The Arrows are mentioned on Toronto Mike'd periodically, including today. I'm not familiar with The Arrows, but my brain is full of trivial facts including that Joan Jett's I Love Rock N' Roll was a cover of a song by the Arrows. That's the Arrows, not to be confused with
Fear not, I'm not feverish. In fact, I feel great. I just finished a chilly 25km bike ride and now I'm listening to Neil. Neil's the guy who had the fever. In late 1968 Neil Young had a 39.5 °C fever and in this state wrote three of his
Thanks to Fortnite, the online video game my kids are obsessed with, my 9 and 7 year olds are really into Peter Griffin's Surfin' Bird. That's right, even though they've never seen an episode of Family Guy, they know Peter Griffin and his favourite song of all-time. Surfin' Bird has
I just watched the Netflix documentary about the night USA For Africa recorded We Are The World. It's worth a viewing if you haven't seen it yet. There are a few mind blows in there, and plenty of fun facts. For example, I always wondered by Prince and Madonna were
We need to talk about Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". I'm sure I heard it in the zeitgeist as a kid, but my first specific memory of this holiday staple is its appearance in 1990's Home Alone. Since then, it's seemed unavoidable. Brenda Lee recorded this Johnny Marks
I often listen to podcasts while I bike, but sometimes I run out of fresh content, because I'm picky! That's when I switch to a biking playlist. This happened today when I was 30 KM from home, and while listening to "Laid" from James I was thinking about how that's
Drake has his 13th chart-topper, not that this all means what it once did. With the current rules and importance of streaming, it feels like a new Drake drop is guaranteed to score him a #1 or two or seven. Here's the complete list of 66 songs performed by a
Admittedly, I'm a sucker for anything created by David Simon. The Wire is my all-time favourite television show, ahead of Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. Another David Simon series is The Deuce which ran for three seasons. This post is about The Deuce's theme songs. I love all three
Last night, I attended the Phoenix Saturays Reunion celebrating Martin Streek and 30 years of Phoenix Saturday Nights. Let's do the time warp again! You can go home againUnlike the recent 35th anniversary of Electric Cicus I attended recently, I actually did dance at the Phoenix for many of these
Aretha Frnaklin is the undisputed Queen of Soul, but in the late-60s, she was beat by British blue-eyed soul singer Dusty Springfiield. In 1968, songwriters John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins wrote Son of a Preacher Man for Aretha Franklin, but Aretha turned it down because her father really was a
I've recorded a few episodes about Attic Records, the Canadian record label that was formed in 1974 by Al Mair and Tom Williams. There was my conversation with Kevin Shea and Steve Waxman, and my chat with the late Al Mair. Not to mentions chats with Lee Aaron, Maestro Fresh-Wes,
What the heck was that Cheap Trick cover of Don't Be Cruel all about? I realize I'm 35 years late in asking this pertinent question, but I was just reading an article about Elvis Presley's September 9, 1956 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Here's Elvis performing his hit "Don't
The moment at which a song hits me is very important. There are mediocre songs I adore to this day becuase they hit me at precisely the right time. When Oasis released Be Here Now in 1997, they had already peaked. Be Here Now was the follow-up to (What's the
#TMLX13 is Thursday from 6-9pm at Great Lakes Brewery (30 Queen Elizabeth Blvd) and I'm trying to mimic the vibe of our recent park gatherings. There's no live recording or band, just a good bunch of people collecting to enjoy fresh craft beer and delicious Palma Pasta. I sincerely hope
I was chatting with Jane Siberry yesterday and that put Mimi on the Beach in my head. I still love that song. Mimi on the Beach is one of a great trifecta of Toronto beach songs, all with the word "beach" in the title. Mimi on the Beach - Jane
Do I ever love Radiohead's "Creep". It was their first single, and unlike anything else you've heard from Radiohead, but I fuckin' love it. The melody, the guitars, the lyrics... the band may not love "Creep", but I do! "Creep" is similar enough to "The Air That I Breathe", a
I loved Duran Duran as a kid. Rio was the first vinyl I ever bought on my own, although I doubt it was my own money. I was very excited to buy Seven and the Ragged Tiger on cassette. Here's The Reflex from that album. Not a bad song, but
I was born in the 70s, but was still pretty young when we entered the 1980s. I remember the first day back at school after the 1979 Christmas break when our French teacher said the date. She always started class with the date, and I remember the mind-blow that 1980
Pulp Fiction is my favourite movie of all-time, and it's held that title for almost 30 years. There's a deleted scene in Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace is interrogating Vincent Vega by asking if he's a Beatles or Elvis man, because she claims there are only two types of people.
Before you read any further, here's a big slab o' caveat for ya. Yes, MTV came before MuchMusic. I'm sure MuchMusic copied a great deal of what was airing on MTV. But I lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I watched MuchMusic. I never saw a minute of MTV. So
In my life, there are several examples when I got into a band with their second album. Of course, I was often there for the first release, and for many bands, I didn't jump in until later in their careers, but here are a few times I missed the first
Last night, my wife started streaming Sisters, a new Canadian-Irish co-production. The first episode features The Pogues's version of Dirty Old Town. That got me thinking about The Pogues, and I started singing Fairytale of New York. I thought to myself, "this is the only Christmas song I can enjoy
Joni Mitchell recorded "This Flight Tonight" for her 1971 album Blue. She wrote the song, she sings it, and she produced it. In 1973, Nazereth covered the song for their album Loud 'n' Proud. They really rocked it up, and Canadian rock radio play it all the time. So we
"Night Moves" was a hit for Bob Seger in 1977, although it was released in December 1976. The song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #4 on March 12, 1977. It's objectively a great song, and it's got quite the Toronto connection. "Night Moves" was
When Peter Gross dropped by the other day to kick out the horse racing jams, one of the songs we played was Stewball. I wasn't familiar with Stewball, but I did some digging and learned this folk song has quite the history. Firstly, Stewball was an actual horse, an 18th-century