Spirit of Radio for Toronto types.

I hear those two words together alot.

One thing I loved about that site is all the 'year-end' lists. The scary thing is that for the key years I was an avid listener (82-87), I own a helluva lot of albums on the lists. Demonstrates the true power of radio. Before the internet, of course...

Forgive the personal anecdote, but... One of my previous jobs in Toronto was managing an online radio station, where I worked along-side David Marsen (my boss), Don Berns, Deadly Hedley, etc. It was very weird for me, given how much these people influenced my life as a teenager... In a case of history repeating itself, said online station was eventually bought by Standard Radio, and focused more on mainstream music.

I see CFNY is having a reunion on Sept 25:
http://spiritofradio.ca/Reunion.asp
If I was still living in Toronto I would probably go. Sad, no?

i don't have much to contribute. im a youngen. i do remember CFNY being quite good though, when my older sister listened to it. she even had a cfny bumper sticker on her dodge colt hatchback.

One-hour documentary on TVO last night; TVO is often posten on YouTube, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmm50PHkU8c

Guessing my view of the station is much more negative than how crytosicko, Thermo, Kim, fgti, or any other Toronto posters younger than I am (by a decade, probably) view it. I hated CFNY for many of the same reasons I hated NOW: sanctimonious, anglophiliac, and (I think, maybe I'm wrong) quite oblivious to all the music I and most of my friends at Nerve were listening to in the early/mid-'80s. (They were probably pretty good very early on, around '78--I didn't listen to the radio much then, so probably missed all that.) By the time you get to '83 or '84, the station was best summed up by the one interviewee last night who (unironically, and maybe was just groping for a better description) said they played everything from New Order to the Smiths. Sounds about right. I'd be surprised if Husker Du or the Replacements (maybe by '87 or so) or Schoolly D or Flipper or the Mekons ever got any airplay. Conversely, when listeners are aghast when their DJs are forced to play Madonna for a short time in the late '80s, their obliviousness on that count is clear. I laughed out loud every time Chris Sheppard turned up in the last half-hour; not sure that I was supposed to. And Alan Cross is forever unbearable. (I knew Dave Bookman, and thought he deserved at least a passing mention.)

"TVO stuff is often posted on YouTube, too."

Never lived in Toronto but I did know of Dave Bookman through his Bookmen duo. Pretty sure I once caught them live, opening for some headliner that I can't recall today. I had their split 7 with my hometown heroes, Fluid Waffle, on the flip side.

The Bookmen, yes--don't think I have this, and I should:

https://www.discogs.com/master/3053651-The-Bookmen-Volume-One-Delicatessen

Oh right! I bought a copy of that lp when it was released. Fun record and a great version of Don't Think Twice too. Must be pushing 40 years now, damn

Talking about this with a friend, and I agree with him that a more interesting documentary could be made on CHUM-FM, which was right there in '68 with KMPX-FM in San Francisco and the earliest FM rock stations. (I was a kid and a 1050 CHUM-AM guy, so I didn't listen to the FM station at all--probably the first time was in the mid-'70s when they aired a series on the Beatles that went through every album track-by-track.)