Results tagged “radio”

Isn’t it wonderful when four stereotypical figures can come together in perfect harmony thanks to a humble can of spaghetti? We never suspected that the finest spices from Asia lurked within our sloppy Saturday childhood lunch.

We can picture it now—a giant, disembodied head floating in the locker room of Maple Leaf Gardens, hovering near his microphone as he interviews battle-scarred hockey players preparing to dazzle the rest of the country with their skills over the airwaves on Saturday night. Interviewees were too focused on the game ahead to notice the lack of a body…

Clubland crawlers will notice a new visual distraction while wandering the east end of the Entertainment District this weekend. Where partiers once stopped into the northwest corner of Richmond and Duncan to dance to 1980s tunes at Whiskey Saigon, they will now be urged by a refurbished classic neon sign to dial up 1050 AM or 104.5 FM.

Search Engine, the critically acclaimed and wildly popular CBC tech podcast, is moving to TVO. Since June 2008, when budget problems forced the CBC to cancel the Radio One version of the program and cut the show’s staff, the program has existed in a kind of uncertain limbo. But now, with the move to TVO, the show’s future has been secured.

Every Saturday morning Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

                    

Last week, Adam Vaughan held a party. Its full title, according to the now-deleted Facebook event, was "SORRY! A fundraiser to celebrate Adam's apology from Rob." Rob, you see, is Rob Ford, who on the morning of Thursday, September 25, of last year, used his weekly spot on AM640's The John Oakley Show to accuse Vaughan of a rather serious conflict of interest.

In a somewhat likely yet technologically backwards media foray, television wizard Moses Znaimer is once again putting pornography where it is least expected—on an oldies AM radio station. Certainly no stranger to media in this city (having, of course, co-founded both Citytv and Muchmusic), Znaimer first made the prudish amongst us squirm in the 1970s, when the mild-by-porn-industry/filthy-by-broadcasting-standards Baby Blue movies became a regular part of Citytv's Friday night programming. Chugging right along into the, er, analog age, Znaimer's latest (supposedly) groundbreaking initiative is Midnight Blue, "the first-ever, R-rated, late-night radio show," according to Karen Lin, communications associate for Znaimer's Zoomer Media. "There is no other show like it." Airing on the New AM 740 (acquired and renamed Zoomer Radio by Znaimer in the spring of 2008) from Monday to Thursday at the apparently no-holds-barred time slot of—you guessed it—midnight, Midnight Blue is a collection of sexy, sexy songs intended to appeal to the Zoomers. An actual term coined by gerontologist David Demko to describe "a baby boomer who leads an active, adventurous lifestyle," the Zoomers are the demographic that Zniamer counts as his peers (and, fingers crossed, sure financial bets), and they make up the New AM 740 audience.

As Torontoist reported earlier today, media mogul Ted Rogers passed away early this morning. Today's ad features Rogers alongside his father, who was one of Canada's broadcasting pioneers.

Cow herds and invalids were among the radio listeners that spent over 10,000 mornings waking up with Wally Crouter. His run as CFRB's morning man from 1946 to 1996 saw his comforting style stay afloat in the ratings against competitors like top 40 radio and shock jocks.

With summer now officially upon us, some of our fair city's citizens face an age-old dilemma: stay in the city for the weekend or flee to the cottage. Families who choose the latter are then faced with the prospect of entertaining themselves in the midst of gridlock and curveballs tossed by the weather deities.

Several ways to interpret the stated goal of "reporting some of the happier happenings in our community":

Little-known scientific fact: clock radios embedded in a block of ice will cause their frozen shell to melt faster when tuned to an album rock station than any other kind of radio format. Tests are inconclusive as to whether this effect will occur more rapidly if the clock was manufactured by Panasonic or General Electric, or if the ice will reform whenever Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" blares away.

An ornately set table. A fine bottle of pink sparkling wine. A bouquet of flowers purchased in a hurry on the way home from the office. A filter on the window to simulate a blue moon. Andy Williams crooning "Moon River" or the 101 Strings playing "Light My Fire" in the background. All of the necessary mood-enhancing ingredients for a cozy tête-à-tête on Valentine's Day.

Photo by Daniel Kahn.

For some magically ridiculous reason, CBC Radio 3's weekly countdown, the R3-30, is broadcasting from a skating rink this week in a move that's heavily dividing the hipster set after the announcement of another free—and markedly less active—event that same night: Tokyo Police Club at Nathan Phillips Square.

Many of us developed an affection for opera early in life through Looney Tunes versions of Rossini and Wagner. For some, having Elmer Fudd chant “Kill the Wabbit” to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries” in Chuck Jones's animated masterpiece taught us everything we wanted to know about opera. But if your ambition to appreciate the finer things in life extends beyond Bugs Bunny, real opera could be an intimidating world of old rich people, dead composers, elitist intellectualism and impenetrable European languages.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse.

According to Environment Canada, this winter will be the coldest in fifteen years. That news should send us all running for the comforts of indoors, but once again Harbourfront Centre provides the perfect reason to play outside. DJ Skating Nights return for a third year, providing those who brave the cold to skate under the glittering skyline with a soundtrack from local DJs. The five Friday nights of the series will feature five different...

If you are saddened by your procrastination that cost you Richard Hawley and Jose Gonzalez tickets this week, you can direct your attention to the eclectic choice of shows as a mild substitute. It does, however, appear as if local label Arts and Crafts have successfully cornered the market on this week's moderately sized shows (read: tickets that cost no more than $35). Tuesday you can catch Jason Collett with a surprise guest at the...

A massive fire at a townhouse complex on Jarvis Street near Mutual resulted in the death of an unidentified victim on Saturday night. Construction on the townhouses had been abandoned for ten months and the building was being inhabited by squatters, says a resident at the adjacent Radio City condo tower.

For anyone who missed this year's Massey Lecture last Friday at U of T, don't fret. The City of Words, by celebrated writer, essayist, novelist, and anthologist Alberto Manguel, will be broadcast on CBC Radio One's IDEAS each night at 9:00 p.m. beginning Monday, November 5 running to Friday, the 9th.

William the Conquerer may have been a great tactician and a bit of a bastard, but we're not quite sure if he was a talented musician.

If you have ever been to Cherry Beach on a Sunday, you are no doubt familiar with the chill beats and mellow atmosphere of a Promise event. This weekend, Promise teams up with alienInFlux for their annual Harvest Festival. The festival, which begins at 2 p.m. on Saturday near Huntsville, ON, is billed as an "Autumn equinox arts and music Celebration." It is perhaps more accurately described as a bookend to a summer of Toronto-area dance music, signaling a bountiful end, for the most part, to our outdoor partying before another long winter.

Originally published by Viking Press in 1957, Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been wearing holes in the back pockets and floppy canvas knapsacks of gaggles of come-find-yourself road trippers and college-aged who-am-I types ever since. To coincide with the 50th anniversary of its publication, Wednesday night will see the Gladstone play host to something of a symposium on the life and legacy of their main man, Kerouac. Authors Ray Robertson and David Creighton will be in conversation with CBC Radio One’s Jian Ghomeshi to discuss our ceaseless cultural infatuation with the famed Beat writer.

Photo of In-Flight Safety courtesy of Craig Norris of CBC Radio 3.

Photo by bitefight from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.