Norm Rumack has been with THE FAN since its inception in September 1992, but you won't hear him on THE FAN 590 any longer. Stormin' Norm Rumack has been fired as Rogers-owned stations axed four ad reps, Rumack and an unidentified behind-the-scenes employee.
Back in the 90s, when I listened to quite a bit more of THE FAN, Norm was known for:
An unapologetic, unfazed appreciation for "God's Team", the Toronto Maple Leafs
A belief Wendel Clark was the greatest player in the history of the game
An absolute hate-on for the Muder City Dead Things
A HammerHead Alert he would sound if you disagreed with any of the above
It was fun late-night radio back in the day. I haven't heard him in years, but you don't soon forget a guy who tells you Wendel Clark is better than Mario Lemieux and believes every syllable.
The late-night vampire shall haunt us no longer. Hammerhead Alert! Hammerhead Alert!
I got an interesting email from Race Coach the other day. He had a couple of neat stories as to how he won prizes from CFNY / Edge 102. Here's his email.
I was thinking it might be interesting to blog about prizes people have won at CFNY, err The Edge. I don't bother trying to win prizes from the radio any more, but there was a time ....
1) I was washing my car out on the front lawn, listening to CFNY. The Live Earl Jive was on, and he just mentioned something between songs: "If you see a CFNY cruiser with a wind surfer on top, stop and ask how to win it". I didn't pay much attention. But, later that day, I was heading to work at Ontario Place, along Lakeshore Blvd, and saw the cruiser parked in a gas station. I pulled a U-ee and rolled down my window. "How do you win that think?", I said. "You just did", was the reply. That was the start of my windsurfing career.
2) The next one is a little vague. I remember going to a sporting event, in a box that was sponsored by CFNY. I imagine I must have won something, just to get there. Then, during the event, they drew names. The winners got to go to Winnipeg for a CFL game with Humble and Fred. Low and behold, I won (along with a bunch of other people). So, on a frigid, grey weekend a bunch of us flew to Winnipeg, sat outside on aluminum seats, froze out nuts off and watched a bad game of football. It was AWESOME! Humble and Fred were great hosts, and made the event particularly fun.
I've never won a radio contest, but I've never called in to win, which may explain my futility. I did win Jays tickets and an invitation to 680 CFTR's Pizza Pizza pre-game party, but that wasn't through the radio. That's a neat story you can read here.
I'm interested to know who out there has won anything interesting from a radio contest and how it all went down. Share in the comments!
I've mentioned I actually liked the music mix at Jack. I also really like the music mix at Edge 102. I listened to a lot of Edge 102 today, in the shower, in the car running a few errands and even on the ol' home stereo. I was digging the playlist, pleased with just about every tune I heard during this Double Shot weekend.
For the heck of it, here are the artists played on 102.1 the Edge between noon and 7pm today. Beside each band / artist, I'm putting a YES to indicate I really like the choice, a NO to indicate I really don't like the selection and an OK if I can take them or leave them.
SILVERSUN PICKUPS
YES
ALEXISONFIRE
OK
NINE INCH NAILS
YES
BILLY TALENT
YES
RADIOHEAD
YES
PEARL JAM
YES
FRANZ FERDINAND
YES
LINKIN PARK
YES
KINGS OF LEON
YES
FOO FIGHTERS
YES
METRIC
YES
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
YES
EMINEM
YES
GREEN DAY
YES
NIRVANA
YES
MGMT
YES
SILVERSUN PICKUPS
YES
SUBLIME
YES
BILLY TALENT
YES
COLDPLAY
YES
SLOAN
YES
STONE TEMPLE PILOTS
YES
GREEN DAY
YES
FRANZ FERDINAND
YES
WEEZER
YES
LINKIN PARK
YES
KILLERS
YES
THE TRAGICALLY HIP
YES
GREEN DAY
YES
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
YES
COLDPLAY
YES
FOO FIGHTERS
YES
EAGLES OF DEATH METAL
YES
OUR LADY PEACE
YES
YEAH YEAH YEAHS
YES
BEASTIE BOYS
YES
BILLY TALENT
YES
WEEZER
YES
CITY AND COLOUR
YES
FRANZ FERDINAND
YES
PEARL JAM
YES
METRIC
YES
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
YES
NIRVANA
YES
NICKELBACK
NO
I gave a YES to a resounding 95.5% of the bands I heard. Only 2% of the bands got a NO. That's pretty awesome, so what's the problem? The problem, according to this 7 hour snapshot, is repetition.
Only 30 of these bands are unique, or 66.7%. In fact, Billy Talent, Franz Ferdinand and Red Hot Chili Peppers each appeared in three different sets during this seven hour span. Considering every band is played back-to-back during Double Shot weekend, that's six songs from each band, which seems highly unnecessary.
102.1 the Edge is playing songs I want to hear, they're just repeating themselves more often than I'd like. But considering the current state of radio in this city, I'm just glad they haven't gone country... yet.
When it comes to getting my news, I turn to the CBC first. It's straight up, solid information, and it doesn't appear tainted by glitz, glamour or bias. I like CBC Newsworld for my television news and CBC Radio One for my radio news.
A tremendous resource when it comes to news and current affairs in this country is the vast assortment of CBC Podcasts available online. One gem, which you might not know about but will thank me for pointing it out, is the CBC Radio Hourly newscast that's always current and always available at the same url. This is awfully convenient. Download it, or listen to the < 5 minute broadcast at http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/hourlynews.mp3.
Less than a week ago, I wrote about the problem with 92.5 Jack FM. The ratings were abysmal, and I predicted there would be a format change by Labour Day. Jack didn't make it a week into June.
Jack FM is now KISS 92.5 FM, being billed by Rogers as "the only ALL HITS radio
station in the city of Toronto".
Available on-air at 92.5 FM in Toronto and online at kiss925.ca, the
station kicked off its broadcast Friday at 3 o'clock with a promise to play
10,000 songs in a row with no commercial interruption, featuring artists like
Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Nickelback, Katy Perry, T.I.,
Justin Timberlake, Kardinal Offishall, Britney Spears, Ne-Yo, Kelly Clarkson
and Rihanna among others. The launch was simulcast on Rogers All-News outlet,
680News.
KISS92.5 will engage its listeners both on the air and online by taking
advantage of all the possibilities that present themselves in the new digital
world. As the station evolves, the audience will be "plugged in" through
instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and several other social
networking sites as well as wirelessly via texting.
On-air talent for KISS92.5 will be announced in the coming weeks, along
with details on concerts and events that will feature today's biggest hit
makers.
If Kiss sounds familiar, it should. Before Jack, 92.5 was known as KISS FM, playing top 40 hits before delving into more hip hop and R&B in the early 2000s.
Kiss is back, playing all hits once more. And I've just lost my shower radio station that provided me with uninterrupted rock from 7:30 to 7:48 each morning.
My shower radio is tuned to 92.5. That's Jack-FM, "Toronto's Best Rock Variety", and I listen to it in the shower because it just so happens my shower is perfectly timed with an ad-free block of old and new rock tunes on Jack. It's just a series of tunes, anything from Honeymoon Suite to Coldplay to Bruce Springsteen, and it starts my day nicely.
I don't expect Jack-FM to last much longer in its current incarnation. Nobody's listening, it seems. The recent BBM results give Jack-FM a 1.8 market share, which supposedly and unscientifically translates into 180,000 listeners. Q107, if you're looking for a comparison, scored a 6.3. 1.8 is brutal, which means I expect changes by Labour Day.
How did Jack fail so miserably? Why can't a station playing a great mix of rock n' roll gain any traction? As Jules Winnfield says in Pulp Fiction, personality goes a long way. And Jack doesn't have personality.
Their bland morning duo seems to double as their afternoon hosts. A station that once threatened to go without djs has instead decided to employ djs that fail to hold a listener's interest. There's certainly no compelling reason to tune in again to hear what he or she will say next. It's really all about the music, but if you're betting all your money on the shuffle, how can you possibly expect to win against iPods? Five years ago, when the Jack PD at the time said the station was just like listening to your iPod on shuffle, I asked whose iPod he was talking about? Radio can never, ever be the same experience as listening to your own iPod on shuffle. That's why you've gotta have personality.
In my recent interview with long time local radio duo Humble and Fred, I closed by asking the guys a simple question that was on my mind. Why the heck aren't Humble and Fred, as a duo, still on Toronto radio? Humble's answer hits Jack's nail on the head.
No idea... why not ask the PD at Jack FM, who's also the afternoon drive guy and janitor.
Things could have been different for Jack, but instead the sounds of Aerosmith and White Stripes have drifted well below the radar to a dismal 1.8 share. I'll bet nobody reads this closing sentence because I'll bet nobody cares.
Things were better before I figured out they were businesses. Specifically, I'm thinking of sports and radio.
I remember a time when I knew every player on the Blue Jays roster and I didn't have a clue what any of them made. It didn't make a difference what the terms were for Dave Collins vs. George Bell. I knew Collins had lightning speed and Bell had power, and that was enough. Baseball, and sports in general, is best before you realize it's a business.
Radio is the same. As a kid, I'd surf the dial on my transistor radio and tune in stations from as far away as Cleveland. I loved radio, but at some point I figured out it too was a business. That's when radio lost a great deal of its charm.
This last realization ties in nicely with some of the sentiment expressed in the comments of my Martin Streek Out At Edge 102 / CFNY entry. Stations, like sports teams, are out to make a buck. The value of "winning", "integrity", "loyalty" and such is only existent when tied to economic metrics. Edge 102 doesn't care that there are 20 or so of us hankering for a return to the good 'ol days. Edge 102 wants as many ears in their targeted demo listening as possible so they can extract more money from advertisers. That's their bottom line.
Sports and radio were better before I figured that out.
Back on May 2, 2009, a bunch of us old time Humble and Fred fans got together at a Toronto pub to witness the recording of the 20th Anniversary Podcast of Memories.
And lo and behold, here it is! It's a couple of hours long, and over 100MB, so be gentle. The home page for this podcast, should you want to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or stream the MP3, is http://www.torontomike.com/humbleandfred/.
Enjoy!
Thanks to Acme Pictures for donating the web space and Dan Duran for producing the audio. Oh yeah, and thanks to Humble and Fred for two hours of great radio audio.
If you have any questions or issues playing this audio, leave a comment below and I'll get on it.
I listened to CFNY (Edge 102) throughout the 90s. It was my favourite radio station, not just for the tunes but for the personalities. I can't remember a time at 102 before Martin Streek.
Martin Streek always seemed to be there, hosting the Thursday 30 and live-to-air broadcasts from various Toronto clubs. Now I've learnt from @scroll on Twitter that he's been fired.
The first thing I did when I heard the news was visit his profile page on EDGE.ca. It's been removed. Here's the cached version from Google.
I then shot over to the Wikipedia write-up about Streek, and there's no word there on the firing. Here's what I did find:
Martin Streek is another of the three remaining personalities from the "Spirit of Radio" era. He currently hosts the Thursday 30, a four hour long show that counts down the top 30 songs of the past week (collected via record sales and listener voting), as well as introduces new music (a segment called the "Groundbreakers"), and flashes back to a previous year's countdown, as Streek recalls the top five songs of that week in a certain previous year.
Streek also hosts two live-to-air broadcasts from nightclubs: Saturday nights at the Phoenix and Sunday nights at Velvet Underground, both in downtown Toronto. Both shows run from 9:00 PM until 2:00 AM, and are broadcast without interruption (i.e., commercial-free), except for live ads imploring people to visit the club, after about 10:00 p.m.. Martin is also a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Depeche Mode and The Clash.
Martin has been voted DJ of the year a few times in Now Magazine's year-end public ballot.
Just recently he had to have his appendix removed surgically; he has recovered and is doing well.
Martin Streek, if you're out there, let us know where you're at. You've been a familiar voice over Toronto airwaves for about 20 years and you'll be missed.
Update: I see another name missing from the personalities line-up. Barry Taylor is also missing and his page at Edge.ca has been removed. Can someone shed some light on the disappearance of Barry Taylor and lifelong CFNYer Martin Streek?
Q is a nice little radio show that airs on CBC Radio One. It's hosted by Jian Ghomeshi and airs live Monday to Friday at 10:00 a.m.
Q was visited this morning by country-pop band The Boxmasters. The Boxmasters's biggest claim to fame is that their singer is Oscar-winner Billy Bob Thornton. When Billy Bob takes offence to being referred to as an actor, it makes for some cringe-worthy audio you can hear below.
Norm Rumack has been with THE FAN since its inception in September 1992, but you won't hear him on THE FAN 590 any longer. Stormin' Norm Rumack has been fired as Rogers-owned stations axed four ad reps, Rumack and an unidentified behind-the-scenes employee.
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It seems the most popular entries around these parts lately have been about Toronto radio. It started when 
When it comes to getting my news, I turn to the CBC first. It's straight up, solid information, and it doesn't appear tainted by glitz, glamour or bias. I like CBC Newsworld for my television news and CBC Radio One for my radio news.
Things were better before I figured out they were businesses. Specifically, I'm thinking of sports and radio.
Back on May 2, 2009, a bunch of us old time Humble and Fred fans 