Some of the world’s best radio disc jockeys are cultural tastemakers, influencing music and helping to break new genres.
asserted
Some → influence → genres
Others are colourful personalities who attract ardent listeners with distinctive wit and dazzling delivery.
asserted
who → attract → wit
David Marsden, a Canadian broadcasting legend who died on Sept. 25 at the age of 85, had all that and more.
asserted
who → die → that
Over the course of an illustrious 63-year career that took him from AM and FM outlets across Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia to Canada’s first online radio hub, with occasional forays into television, Mr. Marsden stood out as a brave pop visionary and professional shapeshifter, revered by colleagues and admired by everyone from rock heroes Rush to egghead Marshall McLuhan.
asserted
Marsden → take → McLuhan
His first on-air persona was Dave Mickie, a motor-mouth DJ at Toronto’s CKEY in the early 1960s with an extraordinary 700-words-a-minute delivery that led Mr. McLuhan to devote a full chapter to him in his celebrated book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
asserted
that → lead → Man
The esteemed philosopher transcribed some of Mickie’s frenetic patter (“That’s Patty Baby and that’s the girl with the dancing feet … in the night time ooohbah scubadoo how are you booboo”) and observed that he “alternately soars, groans, swings, sings, solos, intones and scampers, always reacting to his own actions.”
asserted
he → transcribe → actions
Mr. McLuhan concluded that while Mickie’s chatter appeared nonsensical in print, it still functioned as a cohesive, engaging performance on radio.
asserted
it → conclude → radio
“The medium was the message and, for a moment, the message was Dave Mickie,” noted broadcaster, musician and impresario Jaymz Bee, in one of many online tributes.
asserted
Bee → note → tributes
In the 1960s, he transformed from the babbling Dave Mickie to the slow-talking, intimate hipster David Marsden, his most famous persona.
asserted
he → transform → hipster
The long-haired, openly gay man loved pink Cadillacs and wild promotional schemes attracting new followers with his freeform, eclectic style at several prominent FM outlets.
asserted
man → love → outlets
He found perhaps his greatest success at CFNY, in Brampton, Ont., where he served as DJ and program director and created Canada’s first alternative music station.
asserted
he → find → station
After hearing what Mr. Marsden imprinted on CFNY, Rush recorded one of its biggest hits, 1980s fan favourite The Spirit of Radio, a gumbo of reggae, pop and metal that drummer and lyricist Neil Peart said he wrote to “represent all that radio should be.”
asserted
radio → hear → all
The song’s title was taken from Mr. Marsden’s slogan for the station.
asserted
title → take → station
Many came from people who worked with him, praising his love of format-free radio and passion for new music.
asserted
who → come → music
Liz Janik, the “friendly voice” cited in the opening of Rush’s song, credits Mr. Marsden with creating more than just a team of DJs at CFNY but a “community of tastemakers, creators, dreamers, free-thinkers and real people who he encouraged to be themselves on air and connect with listeners.”
asserted
he → cite → listeners
Ivar Hamilton, now executive producer of CFNY: The Spirit of Radio, one of two recent documentaries in which Mr. Marsden is featured, agrees.
asserted
Marsden → feature → which
“He was a one-of-a-kind, magical personality who inspired creative expression right across the radio landscape,” Mr. Hamilton said.
asserted
Hamilton → inspire → landscape
“With David, we weren’t following charts or formats – we were playing music we wanted to play, something he did his whole career.”
asserted
he → follow → music
Under Mr. Marsden’s leadership, CFNY was among the first commercial stations to introduce U2, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode and the Stranglers, giving the station greater influence than others with similar ratings.
asserted
CFNY → introduce → ratings
And he was unwavering in his support for a wide range of Canadian acts, including Teenage Head, the Payola$, Jane Siberry and Messenjah.
asserted
he → include → Head
According to music journalist and historian Michael Barclay, author of Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, the man sometimes known as Marsbar changed the way people listen.
uncertain
people → accord → way
“Marsden believed in the freedom of music,” said Mr. Barclay.
asserted
Barclay → believe → music
“What he created and curated spread far beyond the streets of Toronto.
asserted
he → create → Toronto
I know stories of people from all corners of North America who would trade cassettes of CFNY shows as a lifeline to underground music at the time.”
asserted
who → know → time
“David was there when our first independent vinyl release was played and he never stopped bringing us forward to his listeners,” remembers Mark Gane, partner with Martha Johnson in art-pop pioneers Martha and the Muffins.
asserted
Gane → play → pioneers
“His influence cannot be overestimated.”
asserted
influence → overestimate → ?
“He was the one who broke us,” states Carole Pope, of trailblazers Rough Trade.
asserted
Pope → break → Trade
Born on March 2, 1941 in Toronto, he was adopted at the age of 5 by a Scottish-Canadian family and raised in Stratford, Ont., as David Michie.
asserted
he → bear → Michie
Bitten by the music bug after seeing Elvis Presley on television at 14, he upset his strict, conservative parents when they discovered he had rented the local YMCA to DJ dances.
asserted
he → bite → dances
Before long he was managing the Revols, a group of Stratford teenagers, including singer-keyboardist Richard Manuel, later a founding member of the Band.
asserted
he → manage → Band
Dreaming of a life in radio, he changed his surname to Mickie and applied to over 30 stations, eventually finding work at CFCO in Chatham, Ont.
asserted
he → dream → Chatham
By 1963, he had landed at CKEY, where his hyperactive style got him dubbed “the most controversial thing on Toronto radio.”
asserted
him → land → radio
Ken Stowar, now program director at Toronto’s CIUT-FM, remembers seeing Dave Mickie at Scarborough’s Cedarbrae Plaza.
asserted
Stowar → remember → Plaza
“There he was in a gold lamé jacket and speaking in his fast, outrageous manner,” Mr. Stowar recalled.
asserted
Stowar → speak → manner
Two years later, Mr. Marsden was hosting both CBC-TV’s Music Hop, succeeding Alex Trebek, and his own Mickie a Go Go show on Hamilton’s CHCH-TV.
asserted
Marsden → host → TV
When the Rolling Stones first performed in Toronto, Mr. Marsden was the concert’s emcee and did a TV interview with the band because, as he later explained, “no one else wanted to do it because they said the Stones were dirty and didn’t bathe.”
asserted
Stones → perform → it
After the show, some of the Stones and opening act the McCoys partied at his home, which Mr. Marsden admitted “got a little out of hand.”
asserted
Marsden → partie → hand
He moved to Montreal in 1967, working at CKGM and later its progressive rock FM sister station CHOM.
asserted
He → move → CKGM
There, he broadcast for the first time as David Marsden, a variation on Marston, his birth mother Mildred Levie’s married name and the spelling of front man Gerry Marsden, of Merseybeat group Gerry & the Pacemakers.
asserted
he → broadcast → Gerry
At CHOM, he began experimenting with programming, spinning a mix of blues, rock, folk and jazz recordings that baffled his colleagues.
asserted
that → begin → colleagues
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
