What's all this then?

An introduction to my 10 song playlist of grooviness. My idea is to highlight music I love and to post sweet performances, outstanding videos and great audio recordings which may tickle your ears.

Montreal sunset, 1972

By way of introduction, please note that I am not a musician, a DJ or a music critic. I’m not an industry insider and I don’t claim to have any musical genius which sets me apart from my fellow man. But I know what I love and all I want to do is share music I love with you. That is the sole purpose of this substack. No subscription fees. Ever.

Me in 1976

I’m a music lover, and if you are anything like me, you love listening to music, both new and old, from across a variety of genres. That’s the way they did it back in the 70s during my formative years. They called it “free form” radio. DJ’s played what they wanted when they wanted. Little or no commercial consideration was given to what they were doing. It’s a far cry from the commercial radio stations of today. I want to replicate that free form style here on this blog. Think of it as a free form jukebox.

Born in Montreal

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I was born in Montreal in 1956 when Elvis’ baby had just left him down at the end of lonely street at Heartbreak Hotel. Clearly music was changing and radio was opening up new listening opportunities.

Born into a lower middle class white family, I lived a charmed life in the suburbs surrounded by a loving family and kind neighbours. The postwar era of the fifties was a golden age and I really couldn’t have asked for anything better. Without question, these were the wonder years.

My parents radio

Montreal was a great place to grow up and a great place to listen to music. When I was really young I mostly listened to the middle of the road AM radio station of my parents, CJAD, an English language news talk platform with “quality music attuned to today’s moods.”

Top 40 rock radio

In the sixties I gained access to a 9 volt transistor radio, a pocket device with a leather case. I moved away from the crooners of my parent’s generation to CFOX, an adult contemporary format, listening to the likes of Ralph Lockwood before settling in at CKGM 980 Top 40 radio.

The birth of free form radio in Montreal

In 1963, sister station CKGM-FM started up, but it wasn’t until Doug Pringle arrived in Montreal in 1969 from the U.S. and England that Montreal took a quantum leap into the freaky sphere with the advent of truly free form FM radio.

And what a leap it was. A brief stint at Sir George Williams University had Pringle spinning the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Dylan, the Beatles, Cream, the Who and the Rolling Stones for the kids in the hall.

“Unless your friends turned you on to it, you never got to hear it. All I wanted to do was share this incredible music that was being made. So I got into Radio Sir George and inflicted it on the poor people sitting in the cafeteria.” - Doug Pringle

A fateful trip to San Francisco that summer turned Pringle onto KSAN-FM where Tom Donahue was pioneering a new free form of radio featuring “a crew of zany, stoned-out radio freaks”.

“They were playing all the music that I loved and wasn’t on the radio (anywhere else),” said Pringle. “They were playing album tracks that were seven minutes long. They were playing whole albums. They were talking about all the stuff that I was interested in, as opposed to the jock chatter that was the staple on AM radio at that time. I just couldn’t believe it. So I couldn’t wait to get back to Montreal and see if I could get a station like this happening.”

CKGM-FM, the forerunner of CHOM, was playing elevator music at the time, but Pringle found a kindred spirit in eccentric Newfoundland businessman Geoff Stirling who owned the station. Stirling gave Pringle three weeks to prove he wasn’t full of shit. The reaction was instantaneous and huge. For a young kid in the suburbs, this was a momentous occasion. Within weeks, we were all glued to the new FM sensation.

On October 28, 1969, Pringle started his show with Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles.

Toronto bound

In 1976 I left the chaos of linguistically complicated Montreal for Toronto the good. And good it was, for me at least. Free form radio was spreading and I was coming with it.

That same year, low wattage Brampton upstart CHIC-FM became CFNY-FM and a new free form radio slipped into the Toronto airways. It was like CHOM had moved to Toronto. David Marsden who had been program director at CKGM-FM in Montreal moved to CHUM-FM in Toronto in 1973, but had quit when he ran into conflict with management about his radio personality style and his refusal to play exactly what they wanted.

David Pritchard also from CHUM-FM, and CFNY’s new program director, hired a new crew of DJs including Marsden to DJ the new alternative rock station. In 1978 Marsden succeeded Pritchard as the stations new program director and the station started to become known as The Spirit of Radio. But I can’t do the story of The Spirit of Radio justice in a few paragraphs, so here is a short documentary from Karim Mosna who captured some of what made it so special from the radio personalities themselves.

What happened in the late 1970s, that made Toronto's CFNY FM (today branded as: 102.1 The Edge), Canada's most influential alternative rock station?

I encourage you to sign up for David Marsden’s nythespirit.com if you want an excellent curated DJ hosted experience. The roster includes 6 pop up DJ shows which repeat at scheduled times throughout the week and are supplemented by commercial free 24/7 music largely centered on the 80’s but spanning the full spectrum of modern music right up till today. The Marsbar himself normally has two live shows a week, running 9 to midnight on Saturdays and Sundays. A companion website allows listeners to gather during these shows to experience a listening community like no other I know of.