1 of 1- Mike Cleaver
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Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
July 15th saw almost 100 former 1050 CHUM employees gather in Richmond Hill to reconnect.
The party was for people who worked at 1331 Yonge Street from 1967 through 1977.
The next day, Roger Ashby hosted the Radio and Records Party at his place, with over a hundred attending, including radio and record people and CHUM people from all eras. It was a great time to talk to everyone and catch up. Thanks to those who organized both parties, including Chuck McCoy, Warren Cosford, Larry MacInnes, Doug Thompson and many others who put a lot of work into tracking down everyone and contacting them to come to the parties. Image uploading is not working! When it get's fixed, I'll post a group shot from the CHUM Party.
Last edited by Mike Cleaver (July 20, 2015 8:57 pm)
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
I guess my holding them VERY responsible publicly for the long term 'results' of Terry Steele's being 'let go' didn't put me in the running to be invited? The guy who did that is almost as big a jerk as the guys who let it happen.
Thanks for helping build us into a powehouse Bear...now off you go. Have a nice slide. Surely someone will help you. Just not us.
- geo
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
There was a time when I also posted bitter messages about 1050 CHUM's decline but eventually accepted that its time to move on. Since then invitations flow in to all these great garden parties. Believe me, Old Codger, your blood pressure will normalize and you will probably experience more frequent erections as well. Win/win
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
I didn't post a bitter message. I was 'toasted' and grieving the loss of my best friend. I did it pretty much in person. Do I regret it? Marginally. Was I wrong? Not a chance.
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
(Via Dave Taylor)
But last week, I took a trip to Toronto. And in the back yard of a home in a leafy neighbourhood I’d never set foot in before, in the northern suburb of Richmond Hill, a stone’s throw from the shopping malls and megaplexes and office parks and the asphalt of Toronto’s endless sprawl, I went home.
The occasion was the CHUM Reunion, 1967-77: an opportunity for all of us who worked at 1050 CHUM between 1967 and 1977 and are still alive to tell the tale, to get together once again.
More...
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- Kilgore
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Lots of old codgers in that photo eh Old Codger?
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
I even recognized some of them. There were some great days at CHUM [Ltd]...especially before Toronto. I grew up listening to CHUM. I wore out batteries listening on my transistor radio. I met Mike Darrow. I met Bob MacAdorey. I 'punked' Larry Solway. I worked for Bob Laine. I inadvertantley caught 'sons of guns' snortin' coke with record reps by pure accident. Close the friggin' office door STUPID!!! It wasn't my fault... ... ...Jimmy.
Bob versus Fred versus Jimmy...and I got caught up in THAT bullshit? Fat chance I was gonna win. Fools!!! Your DAD had his shit together. I don't miss you one iota.
[And then there was Standard...Alan and 'Lou-ser']
Last edited by Old Codger (July 23, 2015 8:21 pm)
- Kilgore
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Old Codger: speaking of get-togethers, thousands of hot wimmen here @ Collingwood Elvis Festival
Some Big Hunks O' Love
Last edited by Kilgore (July 25, 2015 10:05 am)
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Never really 'dug' Elvis. Enough GREAT songs to maybe fill a 4 song per side two disc album. After that? Pretty much just filler. Much MUCH prefered Dion...Fats...and the Big O. Wimmen is cool though? How's the skiing?
Last edited by Old Codger (July 25, 2015 8:37 pm)
- Kilgore
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Would you invest in a Dion & the Belmonts festival, Codger?
- Radiopro
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Once Terry thought he go into Sales. Why didn't he? Earlier Jim Armstrong recruited Benji as FM had to change from what Benji loved. Terry was a People Person. I'm sure Jim would have seen his potential.
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Kilgore wrote:
Would you invest in a Dion & the Belmonts festival, Codger?
No. Not a chance. But Dion still records amd tours...so Dion yes. Belmonts no. Belmont was my telephone exchange growing up in T.O.
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When Benji did FM sales he still got to do a show. Sundays wasn't it? And he did a great show. Strommy could have gone into sales [and yes he weighed it as a potential option for further up the road] but he loved doin' a 'show'. And he sounded great doing it. The license plate didn't read 'Voice One' 'cause 'Sales One' was taken. There were plenty of years when the Bear made more dough-ray-me with freelance alone than he ever could have made 'doin' sales.
- Radiopro
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
If Benji did a "show" on the weekend after leaving the Music Department for Sales it wasn't for very long. As I explained to him at the time, it was a "generational" change in Radio. Just as 1050 CHUM had evolved from the Allan Slaight Gang to the JRW Gang as CKFH became Top 40, CHUM-FM had to change to meet the challenge of not one but two competitors, one of which, as consulted by Lee Abrams and his Superstar Format, was laying waste to Heritage "Progressive" FMs all around the U.S. just as The Drake Format had destroyed many Heritage Top 40s a generation earlier. I became PD of CHUM-FM in June of 1977. Before the end of the year, Geets Romo, Dave Tollington, Steve Moore and Rick Moranis all left. Yet, I hadn't fired anyone....although Geets might dispute that. Yet by the end of 1978 CHUM-FM was the #1 FM in Canada. Meanwhile, AM Radio was clearly going to have to change as well. But to what? That was unclear. But what should have been clear to Terry just based on what he had seen and heard of and from others.......is that it is up to you to "take the reins". He didn't.
- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Your memory and mine differ. Benji did a show on Sundays on CHUM FM, IF i remember correctly, for at least 2 years...maybe significantly longer. "Take the reins"? What is that? Management speak? Terry Steele ate most of competition for breakfast, lunch and dinner...and still had the time to OWN freelance engagements at double and triple scale. The reins YOU speak of were the reins of the 10 cent horses sitting just the other side of the cash-out registers at the grocery stores situated in and around Toronto back then.
THAT man served the company front and centre on the battlefield and in the ring at MLG. He helped give 1050 it's legacy. And you have the nerve to suggest that he didn't "take the reins"?
You...'sir'...are a fool.
Last edited by Old Codger (July 29, 2015 8:01 pm)
- Fitz
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
BK's show was called Flashback and for some reason I seem to recall that it was on Saturday or maybe even Friday nights as the Sunday night specialty show was Comedy.I don't think it lasted more than two years. I have a small 3 min clip of the show in the Radio Miscellany section of my web site, I usually dated my tapes but that particular clip is not dated. My initial guess was was early to mid 80's but now that I think about it my best guess would be 1980. I seem to recall Larry Wilson having a weekend specialty show during the 1977/78 period. Admittedly my memory about all of the above is hazy.
Last edited by Fitz (July 29, 2015 8:44 pm)
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- Old Codger
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Fitz...I'm thinkin' back to the early to mid 70s...and Sunday mornings to mid-days...not at night with 'the funnies'. Benji was a real part of when CHUM FM was legendary...not heading toward mainstream/cliche. Maybe the audience would grow...but maybe it did so in SPITE of itself. Back in the day it likely gave Benji true cred as a salesguy.
Then Q 107 came along and made a mockery of the mockery CHUM FM had become. But heh!!! Maybe radio isn't really for people who actually like music. Maybe it's just about buffoonery and tunes.
Whatever it is...it ain't workin' for loads of stations who USED to get the job done but faded into nothingness when they adopted the NEW way of [not] doin' it right on the wrong side of town.
Yet even now Dylan and Cohen still have HUGE influence. What? You didn't know?
- Fitz
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Re: Great Toronto Radio and Music Industry Parties last week.
Fitz...I'm thinkin' back to the early to mid 70s...and Sunday mornings to mid-days...not at night with 'the funnies'. Benji was a real part of when CHUM FM was legendary...not heading toward mainstream/cliche. Maybe the audience would grow...but maybe it did so in SPITE of itself. Back in the day it likely gave Benji true cred as a salesguy.
Then Q 107 came along and made a mockery of the mockery CHUM FM had become. But heh!!! Maybe radio isn't really for people who actually like music. Maybe it's just about buffoonery and tunes.
Whatever it is...it ain't workin' for loads of stations who USED to get the job done but faded into nothingness when they adopted the NEW way of [not] doin' it right on the wrong side of town.
Yet even now Dylan and Cohen still have HUGE influence. What? You didn't know?
Might be pissin in the wind as the date is not relevant to your argument but during the early to mid-70``s Benjy was definitely on the air as weekend and sometime weekday fill in and was music director. I have a tape which is correctly dated and it`s from 1975 and he`s on air with a regular show. Flashback was on at nights to the best of my recollection around 1979-80. I think I transferred the brief FB clip from another tape and it`s mixed in with a lot of 80`s content. Agree with you re Q107 etc.
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