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cfny testimonials
selected stories from fans and employees
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Newest testimonials appear at the top of the page. Testimonials from station
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Oh where do I start....
I was a listener pretty much from the start of the "cool" period - starting in the very late 1970's listening to Sex Pistols, U2, OMD, Romantics, Devo, Boomtown Rats, Elvis Costello, The Monks, Squeeze, etc, etc, etc. and then evolving into The The, Echo and the Bunnymen, Farmer Boys, Eddie Ten Pole Tudor, Fiat Lux, Blancmange, Thompson Twins... Man, the music was fun, fast-paced and a ton of fun to dance to. Thank God for YouTube because there is so much of all this on there.
Like others who have commented, I've got tapes full of songs that I recorded off the airwaves. I too remember the days of having the recorder set up, ready to go, waiting for that great song to start and then I'd run over and take off the pause button and record another great tune. I even have a bit of Pete and Geets' morning show. LOL - who can forget them playing "Duck and Cover" or Ivor Biggun "Has anybody seen my cock, my big Rhode Island Red...". And what ever happened to the guy who used to call in who called himself "Toddy Knickers"? My assistant swears she knows the guy but I don't believe her.
Of course what made listening even better was the great array of cool DJs. They were embedding in us their tastes and we were all the richer and 'cooler' for it. They didn't just play the main tracks - they would play so many different ones from any given album. And so many imports. I have a carton full of awesome EPs and albums that I wouldn't even know existed had it not been for their inspiration.
Today, some stations are dedicated to retro while others have their "80's dance parties" and they still don't get it. They play mainstream crap from the era and not the great sounds that we got to enjoy.
Two final memories:
The first is studying in the library in Hamilton on a Friday night and having my army buddies come get me out ten minutes before it closed, only to head off to Ballangers in Cambridge where they played all CFNY's cool tunes. You were able to dance with yourself in those days without drawing attention or, if you did turn into a group of girls, they would gladly let you join them. We were all free spirits there just as CFNY was the Spirit of Radio.
My favourite recollection was remembering Pete and Geets - rebelling against not being able to award the $102 in the "played it twice in a day" contest because they were the morning show - playing 'The Sloop John B', over and over and over again one morning.... hahaha... it was hilarious.
I've still got the Barenaked Ladies performing McDonald's Girl live and I thank everyone who was involved with the station for giving me a wonderful culture to hang my hat on.
For anyone NOT listening to CFNY these days, you are missing out. The music is once again very cool and fast paced and they have some hilarious DJs such as Fearless Fred. Enjoy!
Gerard H - April, 2013 |
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I grew up in a small farming community across the lake in NY. Somehow in the early 80s I ran across CFNY. That and some college station in Buffalo were the only listenable things on the dial. Living in the sticks, CFNY opened a whole other world to me. The music revolution was underway, and I had a pipeline into it. My lifelong love of indie/alternative music was cultivated by these folks. Boy do I thank them!
I left the area in the late 80s. What a heartbreak it was to come home sometime later and find my cfny was long gone dead. Still sporting my cfny summer of 84 pin.
Tom W - March, 2013 |
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Hello listeners to the OLD CFNY, I too miss the great music and personality that no one can deny had an indelible mark on your very soul!
I have downloaded and made several UTorrents of custom made music compilations with equally unique titles. I'd like very much to create a tribute of music related and sometimes unrelated to 'The Spirit Of Radio' and the loyal listener(s). I am extending my hand of friendship and fanship to everyone to enjoy the following UTorrents:
Angels And Souls, A.B.C.(G.I.D.S.)T, Ballyhoo - The Best Of Echo & The Bunnymen, The Best of U2 (1980-1984- everything is shit), Chilliwack - Segue(Seven Bonus Tracks), D.O.M. 20, Great Songs From 1979-81, Disc 1 & 2, Here Comes The Hustler(NIce 'N' Sleazy){Religion}, Irresistable Trax, Nothing Of Interest Hear(Few Belong Together)!, Plenty Of Gems & Untold Tales Volume 1 & 2, 2 Discs, Reggae's Peace Talk, Teendrop GabrielUbu, Test Pattern 18, The Gulden Age Of Misery, Triumph Classics(5 Bonus Tracks), Twenty - Five Great Punk Songs, Well Duck(more to be added soon)
I will never forget listening to Saga's 'It's Time' and the freedom that music gave me to dream beyond the static of conformity, insanity and stupidity... to see hope!
Steve S - February, 2013 |
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I was working at a factory in Brampton in the early 80's, listening to either Chum-FM or Q107 when one of my co-workers suggested I try CFNY. I was hooked immediately. Nobody else was playing the great music that they were. I discovered fantastic groups like The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, not to mention great Canadian groups like Martha And The Muffins, Rough Trade and The Spoons. None of the other stations were playing these groups because they weren't considered TOP 40 radio. One Of the things I remember most about CFNY was that in the early 80's they had a policy of not playing the same song twice in a day. If you did hear a song twice and called in to the station you would win $102. If you wanted to hear some great new group or song first, you listened to 102.1 because you knew they'd play it long before any other station would. I remember listening to Chum-FM one day when the DJ introduced a brand new song from the group Boys Don't Cry "I Wanna Be A Cowboy". New to them maybe, but I'd been listening to the same song for over 6 months on CFNY. I was with 102.1 during the mid 80's when there was a format change and they started playing Top 40 songs from groups like Madonna. Fortunately that change didn't last and they went back to playing alternative rock. It's 30 years later and CFNY 102.1 The Edge is still the only radio station I listen to. Long live "The Spirit Of Radio".
John G. - April, 2012 |
I started listening to CFNY back in the late 70's when you could barely hear it in your car radio in Mississauga. I think you were broadcasting from some house in Brampton at the time before you moved to Toronto.
I recal hearing U@, The Cars, Devo and a multitude of music never heard on any other station. I was hooked from the start and listened for a decade.
My favourite Dj's were the Live Earl Jive and Beverly Hills and I would listen every evening to thier antics. I loved the stories of Duran Duran and the many other stars they talked about.
In the eighties I was twenty something and it was hip to listen to the "Spirit if Radio" I also remember when you went satellite your slogan was "One of the Two Great Radio Stations in the World" I never quite understood that statement but I beleive you were referring to Radio Luxemburg (the other sat station) Anyway you definitely started a trend and the hardest Hits albums...I own them all!
CFNY brought a lot of music to people like myself six months to a year before any other station thought of playing it and also made unknown acts mainstream. You guys were innovators and forward thinking.
I am saddened however that todays music does not have the punch or the social commentary of the 80's music. It all sounds generic and pumped out, kind of like sitting at the movie theatre before the show starts and they play unknown acts. I don't blsme CFNY but I do blame the new bands who are few and far between these days with interesting music.I think it was because new wave was synth or techno inspired and had a good beat like tears for Fears or Simple Minds which was good dance music and complex. Todays bands sadly aren't experimenting like bands did in the 80's.
Maybe I'm getting old??? I still love the sounds of the eighties and have fond memories of listening to CFNY as it was a big part of my life growing up.
Tom D - February, 2012 |
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I started listening to CFNY in '82. I was in high school and all my friends thought I was weird to listen to anything other than what was being broadcast on CHUM or stations like that. Hell, most of them didn't even listen to radio, but I had a new stereo system and all I wanted to do was hear good music. I would just sit and listen with my fingers poised over the 'record' button on my tape deck to catch a great tune to play for my friends. When dinner was called, I would just hit the record button and let it go for 45 minutes and then listen to it later because I knew that there would be something that I had never heard before and would like, because I liked everything that was played by those insane DJ's, who were equally as alternative and entertaining as the music. Eventually, my friends came around to understand how 'cool' I was for knowing all this great music early on and they became fans too. Some of that music is hard to find today but I continue to search for it. Thanks for this site to bring back some of the memories, and resources! There never will be anything quite like CFNY - The Spirit Of Radio, ever again, but it represents one of the best times of my life.
Rob L - January, 2012 |
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I remember the early days of CFNY when David Marsden would play jazz, classical, rock, pop, experimental - it was an amazing soundtrack. One of the songs he played with some regularity was Claude Debussy's Arabesque No. 1 - the coolest version I ever heard. If anyone knows whose version he was playing back then, I would love to find it. Email me at wvandal@rogers.com if you know the answer.
Warren V - January, 2012 |
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I remember listening to CFNY in the late seventies and early eighties. It was the thing to do. It was the cool radio station of that time. I remember hearing certain bands for the first time on CFNY including a lot of local Ontario based bands. Most of which never made it. I bought an album by a band called "Drastic Measures" because of hearing it on CFNY. A few years ago I sold it in a yard sale. I remember signing a petition to save the station in a Hamilton independent record store. That would have been in 1980; I'm pretty sure. One night in the very early 80's I was listening to the station late at night while reading the paper. After awhile the station went dead but I left the radio on. After awhile longer it came back on. The female disc jockey explained that she had gone out to her car for some records and locked herself out of the station. This was in the days long before mobile phones so she had a hard time getting help to get back in considering it was very late at night. I remember driving past the station in Brampton and thinking it was all very deceptive that the station promoted itself as a Toronto radio station when in fact it was in suburbia of all places.
Anyway I was a CFNY fan and I had a small hand in saving it by signing the petition.
John Clark - December, 2011 |
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My favorite CFNY moment? '79 or '80, Graham Parker and the Rumour (still one of the top 3 shows I've EVER seen, the Squeezing Out Sparks tour, even with recurring power problems that evening) at the El Mo, corner table stage left, I could see the sweat on Brinsley's brow. Presented and simulcast by CHUM - but all through the performance, the crowd was chanting 'CFNY, CFNY, CFNY' It was a beautiful night all around, lol.
Aside to Bonnie Bender: I was just recently informed (which is how I found this site, Googling Bruce Heyding) that Heyding died of a heart attack around 10 years ago.
Terry Gorman - December, 2011 |
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The mid- and late 80s are the period that I will always think of as vintage CFNY. I really liked Pete and Geetz, and could not believe what they were playing in the mornings, compared to the bilge on the other stations. In the mid-80s, I was living and listening in St. Catharines, and from 1986 on, I was in Toronto, back at university. In my opinion, this was the era when CFNY was blowing the doors off. So honest, so open, so damn... real!
My favorite song of this era? An obscure song that you would never, ever hear anywhere else... "She's a Runaway", by the BoDeans. Why? Because, back then, I needed to be a runaway, too.
Thanks always for CFNY... a precious memory that I'll have all my life.
Brian Collinson - October, 2011 |
Wow!
My friend in Hong Kong (he went to university in upstate New York in the early 80's and he thought we were the coolest station on the planet) turned me on to this site. (I've been working in Hong Kong TV since 1995)
I was a news reader at CFNY starting in 1981. Then the News Director at the time, Rick Charles, decided I'd be a better reporter. I took that as a kick in the face, but it turned out for the best. I left CFNY in 1986 to join CFRB, the "news voice". When I signed up I wanted to go back to using my real name, Alan Buchnea, but they said "No" we're hiring Alan Ericson, one of the best reporters in Toronto, well known as CFNY's main news reporter". So in 1989 I won the National Radio Award (radio version of a Juno) for Best Reporter/Investigative Journalist for private radio. Thank you Rick Charles/CFNY for turning me into a reporter at a station where many people thought news doesn't matter. It did! Too bad I had to go somewhere else to get the award.
My five years at CFNY were the best years of my professional career.
The baseball team, the NY Wankees, was awsome! Thanks Marg Fardella, for organising that.
Right now, I'm working in Hong Kong. After stints at CNBC and CNN, a local TV station, TVB offered me my own show, to be Executive Producer and host. Called Money Magazine. I did that for 10 years. Oh, and I won an Amnesty International Human Rights Award for a show I did in 2001.
Now I'm in charge of the Financial News at TVB. And still anchoring at the whizzened old age of 58.
Sorry for the long missive. Please let anyone interested that I can be contacted at this email, abuchnea {at} netvigator.com.
Great site,
Alan Buc.. er... Ericson
Alan Ericson - August, 2011 |
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Wow, the 80's was the best for up & coming groups & CFNY knew how to play them. The girlfriend & I, used to sneak off to Ottawa voyageur bus stop, end up at the Bond street hotel, listen to CFNY while getting ready to dance at a alternative club on right around the corner from the hotel.
Trying to remember what that club was called, anyhow we finally ended up moving together to Toronto, they were the days!!!. Found this site, while listening to Echo & Bunnymen, their playing may 16th,2011, wish I was still in Toronto.
Michael C - May, 2011 |
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I lived in western NY from 1989 to 2003 - I could pick up the station quite well over the lake. It was fabulous, so much better than anything we had on the US side. I was relatively young and single and I'd drive to T.O. for the music and bands and events, crash in a cheap motel on the west side somewhere, then tear down the QEW at 90 miles an hour at 6 in the morning to get to work on time. Those were the days.
I called in on the Humble and Fred show once, when the Jays were in the World Series and the idiots from the US honor guard carried the Canadian flag upside down during the opening national anthems. Got on the air and confirmed that if the Canadians did that to the U.S., we'd surely launch a nuclear strike against them....
When I got relocated, I listened on the web when I could - so sad all this greatness is gone. It was truly the best.
Albert Strausser - January, 2011 |
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I was waxing nostalgiac over the Holidays and Googled "CFNY" and Lo!, I came upon this web page. Although there are no recent postings, I am compelled to contribute a little.
I was living in Toronto and driving tow trucks in the late '70's and early '80's. CFNY was always on my truck radio.
CFNY was SUCH a breath of fresh air. From Pete & Geets, to James Scott, Ivor Hamilton and all the other personalities whose names escape me, CFNY was the greatest station of all time.
I particularly remember that wet and snowy day in December of 1980 when John Lennon was murdered. I was devastated like everyone else. I remember being welled up with tears the whole day over it. But CFNY was there and we bonded as staff and listeners with reflections and tributes. It helped so very much.
You guys were the best and my god it would be so nice to revive a CFNY 2.0.
J Farrow - January, 2011 |
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Hi all
Johnny Spadina recalling the fine old daze at 'NY. Dave Pritchard, Bruce Heyding, Eckley, Terry, Andre, Al Spring. Yes, radio was lovely back then
After the Allen's gave me the boot, Marsden moved in and did a nice job. I, meanwhile, went to Q107. Gary Slaight really understood R&R and those days at Q were very very terrific.
Ahhhhhhh
Johnny Spadina - December, 2010 |
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...best station that defined my youth into my late teens and early adulthood...'89-91 was my zenith into the world of alternative music as it was called...I mean if it wasn't for Dani Elwel and The Alternative Bedtime Hour playing Tangerine Dream with her intoxicating voice would I ever graduated University I wonder? Thank you Chris Sheppard and Deadly Headly Jones "Live at the Lizard Lounge" for burning my portable radio batteries under my bed sheet covers to 6 AM on Saturday Night..Bookie, Josie Dye, etc- c'mon where else could you listen to Ministry, Bare Naked Ladies, Jane's Addiction, Cure, Violent Femmes all in a half hour drive from school?....Catherine Wheel "Black Metallic" - the one song that define CFNY and freezes me no matter where I am when I hear the intro.thank you for the dear memories and as one poster stated years back, for educating me to how music and life should live in balance.
A.D. - December, 2010 |
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