Category Archives: Toronto

Lanrick Bennett Jr.

Every once in a while Gregg and I sit down for a chat about Toronto – The city we love…well, the city we believe can be better.

Our guest this week loves Toronto. Alot. So much so that he and his son took the TTC to all 100 public libraries in this city. And they lived to talk about it. He’s a former Toronto City Council candidate. And I’m sure not for the last time.

Please Welcome! to the show, Lanrick Bennett Jr.

This is Episode #201 of the Welcome! podcast.

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Daniel Tate aka The Flyer Vault

In the mid 1990s our next guest was criss-crossing all over the Greater Toronto Area helping to promote hip hop and R&B concerts.

After collecting thousands of posters, flyers, t-shirts, stickers and buttons he decided to share his treasures with the world.

So in 2015 he began scanning and uploading these to the Instagram account, @TheFlyerVault Today, @TheFlyerVault has over 11,500 followers.

Earlier this year, Dundurn published the book, “The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto Concert History.” written by Rob Bowman and our next guest, Daniel Tate.

This is Episode #197 of the Welcome! podcast.

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Book Report: Scarborough

Trailer for Scarborough: a novel from CEHernandez on Vimeo.

In Session With…Kristin Fung

Kristin leads her own R&B band in original tunes infused with her signature super funky soul grooves (Massive Stride available now on iTunes), she is a featured soloist in the live and recorded versions of Anthony Braxton’s experimental opera Trillium J, a member of both Braxton’s Ghost Trance Choir and Christine Duncan’s The Element Choir, creator of the creative vocal/dance trio celeste, and half of the hip folky duo K Funk and Lady Ree.

SetList
Big Dumb Heart
You For You
The Man Is Optional

Recorded Live inside Girth Radio studios.

Episode #124: Toronto – Chapter 2 – April 23 2018

Ji Hun Kim, Geraldine Brady, Andrea Bradden, Sohe Chung, Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Forsyth, Beutis Renuka Amarasinghe, Dorothy Sewell, Munir Abdo Habib Najjar, Anne Marie D’Amico are the names of the people who were killed by a driver on a Monday afternoon.

They are the victims of the horrific event that saw Alek Minassian kill and injure dozens of people in the North York suburb of Toronto on April 23, 2018.

Gregg Tilston and I are joined in studio by two of our friends, Hessie Jones and Laurie Dillon-Schalk.

Listen below:

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Recorded live at Girth Radio.

West End Phoenix – Concert

Last night I attended the West End Phoenix fundraising concert at Toronto’s The Great Hall.

Not only was it an opportunity to help fundraise for the local community newspaper that Dave Badini founded, the West End Phoenix, but it was also a great opportunity to experience some great spoken word performances and live music.

First up was a spoken word performance by poet, Nasim Asgari.

nasim asgari

Next up was an hour long set by Juno award-winning band, Whitehorse.

whitehorse

Closing out the evening was one of Canada’s most unconventional, yet influential bands, Rheostatics. They were joined on stage by Kevin Hearn (also from the Barenaked Ladies), Alex Lifeson (of RUSH), Don Kerr (Toronto-based band Communism) and Tom Wilson (from Junhouse and Lee Harvey Osmond)

rheostatics

For more information on how to be a patron or newspaper subscriber please visit https://www.westendphoenix.com/.

The end of an era

Baseball fans in Toronto will remember the date, October 9, 2005. It was when longtime Blue Jays broadcaster, Tom Cheek passed away after a heroic battle against cancer.

Summers would never be the same. The sound of Tom and Jerry (Jerry Howarth was Tom’s broadcast partner on the radio in the Blue Jays booth) on my radio actually made me feel warmer. Their voices meant that winter was over. And with that baseball was around the corner. and for a kid living in Toronto, summer was a welcome respite after a cold and grey winter.

After Tom, Jerry continued calling Blue Jays games and painting my favourite game with words that conjured up images of superhuman feats.

Today, Jerry Howarth announced his retirement. He had suffered from a variety of ailments recently including a bout with prostate cancer. Over the past couple of years he had also come across as culturally insensitive (to my ears) with a variety of remarks about the way some players played the game. He also once had Hazel Mae on and kept on referring to her as so-and-so’s wife rather than as the successful broadcaster that she is.

Nevertheless, the sound of summer has changed. Tom and Jerry will now be a story that I’ll tell my son. Thanks for the memories Jerry. Have an awesome retirement.

International Boundaries

This past weekend I found myself in Toronto’s Cadillac Lounge to join my friend (and former rock star!), Gregg Tilston, and watch an 80’s retro cover band The Bomb.  It turned out to be a reunion of sorts!

Back in the mid to late 80’s a new wave rock band was taking over Oshawa. Known as International Boundaries, the band featured Shaun Gillespie, Jeff Teravainen, Jamie Pugh, and everyone’s favourite keyboardist, Gregg Tilston.

Well, they were all in attendance watching as Shaun (bassist) was playing with The Bomb.

Here’s the before and after photo:

international boundaries

Here they were in their heyday:

Let’s hope they do a reunion soon!

 

Music in 2017

2017 was a fun year for me for attending concerts.  As you know I’m not much for words so here’s a quick re-cap:

The first concert of the year was The Sadies opening for Blue Rodeo at Oshawa’s Tribute Communities Centre. It’s a nice little venue that we’d visit again later in the year.

The last show of 2017 was Teen Ravine opening for July Talk.

This was our second time seeing July Talk. We saw them earlier in 2017 at Budweiser Stage during the summer in support of Arkells.

Also on that ticket was Said The Whale and Mondo Cozmo. Kahzmir and I saw Said The Whale again in Scarborough. Along with less than a couple dozen others braving a summer shower.

The smallest venue we visited was a couple of local community centres in Scarborough as part of SoFar Toronto (Scarborough). We saw a bunch of acts over 3 different concerts including the Saxaphone Brothers and Renee The Voice.

Sofar Toronto #music #weekend #indie #sofarscarborough #sofar #sofartoronto

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The largest venue was the SkyDome (aka Rogers Centre) were we saw the Lumineers open for U2’s The Joshua Tree tour.

Sunday Bloody Sunday #joshuatreetour2017 #Toronto

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Favourite venue was the Horseshoe Tavern. Finally saw a show  there. The James Clark Institute opened for Pursuit Of Happiness. Yes, I’m an adult now!

I went to NYC in September 2017. Besides seeing almost every taping of the New York late night talk shows I also visited the legendary Apollo theatre in Harlem. And this was during the famous Amateur Night where we witnessed more almost a dozen musical acts including the famous house band.


We also saw some classic acts such as Pink Floyd’s Rogers Waters and the return of Guns N’ Roses!


Throughout the year we also saw Neil Haden perform at least three times. Twice with his band, Two Left Feet and once at his Uncle Neil and Friends Christmas Toy Concert.

The Bach Children’s Chorus and Youth Choir also played multiple times during 2017. We saw them three times last year. It’s especially fun when our son, Kahzmir, is part of two of these performances every year!

2017 also introduced us to Kc Roberts and the Live Revolution (a fusion of jazz/funk/rock), A-Track and Chromeo (both DJs in the EDM space – I think!)

One of the last shows of 2017 (although not the last!) was Canadian Music Hall of Fame band Barenaked Ladies with support from one of Canada’s finest songwriter’s, Ron Sexsmith!

Finally. We’re at my favourite shows of 2017. It’s a virtual tie. But there always has to be a winner.

So, in second place was:

Opening Act: Broken Social Scene (I was so happy to finally see this band live after many near misses!)

Headlining: Arcade Fire. No matter what the critics think of their latest album(s) the power group from Montreal (via Haiti and USA) knows how to put on a show with their collection of rock anthems.

The winning combo…

Opening Act: Matt Mays

Headlining: Arkells. We saw Arkells for the second time in Oshawa. The venue was smaller than when we saw them in summer. Arkells is rock and roll. They have anthems, pop songs and love songs. They are tight but play with the enthusiasm and joy of teens. This was the most fun I’ve had at a concert all year. These guys are the real deal. And while they’ve arrived they will only get bigger and better. If you can, see Arkells.

Radio is harder than Podcasts

In 2016 I was invited to participate on Newstalk 1010’s (CFRB in Toronto) morning roundtable segments with John Moore. Although I was only a fill in, I managed to make a half dozen or so appearances. These segments are 15 minutes long and are rapid-fire conversations.

I came away with one conclusion: Radio is hard. Much harder than doing my podcast. At least these types of segments are. Let me take you a little bit behind the curtain of talk radio:

We are asked to arrive 10/15 minutes before the segment is to begin. At that time the producer of the program will usually hand us a one-pager with the topics the host wants to discuss. Usually, there are a half dozen topics or so. After reading the topics at hand any maybe going online to catch up on them we are ushered into the studio to begin the segment.

I never know if the host is going to ask me a question or keeps things open ended. My first experience was frightening for me. The 15 minutes went by in a flash. And I left with my heart racing a million miles an hour!

I realized that the reason I was feeling this way is because I am forced to be quick on my feet, know what I’m talking about and be able to articulate myself in as few words as possible while also sounding smart. And for me, that’s next to impossible.

In my own studio, on my terms, I like to take things slow. That’s why I love podcasting. I may have themes, ideas or questions in my head or written down. However, I’m in no hurry to go to commercial or get to the next guest or segment. I can take my time actually having a discussion with the person in front of me. And I get to listen more than talk.

However, I am all about learning. I’m excited to get back in the Newstalk studio to develop and grow.