A RT & D E S I G N m u si c
The spirit of radio lives on →DJ
David Marsden to be honoured during Canadian Music Week Writer Kevin Ritchie
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avid Marsden is dogmatic about free-form radio. More than 30 years after he convinced execs at pioneering alternative radio station CFNY of the commercial merits of going format-free, the veteran rock DJ continues to broadcast on his own terms. “Most people play songs. I don’t play songs — I play music,” says Marsden. “It’s about mixing the music together so that in 20 minutes I might play five songs but hopefully you’ll think it’s one.” On Saturday and Sunday nights, Toronto station The Rock 94.9 FM broadcasts The Marsden Theatre in Fabulous Free Form, five hours during which Marsden spins whatever he feels like, from classics like The Beatles and Patti Smith to newer acts like My Morning Jacket, Scissor Sisters, Elbow and Gentleman Reg. Scoring a free-form DJ gig on a terrestrial radio station in Toronto is extremely rare. Eight years ago, the internet radio station Iceberg Media, which Marsden helped co-create, was bought by Astral Media; Marsden says it was turned into a “jukebox.” Then The Rock approached him and made an offer he couldn’t refuse. “They asked me what would it take to get me back on the radio? And so I said, ‘What are you offering?’ And they said, ‘You can do whatever you want,’” he recalls. “I said, ‘Okay, can you put that in writing?’” A quick glance at his 50-year career explains why execs at The Rock were so obliging. Marsden’s life as a rock ’n’ roll DJ took off in the ’60s and ’70s when he began broadcasting as the fast-talking, freestyling Dave Mickie — an on-air persona that would inspire a chapter in Marshall McLuhan’s book Understanding Media. He parlayed that success into
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several radio, print and television gigs before becoming programming director at CFNY with a mandate to break new music. Its faithful listeners dubbed it “the spirit of radio” in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Marsden jumped on the punk and new wave sounds out of the early ’80s. He partly attributes his ability to hone in on popular music trends to his time spent in gay clubs. “I had a record executive say back to me in the early ’80s — and I think he knew I was gay — he said to me, ‘David if you really want to see what tomorrow’s music is, go to a gay club.’ It’s always been that way.” On Fri, Mar 11, Marsden will be inducted into the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame and will receive the Allan Waters Broadcast Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Radio Music Awards, part of Canadian Music Week. Though he’s not revealing what message he plans on imparting to attendees at the ceremony, he hopes his induction serves as a reminder that, in order to remain relevant, broadcasters must give listeners something they can’t find elsewhere. “My motto has always been this,
→ SAT ISFACT ION David Marsden’s 50-year career began in the 1960s with the fast-talking, free-styling persona Dave Mickie (right).
right from the very beginning, even when I was 15 years old: If I can’t give the audience something they can’t get anywhere else or make themselves, why would I bother?” he says. “With digital it’s so easy to do yourself, but you can’t do it like I do it.” At The Rock, he DJs primarily with burned CDs, supplemented with some vinyl and digital music, and he eschews any sort of order. The only song he plans is his first one. Like a club DJ, he gauges the music’s feeling, beat or texture as he flips through his black leather CD book to find the next song. “Nothing’s in alphabetical order,” he says of his music collection. “Order would destroy it. Order would make it like a format — that’s what format is — it’s an order, and I don’t believe in order when it comes to music.”
Canadian Radio Music Awards $125. 12:30pm. Fri, Mar 11. Royal York Hotel. 100 Front St W. cmw.net. David Marsden marsdenglobal.com.
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