV debut, right?
Yeah, I know, you're right.
Where it's like, print the legend.
Totally.
They made their debut on Speaker's Corner.
It's like, well, the fact is they made their debut on ytv like and then you'll have people say
you know just print the legend which comes from the man who shot liberty valance which is by the
way great movie yeah the man who's a great song to the man but all big issue stuff and i will be
speaking with uh a man who turns out he's a big sweaty Mohawk man. Is he coming down here?
He's coming.
Are you kidding me?
Although Randy Backman
didn't come down here,
but I almost always make him
come down here.
Now, unless you're Bob Lillette
and then you can zoom in.
That's right.
I apologize.
Hey, your kid is sick.
Are you kidding me?
I have four kids.
No one understands that excuse
better than me.
I'm just breaking your...
I do appreciate it. It's not an excuse. I me. I'm just breaking your... I do appreciate it.
It's not an excuse.
I did want to be there.
Oh, I did want...
Are we moving on from the heavy discussion now?
Yeah, because I'm going to have it with Tom Wilson next week.
Nice.
I want his opinion on this.
That's good.
That's good.
I meant to tell you, Mr. Rob Pruce, that Bill Wolitschka says hello.
Oh, how's Bill?
Bill's good. I was telling him that I do this podcast with you in Toronto, Mike, and he said to say hi, Mr. Rob Proust, that Bill Wolichka says hello. Oh, how's Bill? Bill's good.
I was telling him that I do this podcast with you and Toronto Mike, and he said to say hi to you.
He did want me specifically to tell you one
thing, that he used to try to wear his
scarf like you wore your
scarf, old brother, in the
80s. He really tried to emulate you.
I don't know what I did.
You wore your scarf a very certain way. Well, I had a
scarf, like in one of our videos.
I think I had a big stupid scarf
that I wore.
That's probably what it was.
And Lenny Kravitz
stole it from you.
That's right.
It's fall.
You got to wear your scarf.
I saw that.
It's not fall.
I'm in shorts.
So Bob, you're not here.
I'm in sandals and shorts.
For sure.
Absolutely.
This is just a timestamp.
It's October 27th.
Weird.
I know.
Isn't that fucked up?
You know what?
I'm the guy in shorts
picking the kids up from school too.
Like after this, I'm going for a bike
ride in shorts. Nice.
It's like 22 out right now.
It's unbelievable. Okay. So we each have
let me do, so that is your final jam.
You're done. Bob, any words before
your final, you want me to kick out the climate change
mash? I just said I was
going to bring this for Rob to play.
This song? You want me to kick it?
Wait, what are we looking at here?
Oh, I have to change. Okay. So Bob,
no one can see you. Bob's got a little accordion.
I was going to bring this to see if Rob could have some fun.
I got a little kid's squeeze box.
I got a question as we kick out our final jams here.
No one kicked out Weird Al Yankovic?
Nope. How come?
Nope, nope. Hanson.
Hanson?
And this is a song that Canada Kev says he'll abandon us if we don't play it.
So I'm just going to play a little bit of the Schmengi Brothers.
Cabbage rolls.
And coffee polka here.
So this is for Canada Kev. Three, four.
Coffee.
And now I'm thinking,
I think there's a Ren and Stimpy song with
accordion. My dad used to be on a German
TV show in Hamilton called Einprosit,
which was like
the Lawrence Welk of Canada. It was
filmed in Hamilton at the Germania Club
and it was all German music
and there was this woman who played the accordion.
There was two of them,
like a violinist and accordionist
called the Hanson Eaton Duo.
Amazing.
It sounded just like that.
So I want to get to Bob's final jam.
Okay.
Covered by a band that was in the basement
just last week actually,
but also it's October 27.
I feel like it's a little early for this song,
but it's a fucking great song.
You ready?
It's a great song.
It's not a carol.
It's a great song.
It's a great song.
Right.
It's like Die Hard.
You can watch it any time of the year,
even if it's a Christmas movie.
Okay, here we go.
Merry Christmas everybody It was Christmas Eve
And the drunk tank
An old man said to me
Won't see another one
Cheers Robbie
And I only sang a song And see another one Cheers Robbie!
And then we sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
Got on the lucky one
Came in late into one
I've got a feeling
It's years from making you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true
There it is. You were handsome You were pretty great Off New York City When the band finished playing They held out for more
Sinatra was swinging
On the drum flame
We're singing
We kissed on the corner
Then danced through the night
The boys of the N-1
Pini Coel
Were singing
Go away, babe
And the bells were ringing
On Christmas Day
That's a tin whistle as well. Love that. Can't beat it. for Christmas Day.
That's a tin whistle as well.
Love that.
Can't beat it.
You know, it is my favorite holiday treat.
My favorite holiday song.
Even if it's got an F slur in there,
I take it all in context
of the times in the persona.
Go ahead, Bobby.
So yeah,
Fairy Tale of New York
by the Pogues.
Their album, If I Should Ever Fall, Looking Grace With God. So yeah, Fairy Tale of New York by the Pogues. Their album, If I Should Ever Fall
From Grace With God.
This song, interestingly enough,
was written because of a little bet
between Shane McGowan and Elvis Costello.
Really? Elvis Costello was their
group. Yeah, Elvis produced their early stuff.
And he wrote it
so Shane
wrote this in 85 when
Elvis
challenged him,
said the Pogues would never be able to write a Christmas song.
And this is what he and the co-writer,
Jem Finer, who's the banjo player in the band, came up with.
And obviously it is iconic.
It enters the top 10 in the UK every year
because they really love their charts over there.
And of course, Kristen McCall
on the other vocals.
Just beautiful.
Gone far too soon.
Just a great song.
When I think of
an accordion,
these are literally the first three songs
that came to my mind.
I sent them to you almost right away.
I had Dirty Old Town, the Pogues version, literally the first three songs that came to my house and i sent them to you that's great like almost right away yeah and bob i had already had mine done i just want you know i had dirty old
town the uh the pokes version on my list and when you brought this up i took it off my list you did
so i could so again i now after sitting around with you guys talking and thinking about all the
other places you could find accordion music besides celtic music I also, I will say that it's front of mind for me because my father-in-law is Irish.
He's born in Dublin and they're a family of musicians.
My sister-in-law plays the, plays the piano.
My brother-in-law plays the guitar.
Everybody plays something in that family.
I play other people's music.
I can't play anything, but we do have a proper saint patrick's day party almost every
year with like i could like it's a like with like woolly sweaters and banjos and a brand and um tin
whistles and everything and one time my buddy adam robinson who's been on my podcast he's a
head of he was the head of engineering for evanov radio he came to the party
and uh decked out in all the kiss me i'm irish and like plastic hats and he was like head of engineering for Evanov Radio. He came to the party and decked out in all the Kiss Me I'm Irish
and like plastic hats.
And he was like, you didn't tell me that this is a real Irish party.
Wow, that's cool.
He's like, I look like a gay leprechaun rapper.
And he did, which really worked.
We didn't make fun of him too much.
But this particular song obviously evokes lots of great feelings,
but there's really, and for me, you know,
the last Mind Blow was
pretty amazing. So,
Jem Finer, again, has primarily been the banjo
player for the
Pogues, but he's also
a conceptual artist.
And he did this thing,
and it's still going, actually.
In
England,
you can go find, you can go
find... Can you go
hit that link? I'm going to hit it. I'm just going to
let the people on the live
stream know. They won't hear this.
They might not hear that. Yes, but this will be in the podcast.
If you hear silence on the live stream,
go to the podcast. Here we go. We may have to turn
it up. Okay, so stand by. We're going to
get this figured out here.
So, Jem Finer... There it is. Okay, so stand by. We're going to get this figured out here. So, Jem Finer,
there it is.
He also plays
Tibetan bowls.
You know those bowls you make?
Yeah.
I have one of those in my house.
Do you really?
He's got everything, Bobby.
You make that sound.
In 1999,
he created something called
Longplayer. And at midnight on
December 31st,
this art installation
started playing.
And it is going to
play for 1,000 years.
And it
is the composition
of Longplayer results from the application of simple and precise rules.
There are six short pieces of music, six sections from these pieces.
One from each are playing simultaneously at all times.
Long player chooses and combines these sections.
I'm reading it from the website in such a way that no combination can be repeated until 1000 years has passed.
Oh, geez.
Wow.
So you can go.
So this right now, what you're listening to is a live feed of long player.
Come on.
I can't wait to Google that.
Go back to this website.
Okay.
So it's icecast.spc.org.
You have to go to the long player website.
And then I actually, they want a donation.
And I, you know, we're kind of stealing. You have to go to the World Player website. They want a donation.
You're stealing this.
We're kind of stealing it.
And what's the name of the guy who did this, Bob?
Pardon me?
What's the name of the guy who did this?
Jem Finer.
J-E-M-F-I-N-E-R.
Wow.
This sounds like something that would be connected to the... Have you heard of the Long Now Foundation,
which Brian Eno was connected with?
It's a similar thing.
Brian Eno started doing this thing about 20 years ago what there's a clock it's called like the
world clock that that like goes for thousands of years and it's created to like like show the
passage of time on earth like we think of our you know our human existence in 100 years or whatever
but this kind of thing they look at the long term span and this sounds related to that.
So yeah, so this is longplayer.org is where you want to go. So the co-writer
of Fairy Tale of New York
has created this
unbelievable piece of art.
I was going to say, there's no accordion in this song.
There is none.
But the accordion was very well
up front in the actual song.
Sure was.
I blew my own mind when I found this out. I was like well upfront in the actual song. Sure was. I blew my own mind
when I found this out. I was like, this is a cool one.
My wife works for the Art Gallery of Ontario
and I love
conceptual art.
Shout out to Jim Shedden.
She's very good. Jim Shedden
is a good friend of hers.
Talked to him the other day.
Yeah, he's a good guy. By the way, lots of stuff Talk to him the other day. Yeah, yeah. He's a good guy.
So there's lots of,
by the way,
lots of stuff going on at the AGO.
But,
so yeah,
anything I've learned about art,
I've learned through Diffusion,
through her,
just by being around her
and her many degrees
and her knowledge.
But this really blew me away.
I thought it was something interesting.
That's super cool.
It's a good mind blow.
Audio installations are always cool.
Oh, yeah.
This is different.
Okay, idea for future toast.
We do it live at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Ooh.
Silence from...
I was going to say silence from East York,
but he's in Toronto.
I'd have to talk to him.
I know.
I'm just spitballing here, Bob.
That's what I do.
I have ideas and some happen, some don't.
Come out to Kingston.
We'll do it in Kingston sometime.
Can I bike there? Okay.
We'll get Paul and Robbie on.
They're always around.
Yeah.
Robbie was on Hebsey on Sports
when I was co-hosting, but Hebsey never let me
get a question in.
I'm still upset about it.
That's my final
accordion jam.
I could come
up with easily another three yeah um because at first we were worried about what we could do i
could now thinking about how the depth in which the accordion goes i could definitely do another
three well that's the next month's topic more recording gems just kidding okay so we'll talk
about next month's topic later uh i have one more jam to go yep bob it's been great having you even
though it's remote next time you'll be in the studio but let me
see that'll be a
November recording so
we'll get that in before
TMLX 14.
I hope everyone
listening joins us at
Palma's Kitchen on
December 9th.
That's a Saturday at
noon for a Pandemic
Friday reunion.
I think it'll be a
mind blow when we have
the Pandemic Friday
guys and I bring on a
Rob and a Bob and I'm
like that's a coin of ants
coming in to see Bo and Luke.
It's going to be a great moment for me.
But we've talked about this song.
We've talked about this band.
We've talked about this accordion player.
Here is what I deem to be the greatest song
in the English language to include the accordion.
That's high praise, but here we go i may not always love you but long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it.
I'll make you so sure about it.
God only knows what I'd be without you.
without you If you should ever leave me
Well I would still go on
believe me
The world could show
nothing to me
So what good would
living do me
God only knows
what I'd be without you
If you should ever leave me
The light would still go on, believe me There's a nice flute.
I like it. God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I need without you. God only knows what I need without you.
God only knows what I need without you.
God only knows what I need without you.
What a piece of art this is, gentlemen.
Holy moly.
Great way to end.
Oh my God.
And I got some mind blows just to tap things off here.
Accordion fills in that song by the aforementioned self-proclaimed most recorded accordionist
in the world, Carl Fortina.
Amazing.
Wow. And he's
appeared on a bunch of... We heard him
on Tears in the Morning by
the Beach Boys. That, of course, is
God Only Knows by
the Beach Boys from their 1966
album, Pet Sounds.
You might have heard of Pet Sounds. If you haven't
listened to Pet Sounds in its entirety,
do so today. That's your homework.
But you might know a jam
called wouldn't it be nice and that also includes carl fortina on accordion according to carl
according accordion to carl i like that accordion to carl brian wilson says every time you play, my records go gold.
You're my good luck charm.
Wow.
Okay.
So what more can I say?
I have a few mind blows here.
That is a song that it's been suggested in a book.
There's a quote from Brian Wilson.
So Brian Wilson wrote that song.
It all comes back to the Barenaked Ladies.
What's the best song written by Stephen Page?
Well, if I was lying in bed, I could give you the answer.
There you go.
You agree, right, Bobby?
That's the best song that man's ever written.
You know what?
My opinion.
My opinion.
I, you know what?
I'm a huge Stephen Page fan.
I love a lot.
I really do like What a Good Boy. More than
Brian Wilson. I think so.
And Break My Heart off of
Born on a Pirate Ship.
I like it
when he goes deep and gets even darker
than Brian Wilson. I love
Brian Wilson. He's got a lot of good songs.
I'm a huge Barenaked Ladies fan.
I have to admit, just pre
Stephen leaving.
I don't really know much of their music after, but
yeah, it's top three
for sure for me, of Steven Page
writing songs.
So, when Brian Wilson wrote his memoirs in
1991, he said the melody for
God Only Knows came from a John Sebastian
song that he had been listening to.
So he didn't name the song, but biographer
Mark Dillon did more research,
a deeper dive and has decided this is the song from the love and spoonful
that Brian Wilson was listening to when he was inspired to write God only
knows.
So here's your first in a series of mind blows.
I have a couple,
here's one right here. We even have to be so nice
I wonder about you everywhere
If you had just looked once or twice
And gone upon your white dress
You'd be so out of my life
For me to follow you So how am I allowed to be the flower here?
I know I try, but I'm not there.
You came upon me like a bird.
You sent me singing to your place.
This is You Didn't Have to Be So Nice by The Love and Spoonful.
John Sebastian wrote this song inspiring Brian Wilson to write God Only Knows.
There's a singer-songwriter.
I don't know if you guys have heard this guy before.
He's a little underground.
Have you heard the name?
Be honest, guys.
Have you heard the name Paul McCartney before?
Sounds familiar.
Have you heard this name bob roulette well you know
here and there he did a song with um not the weekend uh um kanye west kanye yeah he did a
song with kanye right now where are you going yeah yeah his last top 40 hit i believe yeah yeah so
and uh rihanna's on that too right that's right that's that was a good jam so that'll be a future
i think we'll do a future toast which is like last hurrahs for Legacy Acts.
Totally.
Okay, that's an idea I have.
It's interesting to hear this.
I want to ask Rob a question.
It's interesting to hear this connected to God Only Knows,
because you can hear how it would be an inspirational sort of groove.
Yeah, apparently how the melody of the voice is.
So I'm going to let Bob interject here of a question,
and then I'm going to tell you why I brought up Paul McCartney.
Go ahead, Bob.
As a non-musician, I think we get caught up in tempo,
and we don't hear the similarities.
Rob, did you kind of catch it right away?
I think tempo gets in the way, but did you get the feel right away?
With this song?
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, yeah, it's not really the tempo.
It's not just the tempo.
The tempo gets in the way of us hearing it.
It's something about
the groove of the music
around the melody.
And it definitely,
it's not like a direct steal
or anything.
No, no, no.
But it's like
totally inspirational for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Everyone's inspired by something,
including the Beatles.
So Paul McCartney
has gone on the record
to say,
God only knows
by the Beach Boys
is, you ready for the quote?
The greatest song ever written.
Wow.
Forget accordion jams here.
So Paul McCartney, one of the greatest songwriters of all time in the English language, modern
history anyways, he says that God Only Knows is the greatest song ever written and that
that song inspired, in part, a Beatles song.
I'm going to play a Beatles song that was inspired by God Only Knows.
Are you guys ready to hear this?
Yeah.
To lead a better life
I need my love to be here
Here
Making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of time
It's in the vocals, it's in the harmonies.
Yeah, I think it's all the harmonies, right?
You can hear this as like a beach voice.
Yep.
Inspired song.
Playing
Running my hands through red hair Like a beach voice. Yep. Inspired song. I think it's wild how the beat, But she doesn't know he's there.
I want her everywhere.
I think it's wild how the Beatles and Beach Boys keep going back and forth, inspiring.
Like, Sgt. Pepper's leads to smile and then, oh, sorry, not the smile, pet sounds.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then pet sounds inspires the Beatles.
But I think it was that pet sounds led to Sgt. Pepper. Right.
Okay.
Sorry.
Yeah.
You know, yeah, you're right.
Pet Sounds,
they were in California
hanging out
and then they hear Pet Sounds
and then they go home
and make Sgt. Pepper
but there was this
back and forth
mutual respect though
and yeah,
this song is
here,
there
and everywhere.
Amazing.
Beautiful.
There's some interesting
variations of
God Only Knows.
If you look at the pet sounds, the box set, and all the outtakes and stuff,
there's versions of, because that's Brian's brother, Carl Wilson,
singing the lead vocal in that song.
I'm glad you brought up Carl.
Keep going.
And there's versions where Brian was trying to sing it.
And you can see why he decided to forego the lead for his brother,
because Carl's got a smoother voice
you want one more mind blow yes before we do mop up and uh say goodbye to everybody here okay
so brian wilson wanted god only knows to be a solo record by carl wilson wow wow according to carl
wilson good vibrations was supposed to be the next, but it didn't turn out the way, believe it or not,
one of the greatest songs of all time,
didn't turn out the way Brian wanted.
Brian, of course, creative genius, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So they needed another release, and they took God Only Knows
and just put it out as a Beach Boys single.
Wow.
But it was intended to be a Carl Wilson solo track.
Wow.
Is that a mind blow, Bobby?
Amazing.
Absolutely.
You know,
being completely honest,
I can still remember
like in the 90s
and I grew up in a household
where there was no
Beach Boys music.
My dad loved Queen
and Elton John.
My mom loved country music
and weird things like
Carol Pope
and the Mon drugs in my
pocket.
You know,
my mom was like either punk rock or,
or country.
My dad was all pop,
pure pop.
But for some reason there was no beach boys in my house,
but I can still remember seeing spin magazine and Rolling Stone magazine when
they always do their top albums of all time.
And Pet Sounds was always,
if not one in the top three.
Right.
And I think it took me a long time to finally get it.
And I have it on vinyl now.
And when I finally sat and listened to it,
as an adult years later, I'm like,
oh, okay, now I get it.
Yeah, you get it in context.
This is amazing.
Yep, for sure.
I remember seeing Beach Boys when I was a kid.
I would read this magazine.
It was a rock magazine called Circus Magazine.
Yeah.
And always on the cover was Aerosmith and Queen
and Kiss and all this stuff.
And every once in a while,
they'd mention the Beach Boys on the road.
And I was like, what is the Beach Boys?
They're like a 60s band.
It seems so weird to me.
And the same thing, many years later.
Right, Kokomo for Bob and I.
That's right.
Oh, geez.
Man, I know.
That's a cocktail soundtrack, right?
Right.
Big soundtrack.
So here's a cool thing about Carl Wilson as well.
This was a mind blow for me in the last 20 years, I would say.
When I was a kid and I loved this Elton John song called Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me.
Of course.
And if you listen to that.
Also George Michael duet that had a resurgence.
That's right.
Ladies and gentlemen, Elton John.
There he is.
But the original version, if you listen to it, Carl is singing background vocals and
all the high harmonies.
It's Carl Wilson and Tony Tennille from Captain and Tennille.
And once I learned that it was Carl and I went back and listened,
it totally sounds like the Beach Boys.
And it freaked me out the first time I listened,
knowing that it was Carl,
because you hear the sound of God only knows.
Isn't Toast fun,
Rob?
And then Bob will be back with us in person.
We'll have to pick a date and time that you can get Rob Pruess in the studio.
But guys,
I got to say,
I love Coy and Vance on Toast. Love it. Love it. Here we are. He's the studio. But guys, I got to say, I love Koy and Dance on Toast.
Love it.
Love it.
Here we are.
He's the expert.
I mean, my God.
We bring stuff up with Rob and
it's like, oh, yeah, I played
with them.
I opened for them.
No, no, no.
But I'm learning music from you
guys, too, though.
Like the eras are like the
combination of it all is so good.
Remember, Mama's got a squeeze
box and Daddy doesn't sleep at
night.
That's right.
I don't think that's about
accordion. I'm telling you, when you hear it, you'll know what box and daddy doesn't sleep at night. That's right. I don't think that's about accordion.
I'm telling you, when you hear it, you'll know what I mean.
I was playing all night.
Bob, thanks for joining us remotely.
I'm glad we could get you on and I hope your kid feels better.
Yes, please.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate your understanding.
Always fun.
I love doing this.
And yeah.
Well, they won't let you on the air, right?
It's a union thing. You're not allowed on on the air right? It's a union thing.
You're not allowed on
the air right?
It's just it's
complicated.
It's complicated.
That's your Facebook
status and it's
complicated.
Rob Pruce.
Yes.
You always bring it.
You might be a little
too nice but we'll talk
about that off mic here.
I want you to be a bit
more of a dick just to
keep things you know a
little more Stu Stone
asshole.
I can't wait to meet
Stu. That's going to happen. Everybody should come to TMLX just so we can even of a dick just to keep things you know a little more stew stone ass i can't wait to meet stew
that's gonna happen everybody should come to tmlx just so we can even witness rob
meeting stew i want to see how you two gel i mean we were at the last one but we didn't
actually meet for some reason yep we're gonna make it happen on the mic at tmlx 14 and that brings us to the end of our 1,350 second show.
I'm on Twitter and blue sky.
Now I'm on both.
Now as Toronto threads,
I'm on it,
but I'm not actively working it like,
cause I don't quite like it,
but I am on blue sky.
That's enough for you.
You'll find me.
Okay.
If you want to find me,
you'll find me.
Rob is at Rob Pruse X at the end.
Yep.
Bob is at BobWillette.
Willette rhymes with Gillette.
It's spelled like Gillette, but with a W.
Right.
And much love to those who made this possible.
That is Great Lakes Brewery.
How was your beer, Robby?
Fantastic.
Pale ale.
Yep.
I love my, I got to say, I love my Octopus Wants to Fight,
but I forget
because I've been drinking
Sunnyside Pale Ale all summer
and then I have a can of Sunnyside
and I feel nice,
like just normal really.
And then the Octopus Wants to Fight,
it's like you have a couple of these
and it's like,
oh,
there's more alcohol
in the Octopus
than in the Sunnyside.
It's completely,
I think it's more than twice as much
or something.
It's like,
okay,
you gotta be careful.
Great Lakes Brewery,
delicious fresh craft beer,
Palma Pasta,
Raymond James Canada,
subscribe to the
Advantage Investor.
Moneris,
subscribe to
Yes We Are Open.
Recycle My Electronics,
go to
recyclemyelectronics.ca.
Pumpkins After Dark,
go to
pumpkinsafterdark.com,
get your tickets now.
And Ridley Funeral Home,
we recorded a new episode
yesterday about Halloween.
It's very charming.
Rob, I know you like Life's Undertaking with Brad Jones.
I love it.
Listen to that.
My next episode is actually tomorrow
because there's a gentleman who is a co-producer, co-writer.
He was involved with my definition of a boombastic jazz style
by the Dream Warriors.
His name is Richard Rodwell,
and he's going to visit me tomorrow morning. So I'll see you all
then.
Nice.
Maybe I'm not
and maybe I am
but who gives a damn
because everything
is coming up
rosy and gray
yeah the wind is cold
but the smell of snow