I remember seeing McKenna Mendelson Mainline at St.Gabe's church on Sheppard Ave. East. in the early 70's.  Joe sat in a chair for the whole performance along with the drummer while the rest of the band stood.  Such a great band to see live!  Years later working at Citytv I would occasionally see his motorcycle parked in the City parking lot while he would leave comments at the Speakers Corner booth.  The word "Concentrate" in Dymo label was stuck on his gas tank.  An appropriate word for motorcycle riders!  I was fortunate to meet him in a professional capacity as a camera operator.  A reporter and I went to his home to interview him.  I was blown away by his incredible artwork that was throughout the house.  So talented!  As we were packing up the equipment, I asked him why he had changed his name, something I had never understood.  He went on to tell me that it stemmed from a dispute he was having with the federal government at the time.  He would receive mail correspondence from them addressed to Mendleson, Joe, which annoyed him to no end.  He would call to complain saying "my name is Joe Mendelson not Mendelson Joe, please change it."  He was told that it couldn't be changed because it was computer generated and everyone was addressed the same way.  It annoyed him to the point of changing his name, to finally receive an envelope addressed to, Joe, Mendelson.         

Peter started his on-air career in Smithers BC.  We were both ops at CHFI.  He worked the day shift and I worked the graveyard shift.  He spent many hours making, dubbing and mailing out demo tapes.  The station in Smithers who's call letters escape me, decided to give him a chance.  Turned out to be a bonus for me as I ended up taking over his shift.  He was there for a few years and then moved back east to join CHSC in St Catharines.  He was there for several years and left to start his own television production company.

I had completely forgotten about the CKFH version until seeing your newspaper clippings!  Where the heck do you find that stuff?  I do remember listening to a few of their winners.
 

paterson1 wrote:

A new series on CNN has been featured Sunday evenings during the month of May. The show is called Nomad With Carleton McCoy.  Mr. McCoy is a master chef and in this series he seeks out places where food, culture, music and art mesh.  

He has visited Paris, South Korea, Mississippi and this week the focus is on Toronto.  McCoy calls Toronto North America's most underrated city.  He loves the restaurants, diversity and the variety of cuisine available.  Nomad With Carleton McCoy is on at a special time tomorrow at 9pm (normally airs at 10). 
https://cnncreativemarketing.com/project/nomad/

And there's a pot shop on every block!  lol

       One of the operators at CHFI/CFTR I’ll call “J” thought it would be interesting to record the ambient sound of the control room during the morning show.  This was at the time that AM and FM both shared the CHFI call letters.  It was recorded on one of the news reporter’s reel to reel machines in the spring of 71.  I had momentary lapse trying to remember the name of the machine, then it came to me, UHER.  I goggled the name and found someone selling one on eBay.  Photo included.  Jerry Herbert was the host of the show that morning. Fun fact: Rick Moranis who was an op there at the time used Jerry’s first name, along with Todd Russell’s first name (he was swing man there at the time) for his character Jerry Todd. Major newscasts in the morning and afternoon drive shows were simulcast on both AM and FM and the rest of the day, hourly. live on AM and a sixty second version by the same newscaster was pre-recorded just before the hour for FM.  An example of the simulcast happens at the beginning of the tape.  Typically a song was back timed to end just before the top of the hour.  The AM op would monitor the FM side to make sure the announcer there had finished before taking control. After the signoff, FM would take back control to continue their independent programming.  Besides the banter between the op and jock, the sounds of cart machines being loaded, records being cued and traffic reports being arranged.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1swJFaYKY_QsP10rDiDhI5MoNAWj_SPR9/view?usp=sharing

The great Don Parrish did many of the "Rip off" promo's.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E7sA66HfYU60TqeUq1vbzKY-QGa-BKe9/view?usp=sharing

Roger Klein (aka Don Valli) did most of them.

Another April Fools joke that CFTR played in the mid seventies was again from Robert Holiday.  In his morning newscasts he did a story about Bell Telephone having to blow out their phone lines.  One of our staff members playing a representative from Bell was interviewed by Glenys Bell.  He described how dust had accumulated in the lines over the years and to insure static free communication, the dust had to be blown out.  He suggested putting your phone in a plastic bag so the dust wouldn't dirty your home.  Quite a few people fell for it because later in the afternoon a couple of dozen calls were received asking if they could remove the phone from the bag.

BTW here is a link to an air check of the metric time joke that RA mentioned.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iFtc_RZQqyo-9FXw8zFXxR9FknXD6qha/view?usp=sharing

 

Dale Patterson wrote:

It would be interesting to hear airchecks of those early days. The earliest I have of CFTR in the rock format is June 1973.

I'll see what I can come up with Dale.
 

RadioActive wrote:

Thanks 15! What a great story. 

It's particularly meaningful for me, since I was listening to CFTR the day before the official transition to Top 40, because I could hear it coming in the playlist. Word spread pretty fast and I remember it was the talk of our high school the next week - another rock station in town besides CHUM! It was a big deal. 

I envy TR being your first radio gig. I was in that building at 13 Adelaide St. E. just once. It's a story I've told before. The station had only been Top 40 for a few weeks or so, when they began promoing "C-F-T-R: Canada's First Tremendous Ripoff." (I wonder how long it took them to come up with something that matched the call letters.)

It was their very first contest. I was home sick from school the day it started and I just happened to be sitting by the phone in the hall. At around 3 o'clock, the announcer (not sure who) came on and said "I'll take the first caller who will win a trip to Pompano Beach, Florida!" I guess there still weren't a lot of listeners because I got through and I won, the only major prize I've ever garnered in my life. I was the very first ever winner during the station's Top 40 days and I still remember it. (It was an unusual contest because for the very first time in Toronto radio, you didn't have to answer a question or say a phrase. You got in as the right caller and you won. Simple as that.)

I went down to the station to pick up the prize, and asked for a tour. That's when they took me into that control room you mentioned, where Keith Elshaw (as Steve Young) was on the air. He was listening on cue to a new song, trying to get the posts in the intro. The song had just been added to the playlist and had never been on the air before. The tune turned out to be a huge hit - "Black & White" by Three Dog Night. 
 
One last thing. You say R.O. Horning Jr. hated the format change but I remember him being on air for a bit after the seismic music shift, and I thought he was

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