The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.
The longest episode I've ever recorded is three hours and 15 minutes. It was episode 100. And my guest was my old afternoon drive co host Jake Daniels. And we talked a lot about when we worked at 100.3 of the bear in Edmonton. This is back when we used to be cool in the 90s. Anyhow, we're back together for another round and we're only going to go half as far this time. If you do want to relive the drivetime on the bear experience in its full glory, check out episode 100 which was recorded way back sometime in 2018. And now Jake Daniels joins me for another go around from Vernon BC. But we'll start off the same way we did every day at 2pm.
kind of wish I I don't know. I kind of wish I had those sort of numbers anyway.
What Joe Rogan's?
Yeah Joe Rogan numbers?
We I mean, you got that the hair?
In the eyes? And the ideas for the show tonight or what?
Now you
got nothing.
Oh, it takes me back some 25 to 30 years.
The music's playing. We're having a we're just trying to figure out what we're going to say. You know, what do you have today? I don't know. I didn't do any prep. Do you do any prep?
That will say to deer on the way to work today, though. So let's talk about that. Okay, there, Dan. And then it ended in it in it. And remember the last time we did this, nine hours or something ridiculous like that? Three hours and 18 minutes or something like that.
That's longer than our shows where? Yeah, where we a three hour show back then are we for?
We were for but I mean, the amount of talking we would do is wasn't that much. Keep it tight and bright. Are you inverting BC?
I'm outside of Vernon BC. Yep. Nice. Hey, Dan, Andriy ah, pretty good, I guess would be the standard response to that. But
it's been a an interesting year. Both Janice and I, my wife and I were working in film for the last three, four years at the writers strike. They're really kind of mucked everything up this year. So we started looking outside of film. And now I work in construction. So I was really interested in that because I saw that you were working on the SAT. So I guess the first question people would ask is, do you meet anybody famous? Well, I guess the biggest name would have been Scott Eastwood. Yeah. Clint Eastwood son, Scott, who looks somewhat like a young Clint and and he's quite handsome many as he is. And he occasionally used his dad's kind of lilt in his voice, and he's thrown a light out there.
That's a terrible Clint Eastwood, not not a ton of real famous big movie stars. Hey, if you can't remember the name, that person wasn't famous film, cat Jensen, okay, who actually is somewhat famous, but we had a less than memorable time with her. Most of the actors that we worked with, because we're in the BC interior in the Okanagan. We don't get the huge movie stars that your Vancouver and Toronto film sets usually see. So a lot of it is our Canadian actors that a lot of people really haven't necessarily heard of, you might get one kind of bigger name out of the states that comes up that you may or may not have heard of, but for the most part, it's it's sort of up and comers are Canadian actors that a lot of Hallmark movies, that kind of thing that we did here, smaller budget movies for the most part, what was your job on set a bunch of different jobs before COVID In fact, I work the last film that was filmed in Kelowna before COVID and early 2020 And that was, I was a production assistant, a PA, which is just the the lowest man or woman on the totem pole. You watch the crew parking lot to make sure nobody's breaking into cars, you stop people on the street from them walking into your scene, you empty garbage cans, you carry propane tanks, you set up tents for various reasons, on and around, set lay carpets down on floors to protect homes that we're using things like that, really, you can't do a movie without pas but they don't make much money and they don't get a lot of respect, but but they're very necessary, but it was just kind of an in A first job to get in. Because as it turns out, one of my clients at one of my trivia nights here in Kelowna was the commissioner of the Okanagan Film Commission. So we started talking after I had left radio and 2019, or after radio left me, and he said, is try film out. So I did, he got me in with that. And then COVID hit right the week, we wrapped the day we wrapped if we're just talking about this new disease, and looks like we weren't gonna be filming anywhere anymore, and, and everything shut down. And then when we came back, both myself and Janice were COVID control officers and safety officers where everyone hated us because we had to enforce masks on Sat and all of the things that go along with COVID. And we did a bunch of movies, basically in the early part of COVID. And then in 21, I could kind of see an end to those departments coming and moved into different departments. I did props, I was a props master for a movie and it prompts assistant for a few added set decoration for a bunch of movies as the Janice also transportation driving both people and stuff around to and from Vancouver. I mean, there's so many jobs in film that if you get it and you can kind of bounce around play, find what you like, if if you'd like long hours and neglecting your cat and family.
Yeah, strong recommend. I mean, you look like you're having fun. So I thought you were doing that. I thought, oh, man, that looks like a lot of fun.
It is fun. But I mean, the hours are crazy. And the money is okay. I mean, it seems like you're making a ton of money because you work 12 to 15 hours a day, every day of the shoot. And, and so your paycheck at the end of each week is pretty big. But you've also worked an inordinate number of hours compared to a normal person. So but but it is fun, absolutely fun, and absolutely difficult and at times, absolutely horrible, as well.
What was the station that let you go? The power 104?
i Yeah, no, it's called the lizard in Kelowna. But it was set up for the time, they decided to go with a young cheap kid out of Saskatchewan who could be coerced into hosting things for free every night of the week if they wanted, because he's young, and he wants in. And I think you know how we were in our first years of radio, right? You would do anything? Because you wanted to be a DJ? Yeah. And it's like, hey, we need you to go host this thing. We're doing a thing. Yeah, sure, I'd love to get up in front of people and you know, be a famous DJ, and blah, blah, and you would do all this stuff for free. You're not realizing you're eating up many hours of your personal life for no money for both the radio station and the client to make money off of and for you to really basically get nothing out of video. So
I wanted to do it just so I could be in front of people. So people might remember my name and listen to my show the next day. Well, if
that's yeah, I mean, that's the general idea of, you know, that promotional aspect, but you would do it for free right at first.
Yeah. Or you get paid cash from the bar, and then they don't put it in the into the books. And then Revenue Canada comes after you.
Does that happen to people? I the dead? Okay, good.
Just checking.
Yeah, that hasn't happened again. claim all my money.
on it for you, you get an audit, and you get an audit and you get an audit.
There was a year as late 90s in Edmonton at all, there was one bar chain that got audited. And it turns out that they had been keeping secret books of all of the radio DJs that they'd been paying cash to for posting various things in their clubs. And I think this was a just in case they got audited kind of a thing. So because I already paid all this money to these guys. And then all of the radio DJs got audited, and in some got some had to pay back every dollar they made. Yeah,
that was fun getting run up in that. You get an audit and you get an audit. Yeah, yeah.
That was brutal. Anyhow,
so do you miss radio?
I do actually funny enough for me, because I listened to I'm back to being listener again a bit before I was ever a DJ. And when I went into radio, I considered myself a listener first and a radio employee second, and always, you know, felt that I would bring the listeners in on what was happening because what I always loved about radio is like, Kenny 97, in the early days in Edmonton, in the late 70s, early 80s, when they launched, there was Sharkey was the morning producer. And Marcus and Mark summers and Mark summers. Yeah, yeah, and Bruce Canyon and Robin Allen and all those guys. It sounded like there was about 15 people coming and going from that studio every morning. And even though you'd be listening to the content of what the guys were talking about, and the women not to discount because there was various women on the show, that gang would just be so interesting that you'd want to know you almost put yourself in there and who's another guy talking in the background? God, he's funny, who was that guy? Who's that guy? And it really sort of kept my attention that way because it seemed like there were so many people in there and and I kind of I miss creating that sort of listener interactive, as Eric Samuels used to call it theater, the mind sort of picture for the listener, but then also telling them what is happening and being honest with them about what you're seeing and what you're doing. You know, there's a way to do both, I think, to manufacture some things, but also to be honest about what you're doing. I think we did that pretty well. You and I,
oh, yeah, we were gold in the afternoon. Not so good. In the morning, we were not good getting out of bed.
Which is funny because now I mean, I'm, I'm up early now every day for my job to get to drive at a mediocre show. Nice. You know, I've got a fairly, but a 45 minute drive to work every morning now. And I'm up at 530 in the morning, and it doesn't really bother me, I prefer now to sort of get my day going earlier, as opposed to back in the 90s. When we were up closing bars that I was the problem is that we wrote closing bars down the night before on white Avenue, and then expected to show up at 5am in the studio are for whatever horrible time they wanted us there.
The only good thing about doing the morning was when it was over. And then we would go play golf.
I just thought you're gonna stop it, then the best part was when it was over?
Well, sometime around 10 o'clock, there'd be a general announcement between you and me that we'd hit the wall.
Yeah, right. Well, sometimes before 10
One of us would just yell out wall, we hit the wall, another brick in the wall wall.
But as as you're so you know, I do miss. I do miss the work. I missed the people. I miss the connections out of listeners. And actually right now, I've been sort of dropping my name back around and Edmonton again, too. And there are not a lot of live radio jobs available these days. I mean, you've seen it, you know, so many stations now our, our pre they're taking shows or other markets and having them record shows for them. And just the the overlap has has eliminated a shitload of radio jobs that you and I used to both have,
you know? Yeah, and I think the evening show, one count, and I think the Edmonton Journal did an article on this. There was only two live people on the radio in all of Edmonton, which is one of the most competitive and busiest markets in all of Canada. That's an evening in the evening, the evening show, there's only two hosts. Yeah, one of them was on now. And I can't remember who had the other one. It might have been cruise FM, but I'm not sure.
That's no, no. And even I mean, talking to Yukon jack back at the bear that I mentioned this to him back in the spring, I said in thinking about maybe coming home, my folks are both in their 80s. Now I'd like to be sort of more around them. They live in St. Albert. So I kind of like to be back in the market back home to be around them. And I thought well, why not apply in radio and see if maybe, maybe anybody wants an old gray former rocker
to come in and add something to their to their radio shows. But he even then indicates that man, it's so thin, like just the market for for DJs is so so narrow right now that your chances of getting a job are pretty small. So and I've also talked to some film producers in and around Edmonton. And the problem with that is that they get tax credits for hiring locals or people from within their own province. And do not like to hire people from other provinces. So until I move there, I don't have a chance of getting the work there. So there's kind of no crossover and no hire me and I'll move there. It doesn't happen. So I can't get film work. There isn't any radio work. So you want to time your move to the end of the year to make sure that you fill out your tax return in Alberta. Bill might X Yeah, it's an annual thing.
No, just the taxes are annual. You have to do taxes every year. Honestly, I thought it was every 10 Shit. I guess I can't move to Edmonton.
See, it's stuff like that. That made us number one. Actually. More often than not number two,
often do. We were okay with you though. Right. Be everybody's second favorite and there's no expectations. Yeah, yeah.
Ironically, I think the people who are number one, I think we have to ask them if you want a job in Edmonton radio, you got to ask them are you gonna ask those people who beat us
or whatever it was number one right now that button for radio? I don't know is it probably fucking country still because Jesus
Well, I think for the longest time it was now radio
I have seen in the last I don't know decade because he is still you know, follow radio and the ratings even out here. There's like one country station don't even know what the hell it's located. And it does so well. The ratings are always good for the country stations and habitant good to say why I will We'll still go to my grave not understanding why people like the same song sung by many different people about whiskey women. And that's not just I'm not making that up. I listened to a country song last week just to prove the point. And whiskey came up a whiskey rhymes with frisky by the way now in that song, whiskey and frisky. Convenient. It's still all terrible. Still not a country fan.
I'm with you. I'm not part of it. Don't care much for it. Again, it is not that good.
Well, and you notice like the CFL is using country music and their TV commercials. Yeah, I don't get that.
I've wondered about this. And Rock has done a terrible job at promoting itself. There's very few bands, I mean, shine down a great example. That's a band, they show up. They go to the radio station, they say thank you. They meet all their fans. There's just not enough bands like that, who do it. But you have Country Music Awards. They get on stage. They thank the program directors. They thank radio. They're, you know, they're all kind of family and they work together and rock bands never did.
We used to live in incestuous thing with country and then, you know,
I mean, Matthew Goode wanted to fight us all the time. Right? I mean, there was.
Yeah, I hope he's doing okay, now. Yeah. I love that guy.
He just didn't want to do an interview at four in the afternoon with us. And I don't think I'd want to do one with us either.
That is the only interview I've ever walked out on. Yeah, that was good. You pointed at me. Would you say? He's all yours? All yours? Can't do it. cannot do it today.
Have you ever downloaded a podcast? No. Well,
I've been listening to actually during the writers strike the Writers Guild of America strike. Listening to StrikeForce five. Lightning thunder sound effect.
I don't have any sound effects. I should though. You know what StrikeForce five is right. Yeah, it's all the talk show hosts who got together to chit chat and I was a little perturbed and one of them didn't have a microphone. Like, dude. Yeah,
it's, it was Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Steven Cole bear, and John Oliver doing anything did 11 or 12 Total podcasts where all the money that they raised would go to support their, their staff during during the writers strike, which is a very noble thing to do, I think. And all of their advertising was from all of Ryan Reynolds, his company's aviator, gin, and mobile. And Reynolds would do his own ads, and kind of immediately poke fun at the five of the, of the host was and they're very funny if you enjoy any late night shows, because I kind of missed those shows, but I didn't during the strike. What I found is that I think I was kind of going too far down the rabbit hole on American politics.
Question is your is your box of weed blocking the microphone to the broadcast?
Oh, no. Is that better now? Yes, that's
much better.
Anyway, if you what I found is that even though I like to know what's going on in the world, I always have I've always followed news, my first jobs in radio were in news that it was a rabbit hole that you can fall all the way down. I was I was I knew too much about American politics on a day to day basis every day, I would watch a lot of those TV shows a lot of those late night shows and they're all liberal and they're all liberal leaning. Yeah. But they're making fun of all the right people. And you know, in my mind anyway, on the on the states, but I didn't really miss the shows because I didn't miss knowing all what was happening in American politics every day. I didn't miss knowing what Biden did today, or what Trump did today or any of that stuff. But I did miss the comedy of those guys. So I've listened to more podcasts in the last month. Now I'm working in construction, I get to just listen to what I want all day. And actually, I'm starting to they're starting to grow on me. Maybe I'll download one or two of your you've done a couple of them, right. Like this is the fifth one. You said that podcast you've done.
I do three podcasts, but this one's been going for nearly eight years.
Oh, I see yours. Yours. Yeah. Congratulations. You might be onto something there.
I think so. I think it's really taking off. Is it? Yeah, it
might be good. Yeah. You remember Jane Morrissey? Or will the sales pal from the bear machine gun? Yeah, we were just talking to her yesterday and she's really all about how podcasts are the next thing that they're, they're the thing.
Well, she'd like to come and sell some podcasts. I've got lots of inventory. And what are your other podcasts? By the way? I have another podcast which is called the podcast Superfriends. And that's where five of us sit around and just talk about podcasting. Right very nerdy, very nerdy stuff. technical stuff had had a good microphones, bad microphones. How to Become famous.
That was boring as shit. How many followers on that one?
Hardly any.
There you go. Okay, and then what's the other one?
The other one is called you You may also like, which is sort of a kitschy quirky little thing where I have conversations with people much like this one, but it's not about podcasts and radio. So for instance, I had Mercedes Nichols on to talk about snowboarding. I had Natalie Maclean talk about wine whose Mercedes she's she uses in the Olympics snowboarder. Yeah, she lives in the same province as you dude. Did she when she did not? She got a concussion. What? From snowboarding? Yeah, she well, when you when you do that halfpipe, right, you go up in the air and you come down and down in some terrible ways. He's a little crazy. Now. She was sweating. It wasn't crazy. But it was long road back. So but I think she's participated in multiple Olympics. She has her own podcast now.
Well, I didn't mean to offend her. I just I really did not recognize the name though. But so far removed from following much in sports anymore, as well. Anyway, so
well, you and me both like I don't as people get older we prune our sports tree. So we remove things from our sports life. Yeah, so what have you removed since we were back on the air 20 years ago? 25 How long ago was it longtime NFL? You don't watch NFL anymore?
give a shit about the NFL watch the CFL still somewhat? Well you know what during COVID I didn't really care about any of the sports funny enough it's almost like not missing the late night shows. It was not missing what seemed at that time to be kind of just pointless it's like wow, how much do we need to watch other people work out and cheer about it and wear shirts about it and and all of those things and I kind of really didn't for a while they didn't care what any sports it was more about the world needs to survive and heal. And then the whole everybody hates each other thing we need to heal from that. And now though I've kind of getting back into a lot of sports again like the orders, you know, I'll follow and watch them again. Still, I've always enjoyed watching the Oilers and CFL but none of it really means that much to me anymore. I still like baseball. Disappointing the Blue Jays this year, they back into the playoffs. I thought you put golf on weekends like watching there's a good batch of Canadian golfers right now.
Got a call here from Drew Dalby drew Dobby wants to know does Calgary still suck?
Wait, we take calls or texts?
What how does that work? The text at the bottom of the screen?
We've got to Dalby. Hey, Dobby
Dobby is watching I guess from Kingston, Ontario,
huh? Calgary is actually the home of my children and their children. And I have a hard time hating on Calgary. Like I used to hate on Calgary because I got five grandkids now. And I love all of them and they're all in Calgary. So Calgary does not suck.
How did you do your office pool pics? When we had an office pool? You had a unique way I just can't remember what it is.
But I tried a bunch of different shit never worked though. Yeah, I did it my ex Donna she wanted one year up in Grand Prairie by picking up I think it was places she would rather shop or that was a different gal that wanted in the office and Donna won it by picking the cities of the two she'd rather visit that was and she won the whole thing that year. Awesome. Me I don't know. I tried to look at odds and I was terrible at it.
So let me ask you because you brought it up a few times in your socials predominantly on Facebook I gather and that sports betting Yeah, and how you just you have no time for it can't stand it. It's bad can't believe it's legalized? Well,
I mean, as we talked about the fact that you know, I wasn't gonna run a pool without betting on it. But I mean, that's you know, 10 to 10 bucks a week or 100 for the season whatever the hell it was. It's not a lot of money. It's not losing your mortgage, kind of money. The hockey poles and graphs and we'll go in those are cheap it'll cost you that much fun. It reminds me a cigarette ads in liquor ads, which you know, eventually everything's regulated cigarette ads were pulled all together because they didn't want they didn't want people promoting something that's going to kill you. This is the same thing. It's an addictive you know, we all know that gambling is addictive. And so you've got these mega stars you know your Jamie Foxx is in your corner MC David's your Austin Matthews is and so many big big names that are out there. Basically telling people Hey, get your you can get on here and have the best time of your life and without saying it lose your mortgage and lose your house and have your life ruined. If you get hooked on it and people do and they put these tiny little you know, hey know when to stop and all that bullshit. But you've got mega stars that we used to say, you know, you got to look up to these people or they got to be examples. So make David's got more money than you'll ever need. All these people have more money than they ever need and yet they're accepting more money to promote an diction. And it seems like there's zero regulation on it. I just want to watch the game and every commercial break, there's at least two, sometimes three different betting ads that come up, ramming it down my throat that I should be getting on here and parlaying my bets and gambling my money away. And I just think it's I think it's disgusting, is what I think.
So you're not opposed to gambling. It's just the ads. It's the gambling ads that.
Yeah, I mean, I gamble once in a while. Okay. No, every now and Blue Moon will go to the casino and drop 100 bucks or whatever, make 100 bucks. So and it's again, we know it's an addiction. But Janice, and I have it, what we would call under control. I think it's been a year since they've been there. I don't know. We don't go all the time.
If you and I were doing a show, and a traffic tag was going to be a sports gambling website. I would I'd be reading that.
I suppose. So. I mean, I would I would morally have a problem with it. That said, though, I mean, we used to, wasn't it? The El aglc? Alberta gaming liquor commission? Right? Didn't they used to sponsor some shit or show like it was like weather or traffic or something brought to you by W DLC by your lotto 649 tickets this weekend? 9 million. Yeah, that's what it was. What a 649. Used to used to do ads on our show. Is it the same? I don't I don't think so. Because again, nobody goes out and buys $500 worth of lottery tickets on a night.
But you could win $500 worth of lottery tickets with the bear when we played a contest,
right there was that there? Was that was that? Yeah, that's right, too. We get a lot of tickets, but Well,
that wasn't I think we were spinning a wheel of some sort. Yeah. And there was four results and one of them was a trip to Vegas. All right, boss.
Oh, that but I got to host
I understand plane to Vegas. But here's a bus to Vegas with a stop in Utah.
That was you were on the other bus. Right?
I didn't go I said I don't do bus to Vegas. I do plane to Vegas.
else was on the valve. There was Ron fabric who was our producer at the time and went on to be our program director. No, Maggie was there and a number of our staff Margo, as well was there Michael Radcliffe, but it was like a 19 hour ride or some shit like that. And there's this one couple that that drank so much. And we were trying to tell the bus drivers shortcuts to get there that they know of and they were kept bugging him when he finally asked us to get them to quit bugging us grip bugging him. On the way home. He got bit by a spider. And we had to stop at a hospital in the States for two hours while this guy got treated for a spider by the longest cricket. Never bust to Vegas with a bunch of drunks.
No, I knew that was going to be a problem. But
I was wandering drunk though. So I didn't want to be then. But long trip.
But you haven't had a drink in a long time? No, I
still have the occasional drink now. I mean, I've got addict Tebow. tequila, tequila. In fact, I was gonna have one while we're doing this.
I thought you swore that off after Nazareth.
No, Nazareth made me quit entirely drinking for two years. Okay. For those that don't know, so, what year would that have been? 9066?
Probably. Yeah. But I just remember like, it was like five to noon or something. I walked you away to do news five minutes sooner. And I came in and looked at you. And you picked your head up. It was like a cube where you came back to life I was faced? Yeah, no.
So I got off their tour bus at sunrise. Boy, because they had played just up the road at Johnny seasoning. It wasn't.
No, it was.
What was it called? After join American Bar? Yeah, yeah. The fun. Yeah, yeah, I think the American Bar, so they played there. And I was introducing the band that night. And so I would always before we introduced bands, go to the band, if I could get to them or their manager, whoever and say, Is there anything specific you want mentioned in your introduction? Or do you want me to just get up there? Shut the fuck up, say the band name and get off stage. What do you want? Want to make them happy? So I got to see Nazareth today there at the front of the bus, their driver and sort of road he stops and he's like, who I am. I gotta take Daniels and introduce a band. So he goes through the curtain to the back. And then I hear this Jack Daniels. Well get him in here. So I go in and and they're like Jack Daniels. What a great name. You'll have to come back on the bus after the after the show for a drink. So sure enough after the show, Janice and I get on the tour bus right outside the bar, and there's weed going around in a circle, and a bottle of Jack going around the circle that everybody's got a beer as a chaser for the Jack Daniels. They love my name because they drink so much Jack Daniels I thought Jake Daniels hilarious. So we stayed up all the rest of the night until sunrise on their bus, which at some point moved to their hotel, the snot rocket just down the road. We didn't even know what had moved. We get off the bus expecting to be still at the bar, look and walk back to your car. Yeah, well looking for a cab that were so drunk and not worth the hotel. So we're like, halfway home. We got gotta cab home. And now is about see that would have been summer ish. So six, probably six in the morning. And then I had to be on the air at noon with news or five to noon with new news. So I got to sleep about five hours, got a ride to work from Tyler from our son and producer and was still drunk. But I was writing the news and I had very short news lines. Figured I could get through if I had like two lines for story four stories. It's almost a minute boom, good enough to get out of here. I could hear myself slurring the first line of the first story and decided to wrap it up after that story. So I did one story and so whether it's next got a commercial comeback, whether it's sunny 20 It's 12. And then that was it. Then we went for lunch I sobered up. We did the show after everything was fine. No Was it you or was hung over? out of it, but I could take it back. Now I couldn't I couldn't even fathom a hangover these days.
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1000s time I've driven home listen to Matt and Jake. And I got to say they are probably the best thing about your station hands down. Don't ever break those guys up. Don't ever move them to another time slot or anything like that. Listen to them go back and forth on each other is funnier than anything else you guys play. So just keep them together and I'll keep listen.
The bear does not take responsibility for the inevitable marital breakup of Matt and Jake. Thank you.
All the bears. Listen to mine. Anytime. Nine. 830 30. Because of you, we're Edmonton best raw 100 points. There.
What is the last time you had a hangover this morning? Really? Where do you go last night?
Went to rumours comedy club just up the street and saw sugar Sammy, who's going to be coming to Edmonton, by the way. Who is that? He's a comedian from Montreal. He's hilarious. Yeah, he's doing a bilingual show right now. So you should have a little grasp of French if you're gonna go see this one. But he'll be back. Oh, well, you know, he's he's,
he's French. Oh, oh,
he's he's famous in France. He's Yeah, he's famous in France. He's a TV star there. He's famous in Quebec. He's famous, you know, for in, across Canada. Us. He's funny. I remember he was hanging around show him in Montreal. 2004. When I was there, he was coming in and doing bits on the morning show he filled in once or twice. I had him on the air in Winnipeg. Yeah, he now uses Winnipeg, I think to sort of kick off the Canadian Tour to warm up.
Do you get him to do part of his act when you have them on now? Because I always found it awkward when we would interview. Any comedian stand up comedians? Yeah. Yeah, they were a very difficult interview. Right? So you always kind of just say something and kind of wait for them to just say or do something funny. And it was more in their view, like an actual interview, instead of an act. And I always felt that we should have had them do five minutes of their act and then interview them and we never did that. It's wonder what you're doing now with guys like that?
Well, I mean, he's a friend. So we talked for I think about an hour and change. You know, the interview was 2018 2019 Still good. Go listen, it's in the podcast. You may also like
do you like any kind of set humor? Or is it just you do bullshitting he's
just a funny guy. And you know, a lot of his show is very radio like so he will make his act worked on the radio. It so and it works on stage when he's on stage. And you see the clips he does. He's doing interaction with the callers really, which is the audience and I watched him last night he had five people sort of set out what do you do? Where are you from? What do you do and he would be able to point and laugh at people and bring them back into the bits. He's it's kind of Wizardry and you understand if you just, you know, search social media for sugar Sammy, in order to, you know, to see how he does it, it's very much what, you know, good radio is all about. And you know, I think he was sort of raised around the radio and he saw radio and he saw how it worked and, and, you know, brought that into his show and it's very interactive, very interactive.
Well, maybe I'll listen to your podcast with him. Thanks. Are you? Are you on Spotify?
I am. I'm everywhere.
I mean, I knew you're on Spotify. I'll check you out on Spotify, their
Apple podcast, Spotify, Google, wherever you get your
pod make any money off this shit yet, or no? Totally. Are you like making your living off of podcasts?
Check this out. We're gonna put some ads right here.
Really? forget to watch him.
No, it's not on YouTube and live. We're just going to continue on with the show. But in the audio version, I'm going to drop some Ansan
Oh, cool. What what are the ad for? You? Might as well give them a free plug now. Yeah.
Well, I know if I talk about it now then people will have already heard ads. And I'm still talking about the ads.
No, but who are the sponsors? That's all I want to know. Well,
totally. Who supports the show? It's a great question. So there's a radio tool called Bert blurbed. That helps you do your show prep, which you and I would have never used. But Lourve blur? That's right. It's a tool to help you. Do your show prep.
When people do this. Like they spend their own free time before the mic opens. To do more work to be ready for when the mic opens?
Yeah, we had a show we had a, I think a show prep service at one point that was advertising with us. So blurb is one ch CHR prep sheet and logic who do the ratings and logic?
No liquor companies are? No no, no, we did. Operations, nothing
like that. I mean, it's it's a radio audience.
So it's very non traditional. The advertisers. Yeah,
I, you know, who I really thought should be a good advertiser on this is like Sony, or Warner. You know, like, if you want to get into the ears of radio programmers. This is what's new. And on your desk this week. I was thought that would be good. But the music business has changed so much. Yeah, that that's not important anymore. Yeah.
I used to you know what, I missed this are all the music meetings of the bear. Oh, yeah. So you want to tell everybody what those were like? Or shall I?
Yeah, what's your your version? Okay,
so the bear in the early days, was the one place that I respected for the way that our music programmers respected the opinions of everybody that worked there. And others who have been wandering by so we would get about a week, once a week, there were three or four different record companies that would drop off compact discs with either the singles or the full albums of new music that was coming out. This is feel free to jump in if I'm wrong about any this map, but it's but once a week, they would stop by with new stuff, right? And so we would have a meeting at lunchtime. Anybody was invited from the office, it could be a sales rep, it could be an intern, it could be a general manager could be a DJ could be a news guy, sports guy. Marty,
speaking of the General Manager, general manager at the time, he just put up a he just he just chimed in on Facebook saying there hasn't been a good song since 1975, which is the exact same thing he would say every week, in those meetings in those meetings, and then he would leave the room. That's it. That was his contribution. And he just fairness.
So everyone, and we would have in most days, there would be at least 10 people, sometimes 15 Sometimes there weren't enough chairs in that room. Everybody wanted to come in because there was a particular song or band they wanted to hear the new release from, but we would play it and then go around the circle. You're 21 years old and female. What do you think of this song? I hate it. Okay, Jake, you're 28 you're male? What do you think of this? I fucking love this song. I want to hear it again. You know, and it would go around to every person no matter what age what sex didn't matter. Your opinion matters. And, and, and they would I mean, ultimately, Eric, and you or Eric and Ron Wheeler, have the ultimate decisions. Jeff Woods baddie on what would eventually go on. But I think it was always truly with the input of all of the staff taken into consideration and I appreciated that and I really liked that about our meetings. And they were funny, too. If everybody hated it, it would get launched out the door. People would have to watch it we'll send to put up caution signs on both sides of the door, because bad CDs get thrown out in the hallways.
Greg diamond with launchy but he I mean, eventually he started to yell income And that's true and then it would go out and then sometimes it break. The poor record REP. RON Ron who said, Harwood well, I'll bring another one next week. And he did for 15 weeks. And then eventually Harvey danger flagpole said, gets on the air.
Yeah, I remember that. We had a pretty big impact on Godsmack and their popularity in Alberta and Canada. Overall. I think they just played Winnipeg here last night. They Yeah. So one of I know, I went to the sugar, Sami show and stuff. But one of my kids Scott smack any good?
Well, let me tell you, my friend
is what was this, wasn't it? What was the song? The first hit Well, Voodoo. Right, right voodoo. I
just, I latched on to that one put it on the air early. And
but it got enough plays by us and other stations started to notice. And they started to play it. And yeah, good popularity, I think.
I think I think at some point, what happened was, there was a flip with the order of the singles in which they were going to release someone. I think Paul Jessup called who was ran universal, I think at the time, said we're getting a lot of traction with us. And I think they put it out as a single it was going to be I mean, it was already a hit in Boston anyway. At W AF and, and whatnot. But they were Canadian
visionaries. Yeah. But again, that's that's all of the people who were in those meetings that that all thought wow, this is there's always something here.
And of course, Nickelback who actually I think came to a couple of meetings with featured their own record in the meeting, and then we added it at some point.
A positive Mike's brewing. I still like Nickelback, although they put out this awful country song this year. You've heard that?
I have not heard it. I heard that I heard the latest single though.
Oh, there's one of them that no, there's some good stuff out there. San Quentin is a pretty good song. You know, typically old Nickelback sounding, but they put out one that was country that I really really did not like, again, not a country fan. And it just sounded like normal country shaped so I think they probably
like a hosted a Howler and 90s like they opened up at the Howler. Like 90 Was it maybe 97 Perhaps that they were there. And and we hadn't we had them in early.
Oh, positive mics that what you're referring to there was actually they opened a Nickelback open for big wreck at the Rev. Downtown. And I went to that show, and got to meet both bands that night. I had never heard either one of them. But Nickelback got up there and absolutely killed it. And that was where I said, Man, those guys are gonna go big. And they that was quite a quite a ways before how your mind me came on, I think. Like, they played a lot first and then that song broke them jumped the shark, if you will. And I got to introduce them. Call us Coliseum.
So 2002 That was the that was the day that I left the night of that show.
Yeah, that's I say that was pretty heartbroken. But then I got to go introduce Nickelback in front of 40,000 people or whatever it was. It was okay.
trivia question Who opened the show that night for them
for Nickelback? I know they should know. But I don't
Jheri curl from Allison chains.
We were backstage with Nickelback before and drill so or what Cantrell was playing so didn't really that happened a lot. We would miss a lot of opening acts because we were jacking around having drinks getting stupid.
Give me your top three backstage good times. I want to throw up Corrosion of Conformity. I had fun with that they open from Metallica was I don't think first of all, I don't think you're the biggest Metallica fan, were you? No, no, still not that Metallica would have been my people
backstage. I mean, we had so much fun with the headstones. I would have to say there was a show in Red Deer chunk house and headstones. Both played it. And I mean we were at the time. We were tight with all of the guys and both of those bands. Yeah, dataset and I and some other friends as well and other radio people and so we would go as you know red deer a few different places to go and see them. And man it was just one of those sort of nights where everything came together and like all the bands hung out together and on buses and off buses and backstage and front stage and on stage and in the crowd. And everyone got just so pleasantly plastered that night. I guess the the memory I remember most is us having to carry Tim White back on to the headstones tour bus to put in bed. He's got these big old Marvy boots and he was still kind of squirm a little bit and try to carry others for him and to carry him onto the bus and put him back to bed. And it was it was just such a fun fun shit show backstage at Woodstock. 99 with Jane Morrissey. You got to interview The Tragically Hip there. We got to see big sugar down there as well. This is all before obviously, before all the riots took place. There have been some really good shows about the riots at Woodstock. 99. By the way, I recommend people watch them if you can.
So I was gonna ask you about that because I remember, how can you got to go? Or did it was
it was a contest thing. Okay. We gave away X number of trips to Woodstock 99 a year.
And it was so well, I saw the documentary. And it was really good. What did you think, as somebody who was there, and I guess we're running away from the fire at the end?
It answered a lot of questions for me, actually. I mean, because just because you were there doesn't mean you know, all of what the hell was happening. I mean, it was it's such a big place. So this is us airfield, an Army Airfield, right. So imagine the length of a runway, at the US Army Airfield, I mean, that is how big of a span this place was. And stuff was happening over there and over there, and you don't know. And it was so hard to understand where to go, we were close to the stage when the fires broke out on the final night there. And so we had to navigate with a lot of the other crowds as people started to realize we should get the hell out of here, around these great big bonfires that had formed using torn up pieces of fence and stage and whatever else people get their hands on and trucks were burning, and sway to navigate our way back to basically to our campsite. And maybe to get our stuff and get the hell out. We weren't really sure. And so there were certain areas of the of the campground that were untouched, like, and we were very much in the center of a lot of tents. So our area, we were on the one tree in this massive field. So we got there first. And we kind of stayed there in that a lot of people came to us to this tree and to us trying to get away from what was happening on the outside perimeters. And it was terrifying. Like nobody knew how bad it was going to be. And the next day, when we left, you would walk through other parts of the campground where there was big black patches, where tents used to be that burned and walking paths where the back sort of the back loading areas were where there was always burned out trucks. And we still had no idea of the scope of what had happened there until I started to see it on the news. But even then, in 99, you didn't have Facebook, you didn't have a lot of you know, social media, things that we have now that you'd be able to find out instantly what was going on, it took a while to really learn it. And so these these shows that you're talking about have really sort of crystallized and answered some questions for me as to what happened there.
And Limp Bizkit. Did they carry the blame that day? As much as it was presented in the documentary?
Nah. I mean, it didn't help their choice of songs like, you know, wreck stuff was probably a bad choice. Even Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know, Fire, maybe, you know that. It didn't help either. But it was the organizers. And and basically, it comes down to the whoever produced the show. The security was terrible. They weren't. The security wasn't terrible. They weren't paying their security. In the first day that we were there. Security guys are telling us we haven't had a break in 12 hours, we get no water, no food, and they don't even tell us when they're going to pay us. And it's being held on concrete. Yeah. And half of them quit after one day. Securities, they didn't have enough security to cover. And secondly, the fences that they put up around the perimeters, were basically four by eight sheets into a frame that have been held in with maybe six. One and a half inch screws. Each one of them. You could go up and kick a four by eight sheet of paneling off the fence. Yeah. And that's how the Hells Angels rolled in with their bikes. In the middle of one of the shows they drove through a quarter million people to get to the front of the stage. I don't know if that got shown in the documentary. But there was probably 15 or 20 bikes that rolled through the crowd party in the crowd to get up to the front. And corn. Corn. I think they were early in the show. I think they were day two. I don't think anything happened with Korn.
Yeah, it was they were kind of presented as they were going to be another band that was going to rile things up.
Yeah, I wouldn't say Korn had much to do with any of that stuff. It was I blame the organizer. The fact that we're gouging people in water, they're charging seven bucks a bottle for bottled water. This is again this is almost 25 years ago now. Yeah. No, and the bathrooms that everything went wrong with the bathrooms and the it was it was just gross. It was poorly. It was a fire festival in the making. Mike Lee did not run out of water and food. They overcharged on the water because it was becoming a commodity food you could still get as far as I remember. But But again, I may be sort of remembering more for the media aspect of it because we had asked us to got us back into the media areas where there was always some food back there. So really? You may be right. They might have run out of food.
Speaking of food, are you are you vegan?
Five years maybe?
How's that going for you
feel great. I mean, food wise, you know, My guts are always good. I don't have any stomach issues and my energy levels are still good. I get enough protein out of fake fake meats and the proper vegetables and things. I was just talking to a guy about that today young guy, he said, man, it's a hard commitment. And it is and, and I'll what I miss most is cheese. Really, really good cheese.
So yeah, because that was one of our Go twos for our pregame meal, which was the bread bowl of soup, which was cheddar mushroom.
Cheese, cake cafe, mushroom ketchup chowder and bread bowl, please. Less bread more soup was asked for. I always asked him to scoop out the bread bowl more to get more soup in there. Yeah, it was so salty and delicious. Man, that was good. But it would have been a cream bass, right? Yep. And the bread probably would have had some kind of dairy in it.
What if you can replicate that with beans?
Yes, it's not the same. I mean, there's a lot of a DJ I hope
we're not talking about this because this is a this is a shitty audition if we need to get back on the radio. We're talking about this. Well, I don't know.
We told some pretty good stories about shit that happened back in. Back in the 90s. You still have your teeth? Hell no. No, I got I got issues. I mean, you can see the front my grandson said how come your teeth are so yellow. And I realized that I drink too much tea without doing any tooth whitening. But I'm missing molars all over the place up here. It's only a matter of time. I'm good hanging in there and take a pocket of teeth yet and lose some teeth.
I don't know why.
You still playing hockey at lunch? No. Smell my gloves. smell smell land?
Yeah. So I would we would rent the West Edmonton Mall ice. I play we play over lunch and come back and my hands would smell like hockey gloves. Yeah. And then I would run and find the promotions. Person. Me Heidi. I smell this. As soon as your hand smell like pee and hockey gloves.
Oh, there was no discuss the matter you would always shut them at me right after right after lunch.
Yeah, I will tell you that still play soccer. Now. Yeah, yeah. Oh,
welcome to Wrexham. Love it. Good. Love it. Have you seen it?
Yeah, I have. I hope there's another season coming. Yeah,
this started the season two.
Ah, you see, I don't know this stuff. Um, so
I think tonight is episode four of season two. And you know what happens in season two ahead of time, right? I do. I do. We know that Wrexham is promoted to the next. What next? Division
can't spoil that.
It's already human history. Nobody's already happened. You spoil
the show.
But didn't spoil the show. You spoil the show. I gave a sports result from eight months ago now but you tied
it to the show some people don't some people are one of the sports result they would have got that eight months ago. Now you've given a spoiler you gave a sports result from eight months ago which is today considered a spoiler. Yeah, well
whatever the case anybody was had the water game being taped tonight. I gotta check the final score on that because it's over. While we've been talking they finished that game they were up six to one after the second period of in and out of blown that game
by the way, but about that thing about the spoiler. I don't believe that for any but I just wanted to be contrary so we can have a bit to fight about.
You know what, though? I really enjoy the show, like I've always liked Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah, it crosses every boundary known to man in their topics on each show, but funny as hell. And Rob McElhenney is brilliant in it. And I like pretty much anything Ryan Reynolds has ever done as well. So the two of them doing what they have done and really, it has revived a city in England. That was pretty down. Yeah. And it's done a lot I think for a lot of different people. And they're both very charitable as well. So I love everything about it. And even though it's about soccer, he knows a lot of nail nails and one nails and one one. A lot of effort for no apparent result according to Lenny. It's a great show.
That was that was that was Ron was lossky who went to Lemmy, the late Lemmy from Motorhead asked if he was I think he asked if he if he was following Manchester United who are having a great season back then. Or do you care watch football and he said, don't care much for football. It's a lot of effort for no apparent result. And he's right.
I've used that line. So many The times in my life since then, because it's silly. It's funny shit.
But speaking of 1998 and Manchester United, watch the Beckham thing on Netflix. Yeah, yeah. Very good.
What do I learn there?
You'll learn about David Beckham.
I don't have to see his dick in a locker room. Are they do I know nothing likes after Caitlin's been at Heritage Classic? I can't take that again. I can't.
So that was 2004.
Is that what it was?
When did when did that happen?
Here's classic. The first one. I thought it was a 2000? For sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I didn't even know this was a thing. And by the way, I was doing guest appearances on your show with you and bring Griffis and Right, right, right. Okay, so I was in Montreal, right? You already got so the the first game was was the old timers game, right with Le Fleur and grads messy and to make one of those guys. So they were at Clark stadiums, facilities for their postgame for their locker room and stuff. They didn't have them in Commonwealth, they bust him over to Clark. And that's where the media got them. And that way they weren't people weren't sworn because nobody knew public didn't know that's what was happening. So we kind of had our own little private space there. So they let the media and after the game, you know, some players are showering and going to showers and we're coming back from the showers. And I see Lynn's been there. And he's got a towel around his waist. And I'm like, Hey, would you mind getting a minute with you? If I can wait till you're done your shower, if you want? He's like, no, no, no, it's fine. We can do it now. And so there's me. And then there's a table in between us one of those big plastic tables that use for drinks and food on the backstage and then Lynn has been on the other side of it. I'm talking to him and interviewing him and and he's answering my questions. And then at some point if we got bored a minute in or what, but he puts his leg up on the table. And of course his towel flops open. And I found out why his nickname is The rat. It's not because of his nose. Not because of the way that he played. It's that other thing. All right. Honest to God, man. It was like a baby's arm holding an apple.
Speaking of which, you remember we took a phone call once and somebody was describing. And you know what I'm going to say? No, the premiere at the time. Ralph Klein. No, that's not Ralph Klein coming out of the gym. Oh, shower.
Oh, he talked about that. But it wasn't that around the time that they had a picture of Klein in the Edmonton sun. And he was working out and he had on those weird 80s shorts to kind of satiny ones. And one of his testicles was hanging out the bottom of the shorts. So you could see the picture in the newspaper. Yeah, but it was like halfway down his thigh. That's right, John seven now I get that
I missed it all. I missed something.
What's something we did that we that would get us canceled today? Something we did then there was something that we did then that if we did it today, we would get canceled?
We'll probably some of the contests that we were forced to take part in. Oh, yeah. Right. Like some of that some more so I think that what the morning show was doing than us. I mean, our biggest things were the Monday Night Football. That's right. That started with you and I and then went on to sled dogs.
Oh yeah, that's right.
I think it was more so maybe with sled dog Michaels but you know we're not nothing that we ever did was to to edge in the afternoon but the morning show is doing stuff like like eat someone else's barf or finger your mom like there was this like awful, awful contests, ideas they were coming up with at the time.
Off guy guy eating a bread and butter sandwich up with of his leg hair. Wasn't it pubes? Yeah, that was our show. That was our show. That was our show.
Jesus. I don't know if that would get us canceled. But what people want to hear that still these days. Is anyone still do that? They would
not. There's nothing you can't find on YouTube.
But is there anyone still doing that kind of content and radio anymore? Now?
I think once Jackass came along, all that stuff disappeared from the radio. So pretty milquetoast now, isn't it? Yeah, I try not to be too down about radio. I think there's still a lot of value to it. I just think the business of radios broken. I just remember we had this conversation about music right years ago, especially when the internet and then Napster. And then art Alexakis yelled at me from Everclear because I suggested Napster might be a good thing, which really became Spotify later. Yeah. Eventually that became the platform later on. And I guess some would argue that Spotify It's not all that great for artists as
well. It's terrible for artists, they don't they make so little money off of that. But they also get promoted. It's it's, you know, it's a way to get promoted. And then now their bread and butter is back into touring again. And now,
I'm sure they're thrilled to be spending like their 70s touring.
No, but there's different ways to tour if you look at what Taylor Swift is just did at how many $90 million or something like that at the box office first weekend of her concert.
She's the exception. I mean, nobody else can go tour because she's touring. She's vacuuming up all the money.
I'm just saying that that was a movie of a tour shot, right? So if you get enough followers enough popularity, maybe you know, maybe that's the next thing is that you record one concert somewhere in super high definition with with drones and at different camera angles and all high definition stuff. Yep. And make it a movie making money that way. You know, as the world is changing every day. Blows me away.
Yeah, I remember thinking that musics not broken, the business of music
became broken. Well, just different. It's so fragmented now.
Yeah. And now for me. I think one of the things that kind of mean, I don't want to sound like yelling at the cloud here. Old man yells at Cloud. But, you know, all the hooks to the songs are up at the front. Because he got to have the hook. Play early. So you get one minute in so that you get paid by Spotify or whatever music streaming service. So I mean, yeah, and where the guitar solos were the guitars. I kind of missed them.
I kind of Yeah, I know. Man. I wish we could go back to the 90s whenever a full time job then again and radio. That'd be cool. You want one? I do. Cool. Is this our resume? Cuz I didn't dress up I wore my mug Jesus shirt tonight because the orders were playing. Instead,
I got my Acadia University shirt on because Matt Miller The College Years lives on.
I think I still have a i Anyway, still wear ties for interviews even anymore. Is that like out the window now to
I haven't put a suit on in years.
I have a Christmas I have a Christmas suit that's just shows dear shagging. I remember that. Yeah, it's green and red. Got much little picture images of deers doing it. But that's the that is the only suit that I still own.
I think people will probably listen to this and think why don't you just have a podcast? I mean, maybe podcasts like are where you and I would wind up doing a show.
What are we going to talk about? I'm gonna mean we're just blown an hour and 11 minutes and 11 seconds on bullshit here. Without knowing what we're going to talk about. What do we have to do that? What was that word used again? Earlier, prep, prep prep, we have to do prep for a podcast or
it would help I probably
what could we just show up at two minutes at three in the afternoon? What do you got?
When you got the best? Why'd you come in? Like, hit the button? And then like the music for the starts to play? Yeah, here we go. And then I started looking at you I go. What do you got?
Neither one of us Sundays at a dance.
Do you remember we were forced to do prep. We were forced to do prep that we had the prep on we got halfway through the show. And Greg diamond came in and said that's not working just
yeah, no more prep for you, too. Yeah. Did we tank on purpose that day, though? We're totally
tanking.
We tanked on purpose. Oh, wait, you want to make us do crappy. This is gonna be a terrible, terrible fucking show.
You guys were better when you didn't do prep.
Oh, it could have been good with the prep. We didn't want it to be good. Let's know you wouldn't have time for as much hockey at lunch and no, not washing your hands after and I wouldn't have as much time to sober up at lunch and make it there in time to be sober for the show. You know, perhaps we'd sit around and do prep. I'm terrible stinky hands and meal hungover doing crap.
Yeah, I'm terrible with prep, I think because I would overthink it. Yeah. In the moment. I think I'm not sure this is working the second time and I think that's why we came up with the rule. Let's not over talk to the guests we were gonna have on the show in case they would start to talk about the funny things. Right. So we were so let's not let's just get right let's get them on the air and start talking to them. Right. They would wind up telling the funny story when the mics are off
right now. Try to recreate that and read Create the genuine responses is not possible.
Yeah, the opening show jingle by the way was called drivetime I think it was Rick Emmett appeared on I think in 1991 album for
an album that I, I think it was. Yeah, it's it's a very 80s Rocky lyrics again, let the good times are all this drive time
on the radio is
time and then boom boom boom we've got this whole drum solo back where we would, in theory be saying what was coming up on the show today, but because we had no clue what was coming up in the show, you should just say something stupid trying to do our first
transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the you may also like podcast, the show about people places and things. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app, or at You may also like dotnet
there is full contact radio.
Every afternoon, I turn on Matt and Jake. And boy is that favorite return.
Matt and J Dr. John Edmonton fast rock 1.3
Is that you know, because that cat is meowing I now have to give it like a writer's credit or
credit. Yeah, way to go. You get speaking credit. Now in credit. You got pets right now?
I don't I love dogs. I just don't know if I can walk the dog. I know you probably be good for me to walk the dog. But like, if I go away, like where's the dog gonna go?
I know you can fuck the dog. I've seen it in action.
Again, that's where the show prep would normally take place.
Right? Yeah. So if we did a podcast, I would continue to be able to swear if I wanted to. There's no one coming in to tell me that
I can't swear. That's correct.
But would someone say you shouldn't swear?
I don't know that if you should swear or not? I'm not sure it's very helpful. To do that. I know that if you do it too much, you're not going to be qualifying for some magical advertising money that might be popping in
me like from Radio Shack or something. Oh, whoever.
There's programmatic ads that can be inserted into these shows.
So you maybe Andrew Dice clays look into tour and or is he dead? No.
Like we used to have all those answers. Let's play dead or alive. Right? So we would have those answers.
No, no anymore.
I was sorry to see Suzanne Somers died. Just recently. And I remember I think Joyce DeWitt came in on our show a few times.
Run. The foreign guy run now. Oh, god. Yeah. Maybe tell his story on 100.
Who cares? Let's tell it again. I'm pretty sure we did.
What's the name of porn star? Ron, Jeremy. Thank you. You booked him in? You booked him in.
I booked. I booked in Ron Jeremy. I had no idea who he was. And it was Orange County, Keith, Rue Black, who I guess flew him into town. And say you got to have on your show. Yeah, how much and I don't know what it was about this guy. Keith. He was very persistent. But somebody there was something about him. I liked I loved his persistence. I said, Fine. We'll have him on the show. And comes up. We shook his hand. And we had him on the show. And it was a good interview.
It was okay. We learned some things. We learned how they turn a guy going for two minutes into a guy going for 10 minutes with five different camera angles.
That's right. That was your one question. They said how do you last so long as as well as five cameras. Two minutes comes up to 10 minutes of footage just like yeah.
Anyway, so after carry on.
He leaves. And then I said Jake, smell your hand. And then you smelt your hand and it smelled what it smelled like being hockey gloves? No, it's worth one hand.
It smelled like I believe we see at corn hands. It smelled like eight different kinds of bad cologne. And jizz is what we decided that it says smell like and your hand too. And I said, Well, you shook his hand to smell your hand and then you're like, Oh, Jesus, and we both went to the candy together. And we both were scrubbing our hands and we could not get it off. It's like trying to get blood off your hands. Yeah, but it stunk like for hours after worst day ever for our hands.
That was my idea. I take responsibility for that one. Those are only porn started if it wasn't it? No. Well, we had a plane. We had a playmate once, Kimberly and her name eludes me, but she was just like, centerfold 99 or 2000. She's from Vancouver, and her first job was working at URLs and then she was in Playboy. As a centerfold.
We had a lot of fun stuff, Mick Jagger. Interview.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I get to tell people like I interviewed Mick Jagger. That's pretty cool.
Then we say then you have to tell them was on the phone that he phoned us. And then he also said,
Well, boys, I think that's about enough.
Because he had to phone 20 other stations because his album was bombing. Yeah, I was in his first solo
album. I want to say it was wandering spirit or Yeah, it's one of the blue, the white and
blue cover. Okay, he was wandering spirit, and it was selling with a shit. So he was doing all kinds of media. And we just got this random call. Hey, Mick Jagger is on the phone now, right? No, no, Mick Jagger is promoting his album and wants to think that's how it went down. Yeah.
Yeah. And we had one with Ozzy Osbourne too. That was quite memorable. Where every answer was, I'll have to ask my wife.
Oh, and Travis from these of the new days, the new was so high on whatever he was on at the time. He couldn't think couldn't answer questions ever. He said my brain, I can't think. And then his guitarist jumped in to answer all the questions for him.
I think what Travis is trying to say is
I hope that kids okay, do you want to do anything?
He appeared in on a&e in rehab, the rehab show, so Travis Meeks?
I think this is like, that was his name. Yeah.
I find myself reaching for, you know, to Google to go find out like where these people are and what they're doing these days. Doing the Scott
Stapp. Oh yeah, we're gonna hit grind Scott Stapp hip grind. Yes. I left the show after five songs because I couldn't stand that he was on every lyric is grinding his hips at the audience.
I can't believe how much we had to play of creed lead. Yeah, yeah, it got it got to be a lot. It got to be exhausting.
Mike's having a flashback. We both are. As we talk more, I just dredges up more old memories of what what really was Matt a great time in my life, like the 90s working at the bear was was the sort of pinnacle of my radio experience. And the people that I met that I'm still friends with, with all the people that I met there, honestly, honestly, like, I still keep in touch with so many people. I mean, not as much as you might. But we're all Facebook friends and checking once in a while. And as mentioned here, chat there comment on a post here and there. I mean, it's still it's nice that we kind of all keep in touch that way. I think. Yeah,
absolutely. I mean, I could, we could all go to lunch, you can call you can ring up anybody, and just go to lunch, and just pick up from where you left off. Yeah. And I can't say that I can do that as well with the people, you know, that I worked with in the in the years that, you know, moved on. After that. Maybe that's because I became the boss. And when you're the boss, it's a little lonelier, and nobody likes. Yeah, you can't really form those relationships. You know, as much.
No, it was early. I mean, because, you know, 92 elderwood. I had been, and Geez, it's six to 12.
I didn't know there'd be math. It was 2627 when
the barrel launched. And so you know that that's a time in a person's life. You're still forming Who the hell you are. And it was just such a time, like for 10 years there that I will never forget. And the people that I've met and worked with, I will never forget.
And tell me about your time at Sports Radio. Because you know, you've had a big part of that radio station, you know, taking off and getting started. Yeah, you got to work with Brian Griffis and I had Bryn on my podcast we did 90 minutes. And if you're gonna listen to like one episode, I want you to go back and listen to the one I did with Bran. Zack, you really really enjoy it. Does he talk shit about me? He says the nastiest shit about you. You should listen just to take and take notes. Yeah, yeah, you should take notes.
What? unprofessionalism whatever. Look, it's what time is it here? It's 20 after 25 after eight out here, I go to bed at 930 Now come up so early in the morning. So you know guys got to start preparing themselves for bed. Right?
Is it? Are you announcing that we're ending the show? Because you have to go to bed?
No, I'm just saying that I'm smoking another joint because I've got to start getting ready to get to bed. Gotcha. helps me sleep. I'm with you on this. Thanks, Mike. We appreciate that. You think it was the best radio around back in the 90s
Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. Really good. And I kind of missed that. That form of radio but if it were on what I listened to it, yeah, probably think I would. Well, the music
was fantastic. It really was. I mean,
you can get out now though. I always thought we were to Metallica, heavy myself. Yeah. Other than that, we were the only place to get Metallica though. And so much of it. And Metallica though was still gets the crap played out of it on rock radio even today. Oh, I
know. I know the stations out here the rock stations out here still play lots of Metallica. I just I always thought it was too much.
That's always there Metallica song you like?
Well, I did briefly in the 80s. Like the Black Album, right?
Which is sort of the well, except it came out in the 90s.
Well, okay, maybe it wasn't the Black Album, it would have been around 1985 86
Sure. What would have promote that? And Justice For All was 88.
Early early Metallica. I don't know. I was still just thinking I didn't know shit. And I mean, I like some of those songs. But really, what started to grate on me was was the vocals. It was just the hook that started to really bother me and I couldn't handle it. I still think solid band solid music, but just the vocals are right. For me. It's like any form of music where it sounds like the devil is on lead vocals. Yeah. What do you call that cell immunity with? That what is that? That? No, it's not
like, yeah, it's like guar and stuff like yeah, that
kind of shit. I I got no use for that. I didn't Yeah.
Part of what I like or don't buy Master of Puppets was 86 Ride the Lightning was 84 Kill them all was 83 Extra Metallica from the 80s
That would have been one of those early ones because this was just after high school for me that that I liked a bit of Metallica. So yeah, mid 80s. Now I'm old I listen to you know, I still listen to a lot of the bands that we played on the bear. But what I have learned, and this is where we talk, if we go back to Spotify? Is it how Spotify brings up based on what you like, you may like this too. And I have found so many acts that I had never heard of it. And some of them are new, and some of them have been around for for decades that I am grooving on now that I never did 20 years ago when they were first popular 90s Hip Hop? As it turns out,
yeah. You know what? And my friends like that, that and I should have liked that.
I guess I'm too busy shoving rock down everybody's throat the 90s? Well,
you know what, if there was a radio station in Edmonton that was playing us, I would have paid more attention to it. Because I knew they were probably going to take some of our listeners, nobody was playing that stuff. I mean, there was a top 40 station power 92. That was generally number one, but nobody else would would play rap. And in fact, I think we can count the number of stations that play urban music in Canada on one finger. That's where we are now it's Canadian radio, is the whitest experience. It's unbelievable. If you listen to it, it is so white, white, white, white. And there should there should be different sounds there should be urban sounds. There are formats that are missing. There are cities with 13 and 14 radio stations, you can't find a spot for triple A, you can't find a spot for active rock.
There's no urban, nobody will listen, we can't make money. And instead, it's just a bunch of white music to star review. For Canadian radio, two stars, I would like to see it returned to listener base listener service radio again with full DJs 24 hours a day. There's one of the big things that you can't. We used to pride ourselves on our traffic reports on the bear. Right? Yeah, yeah, good traffic, everybody would phone us with traffic. If something went down, we would have a list some days of 1012 different things that were happening around everything you had good traffic, of course, can't get that now because the afternoon show at this station I listened to in Vernon is recorded by a morning show in Edmonton. Or this midday show is a satellite show this broadcast, you know this, there's so little live anymore, that the listener experience has changed and you don't get what's happening in traffic, what's happening currently with the weather that there's a fire downtown that you can't get or you know, whatever it might be anymore.
I mean, I do subscribe to the theory that like Waze or Google Maps is going to be able to you know, take you on your drive home. But what's happened with radio is they began to peel that stuff away, right? We don't need to do the weather. We don't need to the traffic. We don't need to do this particular thing or that and now it's all gone and what are you left with? It hasn't been replaced by anything of value.
It's very generic what I'm hearing Yeah, nor inappropriate conversation like where one company's pop station and Edmonton Morning Show records, the midday show for a rock station in Kelowna. So they're different markets and different things that are important to the listeners. And the stuff that of a pop morning duo is going to talk about in Alberta is going to be way different than what a rock listener in DC wants to hear the middle of the day. That's the kind of generic BS that I think has ruined a lot of radio.
Can you imagine if we had to do the type of radio that I listened to today? Raisins? Do they belong and cookies? Call us now join the conversation. Yeah, that's
the kind of thing that we're hearing. So, here's this. Here's our pitch. Somebody wants old school radio, a couple of guys who still know what they would like to talk about, like to make connections with listeners, you're looking at two of them right now. And you can give up this whole nonsense with podcast, Matt. Will be millionaires.
Have you heard from Hugh Dillon?
Yeah, we did see the headstones three or four years ago, got to hang out with them at a restaurant now sort of the last personal interaction. I did an interview on my radio show a couple of times, but that's some years ago as well. I mean, radio 2019 So
you watch Yellowstone.
We did watch Yellowstone. Loved it. How do you think he fits the role? I mean, he was acting as it's come along magnificently. There's there's that show that he's also doing and in Kingston, yes. MAYOR OF KINGS down with Jeremy Renner. I don't have the right channels to see that whole thing. Like in our since we're still on old cable we got we got shot still.
Okay, so just to review, you just barely figured out how podcasts work. And you have no streaming services.
And well, we get what Prime and Netflix and Disney plus now but you're streaming haven't been able to see Mayor of Kingstown all the way through but I did see a couple episodes when it first came out and it also is really spectacular. You deal it's just amazing. It's such a talent. Yeah. And and a real success story guy who beat heroin addiction and now is a Hollywood producer and actor and doing all kinds of great things with his life. So probably do. I think I'm allowed to be proud of him? Because we were there for the the dark parts. You know, I
think we might have received a few notes from the record company. Don't take him out.
Yeah, well, yeah. Or, you know, keep an eye on him for us kind of thing. Yeah, we didn't. One quick, funny he would Dylan story. It would have been at Oak OCMA off 99 Okanagan Music Fest 99. So I think I got home from Woodstock, and we packed and came to Penticton for the music festival. That year here, the headstones were at it. And a bunch of other great bands that we were playing at the time on the bear, and Hugh, and his gigantic body guard. And Janice and I, well, mostly it was we were just with them, stole the security guards golf cart, and toured around the facilities. On the stolen golf cart, we have a picture of the four of us. Again, this this security guard had to be six foot six and probably 300 plus pounds. And so there's four of us. And this is the old style golf cart with the one wheel on the front. And like it's a small golf cart in there. So we have a there's a Polaroid picture of that somewhere or the four of us fun who Dylan story.
So you're thinking about moving back to Edmonton looking possibly for a radio job hire us?
Yeah, it's time to come home, I think folks are getting on. And I'd like to be there to help with anything that they need. And also just to pop into my old man in a Sunday and play some cribbage or pop in on a Saturday and help them bake some cookies or take her shopping or go see some fun stuff or whatever. I mean, they both have their faculties still. So it would be nice to spend more time with them. When we move to the Okanagan, you know, 12 years ago, it made more sense than they were still in their early 70s and still driving. They come out and see us or we'd go there. And now all these years later, they don't they don't travel nearly as much or as far and I don't want to come home. So yeah, film work or radio work and Edmonton or you know what, any kind of work? I don't need a fancy job. They might want to hire me in Edmonton. I do construction general labor right now. It's killing me. But at least I know how to drill some stuff. Nice. You're handy. I like that you're becoming reasonably handy. Yes. So yeah, that's kind of want to come home and see my my fam again. So
Weren't you originally from Winnipeg?
Yeah, born there. And then six years old when he moved to St. Albert. And then there for most of my life until we came out here so I consider Edmonton an area my real home
but at one point were you a bombers fan? Yeah, I was six
years old and they had a Ralph don't call me Dieter brach jersey number five bomber Jersey when I moved here.
I have a dieter Brock's Jersey upstairs. Yeah, it's my only one.
I see you know what even and now 12 years removed from Edmonton and bless the Eskimos are finally breaking the curse there and when and when at home or a few at home and getting some wins this year. I hate to see them struggle like that. I mean, I had a lot of good years cheering for the Eskimos as well, but I got soft spots for both the Eskimos and the bombers cheer for both those teams and I just I just liked it. The CFL is surviving. I think it's critical to our country that we have a professional football league that people can go to the games and watch the games all the time, even if it's only a nine team league. I think the CFL is huge important, and I wish they would put teams out on the East Coast.
Well, hopefully the Halifax schooners come together or maybe they'll put it in Monkton and they had a an exhibition game, I think a few years featuring the Argos and can't remember who else but it was at my alma mater, Acadia University. Yeah, in Wolfville. Nova Scotia.
Yeah, I would I would love to see at least one team, you know, maybe a couple out on the East Coast. I mean, let's face it, the the numbers of people that are going to games, you don't have to have a 60,000 seat stadium full every week. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of the teams that Montreal was doing it in Toronto was doing it and played at the university stadiums. You make it the hottest ticket in town for 15 or 20,000 people. And then the place is packed and vibrant. And then there's the television revenue. So I mean, there's ways to do it. They don't have to have massive stadiums and massive overhead. I don't think
so Montreal going outside was an accident. It was it was a conflict they had with the Olympic Stadium. They qualified I think for the playoffs. You can't play your game. We've got you to this weekend. And so then they had to say, well, I guess we'll play outside. And everybody loved it. And they never went back. Right. They did go back for a couple playoff games to the Olympic Stadium. But
what and then the roof fell in.
That thing is still I can't believe they haven't blown that thing up yet.
What is it? It's just a pile of rubble now though, isn't it? Like it's not used for anything anymore? Is it? Sometimes there's truck and tractor pull in there? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's still structurally sound enough for vibratory events like that. It's made of concrete.
I listen. I know the Eskimos are closing the upper deck. At Commonwealth they are Yeah, they're suppose you won't be able to buy tickets for the upper deck unless there's like a lot of people coming to the game. But section double oh, what went on?
And all my friends in Oh, up there. We used to go sit up there. Even though I had immediate passes. I could have sat in the cushy press box which I hated. Or download works. There's lots of
Sorry, sorry. Yeah. We've just been informed that we've been canceled because you said Eskimos team is the elk.
I hope sorry, Alex. So
can I say that? Which I think I said it. On canceled.
Last time I went there were the Eskimos. Okay. Anyway, for Eskimo games at the time. Now, Alex?
Also, we just ruined our audition. And RadioShack to two old guys calling it by the old name.
Yeah, way to go the old racist game. Super nice. Now we're racist. Yep. Where to go? mauler.
Did we have a thing at the end of the show where we would just list off all our mistakes? Probably. Yeah. Like the last break? I think we would just our Yeah, like, Well, we did Jake's joke at the end. But I think we also listed off all of our mistakes.
I did that for a lot of years out here too. By the way. Jake's joke that sponsored for a while. It works. So love telling jokes. morass started? No.
Just we had nothing for the last break. There's been nothing for most breaks. But what happened was we would wind down the show, we really didn't have anything at 530. And then at 545, we would break again and we said we have put something in here. Keep people listening. So what do we do? And you go, how about a joke?
A joke.
Let's tell a joke. So we told the joke.
I still I think I even still have printed somewhere a file that's like that thick of jokes that listener sent to me by email, printed out jokes that are in different categories. I've got files and files that paper jokes. I mean, it's easy to find them now in line, but that was always fun. I love telling those jokes.
Well, it's late here for me. Thanks for doing this. I'm gonna go to bed. Yeah,
what time is it there? 1042 Wow.
I'm in bed by 1030 Generally,
okay, what are you wearing too bad these days?
T shirt. Shorts. Yeah.
Like boxer shorts. Are you still wearing a speedo style?
No boxer shorts.
Boxer shorts and a T shirt. You don't get too hot a t shirt like Do you have a quilt on your bed? Or is it just like light sheet?
Do a sheet in a duvet.
How many times that you gotta get a peek. One. Yeah, what times I
usually three Two or three. I found out one of the doctors asked that by the way, I found
out in recent years that if you drink too much caffeine, and there is a limit, you will have to pee far more times more frequently and more urgently because it was starting to happen. It's like, oh, my doctor is like how much coffee you drink. And I'm like, I don't know. shitload. Try and cut that back to a couple of cups a day. And immediately when I cut back it sold itself so there's some for a lot of people to consider. There's your big lesson for the instead of a joke, a medical fact for you.
Big sign that the mat and Jacob changed. No longer. They just give medical advice.
All right, a skeleton walks into a bar barges is marked as a skeleton. How's it going? Well, you have skeletons from the usual pint of beer and mop weights. One of my favorite jokes of all time. Or pirate pirate walks into a bar. It's got a ship's wheel sticking out of his of his zipper. bartender says I pirate what's up with the what's up with the ship's wheel signature zipper there. Barrett says yards driving me nuts. Now let's list off our mistakes and go to bed.
Well, I said Eskimos that was not good.
Yeah, no, I swore probably eight or nine times and really I should keep it to one or two for it to be effective. Like it goes kicking a garbage can every day. doesn't work anymore.
You smoke drugs, but that's legal now. So we're Madison. Madison, correct? took medicine. We also gave medical advice without offering up a disclaimer.
Well, I do want to say that that medicine in the form of Rick Simpson oil saved my life. Last time I had cancer five years ago. I did it naturally with medicine that I made myself from marijuana. I love Simpson oil. Look it up. Rick Simpson oil. I have great regard for that plant. But don't call it drugs. It's medicine. Thanks for doing this but great. See anybody Good seeing you. Let's do without the video next time. We're gonna get away with a lot more
sound. Our podcast is written and hosted by mad candle produced by Evan Sieminski, edited by Chloe emo Blaine, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company, there's always more at sound off podcast.com
